Battle over Richboro parcel gets hearing

Like many suburban communities, the village of Richboro in Bucks County has a scattered mix of stores, restaurants, and food stores - but no town center for strolling from place to place the way folks can in nearby towns like Newtown and Doylestown.

For years, the Northampton Township supervisors have tried to clear the way for a more neighborhood-like, pedestrian-friendly district, and a plan to redevelop an old car dealership was touted as a step toward a modern-day version of an old-fashioned Main Street, complete with a residential area, shops, and a Giant supermarket.

But the developers have encountered fierce opposition - mainly from the owner and supporters of a nearby grocery store that has been operating since 1969.

"There's a lot at stake," said Murray Battleman, 74, who owns the Shop n Bag grocery store and worries that the plan to open a Giant supermarket in addition to his store and the nearby Super Fresh will hurt his business and other small stores in the area.

"If that store opens up," he said, "I'll be hurt badly."

Tuesday night, the Northampton Township Planning Commission is scheduled to hold a public meeting about the proposal for what would be called Addisville Commons, and Battleman has been busy collecting signatures on a petition against the plan. As of Monday, he had more than 5,200.

"We're kind of doing battle," he said last week.

Battleman equates his fight against Addisville Commons to what other businesses have gone through when opposing the building of a Wal-Mart. He said independent grocery stores are like the old independent pharmacies and bookstores that used to be common across America, but have now been replaced by chains.

"We're dinosaurs in our industry," he said.

In the early days of Pennsylvania, Richboro was little more than a stagecoach stop at the crossroads of a sprawling farming community. It didn't really start to grow until the late 1800s, when retired farmers from the area decided to build homes "in town," according to the township historical commission.

Now, the township has about 40,000 residents, and township leaders have been trying to ensure that new development is attractive and people-friendly, so lots of attention has been focused on the big chunk of property that was once the car dealership.

"No matter what happens, it will be something changing the appearance and the whole feeling of Richboro," said Township Supervisors Chairman George F. Komelasky, who has lived in the township for 30 years and been a supervisor for 25 years.

The final decision will be up to the supervisors.

The original proposal, introduced in 2008, featured a mixed-use district of condos or apartments and shops, with a Giant supermarket as the anchor store, on about 12 acres at the site of the former Davis Pontiac dealership at Bustleton and Second Street Pikes.

"We're talking about a real walkable Main Street," said project developer Richard Dreher, owner of the Dreher Group of Princeton.

But after a first wave of opposition by Battleman and his supporters, the Northampton Township Planning Commission rejected the plan last year, and Dreher scaled it back to avoid the need for a zoning change. His revised plan now calls for a Giant supermarket and a few stores. That plan will be the focus of Tuesday's Planning Commission meeting.

Dreher said that he thought the original plan was better, but that because of all the opposition, he decided to go with a plan that would not require a zoning change. Either plan could be taken to the Board of Supervisors for a vote, he said.

"It would be, I think, better for everybody," Dreher said of the original plan. "But we're going to do what we can do, and what we feel we can obtain approval for."

Some residents think Addisville Commons would be a "great change" that could lead to a more traditional neighborhood feel to the town, Komelasky said, while others are adamantly against the idea because of traffic and noise concerns and worries about having too many supermarkets in a small area.

"There's a mixed sense of what has to be done," Komelasky said.

Andrea Mangold, a longtime resident and member of the historical commission, said there was also concern about how any project on such a big chunk of land would change a village that once had such a "rural feeling" to it.

There may be less resistance to a smaller store that isn't a supermarket, she said, and or to something with a parklike setting.

"People are just very reticent to have something drastic happen," Mangold said.