PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE OF NEW CASTLE COUNTY, DE
Renaissance has contributed to a variety of innovative transportation and land use projects in New Castle County, DE to support the County’s long-term growth and revitalization.
New Castle County COVID Recovery
NCC @ 2050 Comprehensive Plan Assistance
Churchman’s Crossing Community Area Master Plan
New Castle County COVID Recovery
New Castle County, DE
Renaissance helped develop programmatic and code-related updates to help struggling small businesses along aging commercial corridors in COVID recovery and reinvestment under a separate contract with the New Castle County Department of Economic Development. We studied best practices in COVID adaption from across the country. We also listened to business owners, stakeholders, and residents along the corridor and collected data to understand the evolving context of Concord Pike. We combined these data and observations into a set of near and long-term recommendations to support transformation of the corridor into a more walkable, mixed-use place over the next several decades. Strategies include near-term approaches such as facilitating open-air dining to longer term support for more flexible uses and site layouts on constrained parcels.
NCC @ 2050 Comprehensive Plan Assistance
New Castle County, DE
Renaissance worked directly for New Castle County Department of Land Use on their NCC@2050 comprehensive plan update to evaluate different development scenarios and frame next steps for the most promising strategies. We led the development of three land use scenarios that involved targeted changes in land use density and diversity.
We started with a baseline that reflected the adopted countywide forecasts at a transportation analysis zone (TAZ) level and developed a suitability model that considered land availability and accessibility to allocate different control totals. The three alternatives to the no-build baseline reflected a scenario limited to small-area plan updates to control totals; a more optimistic forecast for regional growth based on third-party econometric sources; and a policy-oriented scenario directed toward compact growth and improving housing opportunities in commercial areas.
We also assisted in the development travel-based metrics for each scenario and the assessment of travel demand effects, including the roles of land use changes and transportation systems, in serving area needs.
Churchman’s Crossing Community Area Master Plan
Wilmington Area Planning Council (WILMAPCO)
Churchman’s Crossing is a commercial center in unincorporated New Castle County, Delaware. Served by I-95 and the SEPTA regional rail system, the area has high levels of access to the greater Philadelphia region, but the same freeway and rail lines serve as barriers to local connectivity.
Working as part of an interdisciplinary team, Renaissance led the land use and travel forecasting / TDM elements of the Churchman’s Crossing Community Area Master Plan to help transform a suburban jobs-campus into a mixed-use area with walkable centers. This effort included a Planning and Environmental Linkages report and a strategic plan for establishing a Transportation Improvement District to replace traditional traffic impact studies with a pro-rata share approach to guiding new development.