Imagine Linden session brings call to preserve property as green space
A piece of property that served as Crafton’s first high school football stadium and still provides an outlet for young athletes to practice and play games should remain green.
That was the consensus expressed earlier this week during the first of at least two public listening sessions held to gather ideas on how a 5.25-acre piece of land off Linden Avenue should be used going forward.
The so-called Imagine Linden real estate visioning session attracted more than 40 people either in person or via Zoom, and they gave borough and Carlynton School District officials plenty to think about.
The school district owns the lion’s share of the land – about 4 acres – and it serves as Carlynton High School’s home baseball field as well as a practice field for soccer and youth football. The borough owns a 1.25-acre piece that borders heavily traveled Steuben Street and houses a miniature golf course. A small portion of the school district property resides in Ingram Borough.
Monday night’s meeting kicked off a community engagement phase that also will feature a resident survey as well as focus group meetings and stakeholder interviews.
Chris Riggert, a landscape architect and community planner with OHM Advisors – a consultant hired to lead the visioning process – told those in attendance that input gathered during the research and listening portion of the project would be used to develop potential development scenarios for the property. Those scenarios would be made available for comment online and at a community open house.
Riggert said the goal is to finalize a “community vision” and bring it back to the public sometime in November.
Riggert said past development interest shows that the property has “real market value” and noted that developers expressed an interest in building a convenience store/gas station around 2017-18. That proposal never went forward.
In 2021, Riggert said, a resident-led concept examined the property and two years later, a market study found that housing, commercial and mixed-use development all had potential for the site.
Riggert said OHM is assuming that future development on the site should fit Crafton’s character, provide a mix of uses, strengthen transit and pedestrian connections and include “green and gathering space.”
Riggert said that past community engagement showed residents expressed interest in neighborhood shopping, places to eat and gather, and flexible community space. Examples of neighborhood shopping that people shared included Aldi and Trader Joes, while eating establishments included family-friendly restaurants and quality fast-casual options.
The “flexible community space” referred to areas that could be used for pop-up type events, food trucks, farmers markets, family activities and recreation.
Riggert’s presentation noted that financial considerations must be taken into account when determining the best use of the property. He reviewed several development scenarios and whether they met certain financial benchmarks deemed to be necessary for that particular piece of land.
Riggert said developments such as a GetGo, Sheetz, Chipotle, First Watch or Trader Joe’s all failed to reach that benchmark on their own when looked at through a per-acre lens. Instead, residential uses, ranging from an eight-unit townhouse pad to a 36-unit mixed-use project with commercial on the ground floor topped by a two- or three-story residential element, all would either meet or exceed the financial benchmark on a per-acre basis.
Riggert also offered a series of mix-and-match development scenarios that included residential and mixed-use buildings, or residential and commercial, and several of those exceeded the benchmark.
But the overwhelming sentiment expressed by most of those in attendance was that the two property owners need to think hard before sacrificing its current use – or at least some form of it – for condos and a Trader Joe’s.
Stephen Shorthouse said he’d like to see the current owners maximize the property’s community space potential and make it a destination for recreation, sports and other community events that would benefit local residents as well as those from surrounding communities.
Shorthouse said Crafton doesn’t need another gas station or small housing development.
“No one ever says, ‘Too bad they have community space,’” he said. “But you might hear someone say, ‘Oh, they put in a gas station or put in someplace to eat and two years later it closed and now it’s an empty Eat‘n Park.’
“You never close a community space. You never board up a green space.”
Others voiced similar sentiments. Nicole Currivan said she wouldn’t feel comfortable “with any solution that is being evaluated using the narrow financial parameters that have been presented.”
“It seems to me that we are trying to put out a fire with a short-term solution – one that doesn’t measure long-term risks and benefits,” she added. “We need to think about the 100-year plan. The people who this will affect are not in this room. They aren’t alive yet.”
Currivan said land ownership is power, and if the school district and borough sell the property to private interests, that power disappears.
“Right now we are in this room having this conversation,” she said. “The minute we sell the land, the right to do so goes away.”
Not everyone was sold on utilizing the existing property for park/recreation/green space use. Julie Goodenough said she’d like to see a combination of housing and retail and referred to a recent visit where she saw ground-floor storefronts topped by three floors of condominium space. Others said regardless of the use, it must generate tax revenue to avoid massive property tax hikes every year.
But most of those who spoke during Monday’s meeting said they would rather see the land remain as a community space of some sort.
Sharon Gaitens, who said she’s been a Crafton resident for nearly 60 years, said she’d like to see the current owners figure out a way to retain the land and develop a long-term vision for it – a vision that could include amenities such a walking/fitness track, a children’s play area, volleyball and tennis course, playing fields, a pavilion and gazebo and space for a seasonal farmers market.
Gaitens said the borough and school district needs to investigate how to make such a facility generate revenue and to also explore grant funding and corporate sponsorships to help build it.
“I understand there are financial responsibilities,” she said. “But we need to develop a master plan and find the money to make it happen.”
“Let’s make this asset work for us in the long term. We don’t need to do everything at once. But we do need to protect this opportunity. Because if it goes, we don’t get it back.
Allen Biehler, the borough’s Planning Commission chair, said in wrapping up the meeting that utilizing the property for a community green space of some sort “is on of the things that’s fair game.”
“We heard a variety of ideas,” Biehler said. “I would say congratulations for offering those ideas.”
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