Why does no one ever think of the shareholders? I agree we need people to build up and not out. I also think laws should reflect how many hollowed out properties are in an area. Can't build on farmland as long as strip malls and factories are empty

I hate when people complain about their super-local issues on a state-related sub. Contact your local government. Where I live, warehouse development is a good thing. We've got loads of open land, and it's been good for the local economy.

It is definitely happening in other areas of the state, hence why I asked for the experiences of others. Sorry if I went too in depth about local stuff, but I was really looking for input from people anywhere outside of where I am with a similar experience.

Very little can be done about it. It's private land, zoned commercial and bought by groups like Jaindl (there's also a Texas based development firm doing a lot of buying). The farmers get prices they can't refuse and politicians like Jared Coleman won't do anything to mitigate it, If anything, the low income manual labor jobs they bring are better for Rs.

The valley, berks and the like are all at the intersection of major roads coming from the coast and heading into the Midwest and south. You can monitor online for public comment hearings, but there is too much money and special interest to stop it, not to mention the long term gov. Investment into highway expansions to support the truck traffic. There are initiatives to preserve farmland that have had success, especially in Bucks. Maybe look at those as a model.

Grew up in the valley, moved out for a decade, came back and bought a home almost immediately regretting it. Just waiting for the market to bounce back before moving out. The area is turning into a glorified weigh station.

Thank you! I've definitely looked into the local action groups and the farmland protection stuff. I really wish there was more that could be done. I appreciate the response

Not a problem. Wish I had more actionable suggestions to contribute. But short of creating an investment fund to snap up the land beforehand (but then how do you get ROI) and preserving it, there aren't a lot of options.

You can become evangelical about purchasing locally sourced goods of all stripes, but it's drops in the ocean to stem the tide of Amazon and the other folks leasing these warehouses. And even then, it'll still be an empty warehouse, since they keep buying and building without securing a tenant.

And You certainly can't blame the farmers, they have been taking a beating for decades in the US and have a chance to create generational wealth for their families. Regardless, lots more flooding and low air quality days on the horizon.

By super local, you mean through 3 or 4 counties? Yea, super local. /s

I hate it when no-karma know-nothings try to police discussion, so I know how you feel.

These warehouses usually get huge tax breaks so it doesn’t help as much as it should considering how big they are. A lot of times state and local government will foot the full for the infrastructure as well (roads, water lines, etc). Also the pay at these places is horrible. They are almost parasitic. Local people and local government get crumbs while enormous profits are being made.

Makes me want to move to Potter County.

Well it's definitely sad. Maybe I'm a nimby but I think it's terrible when these beautiful landscapes we have in PA are replaced with ugly warehouses and the trucks they bring in destroy our roads. Also the jobs they bring in are not jobs you want in your area, they abuse workers and pay low wages. They prey on the desperate. Those megacorps are what's ruining communities and killing this country.

Same. I want to move there and purchase a big piece of land. Soon, others will pick up on our ideas. So, best to get it before big corps buy it all up.

Is your target audience expected to know what/where “upper mac” is?

I would assume most people would be able to infer that it was Upper Macungie, since I spelled it out fully later on in the post.

I find it weird how all my time up here, I always heard about how Humbolt industrial park in hazelton sits on top of protected wetlands where coastal birds migrate to nest (When I worked in Humbolt, i do remember a lot of adorable killdeer and a buttload of geese). But somehow, they keep cutting down trees and erecting massive warehouses everywhere.

Either everyone was wrong, or someone has more money than the killdeer.

I live in SE PA. Warehouses aren't such a big thing here (I think property values are too high), but they definitely are in nearby central NJ.

How much stuff do we buy online and have delivered? That all has to come from somewhere. The faster we want it delivered, the more warehouses there will be, so they'll be a shorter distance from most people. If this is how you get stuff, warehouses have to be somewhere.

There are worse things to live near. I worked near a giant landfill that stunk and occasionally our office filled with flies. A regional airport is nearby and jets have shaken our house in the middle of the night. If I'm mowing my lawn and a commercial jet comes in for a landing, it's louder than my mower. Refineries spew out chemicals and sometimes explode. Is a giant factory more attractive than a giant warehouse?

Depending on zoning rules, local towns can mitigate problems. Cover warehouses with solar panels and make them green power plants. It's great to have a visually attractive place to live. It's nice to have jobs too.

I grew up in the Lehigh Valley (Lowhill Township) and remember the 1970s when Upper Macungie hadn't yet been paved over with warehouses.

Now I live in the Poconos and they've begun bulldozing the woods for them here too.

I really, really hate what eastern PA has become and am looking to move somewhere far north without them.

Deliveries and food supply have been fine the whole time I've lived here. Does it need to be faster still? I'm alright with waiting longer for a package if it means avoiding the ecological destruction of rural areas.

I wholeheartedly support the development of land along highways (and elsewhere) in whatever ways the market deems is their best use - as long as they comply with appropriate environmental and other laws.

Our economy runs on logistics - warehouses, trucks, trains, delivery gobs of products all over the world and to our doors. Places near intersections of major highways in relatively close proximity to huge population centers are exactly the types of places warehouses make sense.

I don't think farm land should be considered a better use than the warehouse. The warehouse creates a lot more jobs. It is often less polluting. There are downsides of course, truck traffic and eyesores (I guess - not to me personally - I see economic development).

I don't see historic value in farmland. Yes, protect any gravesites or historic structures (they're required to do this by law).

Already been looking around up in McKean-Potter-Tioga for several years now and it's not nearly as easy as I thought.

Gas pads and pipeline easements everywhere, big acreage is kind of scarce, expensive and typically doesn't have its OGMs with it. Also a lot of land has been subdivided into weird narrow strips with stream wetland challenges or steep slopes. Plus usually neighbors with shit holes next door.

And is the farmland actually being used for something? People keep complaining "save the farmland" when some of the properties haven't been used as such for years, if not longer.

More farmland could be put in preservation, but that requires us to pay more taxes. A lot of times that funding is a match between the state and county. My county has very little in the way of local jobs, and we're getting a warehouse built here in the next year or so. If 600 people from here can work there and not travel to neighboring counties for work that's a good thing. I do think in rural counties we need to support housing development density. Folks are in horror at what is happening in a neighboring county with sprawling housing developments on former farms, but fight multi-family developments every chance they get. I don't think they realize that most zoned ag districts allow single family housing by right, usually with 3-5 acres per parcel. Developers have the cash to buy that land, and the houses they are building are way out of most people's price ranges, but being built regardless. 100 acres divided into 20 mcmansions with sweeping lawns is no less of a problem than 100 acres with 2 warehouses on it.

Since you asked (and ONLY since you did), I feel resentful toward those who complain about "change". Building Amazon warehouses (or the like) are ways to offer jobs to myriad people in our communities. In addition, the tax revenues are huge! How can people complain legitimately about keeping our communities financially solvent??

It's not just food. It's Amazon, Walmart, and everyone else who sells stuff online. They compete with each other and one way is the speed of delivery. We import stuff like never before. Before it ends up at its final destination, it goes to a warehouse.

Yes, that's what I was referring to

Everyone listen to this guy he has a lot of made up internet points.

When are you all going to realize that the new robber barons don’t care about natural beauty and pristine views!! They want large warehouses that can be leased forever. And it will not be long before they replace the working poor with computers and robots. The Pennsylvania we had 30 years ago will never be seen again.

I sympathize with this, but when that vacant property belongs to a different developer there isn’t really a means to prevent someone else from doing it without artificially favoring existing landholders

The government claims land all the damn time. If it sits empty x number of years state buys back at going rate. There solved it for you.

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You’ll wish we’d been using it when suddenly Ukraine doesn’t provide nearly as much grain it used to and prices increase while availability decreases.

Eminent domain is costly and people fight it in court all the time. Also, do we really want the precedent of the state seizing the property of a private individual and selling it to another because the state doesn’t like how you’re using it?

I think vacancy taxes are a better solution, for housing and retail.

I think zoning needs to change, and how we approach land use. I believe that redevelopment needs to be a priority and that new sites cannot be built while abandoned or vacant area exists.

The huge warehouse by Exit 3 on 81 in Greencastle is enormous. It was mostly fields but now it's just grey concrete.

It's sad that such a pastoral land needs to be filled with trucks and concrete just so people have jobs.

I want good soil so people can grow things. The world doesn't need a new strip mall. However we get there would be great.

Annoying as hell too, seems they shut all of i81 down for at least a few minutes a day to move stuff across the highway. I always dread the "rolling road block" sign

Development is good. Don't want to turn into upstate new York and celebrate a new gas station as the biggest thing to come along in a decade.

The area around the Lehigh Valley that is being consumed by warehouses is ridiculous. The traffic is obscene, the roads are being destroyed.

They needed to work out the infrastructure before agreeing to allow all the tractor trailers. Where I live now there are two main freeways, one of which tractor trailers are not allowed to use.

Used to be the easy way into town and now you roll the dice if a cavalcade of trucks are doing something to clog it up.

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I used to live in Chester county and land development has officially run me out of my hometown. They have developed so many overpriced apartments, caused rent to hike by hundreds in our area, and the township has done next to nothing to adapt the infrastructure to accommodate higher population. The schools have been overcrowded for decades and it's only making it worse. Very sad to see what's happened to my town. Thanks for asking!

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I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing the major land development. I've noticed a huge amount throughout the counties surrounding Harrisburg. Absolutely crazy. Especially the new manufactured apartments and homes which much of them are sitting empty.. A way to launder money?

I want them to build as many warehouses as they can in the old industrial parts of Philadelphia near the highways. Decaying industrial land doesn’t serve anyone well

Starting to creep in Gap Lancaster County. Old structures torn down for gas stations and open farmland going to warehouses along 30. Looks like shit

Can the builders put photovoltaic cells on the roof of the warehouses, & generate some electricity?

My issue with all of the warehouses in Cumberland valley is that they haven't expanded 81 to three lanes with no general plan to do so in the future. 81 is generally speaking jam packed with trucks. And just about every exit is packed with warehouses. Also there are frequent accidents with the increased truck traffic.

It’s better than anther shopping mall.

It is not good. There was a huge warehouse built in York County that destroyed an entire forest. It is sad.

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> I want them to build as many warehouses as they can in the old industrial parts of Philadelphia near the highways.

Honestly, I don't think they can get enough people hired from the surrounding neighborhoods that would reliably show up for work real early in the morning and not high.

And that's in addition to all the other usual "problems", like the cost to put up a warehouse using city union labor is significantly more expensive.

They build dozens of them in the Lehigh valley and half of them are unoccupied so what's the point

We are well into late stage capitalism and I fear there is no going back. They will slash and burn every wooded area, top cut mountains for mining, and turn every open field into a development until there is no more money to be made and we are done as a species.

From Lehigh Valley, now live in Kutztown. I think warehouse construction is a bubble ready to pop. Too bad Dutch Springs lost the waterpark and open scuba to warehouse development, but glad Stu made 16 million plus off the sale.

Kutztown is insulated where the farms are owned by Mennonites. That's their family trust fund, wrapped up in tradition. They aren't selling.

I was thankful to get out of the York and Harrisburg area when I did. There are so many freaking warehouses. It's crazy. But population and industry growth that I saw in 15 years was way more than the area could handle. Every piece of farmland was being sold either for a warehouse or a development and the highways were not growing at all to accommodate it. I understand the need for jobs in certain areas, but when they put up a warehouse and all it does is cause people to move to the area, it may not actually do much to help those already living there.

>More farmland could be put in preservation, but that requires us to pay more taxes.

Would it?

>Very little can be done about it. It's private land, zoned commercial

Maybe stop zoning productive farmland as commercial/light industrial?

>They want large warehouses that can be leased forever

Can they be leased forever? A number of warehouses sit empty, waiting for someone to lease it.

BuT wHy ArEn'T pEoPLe HaViNg KiDs?!?!?!?!?@?

Giant mystery right?

>If it sits empty x number of years state buys back at going rate.

Define "empty."

If it gets people jobs then so be it. Its the price if convenience.

Yes. The state and county essentially buy the land from the owner via an easement. Its usually much less than market rate but not an unsubstantial sum. The farm has to qualify and there is a very long backlog to get high enough on the priority list to get into easement which can take years to decades. More funding would speed the process up. Funding requires a source, and that source is probably going to be through taxes.

Our nation really isn't manufacturing much they keep sending jobs overseas to maximize profit. Furthermore, the warehouses are build to hold the items we'll consume and throw away every year or two.

I am glad to see clothing and shoe companies gaining popularity because some people want quality clothes that last and can be repaired.

A way to fight warehouses is buy local, buy handmade, buy repairable.

I remember when it was all farm fields, how it's transformed in such a short time.

>The state and county essentially buy the land from the owner via an easement.

You may be right on much of the above, but this blurb is not one of those.

I actually wanted kids when I was younger. Things didn't work out, didn't meet the right woman, wasn't in a good place financially or health wise.

If we had a decent society, things would have been different. Long story but thinking about all the serious hurdles in life that set me back, a decent society that takes care of it's citizens would make everyone's life better instead of the top crushing everyone else while hoarding wealth.

I moved to upstate NY for that exact reason, to each their own

Are you retired? What do you do for work? I went to college in Rochester, and I know lots of people that moved away from NY to find decent work, and a few that stayed behind and work for peanuts

I'm in the Lehigh Valley and all these new warehouses and $500k+ housing developments are frankly disgusting. So many beautiful fields and woodlands destroyed to make room for these ugly concrete slabs and overpriced cookie cutter houses.

In my heart I just don't believe in the "warehouses improve the local economy" spiel. Those jobs that they create are miserable. Pay is sometimes okay-ish but I'd argue it's not worth the trouble these warehouses bring. Increased road traffic, pollution, (from the traffic), excessive wear and tear on our already crumbling roadways, and the physical damage on the bodies of all the people who bust their butts at these warehouse jobs aren't worth it. Besides, out of the 10(?) newer warehouses in my area, I think only about half are occupied. You can't "create new jobs" if the building is still empty.

Unless you’re doing it via land trust this is the ELI5 of how it works in PA for the counties that have a preservation program.

Most people don't really think about it beyond green=good. Many Americans think cities and dense areas are bad for the environment.

I generally lean towards YIMBYism but I don't think it's wrong to be a NIMBY for this issue. Warehouses result in a lot of pollution which has a negative impact on people's health. The NIMBYs that annoy me are the ones who oppose multifamily housing or renewable energy.

> More farmland could be put in preservation, but that requires us to pay more taxes.

A lot of these farms were profitable and don't have to be converted into something else (including more heavily regulated "preserved farms").

I'll give you an example. There was a very controversial warehouse proposal near Kutztown around when COVID started. Whether or not it gets built is an off topic tangent and its not exactly clear what's going to happen there.

But rather than talk about that part I want to talk about why the farmer wants to sell to a warehouse builder in the first place:

It comes down to zoning. The farm has been profitable and stable for hundreds of years at that location, but in recent times it became rezoned as industrial use (against the owner's wishes). Which means a significant property tax hike. Now throw in the farmer wanting to retire, the lack of younger people wanting to be farmers (for various reasons), and its "screw it I'll sell to someone who will actually use it as what its zoned for and cash out/retire."

Now why & how did a multiple-centuries old farm become zoned as industrial in the first place? Harrisburg. Its politics plain and simple. Harrisburg's vision for the future of Pennsylvania's economy in places like Berks, the Lehigh valley, and elsewhere is to attract warehouse jobs. Harrisburg went to the local municipal governments and said hey we're demanding you zone X amount of your territory as industrial to attract these sweet, sweet warehouse jobs [that pay crap, treat their employees like crap, and congest the shit out of our roads]. We don't care if your residents hate it, this is the future we want.

The 81, 78, 33 corridors were heavily pushed towards rezoning with the explicit goal of building these warehouses. Rt-222 isn't by any stretch of the imagination part of this original "vision" but it was collateral damage from shit-policies.

PennDot envisions building a 5 lane highway circle on the east end of Kutztown on Rt222 to accommodate a 300-acre, 4-warehouse mega-facility with no plans to expand the road infrastructure of Rt-222 between there & Allentown due to the delusion that the trucks will never want to travel east (lol). They expect them to go west, hook up with 81, go down to 78, just to cross east towards Allentown & etc.

No, not it is not how an easement is obtained. Not even a fit with the word "easement."

Pave paradise; put up a parking lot.

I think easement is being used correctly here. Some level of government purchases an agricultural easement. It’s essentially a subsidy to the land owner so long as the property remains farmland (or green space in some instances). Should the property transact, the easement goes with it. This would probably require language in the easement agreement that would allow for sunsetting or some other form of release which would likely include a repayment of benefits.

I'm in the Lehigh Valley, and it's really sad to see so many warehouses popping up. The thing that perplexes me is that so many of them are empty. Some for years at this point. If/when these are occupied traffic is going to be a nightmare. No thought or care seems to go into the roads infrastructure when these things pop up.

In a few years, my wife and I are going to move away to be closer to family. No longer want to stay here long term.

That's what really perplexes me. So many of them are empty, yet more keep getting built.

Yes it goes into the deed. Heres a link explaining how it works in PA for a land trust or state/local purchase. https://conservationtools.org/guides/148-farm-preservation-options-for-landowners#heading_1

Zoning changes dont mean a property tax hike. Any farm over 10 acres is going to be in clean and green so its tax burden is minimal. The issue is their children aren’t interested in farming so there is no one to hand the land down to. That means when they are ready to retire the land will go up for sale to the highest bidder. In many municipalities (mine included) the local zoning/planning commission -muni not county, zoned this land industrial as way to comply with the MPC and also block industrial development within the township. Its going to be a farm forever right? The proliferation of warehouses, which meet the industrial zoning definition, has meant that land can be bought and developed for that purpose. It can also be used for industrial farming, but those companies prefer to work with farmers to minimize liability not own the land themselves. Right now warehouses have the money to buy the land. 10 years from now it could be some other industry competing for it, for better or worse.

The MPC requires municipalities to allow for all types of zoning. So some land somewhere within the muni will have to have this zoning designation. You cannot say no industrial in the township. So if your township is all farmland like many are, some of it will need to be zones industrial.

>Some level of government purchases an agricultural easement.

Now you have it right. It is not the land which is purchased but the easement on the land. Ownership does not change.

One thing which could be done better? Enforcement of the terms of the easement. Right across the street from Cumberland Valley High School in central PA, a conservation easement was placed on a historic horse farm. Years later, the property was sold. And warehouses are now under construction on that very property.

>The MPC requires municipalities to allow for all types of zoning.

The MPC does not require that productive farmland be rezoned to commercial/light industrial. That particular zoning can be placed elsewhere.

True story: I know a guy who owned a small farm on which he had placed a conservation easement. His municipality, without cause, decided to rezone his area from ag to some form of commercial/light industry. He asked them not rezone his land as that type of zoning was inappropriate for his preserved farm and because the municipality already had an area with that zoning designation. The municipality refused his request. At the next meeting, he brought a couple of lawyers. The zoning was not changed.

>So if your township is all farmland like many are, some of it will need to be zones industrial.

No township in PA is "all farmland." The MPC does not require farmland to be rezoned.

In West Town Township (Chester county) there was a ballot measure to save a farm from becoming a complete residential development. It won by a landslide. Maybe similar initiatives and more local activism in your area can occur.

https://natlands.org/crebillyfarm/

For example, my muni is probably 65-75% farmland and conservation forest, including gamelands, if not more. Residential mostly only along valley floor with about 2,000 total residents. Our multi-family zoned area is all currently developed with single family homes. The one undeveloped parcel is in a flood zone (deliberate). The only “developable” land for industrial is currently a turkey farm. The other two areas are currently in use as a junk yard and auto repair shop. The only developable land by right in the muni for either residential or industrial is either existing farmland for residential or that turkey farm. I’m in Perry Co. Look at Juniata or other small rural counties municipalities and you’ll see this is more common than not. Its not that it has to be rezoned, its that you cannot exclude any type of zoning from a municipality. So if you were coming up with your zoning when the MPC was created in 1970, you’re going to pick areas away from residents and farms “who would never sell” to give that industrial zoning designation to.

There are so many warehouses going up around Middletown and going south to York on 83. It's completely insane. It seems most are just being built to rent out later. A lot of them seem to sit empty before anyone ever uses them.

>The only “developable” land for industrial is currently a turkey farm. The other two areas are currently in use as a junk yard and auto repair shop.

The MPC does not require that the turkey farm be zoned as anything other than its existing use. Nor, for that matter, does the MPC require that any part of the residential area be rezoned into something else. To the extent you continue to suggest that the only option re zoning is to rezone ag or any other zone into something else, I will challenge your reliance on the MPC to force that type of rezoning. Simply is not required in the MPC.

btw - your township could rezone (if not already zoned as such) the junk yard and/or auto repair shop for commercial/light industrial.

Luckily, here in my corner of Chester County we’ve been able to preserve a lot of open land and farmland.

I'm from one of the neighboring townships that recently got its first warehouses, and I've seen a lot of yard signs in Lowhill opposing the warehouses.

Well, what’s the alternative? Unemployment or lifelong low employment? The economy is changing; warehouses and transportation are big now, and PA is in the perfect geography for it. And if you want to see farms, in a lot of places, look about 5 miles away from the interstate and lo, there they are.

Lowhill has just over 2,000 people in 14 square miles and my family still lives there.

It's still a fairly rural, really hilly township and even now has no 4-lane roads, not even Route 100 and just one traffic light at an awkward-angled intersection and no police department.

Warehouses have no business there.

Everyone knows NIMBYism keeps the cost of living down and builds wealth.

Sure. But you cannot exclude a zoning district, so somewhere in the twp has to allow for that zoning. For ex. you cannot say no trailer parks allowed in the township. There has to be some parcel with a zoning designation that allows it. This applies to everywhere except Philly because that is the only 1st class city.

There is a difference between allowing and excluding. A muni not having every zoning district under the sun does not mean it has excluded that district, just that it has planned according to current uses and known future plans.

Pretty sick of it honestly. I live by Carlisle and central pa has warehouses going up like hotcakes

I get why people hate it. But for me personally, in my field, I'm thinking of moving back to PA, specifically Harrisburg due to the amount of warehouses/logistics companies. Wages/salaries for non-grunt work in the metro are probably the highest in the state, higher than the Philly metro. The problem is getting around w/o a car.