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Quick catch up for newbies. The Mozino tract is a roughly 15 acre wooded parcel off State Road in Drexel Hill, the last unprotected forest in Upper Darby. Greg Lingo’s Rockwell Development wants it rezoned into a new “Community Mixed Use” district for townhomes, apartments and retail. He could build 56 single family homes there tomorrow without asking anyone. Residents have packed meetings since June asking the township to preserve it, and not one person has spoken in favor of the rezoning at any of them. Separately, on August 5, council removed Marion Minick as President and replaced him with Michelle Billups.
Council is tabling the CMU ordinance, Greg Lingo said he’d sell the Mozino tract to the township and named a number. And Marion Minick…one week after being stripped of the council presidency, stood up and declared himself an absolute NO and called for it to be open green space.
Fields emailed committee members and residents Sunday about the August 5th reorganization. He went on and on about his credentials and then said that Mayor Ed Brown told him directly that he wanted Minick out as council president because he was worried Minick might run for Mayor someday.
That account is disputed by others in the building, and Brown has not addressed it publicly.
And he also says members were pressured to back the removal & that one was threatened with their spouse’s financial situation being dragged through the mud.
He started with committing to building Upper Darby’s future, & pivoted to green space.
He called it the last remaining forest property in the township and declared himself a no vote.
Marion Minick was Council President for the first seven mnths of this year. This ordinance moved through nine drafts during his presidency. He had the gavel that entire time and there’s no record of him using it to slow any of this down.
One week after losing that gavel he comes back HOT with a speech about underground tree root networks and groundwater recharge.
It’s like he “reverse Fetterman’d” into the correct position.
The Save the Mozino coalition doesn’t need Minick to be sincere. It really just needs him to be a vote the right way. Whatever’s driving it…residents who have been hammering the need for it to be open green space since June…it just got a useful ally.
The coalition has spent months arguing for preservation without knowing whether the property was even purchasable. Lingo is the contract purchaser, and Bonnie Hallam said the coalition learned a sale might be possible only a couple days ago.
Asked directly for a ballpark, Lingo said eight million dollars. He said he’d be a willing seller. He also said that as a taxpayer he doesn’t think raising taxes to buy it is a good use of money.
Then he asked council to vote yes to advertise anyway, framing it as flexibility. Speakers jumped on that quickly to explain why it’s backwards. If the CMU passes, the property gets more valuable and acquisition gets harder.
Rita LaRue, Director of Community and Economic Development, walked through the history of the project. Then…
“Upper Darby Township, specifically community and economic development, asked the developer to consider a higher density use.”
And on the ordinance…
“The developer brought us the first draft.”
It’s been known (only via RTK’s) that Rockwell’s attorney drafted this ordinance. And now Rita confirmed this publicly during a presentation…and added that the high density use request came from the township asking for it.
Who is the one driving this thing?
Upper Darby is withholding the CMU draft ordinance from me under the statutory exemption for “internal predecisional drafts.” The townships own engineering consultant, states that the text amendment was prepared by Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg LLP on behalf of Rockwell Drexel LLC.
The township is claiming an agency draft exemption over a document…written by a private applicant’s law firm. And Wednesday Rita confirmed that the developer brought them the first draft. That contradiction makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever and already went in my reply to the Office of Open Records this week.
The Planning Commission didn’t write its own recommendation. The majority position is drafted by Community & Economic Development and adopted verbatim. The letter says those in favor “with no changes to the draft letter prepared by the Township’s Community & Economic Development Department.” Chair Roken signed the majority letter while also signing the dissent he wrote himself, also supported by Lee Jordan.
Wednesday, LaRue presented this as “layers of independent review,” so the staff, the engineer, the solicitor, the county planning commission, the township planning commission, all comments consolidated. But the Planning Commission’s recommendation is just CED’s own letter.
The county said revise and resubmit. Delaware County Planning Commission recommended revise and resubmit on the map amendment, with ample public feedback and an actual plan first. The parcels “Future Land Use’ designation is Wooded Land. Protecting existing woodlands ranked fourth in Upper Darby’s own comp plan survey. County staff also asked for ‘50-foot riparian’ and wetland buffers, steep slope limits, and tree replacement. None of it is in the draft.
The rezoning permits far more than 143 units. Per the documentation I received…max density is 13.5 units per acre net. The file contains three different acreage figures, sooo that’s somewhere from the high 170s to just under 200.
The concept plan showing 143 binds nothing. Zoning is what’s permanent.
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They brought the point that nobody has done the hydraulic analysis to know what development does here, and the township’s own comprehensive plan already calls its streams impaired.
The township’s own environmental advisory council can’t read the developer’s studies before council votes on the developer’s ordinance. Mine came back 1 of 8.
Dolores Lombardi, former Shade Tree Commission chair, said Natural Lands Trust met with the mayor and CAO around 2020, and they said Upper Darby checked every. single. box for grant eligibility, and even offered to write the grants. The township never followed up.
Five years ago a land trust offered to do this for free and nobody called back??
That’s why “we don’t have the money” has never been an honest answer.
McIntyre was pretty direct about the two tracks we currently have running. He said they are doing everything possible to find money and make a deal, and at the same time fighting for affordable housing if that falls through.
He got Lingo to commit to 20% of rental units as affordable, and got him to consider a tree preservation and “payment-in-lieu” amendment.
It’s a hedge. If acquisition fails, the fallback is a negotiated development with a set aside, and…Rockwell knows the fallback is acceptable. Which means the pressure to actually close on $8 million comes from residents, not from council. And payment-in-lieu doesnt get back decades of natural growth.
Residents have been playing from behind ever since the burden of proof shifted from the developer to the residents. Lingo and UD’s Community and Economic Development have been trying to ram this thing through.
UD is overdeveloped and have ample commercial corridors that need revitalizing.
Anything less than preserving the Mozino tract in Upper Darby as open green space is a failure by all members of council. And Marion Minick just came in with a zinger to try and play savior.
Tabled is definitely not dead.
It can come back at any meeting and honestly, given the rhetoric of council it seems like development is most likely.
Lingo asked the coalition for a package and the conservation orgs say six to twelve months. Now closing that gap is pretty much the whole fight from here.
General Notes:
Know someone who should be running for office? Email me at nick@delcorising.com.
I’m building a network of residents willing to keep an eye on their own township, borough, and/or school board.. if interested, please email me at nick@delcorising.com.
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