The Sanatoga Post

NO INJURIES, ONLY MINOR DAMAGE – Occasionally violent thunderstorms, heavy rains and sporadic winds made local driving an adventure during the just-ended Easter holiday weekend. Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township police responded Saturday (April 23, 2011) to the scene of yet another vehicle that wound up in a drainage ditch at the curve on the south side of North Pleasant View Road in front of the entrance to the former Saylor’s farm, between Donna Lane and North Sanatoga Road. Most drivers caught here travel a little too quickly down the hill south from Sanatoga Road, most often under wet or icy conditions, and fail to negotiate the curve. The young driver in Saturday’s incident (above) was startled but not injured. His car received relatively minor damage (corner bottom right), was quickly towed out of the ditch (corner bottom left). He was able to drive away.

The former Saylor farm house on North Pleasant View Road ...

SANATOGA PA – An almost 9-acre property at 1559 N. Pleasant View Rd. in Sanatoga, which has preliminary approval from Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township for construction of up to 13 single-family homes, is being put up for auction by its current owner, an affiliate of The Gambone Company of East Norriton PA.

The land is better known to some local residents as the remaining portion of the historic Saylor homestead and farm, which dates back to the early 1800s. It also has a decades-long reputation of being located at an automobile accident-prone, S-shaped curve on North Pleasant View as it climbs the Sanatoga Ridge north between Foxtail Drive and North Sanatoga Road.

1559 N. Pleasant View Rd.

The auction of the parcel owned by 1559 North Pleasantview Road Inc. will be conducted by Ken Geyer Real Estate Auctioneers and is scheduled for May 24 (2011; Tuesday) at noon on the farm. The auction is currently being promoted both on the Geyer website, and by two small signs that were placed on the property this week.

• Also scheduled for auction by Geyer, and also for May 24 but at 11 a.m., is an even larger Gambone-owned and township-approved subdivision of 29 single family home lots on almost 35 acres on Pruss Hill Road.

Documents that accompany promotional information about the properties indicate both are residential developments just waiting to be built. However, they offer no explanation why long-time developer Gambone – which until only weeks ago was advertising the North Pleasant View farmhouse as available for lease or rent – is choosing now to sell it and the Pruss Hill Road holding. Company President Joseph R. Gambone Jr. could not be reached Thursday (March 31) for comment.

Geyer documents show the North Pleasant View property:

• Consists of 8.96 gross acres;
• Is located in an R2 residential zone;
• Has been mapped for 13 proposed single-family home lots;
• Incurred Pottsgrove School District taxes during 2010-2011 in the amount of $8,739.74, and township and Montgomery County taxes for the same period in the amount of $1,300;
• Until October 2010 was leased to a tenant who paid $1,400 a month in rent;
• Has been treated for termites; and
• As the “Saylor Tract Subdivision,” has necessary development approvals from the township Board of Commissioners (as recently as March 2008), the township Zoning Hearing Board (as of July 2007), the state Department of Environmental Protection, the borough of Pottstown (for public water service), the state Department of Transportation (PennDOT), the Montgomery County Conservation District, and the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

... and its accompanying barn.

The property is surrounded on two sides (west and south) by residential housing already constructed on what formerly were other portions of the original farm. It is bordered on the east by North Pleasant View, and on the north by open pasture that is part of a different, and also approved-but-as-yet-undeveloped, residential community.

PennDOT and the township have talked for more than 20 years about straightening the S-shaped curve to make it less hazardous. One impediment has always been a lack of money; re-routing the road was estimated to carry a substantial cost that neither the state or township were willing to bear.

Another problem was a lack of space; the best redesign of the roadway, it has been said, would cut diagonally across the Gambone-owned parcel. That would have been impossible with homes in the way. But the tract is still undeveloped, and now that it will be auctioned some home owners in the neighboring subdivision are asking if the time is right for a government entity to step up, buy the property, and straighten the curve.

“I know, I know,” one resident of nearby Donna Lane said Thursday, “we’re back to the money again.”

Photos from Geyer Auctions; map from Google Maps