ADAMS TWP — Township supervisors gave tentative approval to a new development, pending decisions on floodplain status by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Rightmeyer Estates would be at the intersection of Glade Run Road and Davidson Road.

A hearing was held last week to discuss the planned residential development, which would contain 30 homes. Some residents spoke up at the previous meeting over concerns that the development may be in a flood plain.

Residents returned to the Board of Supervisors meeting Monday to voice their concerns.

“Glade Run has flooded, sometimes egregiously, in the past, and it will flood in the future,” said Adams resident Lisa Chodkowski on Monday. “According to current weather trends, it will probably flood worse in the future. Do you want that to be your legacy, that those homes were built, and an egregious flooding event happened and there was a catastrophe in the township?”

At the Board of Supervisors meeting Monday, the supervisors decided to approve the plan with conditions, with their final decision awaiting FEMA’s opinion on a hydrology and hydraulics study ordered by the developer.

Township manager Gary Peaco said that the property does sit within a flood plain according to current maps, but the current maps have not been updated. The goal of the new study is to provide updated flooding information.

“What’s listed on the FEMA website is old. It’s not a study; it’s an estimate of where it is at,” he said. “What the developer is doing is an actual study, of the elevation and all the engineering they have to go through to do this. That study defines the flood plain. FEMA has the final say-so whether they agree or don’t agree.”

Peaco said that the township is adamant about not wanting to have houses in a flood plain, and added that the original development included more homes. But the number was reduced in the planning process in response to the flooding concerns.

Russ Ford, township supervisor chairman, described asking FEMA for the final say as a way to make sure that experts are involved in the process.

“We’re not interested in letting anyone build anything in a flood plain,” Ford said. “We know that there are a lot of decisions made in this room, that there’s this side which likes it, and this side which doesn’t like it, and unfortunately, that’s what happens in politics. From a legacy standpoint, I would rather know we are going to take all of the steps that we could possibly need, and we are going to let the professionals make the decision of whether this is a floodplain or not a floodplain.”