With VA cemetery in limbo, Chesco site is reoffered

Hoping to break a deadlock on a new veterans cemetery, the state is again offering a Chester County site to the Department of Veterans Affairs. But the site is smaller and more expensive than what was offered two years ago.

A cemetery to serve the region's 350,000 veterans was expected to open this year. But four years after the authorizing legislation was passed, a Bucks County zoning dispute has stalled progress.

U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.) says the Pennhurst State School and Hospital site "is the only viable and available piece of property in Southeastern Pennsylvania that will allow this project to move forward immediately."

The state Department of General Services (DGS) is offering 189 acres at the Pennhurst site in East Vincent Township for $7.25 million. In December 2005, the proposal was 275 acres for $5 million. The VA has 120 days to respond to the current offer.

Pennhurst was the runner-up to the VA's first choice, 200 acres in Bucks County that the owner, Toll Bros. Inc., said it would sell for $7 million if it received several zoning changes.

Those changes are under appeal and the litigation could continue indefinitely, said Gerlach, who urged VA Secretary R. James Nicholson to reconsider.

"Given the fact that you have no idea if and when you will ever get title to the Bucks County site, it is equally clear that any reasonable view of this situation would prompt the VA to immediately begin exploring other sites," Gerlach said in a letter to Nicholson dated March 1.

Gerlach said he had no response to his letter, but that he hoped to meet with Nicholson this week.

William F. Tuerk, the VA's undersecretary for memorial affairs and point person on cemetery issues, could not be reached for comment.

"I hope the VA can take another look at this whole thing as soon as possible," said Gerlach. "We can't expect that the Pennhurst option is going to be available forever."

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), who has worked on the cemetery issue for more than 15 years, said he, too, is frustrated by the delays.

"I'm told that progress is being made to resolve the outstanding difficulties with the Bucks County land," he said, "but until that is accomplished I think it is wise to pursue alternatives."

Spokeswoman Linda Cohen said she could not reach anybody at Toll Bros. for comment. (Bruce E. Toll, vice chairman of Toll Bros., is also chairman of Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C., the owner of The Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News.)

Several months ago, the Pennsylvania Council of War Veterans, representing 1.5 million members, wrote Nicholson urging him to reject the Bucks County site in favor of the Pennhurst property.

Gerlach and Specter were the prime sponsors of legislation authorizing six national cemeteries that was signed by President Bush on Veterans Day 2003. Only the location of the Pennsylvania site is still up in the air, said VA spokesman Josephine Schuda.

The revised Pennhurst proposal eliminates an area that contains many old buildings that the VA would have had to pay to demolish and then clean up the underlying contamination, said Joanne Phillips, director of real estate for DGS.

The buildings and their demolition are included in an agreement of sale for 108 acres that the department signed with a developer, Pennhurst Associates. Phillips said the agreement called for the developer to secure subdivision approval from the township by this fall or the agreement would be canceled.

She said the higher asking price also was necessitated by increased construction costs for a new armory and a personal-care addition to a veterans home on the site.