Leg Up Farm Moves Closer to Reality
11/6/2003
After six years of planning, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for Leg Up Farm.
A subdivision plan for a 15-acre center that will provide virtually every form of therapy for children with special needs was approved last week by the East Manchester Planning Commission. The plan is now expected to go before the township supervisors Tuesday.
“Well, I guess it’s one more challenge overcome,” said Lou Castriota, Jr., who has spearheaded the project for six years. “I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
‘Quality of Life’: The proposed 77,000 square-foot facility at 4248 N. Sherman St. Extended will offer traditional physical, speech and occupational therapies, as well as nontraditional therapies, including horseback riding, aquatherapy, massage and sensory play.
“It’s important that we give everyone in our community an opportunity to have a great quality of life,” Castriota said.
Once the subdivision plans are approved, the next step would be for the planning commission to consider Leg Up Farm’s land development plans, which cover such things as driveways and storm-water retention. If the commission approves land development plans Nov. 25, they would then go to the supervisors for final approval, said planning commission secretary Robert Nace.
Castriota said he hopes to break ground next year, and the center could open in 2005.
Garnering support: Castriota, 33, who is general sales manager for Fox 45 in Baltimore, says he knows of no other facility quite like Leg Up Farm.
For more than a year, Castriota has been lobbying in Harrisburg and has gained the support of local legislators. They’ve urged Gov. Ed Rendell to release $4.56 million in capital redevelopment assistance funds for the project. If those grants are approved, Leg Up Farm will roll out a capital campaign to match those funds, to reach the start-up goal of slightly more than $9 million.
In addition, in a letter to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education, U.S. Rep. Todd Platts, R-York County, has requested a $1 million grant for Leg Up Farm.
Inspired by daughter: Castriota began working on Leg Up Farm more than five years ago, inspired by his now 7-year-old daughter, Brooke, who has mitochondrial disease, similar to cerebral palsy.
As he began to seek various therapies for Brooke, Castriota realized it would be less stressful for patients and their families if treatments could be found at a single, child-oriented site.
In 2001, landowner Barbara Warren gave 18.5 acres of her 200-acre property on North Sherman Street Extended as a home for Leg Up Farm.
In March, the East Manchester Township Zoning Hearing Board approved a special exception to the township zoning ordinance, allowing plans for Leg Up Farm to more forward.
By TED CZECH, The York Dispatch/Sunday News