Much work remains to be done, but a long-awaited comprehensive rewrite of State College Borough’s decades-old zoning code is entering the home stretch.
Borough Council received an overview of the recommended ordinance on Sept. 8 after the State College Planning Commission conducted a lengthy review over the course of multiple meetings this summer. That came following years of discussion and work by a Zoning Rewrite Advisory Committee, borough planning staff and consultant Clarion Associates.
State College’s current zoning ordinance was written in 1959 and has been amended more than 220 times since then. The borough took initial steps toward a comprehensive rewrite starting in 2016.
“This is a long time coming,” council member John Hayes said at the Sept. 8 meeting. “This document is not the work product of three or four months. This document is the work product of eight years. And so I really want to highlight that for members of the community that we’ve been all working at this really, really hard.”
The revision has multiple overarching objectives, including modernizing the ordinance to improve clarity, make it easier to understand and include definitions and standards relevant to today’s uses, borough Planning Director Ed LeClear said. He noted that the existing ordinance has language related to uses such as blacksmithing, lard rendering “and some other things that really aren’t relevant, I think, today in an urban environment.”
Among the major policy aims is to create significantly more housing opportunities.
“And that means more housing opportunities, period,” LeClear said. “It’s for both owners and renters. It’s for students. It’s for longer-term residents. It’s both for homeownership and for rental. So [it is] looking for the different ways that the ordinance can be changed to try to allow for additional housing opportunities to get created.”
It also seeks to “support a thriving downtown commercial district and walkable neighborhood business districts,” LeClear said, adding that “there’s been a lot of work done to try to be more permissive in the kinds of uses that could happen in our residential neighborhoods.”
Another goal is “to better calibrate parking requirements,” reducing private parking requirements while also ensuring “that we are requiring enough parking to meet needs and not lead to some negative externalities where the market isn’t providing enough parking.” The revisions additionally seek to encourage different modes of travel.
“So not just cars. We’re trying to create more opportunities for pedestrians, for bikes and transit,” LeClear said.
REVIEW SCHEDULE AND PUBLIC FEEDBACK
After receiving a general overview of the 450-page revised zoning ordinance on Sept. 8, council will delve into specific aspects during at least five upcoming meetings, starting Monday (Sept. 15).
All meetings at 7 p.m. in Council Chambers, 243 S. Allen St.
- Sept. 15: Presentation and discussion of residential districts
- Sept. 24: Summarize feedback on residential districts; discussion of downtown and transition districts
- Oct. 6: Discussion of downtown and transitional districts
- Oct. 7: Summarize feedback on downtown and transitional districts
- Oct. 8: Optional work session
- Oct. 20: Conclude discussion, vote on revisions to ordinance and zoning map
Following the reviews, a revised draft will be submitted to the Centre County Planning Commission and Centre Regional Planning Agency for a 45-day review.
A final draft will be presented to council in January, with a public hearing expected on March 2 and adoption of the new ordinance on March 24.
The public can view each part of the draft zoning ordinance at statecollegepa.us/225/New-Zoning-Ordinance, along with supplemental materials, presentations and links to meeting recordings. Instructions for providing public comment on the ordinance are also included on the site.
All public comment received is being placed on the website.
“There’s no curating,” LeClear said. “We receive it, it goes on the web. So that way, everybody can read what those who are contributing meant to say.”
WHAT’S IN THE ORDINANCE
The ordinance consolidates some zoning districts, creates new ones and allows for currently disallowed uses in some.
For example, triplex, quadplex and multifamily residential units would be permitted in multiple residential and mixed-use districts. Minimum lot sizes are removed for one- and two-family uses in most residential districts, with lot width becoming the key standard, and minimum setbacks are reduced in some districts.
Council will also have the option of including allowance and regulation of accessory dwelling units — smaller residential structures located on the same lot and not subdivided from a primary residence.
The goal is to make more and more kinds of housing available.
Smithfield neighborhood homeowner Chris Stanton said those kinds of changes are much needed and can be accommodated in the neighborhoods. He urged council to “stand strong against” pushback from property owners who don’t want to see change.
“The introduction of accessory dwelling units has been proven to be extremely successful in other neighborhoods around the country,” Stanton said. “The lots in my neighborhood are absolutely massive. We’re a third of an acre to a half an acre. It absolutely can accommodate triplexes, quadplexes and ADUs. The width of the street and the width of the parking strips — I know that’s not uniform across it —they are massive and they provide a natural buffer that spaces residences out. There’s absolutely sufficient room in terms of the width of those roads and the size of our community to accommodate more people per square foot spread across that neighborhood.”
The ordinance creates several downtown districts.
The Downtown Allen and College District would be located on College Avenue from Burrowes Street to just past Locust Lane, the 100 block of South Allen Street and Beaver Avenue between Kelly and Humes alleys. It would cap the maximum building height at four stories and 52 feet.
That would mostly be surrounded by the Downtown Central District, which would allow a maximum of nine stories and 126 feet.
A Downtown Collegiate District, meanwhile, would be from Garner Street roughly to University Drive between Beaver and College avenues, as well as Hiester Street south of Calder Way. It would allow for maximum building heights of 11 stories and 150 feet.
The West End District replaces the Urban Village District between West College and West Beaver avenues from just before South Barnard Street to the borough line around South Buckhout Street. It would allow for a maximum height of three stories, including incentives for ground-floor commercial, deed-restricted non-student residential space and one- and two-bedroom units.
The north side of West College to University Planned District between Atherton and Buckhout streets would be in the Downtown Central District.
Along with residential-office and higher-density residential districts, a mixed-use district would be among the transitional districts between downtown and the R-2 and R-3 neighborhoods to the south. Mixed-use zoning would have a maximum height of six stories and 77 feet.
For parking, the zoning generally reduces by half what is required in the current ordinance. It also includes incentives for underground or structured above-ground parking in the Downtown Collegiate and Central districts, includes substantial bike parking and expands alternative approaches such as shared parking and fees-in-lieu. The borough is also still working on incentives for privately constructed public parking.
LeClear said that zoning revisions are included if there is a reasonable expectation that the desired development will occur, but cautioned that once it’s adopted, those changes won’t be instantaneous.
“You prepare for whatever zone to get built. But it also doesn’t mean it’ll be built tomorrow,” LeClear said. “So just keep that in mind as we’re trying to set the table for future development; it doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen overnight.”
