Town Hall Meeting of the Radnor Community Preservation Coalition

I attended the meeting this past Saturday. I intend to be very involved with these folks. The group was established to be a coalition of coalitions. As you know, there are many neighborhood organizations throughout the Township (Save Ithan, Garrett Hill Coalition, North and South Wayne, etc). In the past these groups have worked alone in the fight to preserve their neighborhoods, each re-inventing the wheel.

They have set up a website www.RadnorCPC.org which I would advise everyone to visit. It has a list of "current hot spots".

Historically the builders and developers have ruled the day in Radnor and this group can coordinate and inform our residents as to challenges to our "way of life". It really is time for us to take back our community.

One suggestion that was made to the group by Al Murphy was that rather than just being against “development and change” the group should develop a position on what they are “for”.

I think the Comprehensive Plan is a pretty good starting point for this but we do need to implement it, sooner rather than later.

Another good place to start would be to develop a set of fundamental assumptions that will provide guidance to the staff in the future. I, for one, question a lot of the assumptions that are currently in force. For example, the need to increase ratables. This seems to be an underlying assumption in planning decisions. In fact, at the meeting one of the school board directors spoke up about upcoming budgets and how development would help to offset the need for a tax increase. My response to this is bushwah. Perhaps the residents would prefer higher taxes if it meant less development? I know that raising taxes is seen to be politically unacceptable but shouldn't that be left to the citizens? Transit oriented development sounds good on the surface but I am not convinced. Seems to me it is a flawed concept. How many folks who move in to these places will take mass transit and not use autos, especially in Radnor, and at the high prices that are being asked.

As I discussed in the past, there are additional items we should look at:

Perhaps tax breaks for folks who move into the old homes and fix them up?

Maybe a redevelopment authority that could buy and redevelop properties.

Revision (special exception) for the old mansion properties for the gate houses so that they can be rented out instead of torn down or left to ruin.