The zoning hearing Wednesday night over a supersized Marple home ended with a tentative agreement between the neighbors, the township and the owner during negotiations at the meeting. The home at 2 Willowbrook Road is owned by Marple Newtown School Board member Nick Reynolds, who owns township businesses, including Delco Steaks, Marple Public House and the Splash LLC pool complex. The home has a footprint of 3,900 square feet in a neighborhood where most homes are split levels with a third of that. Reynolds, a life-long Marple resident, and his wife, Alana, purchased the home that was there in February for $600,000. It is located in the R1 Zoning District. In April, the couple began a project to enlarge the existing structure to house their family of five. After submitting plans, contractors began work on the home. As work moved along from what was originally a project to enlarge the existing home to building a new one, complaints from residents brought officials to the property weekly until Aug. 22, when the township entered a stop-work order after the zoning violation issues came to a head. By that point, Reynolds estimated he had invested over $700,000 in work on the structure. In October, dozens of residents attended a zoning board hearing on Reynolds’ request for variances after Marple Township shut down the project in August. John McBlain representing Marple Township, said the agreement includes having an engineer present a revised plan and fulfill two requests of the neighbors. Lee Stivale, representing the property owners, said they believe all parties have suggested a reasonable agreement and it will be put in writing. Homes nearby the Willowbrook Road construction site are dwarfed by the house under construction. (PETE BANNAN-DAILY TIMES) McBlain said the revised plans needs to show three changes: removing a structure over the basement steps, reducing the rear porch to conform to setbacks and fit within the building envelope, and reducing the garage to conform to the building envelope requirements. McBlain said the township wouldn’t oppose a variance for the corners of the building that remained outside the building envelope. He called it a small amount. He said the last issue was the building coverage percentage was still being negotiated. He said they will either achieve compliance or come to an agreement on what to recommend to the zoning board. Neighbor Bob Duncan, who has been the spokesperson for the neighbors, said the neighbors are in agreement on two conditions. One, the owner would install some type of buffering such as plantings with the adjacent neighbors on two sides, and the second issue that the building owner would install stormwater management provisions approved by the engineer and in concert with the neighbors. The owners, township and neighbors have come to agreement to allow this Marple Township home at 2 Willowbrook Road to continue construction. (PETE BANNAN-DAILY TIMES) The township engineer would then review the plans and determine what variances would be needed. McBlain said the township view is “we can come to some agreement that makes everybody, if not happy, at least satisfied.” McBlain said he had asked for 10 minutes at the start of the meeting for the negotiations, and despite the fact that the time stretched into hours, it was still less than the time that would have been required for both sides to present their testimony. The zoning board said it will keep the case open and the hearing will be continued until the next meeting when they receive the agreement from the parties. That will be Dec. 18.