Redevelopment projects like those digging in around the Coatesville and Downingtown train stations are transforming neighborhoods and breathing new economic life into parts of Chester County, and local leaders recently put their heads together to strategize how to take those lessons elsewhere and streamline more redevelopment efforts.

“They are the right locations,” state Rep. Scott Petri said in a Daily Local News report by Ginger Rae Dunbar. “It’s exactly what young people want.”

Reps. Harry Lewis and Becky Corbin were also part of the House Urban Affairs Committee gathering in Coatesville, as was Chester County Economic Development Council consultant Dave Sciocchetti.

The right funding, manpower and tools are critical to such optimization, Sciocchetti noted, and key opportunities to help redevelopment include the state’s Keystone Opportunity Zone incentives, Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance, flexible zoning ordinances, existing zoning code enforcement and more frequent rental property inspections.

If borough leaders could help create some momentum, they would see a trickle-down effect, the article explained; “developers could increase the property value and the quality of life in a neighborhood with their investment.”

Read more about Chester County’s opportunities to streamline and optimize its powerful economic engine by redeveloping underperforming areas in the Daily Local News here.