Upper Nazareth Gets Park; NASD New Students

The Express-Times reports today (read the article here) that Upper Nazareth Township, which currently has less than 4 acres of recreational land, will soon have a 33 acre park thanks to Tuskes Homes and a new Maintenance Facility (4 additional acres). The park will be located near Route 248.

Tuskes Homes Vice President Rick Krasley is quoted as saying, "We like to give back to the community. It is a give and take in development. It was a win-win situation for Upper Nazareth."

In addition to the land, the Township will get a concession stand, fields, and a maintenance building.

JD Malone's article closes by noting:

Tuskes donated the properties as part of a pre-trial settlement in December 2003. Tuskes plans to build 299 homes in the 170-acre subdivision. That number of homes is about twice the amount permitted under township zoning laws. Krasley said about 80 homes have been built so far.

And therein lies the rub. While Upper Nazareth gets a park, 299 homes, twice the number permitted by the townships zoning laws, were approved. If each home has 1.5 children, it would equal 448.5 new students for the NASD. Based on the proposed 2007-08 budget, where the cost per student will be about $13,000, the total cost to educate these students would be $5.8 million per year.

Now that is not going to happen immediately, but its hardly a win-win situation for the taxpayers, especially those outside Upper Nazareth.

Upper Nazareth's Incomplete Park

Upper Nazareth's deal with Tuskes Homes which resulted in the township getting a park in exchange for allowing Tuskes Homes to put more homes than zoning allowed has apparently gone sour.

Supervisors are now discussing whether or not to sue the home builder for failure to complete the park.

The township has $400,000 of Tuskes money in escrow, but it was noted at the meeting that the amount won't cover the cost to complete the park.

Payoff Park Resolution in Works

The Express-Times reports (read the article here) that Upper Nazareth Supervisors and developer Tuskes Homes are near a resolution over the park that Tuskes proposed in 2003 to give to Upper Nazareth in exchange for developing twice the number of homes allowed by zoning.

Upper Nazareth Supervisors happily took the offer, but the devil was in the details and the two parties have been squabbling over items within the Park which has resulted in ownership not being transferred so far.

Now it appears the parties have resolved their differences and the Supervisors are expected to vote to accept Payoff Park as a township property in the near future.

Upper Nazareth Park Upgrade in the Works

JD Malone of the Express-Times has an article in regard to the new Park in Upper Nazareth built by Tuskes Homes (read it here). Supervisors discussed additions to the park prior to accepting it. Requests have not gone to Tuskes yet, but were tabled to give Supervisors time to consider them.

Upper Nazareth's Tuskes Park

Upper Nazareth will have a park for recreation in the near future. The Supervisors accepted $240,000 in improvements being paid for by Tuskes Homes according to an article in the Express-Times (read it here).

The Park is expected to be completed in the fall and turned over to the Township at that time, though the fields will take another year to be completely finished.

Upper Nazareth Rec Facility

The Upper Nazareth Park funded by Tuskes Homes in exchange for variances on lot sizes (as I recall Tuskes was able to have smaller lots resulting in more to sell in exchange for building a rec park. There may have been other issues included.) is now to be dedicated in February according to an article in the Morning Call (read it here).

UNT Tax Hike

Had a few readers request a reference to the Express-Times article indicating that UNT will be increasing taxes by 83% (read it here).

A defense of the hike noted in the article is the fact that it is only the 2nd tax increase in 20 years, the last was in 2005. I find this is typical of municipal government, they try very hard to hold the line, but hit a point where a hike is necessary. This is unlike the School systems that take 3-5% per year, or more if they can, whether they currently 'need' the money or not. By this I look at NASD which raised taxes one year to grow the base so the following year's increase would bring in more tax revenue even through they didn't need the full amount of the first hike to balance the budget.

The article states that over the past four years UNT has taken $1M out of savings to cover budget gaps. 

I don't take issue with trying to hold the line, but I do with a lack of thinking ahead. In this instance a few more modest increases wouldn't have cost anyone an election and were apparently needed to provide the level of service expected/delivered by the township.

More bothersome is the argument that an exploding population is to blame. Who approved the housing? The Township.

Worse yet, a part of the excess population was due to a zoning exception to allow more homes in exchange for the donation of land and creation of a park (Tuskes aka Payoff Park). Now an additional cost is maintenance of said park. The Township should be charging Tuskes a fee for having their name on the park as a sponsorship to off-set maintenance, instead they are nearly doubling the tax paid by residents.

For the record, I am not outraged by this action, I do not live in UNT, but I do find myself mystified by the short-sightedness sometimes exhibited by elected officials.

Posted via email from Ross Nunamaker