WESTFALL, PA — Safety concerns about a gas pipeline kept the Delaware Valley School District from building a new elementary school on a U.S. Route 6/209 tract and now the district is close to selling the property.

Pending the Milford Township Planning Commission’s approval of a subdivision, Delaware Valley is selling approximately 35 acres of the 45-acre parcel, commonly referred to as “the Biondo property,” district Business Manager Bill Hessling said.

The district board of school directors conditionally approved a $1.55 million sale to the non-profit Conservation Fund at its July meeting.

The sale area includes the undeveloped land nearest the Delaware River and would be retained as undeveloped land by the fund, or its successors.

The remaining +/-10acres, fronting upon and closer to the highway, is to be subdivided into two parcels and sold as commercial property. Whether the district recovers its original investment or not depends on the subdivision and the proceeds of the sale of those remaining parcels, Hessling said.

After discussions began in 2007, when the tract was priced at $2.95 million, the district purchased the tract from Joseph Biondo and CBH Holding in 2011 for $1.75 million, to accommodate construction of a new elementary school. When the natural gas pipeline right-of-way on the property led to a public outcry about its safety, the plan was abandoned, and eventually a new school site was found in Matamoras.

In unrelated business, the board held to a conservative June spending position about planning for the career technology education wing to be built adjoining the high school on the Westfall campus. After a July discussion, the board agreed to stick to the $25,000 expenditure approved for architectural renderings of the project, and defer additional funding for cost estimates until those renderings detailed which programs would be housed in the new addition.