More Apartments = More Cars = More Taxes.

All those reading this who’d rather live in Willow Grove, raise their hands. Anyone? Beuller?

Jenkintown now has — or will soon have — three new apartment projects under construction on Old York Road. This is not only unsettling for those who hope for a long-term revival for Jenkintown, it is dangerous.

There’s been little to no commercial development in Jenkintown for the past ten years. There is no plan for it. There is no one advocating for it. There is no one selling Jenkintown as a town open for business.

David Ballard likes to trumpet the new Giant, of course, but it’s a problematic development at best. Where else will you find two super markets within such close proximity to each other? Also, the Giant store is a kind of an experiment. I’ve yet to see another of its kind. What happens when the experiment fails? Dollar Store?

The new Giant is yet another car-dependent development across a busy four-lane highway from an even larger car-dependent development. There’s nothing about any of it designed to funnel pedestrians onto the sidewalks or to connect them to our commercial core. It just dumps more car trips into the stream.

I could say the same about the apartments. More people, but where do they go and how do they get there? They still have to drive to those supermarkets. Car-dependent planning imposes a much greater burden upon borough infrastructure than pedestrian-related. All of these projects will clog York Road up even more, making the streetscape even more dangerous to pedestrians, which drives down the value of the commercial real estate.

Again, at Wednesday’s council meeting, councilor Alex Khalil asked some pointed and some pointless questions, but what she should have asked is, “What is the market for those apartments?” I once asked exactly that at a hearing for a proposed apartment building for where the Giant is now going. “Who do you envision as a renter here?” He couldn’t provide a straight answer.

Who wants to live in a two bedroom apartment above an extremely busy 4-lane highway with little-to-nothing to walk to except a Gazebo and a few restaurants? Divorced dads? Single mothers? We are told that these are intended for the new Yuppies, except that aside from a few restaurants and a gazebo, there’s little else to attract young singles looking to establish lives and families for themselves. That’s what Fishtown is for. That’s what Ambler is becoming.

Finally, all those apartment are just more dreary “five-over-one” construction. One floor concrete and steel, the rest above all wood-frame. All within code, but with a far shorter life-span than brick and steel. Twenty years from now, they’re going to look like crap, and 20 years isn’t that much at all. Those are all fodder for future Section 8.

Khalil asked why not condos, and she had a point. At least in theory, they may attract in a less transient clientele, although they might also just invite investors who then rent out the spaces anyway. To her credit, Khalil voted against the proposal.

Point being, these projects built without sufficient accompanying commercial development will only serve to destabilize the community and drive up our taxes even higher.

Don’t you think we deserve better?