To: Commissioner Liz Rogan and Lower Merion’s Board of Commissioners Land Planning is Fundamental - Do a Master Plan for City Avenue! Commissioner Liz Rogan and the majority of Lower Merion’s Board of Commissioners are about to adopt a massive re-zoning ordinance that will allow for 11 million square feet of new development space and numerous fifteen-story buildings to be built along the City Avenue Corridor. No master planning has been done to guide this rezoning which will add thousands of new cars to City Avenue and the surrounding residential streets and can potentially bring Market Street to Bala Cynwyd. The rezoning scheme doesn’t include any new public transit connections and will make the City Avenue area even more of a gridlock nightmare than it already is. New opportunities for redevelopment along City Avenue, Presidential Boulevard and St. Asaph’s Road could be beneficial and welcome. But this rezoning, the most aggressive in Lower Merion’s history, has to be done right. Rogan and Lower Merion have chosen to create a very dense urban area in our suburban community for the benefit of a small handful of developers. Doing it right requires coordination with a comprehensive plan for Lower Merion and a master plan for the rezoned area. Simply enacting a zoning ordinance allowing owners to plunk down huge new buildings attracting thousands of new residents and office workers is a recipe for a big mess. Tell Commissioner Liz Rogan and the Lower Merion Board of Commissioners to take a time-out for master planning for City Avenue.
Master planning will give us:

• A comprehensive plan for the area that the community can accept, not one that is forced upon it.

• A design for the proposed retail center that maintains its function as a neighborhood shopping center with appropriate building heights, rather than an office park and or entertainment center.

• A template for the proposed regional office and residential area that provides an integrated design for development of the entire area that ensures true pedestrian friendly, neighborhood friendly and transit friendly redevelopment.

• A plan laying out areas for green open space, pedestrian connections, and public transit facilities, so that both developers and the public know what the redeveloped area should and can look like.
There can be no vote on City Avenue until a master plan has been done!

Sincerely,

The Undersigned