January 2024 Update

December and January have been busy months for the Consultant Team and the Township. In December, FHI Studio sent out more than 5,000 postcards with information about how people could participate in the survey. Using the USPS’ Every Door Direct Mailer service, we targeted postal routes with moderate- and low-income households, a group that had not participated as much as other groups. In the middle of January, we also sent out a “final opportunity to participate” email to everyone on the Township’s listserv.

The results of these and earlier efforts were fantastic: in the last few weeks of December and early weeks of January, the number of participants reached 500. In total, the project team collected more than 3,000 open-ended comments from participants along with hundreds of answers to fixed-response questions. The responses demonstrated that people in Radnor are deeply connected to their community and share a love for the Township. They collectively envision its continued improvement but are also deeply concerned with how to preserve its unique heritage while continuing to evolve in the face of changing conditions.

FHI Studio will be presenting the full findings to the Steering Committee in the middle of February and is tentatively scheduled to present to the Board of Commissioners at the end of February and the Planning Commission in early March.

FHI Studio has also been working on its technical analysis of Radnor’s’ trends in demographics, housing, mobility, and many other topics. Some notable early findings:

  • As of 2020, Radnor has outpaced the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission’s forecasted growth by 1,420 people, or 4.5%, of the forecasted population. However, much of that growth was in college-age students (those between 18 and 21).

  • There has been a decline in the number of middle-aged residents (25 to 54) and older adults (over 75).

  • Radnor's inflation-adjusted real median household income increased by 20%, outpacing the county's 18% decline and the state's 6% growth during the same period. The number of households in Radnor earning less than $150,000 decreased, with a particularly large decline in the number of households earning less than $75,000.

FHI Studio will spend the remainder of February further developing its analysis, which it will present to the Steering Committee in March. Full presentations will be made to the Board of Commissioners in late March and the Planning Commission in early April.

If you would like to stay posted about the project and be notified of upcoming events, make sure you’re signed up for project emails.

October 2023 Update

FHI Studio, the Township, and the Steering Committee worked hard in October to get the word out about the plan and the virtual workshop. Mari Schaefer (Steering Committee) and Adam Tecza (FHI Studio) attended the Pumpkin Patch event where they talked to residents, promoted the workshop, and got input from people on a quick activity. This was the third event that FHI Studio attended in just over 6 weeks, including the Unity in the Community event and Fall Festival.

The Township has also been promoting the plan and workshop:

  1. Emails have gone out to several lists, including to people signed up for Township updates and to community, civic, and sports organizations.

  2. The Township posted about the project on their social media.

  3. A press release was posted on the Township’s newsfeed on 9/29 and Main Line Times and Patch both released articles about it.

  4. A poster was placed at the Friends of Radnor Library book sale (October 20 – 22) and a poster has been in place at the entrance to the Township building.

As of Oct 30th, there have been just over 100 participants in the workshop and more than 80 people have signed up for project updates.

As the team has promoted the plan and workshop, it has also started ramping up the technical work. This has included a large data gathering effort that includes everything from US Census data to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data that will be used to produce report maps. The team has also been gathering and starting to review a wide range of plans.

In the upcoming months, the team will continue to promote the workshop and undertake an analysis of key data to develop a trends and conditions report. If you would like to stay posted about the project, make sure you’re signed up for project emails.