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Friday, March 30, 2007
LAND USE AND OUR FUTURE
by Lois K.
Herr, Senior Editor
I believe strongly in
community developed land use plans. I am concerned, however, when
people follow the letter of the plan without understanding its spirit.
In developing "BALANCE" - the growth management element of the
county's comprehensive plan - we envisioned a future "where urban
centers prosper, natural landscapes flourish, and farming is
strengthened as an integral component of our diverse economy and
cultural heritage."
Higher density residential
zoning in and of itself is not the solution - it is a tool to be used
appropriately in urban growth areas. I am concerned that
municipalities and developers are going for the highest densities in
the easiest places, e.g., at the edges of the urban growth areas and
sometimes right up against agricultural areas. THAT was not our
intent, at least not mine. The densities should grow from the inside
out to minimize the impact on rural areas adjacent to urban growth
areas. Buffer zones are not practical, but thinking about the impact
of one area on another is not only practical but essential to our
success.
I encourage everyone to
reread and take to heart the strategies laid out in Balance and
Choice, remembering that we must work on urban and rural strategies
together. Our success depends on linking our efforts to:
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Preserve treasured
natural, cultural, historic, and architectural resources
-
Promote reinvestment in
Lancaster City, the Boroughs, and developed areas in Townships'
Urban Growth Areas
-
Expand housing choices
and affordability in Growth Areas
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Enhance character and
form of development
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Support conditions for a
sustainable economy and agricultural industry.
comment on this news item...
Comments:
Amish Homeland Area
by
Lois Duling
In Southeastern Lancaster
County we have a unique treasure and therefore need to take extra care
to consider the needs and health, welfare and safety of the Amish
community. They are the foundation of the positive values in our area.
Nothing is being done to offer them options to preserve their farms,
listen to their needs---forget the Goat Path and let them live in
peace. It is a benefit to all of us.
I believe we should create
an Amish Homeland Area that would preserve their livelihood, allow for
carriageways between farms and Church districts from Horseshoe Road to
Hunsicker Bridge and then from that line to Morgantown. Most of the
food markets towards Philadelphia and in Delaware are managed by the
Amish. The Mayor of Philadelphia is building a large new produce
market. Where will this food come from?
The balance should be that
all open space should be used for productive agricultural land. It is
easy planning to use the open space in a combined development for a
"neighborhood produce" farm. I have spoken with the Amish and it will
work. We need to have the cutting edge here to show the way.
This land is the most
valuable soil in the world. Let us plan together with these residents
who have shown the way to respond when they lost members of their
families last October and now their land is threatened ----let us take
care in any planning for land use that we do not injure them again by
taking their land or jeopardizing their safety.
The Beginning of the End of
the Amish Homeland in the United States
Randolph Harris
Mount Joy
The issues that Lois Herr
raises are front and center in the March 5 zoning change in East
Lampeter Township that is paving the way for the proposed 400-plus
unit housing development by Keystone Custom Homes on Route 23.
Thankfully there are
engaged citizens in the community who seek a more comprehensive view
of all development and have challenged this development in particular.
Add to this unfortunate
situation the recently announced new mega city just across the border
of northeastern Lancaster County at the other end of the Route 23
corridor in Berks County and we are experiencing the beginning of the
end of the Amish homeland in the United States. Haven’t we English
done enough harm to these people over the years, and more extremely of
late?
Density in a vacuum is not
the key to sustainable development, and certainly the density proposed
in East Lampeter is precisely the kind of urban edge project that you
point out is a major problem and not what the County Comp Plan element
“Balance” is all about.
Therefore this development
and others like it should not be blithely supported by those of us who
are smart growth advocates without efforts to mitigate “downstream”
impacts.
The geographic area under
the general jurisdiction of the supervisors of the Township of East
Lampeter is a very sensitive historic and cultural landscape. It
deserves special care. It is not getting that proper care and
attention.
As such, we need to work
harder to break down the over-emphasized importance of colonial era
governmental boundaries. We need a better balance between the
implications of who now owns or has an option on a particular parcel
of land and community-focused regulations. After all, land use
regulations are relatively new tools of local government, and they
derive from broad patterns of our natural, cultural, social and
economic history. We are part of that living history.
When faced with a
development proposal that will clearly result in environmental impacts
on and widely around the site of a development, and especially beyond
town boundaries, municipalities should not have the sole ability to
act on an application for such a project of regional impact.
Before East Lampeter is
permitted to give approval to land development plans and conditional
use applications from Keystone Custom Homes for its Route 23 project,
the township should, at least, establish Agricultural Security areas
and should enact appropriate zoning provisions for the entire township
that are consistent with the Year 2000 amendments to the
Municipalities Planning Code for the protection and preservation and
historic and natural resources.
If these measures are
accomplished, and if the ill-conceived notion of a new Route 23
highway is quashed forever, and if an expanded system of public
transportation is then installed as part of a drastically improved
existing Route 23 corridor, then the impact of Keystone’s development
might be absorbed more reasonably into the social, economic and
natural landscape.
Other positive outcomes of
the above-listed protections:
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The vast existing, but
now threatened, tracks of some of the world’s most productive
non-irrigated soils will be tended for many more generations by some
of the most skilled farmers anywhere;
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Our auto-dominated and
wasteful culture will not have encroached too severely on a County
blessed with small market towns and thousands of historically
significant buildings and sites; and
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Lancaster County would
then rightly claim its generally accepted status as a national
leader in model land use policy and practice. As things stand,
however, we really have a long way to go to live up to that rather
inflated perception.
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