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Source: Daily Local News
Date: 06/15/2003
TREDYFFRIN -- Last weekend in the township, a community fair attracted "a surprisingly good turnout," its organizers said, even bringing folks from neighboring communities, even on a rain-drenched Saturday.
The festivity of the event, a birthday party for the Chesterbrook development, would have been unimaginable when the community’s first residents moved in 25 years ago.
By the time homeowners began arriving at Chesterbrook, promoted in 1978 as Pennsylvania’s first and largest mixed-use planned community, it had been a subject of controversy for nearly a decade. From heated exchanges at township meetings to landmark decisions in state courts, the making of Chesterbrook now seems to have pioneered the development-vs.-preservation debate that’s become Chester County’s chief economic concern in recent years.
In the quarter-century since it housed its first residents, though, Chesterbrook has also won acceptance and even praise for its advanced concepts and efficient use of land.
"(Chesterbrook’s critics) were concerned about growth in the township, about overpopulation," said Robin Bond, president of the Chesterbrook Civic Association and an eight-year resident of the development. "I think it’s turned out to be the jewel in the crown of Tredyffrin Township ..Whatever they were afraid of 25 years ago, those fears have not come to pass."
"I think Chesterbrook was ahead of its time," said William Fulton, executive director of the Chester County Planning Commission. "It works. It showed you can have mixed development, and it functions.
"Like everything else, you can always make the next one better," Fulton added. "But I think it’s healthy, and it functions."
Built on 865 acres at the southern edge of Valley Forge National Historical Park, Chesterbrook includes a residential population of about 5,000 and a business population of perhaps 2,000 more. Twenty-four hundred housing units stand in 28 villages and the 150-acre Chesterbrook Corporate Center offers 1.2 million square feet of commercial space. A shopping center and Chesterbrook’s own interchange on Route 202 as well as recreational facilities and 200 acres of permanently dedicated open space are also nearby.
Its "mixed-use" development differed radically from most other planned communities of the day. "Socially, that was a pretty challenging mindset 35 years ago," Fulton recalled.
Rob Lee, executive vice president of the Fox Cos., which planned and has its offices at Chesterbrook, described its creation as both "a unique opportunity" and "an outrageous plan."
"The notion of taking a large piece of ground and not chopping it up into a lot of cookie-cutter subdivisions was revolutionary," Lee said. "The thought of putting all these aspects into one incorporated plan was unheard of."
While Chesterbrook was revolutionary in concept and scale, Lee noted, it was by-the-book in execution, following the township’s existing zoning rules on the land. Still, it was born of controversy.
"Chester County, 35 years ago, was dramatically different," said Fulton. "When you got to the Church Farm School, for instance, you were in deep country."
By the late 1960s, Tredyffrin -- the easternmost township in Chester County, flush against the Montgomery and Delaware county borders --was a prime candidate for development.
At nearby King of Prussia, the junction of several major highways, the mall, General Electric’s aerospace division and other commercial concerns had put down roots. Route 202 was being rebuilt. The Valley Forge Sewer Authority had built a new treatment facility to serve the area. In addition, nearly 1,000 acres south of what was then Valley Forge State Park became available for development.
Formerly the Cressbrook Farm and once the home of steeplechase enthusiast A.J. Cassatt, the land had also been owned by the University of Pennsylvania, which considered building a branch campus there in the 1930s.
The land was purchased by developer Richard Fox, then of Jenkintown. Fox’s plan was inspired less by any project the county had previously seen, than by the idea of taking the next step from King of Prussia.
"It was designed to be an entity," said Fulton. "It happened to be in the proverbial ‘path of growth.’ It’s an extension of that path of growth."
Local residents and Valley Forge park commissioners quickly opposed building on the site, fearing that high-density housing and office space would burden local roads, public services, the park and the area’s ecology. There were also aesthetic concerns.
"At that time, ‘multifamily’ basically had the same connotation as slum housing," Lee said. "People did not have the vision to understand what it was going to be when it was done."
"Anything that new is going to be controversial, and people don’t like change," Fulton said. "Those arguments from 35 years ago are being used as recently as last night."
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In March 1972, Tredyffrin’s supervisors approved Fox’s Chesterbrook proposal, three votes to two. Subsequent supervisor elections became divisive referendums on the Chesterbrook approval, and citizens’ groups sued Fox’s company in an attempt to halt his plans. The company itself took the supervisors to court after a series of rejections of later plans for the land.
"The long legal process sometimes got in the way of logical, rational thought," Fulton said.
"The lawsuits were fast and furious," Lee said. "But there were some landmark decisions that came out of that case."
Chesterbrook’s development also influenced the nationalization of the Valley Forge Park. Citizens and civic leaders lobbied the federal government to assume authority over the state park in the interest of historical preservation, and to purchase the Chesterbrook tract to serve as a barrier against future development. While the state park was transferred to the national park system on July 4, 1976, the federal government had earlier opted not to purchase the Chesterbrook tract.
Later in 1976, a decision from Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court upheld Chesterbrook’s zoning, blocking further interference from the township’s supervisors and clearing the way for development. The decision was upheld by the state Supreme Court, which declined to hear an appeal, and construction began on 120 single-family homes in 1977.
Judy DiFilippo, a Tredyffrin supervisor and a Chesterbrook homeowner from 1978 until 2001, was one of the community’s first residents.
"When we moved into Chesterbrook, we weren’t really aware of its history," she said. "It was interesting, as the community started to grow, to hear people ..You’d go out in the township, and if you said you were from Chesterbrook, you’d get this nasty sneer.
"I quickly learned the history of the development," DiFilippo said, "and I got involved in my community."
The development was constructed over the next 10 years, with a number of different residential and commercial builders hired to ensure a diversity of design. Fox’s company supervised the landscaping itself. While Chesterbrook attracted young couples and small families, Lee said that nearly a quarter of the community’s original home buyers were single professional women.
"It was creating a new type of town," said Fulton. "It was a new phenomenon."
Three years ago, Liberty Property Trust of East Whiteland bought 41 acres of land at Chesterbrook, the last parcel at the corporate center that could be developed, and built office buildings on it the following year.
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Chesterbrook has become an integral part of Tredyffrin now, and while anti-Chesterbrook sentiment sometimes resurfaces in public meetings, DiFilippo noted that some of its fiercest former critics have moved into the development’s housing.
Land management attitudes have even come around to Chesterbrook’s side. As Chester County recognized and faced up to the issues of suburban sprawl and "smart growth" in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the picture of the "livable" and "walkable" community that planning and preservation experts said would best control sprawl resembled Chesterbrook.
"In my opinion, it’s very much what we’re trying to achieve countywide now," said DiFilippo.
Chesterbrook Civic Association president Robin Bond agreed. "It’s almost like having the benefits of small-town America, not far from the cities of the East Coast," she said. "We have a strong sense of community here."
The development may have originally attracted young professionals, she said, but she’d seen its appeal broaden. "As our population ages, more and more people are finding Chesterbrook to be an attractive destination," she said.
Without question, Chesterbrook did place an increased demand on area roads and services, but planners have acknowledged that Tredyffrin, located as it is down the highway from King of Prussia and at the end of the Main Line, was due for such demand in time.
"I think that the board of supervisors understood that there was that pressure," DiFilippo said of the township’s actions, as opposed to reactions. "We were close to the city and King of Prussia. I give them credit for saying, we don’t want a chopped-up development, we want a unified one."
How Chesterbrook will age remains to be seen. West Chester has had more than 200 years to become the community it is; Phoenixville and Downingtown, about 150. At 25 years old, Chesterbrook is still a young community, and its planning doesn’t preclude future changes, reuses, adaptations, evolutions.
"With aging, we’ve gotten better," Lee said. "We’ve seen what the community wanted, and we’ve added things."
No one can predict what future homeowners, businesses, or economies might want, however. Walking in Chesterbrook is one example. While it’s possible for residents to walk to work, to school, to playing fields or to the store, more than one resident has noted that Chesterbrook was designed as an auto-oriented community, as evidenced by its lack of sidewalks. The development’s seven miles of recreational trails didn’t quite foresee the urban pedestrian culture of recent decades.
One prediction, while not certain, seems likely: Chester County might not see the undertaking of another project like Chesterbrook. The conjunction of a developer’s visionary talent, available land in a prime location, financial possibility and overcoming municipal officials’ fears to win approval is a rare condition, planners say.
"The ability to build something like that in Chester County today would be very limited," said Fulton.
To many observers, though, it still shows the way. Studied by urban planners, referenced by academics, cited by lawyers, the mixed-use pieces that make up its broad scope serve as a model throughout the region and across the nation.
"It is a community that’s worth looking at," said DiFilippo, "and learning from."
References: The Chesterbrook Development, TE Quarterly, vol. 40 #1 (January 2003); Chesterbrook Saga: A Chronology, TE Quarterly, Vol. 40, #3 (July 2003).
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