Lack of oversight to blame for landslides, says North Strabane Township
Observer-Reporter
This October 2018 photo shows three homes in the Majestic Hills housing plan near where a landslide developed earlier that year. The three houses in North Strabane Township were later condemned and demolished.
Observer-Reporter
This October 2018 photo shows the landslide in the Majestic Hills development in North Strabane Township that caused the condemnation and demolition of three houses.
North Strabane Township manager Andrew Walz said Sunday evening a complete lack of oversight has led to the landslides at the Majestic Hills development.
The Majestic Hills homeowners association held a meeting at the township’s municipal building to update residents on the situation. Though they allowed nearby residents that don’t live in the Majestic Hills plan to sit in on the initial information portion and leave for the official HOA meeting, members of the media were barred from the talk as a whole.
Several residents, like Garrett Andre, left the meeting hopeful with the township’s plan. Nick Sherman said there were tons of questions directed at Walz and he did his best to address them.
HOA board member Brian Garner said after the meeting residents felt comfortable asking questions about what may happen next and felt the meeting went well.
“The township has really stepped up over the last several days. Since Thursday night, it’s been a very difficult situation, obviously, and the township has come out and shown some real leadership,” he said. “I’ve been pleased with how they’ve been able to turn a horrible situation around and at least get it mitigated so that we’re not worrying about safety right now.”
Work for a wall on Forest Lane Drive close to Oakwood Drive should begin within 48 to 72 hours, Garner said. Raw materials have been ordered. A second slide near Bentwood Drive will be addressed next.
“We think Oakwood can be saved with some major construction projects that should start by Tuesday,” Garner said.
Garner said the organization met with an engineer and contractor Sunday, and both were ready to move forward with work. The township has been supportive. He added that focus now was on making sure corrective action was taken so homes were safe and any legal action would be handled by other entities later.
“We continue to monitor Oakwood Drive … We’re going to move forward with putting up a wall at the side of that hill to stabilize Oakwood so that we have two permanent access points into the development,” Walz said after the meeting. “The demolished houses are going to be removed tomorrow (Monday) and that’s where we stand.”
Walz said he felt residents were supportive of all the township has done over the last four days.
“We actually had people making us dinner and cooking us pies. The residents up there have been fantastic. I would say there’s a lot of disdain for the developer or a lack of trust,” Walz said.
The slide in the land near Oakwood Lane in North Strabane Township’s Majestic Hills housing plan caused township officials to close one lane of the road indefinitely Thursday night. Homes were demolished Friday. The township has been dealing with the slide, which caused three homes to be condemned, since June. Joe DeNardo, part owner of the development corporation, Majestic Hills LLC, was ordered in late September by the state Department of Environmental Protection to clean and stabilize the second slide.
Walz spoke to the specific challenges that resulted in the Majestic Hills slides.
“(The developer is) in violation of his National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits, so the stormwater controls up there aren’t working the way they were ever supposed to work. The land was never compacted the way it was supposed to be compacted. It’s just a complete lack of oversight by him and anyone he hired to work on that development,” Walz said.
DeNardo previously told the Observer-Reporter the township and other regulators are partially to blame for the stormwater issues the development has faced due to building mandates, saying officials “approve the plans, then we build them, then there are issues with what they approve and what they mandated.”
Residents say DeNardo has not been communicative and they expected more.
“We had some expectations of our developer early on, and I don’t think those expectations were met. We’ve tried to uncover documentation to prove that … There have been very few conversations with the developer. We would like to have some more of them, but they have not occurred,” Garner said.
Though the township has categorized the landslide situation as a state of emergency, officials don’t feel the situation falls within the classification for a state of emergency at the county level.
Other North Strabane residents not part of the Majestic Hills subdivision also came to Sunday’s meeting hoping for answers from the township. But George Dodworth, who rents a home on Coachside Drive to Christopher Forman, said he didn’t feel welcome.
Forman’s home is in the Meadow Lake development and the two have struggled to find answers to the large hole threatening the home that began to develop two weeks ago. Forman said he moved his daughter out of her bedroom because of her proximity to the slip, which has also caused Dodworth to take the deck off the home with a chainsaw. He said this home is also on the verge of being destroyed.
“I’m next,” Forman fears.
He said the original 8-foot hole has grown to 20 feet due to a sewer line repair, with water seeping in. Forman said he feels officials aren’t concerned with saving homes, but only impacted roadways below. Dodworth said they just want answers, which they aren’t getting.