By Nancy Johnson

Correspondent

Residents from the Ovations community filled the meeting room at the Penn Township Board of Supervisors meeting on Nov. 5 to complain about ongoing stormwater management issues in the development.

Since the October board meeting, at which several Ovations residents spoke about the developer’s failure to correct a major issue with a basin in the development, township engineers McCormick Taylor Engineers has been working with the Ovations homeowners association and the developer, Baker Residential, to correct the problem.

Kevin Matson of McCormick Taylor, who had recently met with a number of affected property owners as well as a representative from the homeowners association, addressed several comments from the audience. “They need to move to a more creative approach to stormwater management,” he said, adding that a possible solution would involve direct discharge into one of the basins. “We are working toward a response to make everybody happy. We are on it,” he added.

Chairman of the board of supervisors, Curtis Mason, made it clear to the audience that the supervisors are doing all they can to pressure Baker Residential to permanently fix the ongoing problems. “This will be on the contractor,” Mason said. He added that they are also paying all the fees incurred by the township engineers.

The other leverage the township has is that there is still money in escrow. The project, consisting of 281 homes, despite being started about 10 years ago, has not been offered to the township for dedication. Mason said the township would not consider dedication until everything on the homeowners association’s punch list is completed.

A representative of the homeowners association noted that because the roads are not dedicated, last winter residents spent more than $38,000 on snow removal. He wanted to know if Penn would take dedication prior to, or during, the upcoming winter. Supervisor Victor Mantegna told them there was no chance of that happening.