At a chaotic, standing-room-only meeting, Upper Pottsgrove's township commissioners voted 3-2 to approve a legal settlement with Artisan Builders that scales back a long-disputed housing development on Kummerer Road from the originally proposed 263 units to 119 homes and the developer agreeing to pay the township's legal fees of more than $600,000. The settlement ends litigation dating to 2020 after the zoning hearing board had denied Artisan's second project proposal, triggering three lawsuits. The deal isn't a final approval, as Artisan must still complete the standard land development review process. It also doesn’t resolve residents' zoning objections — with some critics arguing that the current R-80 zoning (one home per two acres) should apply now that the township rescinded the original age-qualified (AQ) overlay, while others countered that Artisan's original AQ zoning submission is grandfathered in. Commissioners Tyrone Robinson, Al Leach and Elwood Taylor argued the settlement was a reasonable compromise given the alternative — that losing the litigation could have forced the original, larger development through under a judge's order with no township input.

Source: Pottstown Mercury; 7/7/2026