A long-term goal is getting closer for Evesham Township and the residents of the Inglis Gardens independent housing complex for the physically disabled.
At the May 24 meeting of the Evesham Township Council, officials gave an update on the work in recent months to help Inglis residents in their quest to see a sidewalk built on the eastside of North Elmwood Road from the Inglis complex toward the churches and businesses closer to Evesboro-Medford Road.
In April 2015, residents of Inglis Gardens, some of whom are blind or bound to a wheelchair, came before council with their stories of routinely risking their lives when dealing with traffic while trying to navigate North Elmwood Road without a sidewalk.
At the time, council was sympathetic to the residents’ pleas, but as township manager Tom Czerniecki pointed out, it was the state’s land usage rules rather than cost that had previously prohibited council from installing a sidewalk on that specific section of the road.
Czerniecki told residents council had tried to secure a grant to build a sidewalk about five years prior, but the land where the sidewalk would go was unworkable, as the state had delineated it as wetlands and the state historical preservation had also marked the land as a Native American burial ground.
Fast-forward a year, and now many of those obstacles have been removed.
According to Czerniecki, the township recently sent a letter on behalf of council to all members of the Inglis House informing them that permits would soon be in place to allow a sidewalk to be built along a significant portion of North Elmwood Road.
Czerniecki said wetlands and archaeological issues had been the basis for the denial of a sidewalk grant that Inglis Gardens had previously applied for, but with those issues now out of the way, Czerniecki said the township had invited Inglis representatives to start working with the township on the next round of grants.
According to Czerniecki, the entire length of North Elmwood Road has still not been permitted, as some of it is definitively wetlands toward the road’s end, and “there’s no getting around that,” but permits will allow for a sidewalk along the initial segment of the road toward the Tanglewood Development and Ross Way.
“That was quite a lift, and it took some diplomatic work amongst the engineers,” Czerniecki said.
In other news:
Council has officially introduced the 2016 municipal budget.
As outlined at council’s earlier meeting in May, the budget will present residents with another year of decreasing municipal taxes.
Municipal taxes previously went down in 2014 and 2015, and for 2016, officials expect taxes to decrease for the average Evesham homeowner by about $6 per year.
June 21 is set as the date for the public hearing and final adoption of the budget.
At that meeting, officials will give a more in-depth breakdown of the budget, and members of the public will have a chance to comment.
