Deal to bring veterans cemetery to Bucks

The deal that will bring a national veterans cemetery to Bucks County is expected to be concluded tomorrow when Toll Bros. Inc. formally signs over the land to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"This has been in the making for 15 years," said U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), who engineered the Senate bill authorizing the cemetery. "It's had a lot of ups and downs with the proposed sites. It's a good feeling to have this done."

The government is paying $10.5 million for 205 acres in Upper Makefield Township known as the Dolington Tract. Construction is expected to start next spring, with the first burials slated for later in the year, said William F. Tuerk, VA deputy undersecretary for memorial affairs.

"This is great news for Bucks County and for the veterans of Southeastern Pennsylvania," said U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.).

Since the VA picked the site more than two years ago, controversy has dogged the project. Toll said that in order to sell the land to the VA at what it called a discounted price of $7 million, it needed approval to build high-density housing nearby to compensate for the houses it could have built on the tract.

Residents protested, but the township and two other communities that are part of the regional zoning district eventually approved what is called the Federal Cemetery Overlay ordinance, which cleared the way for the project.

The related housing development approvals Toll received are being challenged in court, and Toll had maintained that it would not sell the land unless it had "unappealable" approvals for those projects.

When it appeared those lawsuits could tie up the cemetery project for years, the VA offered Toll more money for the land in exchange for accepting the legal risk. "I couldn't wait any longer," Tuerk said at the time.

Yesterday, Toll Bros. said in a statement that the firm was "very pleased that the agreement of sale with the VA is finally coming to fruition." Bruce Toll, vice chairman of Toll Bros. Inc., is chairman of Philadelphia Media Holdings, owner of The Inquirer and Philly.com.

Design work for the cemetery grounds is still in the early stages. Tuerk promised that the entrance and the administration building on the site would complement the historic village of Dolington and would be in keeping with the nature of Bucks County.

"I've said to people all along that this is going to be something special, and I have meant that," Tuerk said.

He said the lead architect was a Philadelphia firm, Cairone & Kaupp. Others involved with the project are the LA Group, a landscape architect firm in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; another architectural firm, L. Robert Kimball, of Ebensburg, Pa.; and Aqua Engineering Inc. of Colorado, whose specialties are irrigation, water management, and water feature engineering.

Dave Kuhns, Upper Makefield's code enforcement officer, said the government still needed approvals for issues such as stormwater management and wetlands intrusions.

"There is an elaborate approval process that still has to take place," he said. But Tuerk said the approvals the government needs are not as detailed as those required for a developer.

"We will work through the process," he said. "The community will be heard and respected."