Today I had posted something from another blog (Cara at Hello West Chester) about development in West Chester Borough .
The comment I am about to share has sent my teeth on edge and if you don’t want to listen to my rant, get off of this post now:
Chester County Ramblings my current neighborhood is not a dense borough, is not walkable, and has no restaurants/shops/galleries/etc. Regardless, I’m fine with development and don’t object to new neighbors. Not everyone is a NIMBY.
I don’t agree with everything you post but you are definitely “in the know” and I appreciate the updates.
As soon as my kids finish HS, I’ll be moving to a new place and WC Borough is on the list. I hope it has more apartments, nice buildings, restaurants, etc. by that time. It keeps getting better as it gets redeveloped. Maybe it will even have restored train service in a few years but I’m not holding my breath.
I’m curious as to why you choose to live in the suburbs of a major city when you frequently lament growth, development, and change? Wouldn’t some place like Forest County be a better fit? Or do you simply want access to the amenities this region offers by virtue of having the density and wealth of being near a city but not the development and congestion that come along with that? You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
Also this comment:
Y’all hate when someone builds something on an empty lot 😂
And this one:
That was a historic parking lot though! George Washington parked there!
And this one:
Chester County Ramblings I own a home in the borough, drive or walk past these sites multiple times a week, doesn’t bother me one bit. I lived in Chestnut Square when it was first built and it was awesome, brought a lot of young people into the town, everyone was proud to live there and the property was always well taken care of. It brings more people to our local businesses and restaurants, more money into the borough. The only people I see complaining are the ones too high and mighty to live near “renters”. No one will convince me that replacing an empty concrete lot or an abandoned Burger King with a brand new, nice, apartment building is a bad thing.
And this:
All the NIMBY’s know is unhappiness about any sort of growth and change. They are perfectly content with this region stagnating and declining while the rest of the world flourishes and advances. I can see being against a 5-floor apartment complex on a farm in West Nantmeal Township, but on an empty parking lot in a walkable town with amenities?
I’m really tired of having the same conversation over and over and over again.
While some are reveling in their ignorance of what they think are funny comments, they are missing the point and the point is there are too many apartments.
NONE of these developments are even attractive at this point . The development can be along I 95 in Philadelphia or in Chester County and it all looks the same. Cheap looking Lego boxes.
Too many apartments are creating a transient aspect to society out here. It causes issues with other types of real estate. It encourages predatory real estate investors, etc.
It’s just whatever the developer can suck out of the plot of land. If these folks all want to be part of the conversation, they’re welcome to be part of the conversation but if they’re just here to be ignorant, they can F off.
I’m just tired of it. We can’t have intelligent conversations about anything.
People can either constructive and polite even if you are on the other side of the issue, but they are not . Does anyone think these apartments are doing anything in the long run? They aren’t. They cause more kids to be in already bursting at the seams schools and they cause other stresses on infrastructure which is human and otherwise so it’s services like utilities, and then it’s emergency services like fire and police, etc and roads.
So if anyone out there would like dense buildings next to you, give the developers your address I’m sure they can oblige.
We can’t handle everything that’s being built literally. And our municipalities can not afford it. They get the short term high of ratables, but then we’re all on the hook.
There is no pace. There’s no real design. There’s a lack of human scale in most of these developments and issues with setbacks as well. Find open space? Not if they can help it. You know how you get open space in any of these new developments? If they can’t build on all of the land correct?
And then there are the developers that shove these plans down the throats of people in various municipalities and then they just let everything sit there and rot Today we have seen in Berwyn what happens with that. See my post on Berwyn Square.
Yes, communities have to grow and evolve to survive. But the growth shouldn’t always hurt so much and how about plans that are less dense and not so many rentals? That would probably be welcome just like anything other than a cram plan of apartments or townhouses.
What about affordable housing? I mean, basic average houses that people can downsize to who are getting older but raised their families and possibly even grew up themselves in a particular community or area. I’m also talking about what used to be called “starter houses” for people who grew up somewhere and came back to raise their own families and start their adult lives in a particular community. And by affordable housing, I’m also referring to low income housing. The state of the current supply of low income housing in Chester County is deplorable.
These developers aren’t building for a sense of community. They’re building for a sense of their own bank accounts. This is why you saw two municipalities this past election put an open space referendum on the ballot – East Whiteland and Uwchlan. Both referendums passed.
We don’t live in Chester county because it’s just some random suburb, we live here because we love the history of our county and we don’t want to become what Montgomery County and Delaware County have become and we’re pretty much there. It’s becoming too much development, overcrowded schools and an urban feel which is not what most of us signed up for. Bucks County too. Basically pick a county.
The Municipalities Planning Code of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is something I have written about so many times before I’ve lost count. This is the state level zoning bible, the guides all municipal zoning throughout the state. This weighty tome came into being when the definition of suburb and exurb was very different than today. this thing has not been comprehensively updated since around 1969. We’re at 2024. That’s 55 years.
Supposedly there was a big update in 2022, but I don’t remember anyone in Harrisburg enacting an act of the state constitution to do it?
What changed in 2022? Things most people didn’t even realize happened:
Amended Title 53 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes to establish the Municipal Boundary Change Act. This act also defined changes to real property that don’t require the assessment office to adjust an assessment
Amended Section 509 of the MPC to clarify the amount of financial security that municipalities should retain to cover the cost of remaining improvements on a subdivision or land development. This amendment took effect in February 2022
What we’re looking for in our communities among other things is more open space preservation, historic preservation that actually has teeth, and meaning, means to slow down the pace of development and have better control in our communities over the types of development we’re seeing. we want to be able to say we need to pause dense development and we want tools that our municipalities can legally have to help us preserve the feeling of where we call home.
It feels like every square inch of where we live is getting developed doesn’t it and as soon as you say, I really wish there wasn’t so much development you’re called NIMBY.
That’s bullshit. And the reality is the pace of development currently is not sustainable long-term and the stuff being built it doesn’t have staying power. The finishes and building style is just put it up as fast as you can. It doesn’t last. What is being built is not inexpensive and it looks cheap.
Parcels of land are built out to every inch possible. If any thing is retained as “open space” half of the time it’s not billable so you think a developers being magnanimous, but they really aren’t.
And then with all this development, especially in places like West Chester Borough you have people that’ll say “but we need workability and then maybe we’ll get the train back .”
Do you have two dollars? I can give you a piece of my bridge. I don’t really own a bridge. It’s a turn of phrase. All I’m saying is people are so gullible that they want to believe just about anything, but it doesn’t mean anything is based in reality.
And people always want to just say I’m NIMBY and I hate all development. There have been developments in the past I’ve actually liked. but those plans are few and far between or in some cases never actually happened because they were too good to be true.
Plans for development need to fit the communities in which they are going to be located. which of course is why I am worried about what is planned for the Weston tract in West Whiteland of W. King Rd. It’s why I am also concerned about whatever warehouses are being planned for the corner of Phoenixville Pike and W. King Rd. in West Whiteland.
Another thing I’m concerned about is whatever will happen with that random 15 acres that are partially in East Goshen and West Whiteland that were part of Schiffer Farm that the West Chester University Foundation is selling to a developer which backs up to a sweet older neighborhood on Old Phoenixville Pike.
And things like Lionville Station Farm are still in play aren’t they? And what is it about Downingtown Area School District that you don’t really know what’s going on with what the latest buyer is actually going to do?
And then you go past what used to be Happy Days Farm. The scale and just size of those warehouses is insane and no more farm.
If you want to see what negative impacts are occurring with all of this development try to drive through Ardmore or Wayne. Look at all the apartments in Tredyffrin, including along 202.
All of the development is overly dense and it’s about maximizing developer profit. It has nothing to do with community. It has nothing to do with any of us who were here first.
Again, all of this development is not sustainable. All of the rentals don’t foster a sense of community but they do create a more transient society. But go ahead, call me NIMBY if it makes you feel better. It’s not the truth.