Pennsylvania municipalities more receptive to New Urbanism

Pennsylvania municipalities are becoming increasingly receptive to New Urbanism, Tom Comitta says in a profile of his town planning and landscape architecture firm that was published in the August issue of Landscape Architecture. In 2002, Londonderry Township in Chester County approved a Traditional Neighborhood Development ordinance prepared by Comitta. It allowed Arcadia Land Company to develop its 90-acre New Daleville project, which was the subject of Witold Rybczynski’s book, Last Harvest (see June 2007 New Urban News).

Since the Londonderry ordinance, Thomas Comitta Associates of West Chester, “has worked on at least six other projects on which the township and developer were working together rather than fighting,” Landscape Architecture reports. “A lot of officials are at a tipping point,” according to Comitta. After decades of conventional, single-use development, “they’re fed up with the same look, the traffic, the dependence on cars to get everywhere,” says Comitta, whose 12-person firm currently works for 44 municipalities as well as for private clients.