Acres of debate — Obtaining Stowell Farm land a source of controversy

Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski / The former Stowell Farm property in Gaysport is the subject of debate as land developer Jeff Long is attempting to obtain the land to build housing.
HOLLIDAYSBURG — Recent talks of developing the former Stowell Farm, an almost 68-acre plot of land located along Bedford Street and Charger Highway in the Gaysport neighborhood, is drawing concerns from residents who fear it will make the area’s flooding problems worse.
In a phone call, Jeff Long, who owns Jeff S. Long Construction, said that he is hoping to buy 31 acres of the farm to build 75 single-story rental cottages and a retention pond.
That plan has drawn the ire of some residents who want something to be done about the flooding issues.
During the Nov. 9 Hollidaysburg Borough Council meeting, several residents spoke about the proposed plans, with one saying the council could “destroy a whole community for one guy’s benefit.”
While Long is seeking a portion of the property, the borough wants to buy 7.8 acres for a stormwater basin and has a $110,760 purchase agreement with BC Holdings LLC, the company that owns the land.
Long and the borough are not seeking the same parcels of land, and Long has not purchased the land he seeks because he is awaiting a decision on a zoning change.
“There’s a lot of talk that a lot of people sitting up there are really in favor of granting Mr. Long his wish to put 75 homes … up on that hill,” said Stan Neal of Beaver Street during the council’s meeting.
Frustration boiling over
“We get flooded now in Gaysport,” Neal said. “Where is all that water going to go that this ground’s absorbing? I’m going to get flooded in 10 minutes instead of maybe two hours. And moving, for me, is not an option.”
“I really hope you vote it down for the betterment of myself and all of the other old fogies that are here,” Neal said. “We don’t have any place to go. This is our home.”
Longtime Bedford Street resident Elda Boose reminded the council that the purchase agreement it had in place with BC Holdings LLC runs out at the end of the year and that the grants the borough applied for are extremely competitive. She urged the council to start looking for other sources of funding.
“The COVID money that was given to the borough was intended to fund projects that had a significant, positive effect on citizenry that the government typically would not have means to fund,” Boose said. “A stormwater facility seems to fit that case perfectly. We can’t abandon this project or put it off for another year or years and make us start all over again.”
Potential problems with the sewer connection for the Stowell Farm project were brought up by Sewer Authority Chairman Regis Nale, who said that Gaysport’s current sewer system is over 100 years old and overflows periodically.
“When the river gets high enough — and it does more often now than ever because of development upstream — the river becomes higher than the sewer line,” Nale said. “So now the water can’t flow out, it backfloods. Then, what happens is, all of the water coming down from Blair Township, comes down by Smith Street and into the interceptor that goes into the plant.”
Nale said when the system is stressed, the water from the new development, which will be at a higher elevation than Bedford Street, will have its raw sewage forced down into the Bedford Street sewer.
“It’ll have more sewage coming into these people’s basements,” Nale said. “It’ll be a more concentrated sewer into their basement. The only solution that we can determine is to replace all of the aging sewer lines and now we’re talking tens, hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Petitions and plans
It all began in October 2022, when Gerard Nale presented the council with a petition signed by dozens of Gaysport residents requesting “relief from the increasing severity and frequency of flooding.” Gerard Nale said that the increase in development in both Blair Township and Hollidaysburg over the last 20 years caused a “noticeable decrease in the quality of life” because of flooding.
“We are tired of developers using our yards and basements as their stormwater retention ponds,” Gerard Nale said.
It was during this meeting that the council decided to dedicate the borough’s 2022 Community Development Block Grant application to the problem — particularly along Bedford Street, which runs parallel to Stowell Farm.
Blair County CDBG Coordinator Trina Illig said that there would be discussion with Blair Township about the project and that it could “most likely be multi-year funded with CDBG funds.”
The council approved the submission of the CDBG application for a project in November 2022. Messages to Illig requesting an update on this application have gone unanswered.
The council also authorized the borough to apply for a COVID-19 ARPA H20 PA Water Supply, Sanitary Sewer and Stormwater Projects Grant offered by the Department of Community and Economic Development.
In March 2023, the council entered into an agreement to purchase 7.85 acres of Stowell Farm for $110,760 to build a stormwater basin, Borough Manager Jim Gehret said during the meeting.
“The agreement is only good if we receive the grant from the DCED,” Gehret said. “I think the project was a little over $1 million.”
During the council’s July 2023 meeting, Gehret said that the purchasing agreement was in place and that the borough had “first rights for Stowell Farm land.”
New development proposed
Concern over the fate of the Stowell Farm grew among the Gaysport residents following the council’s September meeting. During the public comment section, John Sepp of PennTerra Engineering and Long spoke about rezoning and developing the property.
“Jeff would like to develop a cottage community at the Stowell Farm, similar to the one that he’s done up by Spruce Creek called Emily Estates,” Sepp said. “In order to do that, we would actually be asking for a down-zoning of the farm.”
Sepp said that the farm is zoned Traditional Neighborhood Development and that they were “looking for a less dense development of an R2 (General Residential) zone, which is the zone that surrounds the farm.”
Sepp then asked the council if BC Holdings LLC would be able to go before the Blair County Planning Commission with its proposal, to which the council said it did not need permission.
“Obviously, with anything we do, we’d never allow more stormwater runoff than what’s already happening,” Long said.
He added that the Department of Environmental Protection would never approve anything that would cause an increase and that the homes they’re proposing would be minimally intrusive.
“If they don’t change the zoning, it would have to be a multi-family commercial, and that would be a lot more intrusive,” Long said. “Sooner or later, someone is going to build there.”
He also said that his plans to develop the property would not interfere with the borough.
“We need to make sure that pond gets put in that they want to build,” Long said.
Rezoning an “uphill battle”
BC Holdings LLC brought the zoning change request before the Blair County Planning Commission on Oct. 26, seeking its opinion. The commission was ultimately against the change, with Chairman William Hall saying that it would make the farm “inconsistent with the county’s comprehensive plan.”
The commission’s reasoning was further explained in a letter sent from BCPC Community Planner MacKenzie
Caron to Hollidaysburg Director of Planning, Zoning, and Code Enforcement Andrew Holodnik. In it, she said that the commission recommends against the development of prime farmland, “particularly in this instance given that both the (Federal Emergency Management Agency) 100-year-floodplain and 500-year- floodplain also encroach a significant portion of the property as well.”
She conceded that while TND might not be the best zoning designation for the land, rezoning it to R2 “would allow for less developmental restriction in an area that we feel requires stringent provisions and diligence when reviewing potential developmental impacts on the surrounding communities.”
Andrea Cohen, co-trustee and manager of the property for BC Holdings, disagreed, saying, rezoning it to R2 would mean lower density and lower impact.
“As it is currently zoned, TND permits apartments and requires a higher density and commercial development which does not blend well with the surrounding neighborhood and requires a much higher density of development,” Cohen said. “The cottage development would be lower density and have less impact on the public water and sewer system and surrounding streets than TND zoning.”
The final decision for the petition to rezone is to be made by the Borough Council, Holodnik said. The topic will be on the agenda for the council’s Dec. 14 meeting.
Future still uncertain
When asked if he would still be interested in purchasing the 31 acres of Stowell Farm if it were not rezoned, Long said he wasn’t sure but that, right now, he still wants to proceed with the project.
Meanwhile, the council’s plans are not so concrete. Michele Ivory, Sen. Judy Ward’s constituent outreach specialist, said that she expects the Commonwealth Finance Authority will approve the COVID-19 ARPA grant that the council had applied for and that the authority had canceled its last meeting.
“They were supposed to review those applications and award the money,” Ivory said.
The CFA’s next meeting is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Nov. 21, and Ivory said she anticipates the grants will be on the agenda. She also said that there is a link on its website for people to watch virtually.
The council did discuss other options to buy the property if the purchase agreement expired before it found funding, including buying it outright and using eminent domain, the power to take private property for public use in return for just compensation.
“I’m saying, we might have to act quicker than what we’re thinking we have,” Councilman Brady Leahey said. “Meaning if we want to buy that ground, it’s gotta be before Jan. 1 by the sounds of it or we are going to get in a situation.”
Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor is at 814-946-7458.