If you're plotting the future growth of a place like East Hempfield Township, "how would you develop this land if you sat down with a blank piece of paper?"
That's what Rob Bowman, president of Charter Homes & Neighborhoods, said to East Hempfield officials at a township supervisors' meeting this week.
With that blank piece of paper, Bowman said, what you'd probably come up with was what his company did for a nearly 100-acre swath of land near Route 283: a plan for 275 homes, and also a wide area of open space.
The supervisors said they like Bowman's proposed Landisville-area housing plan — but they're also facing a dilemma.
They don't have nearly enough time to talk about an overall, township-wide plan to address traffic and growth, as Supervisor Brett Miller said.
So, hoping to hold such a think-tank session before voting on Charter's request, the East Hempfield decision-making board voted Wednesday to table the plan for now.
Miller said he'd rather have such a session sooner rather than later, and joined fellow supervisors Heidi Wheaton, Chairman John Bingham and Doug Brubaker in tabling the rezoning request.
It was the second time this fall the vote on the plan was postponed.
Supervisor Bernard Krutsick cast the lone vote against the postponement, saying, "I don't think we should be doing this in the middle of a rezoning request … stop a developer in his tracks."
Brubaker responded, "I think it's a lovely plan, but I just think we don't need to do it now."
Several officials have compared the proposed Landisville community to Veranda, the award-winning neighborhood Charter Homes has built along Harrisburg Pike in East Hempfield, closer to Lancaster.
Charter Homes is eyeing its newer plan for the Landis Farm, a 96-acre site near Route 283, northwest of Lancaster.
It is planning 275 homes of various types, including single-family, townhomes and carriage homes, and also is planning to preserve a third of the site as open space.
The plan is proposed for a much-smaller section of land at the same site as the former "Independence" project was proposed.
On Wednesday, Bowman said he was agreeable to the postponement.
"We're always focused on doing what's right for the larger community, and that's what we did this evening," he said afterward.
Charter had agreed to a deed restriction to limit the development to residential while also establishing the open space, he pointed out.
"We've worked closely with neighbors and others, and all we did was orchestrate those thoughts" about what they'd like to see in the community.
"We think it's a great plan, and we think it's a great plan because of that input," Bowman added.
The East Hempfield supervisors did not immediately set a date for the proposed growth/traffic meeting.
Independence was a 3,000-home community envisioned for 315 acres near Route 283 and State Road.
That plan was denied the approvals it needed from the suburban township nearly two years ago, but Charter this past summer applied for a new rezoning that could lead to the smaller community.