Municipal representatives from East Whiteland Township attended the Chester County Planning Commission’s July 2021 Board Meeting to provide an update on current happenings in the northeastern region of Chester County.

They included Chair of East Whiteland’s Board of Supervisors, Scott Lambert, along with the Township’s Director of Planning and Development, Zachary Barner, and Planning and Development Coordinator, Brittany Carosello.

“It’s been a busy couple of years in East Whiteland,” noted Lambert during his opening remarks. “The challenges we face as both individual municipalities and as a county are complex and wide ranging, so it’s really great to know that we have the support of a world-class organization helping to guide us through this period of time,” he commented.

Director of Planning and Development, Zach Barner, provided a brief snapshot of East Whiteland Township – including recent highlights and projects from over the last few years. He explained that while East Whiteland is largely commercialized and has a large employee population, it’s much more than just a series of highways, and also features a diverse mix of land uses.

This includes commercial office and business parks, institutional land sites (Immaculata University, Penn State Great Valley, cyber-charter schools, etc.), industrial developments, and residential developments. In addition to these land uses, the township features a robust infrastructure as well as various important transportation corridors.

Barner next discussed the Township’s current Comprehensive Plan, which was adopted in 2016 and funded with a Vision Partnership Program grant. This plan is an update of their 2001 plan and includes three priority focus areas: 1) The Route 30 Corridor (Lancaster Avenue in Frazer); 2) Bicycle and Pedestrian Circulation & Connectivity; and 3) Community Resource Preservation – Natural & Historic. “The overarching goal here is to connect our community – our transit facilities, our employment centers, our schools, and our residential areas – in order to create increased access for everyone,” Barner said.

With these goals in mind, the township prepared a Route 30 Corridor Master Plan – Reimagining Frazer, their Transportation Concept Plan, and the East Whiteland Train Station Study, which was completed in 2019 to determine the feasibility of developing a train station at Immaculata Univerity or the Three Tun Road Industrial Park.

Additionally, Barner discussed the Township’s Act 209 Traffic Impact Fee Ordinance (2018), as well as their Multimodal Transportation Map (2019) which features a combination of previous trail planning and transportation initiatives all in one place. Other current projects Barner mentioned include East Whiteland’s Park, Recreation and Open Space Plan (also funded through the county’s VPP), the Bacton Hill Park Master Plan (anticipated to begin in 2021), and the Balderston/Springridge Property Acquisition (expected to be acquired by the end of 2021).

To learn more about current happenings in East Whiteland Township, as well as other information, please visit https://www.eastwhiteland.org/.