The city of Lancaster and Manheim Township have agreed to cooperate in an effort to spur revitalization of the area around Lancaster’s Amtrak train station and promote its evolution into a walkable “transit-oriented” neighborhood.
On Monday, the township’s Board of Commissioners approved an intermunicipal agreement with Lancaster adopting the Lancaster County Planning Department’s “small area plan” for the station’s environs. Lancaster City Council did the same last month.
- Previous coverage: County planners reimagine area around Amtrak station
The plan calls for creating a “cohesive and well-designed” urban “gateway community,” encompassing “mixed land uses, high density housing, and bike and pedestrian friendly accommodations” and maximizing the train station’s potential as a regional transportation hub.
With that as the goal, the first step is creating a zoning and land-use framework that allows it — one much different than the patchwork that applies now.
The boundary between Lancaster and Manheim Township zigzags through the area. Their rules differ sharply on things like landscaping, minimum setbacks from property lines and the amount of parking that has to be provided. Property owners often have to comply with both, or develop adjacent properties in significantly different ways.
Neither set of rules is conducive to the kind of development that’s envisioned. Manheim Township’s zoning doesn’t allow the necessary level of density. Both municipalities currently allow industrial and automotive-centric uses that don’t fit with the plan’s vision.
The goal, accordingly, is for the city and township to develop a uniform set of zoning and land development standards that are consistent with the plan and apply to the whole area.
To get things under way, an implementation committee will be formed, said Michael Domin, principal planner at the county planning department. It will have three focus groups, looking respectively at transportation; zoning and land development; and public outreach.
A concept intended to inspire
A set of plans and renderings in the Lancaster County Planning Department’s “small area plan” for the Amtrak station offer a maximal vision of what redevelopment could achieve there.
They depict extensive pedestrian-friendly streetscaping, the realignment of McGovern and Keller avenues and the addition of more than 30 new buildings. The latter are mostly four and five story brick structures with dark gray trim. They would have restaurants and stores downstairs and residential units upstairs and, all told, would add more than 250,000 of retail space and enough housing for nearly 1,500 people.
While the renderings are realistic, planners stress that what’s being shown is a concept — one intended to spark discussion, inspire a sense of possibility and encourage public, private and nonprofit stakeholders to embrace the plan’s vision of a “gateway” neighborhood.
What actually ends up happening there will depend on those stakeholders, the plan says.
“Through regulation and incentives, the municipalities can encourage the type of development, form, pattern, and character that this plan envisions for the area around the train station,” it says. To implement it, however, “it will be the private sector, in concert with nonprofit economic development organizations, that will have to invest the resources,” it says.
Anthony Vallone is Manheim Township’s community development manager. He emphasized that the cooperation agreement, is just that — an agreement to embark on a process. It does not commit the township to a particular land use plan or anything along those lines.
Down the road, if and when the implementation committee comes up with recommendations for zoning and land development amendments, the changes would have to go through each municipality’s normal legislative process to be adopted, with public discussion and vote by City Council in Lancaster and by the Board of Commissioners in the township.
Any development projects proposed for the area, likewise, would likewise go through the respective municipality’s normal public review and approval process.
The benefits of redeveloping the train station area would be enormous, Domin said. Vallone agreed. Building 1,000 or more units of housing around the train station would do a lot to ease the housing crisis, which is being felt throughout the county, he said.
By making the neighborhood walkable and offering convenient access to buses and trains, the plain aims to minimize the need for cars and limit any added traffic congestion. The added development should help reduce the pressure for “greenfield” development elsewhere in Lancaster County, planners believe.
The concept aligns with the city and county comprehensive plan. Manheim Township is partway through a major update of its comprehensive plan; the existing version calls for promoting higher-density mixed-use development around the Amtrak station and for “integrating land use and mobility” more generally.
