Two months after losing its appeal in federal court regarding a proposed development in New Hanover, the Colmar developer submitted a partial revision on the project to the municipality. Earlier this month, RP Wynstone L.P. delivered a new application for the development of 204 acres near the intersection of Swamp Pike and Route 663.

            The proposal for the New Hanover Town Center, received April 14 by the municipality, calls for 695 total residences – including 188 single-family units, 394 townhouses/twin units, 103 atrium units, one detached dwelling unit and nine mixed-use family units – as well as 315,000 square feet of commercial space, including 118 hotel rooms, according to information posted on the township's Facebook page.

            The new submission has been scheduled for consideration by the township's planning commission on May 13, according to information provided by Manager Jamie Gwynn. He wrote in an email message received Tuesday that the revisions are connected to an April 7, 2025, submission from the developer. The plan continues the developer's initial application, dated July 13, 2005, that received preliminary plan approval two years later.

            A separate, but similar plan for the property – submitted Nov. 30, 2021, that calls for the development of 638 residents and more than 315,000 feet of commercial and office space on 195 acres – is on hold until September, according to Gwynn. The application identifies a proposal to create 187 single-family units, 437 townhouses and single homes and 13 others described as mixed-use, multi-family units.

            In February, a judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia issued a 58-page order granting a motion from lawyers representing the township to dismiss a developer's claim that its civil rights had been violated. The decision, from Judge Joel H. Slomsky, states that all claims made by the plaintiffs in an amended complaint have exceeded the required statute of limitations.

            The federal lawsuit, filed March 5, 2024, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, alleges "that the defendants' actions are motivated by troubling racial bias to exclude minorities" from residing in the township. It claims that the defendants have taken "extreme measures…to shut down development at all costs."

            In the lawsuit, R.P. Wynstone, L.P, and a collection of property owners claimed the defendants – through a years-long campaign of hindrance and delay – have disrupted development and violated the landowners' property rights by reviewing development applications in bad faith, passing restrictive ordinances designed to make development commercially unfeasible, and even outright ignoring a presiding judge's directive to hold off on deciding on the application, pending litigation.

            The plaintiffs – who requested a jury trial – claim to have sustained damages in excess of $150 million, according to the text of the suit, filed by a Philadelphia law firm. Its list of defendants included New Hanover Township Authority, the Board of Supervisors of New Hanover Township, Gwynn, Thomas Miskiewicz, chair of the township's sewer authority; former supervisor Charles Garner; planning commission members Russel Oister, Susan Smith and William Moyer; Knight Engineering Inc. and Daniel Gray, the township's appointed engineer; Cedarville Engineering Group, LLC, the former engineering firm, and Robert Flinchbaugh, who previously served the municipality as its appointed engineer.

            The original suit identified the appointment of Moyer – a former municipal police officer accused of using racist language – to the planning commission two years ago as intent to exclude minorities and shut down development at all costs.