Wrapping Up — 2024 Development and Ordinance Review Activity

Posted February 26, 2025

Each year, the Chester County Planning Commission's Act 247 Review team prepares an overview of the county's development and ordinance review activity. The 2024 results were presented by Paul Farkas, Senior Review Planner, at CCPC's February Board Meeting.

While 2023 saw a larger-than-normal amount of proposed residential units (4,008 in total) partially due to pent up demand following the pandemic, things seemed to settle back to normal this past year. With a total of 1,484 proposed residential units in 2024, single-family homes took the lead (521 units), followed by townhouses (492 units), apartments (359 units), and then twin homes (112 units).

The largest major residential projects reviewed in 2024 included the Valley Creek Active Adult Community in West Whiteland Township (317 units), 410 South High Street in West Chester Borough (139 units), the Moran Farms Property in Oxford Borough and East Nottingham Township (133 units), and the Meadowview in Parkesburg Borough (130 units).

For development activity by municipality (excluding second reviews) from 2022-2024, Phoenixville Borough led the way with the most proposed residential units (813 units), followed by East Whiteland Township (493 units), Caln Township (490 units), West Whiteland Township (489 units), and West Chester Borough (468 units).

In terms of non-residential structural square footage, the county saw a 13.4 percent increase from 2023 to 2024 with just over 3.1 million square feet proposed - the second highest total in the last decade aside from 2021. Like 2023, the non-residential development was led by industrial square footage (1,685,361 sq/ft), followed by commercial-retail (769,505 sq/ft), institutional (588,473 sq/ft), agricultural (97,800 sq/ft), and then commercial-office space (26,200).

The largest non-residential development proposals reviewed in 2024 included Herr's Farm warehouse development in East Nottingham Township (1,120,000 sq/ft), Sadsbury Commons Phase 3 in West Sadsbury Township (363,938 sq/ft), Main Line Health Inc. in Caln Township (146,140 sq/ft), a new elementary school in East Fallowfield Township (115,780 sq/ft), a new residence hall at Lincoln University in Lower Oxford Township (99,532 sq/ft), and the Valley View Lot Industrial Development in Valley Township (99,960 sq/ft).

 

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When it comes to proposed development activity in the county's designated growth areas on the Landscapes3 map, the percent of proposed non-residential square footage remained consistent with previous years at 91 percent in 2024, while proposed residential development dropped to 78 percent in 2024 compared to 97 percent in 2023.

Several major institutional plans from prior years were approved in 2024, including:

Also approved in 2024 from prior years:

From 2022-2024, East Whiteland and East Nottingham townships had the most non-residential square footage proposed, with both including over 1 million square feet of industrial square footage.

And finally, there were a total of 115 ordinance reviews in 2024, with 9 comprehensive plans, 10 miscellaneous ordinance amendments/updates, 2 Official Maps, 22 Subdivision and Land Development Ordinance (SLDO) amendments/updates, and 72 zoning ordinance amendments/updates.

Find more information about CCPC's Act 247 Review process or current figures.