New Bedner Development is ‘Going to Connect’ to Main Street

The controversial new Bedner neighborhood in Upper St. Clair is “going to connect” to Main Street in Bridgeville, the developers asserted last week.

“It is going to connect,” Heartland Home President Marty Gillespie said at an Upper St. Clair planning meeting on Oct. 18.

That surely is news to Bridgeville residents, who thought the Main Street entrance was nixed when their town found information that the road is closed unless the two homeowners on both sides agree to reopen it.

In fact, Gillespie told the USC planning commission that Bridgeville’s lawyer, Richard Ferris, wrote the township a letter saying they wouldn’t be contesting the connection. Our sister website at Upper St. Clair Patch reported on Monday that Gillespie insinuated Bridgeville was rolling over to the new development.

That was definitely news to Ferris, who told Chartiers Valley Patch on Tuesday that he has not spoken to the developers and that Bridgeville isn’t conceding the Main Street entrance point. Ferris said he knows of no new information about Bedner buying out the homeowners or forcing Bridgeville to open Main Street to the neighborhood development.

“That's not correct,” Ferris said of Main Street being opened to the Bedner development.

During the Bridgeville Borough Council’s meeting on July 9, Ferris said the law states that "any street not open for 21 years cannot reopen without the consent of 51 percent of the owners." That means the small portion of grass between Main Street and the Bedner Farm, which is in Bridgeville, is literally a roadblock to any entrance.

The Upper St. Clair Planning Commission voted on Oct. 18 to subdivide the former Bedner's Farm land into two lots. The developer hopes to get final approval on the plan in the next few months.