Lower Merion Meeting Preview: Environmental Advisory Council to Discuss Action Plan

Lower Merion Township’s Environmental Advisory Council meets Tuesday evening at 7 p.m. Among the items to be discussed will be the “Lower Merion Conservancy Playscape,” with plans for a rain garden and greenhouse, to be presented by senior planner Andrea Campisi. (Aplayscape is a playground without the traditional monkey bars and the like, but including instead things like a potting shed or shallow streams, designed with children in mind.)

Campisi said on Tuesday afternoon that the Conservancy received a pretty sizable grant for the project at Rolling Hill Park. “They’re anxious to get started,” she said—possibly by late summer. Since there is only minor earth-moving involved, the playscape could theoretically be open sometime in the fall, she added.

Campisi will also present on subdivision and land development plans, and give an update on preservation areas. One item concerns the Cunningham subdivision in Gladwyne at Clubhouse Road, where plans call for removing a historically classified barn and the building of five new homes. The barn is classified as “Class II” historic, meaning the Township cannot prohibit its demolition, and the project is otherwise compliant with Township code.

Updates from the EAC staff are expected on:

• Green, sustainable parking lots (generally related to effective stormwater management). Campisi said a new ordinance is in the works for any new projects within the Township.
• A Township “green building resolution.” This has been a goal for going on two years now, Campisi said today, and has already been drafted and presented to the Board of Commissioners for approval. But too many other projects and Township issues have kept the Commissioners’ Building and Planning Committee from making important final decisions that are needed before a final vote is taken.
• Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECB) funding and an energy audit.

Reviews of the staff’s proposed Environmental Action Plan (see attached PDF) and its 2010 annual report are also scheduled for Tuesday night’s meeting.

Barry Jeffries, acting chair of the EAC, will follow up on plans for a tour of the Morris Arboretum.

The next three monthly meetings of the EAC are scheduled for July 26, Sept. 27 and Oct. 25, all starting at 7 p.m.