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Harmar project far short of permit requirements
Wednesday, June 14, 2000 By Don Hopey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The developer of the proposed $169 million Deer Creek Crossing project in Harmar is far short of meeting environmental requirements for a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.
The corps has concluded that Deer Creek and some adjacent wetlands are "high quality." To get a permit, the developer would be required to double the amount of replacement wetlands from its current plan.
Corps spokesman Richard Dowling said the agency also believes the developer, Woodmont-Orix, has not adequately considered other sites for the 275-acre commercial, office and movie complex.
The corps' conclusions on the site's aquatic resources are contained in a five-page letter sent last week to Joseph S. Howell III, the Texas-based development partner for Woodmont-Orix.
Contrary to the developer's assessment that an existing stream and wetlands are "low- to moderate-value habitats," the corps has decided they are "resources of significant quality within the region."
"At this point, the letter makes it clear the developer has not gone far enough to fulfill the requirements of the law," Dowling said. "He has to do more."
William Green, spokesman for the developer, said the letter is under review and a response will be filed in three to four weeks.
The letter questioned why the developer, in a site assessment in February, didn't explore an available adjacent property owned by Minerals Technology Inc. and rejected another site because of earth-moving costs, while planning to move more than 8.5 million cubic yards of dirt at its preferred site. Other, smaller parcels also were not assessed.
Woodmont Development Corp. of Fort Worth, Texas, and Orix Real Estate Equities of Chicago want to build the complex on a commercially desirable, pie-shaped parcel split by Deer Creek and bounded by the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Route 28 and Route 910.
To do so, the developer would fill in a valley containing more than six acres of wetlands and 2,700 feet of Deer Creek. The 275-acre site is owned by Pittsburgh businessman W. Duff McCrady. Deer Creek is a popular fishing stream and seven wetlands on the site were called "the best examples of flood plain forest and healthy marsh in the county" in a 1994 review by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.
The proposal has elicited more than 130 comment letters and caused the corps to hold a public hearing attended by more than 300.
The corps cited several deficiencies in the developer's plan to compensate for elimination of wetlands. One proposal the corps said it would not approve is letting the developer define catch basins for parking lot runoff as replacement wetlands.
The corps said the developer not only must replace the destroyed wetlands with the same acreage of wetlands on the site; it must add an equal amount of wetlands off-site to replace the lost function of the original wetlands. It also wants the developer to agree to a conservation easement that would prohibit future development along a 3,000-foot section of Deer Creek outside the project area.
The corps also said it does not like part of the plan that calls for cutting down a stand of trees in a flood plain along the creek north of the turnpike to build a replacement wetland.
The corps' letter concludes by saying that the developer must provide more documentation that the Harmar site "represents the least environmentally damaging practicable alternative," as required by law.
Because of all the corps' concerns, Dowling said it is "clear no decision can be made anytime this summer."
Brian Hill, vice president of watersheds for the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, said he was pleased by the letter because it confirmed the value of the stream and wetlands.
"Clearly there are a number of issues to be resolved, not the least of which is that the developer's preferred site may not be the most appropriate for this kind of development."
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Fish and Boat Commission have objected to the project. Harmar Township, the Allegheny Valley School District and Allegheny County favor the project, which would provide increased tax revenues to each entity.
County Council's economic development committee will meet today to discuss the project and the $20 million tax increment financing subsidy, or TIF, approved last year by county commissioners for a new interchange linking the development to Route 28. Money to pay off the TIF bonds, which can only be applied to an area designated as "blighted," would come from a portion of the project's annual taxes.
Opponents of the project have asked County Council to rescind the TIF approval. The county solicitor has ruled that council has the authority to do so.
"We have a lot of questions about how the TIF happened and how the area received a blighted designation," said Robert Silber of Clean Water Action, one of the opponents. "We don't think the area is blighted and we'd like them to show they went through some sort of process to make that determination."
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