Chester Town Hall Accountability: Where 1.5 = 5 and Nobody Questions

The recent flurry of coverage of the “traffic” issue in town with the epicenter at Alstede Farm has become quite the groundswell.  The complaints, hollow responses, promises for solutions and faux press conference are all misplaced.  We have a zoning enforcement problem, not the resultant traffic effect. This is a scientific principle of cause and effect.  When zoning enforcement is ignored, problems result. 

While the zoning official, Mayor, and council divert attention to the wonderful benefits (though unsupported by the facts) of day trippers entering the Chesters for the day, they continue to sidestep the real issue. 

The Alstede menagerie permits of 20 years ago were submitted as a “farm stand”. Zoning official Sarah Noll knew this would not be legal as a “farm stand” needed a minimum of 200’ distance from any cross street. Chesterfield Drive is 50 +/- feet away. Hence, a “farm barn” was approved to accommodate Mr. Alstede.  Given a free hand and no oversight by the governing body, or Mrs. Noll, the fox was free in the hen house. 

Over the past several fall seasons, Mr. Alstede has been using the three residentially zoned lots to the east and west of his farm stand for substantial overflow parking. Driveways can not go through residential lots. Mr. Alstede is using 5 driveways for his operation. He should be using one.
 

None of these three lots is commercially zoned, nor farm assessed. Two of these lots are owned by Alstede Farms, LLC and the third by Mr. Alstede’s attorney, Mr. Anthony Sposaro. The “farm barn” property itself is owned by the Mennan family under the title of Hideway Farm, LLC of Plano, Texas.   

Housing farm help is another sub-set issue. Temporary farm labor can be housed on his farm but only on the farm. The lot where the farm stand is located is only 5 acres, does not qualify as a stand alone farm, and is not farm assessed. His farm help housing there was accomplished by variance approvals. There should not be farm help lodged in the other three residences. Alstede controlled homes have stacked bunk beds throughout the house in clear view.

We live next door. There are late night drinking parties, police calls, urinating residents on the porch, and the quiet of a country evening breached regularly.

Somehow town hall leadership has deemed an Alstede 1.5 acre lot as an “R-5”- five acre zoned lot - classification. Since when are 1.5 acre residential lots granted “Right to Farm” privileges?  Only on a menagerie.    

Imagine the homes behind the Chester Malls parking cars on their lawns and creating roadways through residential lots? It is unthinkable.  Picture your neighbor housing  numerous unrelated adults in a single family home with the protection of the zoning officer? It is unthinkable. Picture a septic designed for a three bedroom house and used for a group home? It is unthinkable. Ask for farm rights with a 1.5 acre lot?  It is unthinkable.

Zoning enforcement is the key to maintaining the vision of the towns’ Master Plan. Mayor Cogger rents property to Mr. Alstede. Mrs. Noll has been unchallenged in decades on bad decisions. The cabal has discarded reason and responsibility in ignoring the obvious.  Three single-family homes and lots are being used as parking lots, they are being used as group homes, and they are being used as circulation roads for a commercial enterprise.  NONE of this is allowed under current zoning.  The lip service of “looking into solutions” is a sideshow, like the goat walk. 

Just look at what the founding vision, Chester Township’s Master Plan, espouses and the enabling ordinances dictate, and therein is the solution.  The scalability disappears to normalcy.  Unbridled expansion is brought to zoning compliance.  The answer is in place. Enforce existing ordinances. These are slammed upon every other resident for compliance. Yet Mr. Alstede gets a pass.  Mayor Cogger and Zoning Officer Noll have some explaining to do to justify this abuse of residential lots and the resultant impact on the master plan that they were to elected and hired to see through.

Look to enforcement of existing ordinances already in place and therein is the solution to the traffic abuse.