Existing Borough land use patterns are shown on Map 10.  The map depicts a classic pattern of town development with a mix of high intensity retail and office uses in the town center that is generally surrounded by residential neighborhoods that decrease in density with distance from the center.  The southeast corner of the Borough is mostly industrial as a result of prior railroad access in this area.  More recent changes to this pattern are reflected by commercial uses along the east and west Borough entrances that emerged with the increase reliance on the automobile after World War II.

Table 8:  Existing Land Use

The data used to prepare the Existing Land Use Map is summarized in Table 8, which lists the total acreage for each land use category.  The table shows that about half of the Borough’s total 1,062 acres is residential.  Institutional uses, including schools, churches, government facilities and the Chester County Hospital, account for the next most dominant use category with nearly 150 acres or 14% of the Borough area.  The majority of the institutional acreage consists of West Chester University, Henderson High School and Chester County Hospital and associated offices.  A total of 74.3 acres is devoted to recreational uses, consisting of 38.5 acres of public parklands, and 35.8 acres of private recreation lands.  About 78.6 acres are classified as industrial.

The Land Use Map is used as basis of noting possible land use conflicts, such as between adjacent industrial and residential uses that are found in the east southeast sections of the Borough, and for delineating use patterns as a basis for defining neighborhoods within the Borough.  In conjunction with the existing Borough zoning map, it was also used to help define the eight “Planning Areas” shown on other maps in this report and used to display the Comprehensive Plan Recommendations discussed in the final chapter of this report.