Resource(s): www.timesonline.com/site/news.cfm?brd=2305

Philadelphia Needs Modern Zoning Plan for Effective Smart Growth

On a fast track up after a decades-long slip, Philadelphia needs ''a smart, modern zoning plan that allows us to grow in a smart way,'' writes Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Tom Ferrick Jr., not amused that its incongruous zoning code lets the Department of Licenses and Inspections issue an over-the-counter developer permit for a 47-story condo tower north of Center City, but deny it to other section residents for standard four-foot high picket fences around their lots.

The code, the columnist finds, allows a three-and-a-half-foot maximum fence height, and the residents ''had to shell out $200 for an appeal to the Zoning Board of Adjustment to get a variance.''

Adopted in 1962, constantly fatted with amendments, but never streamlined, ''the code has morphed into a 624-page behemoth that is considered unreadable and unfathomable.''

In contrast to the less than 100-page codes with 10 or 12 zoning types in most cities, Philadelphia's code includes no fewer than 55 different designations, making affected residents, neighborhood advocates and also developers spend hours each month to navigate the variances and the permitting process maze.

Although the Building Association of Philadelphia endorsed its consultant Karen Black's ''If We Fix It, They Will Come'' report, which recommended a thorough rewrite of the code two years ago, no one hopes the rewrite will start before a new mayor takes office in 2008 and pushes for change despite ''many political obstacles.''

The columnist mentions one. ''Community groups, used to the devil they know, may be suspicious of a new code, thinking it would lead to unregulated development,'' he writes, while offering this proposal: ''Let's make a new zoning code one of the issues in the mayor's race this year and next.'' -- Philadelphia Inquirer   4/19/2006

Resource(s): www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/

Condo Boom Bringing Homes, Shops and Restaurants to Philadelphia's Center City -- But No Schools

With Philadelphia's condo boom, which may bring another 10,000 residents to its Center City by 2010, planners and developers are working on shops, restaurants, garages and almost everything except schools, while the two best, the Independence Charter School and the private Philadelphia School, are already bursting at the seams, writes Philadelphia Inquirer architecture critic Inga Safron, cautioning, ''Unless Philadelphia provides schools, parks and recreation to go along with all the new housing, Center City is in danger of becoming a bland ghetto of the wealthy and childless.''

She particularly faults the school district, run by the School Reform Commission, citing the plight of the KB7 Independence Charter School, known for its great Spanish-language immersion program, strong test scores, and diverse student backgrounds and family incomes.

Although the school has 200 children on its fall kindergarten waiting lists, but no space for them, principal Jurate Krokys lost his $5 million bid for an old decommissioned school and will have to look for an expansion site elsewhere, since a condo developer offered the school district $6 million.

The district's charter school administrator William Tomasco said the reform commission decided it needs ''every nickel and dime it can get,'' also fearing a perception that Center City has ''too many high-end schools.''

The KB8 Philadelphia School may fare better bidding for a $3 million half-acre city-owned lot, because ''the city doesn't see the sale purely in terms of money,'' the writer stresses, noting that the Center City Residents Association endorsed the proposal.

Concerned about ''the assumption that Center City, like many of America's reviving downtowns, is destined to become the exclusive province of childless empty nesters, singles or DINK couples -- double-income, no kids -- who need only good restaurants, shops and cultural outposts to be happy,'' she writes, ''But Center City isn't like those other American downtowns. It has always been a vital, living place because one generation of children has followed another.'' -- Philadelphia Inquirer   4/16/2006

Resource(s): www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/

Lancaster County Outlines $25 Million Bond Plan for Community Improvement, Land Protection Programs

Working on smart growth since they took seats in early 2004, the Lancaster County commissioners earmarked $4.5 million for three new community improvement and land protection programs this year, plus $8 million for the Agricultural Preserve Board -- with urban recipients required to add twice the money received and others obliged to match their grants -- and promised the same total of $12.5 million in 2007 funds, all from the $25 million bond issue they expect to approve within a month.

''Our goal is to reinvest not only in our developed environment,'' said Commissioner Molly Henderson, ''but also in our natural environment, which includes natural lands, and public recreation areas that make both our rural and urban communities more attractive and livable.''

Accordingly, reports Lancaster Intelligencer Journal writer P.J. Reilly, the new Urban Enhancement Fund will offer $2.5 million for site or building reuse projects; and the Natural Preservation Fund and the Farmland Preservation Fund will provide $1 million each to the Lancaster County Conservancy and the Lancaster Farmland Preservation Trust, respectively.

Conservancy executive director Ralph Goodno said the nonprofit group ''will have no problem'' raising the $1 million in matching money for acquisition of key woodland tracts in the Furnace Hills, Welsh Mountain, Octoraro Creek and River Hills areas.

County officials also voiced optimism. ''These new funding programs will help sustain Lancastrians' vision of a balanced community where urban centers prosper, natural landscapes flourish and farming is strengthened,'' observed County Planning Commission executive director James Cowhey. ''These are integral components of our diverse economy and cultural heritage.'' -- Intelligencer Journal   4/4/2006

Resource(s): www.lancasteronline.com/

Southwest Pennsylvania Turning to Smart Growth for Community Planning

Hurt by the collapse of the steel industry, the Pittsburgh region's economy can be best recharged through smart growth, thanks to its focus on community and land preservation, optimal use of public and private resources, and fix-it-first and regional policies, reports Pittsburgh Business Journal writer Tim Schooley, quoting 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania policy director Grant Ervin, who says, ''People are understanding that we need to change the way we do business,'' and Sustainable Pittsburgh executive director Court Gould, who adds, ''It's about how to make the most of the region's investments.''

These and similar-minded groups, the writer observes, are becoming increasingly influential. In 2004, Friends of Pennsylvania helped create the 30-company Pennsylvania Community Development Coalition, which played an important role in garnering public support for Democratic Governor Ed Rendell's $625 million Growing Greener II bond issuance, and is now campaigning for a new historic preservation law.

Community development companies are indeed among the most effective advocates for smart growth, agrees Cool Space Locator real-estate firm president Kyra Straussman, saying her nonprofit, which helps fledgling businesses obtain office space, has ''been actually doing smart growth more than 30 years.''

Although still hampered by the enormous fragmentation of the state's jurisdictional system and by municipal competition, most its southwestern counties, the experts stress, are taking advantage of the 2000 law changes that allowed multi-governmental planning coordination and working on comprehensive land-use plans, some for the first time.

Equally encouraging is smart growth's appeal on the local level, even in seemingly unlikely places, notes director Ervin, mentioning fast-growing Cranberry Township, some 20 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. ''Formerly a national poster child for sprawl, Cranberry has some of the most ambitious smart growth zoning and ordinances in the state,'' he says. ''They are now steering development to try and create a new center community of mixed-use development.'' -- Pittsburgh Business Journal   2/20/2006

Resource(s): www.bizjournals.com/

Growing Greener II Protects 37 Pennsylvania Farms, 3,360 Acres in 2005

Under his $625-million Growing Greener II initiative, approved by voters and signed into law last year, Democratic Governor Edward G. Rendell released a record amount of $102 million in state funds and $45 million in matching money from 15 counties for the Agricultural Conservation Easement Purchase Program, with the state's farmland preservation board expanding the program onto another 37 farms totaling 3,630 acres.

''Agriculture is our state's number one industry, and through this program, we are helping ensure that it remains strong for generations,'' the governor said, confident the state ''will be able to protect an additional 2,000 farms'' over six years.

According to the state's press release, Pennsylvania already leads the nation in farmland preservation, with a total of 2,783 farms and 318,350 acres saved from development, and with 55 of its 67 counties enrolled in the easement purchase program so far.   2/16/2006

Resource(s): www.state.pa.us/

Neighborhood Schools Vital to Community Health, EPA Expert Tells Pottstown Planning Commission

With a school's size and location traditionally among the main factors in its educational and community effectiveness, the past five decades of consolidating small neighborhood schools into mega-structures, mostly on urban edges, has produced few results other than more costs, traffic congestion, tailpipe emissions, air pollution, missed student opportunities to walk or bike, and related health risks, said EPA Smart Growth Program policy analyst Tim Torma, the agency's school strategy focused on renovating old schools, locating new ones in core areas and making all more accessible on foot.

Invited by Pottstown Planning Commission Chairman Thomas Hylton to discuss the subject with the Borough Council and school board members, reports Pottstown Mercury writer Evan Brandt, the EPA expert pointed out that the number of schools nationally has dropped from 262,000 in 1930 to 90,000 now, while student enrollment has doubled.

Mentioning a school so big that students must be bused from one to the other side of its campus for athletic events, he said the farther away schools were built the more busing and car use they force.

''Moms have become the cab drivers of today, because you have to drive everywhere,'' he observed. ''The average suburban mom spends 17 full days a year driving their children; more time than they spend dressing, bathing, or feeding their child.''

Simultaneously, vehicle emissions elevate the rate of childhood asthma, already the top cause of class absences; remote school locations, and the lack of sidewalks and bike lanes limit student physical activity and contribute to overweight and obesity; and storm runoff from huge school parking lots carries more automotive pollutants into streams and drinking water supplies, also worsening erosion and downstream flooding.

''These are issues we've been grappling with for a long period of time,'' commented Borough Council President Jack Wolf. Consequently, officials are now considering a proposal to build an early childhood school in the dense First Ward, the writer reports, noting that School Board President Barry Robertson has repeatedly emphasized its prospective benefits for the area community. -- Mercury   2/11/2006

Resource(s): www.pottstownmercury.com/

Grassroots Group Works to Save Turtle Creek High School; Town Advised That Building Is Well-Suited for Renovation

''You take away Turtle Creek High School, you might as well take a bulldozer and flatten the whole town, because that's our identity,'' said grassroots Committee to Save Turtle Creek High School member Jill Henkel to applause from 250 residents at a meeting with the Woodland Hills School Board, echoing arguments by two national guests, Pulitzer-winning journalist and conservationist Thomas Hylton and Council of Educational Facilities Planners International (CEFPI) architect David Anstrand, both of whom found the 88-year building well-suited for renovation.

''I took one look at it, and saw the building is eligible for the historic registry,'' said the conservationist, calling it ''a great candidate'' for the state's 10 percent funding bonus for school renovation and another 10 percent for its prospective energy-efficient ''green'' design. ''There are some structural issues that need to be dealt with,'' observed the CEFPI architect, ''but that building is in as good or better shape than any of the buildings I've been responsible for renovating.''

With the discussion about the school's fate going on for two years, school board president Cynthia Lowery leading its recent split vote for construction of a bigger building, and district facilities manager Christopher considering the 118,000-square-foot structure too small and obsolete for renovation, report Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writer M. Ferguson Tinsley and Woodland Progress writer Peggy Conrad, grassroots committee organizer and 1968 Turtle Creek High School graduate Bob Mack said, ''I absolutely had to step in and do something'' to make the board ''rethink'' its demolition plan. And the meeting and the two guests' testimony help it to happen, with the board president admitting, ''This isn't something that is a done deal.'' -- Post-Gazette; Progress   12/8/2005

Resource(s): www.post-gazette.com/ ; www.gatewaynewspapers.com/woodlandprogress/

Regional Alliance Uses Recognition Program to Help Philadelphia-Area Smart Growth Projects Get Local Approval

Formed last year by more than 100 government, private and nonprofit organizations in the Greater Philadelphia tri-state region of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey and Delaware, the Haddonfield-based (NJ) Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance (DVSGA) is helping ''good smart growth projects gain local approval through an early-stage recognition program,'' its fifth and newest endorsement benefitting proposed reclamation of a 29-acre brownfield site for a six-story mixed-use building in downtown Ardmore, some five miles northwest of Philadelphia.

Proposed by Mariner Commercial Properties, devised by Cope Linder Architects designer David Ertz and called The Cricket Club, the building will include 6,100 square feet of street-level retail; 10,600 square feet of offices on the second floor; underground parking; and 25 upper-floor one- and two-bedroom condos, while offering direct access to two transit stations.

DVSGA Acting Jury Chair and Pennsylvania Environmental Council Vice President Patrick M. Starr said, ''Jurors felt that 'The Cricket Club' proposal reflects the criteria for true smart growth -- location; density, design and diversity of uses; transportation and accessibility; environmental issues; and community assets and participation.''

Under the coalition's rules, each selected project receives a letter of endorsement and an offer of testimony at local approval hearings. ''By highlighting the potential of smart growth projects to add value to the region,'' said DVSGA President Marc D. Brookman, Chair of the Real Estate Practice Group at Duane Morris LLP, ''we hope to encourage developers, business organizations, citizen groups and elected officials to strive for smart growth solutions.'' -- Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance   11/16/2005

Resource(s): http://delawarevalleysmartgrowth.org/

Greater Latrobe Chamber of Commerce Backs Smart Growth to Boost Economy, Create Jobs

In another sign of land-use revaluation times, the Greater Latrobe Chamber of Commerce endorsed ''smart growth for our communities'' as a means to create a vibrant economic climate and to attract jobs, with Chamber President Andy Stofan, a Smart Growth Partnership of Westmoreland County member, defining it as ''intelligent planning,'' and Partnership Executive Director Alex Graziani commending the business community for realizing that smart growth ''is an economic development strategy.''

This convergence of views bodes well for sound development of the Unity Township stretch of the Route 30 corridor, where the county's municipal authority intends to extend sewer and water lines, reports Pittsburgh Tribune-Review writer Richard Robbins, quoting Township Supervisor Michael O'Barto, who said smart growth principles ensure ''more green space'' and ''less clutter'' through the most efficient land use.

He also cautioned against filling the corridor with tall buildings, which would block the vistas of the Appalachian front some four miles east. ''That,'' agreed the chamber's president, ''is exactly what (smart growth) is all about.''

Noting that a ''model'' parcel plan just presented by the Smart Growth Partnership for the Route 30 corridor calls for mixed use, including residential, and more on-street parking, the writer again quotes director Graziani, who pointed out that such development helps revitalize older towns like Latrobe, by improving pedestrian access to businesses and boosting downtown shopping. -- Tribune-Review   10/2/2005

Resource(s): http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/westmoreland/

Speakers Deliver Spirited -- and Disparate -- Opinions at Pennsylvania Smart Growth Summit

He had promised the fifth annual Smart Growth Summit at the University of Pittsburgh in Greensburg would be ''provocative,'' as an attempt ''to get all sides to the table'' since ''(t)oo often we hear only from those who agree with us,'' but Smart Growth Partnership of Westmoreland County Executive Director Alex Graziani had to handle much more after presentations of critical follow-ups to the 2003 Brookings Institution's study ''Back to Prosperity: A Competitive Agenda for Renewing Pennsylvania,'' with Michael Young Strategic Research director, and former university professor Dr. Michael Young calling the study ''flawed,'' Wendell Cox Consultancy principal Wendell Cox trying to debunk ''the myth of Smart Growth,'' and Campaign to Renew Pennsylvania director Ron Bailey hitting the later for ''half-truths and misrepresentations.''

As reported in three area newspapers, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the McKeesport Daily News, Dr. Young questioned the Brookings study -- which found the state's fragmentation into 2,566 municipalities, land-use planning deficiency and sprawl responsible for its economic woes -- in the book ''Forward to Prosperity: Removing Obstacles to Pennsylvania's Economic Performance,'' outlining at the forum its nine rather similar recommendations, including more effective urban, regional and infrastructure planning, better schools, higher density zoning and regulatory reforms.

Wendell Cox, commissioned by the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, countered the Brookings study with the report ''Growth, Economic Development and Local Government Structure in Pennsylvania,'' informing the forum that sprawl boosts economic competitiveness and disperses traffic congestion, that it fuels most growth in urbanized countries and everywhere in the world, and that ''(t)ransit is about downtown'' and otherwise ''just doesn't work.''

In response to state Representative Tom Tangretti, who noted a recent 53 percent surge in the Westmoreland County Transit Authority's commuter bus ridership, he dismissed the link between the steep gas prices and increased transit use, saying the gas costs ''will cause people to buy cars that get better mileage and manufacturers to go more to hybrids, but America will be on motorcycles before it will be on transit.''

In his turn, Renew PA director Bailey, formerly on the State Planning Board and head of both the Lancaster County Planning Commission and the Transportation Coordinating Committee Commission, pointed out that Pennsylvania has become the third slowest-growing state nationwide, and that the Brookings study shows ways to improve its competitiveness, revitalize older communities and attune the jurisdictional structure ''to what is going on in the rest of the country.''

But he focused on Cox's report for the township supervisors association, attacking his arguments and methodology and telling the forum that the presenter ''made wild statements that are flat out untrue.'' This elicited from Cox an accusation of ''an ambush.''

Agreeing that the summit ''was not the place for attacks,'' and apologizing to Cox and the audience, director Graziani appreciated the ability to disagree. ''We should be able to engage in spirited debate over important issues,'' he said. ''Maybe we'll do it next time, in 'the Summit: Round II'.'' -- Tribune-Review, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette   9/17/2005

Resource(s): www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/westmoreland/ ; www.post-gazette.com/

Growing Greener II Plan Dedicates $625 Million to Boost Keystone State's Environmental Protection and Urban Revitalization

''We are entrusted as the stewards of our environment, and have a moral obligation to leave our soil, water and air in better condition than we found it for future generations,'' said Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Edward G. Rendell, signing into law his Growing Greener II plan, which dedicates $625 million over six years to boost the state's environmental protection, land conservation and urban revitalization.

Under the law -- overwhelmingly approved by voters in the May 17 bond referendum, and quickly endorsed by a 180-18 vote in the House and a 48-2 vote in the Senate -- the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will get $230 million to clean up rivers and streams; to deal with contamination of abandoned mines and some 12,000 brownfields, the latter totaling up to 120,000 acres of ''derelict land that could be used to attract business;'' and to finance technologically advanced energy projects.

The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) will receive $217.5 million to preserve natural areas and open space, improve state parks, and enhance local recreational facilities, all critically important in a state that loses nearly 120,000 acres to development a year, or some 330 acres a day.

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) will obtain $80 million to preserve working farms, and the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) will pick up $50 million to invest in community housing and mixed-use redevelopment projects.

The rest of the money will go for repairs of fish hatcheries and old dams, and for habitat-related improvements. An Office of the Governor press release also reads: ''A provision in the new law sets up an Environmental Block Grant Program that allows counties to address local priorities. Counties can designate up to $90 million over the life of the bond program by picking from approved projects within the DEP, DCNR, PDA and DCED appropriations to target specific needs. Each county will be guaranteed a minimum level of funding. Funding will be distributed among the state's 67 counties according to their class.'' -- prnewswire.com   7/13/2005

Resource(s): www.prnewswire.com/

Lancaster County Draft Planning Report Focuses on Reinvestment in Older Communities, Mixed-Use Properties in Growth Areas

Working with the Lancaster County Planning Commission to update the county's 2030 growth-management blueprint, a 60-member task force released a draft report, reflecting public hopes for balance between development and land preservation and calling for continuation of smart growth, with a focus on reinvestment in older communities and on mixed uses in designated growth areas.

The decisions over the next 25 years ''will shape the quality of life and character of the county for generations to come,'' the report says, expecting the growth areas to absorb 85 percent of new homes and 66 percent of new jobs, a remedy for the current trend, with 24 percent of new homes being built outside growth boundaries and taking 60 percent of newly developed land.

To use land more efficiently, reports Elizabeth Chronicle writer Kevin Hensil, the task force wants local officials to encourage a density increase from the current five-and-a-half to seven-and-a-half units per acre.

Repeatedly emphasizing the need for affordable units in a housing mix and the importance of easy pedestrian access to jobs, stores, schools and open spaces, the writer notes, the task force also seeks better safeguards for the county's famous farmland, natural assets and historic sites, which will depend on municipalities working together to limit development outside growth areas and to maintain the rural economy.

To facilitate the work and make the long-range plan a reality, the task force's report offers local officials a ''toolbox,'' with a collection of growth-management policies and regulations, but also incentives. -- Elizabeth Chronicle   7/7/2005

Resource(s): www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=2248

Montgomery County (Pa.) Planning Commission Completes Draft for New 20-Year Comprehensive Plan

After four years of work on a new 20-year comprehensive plan, guided by Pennsylvania's 2000 Smart Growth law and intensive public input, the Montgomery County Planning Commission has its draft ready for approval by county commissioners, after which all will depend on municipal and multi-municipal plans and zoning regulations consistent with its recommendations.

''We do not want this plan to collect dust,'' says county planning board chairman P. Gregory Shelly. ''We want to see it implemented.''

Outlining overall vision and covering transportation, economic development, housing, community facilities, water resources, open space, natural features, cultural resources and land use, reports Pottstown Mercury writer Margaret Gibbons, the plan is designed to stem trends projected to eliminate 55,000 acres of open land by 2025, contrary to wishes of residents, who want the county to control sprawl and traffic congestion, preserve open space and natural areas, and revitalize older boroughs and other neglected areas.

Under the Smart Growth law, the writer nones, municipal and multi-municipal comprehensive plans, and related zoning, must be consistent an updated county plan to make these municipalities eligible for state assistance.

Uncooperative municipalities will not enjoy the law's protection against curative amendments and fair-share lawsuits by developers claiming the lack or weakness of municipal provision for certain projects, including apartments. Nor will state agencies be required to consider municipal plans when reviewing funding requests for infrastructure improvement grants. -- Mercury   6/19/2005

Resource(s): www.pottstownmercury.com/

Philadelphia Opts for ''Smart and Green'' Policy in Renovation, Construction of City Schools

After seven Franklin Conference on School Design civic forums, held throughout Philadelphia by the Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Board and University of Pennsylvania's Institute of Urban Research since March, the board summed up the public guidelines for the city's $1.6 billion school renovation and construction program in seven Franklin Principles, the one called ''Smart and Green'' stressing: ''Choose school sites so as to promote 'smart growth' in communities -- near mass transit, walkable, aligned with a neighborhood's revitalization plan.''

The Inquirer Board details Philadelphians' wishes for 21st century schools as educational, social and cultural institutions in the other six principles.

''A Welcoming Place'' requires school design to ''convey a sense of welcome -- to students, faculty and the community'' through colors, light, greenery and art. ''It's a School, Not a Prison'' calls for achieving safety and security ''mostly through smart design,'' not fences, locked gates and metal detectors.

''Interact, Interact, Interact'' demands solutions that enable ''a series of vital interactions'' among students, between faculty and students, and between the school and the community. ''Plan on Change'' envisions ''flexible, adaptable spaces'' that will let schools adjust to new curriculum, technology or programs.

''They're Called 'Public Schools' for a Reason'' points out that a school designed with input from students, teachers and neighbors ''will be loved, supported and protected,'' which obliges officials to include ''students, teachers, parents, community members and business people in the planning process from the start'' and to use the design process ''to rebuild trust between the school district and neighborhoods.''

Inviting readers to the next Franklin Conference on School Design forum on June 27 at the main Inquirer office, where planners, architects and neighborhood activists will present specific design ideas for three possible sites of new city schools, the daily refers all interested in the Franklin project to www.upenn.edu/penniur/civic/franklin. -- Philadelphia Inquirer   6/19/2005

Resource(s): www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/

''Walkable'' City of State College Urged to Keep Local High School Downtown for Student Health Concerns

Since the city of State College remains ''very walkable,'' with ample sidewalks and bike trails that allow easy access to the high school off Westerly Parkway near downtown, officials should let the school be, instead of moving it to ''the outer reaches of the developed area,'' beyond the regional growth boundary, if only because of their concern about students' health, writes Penn State University landscape architecture associate professor Kelleann Foster in the Centre Daily Times, pointing out that such a move would deprive many students of the ''important daily physical activity'' of walking and biking to school.

''By building places that are designed for drivers rather than walkers,'' the professor observes, ''our society has been inadvertently changing lifestyles and becoming more sedentary.''

This contributes to the epidemic of obesity, with Pennsylvania's childhood obesity rate of 18 percent exceeding the national average, he notes, quoting from the March issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that ''(f)or the first time in two centuries, the current generation of children in America may have shorter life expectancies than their parents.''

With the surgeon general confirming that people need only moderate daily physical activity, such as 30 minutes of walking, to gain health benefits, with Pennsylvania law stating that children within a mile of a school ''are 'walkers' and not entitled to bus service,'' and with most people able to walk one mile in 15-20 minutes, the professor finds no clear reasons for relocating the school several miles away, to the area where most students would have to be bused. --Centre Daily Times   4/18/2005

Resource(s): www.centredaily.com

Mixed-Use Zoning, Greater Density Would Raise Pittsburgh Region's Quality of Life

The Pittsburgh region's economy and quality of life could be much better if more jurisdictions permitted mixed-use zoning, encouraged greater density, and were as walkable as Ligonier is, said Westmoreland County Smart Growth Partnership executive director Alex Graziani at the annual dinner meeting of the Ligonier Valley Chamber of Commerce, stressing that demographic changes create a new market demand for other than big-lot-only housing opportunities.

Over the past three decades, the county lost 6,000 people, but its ''human footprint'' increased to more than 77,000 acres and ''it's taking us longer to get everywhere,'' he said. ''As we get older, many of us will be driving-challenged,'' he continued, ''Yet we're building for the automobile-dependent.''

Calling it ironic that many people very concerned about their weight problems drive ''to a fitness center to ride a stationary bike,'' the speaker urged the business community to get closely involved in local government decisions.

''You are the driving force,'' he told chamber members. ''And as taxpayers, you need to demand that your elected officials pay attention to these things. Because you're paying the freight.''

The county's Smart Growth Partnership, notes Pittsburgh Tribune-Review writer Dwayne Pickles, was formed at the University of Pittsburgh in Greensburg in 2001, to promote better ways of boosting economic growth and urban revitalization. -- Tribune-Review   4/1/2005

Resource(s): www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/westmoreland/

Report Downplays Sprawl as Factor in Keystone State's Fiscal and Social Woes

Commissioned by trade groups irate over the Brookings Institution's 2003 ''Back to Prosperity'' study, which links much of Pennsylvania's ''recent underachievement'' to sprawl, the just-released ''Forward to Prosperity'' report by former Penn State political science professor Michael Young absolves sprawl from its social and economic wrongs, but confirms several other Brookings conclusions, including the crucial need for urban schools improvement to restore the appeal of cities to families with children.

The professor, reports Harrisburg Patriot-News writer Charles Thompson, considers sprawl less a cause than the result of such problems as poor urban schools and concentrated poverty. He criticizes Brookings for overplaying the rate of Pennsylvania's land consumption and for highlighting out-of-state remedies.

''We just wanted to provide a Pennsylvania solution to development and sprawl,'' he says. ''It's not something that has been baked somewhere else and reflects politically correct thinking about how we ought to behave in 21st century society.''

The professor argues that overdevelopment is only a regional problem felt most heavily in suburban Philadelphia, that development should be left primarily to the market, and that it's better to make public investments in urban schools and housing than in open space.

But he admits that Pennsylvania's jurisdictional fragmentation and too many local regulations hobble development, advising stronger county or regional agency roles in local plan reviews and local zoning laws compatible with countywide land-use maps. -- Patriot-News   3/30/2005

Resource(s): www.pennlive.com/patriotnews/

Cumberland County Smart Growth Foes Asking Property Owners to Oppose Open Space Preservation

Although a survey of Cumberland County residents found 91 percent of them backing open space preservation and 75 percent willing to pay more for that purpose, smart growth foes are trying to stir the dissent, with Carlisle lawyer Ivo V. Otto III's letter to property owners saying: ''If you do not join me in voicing opposition now, you may find yourself the owner of a 'targeted' parcel that will forever be condemned as 'open space' by the government.''

With the county's open space draft plan unveiled last summer making preservation of thousands of rural acres over 10 years its top priority, reports regional Sentinel writer David Blymire, the Carlisle lawyer urges his letter's recipients to show up at county planning commission meetings and oppose a proposal to encourage townships to limit development ''without any compensation being paid to you.''

Calling the county's plan to borrow $25 million for purchase of development rights ''a waste of tax money,'' the lawyer claims in a letter attachment that officials are rushing to change the rules ''without due deliberation'' and that the county ''will be divided into political factions by 2007'' if it glosses over private property rights. -- Sentinel   3/16/2005

Resource(s): www.cumberlink.com/

''Green'' Grant Programs Would Earmark Funds for Keystone State Parks and Communities

A new bipartisan consensus on the need to increase state environmental funds -- as outlined both in Republicans' Green PA plan and in Democratic Governor Ed Rendell's Growing Greener II plan -- bodes well for the state's quality of life, write Wagman Construction Inc. vice president Eric Menzer and 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania president and CEO Jane Milkman in The Philadelphia Inquirer, urging lawmakers to make sure that any final package retains community-revitalization money, since urban investments ''will make the 'green funds' go farther'' and relieve ''the development pressure on the suburbs and rural areas.''

The Green PA plan, drafted mostly by Representative Kate Harper, would help all communities, both urban and rural, enhance their parks and open space. The governor's Growing Greener II plan would make an additional $170 million available for community historic-preservation grants, ''Main Street'' business programs, local parks, planning, and ''other incentives that encourage private developers to invest in making these places better.''

Such funds and programs, the writers stress, ''support the nitty-gritty, day-to-day efforts throughout Pennsylvania, and involve the commonwealth's civic-minded and dedicated volunteers, investors, community leaders and elected officials.''

Noting that all over the state private companies are ready ''to bring new people, new jobs, and new tax base to our older communities,'' they conclude: ''Buying open space and protecting the environment becomes a sounder long-term investment if we strengthen our cities and towns at the same time.'' -- The Philadelphia Inquirer   2/22/2005

Resource(s): www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/

Editorial Urges Bethlehem School District to Renovate, Not Vacate, Historic Downtown School

While many others increasingly understand the educational, societal and environmental advantages of small urban schools over big ones on the fringes and try renovation before construction, the Bethlehem Area School District considers the opposite, writes award-winning journalist and author Thomas Hylton in the Allentown Morning Call, urging the district to refurbish the 1918 Broughal Middle School in the heart of South Bethlehem instead of spending more money for a new one atop South Mountain some five miles away.

The 4.2-acre historic school, with thick walls and huge windows, is perfect for renovation, he writes, noting that its central location near stores, offices, parks and Leigh University's core campus ''is far more conducive to physical fitness than having adjacent athletic fields'' and that 90 percent of its students walk to classes, while the new school would be far from services and amenities, and all students would have to be bused or ride cars.

Such a school, he warns, would ''erode the vitality of South Bethlehem, increase traffic congestion, eliminate walking, inhibit parent involvement, and deprive students of a magnificent learning environment -- the city itself.'' He also points out that the authoritative Council of Educational Facilities Planners International reversed its pro-development stance last year, dropped the 20-acre middle-school site minimum and other acreage recommendations, and now advises districts to pursue renovation rather than abandonment of neighborhood schools.

What's more, the council's two recent guidebooks -- one published jointly with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the other with the National Park Service -- note that urban schools reduce car dependency and compact design saves land, and that historic school upgrades to state-of-the-art educational standards usually cost less than new construction.

''It would be unthinkable for Leigh University to demolish the stone Gothic structures on its main campus, or for Moravian College to abandon or replace its 18th century Church Street buildings,'' the writer observes, asking, ''Why should an architectural treasure like Broughal be any different?'' -- Morning Call   2/15/2005

Resource(s): www.mcall.com/

''Small Schools Transition Project'' Would Replace Large Philadelphia Schools With Smaller Neighborhood Schools

In a nationwide trend, increasingly strong in top urban areas, the Philadelphia School District is moving away from its ''behemoth'' high schools of more than 1,000 students, with low attendance and graduation rates, planning to break many into smaller ones and elevate several middle schools, to have a total of 66 high schools by 2008 -- 28 more than now -- with enrollment limited to about 400 in 34 schools and to some 800 in 17 others.

Unveiled at a School Reform Commission meeting, reports Philadelphia Inquirer writer Susan Snyder, the ''Small Schools Transition Project'' will also increase the number of prestigious, college-preparatory ''magnet'' high schools from 13 to 22.

''Right now, many of our exemplary students are turned away from our selected-enrolment schools,'' said district chief executive Paul Vallas. ''Many other students leave the system because of their inability to enroll in our high achievement schools.''

Experts have long stressed that small schools are crucial in efforts to overcome urban education crisis and stop residents from flying to the suburbs. ''To teach kids anything, you have to really know them,'' said national Small School Workshop director Michael Klonsky. ''In schools of 1,000 or more, that becomes impossible.''

He and others, the writer reports, applauded the district's move, but questioned its choice of outside consulting companies -- two from New York, one from Maryland and one from Massachusetts -- to manage the transition. They noted that neighborhood high schools should be able to pursue their own educational vision and have some autonomy over curriculum, based on extensive local input.

Executive Vallas, who has opened more magnet schools during his tenure in Chicago before 2002 and instituted a standard curriculum in Philadelphia, pointed out that the district is already seeking input from principals, local officials, student government members, unionists, business leaders and others, but cautioned against ''too much'' curriculum autonomy, stressing, ''You've got to set minimum standards.'' -- Philadelphia Inquirer   2/10/2005

Resource(s): www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/

Gov. Rendell Sets Goals for Transit Improvements and Repairs, Hazardous Sites Cleanup in State of the State Speech

With his $2.3 billion Economic Stimulus Program already providing capital for strategic investments ''that will help cities and towns thrive once again after years of struggling to survive and compete,'' and with almost $100 million ''being put to work to build new houses, start the Keystone Innovation Zones, improve Main Streets, and launch the Elm Street program,'' Democratic Governor Edward G. Rendell pointed out in the State of the State speech that besides creating jobs, the state must improve mass transit, and repair roads, bridges and highways, to make sure that workers ''can actually get to work each day.''

If we ignore the transit crisis, the governor told lawmakers, ''we will have effectively stranded hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens who depend on buses, subways and commuter trains'' not only in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, but all over the state. He urged them to make transportation the top priority this session, and stressed, ''We must identify and implement an adequate solution for mass transit that does not take any more funds designated to repair our highways and bridges or drain already scarce resources from our General Fund.''

Pledging to seek a bipartisan consensus on transportation needs, the governor also called on lawmakers to ''work together'' and ''act now'' on the environment. He noted that the recent Republican ''Green PA'' alternative to his Growing Greener II initiative contains ''some new ideas,'' but ''best of all it recognizes that we must significantly invest in cleaning and preserving our environment now.''

Convinced that ''it is time to give the voters a voice in this debate, too,'' the governor warned that without fast action, the state will have to shut down the hazardous sites cleanup program and cut deeply into farmland preservation funds. With countless polluted post-industrial sites choking economic growth and acid mine drainage harming rivers and streams, the governor pushed strongly for his Growing Greener II.

''I urge all of us,'' he said, ''to remain focused on the goals we share across party lines to repair and preserve our environment and enact this vitally important legislation no later than March 17th so it can be voted on in the May election.'' -- Pennsylvania Office of the Governor   2/9/2005

Resource(s): www.governor.state.pa.us/

Bucks County Towns Expect Quality of Life Boost from Waterfront Revitalization Plan

Long held back by the deadweight of rusty industrial sites and abandoned lots along their 30-mile stretch of the Delaware River, six Bucks County towns northeast of Philadelphia expect a revenue and quality of life boost from the jointly funded and just-completed Bucks County Waterfront Revitalization Plan, which outlines smart-growth riverbank transformation with high-density housing, shops, offices, parks and pedestrian trails.

Prepared by the national HNTB Corporation, which has also envisioned the remarkable revitalization of Baltimore's Inner Harbor, reports Buck County Intelligencer writer Alison Hawkes, the plan calls for restoration of the entire bank of the historic Delaware canal for foot traffic, a 300-slip marina flanked by homes and parks in Bensalem, a floating tour-boat dock in Bristol, residential development with river-oriented parks in Falls, and similar mixed-use projects and amenities in Bristol Township, Tullytown and Morrisville.

The $331,000 six-town planning investment will pay off handsomely, said its strong advocate, Bucks County Redevelopment Authority Director Robert White, pointing out that the plan makes the towns eligible for state and federal redevelopment grants and enables them to determine their future without depending on developer whims. -- Intelligencer   1/31/2005

Resource(s): www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/section.cfm?id=113&tmpl=local_news

Cumberland County Officials Like How Proposed Smart Growth Projects Will Help Preserve Rural Character

Encouraged by the Cumberland County comprehensive plan's advocacy of cluster housing and rural preservation, area municipalities are looking toward smart growth, with the Middlesex Township Board of Supervisors unanimously giving the final ''green light'' to Terravant Land Company's traditional mixed-use Pennterra project, and Mechanicsburg -- some seven miles east -- awaiting details of a similar Carlino Development Group proposal for the town's last major open tract, the 180-acre Hess Farm.

Focused on Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND) and Conservation Design principles, the Terravant company calls the Pennterra project, with 1007 housing units, a variety of commercial uses and half of the site left as open space, ''a great example of smart growth, preserving rural character and integrating agriculture in a master planned community.''

Divided into seven villages and five mixed-use areas, Pennterra will include offices, a general store, a restaurant, a church, a spa, a community pool, an equestrian center and athletic fields.

''I'd like to think of 'smart growth' in the context of this project as something where everybody wins: the developer wins, the planners win, the township wins, and the community wins,'' said Middlesex Township Board Supervisor Victor Stabile. ''We want to win as a municipality; we want to preserve the quality of our lives.''

In Mechanicsburg, reports Sentinel writer Joseph Cress, Carlino Group president Stephen J. Najarian and Association for New Urbanism in Pennsylvania founding member Will Selman told officials and residents at their slide show that the size of the Hess Farm and its proximity to the borough's historic downtown call for and bode well for traditional mixed-use development as a better alternative to ''cul-de-sac'' subdivision and suburban sprawl.

Borough Council President Jack Winchell noted the project's potential for generating sufficient revenue to cover the cost of additional services and help the town upgrade its aging infrastructure. Resident Tim DeWire, an engineer and certified planner, expressed hope that the Hess Farm development would complement downtown revitalization efforts and the current work on updates to the borough's long-range comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance.

Cumberland County Planner Jeff Kelly observed that compact new urbanism projects save money on shorter roads and utility lines, while becoming increasingly popular among home buyers. -- Sentinel, PRNewswire   1/20/2005

Resource(s): http://biz.yahoo.com/ ; www.cumberlink.com/

Envision Lancaster County Recognizes Local Smart Growth Projects

Created four years ago by county commissioners, planners and numerous public, private and nonprofit stakeholders to ensure development in balance with the quality of life, the Envision Lancaster County group recognized ten area jurisdictions and other entities for their varied smart-growth initiatives and projects.

In the Leadership category, reports Lancaster Intelligencer Journal writer P.J. Reilly, Rapho Township was honored for its village overlay zone, whose design standards protect local heritage; Newport Square Associates and RGS Associates, for their environmentally sound, varied-type-and-income housing, including rentals, in Warwick Township; and RLPS Architects and Warwick School District, for community-inspired improvements at Lititz Elementary School.

In the Achievement category, Ephrata Borough and Ephrata Performing Arts Center won a smart-growth award for the $2.4 million renovation and expansion of their park playhouse; East Hempfield Township and Charter Homes, for adoption and implementation of ordinances that allow higher-density housing while preserving open space; Strasburg Borough and Strasburg Community Parks Foundation, for creating a 12-acre community park, with an amphitheater, pedestrian trails and wildflower meadows; Manheim Borough, Reifen Rubber Co., Restore 'N More and Slip Industries for their joint work to acquire, renovate and reuse the blighted former Agway Mill site; Community Basic Inc. and EG Stoltzfus Construction, for converting the former New Holland Machine Co. plant and headquarters into 56 units of affordable workforce housing; and Manheim Township, for expanding its historic overlay district to spur adaptive building reuse for residential needs.

In addition, the Lancaster Farmland Trust and the Lancaster Regional Medical Center received a Certificate of Merit for their cooperation in building a health center in Warwick Township and preserving 100 acres of adjacent farmland. -- Intelligencer Journal   11/16/2004

Resource(s): www.lancasteronline.com

Delaware Valley Alliance Set to Help Developers Win Approval of Smart Growth Projects

The newly formed Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance of builders, environmentalists, academicians, business leaders and officials announced it will be helping developers seek approvals for smart-growth projects in southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and northern Delaware, with alliance president and Philadelphia-based Duane Morris LLP law firm attorney Mark Brookman stating, ''In order to do anything outside of the box, it's like reinventing the wheel. Local government is afraid of innovative change.''

Alliance and Pennsylvania Environmental Council vice president Patrick Starr stressed, ''Smart growth is not naming a shopping center a 'village green.' Smart growth is not a marketing concept. It's a design standard.''

Sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the New Jersey Office of Smart Growth, and the Delaware Office of State Planning Coordination, the alliance, reports PhillyBurbs web site writer Crissa Schoemaker from its first public meeting in Philadelphia, will be reviewing developer plans and supporting those that meet several internally agreed-upon criteria at planning and zoning board meetings, while promising confidentiality to developers who fail the test.

The smart growth criteria include a project's location, density, design and types of uses, the availability of transportation and other infrastructure, and the impact on the environment and the surrounding community. As examples of smart growth, speakers mentioned brownfields redevelopment and mixed-use projects. ''We used to build neighborhoods,'' said ''Save our Land, Save our Towns'' author Thomas Hylton. ''We don't build them any more.''

Matrix Development Group member Richard Johnson expressed the same concern, saying, ''The market is longing for more choices. People are longing for more varied housing choices.'' Details at www.delawarevalleysmartgrowth.org -- PhillyBurbs   10/14/2004

Resource(s): www.phillyburbs.com/

Cranberry's New Zoning Districts Follow Smart-Growth Principles

In a move away from ''big-box'' retail and ''cookie-cutter'' subdivisions, the Cranberry Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors jointly endorsed three new zoning districts for the township's mostly rural northern part -- the 80-acre Town Center district, the 500-acre Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) district, and the 30-acre Mixed-Use Corridor district -- all to preserve local character, reduce car-dependency, encourage healthier lifestyles, and ensure community inter-connectedness.

The Town Center and TND districts, reports Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writer Karen Kane, will feature pedestrian-friendly streets, a variety of housing styles, and parking in back alleys -- the former introducing residential use into a primarily retail and commercial zone, the latter ushering some retail and commercial uses into a primarily residential zone.

The Mixed-Use Corridor district will focus on smaller, two-story structures characteristic of a main street. Cranberry assistant manager Dan Santoro expects developers to submit proposals for TND and corridor projects immediately after supervisors approve the districts in November or December, with the approval of a Town Center zoning ordinance likely in January or February. -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette   10/3/2004

Resource(s): www.post-gazette.com/

Mount Joy Officials Seek Grants to Improve Popular Rail Stop

Upbeat about the area-wide economic potential of Mount Joy's rudimentary but highly popular Amtrak stop -- used by 13,000 passengers last year and 12,000 already this year -- officials in this small borough of 7,000 halfway between Harrisburg and Lancaster seek state and federal grants for its initial $2.2 million upgrades as a way to boost business along parallel Main Street and to complement further smart-growth efforts, perhaps regional, in cooperation with other nearby townships.

The Mount Joy Borough Council asked the Lancaster County Transportation Authority to oversee the future train-stop improvements, reports Lancaster New Era writer David O'Connor, and now officials will seek input from residents and area commuters.

One priority must be a zoning change to permit businesses, notes borough community development director Jennifer Luciani, recalling a tea-shop proposal that would have worked for the train stop if not the zoning restriction. ''So that's why we're working on with these smart-growth initiatives,'' she says, ''to help redevelop things that would really help this whole area.''

Borough manager and former county commissioner Terry Kauffman stresses, ''With that number of people coming in, just stopping, the retail environment and everything else will benefit.''

Proud that in a few years the borough will complete its westend-eastend walking-biking trail -- with almost no public money spent -- the manager hopes for a state Elm Street Program grant to help in revitalization around the downtown area. Several other Lancaster County municipalities are also counting on rail lines and stations in their revitalization efforts, the writer adds, mentioning Elizabethtown, Lancaster and Paradise. -- Lancaster New Era   9/5/2004

Resource(s): www.lancasteronline.com/

York County S.G. Coalition Seeks More Affordable Housing, Points to Sprawl Building as Source of Increased Home Costs

The Eastern York County Smart Growth Coalition ''has always supported responsible planning for housing growth'' -- but growth which ensures sufficient affordable housing for all income groups besides those that want large homes on rural fringes -- and any contrary claim ''is just pure nonsense,'' writes coalition member Warren Evans in the York Daily Record, in response to an op-ed piece by Realtors Association of York and Adams Counties lobbyist Steve Snell, who implied that smart growth organizations are ''threatening the ability of working families to own a home.''

Since most York County municipalities have adopted comprehensive plans and zoning ordinances that secure fair shares of varied-income housing, he writes, developers should stop pressing township supervisors ''to rezone farmland for large, unneeded housing developments that cater mostly to the high end of the market'' and focus instead on using land currently zoned residential and already offering sewers and roads.

''It is the unneeded development of sprawling, expensive housing that is a key factor driving up the cost of housing,'' he stresses, ''not the lack of available land zoned for residential development affordable for people with modest income levels.''

Citing the lobbyist's wish ''to do a better job of determining the best locations for growth where infrastructure already exists,'' the smart-growth activist asks him to start by persuading the Realtors Association to make that move in the activist's own Hellam Township, where resident Katina Snyder is suing officials ''to stop the enactment of a township zoning ordinance that would open up prime farmland for wholesale housing development far from existing infrastructure.'' -- York Daily Record   6/27/2004

Resource(s): http://ydr.com/news/main/

''Growing Greener II'' Proposal Could Shorten Waiting Lists for Keystone State's Farmland Preservation Programs

Pennsylvania's farmland conservation money is in such demand that local officials can usually accept every third or fourth applicant into their development rights purchase programs each year and put the others on long waiting lists, with York County Agricultural Land Preservation Board director Patricia McCandless placing her hope in Democratic Governor Ed Rendell's proposed $800 million Growing Greener II environmental package, including $330 million for agriculture, forests and open spaces, and $170 million for community revitalization, historic preservation and ''smart growth'' plans.

Subject to its legislative approval for the November ballot, the package would provide money to save an additional 43,000 acres from development, reports York Daily Record writer Jennifer Gish, noting that $300 million more would help improve river and stream quality, promote clean fuels, harness alternative energy sources, reclaim old mines, and clean up brownfields.

''Everyone who's a preservationist is drooling for this initiative to be a referendum because we believe people will support it,'' says director McCandless. They approved such a measure in the late 1980s, she points out, which allowed counties to create land preservation boards and start buying development rights from farmers.

In York County, she explains, her preservation board appraises a parcel's value for agriculture and for development, paying the farmer the difference for his development rights. If the parcel is preserved through the county's nonprofit Farm and Natural Lands Trust, the owner can write off the difference on the tax return.

According to a recent Brookings Institution study, the writer adds, although York County has put more than 31,000 acres of farmland under preservation since its program inception, it lost a total of 19,300 acres between 1982 and 1997. -- Daily Record   6/20/2004

Resource(s): http://ydr.com/news/main/

Lack of Services, Infrastructure Could Sink Plan for New School in Upper Salford Township

In a symptomatic test of wills between Philadelphia high-growth outer suburbs needing more schools and smart-growth forces seeking curbs on sprawl, the Souderton Area School District (Montgomery County) wants to spend $8.74 million on 158 acres of farmland for a high school in Upper Salford Township, while county and regional planners point out that the area lacks adequate services and infrastructure.

The district's high school in Souderton Borough has been seriously overcrowded since 1996 and the problem must be solved, reports Philadelphia Inquirer writer Connie Langland, but planners warn that the future Upper Salford school, expected to cost some $70 million and open in 2008, would cause rural road congestion, countryside development and inflated land prices.

Montgomery County Planning Commission section chief Brian O'Leary says the prospective school site is ''not really near a population center, it doesn't have great infrastructure, and it's in an area where we are advocating rural uses.''

Regional Improvement Consortium executive director and Souderton-Telford Main Streets Revitalization Committee manager Pam Learned stresses locating the school in Upper Salford ''would undo 10 years of work to combat sprawl'' and hurt Souderton businesses. District board president Richard Swartley promises to consider other sites, admitting, ''We are getting a lot of feedback -- feedback about why this is the wrong choice.''

Still, the writer adds, a small business keeper on Route 63 near the controversial site says that growth will come to the area anyway. ''If you don't put a school there,'' he says, ''someone is going to put houses on that land, and I'd rather see a school.'' -- Philadelphia Inquirer   5/12/2004

Resource(s): www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/

Community, Roads Are Top Issues for Non-Profit's Struggle Against Big Box Store

Wal-Mart expansion becoming one of the hottest local issues nationwide, the company's plan to build a $28 million Supercenter in Kilbuck, some eight miles northwest of Pittsburgh, was approved by township supervisors, but fired up area residents, whose Communities First! group grew to more than 300 members, including such unusual anti-corporate Republicans as mortgage broker Bob Keir, retired health teacher Carolyn Smith, and homemaker Mary Louise Fowkes, the latter saying, ''The struggle is truly about this community and our roads, and that is why we have attracted such a wide and diverse group of people.''

Bob Keir stresses, ''We are against any type of big box retailer using this site,'' due mostly to the inevitable traffic congestion, and Carolyn Smith adds, ''Wal-Mart takes all of its money back to Arkansas,'' instead of giving some of it to the community like local stores do.

Each of the three is dedicating about 30 hours a week to the group's mission and outreach, reports Pittsburgh Tribune-Review writer Rick Wills, noting that Wal-Mart already has 10 stores within 30 miles of downtown Pittsburgh.

Supported recently by a $36,000 grant from the Heinz Endowments, Communities First! has also won nonprofit status, which makes donations it receives tax deductible, the writer observes, quoting the noted ''guru of the anti-Wal-Wart movement,'' Sprawl-Busters consulting firm director Al Norman of Greenfield, Massachusetts, who doesn't know any other such grassroots organization nationwide to have gained nonprofit designation. ''It really shows,'' he says, ''how much this group has worked.'' -- Tribune-Review   4/12/2004

Resource(s): www.pittsburghlive.com/x/

Transformation of West Sadsbury Wal-Mart Site Evident Two Years After Opening of Supercenter

In the two years since Wal-Mart opened the region's first Supercenter in West Sadsbury Township some 40 miles west of Philadelphia, the site at the intersection of Routes 30 and 10 has morphed into a 67-acre shopping center; traffic and calls for police have escalated; and two older supermarkets nearby went out of business, with United Food and Commercial Workers local president Wendell Young afraid that ''creeping Wal-Martism'' across the state will cause more closings.

Having 43 Supercenters, and several Sam's Club and discount stores in Pennsylvania, Wal-Mart is already the state's largest private employer, with 40,000 workers and plans for further expansion, reports Philadelphia Inquirer writer Bob Fernandez, quoting New jersey-based Barnard's Retail Consulting Group president Kurt Barnard, who calls mega-stores ''a fact of life'' and adds, ''Whatever good comes from them and whatever bad comes from them, is inevitable.''

Anchored by Wal-Mart, the West Sadsbury Commons shopping center provides several hundreds jobs. It also became the largest property taxpayer in the Octorara School District, which under state law gets most of the tax, or more than $300,000 a year.

On the flip side, the Supercenter pays low wages and attracts so many thieves -- with 121 of the Commons' 127 criminal arrests in the first eight months of 2003 -- that the township spent almost $29,000 more on the center's police protection during the year than it received from its taxes.

And although the development company widened some road lanes to ease congestion, it also put 74 light poles on the parking lot and 28 security lights on buildings to allow the Supercenter's round-the-clock operation, drawing complaints about light pollution. Many people can't see the stars for the blazing lights, the writer notes, quoting an Amish resident who calls it ''Wal-Mart sunshine.'' -- Philadelphia Inquirer   4/12/2004

Resource(s): www.philly.com/

Keystone State Launches Ohio River Basin Preservation Program

In expansion of the 1997 Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program that protected about 80,000 acres of Pennsylvania farmland in the Chesapeake Bay watershed over the past four years, U.S. Republican Senator Arlen Specter, flanked by Agriculture Secretary Anne Veneman and Democratic Governor Ed Rendell, announced the $146 million Ohio River Basin Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, which should preserve some 65,000 of the basin acres in the northwestern part of the state, with Secretary Veneman calling these programs some of the new ways ''to really preserve water quality and preserve farming at the same time.''

Governor Rendell pointed out that the program could also help wildlife, so important to the state's $9.6 billion hunting and fishing industry.

Although some farmers nationwide receive as little as $43 an acre for not farming, reports Associated Press writer Dan Nephin, the Ohio River Basin program will pay participants $130 an acre for reverting to native grasses and vegetation since the region's land is relatively expensive. Federal officials expect the program to reduce sediment, nitrogen and phosphorus entering the Ohio River and subsequently the Gulf of Mexico.   3/24/2004

Resource(s): www.phillyburbs.com/

Disappointed With Low-Density Sprawl Near Renovated ''El'' Train, Preservationist Urges Philadelphia to Embrace Transit-Oriented Development

As the South Eastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) promises to change the look of West Philadelphia through a $567 million reconstruction of the Market-Frankford Elevated (El) train line, Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia board chairman Paul Steinke envisions ''a landscape of new houses, apartment and shops filling the emptiness, bustling with residents who zip downtown every day for employment, dining and entertainment, and return in minutes to their transit-accessible homes.''

Unfortunately, he writes in the weekly Philadelphia City Paper, this opportunity for ''folks priced out of downtown housing'' seems to get squandered as the vacant and underused land along the line is being taken by ''sprawling, low-density pharmacies, groceries and strip centers strongly oriented toward automobiles, but hostile to the hordes of consumers on foot using the El a few steps away.''

To make Philadelphians ''trudge across an inhospitable landscape of paving and parked cars in order to fill their prescriptions is dehumanizing and destructive to the quality of city life,'' he continues, convinced that people can have both new retail and urban revitalization if the thinking about land use and development changes.

''SEPTA and the city need to embrace transit-oriented development (TOD),'' he points out, urging the agency to drop its institutional argument, ''We're not real estate developers, we run buses and trains,'' and join the city in identifying DOT sites and seek developers ready to build such projects, with which the city could help by modifying regulations to prevent ''wasteful, low-density development'' and spur ''higher-density projects that would take better advantage of the SEPTA system while creating a safer, livelier city.''

For this, the writer places his hope in the legislature, noting that more than 50 lawmakers from both parties have sponsored HB 994, or the Transit Revitalization Investment District Act, to ''authorize partnerships between transit agencies, government and the private sector to link economic development and public transportation assets.'' -- Philadelphia City Paper   2/25/2004

Resource(s): www.citypaper.net/

Gov. Rendell's Budget Address Focuses on Land Preservation, Community Development and Planning

Driven to secure Pennsylvania's long-term competitiveness, so dependent on improving the increasingly interlinked economy, education, environment and quality of life, Democratic Governor Ed Rendell urged lawmakers in his budget address to pass quickly a $2 billion three-year economic stimulus package, which would leverage $6 billion in private investment and spur jobs, brownfield reuse, alternative energy technologies and urban revitalization; to replenish the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Fund; to stabilize and strengthen the Growing Greener program by doubling its $135 million annual fund; and to build on its legacy by asking voters to approve an $800 million Growing Greener Bond Act -- $330 million earmarked for land preservation, $300 million for environmental remediation, and $170 million for older communities and better planning -- while the state ''will work with local governments, citizen groups, developers and others to determine if additional incentives or tools can promote smarter growth.''

Since ''(m)odern roads, airports and transit systems are a precondition for growth,'' the governor said, the state must ensure that its transportation spending helps revitalize core communities, ''rather than accelerating both sprawl and blight.''

Concerned that as 48th in population growth for most of the 1990s, Pennsylvania outpaced 48 states in land consumption and still is losing 110,000 acres a year, even with 1,700 farmers on the waiting list for its successful farmland preservation program, the governor said his proposed Growing Greener Bond Act ''will help us help them stay in business.'' The bond money, he continued, will also let the state expand preservation on forestland, upgrade state parks, speed up stream cleanup, and aid municipalities in their efforts to ''repair blighted lands for public space, housing and other community uses.''

Finally, the governor said, ''the Growing Greener Bond Act will help us invest in rebuilding and revitalizing Pennsylvania's older communities,'' taking the economic stimulus package's funding ''for main street managers and Elm Street planners'' a step further ''by providing capital to improve our Main Streets, build new housing and mixed-use redevelopments, and bring life back to community parks.'' Better allocation of transportation funds also can help, he said, because as ''we are working with local leaders to help businesses on Main Street attract new customers, Mains Street itself may be falling apart,'' and ''in many communities -- small towns, medium-size boroughs and even major cities -- Main Street is a state highway.'' Therefore, the governor directed the Department of Transportation ''to establish a Home Town Streets program to prioritize the repair, redesign and reconstruction of main streets, commercial corridors and major boulevards in our older communities as a way to support local revitalization plans.'' He also urged lawmakers to follow other state legislatures and create ''state Historic Preservation Tax Credits for commercial and some residential buildings ... to help small businesses, homeowners and developers rebuild the fabric of hundreds of older communities.''   2/3/2004

Resource(s): www.state.pa.us/papower/default.asp

Easton Planning Workshop Message: It's Time for Smart Growth

Due to its outdated sprawl-oriented zoning codes, the Allentown-Easton area of Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon counties known as the Lehigh Valley lost more farmland in 1982-97 than any of Pennsylvania's other top metropolitan regions and now consensus is growing that it's time to change things through smart growth -- to boost older neighborhoods, save open space and make people less dependent on cars.

That was the subject of an Easton planning workshop-teleconference organized by local smart-growth advocates Tanya Allison-Kewley and Dennis Lieb, reports Express-Times writer Kurt Bresswein, quoting the former, who said she wanted to make the national experts' tele-advice ''available to the public and especially to government officials and planners,'' hoping it will strike a chord.

Co-organizer Lieb stressed the importance of public participation in revamping local planning to ensure practical options for pedestrians and cyclists, and Lafayette College's Meyner Center for the Study of State and Local Government public service director Diane Elliot urged brownfield reuse, noting that ''for every acre we redevelop in brownfield areas, we are saving 4 acres of green space.''

One of the tele-panelists, Chicago-based planner Kirk Bishop made the final point, telling listeners, ''Sometimes in code review, what you get rid of is as important as what you add.'' Another Easton smart-growth workshop and teleconference, focused on ways to improve zoning board functions, will be held February 18. -- Express-Times   1/22/2004

Resource(s): www.nj.com/expresstimes/

State Supreme Court Ruling Boosts Authority of Regional Planning Groups

In a decision good for smart growth, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ended a long dispute over 312 rural acres in Upper Makefield Township, Bucks County -- where developers projected higher residential density than allowed under a 1983 three-party zoning agreement consistent with state law -- ruling unanimously that municipalities in a joint planning group can invoke the need to preserve farmland, wetlands or the environment as ''legitimate justification'' for ''carefully tailored restriction of the type, location and intensity of permitted development.''

Upper Makefield zoning chairman Robert Gorring called the ruling ''monumental in terms of municipal planning,'' report Philadelphia Inquirer writers Diane Mastrul and Leslie A. Pappas, also quoting 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania president Janet Milkman, who said, ''The message is very strong that the courts support multimunicipal planning as a legal means of meeting environmental and development and agricultural-preservation goals.''

The developers, Toll Bros. and its eight-farmer Dolington Land Group, have been fighting the local joint zoning ordinance since 1996 as ''unreasonably restrictive'' to multifamily housing. Commenting on the court ruling, developer attorney John A. VanLuvanee downplayed its significance, saying, ''I don't think it has any impact on regional planning. We didn't challenge the ability of municipalities to do joint planning.''

To encourage growth-management and multi-jurisdictional planning, the writers note, the legislature passed historic land-use law changes in 2000, and currently more than 630 municipalities in 47 counties are pursuing some joint planning goals. Next in their ranks may be eight municipalities in the two-county Pottstown Metropolitan Regional Planning Commission, whose chairman Andy Paravis welcomed the court's ruling, saying, ''Years and years are spent on these plans, and we really look to the courts to uphold the communities' desires and wishes.'' -- Philadelphia Inquirer   1/5/2004

Resource(s): www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/

Grassroots Work for Smart Growth in Easton Gets Results

Heartened by her e-mail success in mobilizing victorious neighborhood opposition against Northampton County's plan to raze some Easton houses for a prison expansion in 2002, five-year city resident, young mother Tanya Allison-Kewley, moved to make a difference for the future, urging changes in city zoning ordinances and building codes, and augmenting hearing-notification messages to about 100 mostly downtown recipients with her New Urbanists of Easton electronic newsletter that promotes smart growth. ''We can't expect everything to be perfectly historically correct,'' she tells Allentown Morning Call writer Tracy Jordan. ''We need to be a modern, forward-moving city, but we need to do it in a way that doesn't mean knocking everything down and starting from scratch.''

Resolved to reach more residents, the writer reports, Allison-Kewley secured two $500 grants from the Coalition for Better Neighborhoods to put the New Urbanists of Easton newsletter on her planned NUE News web site, which will be accessible at www.nuenews.org, and to host two American Planning Association audio-video conferences, on January 21 and February 18, offering attendees the opportunity to question experts via the Internet.

Another Easton smart growth advocate, real estate agent Dennis Lieb, a frequent newsletter contributor, who also helped organize a lecture by national sprawl critic James H. Kunstler about a year ago, faults the city for its half-measures to improve the blighted West Ward. ''It doesn't really matter what little projects we do in the West Ward, or any place, if the city doesn't have the structure in place,'' he says. ''Tearing down a building because of codes is wrong. The codes are the problem -- not the building.'' -- Morning Call   12/29/2003

Resource(s): www.mcall.com/

New Green Fields and Green Towns Plan Allows Funds for Open Space Preservation, Historic Building Rehabilitation

Following its pledge to help revitalize older communities with part of the $150 million from Montgomery County's new 10-year Green Fields and Green Towns plan approved by almost 78 percent of voters in November, the Board of Commissioners earmarked $67 million for municipal improvement projects, $75 million for county open space acquisition and conservation; and $8 million for grants to private organizations.

Eligible for $540,000 each plus a population-based bonus in the first four-year funding round, municipalities are required to match 20 percent of the money, with exceptions for fiscally strapped Norristown and Pottstown, which will pay 10 percent, while private organizations must contribute 50 percent to receive grants. The county's previous $100 million open space protection plan that expired in 2003, reports Philadelphia Inquirer writer Jeff Shields, focused mostly on land purchases, ''tying the hands of small, densely developed communities with little financial resources,'' and $15 million in municipal grants was left unspent.

The current plan lets municipalities use the grants not only to buy open space, but also to redevelop properties, rehabilitate blighted and historic buildings, and improve parks and other infrastructure. Any money unspent within four years, the writer notes, will go back into a pool, to be distributed on a competitive basis in the second round of funding. -- Philadelphia Inquirer   12/22/2003

Resource(s): www.philly.com/

Keystone Research Center Report Concludes Pennsylvania's Policies Favor Sprawl

Pennsylvania policies favor sprawl at the cost of urban population and vitality loss, which threatens the future of metropolitan regions and the whole state, concludes the independent Keystone Research Center (KRC) in the ''Economic Development Subsidies in Pennsylvania: Do They Fuel Sprawl?'' study, commissioned and summarized by the Brookings Institution in the ''Back to Prosperity: A Competitive Agenda for Reviewing Pennsylvania'' report, which attributes the state's substandard economic performance since the early 1990s to its lack of ''vision,'' biased public spending and bureaucratic inefficiencies.

Linking the state's ''self-inflicted wound'' with trends that started more than 50 years ago, Brooking's Center on Urban and Metropolitan director Bruce Katz said, ''Its allocation of resources has been haphazard at best, ill-focused and fiscally wasteful at worst. It's hard to find any coherent strategy.'' Brookings report co-author Frank Muro emphasized its finding that ''how you sprawl, and whether you abandon old places has economic consequences.''

The administration of Democratic Governor Ed Rendell, in office since January, found the verdict ''harsh,'' but obviously warranted, reports Philadelphia Inquirer writer Diane Mastrull, quoting gubernatorial policy director Donna Cooper, who called the state's course ''arbitrary, visionless'' and the report's data ''very conclusive that things have to change.''

In the pursuit of change, the report advises Pennsylvania to ''improve its capacity to plan so it can better promote sound land use and greater competitiveness on a regional basis;'' to make ''the most of its significant infrastructure and economic development spending by targeting its resources on the state's older, already established places;'' to invest ''in workers and industries that will help the state produce a more competitive, higher-wage future;'' to reform ''policies and programs to encourage land reclamation and redevelopment in cities, towns and older suburbs;'' and to promote ''much more regional collaboration and state cohesion.'' -- PR Newswire   12/9/2003

Resource(s): http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/ ; www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/

Editorial Seeks Fairness in Acceptable Use of Northwest Philly's Protected Acres

All over Philadelphia's northwestern suburbs, residents increasingly support open space protection with their ''hearts and wallets,'' writes Philadelphia Inquirer Pennsylvania commentary editor Bob Martin, noting that Bucks County entered the sixth year of its $59 million decade-long preservation plan, that the two new Chester County Republican commissioners promised to spend $60 million on land conservation over four years, and that 77 percent of Montgomery County voters just passed a $150 million open space bond issue. But he urges jurisdictions to be true to voter intent, taking issue with Chester County's township of West Pikeland, population about 4,000, which spent $1.38 million on 73 parkland acres in 1995 and received a $500,000 county grant in 1995, specifically for assigning 55 acres for active and passive recreation. Today, the editor observes, only six acres of soccer and lacrosse fields are set aside for active recreation, while the rest is restricted to passive recreation, defined by previous supervisors ''as, and strictly limited to, walking, hiking and horseback riding.'' Pointing out that only about five percent of township residents own horses, the editor doubts that county taxpayers ''want to subsidize the acquisition of parkland where horses are allowed to walk, trot or run but humans are 'strictly limited' to walking'' and forbidden to jog, bicycle, picnic, throw frisbees, fly kites or try cross-county skiing in the winter. Glad that a new township supervisor-elect, Bill Cracas intends to fulfill his electoral pledge and seek repeal of the restriction as soon as he takes office in January, the editor tells prospective adversaries, ''I am with Cracas -- for attacking the unfairness of the restriction, standing up to high-powered opposition, and noting that you can embrace open-space preservation without accepting every 'love-me, love-my-dog' provision of it.'' Or, he adds, ''in this case, love me, love my horse.'' -- Philadelphia Inquirer   11/13/2003

Resource(s): www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/

Pennsylvania Needs to Focus on Open Space Preservation Now, Says Former Natural Resources Secretary

Open space and farmland preservation ''should be a political priority'' backed by bond issues, said former Governor Tom Ridge's conservation and natural resources secretary John Oliver, alarmed that each day Pennsylvania is losing more than 350 acres to often ''unwise, misguided housing and commercial development,'' strip malls and roads, and that sprawl may be ''out of control'' in Cumberland County. ''What makes Cumberland County so beautiful are the farms, the streams, the mountains,'' he said at the 50th anniversary banquet of the Cumberland County Conservation District in Penn Township, stressing that once natural land is ''bulldozed and paved, it very rarely goes back to its former state.'' An advocate of using economic development money to help cities like Carlisle, Mechanicsburg and Shippenburg to reclaim empty factories instead of putting new ones on farmland, reports Carlisle Sentinel writer Linda Franz, the former secretary urged municipalities to plan jointly for the future and the state to do its part by sending funds to areas covered by joint plans. He concluded, ''I would implore you, while there's time, join together, recognize existing public lands, recognize their value and importance to Cumberland County. Work together on a comprehensive plan and determine where development should go.'' -- Sentinel   10/2/2003

Resource(s): www.cumberlink.com/

Upper Delaware Regional Visioning Committee Encouraged by Public Support

Formed in 2001 to have smart-growth tools ready when development pushes into its scenic region, the public-private Visioning Committee of the Upper Delaware River Corridor launched a series of joint meetings for Pennsylvania and New York riverside communities, the first -- for Damascus Township (PA) and Cochecton (NY) residents -- producing proposals to expand zoning, use conservancy easements and involve seasonal residents in area growth-management plans. The committee has already persuaded four towns -- Shohola (PA) and Tusten, Lumberland and Highland (NY) -- to consolidate their water ridge preservation efforts, reports Honesdale Wayne Independent writer Kevin Kearney, quoting committee member Tom Kane, who is ''very encouraged'' by the public support. Concerned about recent cases of clear-cutting the Delaware River ridge for homes ''with a view,'' the committee is working to speed up and broaden cross-river cooperation between Pennsylvania and New York communities. With a developer plan for a 1,200-home subdivision in Damascus Township, Goshen (NY) zoning officer Neal Halloran favors regional growth control, saying, ''These people are going to come in, make their money and leave.'' -- Wayne Independent   10/1/2003

Resource(s): www.wayneindependent.com/

Westmoreland County's Third S.G. Summit Focuses on Need for Regional Cooperation Against Sprawl

Having first addressed ''conservation by design'' and then ''town planning'' in the previous two years, the nonprofit Smart Growth Partnership of Westmoreland County focused its third Smart Growth Summit on the need for regional cooperation against sprawl, the issue made specially urgent by Pittsburgh's recent budget troubles, said partnership executive director Alex J. Graziani, asking some 200 officials, planners, developers and others to discuss ''how regions can remain competitive when their larger urban centers are fiscally distressed.'' With the nine-county Pittsburgh region expecting another 430,000 residents by 2024, Urban Design Associates managing principal Donald K. Carter told participants, ''We have to decide what kind of region we want ... either a trend-based scenario of unconstrained growth, or a focused, fully controlled growth scenario.'' The summit concluded, reports Pittsburgh Tribune-Review writer C. M. Mortimer, that southwestern Pennsylvania has so far pursued regionalism through workforce investment, public safety measures and lobbying in the state legislature. -- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review   9/27/2003

Resource(s): www.pittsburghlive.com/

Glendening Outlines Policies to Stem Sprawl, Revitalize Urban Areas at Pittsburgh Forum

Like many urban centers nationwide, Pittsburgh and its older suburbs have thousands of abandoned buildings due mainly to persistent government funding for new roads, schools and services in ever more distant outer areas -- although it also necessitates increased spending on social ills in areas left behind, said Smart Growth Leadership Institute president, former Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening in his keynote speech to 300 community leaders, activists and others at a Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation forum, advocating new tax and development policies to prevent urban abandonment, revitalize older neighborhoods and stem sprawl. Echoing foundation president Arthur P. Ziegler Jr.'s interest in preventing demolition of old buildings that are often ''architectural assets, economic assets, cultural assets and neighborhood assets,'' reports Pittsburgh Tribune-Review real estate writer Ron DaParma, the former Maryland governor pointed out that Baltimore too has about 40,000 empty housing units, because people ''are moving further and further from our cities.'' He also illustrated the problem by citing Maryland's outlay of $12 million for a new road near Cumberland in Allageny County, to help the city build a regional shopping complex outside its limits. Two years after the complex opened, many downtown Cumberland stores were closed and public money has been spent since to revive that business district. Formed by Washington-based Smart Growth America in February, the Smart Growth Leadership Institute is working with local and state governments on more sustainable tax and development policies. ''What we have found is,'' the former governor said, ''that many of the current administrative and zoning structures and actually the tax structure can actually discourage investment in existing communities and encourage people to go out and pave over one more farm or plough down one more forest.'' -- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review   6/7/2003

Resource(s): www.pittsburghlive.com/x/

Pittsburgh Hosts ''Promoting Regional Equity Through Smart Growth'' Conference

''Unless you work together as a region, Pittsburgh will be more polarized, more racially and economically segregated and there will be more tax and financial burdens,'' warned Ohio State University's Kirwan Institute on Race and Ethnicity director John A. Powell in his keynote address to more that 200 activists from municipal, grassroots, faith-based and educational groups at the ''Promoting Regional Equity Through Smart Growth'' conference, urging them ''to recognize common destinies and reach across organizations'' while fighting sprawl. Hosted by Sustainable Pittsburgh, the Local Government Academy and the Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network, reports Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writer Ervin Dyer, the conference focused on smart land-use and infrastructure options advantageous for affordable housing, public transit and economic expansion. Seeing sprawl roots in the 1930s' reduction of home down payments and extension of mortgage loans, which also ''red-lined'' many older and mostly black neighborhoods, the keynote speaker told the attendees that sprawl really began by the mid-1950s, with blacks streaming into cities, whites flying out and the urban landscape changing ever since. While 50 years ago, 60 percent of Americans lived in 192 cities, now 60 percent live in more than 9,500 sprawling suburbs, with the Pittsburgh region becoming one of the most fragmented nationwide, the city losing population over the last decade and land consumption increasing 40 percent. To make things change, the speaker stressed, community groups must know market forces and social justice issues, and form religious, racial and other coalitions to promote regionalism. -- Pittsburgh Post- Gazette   6/1/2003

Resource(s): www.post-gazette.com/

Philadelphia's Walking Workers Make it Largest 24-Hour Downtown in the U.S.

Although some may think walking to work unimportant, it is really a necessary component of a vibrant ''24-hour'' urban core and a key goal of New Urbanism, writes Penn's Robert A. Fox Leadership Program expert Mark Alan Hughes in a Philadelphia Daily News column, glad that Philadelphia doesn't have to ''create a walking city from scratch,'' since more than half of the workers living in its Center City walk to their jobs, in comparison with about three percent nationwide. According to the 2000 census data, he writes, the ten Center City census tracts, where at least 50 percent workers walk to work, had a total of 38,000 residents in a 1.9- square-mile area, which is ''the largest '24-hour downtown' in the United States.'' The next is the Charles River basin in Boston with 33,000 residents in seven such tracts on 1.5 square miles, followed by San Francisco with 8,000 people in four tracts on 0.8 square miles and Midtown Manhattan with 3,000 people in three tracts on 0.2 square miles. The two ''largest walking cities'' include several university campuses, whose faculty and staff live nearby, but in both the essence is ''a high density mix of many types of diverse land uses.'' A large walking city ''is the product of thousands of private decisions made over generations,'' the writer stresses. ''Old buildings are reused, new technologies are introduced and public decisions are implemented.'' -- Philadelphia Daily News   5/20/2003

Resource(s): www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/opinion/

Michigan Land Use Leadership Council Looks at State Models for Effective Smart Growth Strategies

As it seeks input for a future Michigan growth-management plan, Governor Jennifer Granholm's bipartisan Land Use Leadership Council can learn much about what works or doesn't in smart growth from other states, writes Michigan Land Use Institute policy advisor Arlin Wasserman, citing the institute's in-depth research in Colorado, Pennsylvania and Florida -- which found that big money talks, the right message must reach the right people, and political shifts require new messages and allies -- and the parallel Sierra Club/Mackinac Chapter interviews with environmental and land use advocates in 13 states, which confirmed the general conclusion that ''political leadership from top state official is crucial to advancing Smart Growth.'' In Colorado, the writer explains, a 1998 anti-sprawl measure, initially backed by 80 percent of residents and by $1 million in campaign donations, lost in a landslide because developers spent $6 million on a counter-campaign and Governor Bill Owens urged voters to let him control sprawl by other means. Consequently, ''Colorado's environmentalists find themselves on the outside as the governor works his way through a list of less ambitious reforms.'' In Pennsylvania, the 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania environmental group spent years garnering broad support for its reform proposals, forming alliances with smart growth, quality of life and economic efficiency advocates, and setting up an extensive education network. The Friends were happy to let then-Governor Tom Ridge ''take the credit for their proposals'' and to help inform his advisory board as it sought input on his 2000 program, eventually enacted into law. In Florida, gubernatorial candidate Jeb Bush declared support for the state's growth-management policies during his 1988 campaign, but once elected ''pandered to the property rights movement and tried to gut the state laws.'' But environmentalists and ''savvy developers'' in the 1,000 Friends of Florida group ''did some research, and unflinchingly cited the undue industry influence and bias'' in the governor's new position, beating back his efforts. With the multi- state research by the Sierra Club/Mackinac Chapter showing the importance of holding elected officials true to their electoral land use promises and forming broad coalitions with groups focused on quality of life and social equity, the writer adds: ''It doesn't matter which political party controls a state's government. That's because Smart Growth is pro-business, pro-equity, pro-environment, and pro-quality of life. These are, in sum, bipartisan issues.'' -- Michigan Land Use Institute   4/13/2003

Resource(s): www.mlui.org/growthmanagement/fullarticle.asp?fileid=16478

Pittsburgh Mayor Guides Smart Growth Group Through City's Redeveloping Brownfields

To help Westmoreland County officials and activists visualize land reuse potential, the county's Smart Growth Partnership and state Democratic Senator Alan Kukovich arranged a bus tour to Pittsburgh, in adjacent Allegheny County, where Mayor Tom Murphy guided them through four former urban brownfields in various phases of redevelopment and the Lawrence Convention Center, in the final stage of an expansion that will make it the world's largest certified ''green building.'' The city's old slag dump, known as Nine Mile Run, reports Pittsburgh Tribune-Review real estate writer Ron DaParma, will be transformed into the 238-acre Summerset neighborhood of 700 single-family upscale homes, with demand so strong that developers held a lottery for the first 58 and almost filled a waiting list for the rest. Key for such high-quality brownfield redevelopment is public-private cooperation and a compromise, said Rubinoff Co. president Mark Schneider, with the city making Summerset possible by investing nearly $30 million to buy the site and lay infrastructure, including roads and sidewalks, while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spends $7 million on its stream cleanup. The other three Pittsburgh post-industrial sites toured by the Westmoreland County group are being used for mixed- use projects, all with housing components. The county's Smart Growth Partnership, said its executive director Alexander Graziani, favors this kind of balanced development that ''decreases automobile use.'' With county planning director Larry Larese equally impressed, Senator Kukovich pointed to a slag area in the county's Penn Township as well suited for a quality residential project. -- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review   4/4/2003

Resource(s): www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/business/

Gov. Rendell's Cabinet Appointments Reflect Commitment to Smart Growth

Joining governors of New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan and other states with his pledge to curb sprawl and boost cities, Governor Ed Rendell may not immediately secure the $2 billion projected for such goals because of budget shortages, but his key cabinet appointments confirm his ''commitment to smart growth,'' with gubernatorial spokesman Ken Snyder saying, ''These are people that see land-use issues through a job growth prism, who protect the environment while building infrastructure.'' They include, notes Philadelphia Inquirer writer Amy Worden, former President Clinton's top environmental policy adviser Kathleen McGinty as secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection and former Pittsburgh transportation planner Allen Biehler as secretary of the Department of Transportation, along with former Maryland planning secretary Roy Kienitz and former 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania president Joanne Denworth as top cabinet aides. The governor called secretary Biehler the first with ''such a strong background in mass transit'' and smart growth advocates pointed out that Denworth, a highly experienced environmental lawyer, was instrumental in drafting and winning bipartisan support for a package of growth- management bills backed by then-Governor Tom Ridge and passed in 2000. Seen as the state's largest land-use reform in 30 years, the bills have revealed some weaknesses since then, with their loopholes used for controversial mining and factory farms operations. Notwithstanding the tight budget, some observers think the governor can greatly advance smart growth. ''Especially,'' said a 1990 Pulitzer Prize winner, journalist Thomas Hylton, ''if you have cabinet members watching how agencies spend their dollars and seeing whether those expenditures are fostering smart growth or not.'' Also, the state could easily ''cut off the money that encourages sprawl,'' he stressed, since the governor ''could say honestly, 'The treasury is bare' and you lose the incentives to put a corporate center in a cornfield.'' -- Philadelphia Inquirer   3/3/2003

Resource(s): www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/local/

New Comprehensive Plan Could Reduce Metro Pottstown's Housing Needs by 10,000 Units

Enabled by 2000 legislation, the Pottstown Metropolitan Regional Planning Commission is laying the groundwork for a comprehensive plan, under which its eight municipalities will revise their zoning laws to share some land uses and consequently reduce their future total housing needs by about 10,000 units -- an effort praised by Home Builders Association of Bucks and Montgomery counties' executive vice president Duane Searles, who said the ''whole idea of developing a land-use plan that goes beyond the boundaries of a municipality is something we as an industry favor,'' noting, ''For some people, 'smart growth' means a way to control or slow growth. In our minds, if done properly, it's a way to manage growth, a way to anticipate and plan for future needs.'' While he cautioned against underestimation of future housing needs, because ''land prices could skyrocket,'' reports Pottstown Mercury writer Evan Brandt, he agreed that the development rate exceeds the population growth and that ''it's sound public policy to encourage development closer in (to urban centers) rather than farther out.'' But officials must address ''quality-of-life issues'' in many towns and urban areas, he added, if they want to win back more residents. The association's director of governmental affairs, Frank Christoffel, elaborated, offering as an example adjacent Lancaster County, whose rural scenery has been attracting newcomers long before local builders joined its efforts to preserve farmland. We realized, he explained, that people ''won't come anymore if we consume all the rural scenery'' and that ''destroying farmland would eventually collapse the county's economy.'' Having chosen to help preserve farmland, work with municipalities ''to build more compact housing,'' and focus on ''growth areas'' and ''traditional building design,'' Lancaster builders have all the business they can handle, he said, pointing out that ''houses in the traditional neighborhoods tend to sell well and quickly.'' -- Pottstown Mercury   2/10/2003

Resource(s): www.pottstownmercury.com/

Editorial: Pennsylvania Law Hinders Smart Growth

''Pennsylvania law hinders smart growth,'' asserts former long-time York County Planning Commission director Jack Dunn in two consecutive weekly columns in the York Daily Record, calling the county's and most local plans ''realistic,'' but insufficiently effective due to both the lack of tools and the lax implementation process set by the state's 1968 Municipalities Planning Code (MPC). Despite extensive revisions in 2000, the MPC remains ''deeply flawed,'' the writer argues, its biggest flaws being weak enforcement, which lets municipalities ignore their own plans, and week consistency, which allows discrepancies between municipal zoning and planning and between local and regional plans. In contrast to states whose ''planning legislation provides broad parameters for the process of managing growth and leaves the details up to local governments'' as true ''enabling legislation'' should do, Pennsylvania has ''prescriptive legislation,'' with land- use micromanaged in Harrisburg. But state lawmakers lack expertise in many growth-management issues and depend on factual information from varied sources, most notably, he writes, from the Pennsylvania Builders Association and the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors. The builders usually oppose legislation believed to impede development or increase its costs; the supervisors are ''lukewarm'' toward regional planning and sometimes think ''the world ends at the township boundary.'' On the other hand, he continues, the Pennsylvania Planning Association lacks ''a broad constituency and financial resources'' and its recent efforts to form a partnership with the Pennsylvania Environmental Council and the 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania weren't highly successful. Stressing that effective growth-management lobbying ''requires a continuing and sustained effort to create a relationship of trust and informed opinion,'' the writer points activists to the most urgent solutions. The MPC should be simplified and many of its provisions clarified. The relationship between counties and municipalities should be redefined. Members of local planning commissions, zoning boards and other agencies should receive proper training. The State Planning Board should be reactivated with sufficient professional staff, he concludes, and its ''basic mission should be the preparation of a General State Plan.'' -- York Daily Record   10/23/2002

Resource(s): www.ydr.com/

Build ''Real Communities,'' Urges Keynote Speaker at Westmoreland County Smart Growth Summit

''We've squandered land as recklessly as we did buffaloes at the beginning of the 20th century,'' with 50 years of sprawl also responsible for increased car dependence, pollution, health problems and social isolation, said Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas Hylton in his keynote speech to the second annual Westmoreland County Smart Growth Summit at the University of Pittsburgh in Greensburg, urging the audience of 150 area leaders, planners and developers to build ''real communities,'' where people live near jobs, children walk to schools, mixed housing allows diversity and human-scale designs facilitate social interaction. Winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for his series of Pottstown Mercury editorials on the need to preserve southern Pennsylvania's farmland and open space, the journalist quoted expert estimates that ''we have built five or six parking spaces for every car in America'' and research showing that real communities ''can save people time and money.'' After decades of building ''in the wrong areas,'' he said, we ''should be shifting development toward our old urban areas,'' including ''under-utilized malls'' and focusing on brownfields as the first priority. The importance of a neighborhood design to community spirit, reports Pittsburgh Tribune-Review writer Paul Peirce, was illustrated by a speaker from Virginia, Norfolk Police Department community resource officer Rick James. Since the mid-1990 addition of front porches, picket fences, playgrounds and public green space in Norfolk's crime-plagued four-block Diggstown public housing neighborhood, its has become much safer, people have ''finally stepped outside'' and the police presence has been reduced to one officer a day instead of the seven or eight before. -- PittsburghLive.com   9/28/2002

Resource(s): www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/newscode/s_93933.html

Hershey, Pa.: A Town Built on Smart Growth Principles Faces Uncertain Future

''A century ago, when Milton Hershey started building a model town surrounding his chocolate factory in central Pennsylvania, he just about wrote the script for what we now call Smart Growth,'' writes Pulitzer Prize-winning Pennsylvania journalist Thomas Hylton for the North Carolina's Charlotte Observer, focusing on the town's ingrained sense of community and its current struggle against selling the historic and record-profit-making Hershey Food Corp. to an international conglomerate or a tobacco industry subsidiary. Milton Hershey, the journalist writes, provided housing around his factory and subsidized a trolley line for workers from nearby towns. He soon turned his entire estate over to the Hershey Trust, under his chairmanship, for the benefit of Milton Hershey School and in the midst of the Depression built a lush community center, a hotel, sport facilities and school buildings. But after his death in 1945, the trust -- with today's assets of $4.5 billion dedicated to free K-12 education and full care for 1,200 underprivileged children nationwide -- has gradually distanced itself from the town and Hershey Foods. Its 17 directors -- only four of them from central Pennsylvania -- want to sell the company and are less concerned with the community than with the bottom line. Like many post-war era Americans, who see ''the good life as one of splendid isolation, where home ends with the front lawn, and community is a set of common interests rather than a physical place,'' the journalist writes, the trust's directors ''have lost their sense of geographic community'' and their ''obsession with money has obscured their obligation to Milton Hershey's ideal -- to make and preserve a special place where people feel part of something larger than themselves.'' And that, he concludes is ''the mission of Smart Growth -- rediscovering community ... Places like Hershey, Pennsylvania.'' -- The Charlotte Observer   8/20/2002

Resource(s): www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/

Grant Sought to Combat Sprawl in Southwest Allentown Communities

Taking advantage of a 2000 state law that allows regional planning cooperation and following the example of five Lehigh County municipalities northwest of Allentown, the southwestern boroughs of Alburtis and Macungie, along with the townships of Lower Macungie, Lower Milford and Upper Milford, asked the county for a grant to help them draw up a joint comprehensive plan to curb sprawl and save open space. Allentown Morning Call writer Dan Hartzell reminds readers that before the 2000 law, the state's 2,700 municipalities were restricted to managing land use within their own borders. Now municipalities can work together to create a common planning area, or joint zoning district, where high-density uses can be limited to urbanized sections and barred from open land. -- The Morning Call   6/9/2002

Resource(s): www.mcall.com/news/local/allentown/

Philadelphia's Anti-Blight Program Scheduled for Autumn Start

Having been delayed by a series of neighborhood planning meetings, Philadelphia Mayor John Street's anti-blight program should start in earnest this fall, with the first $65 million of an expected $295 million in bonds going for the demolition of 2,000 of 7,371 dangerous houses and repair of many others; the purchase of 8,000 of 31,000 vacant lots for residential, commercial and recreational reuse; and the computerization of an obsolete record-keeping system. The city's Office of Neighborhood Transformation (ONT), reports Philadelphia Inquirer writer Cynthia Burton, will launch the program in the city's neglected four-block Strawberry Mansion neighborhood, which tops the vacant property list with 1,845 abandoned lots, homes and commercial buildings and whose residents have persuaded planners to reduce the number of homes slated for demolition from 120 to 100. ONT director Patricia L. Smith says since she and Strawberry Mansion's City Councilman Darrell Clarke had learned from its residents that ''the anxiety levels are really high,'' it was worthwhile to proceed more slowly and give the demolition and redevelopment process more thought, because ''in the end, this will make it better and easier.'' -- The Philadelphia Inquirer   5/29/2002

Resource(s): www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/

Sprawl a Hot Topic in Race for Suburban Philadelphia State House Seat

A week before their party's May 21 primary, two Republican rivals for a state House seat from the fast-growing area of Upper Bucks County, incumbent Charles T. ''Chuck'' McIlhinney Jr. and Plumstead Township supervisor Betsy Helsel, vied for advantage during a League of Women Voters debate by often bringing up the issue of who is tougher on sprawl. The incumbent, reports Philadelphia Inquirer writer Peter Sigal, said he had pushed legislation that would make residential developers pay school impact fees although he saw property tax changes as a better means to fund schools. He explained his support for a Route 202 bypass project, stalled in court, by saying the ''additional cars are going to come whether or not we build the road,'' and tied his conditional endorsement of slot machines at horse-racing tracks to open space preservation, without which ''We're going to lose those horse farms and the land will become houses.'' His party challenger, whose fight against further development intrusion onto farmland has recently brought her a phone threat, also stressed the need for school impact fees because now ''We're picking up the burden for developers.'' But she called the bypass project a dead issue, pointing out that better planning would have spared the state department of transportation and local municipalities the confrontation in court while ''traffic problems keep getting worse,'' and noted that horse farms were thriving without race-track machine gambling, which amounts to a tax on the poor and shouldn't be encouraged.   5/10/2002

Resource(s): www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/

Students Present Sprawl Report to Commissioners in Chester County, Pa.

The fast-developing Chester County, long ''a trend-setter in Pennsylvania's land-conservation movement,'' found new partners in 28 West Chester University students in a class called ''Theories and Strategies of Community Change,'' who completed 60 hours of sprawl- focused interviews with more than 30 people directly involved in land development, wrote a credit-earning report and presented their findings at a county meeting, urging commissioners to tell the public more about the Landscapes conservation program, link green spaces and help neighborhoods establish a sense of community. During the project, overseen by history professor Charles Hardy and English professor Elizabeth Nollen, reports Philadelphia Inquirer writer Jonathan Gelb, the students learned a lot from officials, planners, activists, developers, conservationists and other experts about the community outside their downtown college campus. The writer quotes professor Hardy, who says the project -- a pilot version of an envisioned Chester County Historical Society study on how the county has changed in the past 50 years -- provides initial material on change in Philadelphia suburbs and puts the students at the center of public discourse on urban sprawl. The writer adds that according to a recent report by the nonprofit Greenspace Alliance, Chester County preserved 4,054 acres last year, almost equaling the total acreage preserved by the other four counties of the Philadelphia region.   5/9/2002

Resource(s): www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/

Car Sharing Nonprofit Could Reduce Philadelphia's Urban Traffic Congestion

The best but most costly way to reduce urban traffic congestion is to invest in mass transit; the second best, frugal way is to promote car sharing, says Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission adviser Larry Shaeffer, who reacted to the deluge of publicly-funded road-construction projects revived in his Regional Citizens Committee, by launching a nonprofit car-by-the-hour rental company, PhillyCarShare. South Philly Review writer Jonathan Tuleya quotes him as saying that a significant number of people ''will never let go of their cars,'' but that a shared car can eliminate four to eight private vehicles from city streets, cut overall driving among program participants in half by making them more cost-conscious, and save those who can do without their own cars a lot of money. Noting that the American Automobile Association (AAA) estimates the average annual cost of having a car at $8,000 -- and even higher in Philadelphia -- the PhillyCarShare director says, ''That money, especially in a low-income family, could be put to better use, whether it is for education, home improvements or things like that. That's where we see it as a real tool for social change.'' Encouraged by community response to his fledgling company, he believes he can put cars on the street early next year. Details at the company's web site www.phillycarshare.com.   4/4/2002

Resource(s): www.southphillyreview.com/

Sprawl Opponents Vie for Same Seat in Bucks County Election

Accentuating a split among Buck County Republicans, who dominate local politics, over the party's donations from developers, Plumstead Township supervisor and anti-sprawl ''firebrand'' Betsy Helsel will run in the party's May 21 primary against an incumbent and longtime adversary, state Representative Chuck McIlhinney, who expects his anti-sprawl voting record to secure him another term. Philadelphia Inquirer writer Matthew P. Blanchard quotes him as saying that he was instrumental in increasing funds for the state's ''Growing Greener'' farmland preservation program and in improving a recent ''builder-friendly bill,'' which gives townships only 100 days to answer developer suits. Blanchard claims that Helsel -- known for her efforts to revise state laws that permit further development inroads into farmland -- would like ''to create some laws that allow townships to strip the right away from individual landowners,'' which is ''socialism.'' Helsel counters that McIlhinney ''sold out'' preservation-minded residents to developers and rebukes his assertion that he is ''the open space candidate,'' by saying ''You can't do that if you're taking money from developers.''   3/13/2002

Resource(s): www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/

Initiative Will Coordinate Urban Revitalization Efforts in Pennsylvania

Under its new Metropolitan Partners Initiative, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources will draw on state, city and federal agency expertise to help revitalize selected urban areas, coordinate their land-use measures and enhance their quality of life. The department's executive deputy secretary, John Plonski, announced the partnership in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. Flanked by USDA Forest Service Chief Dale N. Bosworth and Philadelphia Managing Director Estelle B. Richman, he said that with most department facilities ''in the more rural areas of the state, it's time to find out how the agency can better ''serve urban partners and communities.''   3/7/2002

Resource(s): www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/

Development Possible for Private Land at Valley Forge

As the National Park Service lacks money to buy the last 460 private acres within Valley Forge National Historical Park -- expanded by Congress to 3,466 acres in 1976 -- the nation's largest luxury developer, Toll Bros. Inc., is targeting a former tree nursery on a park edge for 62 big houses, a move that irks activists, with National Parks Conservation Association official Joy Oakes saying Valley Forge is ''a national shrine'' and shouldn't become ''a park under siege.'' Deputy park superintendent Bob Krumenaker also believes the land, where George Washington's revolutionary army braved hard camp conditions between December 1777 and June 1778, ''was set aside to be protected for the American people forever.'' Noting that the tree nursery site is not accessible from the park and that its scenery would be preserved, the firm's chairman and CEO, Robert Toll, promises his cooperation should the National Park Service want to acquire the land.   12/26/2001

Resource(s): www.bergen.com/

Comprehensive Plan Preserves Rural Character, Promotes Redevelopment in Lower Providence Township

In step with a national trend, the Lower Providence Township northwest of Philadelphia adopted its first comprehensive plan designed to protect the township's rural character, while promoting business and redevelopment along the Germantown Pike and Ridge Pike industrial corridors. Township planning director Crystal Gilchrist said the plan provides for a diverse network of sidewalks and pathways and for preservation and enhancement of "significant natural and cultural features."   11/6/2001

Resource(s): www.inq.philly.com

Pennsylvania "Wind Farms" Offer Clean, Green Energy

Community Energy Inc., a green electricity company, opened two Exelon-Community Energy wind farms in southwest Pennsylvania, with 16 125-foot-tall turbines generating 24 megawatts -- enough to meet the annual power needs of more than 8,000 households. Three-quarters of the electricity will be sold to Carnegie Mellon University, Penn State University, the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Suburban Water Co. and the Giant Eagle grocery chain; the rest, to mid-Atlantic commercial and residential customers. According to environmental estimates, the wind farms will prevent 75 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year -- "the equivalent of taking 5,400 cars off the road or planting more than 10,000 acres of trees." Associated Press writer Dan Nephin quotes the director of the PennFuture environmental group, who says the producer and the five buyers "have invested in Pennsylvania and made possible clean energy that will fight dirty air, acid rain, and global warming while improving our energy security and independence."   10/26/2001

Resource(s): www.enn.com/news

62-mile MetroRail Philadelpha-Reading line -- blocked since January by a dispute over the state and local funding share

Determined to move forward with the proposed $1.4 billion, 62-mile MetroRail Philadelpha-Reading line -- blocked since January by a dispute over the state and local funding share -- the South Eastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) asked the Federal Transit Administration to cover 80 percent of the costs, hoping to work out a formula for the remainder with private investors perhaps. Since state law requires a 3.3 percent match for major transit capital projects and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation insists it can't pay the full 20 percent, Greater Philadelphia First director Sam Katz is looking for public-private funding. Reporting from a Chester County forum on the Schuylkill Valley Metro stalemate, Inquirer writer Jere Downs quotes Katz as saying he strongly believes the project "needs to be privatized," because if the region "relies solely on the state and federal governments for funding," it "will not get this done." With stiff nationwide competition for the $6.1 billion in federal rail construction aid available through 2004, the Surface Transportation Policy Project of Washington, D.C. estimates that many rail projects will get only about 51 percent in federal matching money. The writer adds that the Philadelphia-Reading line, with 28 stations in the valley, is needed to "relieve congestion on the Schuylkill Expresway, revive aging boroughs, and spark pedestrian friendly development in the sprawling western suburbs."   10/18/2001

Resource(s): www.inq.philly.com

Stressing the importance of smart growth and ...

Stressing the importance of smart growth and community livability, National Association of Realtors (NAR) President Richard A Mendenhall assured the National Association of Counties (NACO) conference in Philadelphia that Realtors have a stake in helping communities find the balance between quality of life and economic growth. NAR's press release quotes him a saying that the balance "results in better communities with safe and attractive neighborhoods, parks, and good transportation systems, without imposing undue restrictions on the use of private property or escalating the cost of homeownership." He pointed out that NAR supports federal brownfield legislation and the Community Character Act, while working with NACO and the U.S. Conference of Mayors in the Joint Center for Sustainable Communities to help cities, towns and counties solve their problems at the community level. Inspired by the center's Sustainable Community Award Program for local initiatives, NAR has recently partnered with leading ethnic real estate associations in launching Home Ownership Participation for Everyone (HOPE) Awards, to increase homeownership among minorities. Noting that 33 years after the Fair Housing Act, the homeownership rates for white and minority households are 75 and below 50 percent, respectively, Mendenhall said: "Through the HOPE Awards, we seek to help end that inequity by recognizing programs and people who are finding ways to put homeownership within almost everyone's reach."   7/24/2001

Resource(s): www.usenwswire.com

In a 6-1 vote welcomed by ...

In a 6-1 vote welcomed by developers but regretted by conservationists, the state Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision upholding municipalities' right to impose building moratoria while they work on comprehensive zoning or growth-management plans. In the majority's opinion, Justice Stephen A. Zappala wrote, "We decline to condone a municipality's exercise of such power," adding that "the General Assembly is better suited to examine the significant policy issues at stake and to determine the appropriate legal standards to govern the application of such a powerful planning tool" as a moratorium. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sandra Schultz Newman countered, "Without the authority to invoke moratoria, municipalities have an exceptionally heavy task in drafting and implementing comprehensive plans amidst urban sprawl and shortages of facilities." Philadelphia Inquirer writers Diane Mastrull and Ralph Vigoda quote spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Home Builders Association, Debra Tingley, who says builders never believed that moratoria "were a good planning tool." The court reversal, she thinks, will make municipalities reach for the growth-management tools approved by lawmakers last year, including state grants and other incentives for communities embarking on joint growth planning. But the president of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, "an umbrella organization of various groups advocating smart growth," Joanne Denworth, says, "A moratorium is a fair concept, especially in these very fast-growing municipalities that hardly have the time to turn around before another 500 houses are built." The writers note that the reversal, in a 1995 case between builders and the Hellam Township Board of Supervisors in York County, may affect two pending builders challenges to an already expired moratorium in Newton Township, Delaware County and a current moratorium in East Whiteland Township, Chester County. Delaware County solicitor Bruce Irvine believes a moratorium can give community leaders "breathing room in order to step back and see what they really want to do" about growth.   6/26/2001

Resource(s): inq.philly.com

The basic cause of the killer floods ...

"The basic cause of the killer floods" in the aftermath of tropical storm Allison, floods "that led to seven deaths, wrecked properties and made thousands homeless" in Montgomery and Bucks counties, is "overdevelopment and sprawl," report Philadelphia Daily News writers April Adamson and Chris Brennan, quoting officials and experts. The co-director of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware, Joanne M. Nigg, says sprawl creates "more and more surface area that is not able to absorb water," triggering "greater and greater runoff." The executive director of the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association, David Froehlich, points out that the flooding along Wissahickon Creek caused very little damage since most properties in the area were saved by its vast open spaces. Alarmed by the floods, state Republican representative David Steil wants to strengthen the 1978 Stormwater Management Act by ordering counties, currently required only to have stormwater control plans, to start their implementation. His legislation, promised within 30 days, would make counties fix old drainage problems, build regional water-retention basins, plant grass on riverbanks and seek other mitigation solutions. Director Nigg agrees that taxation for "an infrastructure system is a good first step," but repeats that "the real problem is regulation of land use."   6/21/2001

Resource(s): www.dailynews.philly.com

The basic cause of the killer floods ...

The basic cause of the killer floods in the aftermath of tropical storm Allison, floods "that led to seven deaths, wrecked properties and made thousands homeless" in Montgomery and Bucks counties, is "overdevelopment and sprawl," report Philadelphia Daily News writers April Adamson and Chris Brennan, quoting officials and experts. The co-director of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware, Joanne M. Nigg, says sprawl creates "more and more surface area that is not able to absorb water," triggering "greater and greater runoff." The executive director of the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association, David Froehlich, points out that the flooding along Wissahickon Creek caused very little damage since most properties in the area were saved by its vast open spaces. Alarmed by the floods, state Republican representative David Steil wants to strengthen the 1978 Stormwater Management Act by ordering counties, currently required only to have stormwater control plans, to start their implementation. His legislation, promised within 30 days, would make counties fix old drainage problems, build regional water-retention basins, plant grass on riverbanks and seek other mitigation solutions. Director Nigg agrees that taxation for "an infrastructure system is a good first step," but repeats that "the real problem is regulation of land use."   6/21/2001

Resource(s): www.dailynews.philly.com

The basic cause of the killer floods ...

"The basic cause of the killer floods" in the aftermath of tropical storm Allison, floods "that led to seven deaths, wrecked properties and made thousands homeless" in Montgomery and Bucks counties, is "overdevelopment and sprawl," report Philadelphia Daily News writers April Adamson and Chris Brennan, quoting officials and experts. The co-director of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware, Joanne M. Nigg, says sprawl creates "more and more surface area that is not able to absorb water," triggering "greater and greater runoff." The executive director of the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association, David Froehlich, points out that the flooding along Wissahickon Creek caused very little damage since most properties in the area were saved by its vast open spaces. Alarmed by the floods, state Republican representative David Steil wants to strengthen the 1978 Stormwater Management Act by ordering counties, currently required only to have stormwater control plans, to start their implementation. His legislation, promised within 30 days, would make counties fix old drainage problems, build regional water-retention basins, plant grass on riverbanks and seek other mitigation solutions. Director Nigg agrees that taxation for "an infrastructure system is a good first step," but repeats that "the real problem is regulation of land use."   6/21/2001

Resource(s): www.dailynews.philly.com

Tired of building the same car-dependent housing ...

Tired of building the same car-dependent housing around Philadelphia for 20 years, builder Joe Duckworth embraced New Urbanism four years ago, only to hit a wall with his smart-growth, traditional neighborhood development (TND) project in Montgomery County's township of Lower Moreland, writes Diane Mastrul of The Philadelphia Inquirer in a three-part series on "the difficulty -- some say the impossibility -- of curbing sprawl in these suburbs." Duckworth spent 14 months trying to convince the township's officials and residents that his 420-acre Woodmont village, with clustered homes, sidewalks and at least 35 percent of land saved as parks and a nature preserve, is what their almost built out area needs to retain its last open tracts. He even invited opponents for a free bus ride to the acclaimed neo-traditional Kentlands in Maryland, but the four who took the 165-mile trip remained unconvinced about village life's advantages. He admits with "some embarrassment" that the fact of his living on five wooded acres, in a six-bedroom house he built 8 years before his conversion to New Urbanism, didn't help his case with Moreland residents. The writer notes that in those 14 months of his futile fight, "both Pennsylvania and New Jersey legislatures have endorsed TNDs, also called 'walkable communities,' as a way for municipalities to save green space without having to buy it." Nevertheless, only one TND near Philadelphia "has gotten further than the drawing board" and only five of the 37 municipalities that have sought planning advice under the state's Growing Greener program "have followed through with new land-use regulations." Almost resigned on Moreland, Duckworth is now working with Manor Township officials in Lancaster County to build a 440-acre TND "rivaling the Kentlands ... in size and complexity." Supportive officials have already rezoned the site for mixed use. Pointing to surveys showing that about one-third of homebuyers would be interested in TNDs, Duckworth says that if only zoning will allow it, "there is an unserved market to be met." But, comments the writer, changing zoning often means changing minds first.   5/11/2001

Resource(s): inq.philly.com

In recognition of Governor Tom Ridge's environmental ...

In recognition of Governor Tom Ridge's environmental achievements, especially his $650 million "Growing Greener" investment, "Growing Smarter" land-use reforms and nationally-known Land Recycling Program, the Pennsylvania Wildlife Federation, joined by Audubon Pennsylvania, choose him the state's 2001 Conservationist of the Year. The award-presentation ceremony coincided with the governor's announcement of more than $30 million in grants for 340 conservation and recreation projects in 63 of the state's 67 counties. Accepting the award, the governor said, "Pennsylvania's constitution gives Pennsylvanians the right to clean air, to pure water and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment." This is our right, but it's also our duty to treat every day like Earth Day."   5/7/2001

Resource(s): www.enn.com

In response to his constituency's concerns about ...

In response to his constituency's concerns about rapid growth, the newly elected Mukwonago Town Chairman Tom Stuart is prompting the board to consider "some type of moratorium" as a short-term remedy, before the town amends its comprehensive plan with smart-growth provisions required under state law by 2010. Stressing that not one voter was "against development, just the rate of it," the chairman says the infrastructure "can't keep up" with the current rate and people want to slow it down now. But aware that a moratorium taken "to the extreme" can "stop everything," he hopes to ensure "significant input from the community," with residents calling any moratorium or smart-growth provision "our idea."   4/26/2001

Resource(s): www.jsonline.com

Invited by Pennsylvania Democratic Representative Joe Hoeffel ...

Invited by Pennsylvania Democratic Representative Joe Hoeffel to an Ambler town meeting on sprawl control, the leading proponent of the 1979 Portland growth boundary, Oregon Democratic Representative Earl Blumenauer, emphasized that although Pennsylvania lags behind other states in smart growth, it can examine approaches taken by Florida, Oregon and Maryland and "select the best of the various alternatives." Addressing officials, planners and conservationists at Temple University's campus, home of the Center for Sustainable Communities created last July to help the region manage growth, Blumenauer agreed with Heffel that drawing a Philadelphia growth boundary "would be like closing the barn door too late," but pointed out that communities can "harness the forces of change" in different ways. Asked about critics who blame the Portland growth boundary for a dramatic housing cost increase within it, he said the average price is $160,000, adding, "I'd rather have the problems of rising home values than declining. If it's rising, it's telling you the market is better."   4/26/2001

Resource(s): inq.philly.com

As escalating land prices make open space ...

As escalating land prices make open space preservation more urgent and more difficult, Bucks, Chester and Montgomery counties are stepping up efforts to make towns contribute to county development rights purchase programs, but are getting a slow response so far. Philadelphia Inquirer writer Lee Drutman reports that some of the state's most conservation-minded municipalities in Bucks County helped it preserve 51 farms since 1991, but the county needs more help because its current $5.5 million is enough to save only 10 of 65 farms that want to stay in business. Chester County hasn't yet received any municipal help, but thanks to a dynamic private land trust, has preserved 130 farms since 1989, and expects its current $7.1 million will let it preserve 25 of 91 farms on the waiting list. In Montgomery County, the first municipality to respond was Worcester Township, which added $228,000 last month to the county's $478,900 and the state's $955,100 for a purchase of development rights to two farms totaling 110 acres. The purchase leaves the county with $4 million, or enough to protect only 6 of 18 farms on this year's applicant list. Still, the director of the Philadelphia-based Greenspace Alliance, Mark McGuigan, sees an emerging trend, with municipalities "realizing that there is not enough money in the system for it all to be protected." There must be money "at every level," he adds, "to do this work."   4/17/2001

Resource(s): www.inq.philly.com

Panelists at a "Can we grow smarter ...

Panelists at a "Can we grow smarter?" forum, held at Temple University's Ambler campus to look at the ten-month old state law that offers municipalities incentives to pursue joint planning and curb sprawl, couldn't give a definite answer yet; they rely on hopes for the increased appeal of denser development and smart growth. "It's not an easy process," stressed the community planning director for the Doylestown-based Heritage Conservancy, Michael Frank, and it "won't happen overnight." State Republican Representative Catherine Harper pointed out that it "takes time for people to speak the same language." The former president of the Home Builders Association of Bucks and Montgomery counties, Brad Elliott, said as long as the key word in each comprehensive plan is "preserve," smart growth won't work, because communities have to grow and "we can't preserve the whole township." Philadelphia Inquirer writer Michelle Jeffery reports that further discussion addressed the impact of sprawl on water supply, with one of the top growth-management advocates, State Republican Senator James Gerlach, promoting two bills "that would extend the smart-growth movement" through multi-jurisdictional protection of water resources. Municipalities sharing a watershed would work out a joint plan to protect its creeks, rivers and aquifers by limiting development or moving projects elsewhere within the area.   4/17/2001

Resource(s): www.inq.philly.com

The National Trust for Historic Preservation released ...

The National Trust for Historic Preservation released its second annual list of the Dozen Distinctive Destinations that, said Trust President Richard Moe, "typify our country's small towns, close communities, and celebrated heritage." These town and cities, he continued, "are committed to preserving their historic landmarks, maintaining their unique character, and supporting locally owned business entrepreneurs. They are not historically distinctive vacation spots -- they are also fun places for families and visitors of all ages. We can learn from their past and contribute to their future. Yeah." The list includes Eureka Springs, Arkansas; Calistoga. California; Silverton, Colorado; Madison, Indiana; Bonaparte, Iowa; Northampton, Massachusetts; Red Lodge, Montana; Las Vegas, New Mexico; Jacksonville, Oregon; Doylestown, Pennsylvania; Beaufort, South Carolina; and Staunton. Details at www.nationaltrust.org   4/16/2001

Resource(s): www.usnewswire.com

Like 19th-century Daniel Boones who think it ...

"Like 19th-century Daniel Boones who think it is time to move when they see smoke from a neighbor's chimney, many people who believed their old suburban communities had become to citified in the 1990s picked up and moved farther out from the older, inner-ring suburbs," spurring tremendous population growth in rural parts of Buck, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties over the last decade and overwhelming many townships with traffic, school enrollment and service demands, report Inquirer writers Thomas Ginsberg, Nancy Petersen and Joann Klimkiewicz from the most affected areas. And the flow to the backcountry is likely to continue. The writers cite a Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission official, Barry Seymour, who says there are "advertisements for Berks County and Lancaster as the next ring of Philadelphia, where land and houses are advertised as being cheaper than in Chester County." The writers also note that "with all the growth, it's the newcomers who seem most shocked and angry about change." Concord Township Manager Jack W. Cornell says older residents "seem to be more understanding of the change" and asks, You heard the term, 'The last one in shuts the door'?"   3/27/2001

Resource(s): www.inq.philly.com

According to the Greenspace Alliance of Southwestern ...

According to the Greenspace Alliance of Southwestern Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, the five-county Philadelphia region, with four million residents, has preserved about 63,800 acres since 1990, including over 8,300 last year, but must start preserving more than 23,600 annually to slow sprawl and save a total of 591,600 acres of open space, despite 320,000 more people expected by 2025. The data, in the simultaneously released alliance report and commission plan, also show that at the current preservation rate, the region -- Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties -- would save only 209,000 acres, or about 35 percent of the recommended acreage. The alliance's director, Mark McGuigan, says increased public awareness has resulted in more funding for open space, but grades the region's preservation efforts as a mere D-plus. The commission's manager of open-space programs, Patricia Elkis, thinks the region could reach the ambitious preservation goal in many ways, especially through transfer of development rights, neglected last year. The president of the Bucks/Montgomery Home Builders Association, Ben Ciliberto, expressed builders' willingness to work with conservationists to save open space, and a spokeswoman for the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Gretchen Leslie, promised $30 million in community grants for buying land, creating trails and parks, protecting rivers and launching similar environmental initiatives.   3/27/2001

Resource(s): www.inq.philly.com

Having purchased development rights to 283 farms ...

Having purchased development rights to 283 farms on 33,000 acres last year, which raised its total to nearly 1,400 farms and more than 180,000 acres under permanent preservation, Governor Tom Ridge and Pennsylvania won an American Farmland Trust national achievement award, the same one earned a year earlier by Governor Parris N. Glendening and Maryland, with holdings now increased to 1,158 easements on nearly 167,000 acres. "Under Governor Ridge's leadership, Pennsylvania emerged as the number one state in farmland protection," said American Farmland Trust President Ralph Grossi, The state, he continued, "has increased its investments in farmland protection, developed new planning tools for local governments, and recognized the tremendous social, environmental and economic contributions that agriculture makes to our communities." The trust's Mid-Atlantic regional director, Mary Heinricht, added that Pennsylvania, which includes part of the Northern Piedmont, the nation's second most threatened agricultural area, "has shown neighboring states that it is possible to accommodate growth while preserving the economic base that farms and farm businesses provide." Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Sam Hayes credited the success to great team efforts accelerated in 2000, saying the state "is proud to be in sole possession of the first place in America's farmland preservation league." Philadelphia Inquirer Harrisburg Bureau writer Amy Worden reports that the state pays an average of $2,000 per acre for the development rights, but up to $15,000 per acre in areas under the strongest development pressures. She also cites environmentalists who point out that on the other hand, Pennsylvania, with 545,000 acres of open space lost to development between 1992 and 1997, ranks fifth nationwide in this category. According to the president and CEO of Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future, John Hanger, only broad planning strategies, "involving tax policies, urban growth and hazardous-waste cleanup, will stop sprawl."   2/14/2001

Resource(s): www.farmland.org

Citing Rutgers University projections of 900,000 more ...

Citing Rutgers University projections of 900,000 more people and 800,000 more jobs in New Jersey by 2020, a strong Philadelphia Inquirer editorial says if those people spread out, "they'll eat up more green space, clog more roads, demand more water and sewer capacity" and "affect everyone's quality of life," but if the state's just-improved master plan channels them to growth-designated areas, "they'll contribute to the vitality of existing communities and the fiscal health of the whole state." As "a bedroom community of New York City and Philadelphia, the state was perhaps destined to invent -- and perfect -- suburban sprawl." Projected to became the first state built out, New Jersey can foil that projection thanks to being "on the cutting edge of smart planning for a more attractive and sustainable future." The plan, admired nationally, though too often ignored locally, would save town, counties and school districts $160 million a year. The state "would have a new kind of Main Street, with homes, jobs, shops, transit and entertainment in close proximity." One such project is under way in Washington Township, Mercer County; another under design in Chesterfield, Burlington County. That county had also coordinated a regional,12-town plan for the Route 130 corridor, where post-industrial brownfields are being turned into malls, apartments and stadiums. New Jersey needs more such projects, says the editorial, stressing that Senate President Donald T. DiFrancesco must "maintain Gov. Whitman's momentum on the issue" once he becomes acting governor. The editorial concludes: "The how and where of growth on New Jersey's remaining million acres must be central to this year's gubernatorial campaign." PI, 01.16.2001   2/1/2001

Resource(s): www.newslibrary.com

Concerned that Pennsylvania and its 2,568 municipalities ...

Concerned that Pennsylvania and its 2,568 municipalities lack power to make water shortages a reason for curbing development, Republican sponsors of last year's growth-control bills, Senator James Gerlach and Representative David Steil will soon introduce water-management legislation as part of their efforts to promote smart growth. Noting that water like fields and forests is "at the mercy of the bulldozers" and like traffic near shopping malls "does not recognize political boundaries," Philadelphia Inquirer writer Diane Mastrull cites Senator Gerlach who says water and land issues are similar and best settled locally. His bill would let municipalities sharing a watershed adopt a joint plan to protect water resources, with planning focused on rivers, creeks and aquifers instead of administrative boundaries. It would allow municipalities to limit or relocate development within their watershed planning areas. With Senator Gerlach working to protect water supply, the writer continues, Representative Steil will try to get more rainwater into the ground. Rainwater runs off and is wasted as a result of development because, he says, "we've created so much impervious surface." His bill would change the state's Storm Water Management Act to require counties to draft and enforce watershed-management plans, while letting them tax homes and businesses for stormwater system maintenance. The writer points out that Governor Tom Ridge favors watershed planning as part of his "Growing Greener" initiative, but is neutral on increasing the state role in water management. His spokesman Tom Charles calls it an important and "intricate" issue, with different needs for different communities and "a lot of groups involved." Those expected to criticize the bills, the writer adds, include builder, property-rights and utilities groups, which objected to "the more stringent of the growth-control proposals" last year.   1/30/2001

Resource(s): inq.philly.com

Thirty years after stores fled cities for ...

"Thirty years after stores fled cities for enclosed malls in the suburbs, downtowns are coming back," reports Philadelphia Inquirer writer Henry J. Holcomb, citing such experts as the vice president of the 34th Street Partnership in New York, Dan Pisark, who considers them "the exciting next frontier" of retailing. The yearly number of suburban mall openings has dropped to four or five nationwide because more suburbs are limiting development, more cities are spurring redevelopment and more shoppers are tired of big malls. Philadelphia's commerce director James J. Cuorato, whose recent session on city development opportunities brought almost 30 developers, says they are interested in areas that they wouldn't have considered before. Kravco Company, whose 16 regional malls include the huge King of Prussia Mall near Philadelphia, has formed a division called Downtown Works. Kravco chairman Wayne Snyder says people "are looking for cultural stimulation and diversity" absent in suburbs, but real in cities where "you can get real Italian food, prepared by real Italians in a real Italian neighborhood." The director of the Downtown Alliance in San Antonio, Texas, Ben Brewer, says, "I can step into Center City Philadelphia and know where I am, just like you can step onto our River Walk and know you are here. Downtowns are what's real (and) what depicts a particular community."   1/29/2001

Resource(s): inq.philly.com

With almost $600,000 in state, local and ...

With almost $600,000 in state, local and private money, the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission will purchase a 35-acre rural tract in Penn Township, to save the land from residential development and preserve it as an authentic part of Bushy Run Battlefield, the site of fierce fighting between British troops and Native Americans in 1763. Stressing the site's historic and archeological significance, its acting administrator, David Miller, said the battle helped the British hold Fort Pitt, opened the frontier to settlers and probably left remnants in the area. He also noted that given "urban sprawl, green space is very quickly disappearing in this part of Westmoreland County" and that the tract's purchase is "not only a chance to preserve history, but to preserve the landscape." The commission needs $97,000 more to complete the purchase by May. Thus, it will launch Bushy Run Battlefield's web site next month, hoping for online donations to the acquisition fund. The fund is under the administration of the Bushy Run Battlefield Heritage Society and the Pennsylvania Heritage Society.   12/12/2000

Resource(s): www.post-gazette.com

The state released $9.5 million from its ...

The state released $9.5 million from its Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program to help revitalize downtown New Castle, enhance cultural amenities in Greensburg and build a Beaver County YMCA in Rochester Township. Announcing the grants, Lieutenant Governor Mark Schweiker said the three projects, identified as regional priorities by the public and private sectors in all ten counties of the Southwest Pennsylvania Growth Alliance, are win-wins for the counties, the commonwealth and the residents.   12/8/2000

Resource(s): www.post-gazette.com

After a 13-month uphill battle for ...

After a 13-month uphill battle for his $522 million Market Place at Fifth and Forbes plan, which would make way for modern buildings by demolishing many old ones, Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy gave up the idea and promised conservationists and local business leaders that the city would refrain from using its eminent domain power in any future renewal project. Disappointed with a decision by a key prospective tenant, the Seattle-based Nordstrom company, to postpone its store plans, the mayor told leaders of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, the Golden Triangle Community Development Corporation and Preservation Pittsburgh that he now would consider the Main Street approach to the revitalization of the Fifth-Forbes retail corridor. The approach includes helping private owners with grants and tax incentives to renovate their buildings. The critics of the mayor's former plan are encouraged by his new stance. Also satisfied are the Washington-based National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Institute for Justice. The institute had offered free defense to owners threatened with seizure of their buildings under eminent domain.   12/4/2000

Resource(s): www.post-gazette.com

Scenic America, a national organization created in ...

Scenic America, a national organization created in 1978 with a mission to preserve natural beauty and distinctive community character, released its 2000 Last Chance Landscapes report, listing the ten that are most threatened by billboards, new roads and other symptoms of sprawl. This year's list of the last chance landscapes includes Oakmont (Verdugo Mountains), Glendale, California; Ravalli County, Montana; the entire state of Colorado; Upper Mississippi Blufflands Region of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois; State Highway 131 between Ontario and Rockton, Wisconsin; Erin Township, Wisconsin; Springfield, Illnois; Poplar Point, Anacostia, Washington, D. C.; Cook Creek and Tributaries, Springfield Township, Pennsylvania; and the Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke Ranges, Massachusetts. Scenic America President Meg Maguire said these ten landscapes typify problems present in many other areas. Yet, for every problem, she stressed, there is a solution which other communities have adopted, showing once again that change is inevitable, but ugliness is not.   11/28/2000

Resource(s): www.scenic.org

In a drive to dominate the forefront ...

In a drive to dominate the forefront of smart growth, the National Association of Home Builders invited the sponsor of Pennsylvania's new growth-control laws, Republican state representative David J. Steil, to speak at a luncheon briefing on how he succeeded and why anti-sprawl measures failed in Arizona and Colorado. Introducing Steil, once scolded by the association, to the audience of builders, activists and officials, the director of its smart growth program, Gary Garczynski, called him an innovator whose legislation will help reach consensus on an issue that continues to polarize segments of the society. Association spokesman Jay Shackford exulted, I think we've really stolen the center of the debate. Having recounted his and Republican state senator James Gerlach's efforts to build consensus on growth-control in Pennsylvania, Steil said he was surprised by the invitation to the Washington luncheon, but grasped it as a chance to win more people the for smart growth cause. He added, It's sort of a new-found religion for builders.   11/22/2000

Resource(s): web.phill.com

With growth pressures still rising around Philadelphia ...

With growth pressures still rising around Philadelphia and all of Buck County, Upper Makefield Township - population 9,600, plenty of trees, no sidewalks - pins its rural identity hopes on a November ballot proposal to borrow $15 million for development rights purchases. The amount, $5 million higher than the record sum approved last year by Solebury Township, is the largest ever sought by a town in this area for open space preservation. Four years ago, Upper Makefield voters approved $6 million for buying rights to 500 acres. The board's chairwoman, Betsy Falconi, says supervisors see the next several years as their last opportunity to save the remaining green parcels from developers. It's a race, says Heritage Conservancy official Michael Frank of Doylestown. To stay in that race, he stresses, you've got to have money - you've got to have ready money. Noting that the township's average home price jumped from $622,700 in April to $730,100 in August, Meyers Group executive Marni Schatz says one of the main factors was the lack of available land. The chairman of the township's Environmental Advisory Committee, Stan Arabis, adds that supervisors want the authority to spend the money in their hip pocket, if it becomes necessary to preempt a developer.   9/14/2000

Resource(s): web.philly.com

The state's hard-bargained anti-sprawl laws, signed by ...

The state's hard-bargained anti-sprawl laws, signed by Governor Tom Ridge in June and put in force on August 21, drew complaints within days from Buck County's seven townships as impeding local ability to control growth. At a gathering in Plumstead, which was sued by Heritage Builders the day the laws took effect, township officials and their counterparts from Buckingham, East Rockhill, Nockamixon, Solebury, Tinicum and Wrightstown, cited the suit as an indication of things ahead. They pointed out that the new laws enable all types of developers to challenge local zoning ordinances that exclude special interests such as forestry and mining. Under the new laws, Heritage Builders, which wants to clear trees from part of a 320-acre site it plans to subdivide, is suing the township for not allowing timber cutting in all zoning districts. The seven townships' officials said the laws don't provide them with meaningful relief from curative amendments, or suits often brought by builders to skirt local zoning. They also argued that the laws will miss their primary goal and instead of encouraging regional cooperation will dissuade municipalities from working together on land-use plans. One of the main authors of the laws, Republican Senator James Gerlach, agreed they were not perfect, but noted that their reception by builders, conservationists and other municipal officials was overwhelmingly positive. Rejecting the claims from the Plumstead gathering, he expressed his concern that those officials haven't read the legislation very clearly.   8/29/2000

Coming from a New York fund-raiser focused ...

Coming from a New York fund-raiser focused on global warming to the home of the late environmental teacher and author Rachel Carson in Springdale, Vice President Al Gore restated his commitment to safeguarding our air and land and the earth itself and urged the younger generation to keep protecting the environment. The Vice President paid homage to Rachel Carson for bringing environmental issues into the nation's consciousness with her 1962 book Silent Spring, noting that many of the interest groups that attacked her for investigating the impact of chemicals used in food production are now attacking him for his book Earth in the Balance. The Vice President rejected both the Republican portrayal of him as an environmental radical bent on eliminating the internal combustion engine and raising gas prices, and the Green Party's criticism of his alleged retreat from environmental activism.   8/14/2000

At a biennial conference of the National ...

At a biennial conference of the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions in Pittsburgh, the president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, Arthur Ziegler, sharply criticized Mayor Tom Murphy's push for the $522 million Market Place at Fifth and Forbes project, calling it the wholesale destruction of the retail core of downtown. He said the developer, Urban Retails Properties of Chicago, has expertise in building suburban megamalls rather than in revitalizing downtown areas. The city's Historic Review Commission approved the mayor's downtown revitalization plan. The commission chairman, John DeSantis, noted that Ziegler supported urban revitalization, questioning only its method. He complimented Ziegler for articulating the essential dilemma between renovation and demolition of older buildings in a process of urban redevelopment.   8/10/2000

In a ceremony at Chester County's 110 ...

In a ceremony at Chester County's 110-acre Albertson- Yerkes farm, newly preserved as open space by West Bradford Township, Governor Tom Ridge signed two Growing Smarter bills worked out with lawmakers, local officials, builders and conservationists to meet the unique land-use needs of our 67 counties and nearly 2,600 municipalities. Flanked by the bills' Republican sponsors, Senator James Gerlach and Representative David Steil, along with civic and government leaders, the Governor said the bills will work because they bring common-sense tools, common-sense solutions to Pennsylvania's land-use challenges and because they respect the rights of property owners. Pointing to the beautiful farmland setting, the Governor noted that by using Transferable Development Rights, West Bradford Township redirected the farm's planned development to another area, where kids can walk across the street to school and where public sewer and water systems already existed, preserving the spectacular scenery in the process. The chairman of the 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, Terry Kauffman, pointed out that the bills enable counties and municipalities to plan together for both growth and conservation of resources, and, most importantly, to implement those plans through cooperative agreements and consistent ordinances. The president of the Pennsylvania Builders Association, Michael J. Schultz, stressed that the bills, made possible by the collective efforts of many different groups that were able to put aside individual agendas, reflect a sensible and balanced approach to the state's growth in the 21st century.   7/5/2000

This year's list of the 11 historic ...

This year's list of the 11 historic sites most threatened by sprawl, neglect or decay was released by National Trust for Historic Preservation President Richard Moe during a gathering at newly listed Market Square in downtown Pittsburgh. Joined by leaders of Preservation Pittsburgh, Preservation Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation and some downtown property owners, Moe sharply criticized Mayor Tom Murphy's push for the $480 million Fifth and Forbes area redevelopment project, which would require razing many historic buildings and relocating merchants to make room for a big shopping and entertainment center, with an 18- screen cinema and two underground garages. Moe said the project recalls the worst excesses of the 1960s redevelopment approach, discredited long ago. He added that cities like Denver, Baltimore and St. Paul had revived downtown areas without destroying old buildings. In response, Mayor Murphy chided the national and local preservation communities for their derisive campaign and for unfair and inaccurate characterization of the project, which would retain a third of the facades in the area at a cost of more than $300,000 per building. Another Pennsylvania site on the trust's most endangered list is the Valley Forge national park near Philadelphia. The list also includes the Dwight D. Eisenhower V. A. Medical Center, Leavenworth, Kansas; the Hudson River Valley, New York; Nanucket, Massachusetts; Okeechobee Battlefield, Florida; Red Mountain Mining District, Colorado; Santa Anita Racetrack, California; Wheelock Academy, Oklahoma; the summer home of President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D. C.; and a whole category of historic schoolhouses threatened by demolition. We either save all those historic treasures now, Moe said, or we lose them forever.   6/30/2000

Augmenting his Growing Smarter land-use measures, Governor ...

Augmenting his Growing Smarter land-use measures, Governor Tom Ridge signed the Downtown Location Law that requires the Department of General Services to set guidelines for locating state agencies in central business districts. The department will consider such factors as transit availability, local character, public safety and economic impact. It will report to lawmakers on the law's implementation in four years, and each year thereafter. Signing the law, the governor said, Locating a state office in an existing central business district encourages additional private investments, leads to renovation of neighboring buildings and preserves open space elsewhere.   6/30/2000

Winslow Township planners worked out a master ...

Winslow Township planners worked out a master plan to balance accelerating growth, curb sprawl and save the area from the sameness typical of Target and Home Depot mega-stores. They want to build a main town center with small stores and businesses, similar to those in the large township's older sections. But planner Thomas Eddington Jr. says it's an uphill battle to control sprawl while developers are likely to argue that they did exactly the same things in other places, so why not here. The township committee and mayor will vote on the master plan in July.   6/22/2000

Urged by Governor Tom Ridge, and satisfied ...

Urged by Governor Tom Ridge, and satisfied with last- minute conference committee refinements, the General Assembly and the Senate passed each other's overlapping growth-control bills by votes of 187-16 and 49-0, respectively. Waiting to sign the bills, Governor Ridge said they make up a common-sense plan, which will preserve open space and the quality of life in the state. The bills' Republican sponsors, Representative David Steil and Senator James Gerlach, are relieved. The Representative said a critical mass for the bill has formed because more people are concerned about the impacts of growth and many interest groups are willing to do something effective. The Senator added that he won't rest once the bills become law, but will work to make municipalities use the new planning tools. The bills encourage local governments to plan growth regionally, offering them protection from curative amendment lawsuits and priority consideration for some state grants. The bills also authorize localities to restrict rural and natural resource land development through zoning, and to share developer impact fees for road, sewer and other infrastructure projects. Leaders of 1000 Friends of Pennsylvania, Joanne Denworth and Caroline Boyce. expressed joy and amazement over this much consensus among so many groups. A spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Builders Association, Debra Tingley, pointed out that the bills reflect a good balance between the need for land preservation and the need for economic growth.   6/16/2000

A day after the state General Assembly ...

A day after the state General Assembly passed a growth- management bill sponsored by Representative David J. Steil, the first of two bills implementing key provisions of Governor Tom Ridge's Growing Smarter plan, the National Governors's Association's Center for Best Practices released a report hailing the governor's leadership on land use, quality of life and other growth issues. The report, entitled Growing Pains: Quality of Life in the New Economy, applauds Governor Ridge for the Growing Smarter plan, the nearly $650 million Growing Greener initiative, the Land Recycling Program and Keystone Opportunity Zones. Thanking the Assembly for passing its first growth-management bill and the governors' association for recognizing Pennsylvania's ant-sprawl efforts, Governor Ridge said, We have more work to do, but I am confident that, by working together, we can effectively meet our land-use challenges.   6/16/2000

The state House cut short the debate ...

The state House cut short the debate over an anti-sprawl bill by Republican Representative David Steil and passed it with three mild changes by a lopsided vote of 175 to 17. Observers say the vote reflects a unique consensus across the political spectrum that something must be done to curb sprawl. It is the best thing to happen for responsible land use in 30 years, rejoices the executive director of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, Janet Lussenhop, admitting that her group didn't expect to reach an agreement with the builders. It is hard to imagine that things moved this swiftly, concurs spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Builders Association, Debra Tingley, noting everybody's ability to balance the need for land-use law changes with the need for continued economic growth. Projecting strictly voluntary actions, the bill authorizes municipalities to cooperate on regional plans and to restrict road, sewer and other infrastructure projects in areas chosen for open space. It also protects municipalities engaged in joint planning from developer lawsuits for curative amendments. The three changes credited with the bill's quick passage stipulate that municipalities can establish growth areas instead of growth boundaries; that state agencies don't have to but may give funding priority to municipalities jointly planning growth; and that state road and other infrastructure projects don't have to follow local growth plans, but should take them into consideration. The bill is expected to pass the Senate, where a similar bill by Republican Senator James Gerlach still faces problems with more than 20 filed amendments.   6/8/2000

On behalf of Governor Tom Ridge, Lieutenant ...

On behalf of Governor Tom Ridge, Lieutenant Governor Mark Schweiker awarded Pittsburgh a $300,000 Main Street grant for revitalization of four neighborhood business districts. The thriving neighborhood businesses we remember from childhood, he said, often compete today with newer business and commercial strips away from downtown and need help to survive and prosper. The executive director of the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh, Mulugetta Birru, said Governor Ridge's leadership has brought the state to the forefront of neighborhood revitalization, expressing satisfaction that Pittsburgh has become the state's first large city to get funds from the Main Street program.   6/8/2000

A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial on two land-use ...

A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial on two land-use bills debated in the Legislature urges extremists on both sides to overcome emotions, personal preferences and regional variances and agree that in seeking smart growth, the solution is not dictating who's in and who's out, but coordinating and planning what makes sense for a wider area. Senator James Gerlach's and Representative David Steil's bills, says the editorial, reflect a balanced, sensible approach to broader-based planning and promise communities and counties new tools to avoid the excesses of unchecked development. The editorial notes that neither the builders' association nor the environmental coalition will get everything they want, but both support the bills.   6/7/2000

As sprawl issues have risen from obscurity ...

As sprawl issues have risen from obscurity in 1998 to the top of the legislative agenda this year, two growth-control bills currently debated in Harrisburg could bring the most dramatic changes in state land-use laws in more than 30 years, says Philadelphia Inquirer writer Diane Mastrull. The president of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, Joanne Denworth, shares this belief, noting that her group of environmental and business leaders, which helped shape the bills, is close to doing something that would be really significant for the state. The bills, by Republican Representative David Steil and Republican Senator James Gerlach, would authorize the state's 2,568 municipalities to plan growth regionally, considering their project impact on adjacent communities. The state would reward the cooperating municipalities with priority funding. Steil's more controversial bill would also let municipalities working together on land preservation set urban growth boundaries. Gerlach's bill lost a similar provision under intense pressure from builders. The senator says growth control is politically charged stuff and still faces strong challenges.   6/7/2000

The William Penn Foundation pledged $3.84 million ...

The William Penn Foundation pledged $3.84 million over three years for a new public policy group, the Metropolitan Philadelphia Policy Center, which embraces a fundamental belief that economic improvements in the city and other older communities would reduce growth pressures on the outer suburbs. Led by a former attorney with the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Karen Black, the center will focus on the area's two most pressing problems - excessive suburban sprawl and insufficient urban job growth. It will search for solutions, seek public support and lobby the legislature to turn them into laws. The center was planned for the past two years by the Pennsylvania Economy League, the Reinvestment Fund and 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, with the participation of civic and business leaders from Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties.   5/23/2000

Stressing that sound land-use planning sows the ...

Stressing that sound land-use planning sows the seeds for future economic growth and the enhancement of our quality of life, Lieutenant Governor Mark Schweiker presented local governments in 16 counties with 19 governor*s land use planning grants, totaling $415,000. The grant funds come from the State Planning Assistance Program and the Small Communities Planning Assistance Program. Governor Tom Ridge wants to increase the state*s funds for land-use planning support and technical assistance from the current $900,000 to $3.6 million in the next two fiscal years.   4/28/2000

Don't let government 'plan' Downtown, warns a ...

Don't let government 'plan' Downtown, warns a senior research fellow with the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy and former district justice, Douglas Reed, arguing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette against Lazarus and Fifth-Forbes development projects. Saying that both projects were proposed by the same breed of utopian social planners who have commanded the failed, topdown, government-built development schemes of the past, the author gives it as a reason for the Allegheny Institute Taxpayer Coalition's request that the Allegheny County Council hold a full hearing on its participation in Fifth-Forbes Tax Increment Financing, or TIF. Repeating Edmund Burke's credo That government is best which governs least, the author urges government to leave development to market forces and focus instead on educating the public, stimulating the entrepreneur, building the infrastructure and paving the way for office technology tracts on land reclaimed from the ruins of steel mills.   4/26/2000

In a Post-Gazette forum article titled Perspectives ...

In a Post-Gazette forum article titled Perspectives: This land is our land, Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors Executive Director R. Keith Hite applauds Governor Tom Ridge's Growing Smarter initiative as a set of tools desperately needed to preserve open space, control cookie-cuter development and fight developers ... taking the advantage of loopholes and ambiguities in the Municipalities Planning Code. Noting that township supervisors must struggle to reconcile the often conflicting values of developers and residents, deal with the ever-present threat of lawsuits and work within the confines of an outdated code, the author defends these local leaders from a lot of misguided criticism, which includes blaming them for suburban sprawl. In reality, he writes, the system, the courts and real estate markets ' not governments ' decide how and where growth occurs. Renewing township pleas for growth-planning tools and for the power to control local destiny, the author urges all residents to let their state legislators know they support Growing Smarter.   4/17/2000

Now everybody wants to fight suburban sprawl ...

"Now everybody wants to fight suburban sprawl," writes The Philadelphia Inquirer's Diane Mastrul. Three days after Governor Ridge's "Growing Smarter" lead, she writes, the Pennsylvania Builders Association proposed its own "How to Grow" plan. Both proposals offer incentives for local government cooperation in land-use planing and both protect municipalities from developer lawsuits intended to skirt local zoning laws. The association also projects broader municipal authority to impose developer impact fees for road and bridge improvements. The association's president, Michael Schultz, said in a statement that "comprehensive planning and transportation infrastructure are the two most important elements of bringing about positive changes to Pennsylvania land-use laws." The writer explains that builders may be willing to pay impact fees because "it is difficult to sell homes in an area perceived by buyers to be choked with traffic and other infrastructure problems." Anti-sprawl and environmental groups await details, but are encouraged by the symbolism of the plan. The executive director of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, Janet Lussenhop, said, 'It's really good news that more people who used to be on opposing sides seem to be speaking the same language."   2/15/2000

In an assessment of Governor Tom Ridge's ...

In an assessment of Governor Tom Ridge's budget speech, Philadelphia Inquirer writer Ken Dilanian calls it "almost Clintonesque in its embrace of moderate proposals that borrowed from the Democrats without straying from the GOP." The writer cites a Millersville University political science professor, G. Terry Madonna, who says of the governor: "In a sense, he's a Republican not unlike Bill Clinton. It's triangulation, absolutely." The writer adds that Governor Ridge "is almost universally seen as a possible choice for the number-two spot on the GOP presidential ticket this fall."   2/15/2000

In his 2000-2001 budget presentation to ...

In his 2000-2001 budget presentation to a joint session of the Legislature, Governor Tom Ridge said the state is growing greener, but it "must grow smarter as well." Noting that since 1970, Pennsylvania has lost more than 24,000 farms or "25 percent of its farm acreage to other uses," the governor thanked lawmakers for their bi-partisan support for his 1999 legislative priority -- the state's largest ever environmental investment, "the $650 million 'Growing Greener' initiative." The initiative allocates $100 million over five years to protect open space and farmland, and $550 million to "clean up abandoned mines and restore watersheds; provide new and improved water and sewer systems; and create recreational trails." The governor said with the $20 million available this year for land conservation, the state intends "to preserve 100 farms in 100 days, from the Farm Show to Earth Day." Turning to "growing smarter," the governor said: " ... we spent much of 1999 listening to Pennsylvanians on land use. In 53 hearings throughout the state, they told us that we should help local government control sprawl. So we will. But they didn't tell us that we should mandate a one-size-fits-all approach. So we won't." The governor promised to start with a $3.6 million state investment in land-use planning, "to give our local governments the tools they need to plan effectively for the future." Stressing the urgency of working together to revise and improve the Municipalities Planning Code, the governor also promised "a top-to-bottom review of state government, to make sure that the state always supports sound land-use planning."   2/15/2000

Before leaving office, Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell ...

Before leaving office, Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell wants the City Council to ease up ten-year old zoning restrictions that may hinder Center City development projects and construction of bigger parking garages. But several organizations, including the American Institute of Architects, the Foundation for Architecture, the Preservation Alliance and the Center City Residents Association think the proposed bill is meant to speed up the mayor's "pet" projects and let developers avoid public scrutiny. Council members are noncommittal while awaiting more information and comments. Councilman Jim Kenney, who introduced the bill at the mayor's behest, says that the strong opposition makes its approval doubtful this year.   11/22/1999

Both developers and conservationists have asked the ...

Both developers and conservationists have asked the Senate to postpone a vote on an anti-sprawl bill because of its controversial concurrency provision. The provision would let communities delay projects up to five years, while pressing developers for infrastructure improvements in a radius increased from 7.5 to 12.5 miles. The Pennsylvania Builders Association calls the provision too harsh. A land preservation group, 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, which represents 130 environmental, economic and government agencies, says amendments have diluted the provision and weakened municipalities' power to deal with developers. To help the anti-sprawl bill pass before the fall recess, its sponsor, Republican Senator James W. Gerlach, was ready to remove the concurrency provision for further work and later resubmission. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, another problem for the bill stems from "the fact that the growth pressures that beset the Philadelphia region don't exist in about half of the rest of the state."   11/22/1999

With sprawl becoming a "potent quality-of life ...

With sprawl becoming a "potent quality-of life issue" nationwide, 11 communities in the Philadelphia region -- four in Buck and Chester counties, and seven in the New Jersey counties of Burlington, Camden and Gloucester -- overwhelmingly voted to raise taxes for open space and farmland protection. Philadelphia Inquirer exit polls found voters complaining "of traffic jams, crowded schools and vanishing rural vistas." State Representative David Steil (R., Bucks) says the voting results underscore the need for land-use law changes that he and others are proposing in the legislature. The only community that rejected raising property taxes for open space preservation was Chester County's West Vincent Township.   11/22/1999

On the eve of the fall session ...

On the eve of the fall session of the Legislature, House Majority Leader John M. Perzel said momentum is growing to find a legislative solution to the problems created by urban sprawl. Lawmakers are studying a package of five land use bills submitted by Rep. Chuck McIlhinney and legislation sought by Appropriation Committee chairman John E. Barley, who wants to enable counties to leverage more than $600 million in local and state funds for the environment and farmland protection. "There is no magic pill that will solve problems created by urban sprawl," said Perzel, adding that both parties work together for a solution "that will protect the environment by governing growth in areas pressured by development," while remaining aware "that property owners have rights."   10/6/1999

At two meetings sponsored by Preservation Pittsburgh ...

At two meetings sponsored by Preservation Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, downtown residents, merchants and architects voiced their concerns about Mayor Murphy's $400 million commercial renewal plan, the soon-to-be-unveiled "Marketplace at Fifth and Forbes." Chiding officials for "a top- down planning process," and a " Bing Bang approach," aimed at demolishing more than 50 historic downtown buildings, participants stressed that urban renewal doesn't have to mean that you "tear down buildings," "bulldoze everything," and "create suburban retail boxes."   9/27/1999

Philadelphia region officials who advocate biking and ...

Philadelphia region officials who advocate biking and walking trails as a way to restore a sense of community in neighborhoods fractured by gated developments and congested roads, face stern opposition from residents who fear an influx of "drug pushers, muggers and stalkers into their backyards." Such fears have killed many trail proposals in Buck, Chester and Montgomery counties, says H. William Sellers, the former chairman of the Brandywine Conservancy. Expecting a major expansion of the region's 350 miles of trails in the next decade, regional director of the Greenspace Alliance, Mark McGuigan, agrees that fears of crime "are potential land mines," despite many studies finding trails safe and fears exaggerated.   9/13/1999

After 53 land-use forums throughout the state ...

After 53 land-use forums throughout the state since June, Governor Tom Ridge's anti-sprawl team has four months to turn hundreds of public ideas into a comprehensive set of recommendations for managing growth and saving open space. The team leader, director of the Governor's Center for Local Government Services, Kim Coon, assures that the ideas "will not be shelved." A policy specialist, Georgia Masters, is already creating a computer spreadsheet. Republican State Representative David J. Steil also is reviewing the ideas, to tune up his land-use proposals while awaiting lawmakers' return next month. According to his proposals, municipalities would have more power to control development and set urban growth boundaries, and the state would give aid priority to communities that work together on land planning.   9/13/1999

Seeking a public debate on changing the ...

Seeking a public debate on changing the land use and transportation decision process, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission recommends revitalizing the area's older communities and first generation suburbs before developing greenfields. In a report entitled "New Regionalism: Building Livable Communities Across the Delaware Valley," the commission promotes ideas of New Urbanism as a way to curb suburban sprawl and improve the area's quality of life. The commission's nine-county metropolitan area includes Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties in Pennsylvania, and Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Mercer counties in New Jersey.   8/10/1999

Governor Tom Ridge's expert on fighting sprawl ...

Governor Tom Ridge's expert on fighting sprawl, Kim Coon, wrapped up the Philadelphia-area part of his statewide fact and-advice-search tour in Chester County, where development pressures are heavy and passions intense. Chester County is seen by the Governor, his team and most experts as a model for growth planning. Last year, voters approved $50 million for open space preservation and urban revitalization. In April, county commissioners earmarked for these efforts additional $75 million over the next six years. The county's award-winning voluntary program, Landscapes, is offering municipalities up to $70,000 grants to update their ordinances along its guidelines. Yet, the county planning director, Bill Fulton, told Coon that although the county is doing all it can, "it's still not enough" and the state should help. A day earlier, Coon heard the same plea in adjacent Delaware County, which has little land left to save and tries instead to revitalize older cities and suburbs. As he had expected, Coon is finding that "no single remedy will address the state's diverse needs regarding growth." His proposals for land-use law changes and anti-sprawl programs are due by January.   7/27/1999

Delaware County: Twice in two weeks, township ...

Delaware County: Twice in two weeks, township officials in the county have sided with conservationists and rejected high-density housing projects, making developers feel "that they cannot win on the open space issue." Rejected in Thornbury Township, developer Robert I. Toll applauded efforts to curb sprawl and save farmland, but warned against risks of restricting growth. Noting rejection of another developer in Newton Township, the president of the state builders' association local chapter, Scott Cannon, expressed his dismay that on one side "we cry ... ÔWe must preserve open space' and on the other side we're creating no density." Officials say that municipalities don't have enough money to compete for land they want to save from development. They add that until the state gives them "better tools to fight the preservation battle," developers should brace for more project rejections.   6/18/1999

Philadelphia: Citing suburban sprawl as a rising ...

Philadelphia: Citing suburban sprawl as a rising electoral issue, EPA Administrator Carol Browner told 500 land-use experts, developers and conservationists at the Keep America Growing conference in Philadelphia that the President's proposed "Better America Bonds" would help reduce air and water pollution, while greatly improving the quality of life. The Congress-bound presidential proposal would let governments and nonprofit groups issue bonds for open land purchases without paying interest, and with 15 years to repay the principal.   6/18/1999

Williamsport: The Governor's Center for Local Government ...

Williamsport: The Governor's Center for Local Government Services launched a statewide series of 50 public forums on the best land-use practices in this Lycoming County city. The state's largest, the county has converted only 1,000 acres of farmland to development since 1980. Its officials are taking care to keep growth under control, save forests and avoid sprawl in the future. In a unique partnership for coordinated land use, 14 of the county's 52 municipalities have ceded their zoning powers to a county zoning board. Williamsport forum participants urged the state to provide more incentives for such municipal partnerships and more funds for farmland protection programs, including transfer of development rights.   6/3/1999

State Transportation Secretary Bradley Mallory took issue ...

State Transportation Secretary Bradley Mallory took issue with all who blame highways for strip malls and residential sprawl. In a speech to lobbyists, builders and reporters at the Pennsylvania Press Club in Harrisburg, the secretary said: "Blaming the automobile for sprawl is like blaming improved health care for the problems of old age." He criticized two advocacy groups, Taxpayers for Common Sense and Friends of the Earth, for putting four of the state's highway projects on their national 50-most-wasteful list, without trying "to understand the transportation situation in Pennsylvania."   5/20/1999

The legislature has almost tripled the state's ...

The legislature has almost tripled the state's farmland preservation fund, from $25 million to $68 million next year. Under the land preservation program, started in 1989, more than 1000 farmers have received up to $10,000 an acre for their development rights to 134,600 acres. But more than 1,500 others are still on the waiting list. Many legislators hope to maintain the increased level of funding, until the waiting list is eliminated.   5/14/1999

Chester County: County commissioners stepped up their ...

Chester County: County commissioners stepped up their anti- sprawl efforts by earmarking $75 million over the next six years for farmland preservation and downtown revitalization. Together with the $50 million approved in 1998, the new funding makes the county's open space commitment the highest in the state. The county is under "tremendous growth pressures," with a 35 percent jump in single-family homes between 1997 and 1998.   4/23/1999

An overwhelming majority of the several-hundred-member Pennsylvania ...

An overwhelming majority of the several-hundred-member Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors voted to press the state legislature to give them more control over local land use and anti-sprawl measures, by changing the curative amendment process. Introduced more than 20 years ago to stop municipalities from barrring affordable housing, the amendment is to many officials "a Club used by developers to get their projects approved" usually through a court order or settlement, after lengthy and costly litigation. The Pennsylvania Home Builders Association warns that the curative amendment changes sought by township supervisors for residential projects "would give municipalities license to exclude certain types of development."   4/1/1999

Philadelphia: A new census report shows that ...

Philadelphia: A new census report shows that Philadelphia's downtown economic and cultural renewal did not stop the urban exodus. In the 1990s, Philadelphia lost more residents that any other city -- 9.4 percent, or about 150,000. Many of them have moved to suburbs or adjacent counties, often citing the city's 4.6 percent wage tax, 7 percent sales tax, and high crime rate. Mayor Ed Rendell questions the census' meaning, noting that since the early 1990s, when he took office, the city has been brought back from the verge of bankruptcy and transformed into a thriving round-the-clock urban center.   3/1/1999

Confident that both parties "can agree that ...

Confident that both parties "can agree that the strip-malling of America's rural landscape is a serious environmental problem," Governor Tom Ridge urged fellow Republicans to work out "alternatives to Democratic policies," and "promote a solution that would counter sprawl while supporting responsible growth." In a New York Times opinion piece, the governor said that suburban sprawl often results from "federal impediments to the redevelopment of urban land." Citing his state's experience, the governor stressed that "a strategy of cooperation with businesses, not confrontation, works best to revitalize cities and contain sprawl in the suburbs."   3/1/1999

State Representative, Republican David Steil announced three ...

State Representative, Republican David Steil announced three bills to regulate the pace of development and curb sprawl through voluntary local measures. Similar to his failed 1997 initiative, the new bills would reward adjacent communities for developing seamless zoning plans, allow municipalities to draw growth boundaries, let owners and developers trade development rights or make developers buy such rights for most projects.   2/1/1999

State Senator, Republican Joe Conti proposed a ...

State Senator, Republican Joe Conti proposed a statewide referendum on a $1 billion bond issue for farmland and open space preservation. State Representative, Democrat Rich Grucela proposed raising the same amount over ten years. Both want to boost the state's 1989 development right purchase program. The program has saved about 131,000 acres, but ran out of money last year, with 1,500 farmers waiting to sell their rights to the state rather than to developers.   2/1/1999

On the recommendation of his 21st Century ...

On the recommendation of his 21st Century Environment Commission, Governor Tom Ridge issued an executive order to "identify best land-management practices" in the state, and to propose law and policy changes, along with new funding, to advance these practices. The Governor's Center for Local Government Services is in charge of land-use monitoring and assistance. The Department of Environmental Protection will store statewide data to help local governments determine how land-use decisions may affect the environment. Some activists say legislation and funding are needed to curb suburban sprawl.   1/1/1999

Pittsburgh: The Technology Council's Environmental City Network ...

Pittsburgh: The Technology Council's Environmental City Network and the Heinz Endowments have recently launched the Sustainable Pittsburgh Project. The aim is to create a set of indicators for the area's sustainable growth, including industrial pollution cleanup and site redevelopment. The key speaker at the Sustainable Pittsburgh inauguration was Chattanooga City Councilman David Crockett. A descendant of the famous frontier pioneer, David Crockett was instrumental in turning his blighted city into a model of environmental and economic strength. Stressing that "sustainability means strategy and competitiveness," Crockett urged Pittsburgh businesses to be proactive and aim for zero waste, because it helps their bottom lines.   12/1/1998

Governor Tom Ridge has approved $765,000 in ...

Governor Tom Ridge has approved $765,000 in community planning and development grants for job, lending, housing and rehabilitation projects in Allegheny, Butler, Fayette, Indiana, Washington and Westmoreland counties. On the governor's behalf, his Community and Economic Development Secretary Sam McCullough said that the grants will help Pennsylvania communities "become better places to live, work and raise a family."   12/1/1998

Chester County is helping municipalities save their ...

Chester County is helping municipalities save their historic heritage with two grant programs. The Vision Partnership Program offers funds to update zoning and land use- ordinances along the Landscapes' guidelines; and the Municipal Historic Preservation Grant program follows with funds for planning long-term preservation measures.The first recipient of the grant, the small borough of Elverson, has initiated a new approach by forming a historic district homeowners' association and giving it the same access to state and county restoration grants that commercial property owners have.   12/1/1998

Charitable Trust and the Heinz Endowments, are ...

Charitable Trust and the Heinz Endowments, are providing $5.6 million over five years to launch the Pennsylvania Alliance for Conservation and the Environment. The alliance will work to improve air and water quality. It will also promote land-use planning, sustainable agriculture and alternative transportation.   12/1/1998

Private donations to the Pennsylvania Community Development ...

Private donations to the Pennsylvania Community Development Bank have exceeded the state's $17 million seed money contribution. The bank, part of Governor Ridge's landmark Project for Community Building, seeks at least $30 million in private funds to foster small- business and job creation in poor urban areas. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission has joined Preservation Pennsylvania, Inc. in a year-long campaign for public input into the state's plan to restore and protect historic landmarks, neighborhoods, central business districts and main streets. The state has six Heritage Parks and almost 500 historic districts.   12/1/1998

Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection has won ...

Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection has won two 1998 Council of State Governments' Innovation Awards. The award-wining programs are the ÒGreenWorks for PennsylvaniaÓ educational TV show and the Multi-State Working Group, which collects economic, social and environmental data from 12 states to evaluate environmental management benefits.   12/1/1998

The National Governors' Association Center for Best ...

The National Governors' Association Center for Best Practices has recognized Governor Ridge for "his vision in creating a program that restored more than 300 old industrial sites in the state" and generated 13,000 jobs within three years. Pennsylvania's Land Recycling Program relaxes some "prohibitively expensive or technically unattainable cleanup standards."   10/1/1998

Inner-cities represent the largest emerging markets in ...

"Inner-cities represent the largest emerging markets in the world," according to Harvard Business Professor Michael Porter, a keynote speaker at the 21st Century Neighborhood Conference in Philadelphia. Porter estimates the buying power of the urban poor at about seven percent of the country's total, or $85 billion a year. One quarter of this demand has been ignored by retailers.   10/1/1998

Philadelphia: Mayor Ed Rendell, national chairman of ...

Philadelphia: Mayor Ed Rendell, national chairman of the Rebuild America Coalition, has urged engineers across the country "to mount an all-out campaign" to rebuild the nation's decaying infrastructure, schools and transportation systems. Speaking at the Proactive Engineering Symposium, the mayor said that a quarter of his city's water mains and streets, and a third of its bridges need repairs or reconstruction. Speakers from other cities cited similar statistics. According to the Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Bud Schuster (R., PA.), the nation's annual "infrastructure deficit," or the gap between infrastructure funding and needs, is $850 billion.   10/1/1998

Pittsburgh: In his 1999 capital budget, Mayor ...

Pittsburgh: In his 1999 capital budget, Mayor Thomas Murphy is dedicating $190 million, or about 85 percent, to long-term neighborhood development, with a focus on infrastructure, brownfields and housing. The City Council must pass both the capital budget and a separate operational budget for city salaries, services and public safety, by December 31.   10/1/1998

On the 10th anniversary of Pennsylvania's Municipal ...

On the 10th anniversary of Pennsylvania's Municipal Waste Planning, Recycling and Waste Reduction Act, Governor Tom Ridge hailed the state for leading the nation in these efforts and proclaimed October a Recycling Month. Saying that "recycling protects the environment and creates jobs," the governor has raised the state's municipal waste recycling goal from 25 to 35 percent.   10/1/1998

The final report of the Governor's 21st ...

The final report of the Governor's 21st Century Environment Commission contains 240 recommendations to manage growth and improve quality of life in Pennsylvania by changing policy, legislation and regulations. The report states that sprawl threatens the state's well-being and citizens' sense of community, through the "reckless, almost random growth" of housing developments, strip malls, business parks and roads. In response, the Commonwealth Foundation and the Pennsylvania Builders Association say that the report's recommendations could lead to "downsizing of the American Dream."   9/1/1998

Governor Tom Ridge presented 43 annual Awards ...

Governor Tom Ridge presented 43 annual Awards for Environmental Excellence to the winners from 30 counties, stating that "environmentalism and economic competitiveness are no longer opponents," but go hand in hand in Pennsylvania. He also announced that the state has won two national innovation awards for environmental education and management programs.   9/1/1998

Pittsburgh: For the first time since 1958 ...

Pittsburgh: For the first time since 1958, the city approved a new zoning code to facilitate mixed use of land and diverse housing, with smaller single-family lots. A city council committee will review the code after six months to ensure that any needed changes are made early.   8/1/1998

Chester County: Phoenixville is working with developers ...

Chester County: Phoenixville is working with developers to convert a 130-acre defunct steelwork site into a corporate office park, including retail, business and housing. The cooperation reflects the county's Landscape program, which aims for reuse of post-industrial sites instead of "developing farmland and bulldozing wooded areas."   7/1/1998

Governor Ridge's 21st Century Commission urged a ...

Governor Ridge's 21st Century Commission urged a comprehensive revision of land-use and zoning laws to discourage suburban sprawl and limit the loss of open space. The commission wants a change in the Municipalities Planning Code to allow urban growth boundaries. It also wants better legal tools for local governments willing to cooperate to limit growth and concentrate development in existing communities.   6/1/1998

Governor Ridge called on his party leaders ...

Governor Ridge called on his party leaders in Congress to focus on urban decay and do more to revitalize cities. Stressing that the free market alone cannot revive cities, the governor urged government-business cooperation, which he is advancing in Pennsylvania through a dozen tax-free zones in distressed areas.   5/1/1998

Governor Tom Ridge expanded his three-year-old Land ...

Governor Tom Ridge expanded his three-year-old Land Recycling Program with a Key Sites Initiative to accelerate cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields. The new initiative lets state contractors make environmental assessments and draw up cleanup plans for about 250 sites.   4/1/1998

The state's Department of Environmental Protection gathered ...

The state's Department of Environmental Protection gathered sixty builders, planners and activists at a regional roundtable on curbing sprawl around Philadelphia. They reviewed several legislative and voluntary anti-sprawl options, from urban growth boundaries to incentives for sound development.   1/1/1998