Deer Park residents against proposed Jefferson Hills development

Residents in Jefferson Hills’ Deer Park neighborhood say they worry a new housing development will disrupt their community — and they don’t want it.

Yet, developers say they hope to work with neighbors so they too can benefit from the 67 single-family homes planned on roughly 47 acres, with access points at Arnoni and Antler drives.

About 60 people attended Jefferson Hills’ planning commission meeting on Nov. 18, where plans for the new Blackwood development were presented.

“Our homes will have a storm sewage drain in the back and traffic in the front,” said Nadine Pope, a 15-year resident of Deer Park, who moved with her husband to the neighborhood with plans to retire in the area. They sought it out because of its rural feel and the safety and security that an enclosed plan offered.

“We are going to be sandwiched into a most undesirable location, taking us from prime to poor,” Pope said. “Consider the traffic, the pollution, the noise and the disruption to all of the people in our plan. This will destroy our way of life.”

Plans to build on the property, owned by Blackwood Acres Associates LP and Community Bank, have dated back more than a decade.

While the Deer Park neighborhood was built out between the mid-1960s and mid-1980s, plans for 104 dwellings, including 51 two-family dwellings on the Blackwood site, were approved by the borough in 2006 and 2007, said Don Housley, president of Triangle Engineering & Planning Services.

Housely, a longtime resident of Deer Park whose family was involved with the initial developments and is working on the latest project, said the 2007 plan fell through because of the “great housing recession.”

The new project by developer Rywood LLC plans to construct 67 single-family homes in two phases, with plans for Arnoni Drive to serve as the main access point, connecting the plan to Gill Hall Road.

Antler Drive, Housely said, would serve as a second entrance to the plan.

The plan proposes filling in a ravine behind homes on Antler Drive to give residents on both sides a “nice backyard,” Housley said. This is contingent on the current homeowners on Antler agreeing to grading easements on their property.

On Fawn Drive, the plans include constructing a swale to help alleviate stormwater problems that residents have experienced.

The developer plans to give a portion of land to a few homeowners near the upper portion of the development, off of Arnoni Drive and Dale Street, if they agree to allow their yards to be graded, Housley said.

He said he plans to meet individually with residents in the next month to discuss the plans, which will come back before the planning commission in December.

“We have the desire to work with these people,” Housley said.

Residents, however, said they still have a lot of concerns.

They like that their neighborhood is quiet and kids can run up and down the street to each other’s homes and they can walk their dogs on the street without worrying about much traffic.

They fear Antler will be frequently used by the new development, as it connects to Cochran Mill and is the most logical way for people to go when they’re headed to places like South Hills Village. That means more traffic coming through their neighborhood streets.

They also worry about the environmental impacts of added housing. They say the borough is losing much of its green space.

“People have to travel a long way in some places to be able to see deer, fox, 50 different bird species. I can see them in my backyard because we have this amazing space for them to live in,” said Lauryn Sacha, a four-year resident of Antler Drive.

Residents also are concerned that more development will lead to even more overcrowding in the West Jefferson Hills schools.

They also question why more houses keep being added in the borough, when there’s no grocery store or post office in the municipality for them to do business.

“We have to think about development where development is logical – development where it makes sense. A lot of my neighbors and a lot of the people that I’ve spoken with see our taxes going up with a project like this because we’re going to have to build schools, we’re going to have to build roads,” Sacha said. “It feels a lot like the borough is relying on the taxpayer to do all of these things.”