Homeowner suing Lower Pottsgrove over collapsing retaining wall

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LOWER POTTSGROVE Time is the enemy for an Allison Drive homeowner who is fighting the township over a deteriorating retaining wall that threatens to fall on his home and those of his neighbors.

Steve Knepp bought his town home in 2006, before the deterioration of the retaining wall behind his home was evident.

His home is one of a dozen or so connected homes that back up against a steep red-shale cliff that looms over the homes, which were built around 1990 by a builder named Jonathan R. Slott and named Liberty Hills, according to documents filed with the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas.

The retaining wall runs the length of the development behind the homes, varying in height from five to twenty feet high and is at or near its highest behind Knepps unit.

There are also houses on top of that wall, on Terrace Hill Court, and the home behind Knepps unit has a drainage pipe that dumps stormwater off that property and onto and behind the retaining wall, said Knepp.

The failure to provide for drainage behind the retaining wall, built in steps with pressure-treated wooden beams, is the cause of much of the deterioration, Knepp believes.

In the lawsuit he filed in April, Knepp contended that the township required that the retaining wall to be built, but never issued any permits for its construction and never had it inspected when it was completed.

In a nutshell, Lower Pottsgrove Township ordered a retaining wall to be built, ignored their responsibility to administer building codes, looked the other way while it was being built hoping and praying a bankrupt developer would perform. Now that the wall is in a rapid state of decay, crumbling and near collapse, they say its not their responsibility because its on private property, Knepp wrote in an e-mail to The Mercury.

The township had complete, total jurisdiction while the wall was being built, and by virtue of their letter telling me the wall needs to be fixed they still assert jurisdiction, while at the same time denying any responsibility or culpability, Knepp wrote.

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Homeowner suing Lower Pottsgrove over collapsing retaining wall