State College Borough Council Holds Off on Zoning Change Aimed at Deterring Student Apartment High-Rises

With several members citing potential unintended consequences and the need to complete a comprehensive zoning rewrite, State College Borough Council voted 6-1 this week to postpone action on a proposed change geared toward deterring future high-rise student apartment complexes.

The repeal of a 2013 zoning amendment would still permit 12-story buildings in certain areas of the downtown but would take away an incentive that opened the door to a spate of purpose-built student high-rise housing over the last five years.

“We have been waiting for comprehensive zoning for a long time to support the Downtown Master Plan, which is also old,” council member Deanna Behring said during Monday night’s meeting. “From what I heard tonight, I’m concerned there are too many things we don’t understand and too many potential unintended consequences that chip away at livability and sustainability that we get from density. So I will not support this tonight.”

Peter Marshall was the lone vote against postponing, saying the borough can’t wait any longer.

“I don’t think we should wait,” Marshall said. “I’m not for 12-story buildings, and this does allow that, but I certainly am not for 12-story student buildings, any more, in the downtown. That’s certainly going to change the downtown. It’s already started. It will be strictly a student downtown and that’s unfortunate, because we have a lot of non-students that live in this town and have for years. And they don’t like what they see. I think we owe them some effort, some explanation about what’s being done.”

At issue is a non-owner-occupied housing “bonus” enacted in 2013 that allowed for higher density residential use — and additional floors — within the Signature Development Overlay of the Commercial Incentive District at the east and west ends of downtown. Council later narrowed the area where large, primarily student housing complexes can effectively be built downtown with a zoning amendment in 2017 that removed the bonus from the west end of the overlay but left it in place at the east end, which has historically had the highest concentration of student housing in the borough.

The bonus is based on floor area ratios for commercial and residential space in a building. In 2005, when council adopted the Signature Development Overlay that eventually enabled construction of the Fraser Centre, it was aimed at creating predominantly commercial projects, with a minimum of 40% non-residential space and a maximum residential floor area ratio of 3.0.

But in 2013, council made the commercial floor area ratio 1.0 and increased the residential to 5.0. in the Signature Development Overlay. It was first used for The Metropolitan, which opened in 2017, and subsequently five more 12-story buildings that have been constructed or are in development.

“That is the change that really made the zoning more permissible for what ended up becoming purpose-built student housing,” Borough Planning Director Ed LeClear told StateCollege.com in August. “That coincided with a national wave of purpose-built student housing. You had an industry and a lot of equity that was interested in investing in that industry… So the combination of that zoning change in ‘13 and the national market change is really what led to the number of new high-rises coming into downtown.”

The 2017 amendment reduced the non-owner-occupied bonus area to six blocks east of McAllister Alley, where it has since been used by developers for The Maxxen, which opened in 2020 on the site of the former Garner Street parking lot, oLiv State College, which is expected to be completed next year at the corner of East College Avenue and Hetzel Street, and the recently submitted plan for The Mark at the corner of East College Avenue and South Garner Street. (Twelve-story buildings have never been permitted in the historic core downtown or elsewhere in the borough.)

Based on feedback from council, planning commission and the borough’s zoning rewrite committee in June, staff drafted the proposal to eliminate the remaining bonus area. Reverting to the 40% non-residential requirement that’s in place elsewhere in the district would make it it far less economically viable for student housing developers to construct more high-rises downtown.

“The biggest change … is that you’re shifting the makeup of the buildings from a heavier rental housing model with less retail to the underlying signature development, which would have the much higher requirement for commercial uses,” Borough Senior Planner Greg Garthe said on Monday.

Garthe added that because a 30,000-square-foot parcel is required for a signature development, there are very few sites remaining in the existing bonus area where parcels could be assembled for the required space.

“When you look at the tax parcel maps, there are not a lot of sites where you could do that,” Garthe said. “You may not be taking away as many student-focused high-rises as you may think because there may not be potential for a whole lot more of that.”

Several community members said during a public hearing that more housing in high-rises contributes to sustainability and livability downtown and will ultimately have a ripple effect of creating more affordable housing. By not allowing higher density housing, the borough is effectively encouraging sprawl, some said.

“The demand for housing will not simply go away because you choose not to build it,” resident Christian Kurpiel Wakamiya. “It will just shift to other parts of our area, eating up valuable and beautiful open space here in our Centre Region. The farther out builders build will only add to our emissions as people move into campus or town for school or jobs, ultimately degrading our environment and the road infrastructure in the borough.”

Turning away higher density buildings will only exacerbate housing issues in the borough and deprive State College of real estate tax dollars that could be used to fund improvements, resident Matt Herndon said.

“There’s very little buildable land left here. The only way to significantly allow more people to live here is to allow dense housing construction like these high-rises,” Herndon said. “No matter what we do, there’s no way to freeze State College at some idyllic past state.”

Former borough council and planning commission member Evan Myers said council needs to focus on the comprehensive zoning rewrite and fully understand the implications of the decision to effectively limit high-density buildings.

“By putting this change into effect without a complete and comprehensive change to all zoning, all you’re doing, I’m afraid, is playing a game of whack-a-mole,” Myers said. “You’ll push down the building heights in one place only to see a spate of mid-rise buildings pop up like the new G four-story apartment house that’s proposed on Burrowes Street. That will creep into neighborhoods and perhaps even destroy some of them.

“I urge you not to rush to make changes. Understand what you really want to accomplish. Understand the impact of what you are about to do. Remember, regardless of intention, the zoning law is the final word. That is, what gets zoned is what gets built. Please do not make a one-off change now but rather work to overhaul all of the zoning so it all fits together.”

Behring agreed that the borough needs focus on the holistic approach to zoning. The current zoning ordinance was written in 1959 and has been amended more than 200 times since then.

“We keep losing sight of a vision through these changes,” Behring said. “I’m concerned that we’re going to make another change that we don’t completely understand while our overall effort to really establish a vision through a major rewrite of a 1959 ordinance kind of languishes.”

State College initiated a comprehensive zoning rewrite in 2017, but progress has been slow in part because of delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also because of a lack of consensus on issues, Borough Manager Tom Fountaine said.

“Zoning is a zero-sum game. There’s winners and losers and it’s controversial,” Fountaine said. “It’s been very difficult to move that project forward.”

Marshall said waiting another year or more is too long and that high-rise student complexes downtown don’t support the earned income tax base that, along with real estate tax, is critical to the borough.

“When we get this comprehensive zoning rewrite, if everyone has talked about it and looked at it and wants that to be what we are what we have then so be it,” Marshall said. “Right now I’m not willing to wait another year or two years or however long it takes and allow the downtown to go downhill.”

Council President Jesse Barlow made the motion to postpone action on eliminating the non-owner-occupied bonus, but said the borough needs to find a way to incentivize workforce housing instead of student housing.

“I would like to incentivize housing that is for people who work here and can’t afford to live here,” Barlow said. “That’s really been the biggest housing problem we’ve had and that’s why I’m inclined to support this.”