We are excited to welcome a familiar face back to the Chester County Planning Commission as our new Community Planning Director, Bill Deguffroy!

Bill is excited to work with Chester County’s municipalities to implement Landscapes3 (the county’s comprehensive plan) through a vast range of projects and initiatives. “CCPC makes a huge impact on communities in Chester County through research, policy guidance, the Vision Partnership Program, and our work with municipalities,” noted Bill. “The Community Planning Division works on a wide range of topics including comprehensive planning, historic preservation, urban planning, housing, economic development, etc. It is a lot to wrap your head around, but every day brings a new challenge or opportunity to learn. We have a really talented team that I am happy to be a part of.”

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The Chester County Town Tours and Village Walks program wrapped up its 27th year in August with another great series of presentations and walking tours!

This year’s program focused on “Journeying Toward Freedom” and featured both virtual and in-person activities throughout Chester County’s historic sites and villages that were presented by local historic commissions, associations, and societies.

Much like last year, the 2021 program consisted of “Live at Five” events highlighting various aspects of the county’s history. In addition to the live events, historic walking tours occurred on Thursday evenings (and some weekends) June through August.

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Have you ever driven past an abandoned industrial site or vacant shopping center and wondered what went wrong? In the planning world, these spaces are referred to as Brownfields and Greyfields – and they can be caused by a variety of factors such as irregular lot shape, difficult access, inadequate infrastructure, environmental contamination, outdated or obsolete design, and economic issues.

Although the two are similar, Brownfields result from the contamination of sites due to multiple prior uses (old steel mills, chemical or manufacturing facilities, abandoned buildings, former dumps, lumber yards, dry cleaners, gas stations and auto body shops), while Greyfields are usually not hazardous, but rather obsolete, outdated, or underutilized due to changing market demand, decreased buying power in nearby areas, changes in consumer buying habits, lack of investment, or architecture that no longer meets market demand.

While Brownfields and Greyfields both present potentially negative impacts to their local communities, they can also provide opportunities for redevelopment resulting in community revitalization, open space preservation, public safety, increased service demand, and more.

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The Fall Chester County Planners’ Forum will take place on Wednesday, October 6, both in-person at the East Bradford Township Building, and virtually (via Zoom) from 8:00am – 10:00am. This year’s forum will celebrate 25 years of the county’s Vision Partnership Program (VPP), with three excellent municipal presentations on successfully using planning to reach a community’s goals.

Presenters will include Mandie Cantlin, East Bradford Township Manager, who will describe the township’s extensive open space preservation planning efforts, Tony Scheivert, Upper Uwchlan’s Manager, who will summarize smart growth and village preservation successes, and Matt Fetick, Mayor of Kennett Square, along with Doug Doerfler, Council Member, who will highlight Kennett Borough’s successful revitalization and redevelopment.

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