Council will approve sidewalk amendment

By ANGELA J. GATES
Collegian Staff Writer

The State College Borough Council voted last night to amend a zoning ordinance that would help maintain downtown vitality.

The council approved their intent to pass an amendment at a future meeting to calculate the distance a new building sits from the sidewalk in the downtown area. The new distance will be calculated by averaging the distances that neighboring buildings sit from the sidewalk.

The original ordinance would have required new buildings downtown to sit about 18 feet from the sidewalk, council member Elizabeth Goreham said in an earlier interview.

Most of the current buildings are five to 10 feet away from sidewalks, she said.

Members of the council and other organizations said the amendment was needed to support growth downtown.

Without the amendment, the borough could lose prospective retailers, said Edward Friedman, a local real estate developer.

Friedman, who owns the vacant lot on the 100 block of South Allen Street, said tenants might not want to occupy the space if the building was required to sit back farther than surrounding buildings.

Maintaining a street wall downtown, where all buildings are required to be the same distance from sidewalks, enhances retail vitality, said Eliza Pennypacker, head of the Penn State Department of Landscape Architecture and member of the Design Review Board.

"Set-backs are more disruptive to a positive pedestrian environment," Pennypacker said.

Jim Mann, director of the Downtown State College Partnership Inc., said the group supported the amendment because it would help maintain an aesthetically pleasing downtown area.

However, council member Janet Knauer said she opposed the amendment because it would take away additional sidewalk space needed by pedestrians in a high-traffic area.

The distance a building would be required to sit back is minimal, she added.

"Five feet wouldn't deter me from going into a store if I want to go into a store," Knauer said.

The council also voted last night to establish about 70,000 square feet for the new Municipal Building. Twenty percent of the total space would be shared public space, Goreham said.

Government, public and shared spaces would occupy 60,000 square feet, while the remaining 10,000 square feet would be used as rental space for non-profit organizations and future expansions.