A couple weeks ago Commissioners considered the Jaindl Spring Creek Properties. This, the final vote was really just a formality since the agreement which is now law was concocted in 2010 by the prior BOC. (Including 3 Presidents – Ryan Conrad, Ron Eichenberg, & Roger Reis) When I came into office in Jan 2014 after two of these Commissioners were defeated in election I was then legally bound to their decision as terrible as I believe it was.

That being said there are still things that up to the very end leave me speechless. Here are 2 examples:

• 1. Never at any point was freight traffic parsed out from regular traffic during engineering studies. (That being 18 wheelers vs. regular autos). To my knowledge not once.
  Baffles me. How can you expect to do everything in your power to proactively address the unique nature of freight traffic if you never once asked for the truck specific data. Surely you can’t think that truck traffic and regular commuter traffic should be treated in the same way? This in my opinion is egregious since every hearing I attended over nearly 3 years, every step of the way freight traffic was the number 1 concern voiced by residents. Yet up until the very last vote there was never freight specific analysis completed. No focus on projections of how trucks were coming and going and what routes they were likely to take.

• 2. When asked by a resident how much in new revenue the warehouses would generate for Lower Macungie not one Commissioner from the 2010 board had any idea. 
  In 2010 Commissioners in favor of this project often gave generic answers as to why they stubbornly supported the rezoning including eluding to economic development. My question is how can you state “economic development” as a positive when up til the very last minute not one seems to have any idea what that economic benefit is? At least not in any measurable term. I never once heard a single job count and definitely not a per/acre job creation efficiency figure. In other words job creation is a great goal, but are we paving over farmland for maximum job creation? There was no work whatsoever done to calculate lifecycle ROI. Even though it was requested of the board by a resident very early on in the process during a hearing on the MOU. This resident who is a CPA even gave the board a template to use. There was no response by the board. No followup. No effort whatsoever to use tools that were physically handed to them.

Lower Macungie now has to deal with this decision moving forward. It is what it is… for us.

I re-state all this because across the valley it’s likely another community will be dealing with a similar issue somewhere. End of the day in our example the most basic questions were not asked. Please learn from our mistakes. If your community is considering zoning changes insist on the following:

1. Conduct lifecycle cost & benefit analysis. If your considering a zoning change because you seek ratables or “economic development” in your community be prepared to support that statement with ya know…. actual numbers. Don’t just build for the sake of building. Insist on positive ROI. And please, take it to the next level beyond the windfall and initial oftentimes rosy forecasting by developers. This is often misleading when your considering the long term solvency and ROI of a land development.

We have to insist that development produces a measurable financial return over the long term. Sprawl in many of it’s forms costs communities more in the long-run than it returns leading to ever increasing taxes. Insist on seeing an analysis of the math. Have the nuts and bolts conversation with the publics input. Remember arguing for more efficient job creation doesn’t mean your against job creation. Arguing in favor of smart growth doesn’t mean your anti growth. It means your against costly dumb growth. The higher the return on the public’s investments the greater its financial solvency. This leads to more capital capacity to take on other endeavors. Smart growth leads to more and better growth.

INSIST on REAL return of Investment.

2. It’s time to start thinking in terms of the next level/generation of traffic analysis. I am not an engineer, but when I see a traffic analysis for a warehouse project 6 miles away from a highway interchange I would think analysis of freight traffic would be a no brainer. Ask the “dumb” questions. Most appointed officials aren’t engineers. That doesn’t mean we can’t try to use a little common sense.