At a special meeting, the Marple Township Board of Commissioners voted to reject Delaware County’s attempt to use a portion of the former Don Guanella property as a mental health facility, and commissioners voted to rezone the entire 213-acre property as open space. Another special meeting will take place on Monday, April 22, to ratify the decision. Residents packed the meeting to show disapproval with Delaware County Council’s plans for the mental health facility at the newly renamed Delco Woods park, which only became public in recent weeks. The front of the property is currently zoned institutional and the wooded section zoned residential. Joe Rufo, commissioners president, said the township has been fighting since 2014 to prevent developers from taking the property and township officials thought it was settled in 2021 when the county began efforts to take it through eminent domain. Rufo said the county’s stated intentions were to acquire the property for public purposes, citing public parks, open space and recreation. Rufo said after the township had begun rezoning and set a hearing on the plans, lawyers from the county filed an application for a use certificate asking to use the boarded up buildings for administrative offices and for mental health residential facilities for adults with persistent mental illness. Township officials amended their meeting agenda and voted to deny the certificate of use and certificate of occupancy. Nick Caniglia, a lawyer for Delaware County, said the county paid $22 million for the site and has no objection against the rezoning of the residential section of the property but does oppose rezoning the institutional section. “Let’s make it clear, we are talking a total of 28 beds, 16 beds for one and 12 for the other site,” Caniglia said. He said the remaining 170 acres would be kept for parkland. Caniglia said they are not asking for total occupancy and they are asking the township to grant reasonable accommodation under the Fair Housing Act.
Source: Daily Times; 4/16/2024