Malvern Patch is a bit of a joke. They regurgitate news and their spellcheck mishaps are legendary. Today is no exception. Readers sent this into me.
Malvern Patch: Got Spellcheck?
Tag Archives: Malvern Patch
hump day havoc: patch does mass layoffs
Can you still call it AOL Patch? I am not sure because they mostly sold out to an entity called Hale Global recently as per the Wall Street Journal.
USA Today said on January 15th:
AOL Inc. effectively abandoned its ambitious strategy of reinventing hyper-local news when it agreed Wednesday to sell a majority stake in the Patch website network to technology investment firm Hale Global.
Financial terms weren’t disclosed. The companies anticipate closing the deal in the first quarter.
The deal is touted as a joint venture between AOL and Hale Global, which says it specializes in turning around underperforming businesses…..
Hale Global and AOL say Patch will be relaunched as a place for contributors and businesses to create “locally-themed news and content.” ….”We are committed to bringing users, local businesses, writers and advertisers together into a Patch experience full of innovation and growth,” said Charles Hale, CEO of Hale Global, in a statement.
Well corporate raiders, acquirers, whatever you want to call them never seem to follow through on the warm and fuzzy moments do they? With them and underperforming assets it is all about business. And the bottom line.
Well as of today all of our local Patch sites are kind of over. The web pages are up but this morning AOL Patch did mass layoffs. It is all over social media and the news is slowly trickling to traditional media. It is “off with their heads” Wednesday.
Romenesko has covered it the best thus far. He has a recording of “Hello You are Fired”
Part of what was said (courtesy of Romanesko):
Hi everyone, it’s Leigh Zarelli Lewis. Patch is being restructured in connection with the creation of the joint venture with Hale Global…..Unfortunately, your role has been eliminated and you will no longer have a role at Patch and today will be your last day of employment with the company
I’m told that hundreds — two tipsters claim two-thirds of the editorial staff — have been laid off by Patch’s new owner, Hale Global…
“The patch years were years of being aol’s tool and plaything. Killed myself, almost literally. Left with literally nothing. Better off dead.”
“I was a local editor for Patch for 3.5 years, up until about an hour ago. ….We knew it was coming, but the silence from New York over the few months was deafening. They left us in a state of suspended animation. For those of us who killed ourselves working for this company, it was a real slap in the face.”
I have many friends who worked with Patch since it’s inception. Some were traditional journalists and writers by trade. People like Tom Walsh, who is now the Public Information Officer of Lower Merion Township. Or former Managing Editor of Main Line Media News, Tom Murray and Sam Strike from the now defunct Suburban and Wayne Times, Tom Sunnergren, Anthony Leone. And more.
Heck, when Patch was in its embryo stage I was a freelancer for photos and occasional articles for mostly Ardmore Patch.
I have been critical of Patch in the past couple of years. It had gone from being this wonderful hub of hyper-local news to a mish mosh of spelling and grammatical errors with very little emphasis on what was happening in the communities it was covering. But yet, there were Patch sites that continued to stand out – locally Malvern Patch until Pete Kennedy left, Phoenixville Patch, Tredyffrin-Easttown Patch, East Hampton Patch and Radnor Patch.
If I had to pick my favorite it would have been Radnor Patch, where Sam Strike was editor. She is a friend and I have always loved her writing and photography skills.
If I had to pick a golden time for a lot of the local Patch sites, it would have been when Tom Murray was a Regional Editor. A real newspaper guy, he really taught me how to write when I used to contribute to then Main Line Life Newspaper.
But this morning for my remaining friends at Patch like Sam Strike it was “hello, you must be going, you are fired.”
Sam Strike wasn’t the only fine Patch person who got the axe today. Bob Byrne of Tredyffrin Patch and it looks like West Chester Patch and Malvern Patch and the list goes on. Basically if you go to Patch, click on the editor’s hyper link. It goes to an “oops there is nothing here” page. That is how I am counting up who is gone from our region.
I have been in touch with some of the Patch people I knew today. Tom Sunnergren who now writes for places like ESPN.com and hibu (you know those Malvern Life and similar “Life” magazines we get in the mail now once in a while?) and I spoke this afternoon for a few minutes.
Tom said he left Patch in August 2013 for a new position and when he thought he saw the final handwriting start to appear on the wall. He told me he believes all the Patch editors in our region is gone. He said enjoyed his experience at Patch, they gave it the “college try”. He remarked towards the end of his tenure there was a period of mixed directives that was hard on editors.
We spoke about Patch being almost a social experiment after a fashion. He remarked it would serve as a cautionary tale to the next group that tried this hyper-local formula.
Not to armchair quarterback but at first Patch had too many sites and tons of people working for them. Then they kept cutting people but not consolidating Patch areas to keep up with the layoffs. First they were right there with your hyper-local news reporting on local issues from local meetings. Then they were not covering the news but telling you that you could blog on Patch “for free”.
The Patch sites around here operated under a mushy soft news umbrella after Tom Murray left the Regional Editor spot for another job.
Sam Strike now former editor of Radnor Patch sent a note out to her e-mail list this afternoon:
Date: Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 1:23 PM
Subject: It’s been a pleasure
Hi all,I wanted to let you know that it has been a pleasure working with you all over the years (some many, some few). Today Patch laid off the majority of its staff, myself included.
I’ve been doing local news in Radnor for a decade. And I’ve enjoyed it. But I think it’s time for a new challenge.
I have been and will continue to be pursuing work in the public relations/communications sector. I would appreciate any leads that you may encounter.
My Patch email will be shut down at 5 p.m. today
I was also in touch with Anthony Leone today. He used to be a Patch editor I worked with at the Haverford-Havertown Patch. Anthony always had an uphill battle while at that Patch and so did every subsequent editor because it wasn’t just the Havertown/Haverford Township Patch. They also tossed in the town I used to live in when I lived in Lower Merion: Haverford.
Haverford, Lower Merion Township should have been attached to Bryn Mawr or Ardmore Patch but only the local editors ever got that. Anyway, I asked Anthony what he thought and this is what he shared with me:
While it is a shame that this happened to so many of my former Patch colleagues, some of whom I have worked with personally, it is not a surprise. I do wish them the best of luck. One of the wonderful things that I have discovered since I left Patch in July 2012 is the fact that so many former Patchers are still in contact with one another and offer support.
Since I left Patch, I’ve written a lot about it on my blog What Burns My Bacon, but I thought in the beginning that they were filling a true community need, something that the readers really wanted. But over time decisions were made and it started to have a negative impact on Patch and its readers. I just hope someone can take the best parts of Patch, fix the things that were wrong with it and make something that will employ journalists and give readers what they truly desire: Original, local news.
So now what? What is the future of journalism? Regionally and locally our newspapers have had to keep cutting back while beefing up on things like new technology and an online presence.
Years ago I had the good fortune to become aware of a blogger named Karl Martino who was one of the folks who thought up this amazing blog, a blog community really, called PhillyFuture.org which is now defunct. One of his topics there was the future of journalism. I wish I still had those posts he and others wrote. (he still blogs at paradox1x.)
Journalism was so different when many of us were little kids. Real newspaper people and hard-core editors chasing the story.
Then came the failures.
I remember the first time The Philadelphia Bulletin closed. 1982. Then the name was bought and it was resurrected for a second life. Then it died again in June 2009. It became deficit omne quod nasciture or everything that is born passes away.
Patch was launched in our area on or about September 10, 2010. One of their editors wrote at the time:
“Want the facts without bias? A team of trained journalists covering every government meeting, every school board hearing and keeping the community abreast of local events? A brand new online newspaper launching Sept. 10, 2010 in Ardmore. Patch.com is owned and funded by AOL, supports community journalism on a “hyperlocal” level. Patch will cover all of the goings on in its three namesake communities, and will be updated multiple times every day with breaking news and information. “
The initial Patch sites in the greater Philadelphia area went “live” at 10:55 a.m. on September 10, 2010. The Patch editors were ironically all fired by that time today.
Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News wrote an interesting article about the future of journalism on Attytood this past October 16th.
He said in the article titled Like it or not, this is the future of American journalism :
I think we’re seeing that since actual civic-minded good-for-you news and investigative reporting — propped up for more than a century by department store ads, classifieds and crossword puzzles — has zero economic value in the digital free market, there’s only one thing that will keep it alive. And it’s not really what those hundreds of journalism reform articles I read over all those years were about — things like reader engagement and crowdsourcing and using social media (although those things matter).
It’s really just about very rich people.
And not just any very rich people, but very rich people with an agenda.
Given the state of politics and craziness that has defined the rise and fall and rise and fall and rise again of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News I am almost surprised he was able to articulate much of this particular piece.
But is he wrong? Sadly, I think not.
Who will be our voices in Chester County now? We get some coverage on TV if too many people in Philadelphia aren’t being murdered or politicians aren’t causing scandal. But as far as local news, we don’t have much coverage by the Philadelphia Inquirer (they jettisoned their Chester County bureau a few years ago), and the Daily Local and Main Line Media News are stretched thin.
Will we be our own voices? We have all but run out of our traditional real-time story tellers A/K/A reporters and editors.
Not surprisingly most major media outlets like the New York Times are now starting to report on the Patch editorial massacre today. They all are saying that neither AOL Patch nor new owner Hale Global would comment on the layoffs.
Interestingly enough according to Fox News a Patch that survived with editor intact apparently is Greenwich Patch. As in Greenwich, CT. Why? Because Tim Armstrong (AOL) lives there basically. Fox reports that AOL still owns 40% of Patch.
To now former Radnor Patch Editor Sam Strike and Tredyffrin-Easttown and lately Phoenixville Patch Editor Bob Byrne I wanted to say thank you. They were among the last editors standing until today that I really respected. They are true journalists and are people of integrity.
My friend and former editor (as well as Patch Regional Editor) Tom Murray said to me today “Very sad day when journalist and friends lose their jobs.”
Please feel free to share your thoughts.
What is the future of media? Journalism?
how patch responds to criticism: the delete button?
9:48 p.m. UPDATE- the new regional editor referenced below at end of post actually responded to me. Yes given the way contacting Patch before was like a black hole of nothingness it was a surprise. Anyway, he said he was sure it was a “mistake.” As of a few minutes ago or so it seems like my account is back, but I am not sure if all my comments and/or posts are. I will let you know. I am pleased this new guy seems responsible as a Regional.
I went to sign into my Patch today because a lady I comment back and forth with responded to me on a Malvern Patch post where I had commented the other day. Ironically, I had even been complimentary to the editor Nate Adams because it is one the first real news posts I have seen out of him on Malvern Patch. But when I went to log into Malvern Patch, I got this:
Yes, my account was deleted. Mind you I have had a Patch account for years. As a matter of fact, I used to be a freelance photographer for Ardmore Patch on occasion between 2010 and 2012! I even contributed to Radnor Patch.
I thought, wow, this couldn’t be possible, surely this is a mistake. So I cleared out my browser and tried logging into other Patch sites like Ardmore and Radnor. Nope. Same message.
The only thing I can deduce is because of my criticism of West Chester and Malvern Patch editor Nate Adams that he took it upon himself to delete me?
It has to be that. And here’s the rub: there was no reply to my e-mail I sent him on September 29th asking how coverage was determined these days and expressing my concerns that local news wasn’t being covered for West Chester or Malvern. Mind you there were other Patch people on that e-mail and none of them responded either.
So I posted the e-mail openly on Patch. It had a LOT of comments from Patch readers who felt pretty much exactly the SAME way as I did.
But now, that post and every comment I have made on ANY Patch site over a few years along with my original Patch account have been deleted.
There was no e-mail sent to me telling me to simmer down or I would be deleted. No e-mail sent saying ANY comments were being removed because I violated some terms of service. Nothing. I was simply erased.
And while that is their right because it is their site, is that what a true editor does? Is that what a media outlet does? Lordy, look at the comments left on major metropolitan media outlets – print, radio, and television.
But no, because I criticized Patch and the current editor rather than dealing with it, I was simply deleted. That is not journalism.
So I wrote to the new regional editor who has apparently replaced the former regional editor. His name is Tim. I told him how I felt about it flat-out.
I re-registered with Patch. I fully expect Nate Adams to delete that account too. I guess I am somewhat stunned at the lack of professionalism. However, to that end, I have been told by many that I shouldn’t worry about Patch as a local media resource and hyper local news outlet because they are all faltering THAT badly. As in it is only a matter of time.
Time will tell. In the mean time, consider this a cautionary tale: Patch editors don’t respond to criticism like real media professionals. And to those who will say that bloggers do that with comments, yes we do, but our blogs are our own. I am not owned by AOL Time Warner. I am not owned by a large corporate entity who pays me to be an editor of a hyper local news site. These Patch editors are compensated media professionals and should be able to handle themselves better as well as actually do the job they are paid to do.
Sign me amused. I love the smell of the First Amendment on a cloudy fall day.
what does AOL Patch actually cover?
Chester County is a big place. Not all areas of Chester County have much media coverage at all. I am going to zoom into where news matters most to me: the areas of West Chester and Malvern. I am also going to zoom in on one “media” outlet in particular: AOL Patch, the self-decried innovators of “hyper-local news”. (And FYI there are many all over the country critical of Patch.)
When I first started reading Malvern and West Chester Patch a couple of years ago I was impressed. They were actually living up to AOL Patch’s mission statement or whatever of covering local issues important to residents, in other words they were actually doing hyper-local news coverage. At that time they had a terrific regional editor and hard-working individual site editors.
What has evolved to present day is somewhat disappointing. Quite a few changes in individual site editors and a regional editor who sees big news as things like what the best diaper is. Not that diapers aren’t important to moms everywhere, but are they hyper- local newsworthy?
Malvern and West Chester is a fairly large area to cover with multiple municipalities representing zip codes 19380 and 19355. I want to acknowledge that up front. But it seems to me that news in West Chester and Malvern is not being covered and that is not good.
Many Municipalities out here in these two zip codes do not have any televised meetings even if they could if they wanted to. So we depend on local and hyper-local media for coverage. And I don’t see this gap coverage on Patch. What I see is a lot of fluff and things re-posted from other Patch sites that are not necessarily newsworthy.
What do you think of Malvern and West Chester Patch and the current editor who is covering both sites?
Are you disappointed in Malvern Patch and West Chester Patch?
I am.
There is a lot going on out here, and while no media outlet can cover everything, in my humble opinion they should be covering a fair representation of news in the communities under the “Malvern” and “West Chester” umbrellas.
What was the impetus of this post? Not just one thing, but a culmination of many things.
Take for example a recent article from Abington Patch cross-posted in Malvern Patch on September 16th titled Forty-Six Parishes Under Archdiocese Scrutiny. This article was basically a republication of a Philadelphia Inquirer report. Furthermore, Patch references affected parishes in Bucks, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties. Not one word about CHESTER County, so what was the point of putting this on Malvern Patch?
And then there is the STILL uncorrected spelling error in an obituary headline. I wrote about that on September 18th I found it so sloppy and disrespectful to whomever the deceased was.
There are many other examples I could cite as disappointing, but I won’t. You all get where I am going.
Do you think Patch has lost its way?
What do you want to see coverage of?
My list includes (but is not limited to) coverage of local meetings and issues facing residents, information on candidates for upcoming elections, real coverage of local businesses, meaningful profiles of residents doing terrific things, and coverage of local sports that is not borrowed or regurgitated from other sources.
It would also be helpful to see our local Patch editor out and about covering some things, because as it stands I do not see where this guy has actually visited our communities. And face it, if you are going to cover us in a hyper-local manner you have to get out and explore. And face it, Chester County has a lot of cool things to cover in addition to local government and other issues which may not be considered so positive.
At the end of the day, I would like to see Patch in Malvern and West Chester to once again cover where we live. They have employees being paid to do this, right? Why can’t they cover the area like Radnor and Tredyffrin Patch sites do? And if AOL Patch has changed and will no longer be covering where we live, it would helpful if they just said so.
Also to consider is what is the future of journalism? Once upon a time we thought it might be AOL Patch.
Thanks for listening.
spell check anyone?
Now I know my friend Ann will have a giggle over this. She and I have fun at places like Giant when display signs and posters printed by Giant’s marketing people are wrong.
This is in Malvern Patch today. I am sorry to be picayune but ummm they are supposedly media and this is supposedly posted by an editor and the dude can’t spell check a headline?
Really?
Mind you I do not pretend to have perfect spelling but I am not passing myself off as hyper local media. Maybe AOL Patch with all their woes can no longer afford spellcheck? Or is it spell check?
This was done by the new (and invisible) editor of Malvern Patch. Gone are the days when actual Malvern and Malvern-area news is reported. It is pretty sad, actually.
This editor always has typos. But OMG in an obituary headline?
Can’t an editor get a dictionary?
if septa is considering cutting service past paoli, why does malvern need T.O.D.?
I remember years ago as a college student without access to a car when I wanted to go visit friends at West Chester University, if I couldn’t get a ride I had to take a train to Paoli and then get one of those scuzzy cabs to West Chester. And Paoli train station on the side going towards Malvern felt just as creepy and isolated then as it does today.
I was happy when Malvern and beyond opened again on Septa. And people ride the train. When I was transitioning out to Chester County for a while I took the train out from the Main Line. I was going through radiation treatment for breast cancer and a lot of the time towards the end of my treatment I was too tired to drive. This was when Malvern train station was under construction. It was then I realized there was no handicap access at either Paoli or Malvern – quite frankly during that time I would have welcomed a ramp versus steep stairs – I was just that tired. At Malvern during the heat of that summer I was going through radiation was when you not only had to climb steep stairs, the train station also had no place for you to sit to wait to be picked up and a car couldn’t get near enough to pick you up. Instead you had to wind your way through a construction site and around through to the other side via the roads on a sidewalk that was not the best.
So now there is the tunnel and the station is rehabbed (but still isn’t truly handicap accessible) and during the summer Malvern Borough officials were putting on charettes or whatever for T.O.D. Transit Oriented Development, otherwise known as borough officials see dollar signs and have no brain cells. I wrote about T.O.D. before.
I said then I used to say that TOD stood for Total Of Dumbasses. It is like Groundhog Day for me because I lived through a lot of these Emperor’s New Clothes scenarios when I lived on the Main Line. It tore apart Lower Merion Township where I used to live and to this day divisiveness truly still exists. And Transit Oriented Development is still a myth of more fiction than fact.
To say that people in suburbs and exurbs and quasi rural areas will give up driving is just ludicrous. These municipalities and developers should just be honest: they don’t have the ability to put sufficient parking in all this new age urban-like development. They don’t care so much about the environment and being green, in my humble opinion it is all about the green they can bank in profits. And who suffers? People already living around these infill development targeted sites.
Malvern’s charm is in it’s history and size, much like the village portion of Berwyn and similarly scaled small towns and villages. I could see making Malvern say sprucing up a little bit more like Narberth which has undeniable charm and popularity, but Narberth does things based on sound planning and well Malvern Borough seems to chase dollars like a hooker looking for money on top of the dresser.
TOD stands to add hundreds of living units. Hundreds as in someone told me in excess of 600. Malvern is no way capable of handling that many additional living units and cars and people. That has a trickle down effect to the schools too. And we aren’t talking real estate taxes, we’re talking overcrowding.
TOD in Malvern will also adversely affect their neighbors in East Whiteland. Much the way Tredyffrin affected Radnor residents downstream along the Gulph Creek when they allowed Church of the Savior and some other things to super-size. East Whiteland should stay on top of this from a municipal perspective. No one needs trickle down issues.
So why am I writing this? Because of something that appeared in Malvern Patch that was copied from Plan Philly.
The long and short of it there is a very real chance SEPTA will cut stops off the R5 Paoli/Thorndale Line. As in NO MORE train service. Stopping at Paoli again.
So I have to wonder if Septa will even do the makeover planned for Paoli train station? And if the service is truncated and stops at Paoli, how will Paoli even if their grand plans make it to completion handle the influx?
I put forward that Malvern Borough Council and Borough staff /administration need to be watched. They want to shove, shove, shove through new development yet they have no substantive planning that I can see. I know what they see- they see ratables. What is happening (for example) with the Gables Greenhouse property on Warren and Second Ave? There were a couple of things in Malvern Patch which seem to have disappeared? The comments indicate on the remaining article that like five houses are being considered for that property?
Malvern Borough has lost it’s way. They don’t seem to listen to their residents. They also can’t seem to get much money in the end for development projects. Remember when people checked out what they were getting in ratables for East King Street/Eastside Flats? See:
During a discussion of the police services and budgeting at the of Malvern Borough Council, resident Joan Yeager asked a related question:
“Once the King Street project is completed, how much additional money is going to come into the borough? In taxes and all,” she said.
“Something in the neighborhood of $60,000 a year,” council president Woody Van Sciver said, citing a financial feasibility study done before the project was approved.
And oh yeah what exactly in the realm of new businesses is Eli Kahn actually bringing to Malvern? Besides Kimberton Whole Foods?
I feel I must say again that in addition to better planning by municipalities and boroughs throughout Pennsylvania, there also need to be updates made to the Municipalities Planning Code. After all Zoning blames Planning and Supervisors/Commissioners. Supervisors/Commissioners blame flaws in Municipalities Planning Code.
Want to see bad planning? Look no further than Lower Merion Township and take Ardmore as an example. There is a short film surfacing about development there and the fact that when it occurs a lot of businesses and residents will have ZERO parking for two years and reduced parking after that. Why? Because Lower Merion is essentially giving away land to a developer. I think you can view the documentary short by following this link: https://vimeo.com/72950877
Getting off the soapbox now. Just been chewing on this a few days.
the emperor may have no clothes on when it comes to t.o.d. in malvern
UPDATE: I was just cruising through Malvern Patch to see if there was any resident feedback from Malvern’s TOD meeting (since the media can’t seem to cover life altering development) and my eyes about popped when I read this:
Sidne Baglini July 24, 2013 at 09:34 pm
The meeting was last night at Borough Hall. The subject was the Transportation Oriented Development…Read More Plan presentation which is encouraging the Borough to change the zoning on the north side of the railroad tracks on Warren Ave. so that 600 residential units can be constructed so that SEPTA can increase it’s ridership and surrounding communities can avoid suburban sprawl. The plans presented showed several 12 story buildings; a plan with multiple 7 story buildings and a plan with even more multiple 4 or 5 story buildings. Another meeting will be announced for late summer or early autumn as they are required to hold 3 public meetings and last night’s was the 2nd. I don’t know if the 3 plans were left at the Borough Hall or if they are being held by the Delaware Valley Planning Commission. In a nutshell, if you think East King Street Flats is your vision of what Malvern should be like, then this proposal is EKSF on steroids.
EARLIER:
I used to say that TOD stood for Total Of Dumbasses. It really means Transit Oriented Development, and whoa Nellie I had no idea it was being planned for Malvern Borough.
It is like Groundhog Day for me because I lived through a lot of these Emperor’s New Clothes scenarios when I lived on the Main Line. It tore apart Lower Merion Township where I used to live and to this day divisiveness truly still exists. And Transit Oriented Development is still a myth of more fiction than fact.
And oh my gosh golly here comes a meeting that may have been held TODAY in Malvern Borough that I only saw on Malvern Patch just now and it wasn’t posted until July 22 at almost 11 pm. This is a meeting important enough that it should have had widely publicized notices for weeks and not been held in the dead of a hot, hot summer when a lot of people are away. But the jaded person in me says that naturally that is when local governments sneak things through: around major holidays or in the dead of summer.
Future of Train Station up for Discussion
This is your second chance to see what could be coming for the Malvern train station.
A meeting this Tuesday could shape how a major section of Malvern could look in the future.
The Malvern Transit-Oriented Development Plan (TOD) is holding a public meeting to discuss the future of the half-mile section of borough near the SEPTA train station on Tuesday, from 4 to 7 p.m….For more information on the meeting, contact borough manager Sandra Kelley at 610-644-2602 or check out the group’s flyer onthe borough website.
A meeting this important and they seem incapable of properly publicizing? it is a shame that Malvern Borough wants to turn themselves into Upper Darby or something isn’t it? I have to ask is this “plan” actually a done deal and are these motions are just for show?
Malvern’s charm is in it’s history and size, much like the village portion of Berwyn and similarly scaled small towns and villages. I could see making Malvern say sprucing up a little bit more like Narberth which has undeniable charm and popularity, but Narberth does things based on sound planning and well Malvern Borough seems to chase dollars like a hooker looking for money on top of the dresser.
Some will find my words hard and hyper critical and for that I am sorry, but lordy have they learned nothing? Look at Eli Kahn’s hulking monstrosity would you? The photo below was taken in March and while the Tyvec and black paper may be covered up now by plaster and whatnot but it still does not disguise the fact that this project looms over the street, looms over houses across the train tracks and lacks human scale and the ridiculously low amount once quoted in the paper as what would be gained in ratables leaves me scratching my head.
And again, I am sorry to sound this way it is just so simply Groundhog Day and if I could spare anyone what others have gone through with these Emperor’s New Clothes fools’ errands of unattainable zoning overlays and infill development hair-brained plans that don’t EVER seem to take into account the scale of current buildings, architecture, history, human scale, design elements, the actual will of the people or parking and traffic I would.
I don’t live in Malvern Borough so I have no standing, just opinion. But I have to say I am not anti-progress but I am against poor planning. An article from September 2012 in Main Line Media News by Henry Briggs on this topic says that as per tax records Malvern Borough residents pay nearly FOUR TIMES the taxes paid by businesses and industrial property owners.
Here is that column of Henry Briggs’ from September 2012:
Main Line Suburban Life > Opinion
HENRY BRIGGS: How much should Malvern grow?
Published: Monday, September 24, 2012
On Tuesday, Sept 25, from 4pm to 7pm, Malvern Borough will offer its citizens a voice in a decision that will permanently effect the future of the town.
Woody Van Sciver, Borough Council President and Jeff Riegner a planning consultant, will ask for comments on “transit oriented development” in Malvern; specifically, putting additional people and buildings into a half-mile perimeter of the Malvern SEPTA station.
As Malvern is only 1.3 square miles, this will have enormous and permanent impact on the people who live and work there.
With the development of East King Street, the town is currently in the first stage of a 10% expansion….What triggered the study? A breakfast in 2008 hosted by the Philadelphia Area Chamber of Commerce and attended by assorted civic leaders, including Woody Van Sciver, Malvern Borough Council President.
The main speaker, Barry Seymour, from the DVRPC, spoke about the need to beef up density around transit centers – the SEPTA and AMTRAK stations – along the Main Line. His pitch echoed that of the “Landscapes Plan” which Chester County put together years ago.
I am with Henry Briggs and ex-Borough President Pat McGuigan: keep Malvern a traditional village. Maybe spruce it up a little and get some of those derelict property owners near the Flying Pig to clean up and get tenants, but don’t supersize Malvern around a train station that isn’t even handicap accessible. Fix up the existing downtown, get grants to repair sidewalks. Look to ways of improving parking for visitors and residents. Come up with a viable village plan that looks at Malvern Borough as a whole so progress flows and doesn’t cause pain. Go to Media and Narberth and check them out – although downtown Media is much larger than either Narberth or Malvern like Malvern and Narberth it is off the beaten path (i.e. not right on a major road like Route 30)
Like many municipalities, Malvern Borough might benefit in term limits for elected officials because wow hearing this stuff makes one question why people serve doesn’t it? Maybe this Woody Van Sciver needs to retire, right?
Also see Should Malvern Grow by Joseph DiStefano at The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Malvern Borough is 1.2 or 1.3 square miles and that will never change. It is time for Malvrn Borough Towns Fathers to put away their huge insecurity issues and obvious inferiority complexes and accept Malvern for what it is: a VILLAGE. Capitalize on THAT, don’t try to make Malvern what it is not. And anyone who tells you that your community in exurbia (because out here we are past the traditional suburbs of the Main Line) will only thrive and prosper with tons of density and infill development should be run out of town on a rail and sent to live in the urban jungle they so greatly crave. As a matter of fact, I hear there is a lot of room in Detroit these days.
Lecture over You all do what you want this is merely my opinion.
cubesmart application causes east whiteland zoning officer to doze off?
The above photo is old. Can’t find recent photos I snapped of CubeSmart’s giant box being built on the edge of Malvern overlooking Route 30.
It is a BIG, UGLY box. I hate when areas are de-forested so Tyvec boxes can be built, don’t you? And this is now your landmark when going to the General Warren Inne, which is a place I know and love. I have seconded a wedding photographer there as well as having just been there as a dinner guest over the years. I also fully admit that I do not understand the lack of planning and general mish-mosh of conflicting zoning throughout Chester County. You have residential often quite close to the most awful commercial zoning. To me this is another one of those situations.
So CubeSmart, another fine project brought to you by Eli Kahn who to me seems to want to take over Chester County, has been a contentious project by comments I have seen on Malvern Patch every time it comes up. I think part of what is the problem is that this particular Malvern project, which is located in East Whiteland is not only due to what the project it (in essence a big box with more self-storage and then offices), but because it seems like East Whiteland doesn’t do much putting it out there as far as notification except to the letter of what they are supposed to do and do they have a public access channel for televised meetings or not?
So a zoning notice went up on the CubeSmart property like late last week regarding their application in East Whiteland. The notice said:
Appeal No. 13-15 Application of Old Lancaster Venture, LP, c/o CubeSmart for a special exception pursuant to Section 200-89 of the Township Zoning Ordinance, which authorizes exceptions to the otherwise applicable signage regulations under special circumstances, in order to permit the Applicant to install two wall signs and three free-standing signs having a total collective square footage of 223.5 square feet on its property located at 5 Old Lancaster Road (UPI 42-4-338) in an R-3 Residential Zoning District, in conjunction with the construction of an 86,400 square foot office building.
That got posted on one of those neighborhood bulletin board things on Malvern Patch (and not as a regular media coverage, either – some of the media coverage seems in flux to be polite since Pete Kennedy left the editorial spot there – he was very on top of things and diligent.)
Immediately the comments started. Residents with immediate standing to this project seem VERY upset. With good reason – the hearing on GIANT, yes GIANT billboard-y signage was scheduled in the middle of a July heat wave – you know when people are either dying from the heat or on summer vacation? Apparently East Whiteland doesn’t have a billboard policy? Or good signage policy? I don’t know so someone else will have to fill in that question via a comment. I would have thought they would because I noticed at the bottom of the notice posted on Pennsylvania Public Notices that Fronefield Crawford, Jr was listed as the Zoning Hearing Board Solicitor and well he made a stink at Radnor Township a few years ago in 2009 about their billboard and signage policies, but maybe that was because his church might have been affected – Wayne Presbyterian. (Interestingly his name also surfaced in a literal “turf war” in Radnor too.)
Now no joke, off premises signs and billboards are big problem I think throughout Chester County and Chester County has a ton of the ugliest billboards from municipality to municipality. I don’t like billboards and billboard-like signs.
Anyway, from what it sounds like a bunch of folks from the “General Warren Village” neighborhoods in Malvern/Frazer showed up at this meeting.
I hear there were fireworks. A resident named Jim rolled up on Malvern Patch today and left a stunning comment:
Jim McVeigh July 23, 2013 at 10:36 amWell, sparks flew at the Zoning Ordinace meeting last night. During the first presentation myself and other residents witnessed Jeffery Freeman , a member of the Board, first dozing off and on, then shortly he was out fast asleep. I interrupted the presentation to bring it to the other members of the boards attention. I was responded to by Mr. freeman with the comment B**lS**T. I guess he does not like being interrupted during his nap time. For bringing this to the boards’ attention I was chastised for speaking out of order, even though I asked the audience if they had witnessed Freeman napping and 7- 8 residents raised thier hand. Of course nothing was said publicly to Freeman. If you are not aware of exactly the members of the boards duties include, I have included information from thier website. **************** Zoning Hearing Board ************** The Zoning Hearing Board is a five-member appeals board appointed by the Board of Supervisors for staggered, five-year terms. The Zoning Hearing Board hears applications for: special exceptions; nonconforming uses; variance requests. It also hears appeals of decisions made by the zoning officer. The Board gathers facts by taking testimony and by reviewing evidence from affected parties at public hearings. It is charged with the legal responsibility of approving or denying applications and appeals. In rendering a decision, the Board considers all testimony, presented under oath at public hearings, and evaluates an application’s impact on the community. When necessary, the Board can require special stipulations in allowing special exceptions and variances. The Board interprets, but does not set, the zoning ordinance. The zoning ordinance and any revisions are prepared by the Planning Commission and adopted by the Board of Supervisors following a public hearing. The zoning ordinance was last adopted in February 2007. ************************************************
Wow. I have attended a lot of zoning hearing board meetings in various municipalities in my day, but I have *NEVER* heard of a Zoning Hearing Board Member dozing off have you? Does East Whiteland have any comment? Any media following up on this?
I am asking for input here because my curiosity on this development leads me to the following question: can a fair and equitable zoning decision be reached when member of the board are seen dozing off in the middle of the hearing? And the public, the residents with standing who had the courage to speak up and point this out were chastised for being out of order? REALLY? What if this were a capital murder trial and the judge dozed off? I realize that using a murder trial is an extreme parallel of sorts but aren’t Zoning hearings mini legal proceedings? Did a court stenographer catch all this?
Seems to me residents may deserve a little TLC here.
Again, thoughts on zoning naptime at the oasis?
(Update I am told East Whiteland doesn’t televise meetings – there seem to be a lot of Chester County municipalities that do *not* televise or videotape their meetings which I find *odd* since I know they all have access to public access TV if they want it, right?)
malvern’s hulking development
Focus on Malvern Borough continues. The past couple of weeks I have been through Malvern Borough a lot. Just the luck of the draw. But driving up King past the “magnificence” being created by Eli Kahn and David DellaPorta is enough to give me nightmares.
This development which they are pretentiously calling Eastside Flats is unimaginative and looks like hulky, looming Lego buildings that are creating a complete canyon effect in tiny Malvern.
Of course on their artist renderings it is a veritable Vahalla with sweeping land and streetscapes. The reality is the street is narrow and at night it is the same canyon effect and feel that you get on dark streets in downtown Manhattan…only this is Chester County.
There is nothing about what is being built that truly ties into the quaint Borough of Malvern. The horse is out of the barn, so no bells can be un-rung, but lordy is what is being constructed ugly with a capital U. And I can’t wait to say I told you so on the parking. I predict it will be a problem upon completion. It looks like a problem now but I am just a mere mortal and a female. I feel sorry for any house or pre-existing small business that has to exist with this development.
And oh yes, the Whip has bailed so there is no cute anchor restaurant at present:
The Whip Owner Cites Design Flaws in East King Decision
By Pete Kennedy Email the author March 11, 2013
The owner of The Whip Tavern in Unionville said design shortcomings were behind his decision to cancel plans to open a second location on Malvern’s East King Street.
In a phone interview, Casey Kulp cited an insufficient kitchen ventilation system as one of the reasons he decided against opening in Malvern, after expressing interest in the idea in 2012….
In a recent interview, Kahn declined to comment on the circumstances of the change in The Whip’s plans.
Kulp said he thinks they’ll have a difficult time getting restaurants into the space
And speaking of restaurants, what is the deal with parking at The Great American Pub at 516 King Street in Paoli? As in how do they have sufficient parking? We almost went there last week for a quick bite to eat but opted against it because the only place to park was in that small neighborhood adjoining the restaurant and we did not want to take up residents’ parking at dinner time.
What municipality is that in? Willistown? Wow they sure approach things in a very interesting manner don’t they? They deny Woodlawn a business expansion in an existing structure on their property with ample parking yet they allow The Great American Pub to act like a bar leech and take all parking of a small neighborhood? The parking is a hot mess and I wonder exactly where the valets are dumping cars, don’t you?
Circling back to the original topic, one more article on Malvern’s development atrocity. Somewhat of a fluffy article from the Inquirer that buys David DellaPorta’s New Urbanism Fairy Tale hook line and sinker. (He has been spouting it for years every time he proposes anything.) Malvern isn’t the town time forgot, it is a little borough that has a borough council that was dumb enough to think supersizing will fix all woes. Urbanization of exurbia. Oh yeah, so fabulous because we all want to live in the inner city, right? They are just doing suburban sprawl of a different kind.
Malvern apartment complex nears completion after 10 years in the works
By Aubrey Whelan, Inquirer Staff Writer
Posted: February 05, 2013
The developer calls Malvern “the town that time forgot” – its main street lined with Victorian-style houses, small boutiques, and local watering holes like the Flying Pig Saloon.
But Eli Kahn and his partners are betting that a $45 million apartment and retail complex on East King Street will help satisfy urban appetites in one of the region’s most venerable suburbs – and entice empty nesters and young professionals looking for a citified environment outside the city.
Construction on the East King Street redevelopment project began in June and includes two large apartment buildings with 190 units, plus first-floor retail space that Kahn envisions renting to restaurants, coffee shops, and boutiques. The complex, due for completion in August, also is to house a Whole Foods grocery.
Kahn and his partner, David Della Porta, spent several years buying 11 parcels on the site, and the project has been a decade in the making. A house on one small parcel remains because an elderly resident didn’t want to leave her home and declined to sell, Kahn said.
Kahn said developments such as his – projects that emphasize urbanization over suburban sprawl – could be the wave of the future in the region…
On Thursday, Kahn sidestepped mud puddles and several employees in hard hats as the wind whipped around the corner of the almost-completed apartment complex. Construction was slightly behind schedule because of a cold snap followed by windy weather, but Kahn was optimistic.
“This has been a 10-year journey,” he said. “It’s incredibly satisfying, to add to a little town like Malvern. It’s exciting.”
This development in Malvern has never in my humble opinion really been about the town of Malvern. If this was really about the town, the design would have been more complimentary. This project is all about developer pork and profit. Let’s not delude ourselves to the contrary. What will eventually happen here is people will start to avoid going through Malvern like they are starting to avoid going through Ardmore, Bryn Mawr, and even Wayne because of a lack of parking and congestion.
police department hopscotch in malvern….again
Pardon my questions, but I haven’t lived out here long enough to learn how it all rolls. Today I would like to know if Malvern Borough seems to get its police chiefs from East Whiteland, then why isn’t there just a combined force serving the Borough of Malvern and East Whiteland? Don’t eliminate jobs, just put both departments together under one chief?
Anyway, it just seems odd. I remember not so long ago they were talking about eliminating Malvern’s police department, weren’t they? But if the Borough can’t seem to keep a Chief of Police what the heck goes on in the Borough? Hopscotch?
New Police Chief Named in Malvern Borough
By Pete Kennedy Email the author March 11, 2013
The Malvern Police Department has a new leader.
Louis Marcelli, a sergeant in the East Whiteland Police Department, has assumed the role of acting police chief.
Marcelli took command March 6, according to Malvern Mayor Jerry McGlone. The previous chief, Mark Ercole, has returned to East Whiteland…….Ercole had been brought in to replace Chief Michael McMahon, whose termination followed a tumultuous period during which borough officials were considering disbanding the department. Ultimately, borough council opted instead for a change of leadership….East Whiteland Township is also providing police chief services to the Westtown-East Goshen Regional Police Department through June.