So, Haverford Township Commissioners are you proud of yourselves right now? Ah yes, The News Of Delaware County is reporting on the death of Rugby Road in Bryn Mawr, PA.

This is a treasure of a street that I will mourn when it is destroyed by a developer, and can't you agree taking down these homes and replacing them with stucco cr*p carriage style McGarish McMonstrosities with Garage Mahals is criminal? (Uhhh, look out North Wayne, because in twin McMonster form, this is the cr*p style they wish for 236 North Aberdeen and isn't it ironic someone sent me this link: http://www.preservationnation.org/issues/teardowns/ today ?)

Rugby Road will be remembered for the gracious homes that once lined it's curving tree-lined street. Rugby Road will be remembered for the community that once existed there until it was no more. I walk Rugby Road often, and it already has a deserted,desolate, and alien feel.

I am amazed all things considered with the economy being what it is that this developer has the coin to do this right now. These homes don't have to come down, they shouldn't come down --- but with a 6-2 vote, we all know that government is at work once again. Once again there are no laws, no codes, no nothing to stand between a small neighborhood and a bulldozer.

Look at these photos of Rugby Road homes. They could be the ones targeted for demolition (who knows which ones the developer is choosing to kill first).
This developer is murdering a neighborhood and a sense of place and lovely homes and landscape all so he can flip a buck or two, and isn't that sickening?

If I had one wish, it would be for the new development market to crash and burn and take this and other ill begotten plans with it. No one gives a crap about what the residents of communities want along the Main Line or anyplace else. The only ones with the right to say boo are the developers. Money talks, the rest of us walks.

Congratulations Haverford Township. You are now in fine company with the rest of the pro-developer Main Line municipalities. You can't fix a friggin' pothole or get rid of a pawn shop on Lancaster Avenue, but you can pass the buck and vote 6-2 yes on a plan that will destroy one of the most bucolic little streets in your township.

Posted on Tue, Aug 19, 2008
Rugby Road plan clears hurdle
By Rosalie Pressman; Staff Writer

HAVERFORD TWP. - Commissioners voted 6-2 Aug. 11 to approve a preliminary subdivision plan by Rugby Partners, L.P., for properties at 729, 737, 749 and 763 Rugby Road.The plan, recommended by the township's planning commission, calls for construction of six homes.

Three older homes are being torn down for the construction.

Neighbors are worried that the storm water basin for the proposed Farley Homes development was insufficient, that the seepage bed was incompatible with the township's open space requirements and that the landscaping plan had not come before the township's shade tree commission.

"Because this plan has not fully satisfied township requirements, and the potential for serious damage, especially to the contiguous downstream neighboring properties, is severe the township should deny the plan," Doreen Saar, a Rugby Road resident, stated in a written statement to commissioners.

The township engineer, David Pennoni, assured the commissioners that the preliminary plan met all necessary township requirements.

Several neighbors also spoke against the plan on the basis that it was not aesthetically suitable for the surrounding community.

"Farley Homes is destroying our sense of community by squeezing in six vanilla stucco boxes whose face to our street is a garage door, Saar wrote.

I am going to say this is cr*p once again because this street, like so many others isn't broken. It's delightful. Now it will all be but a memory.

Proposed development worries area neighbors
By Amy Brisson, STAFF WRITER
04/12/2007

HAVERFORD TWP. - On the east side of the beautiful, tree-lined 700 block of Rugby Road, four old homes face the quiet street.

But neighbors fear this may be the last year those houses are left standing.

Purchased last fall by Villanova-based developers Farley Homes LLC, the four adjacent properties, totaling 2.147 acres, may soon become Haverford's newest development, called "Sherwood Mews," with as many as nine million-dollar homes.

"The neighbors are furious," said Diane Drentlaw, who lives on the other side of the street from the proposed development. "We're disturbed about the density."

The homes, previously owned by Bryn Mawr Terrace were sold without the community's knowledge, according to neighbors.

They found out that the properties were due to be developed only when Drentlaw, who is a realtor, saw them on a realty listing, advertising "The Main Line's newest community, Sherwood Mews, an enclave of nine elegant English style carriage homes." The ad promises the homes will be available in the fall of 2007.

In another listing (current as of March 22) Farley Homes offers all four properties, "with the potential for nine lots," for sale for $2,950,000.

"He intends to put more than two houses on each lot and they will be big," said Drentlaw. "It will be sort of a wall of houses along here."