Residents rail against 282-unit development near Newark

Hundreds packed Holy Family Church past capacity Thursday to rail against a proposed 282-unit housing development proposed for a 182-acre property that once housed Our Lady of Grace Home for Children near Newark.

Neighbors' concerns mainly hit on increased traffic, concerns about drainage in the existing developments nearby and low-income housing proposed for the development.

The property off Chestnut Hill Road just east of Holy Family Church is owned by the Felician Sisters of North America and is known for hosting a circus for more than a decade. Plans call for the orphanage buildings to be razed to make way for single-family homes, semi-detached twins, townhomes and apartments partially fronting the highway extending across the south side of the Todd Estates II neighborhood.

Developer Joe Setting of Montchanin-based Setting Properties Inc. is partnering with developer Greg Lingo, formerly of Cornell Homes, and the Felician Sisters on the project.

"Let me tell you, my flood insurance is already four grand a year, and that is not a beachfront property," said Deserae Mace-Runyon, who lives in the Brookside neighborhood. "You are only going to add to my problem."

Others took aim at the proposed development's street connections to Pearson Road through the Todd Estates II and to North Skyward Drive and Waverly Drive through the Breezewood neighborhood. There is one new right-only entrance and exit planned for the development between Gender Road and Pearson Drive.

"The corner my son stands on at his bus stop: That is going to have how many more people driving by there in a hurry to go to work? You can't make it down Route 4 alive, and now you are not going to be able to make it out of our neighborhood alive," said Shanna Fouraker, who lives in Todd Estates II.

Larry Tarabicos, attorney for the developers, emphasized the plan is still at least two years of traffic, drainage and other reviews away from being built.

Sixty apartments are part of the development. They will be marketed to those with an annual household income of $25,000 to $48,000 by the Felician Sisters, Franciscan sisters organized under a nonprofit group based in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. The group operates services like nursing homes, schools and pantries. The property has been vacant since last year.

The sisters have had a presence on the property since 1931 operating an orphanage, children's home and kindergarten at different periods. They regularly rented out the large open space beside the orphanage for carnivals, and the property hosted a circus for generations until 2014 when the sisters left the property.

Tarabicos added that only 45 acres of the 182-acre parcel that is mainly woods and fields will be developed, though that development is occurring in the backyard of some residents of Breezewood and Todd Estates.

Sister Aquinas Szott, chair of the Felician Sister's Board of Trustees, told the meeting the need for market housing, the preservation of a portion of the green space and the affordable housing will further the sister's mission.

"Some would like to have kept it the way it was all the time. That is not the way the future is. We cannot live in the past. We are not in control of things that change," Szott told the crowd.

The sisters will be able to raise approximately $7.8 million of the $11.8 million needed to build the apartments through a federal low-income housing tax credit program. The developers also will be able to build an additional 42 homes because of the presence of the affordable-housing apartments.

"People say there is no housing for anybody. I am a real-estate agent, and that is bologna," said local resident Susan Welsh.

Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or xwilson@delawareonline.com. Follow @Ber_Xerxes on Twitter.