Borough Council Votes 5 to 1 to Approve Settlement on O’Neill’s Apartment Community

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Local News , Politics

October 9th, 2014 | By Marc Garabedian

Tonight Conshohocken’s Borough Council voted five to one to approve a settlement agreement that will allow O’Neill Properties to construct an apartment community on the 400 block of Washington Street on the riverfront. Only six of the seven council members voted due to Councilperson Karen Tutino recusing herself due to a conflict arising out of her employer doing work for O’Neill. Matt Ryan, Anita Barton, Ike Griffin, Bob Stokley and Ed Phipps all voted in favor of accepting the settlement. Borough Council President Paul McConnell was the lone vote against. Last month Borough Council voted 4-3 against this same development due to zoning and planning issues.

The settlement agreement stipulates the following (this is not a complete list, but the highlights):

  • Instead of 619 units, there can only be 598
  • O’Neill will pay the Borough approximately $1.5 as an impact fee
  • 100 of the units will be dedicated as furnished extended stay temporary housing
  • The project will be built in two phases. The first begins now and the second can not begin any sooner than the fourth quarter of 2017
  • The construction of the project will be operated as an open shop, allowing local contractors to bid
  • There will be green features in the construction
  • O’Neill can fund the adaptive traffic lights and this money would be deducted from the impact fee
  • O’Neill will deed 100′ from the riverbank along the length of the property to the Borough for open space.
  • O’Neill will construct a boardwalk on the shore line of the river

There were about 15 residents in the audience and eight to 10 spoke against the settlement. The most mentioned concern was traffic. A few of the residents had collected signatures from their neighbors that outlined their opposition to the project.

So as of right now, apartments under construction and/or approved include the following:

  • Courts at Spring Mill Station (382 units) (people started moving in last week, second building to open in February/March)
  • Parc at the corner of Butler and Plymouth Road (398 units) (under construction)
  • 51 Washington Street (310 units) (approved, not yet under construction)
  • 401/433 Washington Street (598 units) (approved, not yet under construction)

That is a total of 1,688 apartments coming online in the next few years,

We are very curious to see what the boardwalk will look like and are going to try to get some renderings.  Keep you posted.

Image at top of story is a rendering of proposal when it had 619 units.