By Richard L. Gaw
Staff Writer

For the past several years, the 16 square miles that make up New Garden Township have been a chalkboard of initiatives, acquisitions and changing demographics, buttressed against the back-and-forth sway of an economic tide that fluctuates from year to year.

The future of the township, at least in the sustainability sense of the word, rests on its ability to attract new businesses, lure new residents by way of affordable housing opportunities and fulfilling the need for essential goods and services like effective policing and sound infrastructure. 

On Aug. 25, as an interlude to the township’s creation of its 2026 budget, the broad sweep of those 16 square miles were brought into focus during a 75-minute “State of the Township” presentation by Manager Christopher Himes, who conducted a deep dive into the framework of priorities set down in the township’s 2018 comprehensive plan against the community’s input and the encroaching realities of its need to stimulate economic and residential growth. 

“This provides a summary statement of issues in the township that have focused priorities that are in the budget cycle,” he said. “We have folded in [fiscal year 2025] community surveys as a way of interweaving them into the priorities stated in our comprehensive plan, to create initiatives and focus to create outcomes for the township.”

Himes said that the goals set in the comprehensive plan mirror the township’s objectives for 2026, which include achieving a strong financial management; creating economic development; making improvements to the township’s infrastructure; addressing the rising cost of public safety; maintaining organizational excellence in township management; enhancing community services; sustaining an open space initiative; expanding the New Garden Flying Field; and improving energy efficiency.

Community survey priorities

Many of the comprehensive plan’s priorities were reflected in the results of a recent community survey that revealed high priorities for the condition of township roads; investment in infrastructure; public input in township decision making; and full transparency of financial data to residents. The township now includes all financial documentation on its website.

“[Providing communication to our residents] is something we as a township probably have not done well in the past,” Himes said. “We are making improvements but can always get better. A lot of this comes down to, ‘Is it a public education issue? Is it things we need to do market and do more engagement on? Is it a funding issue? Do we not have enough people to perform these communications?’”

As the Board of Supervisors head into the budget season for next year, they will work with current revenue and expenditures that both stand at $8.179 million, while factoring in anticipated capital expenditures, creating a five-year expenditure strategy and developing ways to increase its tax base by providing future economic and residential opportunities.

“It’s knowing where your tax base comes from and understanding what those revenues mean, and folding that into future economic development initiatives,” Himes told the board. “If you say you’re going to pursue something, pursue it in a direction where you will be proactive, not by what benefits the township in the short term.

“With that, how do we grow? How do we invest into future outcomes that help us yield returns to invest back into the community? For us, it’s about creating opportunities based off land use and trying to address our infrastructure. Those are the two prominent factors that can influence economic outcomes.”

While the township benefits from its proximity to the I-95 corridor, Wilmington, Newark and Philadelphia, Himes said that the township has been burdened by the increasing cost of development.

“As we began to grow as a township, we did not expand beyond our means for the adding of future infrastructure improvements,” Himes said. “It was more of going to the limit of the township’s last growth and it was cut off there, so any new development [in the township] has to have all new infrastructure in order to get it in the ground.”

The ‘graying’ of New Garden Township

In order for a township to survive, it is vital to sustain and, in many cases, stimulate the growth  of population and subsequently broaden a steady tax base that pays for essential services. In New Garden Township, however, current demographics provide a telltale sign of pressing urgency. While the township experienced the highest percentage increase in population over the last 30 years – a 52.2-percent increase since 1990 - this spurt occurred at the same time new home construction fell dramatically.

As a result, the 2020 census shows a decrease in population, leading to what Himes called a “boom and bust” growth pattern that has led to a consistently aging demographic, as evidenced by the results of the recent community survey, where 76 percent of township residents said they intend to retire in place. To give further evidence of the “graying” of the township, the number of seniors aged 60 and over increased by 135 percent from 2010 to 2023. Conversely, the population of children from infants to nine years dropped 49 percent during that time, and the number of adults from aged 25 to 44 decreased 25 percent over that same period. 

These numbers run right into another township priority for its residents: providing more affordable - or “missing middle” - housing opportunities in order to attract younger residents. As stated in Himes’ presentation, home values have increased 68 percent over the past eight years. To illustrate, the average value of a home in Landenberg in 2017 stood at $387,140; as of this year, that average has spiked to $635,163.

“Affordability as an index has gone down, and the cost of living here has gone up,” Himes said. “A lot of people live here because there is a high quality of life here, and while that is a perfectly justifiable reason, if you don’t have any incremental growth behind that, you create a bandwidth scenario – an ever-aging population on one side that skews your population growth which continues to graduate to a higher age.

“The cost of living here has doubled within the past ten years - not 30, not 40, ten years – so that skews future outcomes.” 

Among the township’s top priorities over the next few years, Himes said, will be to promote the construction of more “missing middle” housing opportunities, particularly for those individuals who work in the agricultural, cold storage and manufacturing industries.

Over the next several years, Himes said that another of the township’s top priorities will not be in the way of man-made initiatives, but how it will address the increasing number of storm-related events that have caused torrential storms and flooding throughout the township and southern Chester County. Bounded by two watersheds – the east branch of the White Clay Creek and the west branch of Red Clay Creek - the township is vulnerable to significant stormwater events.

Himes said that the township currently has two stormwater projects – along Mercer Mill Road and at Wilkinson Drive – that will provide small basin repairs and pipe replacements, to mitigate flooding and topping issues in those areas. In addition, the township is working with PennDOT to address retrofitting the degraded stormwater system in Toughkenamon, particularly in the Newark Road-Baltimore Pike intersection.

A review of the township’s five-year Capital Improvement Plan will be held on Sept. 8; a general fund review will be held on Sept. 29; the township’s enterprise fund review will take place on Oct. 6; and general work sessions with the Board of Supervisors will be held on Oct. 14 and 20. The adoption of the 2026 budget is expected to be reached in late Fall.

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, email [email protected].