Mix of Duplexes and Apartments for ‘Diverse Community’ Proposed in College Township

Two local residents are looking to construct a new housing development in College Township for a “diverse community” of families and individuals from a range of ages and economic statuses.

Ethan Wendle and Daniel Haverkos, of Mosaic Community Development LLC, presented a sketch plan for the development to College Township Planning Commission on Tuesday night. The mix of single-family duplex homes and multi-family apartments, along with a significant amount of green space, would be located on a 3.92-acre plot along Puddintown Road near the East College Avenue Intersection.

“We’re looking for a diverse community that accommodates different family sizes, different economic means living in one community,” said Wendle, who owns the land for the proposed development and currently resides adjacent to the site.

The project would be built over three phases and includes a total of 38 units: three duplex houses with a total of six units; one duplex-style building with four apartments; and two quadplex-style buildings with 16 and 12 apartments.

At least four apartments would be dedicated as workforce housing and single-floor, ADA-accessible apartments are included in the plan.

The plan also includes 87 parking spaces, which meets ordinance requirements, and construction of a sidewalk for the length of the property along Puddintown Road to College Avenue. A community pool will be part of the development as well.

Wendle and Haverkos said their families plan to be residents of the development.

“One of the things that has been challenging is there just hasn’t been a lot of building that combines different economic and different age groups,” Wendle said. “You put all the kids in student housing and all the kids in McMansions somewhere else, all of the older people in retirement homes and all of the younger people over here, and we just find that’s not conducive to the development of young people in a real sense, of seeing a family live, seeing how we do community, seeing how we engage with life and actually being able to come over and have a beer on the back porch and hang out because we live next to each other.

“That’s really why we’re targeting a diverse community that can accommodate different people of different economic statuses all living in one place where we can have some sense of community that’s not based solely on where you go to work and how much you get paid.”

Building and pavement would encompass 1.23 acres of the property, leaving 2.69 acres of what Wendle called “really beautiful green space,” as well as the adjacent Thompson Run.

Images included with the sketch plan represented concept designs, but not final plans, for “a modern industrial feel.”

“We’re at the very beginning of the project so we have not yet architecturally laid out the… units,” Wendle said.

Like several other planning commission members, Robert Hoffman complimented the project concept as “pretty attractive.”

“I find it to be exciting, the materials you’re using, the scale of the units that you’re doing,” Hoffman said. “As it goes through the planning process I hope you can keep some of that because its refreshing to see units that are clean and detailed in simplistic ways and not this stuff we have seen for the past 60 years.”

He noted that ClearWater Conservancy submitted a letter expressing concerns, primarily about stormwater runoff because of the proximity to Thompson Run.

Wendle said the plan includes two underground retention basins.

“Thompson Run is a really high quality water trout stream,” he said. “I like fishing there myself and I’d like to preserve that.”

In the coming weeks, Mosaic will begin the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit process with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. The required permit process is designed to regulate stormwater and wastewater discharge.

That process is expected to take up to a year.

“We anticipate that being a long process,” Wendle said. “It’s one of the reasons why we’re doing this as early as possible trying to get as detailed as possible at the sketch plan level because that process through DEP is going to take a considerable amount of time.”

Sketch plans are optional and are meant to obtain feedback before a final land development plan submission.

College Township Council was scheduled to review the sketch plan on Thursday night.