Zoning Waiver Means Tennis Courts Can Stay at School

The Tredyffrin Township Zoning Hearing Board Thursday night voted 3-1 in favor of a variance that will allow the Tredyffrin/Easttown School District to keep tennis courts at Valley Forge Elementary School while adding impervious parking spaces, Main Line Media News is reporting.

The decision is a victory for neighbors of the school who lobbied to stop the courts from being bulldozed back in March. The MLMN article lays out what the variance means for the school district and township:

The Tredyffrin-Easttown School District gets to add 24 needed parking spaces to the bustling school on Walker Road and doesn’t have to spend $24,000 of its budget monies to bulldoze the tennis courts. It remained unclear at press time what the construction company will charge the district for breach of contract, but the district’s architect estimated at a prior school board facilities committee meeting that a fee of perhaps 20 percent would be customary.

Tredyffrin Township can wash its hands of the matter and move on to more pressing budgetary issues precipitated by a revenue shortfall and attendant cuts in services and staff.

The decision marks the end of a dispute over the fate of the tennis courts, which has been uncertain since 2008, more publicly so in recent months. See these previous articles for more information:

• Tennis Court Demolition Postponed [Updated]
• School District to Discuss Tennis Courts Tuesday Night
• Coach: I'll Pay for Tennis Courts
• TESD Committee to Make Tennis Courts Decision Friday
• T/E School District to Seek Zoning Variance for Tennis Courts