Wednesday
September 18, 2024 
This month’s Chalfont Borough Council meeting saw one of the highest public turnouts in recent memory, as residents of Patriot Drive came to express concern over plans for a walking trail and the actions taken to clear space for it.
The Northern Neshaminy Greenway Trail is a walking path proposed by the council, with the rough initial plan for it adopted back in 2010. It would connect Chestnut Street Park to Lindenfield Parkway and North Branch Park, as well as add a trail parallel to the North Branch of the Neshaminy Creek that partially circles and leads into Patriot Drive. With a recently revealed map of the project, the final trail would take up a little less than an acre of land.
Prior to the official announcement of the trail plans, the treeline around Patriot Drive, which the path would travel through, was chopped down, creating a 50-foot-wide trail of tree stumps and wood chips. According to residents, no one was told why or warned that this would happen. An email sent the following day explained what had happened.
As a result of this lack of notice, Patriot Drive residents crowded into the Chalfont Borough Hall to voice their dissent, often in a heated fashion. Some had safety concerns regarding the path, which would run very close to the backyards of several houses on the road. Additionally, the planned path travels past a rocky swale that others feel could be a safety hazard.
The most consistent concern given relates to the fact that Patriot Drive is located on a floodplain. Typically, the trees along the road absorb water and mitigate potential damage from floods, but now that most of them have been cut down, residents fear their homes, as well as the property values tied to them, may be in danger. Already, several residents have threatened to sue Chalfont Borough for property damages should this come to pass.
While claims were made that clearing out the treeline with little to no warning was both illegal and unethical, both Borough Engineer Pat DiGangi and Solicitor Michael Meginniss assured the public that what occurred was technically within legal parameters. Because the trail would take up less than an acre of land, DiGangi was not required to make an official report. In that same vein, though the council was not allowed to take any action that would disturb the soil of the area, cutting down the trees while leaving their stumps intact did not directly do anything to the soil itself.
Councilwoman Marilyn Jacobson explained that cutting down the trees in advance was done to save money and expedite the trail’s construction. Council President John Engel admitted that the situation could have been handled better, but that what was done could not be undone. In general, the members agreed that, regardless of legality, what occurred didn’t reflect best council practices. Several statements were made assuring the public that plans for trail construction will not move forward for the foreseeable future.
In particular, Meginniss offered to make himself personally available to any community members with questions about the trail project and would like to arrange an official meeting to talk directly with the community.
The council is taking action to mitigate potential flood damage to the Patriot Drive area, such as planting grass seed. Councilman Mitchell Meyerson expressed doubts that’d be sufficient and advocated for an additional storm buffer to protect the homes along the road.
In other business May 9, Meyerson publicly announced his resignation from the Chalfont Facilities Committee, saying he felt he was being left out of committee conversations, having received fewer emails than fellow members and only learning of certain events through chance encounters with them.
Despite council members insisting these lapses in communication were accidental, Meyerson insisted that they were deliberate attempts to exclude him. Because he feels like he no longer has a say in what the committee does, Meyerson said he’d prefer not to have his name associated with its decisions.
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