Spot Zoning

The Township Council has introduced a zoning change that would allow a day- care center and a personal-care facility along Route 352. If approved, the R-2 residential district would allow campuslike, low- intensity uses to serve as a transition between commercial uses, such as the Granite Run Mall, and residential properties. The amendment was drafted to allow day-care centers and personal care facilities as a conditional use in the R-2 district. The amendment outlines a number of lot requirements, including a minimum lot size of 3 1/2 acres and a minimum of 200 feet of frontage on Routes 352 or 452. During the meeting Monday night, Ira Dury, equitable owner of property at 25 N. Middletown Rd., outlined his proposal for a day-care center that would accommodate 120 children.

The third time is often the charm, but not for the Gloria Dei Hilltop Corp., which wants a zoning change to build an apartment complex for senior citizens on a 36-acre tract it owns on Valley Hill Trail. For the third time in a year, the township Planning Commission denied Gloria Dei's request for the zoning change at its Monday meeting. The commission voted unanimously against allowing the land to be rezoned from residential to high density, effectively ruling against the proposed 150-unit apartment complex for those 55 and older.

Mayor Nutter said Monday that he would veto a controversial wall-wrap bill, which City Council passed Dec. 1 despite a letter from the state saying it violates federal law and jeopardizes federal highway funding for the city. The wall wrap, planned for a building at 7th and Willow near Callowhill Street, would violate Federal Highway Administration regulations and the Highway Beautification Act because it would be within 660 feet of the Vine Street Expressway, according to the Dec. 1 letter from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

Last year, the big debate in Moorestown was whether to shatter a nearly century-old tradition by permitting the sale of liquor. In a November referendum, voters resoundingly approved ending Moorestown's days as a dry municipality. But their yes vote has stirred up a new argument that has reached beyond the affluent community to Superior Court. At issue is whether Moorestown Mall - which last week bid $1 million each for four liquor licenses to be used by mall restaurants - should have exclusive rights to pour spirits in the town.

Founding father Thomas Paine called the period of the American Revolution "the times that try men's souls. " But then he never had to sit through a Lower Providence zoning hearing. Last night, the zoning board resumed an interminable slog through an appeal of a controversial museum complex that would be built on private land within Valley Forge National Historical Park. The first 55 minutes of last night's hearing were consumed with lawyers' arguments and scheduling disputes.

Township commissioners will allow the Hatfield Borough mayor to move ahead with development plans if he promises to stick with a proposal to build a retirement community and stores, the commissioners president said yesterday. Despite some community opposition, Commissioners President Jim Thomas said he expected a unanimous vote tonight to approve several zoning changes to land owned by Mayor Howard Heckler between Cowpath and Orvilla Roads. Sitting on 15 of the 60 acres in question is a shopping center called Snyder Square, which has a Clemens supermarket, a hardware store, and a bank.

A Lower Merion resident has filed an appeal in Montgomery County Court, challenging the validity of a township zoning ordinance that more than tripled the required building lot size on property he owns. Morton J. Berman, who lives at 451 N. Latches Lane, one block off City Avenue, filed the appeal Monday, calling the rezoning "discriminatory," "exclusionary" and a violation of both the state and constitutional rights of landowners. The petition also alleges that Berman had been "harmed and aggrieved" by township actions, because the new zoning requirements would more greatly limit any subdivision of his nearly 142,000-square-foot property, which contains a single-family dwelling, a carriage house with apartment, a pool and tennis court.

The Northampton Township Planning Commission Tuesday night unanimously voted to recommend a list of about 160 properties to be included in the new "country-residential" zoning district. But the panel included a request that the supervisors consider exceptions sought by five property owners who attended the meeting to oppose the zoning change on their land. The plan to create the new zoning district with a minimum building-lot size of two acres was passed by the board of supervisors with little controversy on June 13. That left it up to the planning commission to recommend which lots should be included in the district.

A proposed amendment to Buckingham Township's zoning ordinance would allow landowners to build "low density" offices along major roads on some tracts currently zoned for residential or agricultural use. After a brief public hearing Wednesday night on a proposal to add "neighborhood village office" to the township's zoning classifications, the Buckingham Board of Supervisors agreed to run legal advertisements of the measure. It was conceived as a way to create a "transition" strip between parcels zoned residential or agricultural and tracts zoned for commercial use, said George M. Collie, board chairman.