Bryn Eyre and Public Interest

Bryn Eyre will offer significant benefits to the state, county, and borough while conforming to the objectives set forth in the New Morgan Comprehensive Plan. The new town will reclaim a brownfield and an abandoned mine site, preserve hundreds of acres of open space, and concentrate new development within Berks County’s largest targeted growth area. Bryn Eyre will make positive contributions to the quality of life and economic conditions for local and future residents while minimizing the traffic and environmental impacts of haphazard growth and patchwork development. Moreover, the Tentative Plan for Bryn Eyre as designed is in complete compliance with the stated objectives of the New Morgan Comprehensive Plan. The goals of the Comprehensive Plan and our fulfillment of them are as follows:

 

• To develop and adhere to a systematic, coordinated land use pattern which provides a variety of uses, recognizes land capacities, and respects natural features, and environmental and physical factors
  (Comp Plan 1992, I.A).
  
  Bryn Eyre is a master-planned, mixed use community which has been designed from the ground up to integrate the entire borough. Following this holistic approach, New Morgan will be more systematically developed than if it were developed inconsistently, parcel by parcel, as most municipalities are. The master plan of Bryn Eyre has been created by the world-renowned urban design firm EDAW and it provides for a variety of land uses including homes, stores, offices, parks, and schools. These land uses have been carefully sited as to ensure a positive relationship to one another and more importantly, to the current physical and environmental landscape.
  
  
• To preserve natural features and conserve environmental resources throughout Berks County, to protect and improve environmental quality, and to preserve open space in suitable locations and quantities (Comp Plan 1992, I.B).
  
  Bryn Eyre will preserve and protect the natural environment. Bryn Eyre has an environmentally sensitive site plan that sets aside more than 1,000 out of 3,200 acres as natural landscape or green civic spaces. The plan also calls for state of the art environmental design practices which:
  •  Restore and enhance damaged lands;
  • Set-aside land for open spaces/greenways/trails;
  • Conserve wetlands;
  • Use progressive stormwater management practices to minimize runoff, contain storm events, improve water quality, and preserve and recharge water in two watersheds;
  • Preserve ecosystems and endangered species habitat;
  • Landscape extensively to enhance the environmental qualities and beauty of the site;
  • Minimize impervious surfaces such as asphalt that reduce the ability of the ground to absorb rainwater and for streams to maintain their proper life cycle;
  • Limit automobile dependence;
  • Create energy efficient buildings
    
    Bryn Eyre will house more people on less land with a planned gross density of more than four homes per acre. Compared to Berks County’s recent development patterns, this will conserve up to four acres for each home built as well as an additional 1.56 acres for every acre saved that is typically torn up and paved to serve each home.[1] Thus by concentrating Berks County’s future growth into the Borough of New Morgan, rural areas and farm lands will be saved from consumption by conventional suburban development.
    
    
• To provide, to every resident and future Berks County resident, the opportunity for affordable, safe, and healthful housing with sufficient range of choice by type and location
  (Comp Plan 1992, I.C).
  
  Bryn Eyre will offer a diverse array of housing choices to meet the needs of the surrounding area’s population. Homeownership, a cornerstone of suburban life, is out of reach for an increasing number of working Berks, Chester, and Lancaster County households. In Chester County, the median home sale price in 2003 reached $245,000—too much for young families, teachers, police, and many professionals to afford.[2] Lancaster County faces a similar deficit of housing affordable to its workforce. The plans for Bryn Eyre call for a diversity of housing types unseen in most new developments. This includes single family dwellings, townhouses, condominiums, apartments, and lofts in a range of competitive prices that much of the tri-county region’s workforce can buy or rent.
  
  
• To maintain and improve the economic base of Berks County and to provide maximum employment opportunities for all Berks County residents (Comp Plan 1992, I.D).
  
  Bryn Eyre is located in the largest designated growth area in Berks County and its development will reclaim the Grace Mine brownfield site. Abandoned ore mines are part of the legacy of Pennsylvania’s industrial past. Left idle and unmanaged for decades, these brownfields represent a significant loss of economic opportunity and in many cases harm the quality of life in surrounding communities. Reclaiming the Grace Mine brownfield site will unlock the economic potential and natural beauty of thousands of acres of land. The developers of Bryn Eyre are committed to cleaning up the past and building the future. The abandoned Bethlehem Steel mining site will become part of an economically productive, environmentally healthy and socially vibrant community.
  
  Once completed, the town of Bryn Eyre will produce an estimated 34,000 new jobs and will inject millions of dollars in wages and tax revenue into the local economy. The twenty year engineering, environmental remediation and construction phase of Bryn Eyre will generate approximately 17,400 of those jobs producing close to $570 million in wages and $290 million in local, state and federal taxes.[3] The town center and the district center will house an estimated 17,000 permanent office, light industrial and retail jobs as well.
  
  
• To provide facilities and services to Berks County residents in the areas of health, protection, cultural enrichment, education, recreation, and social services, commensurate with the needs of the population (Comp Plan 1992, I.E).
  
  The close-knit town design of Bryn Eyre will reduce the costs of providing infrastructure and delivering services to the local and surrounding residents. As the population and tax base grow, government services will be rolled out accordingly. The plans for Bryn Eyre include parcels of land for future school sites to serve the children and families of the Twin Valley School District and parks, playgrounds, trails, and recreational fields for the enjoyment of all Berks County residents. Recreational facilities to support the needs of Bryn Eyre residents are proposed throughout the community. Additionally, the developers of Bryn Eyre are in discussion with a number of social and cultural institutions who are interested in locating in the future town.
  
  
• To provide a multi-modal, balanced transportation system which provides for the safe and efficient movement of people and goods, with minimum disruption to the environment, and with maximum conservation of resources (Comp Plan 1992, I.F).
  
  Bryn Eyre has been specifically designed to reduce reliance on automobiles as the primary form of transportation and emphasize walking, bicycling, and public transit options. In Bryn Eyre, people will be able to go to work and do errands without having to use a car; children will be able to walk to school instead of riding buses; and an extensive trail system has been planned throughout the community. A public transit service is also planned for Bryn Eyre. It will likely consist of two components connected together at a transportation center near the junction of PA Route 10 and the I-176 Interchange. The first component is a shuttle service internal to the community designed to connect the residential neighborhoods and the Town Center and District Centers. The second component is an external transportation service connecting Bryn Eyre to the major local employment centers. It is anticipated that the two services will grow with the development and will be fully realized at buildout.
  
  
• To provide the opportunity for increased citizen participation in the planning process to establish community values and reflect human concerns (Comp Plan 1992, I.G).
  
  In the course of planning the new town of Bryn Eyre, the developers have held numerous discussions with state, county and borough officials. They have actively sought out stakeholders to share plans and ideas and receive opinions and feedback.
  
  
• To develop and maintain multi-municipal cooperation in meeting governmental responsibilities (Comp Plan 1992, I.H).
  
  Throughout the planning process the developers have reached out to and met with community groups and the neighboring municipalities to discuss their plans and the future of the area. They have encouraged regional cooperation in planning for the area’s sewer and water needs and have met with the local fire company several times as they’ve planned for their future. They have offered to provide three elementary school and one middle school site to the Twin Valley School district. They have also suggested to the Borough that after the current planning process for Bryn Eyre has been completed it would be in their best interest as well as that of their neighboring municipalities if the Borough were to be included in the Southern Berks Joint Comprehensive Plan. By doing so the neighboring municipalities will be better able to conserve farmland and open space.
  
  
• To conserve energy and to effectively use renewable energy sources (Comp Plan 1992, I.I).
  
  Bryn Eyre will primarily reduce energy consumption by shifting travel mode from automobiles to walking, biking, and transit, and by shortening the travel distance for remaining auto use. The plan for Bryn Eyre incorporates several design elements which will significantly reduce vehicle miles traveled, and thus energy consumed, by its future residents. Some of these features include mixed land uses which means residents will be in close proximity to shops, offices, workplaces, and parks; walkable schools which means children will be able to get to school without relying on buses or their parents; and pedestrian accessibility which means there will be an extensive network of wide sidewalks and trails to encourage walking and biking.
  
  In addition, it is the developer’s intent to work with the adjoining Allied Conestoga Landfill or a major energy supplier to explore opportunities for renewable energy. As a byproduct of decomposition, landfills give off methane which can be reused for a variety of purposes including conversion to electricity. Although tentative, there is a probability that renewable energy could be provided which would meet the needs of the future residents of Bryn Eyre for the next forty years. Granger recently opened up a methane to gas operation at the nearby Lanchester Landfill and they have expressed interest in working with us to generate electricity at Bryn Eyre.
  
  
• To preserve and promote all community, cultural and aesthetic elements that identify Berks County as a special and unique place to live and work (Comp Plan 1992, I.J).
  
  Bryn Eyre will borrow distinctive traits from Pennsylvania’s historic towns and add many of its own. By blending old and new, Bryn Eyre will introduce an attractive and exciting community choice never before seen in Pennsylvania. Additionally, the historic and cultural elements currently in New Morgan, such as the Joanna Furnace and the Harmony Church, will be preserved and enhanced.