Coatesville is internationally recognized for its redevelopment plans. Our plans attracted the Knight School of Architecture of Miami University to select Coatesville as the municipality for the 2003 Knight Program in Community Building Design Charrette. Coatesville was selected in a nationwide competition. Chester County’s 2020 plan for preserving open space includes utilizing existing urban areas in lieu of paving farms and forests.
Coatesville is famous worldwide for its plans for future growth among city planning architects. It is also famous among those same architects for its plans being shot down by property rights extremists.
We have the infrastructure place in Coatesville for 20,000 residents. We have about 12,000 now. Housing is beginning to be driven by “baby boomers”. The youngest “baby boomers” are 62 years old. They are not looking for single family homes for 4 or more people. They are looking for townhomes and condominiums, access by foot to restaurants, train, shopping and entertainment. That is exactly what the previous Coatesville Administration planned for.
One million dollar and up family estate homes may be “white elephants” in about 10 years. About the only thing keeping a market for one million dollar + family homes are the entrepreneurs in Chester County’s immigrant population.
We need City Council members that at the very least read news articles about Coatesville.
I would recommend that the Coatesville City Council members take advantage of the many training programs for local government officials. Some members of the Coatesville Planning Commission have taken part in those training programs. Very few Coatesville City Council members have ever taken advantage of the training that is available and it shows.
The Pennsylvania Local Government Training Partnership:
http://www.palocalgovtraining.org/
The Knight School of Architecture of the Miami University School of Architecture:
http://www.coatesville.org/forms/charrettereport.pdf
Managing Change in Chester County Comprehensive Plan (2020)
http://dsf.chesco.org/planning/lib/planning/landscapes_document/toc.html
From the Daily Local News:
“Lacerte said the biggest problem facing the city is that there is no plan for future growth. He said the city moves from one budget crisis to another. "There's no vision to solve the city's problems," he said.”
Read the article here:
http://www.dailylocal.com/article/DL/20091101/NEWS/311019986
I find it funny that this guy loves to throw numbers and figures out without ever providing any facts. Further I've never personally seen him at a City Council or RDA meeting to observe what is going on or to speak up about his points. To your point, I think he needs to spend a lot more time researching Coatesville before he makes anymore inaccurate statements like that. If you're going to run for office the very least you could would be to do your research on the City and people you want to represent.
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