Lower Macungie Township recently acquired a 2.66 acre parcel of land from a private residence, adding to the township’s existing roughly 17 acres of open and undeveloped land along Spring Creek Road.

The residents will retain 2.34 acres of their original property.

The Lower Macungie Planning Commission aims to eventually extend the existing trail system along the Little Lehigh Creek west from Farmington Hills to intersect with Route 100.

According to the Southwestern Lehigh Comprehensive plan, the objective of the township is to “preserve areas along major creeks in as natural a condition as possible.”

Lower Macungie Planning Commission members also reviewed the final plan of the Fields at Indian Creek land development project submitted by Kay Builders at their meeting Oct. 13. The site, located at 3640 Cedar Crest Blvd., will ultimately feature 218 active units; though the proposed first phase of construction will only feature 43 units. The submitted construction plan contains five phases total. The first phase will also construct a community center complete with a swimming pool and a pickle ball court.

The Commission’s approval of the project is contingent on the construction of a bike path to be installed along the frontage of the Indian Creek Road. The proposed bike path would intersect with an existing golf cart path from the former Indian Creek golf course to eventually provide pathway access to Cedar Crest Boulevard near North Street.

Planning Commissioner George Doughty opposed approval of the construction plan, citing Lower Macungie Township should not be the municipality to hold final approval. The project is located within the boundaries of Lower Macungie Township, Upper Milford Township and the Borough of Emmaus.

Less than three acres of the project is located in Lower Macungie, while the majority of development resides in the other two municipalities. No residential homes are scheduled to be constructed in Lower Macungie’s parcel of land.

“Maybe we should be approving later instead of early,” Doughty voiced. “Why should we be the first to approve it?”

“It’s not in our township,” Maury Robert, vice chair of the commission, said.

A motion was passed to send a recommendation of final approval of the project to the board of commissioners and advisory letters to both Upper Milford Township and the Borough of Emmaus regarding the proposed pathways through their respective municipalities. Representatives of Upper Milford Township attended the meeting but declined to comment during the proceedings or for this story. The representatives left shortly after the motion was carried.

The planning commissioners reviewed the MLP Brothers final land development plan for a 12,000 square foot two-story medical office building located on the west side of Mill Creek Road. The current plan contains 79 parking spaces; 78 parking spaces are required. Contention arose over the installment of an access way to adjacent properties, namely Firestone Tire and Rubber Company and Lower Macungie Middle School to the south.

“In all cases that we can, we try to have traffic that goes from one part of a commercial property to another to be able to do that without going on a road,” Robert explained. “We will also be requiring that of the school district property.”

The access way would eliminate between two and four parking spaces from the medical office’s parking lot, thus dropping the plan below the requisite number of parking spaces.

“We understand that you’d like to see [the access way], and we’re saying it’s going to be difficult,” Timothy Charlesworth, representing MLP Brothers, said.

The Beit Simcha Messanic Fellowship project was also discussed. The plan was tabled with no action taken.