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North Huntingdon Township Planning Commission members on Monday got their first look at the site plan for the Norwin School District's new Hahntown Elementary School.

Jeff Ivanco, a representative of architect N. John Cunzolo Associates, of Pittsburgh, presented drawings that showed where the school will be positioned on the site, which is part of the Norwin High School campus.

The school building will be very similar to the Sheridan Terrace school, Ivanco said, including a two-story classroom wing and a one-story cafeteria, gymnasium and library section. The school also will feature full-sized football and softball practice fields.

Ivanco said an effort has been made to separate bus traffic from other traffic as parents drop off and pick up their children, and to allow all deliveries to the new school to be made through the high school campus rather than through the Hahntown area.

Township planning director Allen Cohen told Ivanco that the district must submit landscaping and lighting plans, along with the specifications for a new road that will be built to serve the high school campus, before the township can consider approval of the project.

The township's zoning hearing board already has granted a special exception for the school to be built at the site, and Ivanco said the district is consulting with the state Department of Environmental Protection on other issues.

The district hopes to begin construction as soon as possible, Ivanco said, and occupy the new school in time for the 2007-08 school year.

In other business, Cohen outlined a new population report for the planners, noting that as of Jan.1, 2005, the township's population had increased by about 800 since the 2000 census, when the population was 29,123.

Cohen said the new figure is based on actual birth and death rates, the number of new houses built and the number of people leaving the township because of job changes, graduations and other issues.

Cohen noted the township's death rate currently is higher than the birth rate.

"This means that the replacement population isn't there, everything being equal," Cohen said. "But everything is not equal."

But Cohen pointed out that the large number of homes built in the township since 2000 led to the population increase, despite the difference in birth and death rates.

Cohen said he expects the death rate to exceed the birth rate for at least the next 10 years.

Around 2020, Cohen said, younger households may begin to replace older households, and the average age in the township could drop below the current average of 42 years.

Cohen also noted that the average selling price of a home in the township has jumped from just under $100,000 in 2000 to almost $144,000 this year.

Cohen attributed that 9 percent per year increase to the multitude of higher-priced homes -- in the $200,000 to $300,000 range -- built in recent years.

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