WEST CHESTER RESIDENTS FOR RESPONSIBLE PLANNING, WCRRP

Thank you for visiting our neighborhood grass roots group website. The intent of this site is to inform all Borough residents about the details and implications of the Borough building and financing a parking garage for the sole benefit of West Chester University.  The Borough is financing the garage with municipal bonds. The proposed location of the WCU parking garage is at the southwest corner of South New and West Nields Streets. This locale is on the west side of WCU's main campus and is located in a residential neighborhood that does not allow building structures as such because of existing zoning restrictions.   

As well, the purpose of this site is to explain why our group of neighbors filed an appeal on June 18th to stop the construction of a parking garage in our residential neighborhoods.  The filed appeal can be found in the main menu box.  Our lawyer, Lee Stivale, defines the appeal this way: 

The neighborhood's fight is continuing on appeal to the Court of Common Pleas.  On appeal, the Court will be presented with legal issues to determine whether the proposed West Chester University garage is a "Municipal Use" and whether the Borough's second application is precluded because the Borough previously voted to deny the same plan.  The Borough, in rejecting the first application, determined that the garage was not municipal use; however, under pressure of threatened litigation from WCU, filed the second application which it approved. 

This appeal also raises the issue whether the Borough can use Borough financial resources for a private user, the University, as well as the lawfulness of expenditures of Borough funds to process a land development plan for the exclusive benefit of the University. 

Once appealed, the matter will proceed quickly to a briefing schedule and argument before a Judge.  We will keep you apprised on the legal process as it unfolds.

A neighbor and I selected a lawyer about a year ago with the thought that residents would need a consultant to advise us as to our interests and rights as the approval process of this land development plan progressed.  How right we were.  Our intent was never to engage the Borough of West Chester in civil litigation.  But once the facts of this garage issue were revealed, we found that our only recourse, in the end, was to do just that.  Realizing accountability and transparency in our local government, as well as stopping the construction of the proposed garage, will hopefully be the end result of our neighbors being engaged in the democratic process.  We are not "troublemakers" as some have labeled us, we are tax paying residents who see an act of inequity taking place and we want to correct it.  Please take advantage of the issues we will present on this website and decide for yourself;  Is it time for a fundamental change in the way our local elected officials and employees execute the business of the Borough?

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