Our Natural Heritage Testimony

Dear Senator,

On behalf of PennEnvironment’s citizen members, I am writing to ask you to support House Bill 221, and request that this legislation gets voted out of the Senate Community, Economic and Recreational Development Committee and the full Senate before the legislature breaks for the summer. HB221 will provide incentives for historic preservation projects across the Commonwealth.

More than 1 million acres of Pennsylvania’s family farmland, forests, and open spaces were paved over for development from 1992-1997, which is the second fast rate of development in the nation only behind Texas.

This vast development of Pennsylvania often contains low density, scattered, and sprawling development. By allowing this kind of development to continue we are threatening our air quality, waterways, family farmlands and fragile ecosystems. The uncontrolled expansion of commercial, industrial, and residential areas does more than just damage our ecosystems and open spaces--it also creates more traffic, which has adverse effects on our lives and wildlife.

One of the best ways to slow down this sprawling overdevelopment is to support and encourage investment in and further redevelopment of Pennsylvania’s downtown areas.  This will help make downtown communities more livable, in turn helping to preserve our threatened open spaces and working family farms.

Pennsylvanians need more tools and resources to help developers choose to redevelop downtown areas and historic municipalities instead of paving over our family farms and open spaces. While Pennsylvania has some programs to promote redevelopment in existing communities, we lag behind other states’ funding levels. For example, Rhode Island directs $460.16 million to these projects through historic preservation tax credits. This investment is estimated to generate $2.46 billion in economic activity in the state.

For these reasons, PennEnvironment calls upon the state Senate to take immediate steps to create this initiative to preserve our historic districts and support HB221, which will provide incentives for historic preservation.

Please do not hesitate to contact me by email (DMasur@PennEnvironment.org) or by phone (215-732-5897 or 267-303-8292 on my cell) with any questions about this legislation.  I look forward to continuing our work together to protect Pennsylvania’s historic areas and environment.

Sincerely,

David Masur, Director

PennEnvironment