Planning Commission works for smarter warehousing landscape

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A Conversation With: Becky Bradley, executive director of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission 

 LVB: How does the density of warehousing in the Lehigh Valley compare to other areas? 

Bradley: Over the past decade, the Lehigh Valley has been one of the fastest-growing regions for warehouse and logistics development, with municipalities approving more than 30 million square feet in the past seven years. Because of our location and robust transportation network, we have more of these facilities than most regions, but there are similar logistics hubs in places like Los Angeles/Long Beach, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and Northern New Jersey. 

LVB: The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission doesn’t have authority to approve or deny warehouses but can make recommendations. What factors do you take under consideration when reviewing applications? 

Bradley: Key factors include whether it fits the zoning, whether the location has the proper transportation, sewer and water infrastructure, and whether the development is compatible with the surrounding community. Our recommendations are often used by our municipal partners during their negotiations with developers.  

As a result, these facilities around the region have more green infrastructure, transit to bring workers to and from their jobs, more truck parking that keeps trucks from illegally parking in offramps in communities, and more defined road networks around the facilities. And while the municipalities have the final say on approving these facilities, every one of these massive structures must have a stormwater plan and we do have the final say on those.  

If our engineers find that a facility’s stormwater plan presents flooding or runoff risks, the plan is rejected until they submit an acceptable stormwater plan. There are no exceptions and that has protected water quality and infrastructure including roads and bridges necessary to our communities, quality of life and business operations. 

LVB: Is the impact of a warehouse different than other light industrial buildings? 

Bradley: Of course, that depends on the type of facility, and each is a little different. However, because some of these buildings are often the largest building in the community where they’re located, they can dramatically change the look of the landscape.  

In addition, if they have a lot of employees and tractor-trailer deliveries – most do — the added traffic to the road system can have a tremendous impact. A light industrial building may have the volume of employees and the cars that get them to work, but they tend not to have the volume of tractor-trailers. However, if you have large clusters of anything, the net effect of that can be as significant as a single large warehouse.  

Throw in the fact that there are often multiple uses from manufacturing to storage to logistics happening in the larger footprint industrial buildings and it becomes obvious that impacts can vary. This underscores the need to work together across sectors to site industrial uses where they can be supported and will be the most successful for business and the community. 

LVB: Why is the Lehigh Valley such a popular place for warehousing and distribution? 

Bradley: We now live in a next-day deliver economy and the Lehigh Valley is within a single trucker shift of 100 million consumers. We’re also close to the Port of New York and New Jersey – which now rivals the Port of Los Angeles as the busiest goods-moving port in the United States – but without the New York and New Jersey land prices.  

We also have available industrial land, though that is shrinking quickly. It may not always feel like it when you are sitting on Route 22 at 5 p.m., but traffic congestion is exponentially lower in the Lehigh Valley than in neighboring Philadelphia or North Jersey, and the road network here connects to points North, South, East and West, making us an infrastructure hub that supports the industrial supply chain. We have a skilled and reliable workforce too.  

Put all those factors together and it makes for a powerful draw to the likes of Amazon, Walmart, Nike and Federal Express. 

LVB: What are municipalities doing to take control of this trend? 

Bradley: We’re working with them and they’re doing a lot. Last year we reviewed 52 zoning and official map amendments – a sign that our communities are taking our advice to change their zoning to better manage development. And this year they’re on pace to make 90 amendments and changes. That would be an incredible number. 

We recently developed a Freight-Based Land Use Guide that gives all 38 Northampton County municipalities a playbook to analyze their zoning, flex transportation impact fees, and modernize processes to make sure these facilities are built in the right places – or more importantly, aren’t built in the wrong places. We’ll soon do one for Lehigh County, as well. 

And finally, we’re working with 31 municipalities across the Lehigh Valley on four separate multi-municipal comprehensive plans. By joining together in these plans, they not only gain efficiencies by entering into purchasing and public services agreements that save them money, but they gain tremendous control over development because they are able to share the burden – rather than shoulder it individually – of complying with Pennsylvania’s requirement of making space for every use.  

We are so proud that this region’s communities are so proactive. If you build here we want you to be successful and we want the community you occupy to be successful too.  

We don’t want poorly sited or vacant structures that become the brownfields of the 21st century either. So, we need to plan together and zone where everyone benefits and that conversation is turning into action throughout the region.