By Richard L. Gaw

Staff Writer

A request for an appeal by the Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PREIT) to overturn a one-year-old order of the Court of Common Please of Chester County – one that ruled against PREIT's request to be allowed to convert the proposed White Clay Point development on Route 41 to condominiums without going through the appropriate procedures -- has been upheld.

The appeal was argued on Dec. 9, 2013 and reached by the decision of the Hon. Dan Pellegrini on Jan. 3, 2014. With the decision, the balance of scales again rules in favor of Friends of New Garden, a group created by residents of the township, who filed a land use appeal with the Chester County Court of Common Pleas in Jan. 2012 that opposed the idea of a condominium arrangement, stating that they had “an adverse, direct, immediate and substantial interest in how PREIT develops its property, including a substantial interest in being sure that PREIT and the supervisors comply with the terms of the settlement agreement and applicable ordinances.”

On Jan. 18, 2013, the Hon. David F. Bortner ruled in favor of the Friends of New Garden, and denied a waiver request by PREIT to subdivide the development into condominium lots for sale to individual stores without subdivision approval or review by the township's Board of Supervisors.

The Chester County Press will provide complete coverage of this ruling in its Jan. 15 edition.