Wyomissing Sets Hearing on Berkshire Mall Overlay Rewrite

Wyomissing Borough Council will hold a public hearing Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 7 p.m. on a rewrite of the zoning overlay that covers the Berkshire Mall and the stores, hotels and theater around it. The proposed Ordinance No. 1464-2026, posted Friday on a new borough web page, would let a redeveloper of the mall site build department stores, warehouse clubs, grocery stores, drive-through restaurants, gas stations, hotels and apartments above shops without a zoning hearing, on buildings up to 75 feet tall, on any site of one acre or more.

An overlay district is a second set of zoning rules laid on top of the regular district; an owner can build under the regular rules or, if the site qualifies, the overlay's. Wyomissing has had this one since 2008, but the posted 21-page ordinance repeals it and starts over, redraws the boundary to name the mall at 1665 State Hill Road by parcel number, and adds a long list of uses and standards the current text does not have (pp. 1-2, 5).

The borough says it is writing rules before a project arrives, not for one. Its FAQ says no "formal land development application has been submitted" for the mall and that council "has not approved any redevelopment project"; it answers "No" to whether the ordinance is "being written for a specific developer," and says the borough "has been approached by several developers interested in exploring redevelopment opportunities for the property."

What the overlay would allow

The ordinance's Exhibit A lists what could be built by right, meaning without a Zoning Hearing Board case, "whether or not permitted in the underlying district" (p. 6). By right is narrower here than it sounds: every project would still need a Master Redevelopment Plan approved by council, described below, and council would also approve the completion schedule (§501A.5.G, p. 5) and any parking study. A special exception, by contrast, needs a hearing before the Zoning Hearing Board. The by-right list (pp. 6-7):

• Shopping centers, retail stores, department and discount department stores, "free-standing discount superstore, and warehouse club, with no maximum gross floor area per establishment."
• Grocery stores, supermarkets and specialty food stores.
• Restaurants, cafes and coffee shops, including drive-throughs, as long as the waiting line of cars does not block a parking aisle, driveway or sidewalk.
• Convenience stores with or without gasoline, and fuel or service stations, with pumps, canopies and tanks at least 100 feet from any home.
• Medical offices, clinics, walk-in and urgent care centers; gyms and indoor recreation; offices, banks with drive-throughs, and hotels; theaters and indoor amusement.
• Several principal buildings and uses on one lot, and any mix of these uses in one building.
• Storage for warehousing and off-site distribution as an accessory use, in the same building as the main use, up to 25 percent of its floor area.

Apartments and townhouses above ground-floor businesses are allowed by right up to 30 percent of the site's occupiable area, with no new homes on a first floor, and up to 60 percent by special exception; age-restricted "55 or Over" housing above businesses is also allowed by right (p. 7). The ordinance does not restate those residential rules in full; it incorporates them from the prior ordinances, 1286 and 1381, "subject to the same standards and limitations" (p. 7). The current code allows age-restricted housing up to 80 percent of a site (Chapter 27, p. 27-106).

A site qualifies if it is under one owner or redeveloped under one Master Redevelopment Plan; is at least one acre, with no part more than 100 feet from another; holds existing commercial or industrial buildings, most of them built at least 30 years earlier and "no longer appropriate" because of "changing economic or technological conditions"; and sits in a commercial or industrial district or within 50 feet of one (p. 5). The current code requires 10 acres and buildings at least 50 years old (Chapter 27, pp. 27-103 to 27-104). The Sept. 16 council deck shows the acreage change on its map slide, "10 ac ▸ 1 ac" (deck, slide 3), but does not mention the change from 50 years to 30.

The dimensions

The table in §504A (p. 7) sets a maximum building height of 75 feet, building coverage of 60 percent and impervious area of 75 percent, all measured across the whole redevelopment site rather than lot by lot. Impervious area is ground that sheds rain, such as roofs and pavement. The minimum open area rises from 10 percent in the current code (Chapter 27, p. 27-108) to 25 percent, though green roofs, mulch, gravel and landscaped parking islands all count, and, as now, only 5 percent of the site has to be open ground at grade (pp. 7-8). The 75-foot height, 60 percent coverage and 75 percent paved area are unchanged from the current code (Chapter 27, p. 27-107; deck, slide 5). Setbacks along the outside of the site return to the full underlying-district setback; the current code allows 66 percent of it (Chapter 27, pp. 27-107 to 27-108). Inside the site, lot lines can have zero setback.

The ordinance also lets a developer carve a site into separate deeded lots drawn around individual buildings or building pads, including interior lots with no street frontage and no minimum size, as long as the whole site keeps meeting the rules together and every lot is sold subject to a recorded declaration (pp. 8-9).

Parking, trees and a mandatory association

Required parking would be set by a table (retail and grocery at one space per 300 square feet, apartments at 1.5 per unit, hotels at one per unit), then reduced for uses that share spaces at different hours, and reduced again by up to 25 percent for bike racks, a repair station, bus shelters, internal sidewalks, connections to neighboring streets and trails on the borough's bike-route map, a multi-use path along the frontage, benches and lighting, and electric-vehicle chargers (pp. 9-14). Council could instead accept a parking study by a traffic engineer, and the site could never have fewer spaces than the study's peak demand (pp. 11-12, 14).

Parking lots of 20 or more spaces would need 10 percent interior landscaping, an island at least every 15 spaces, one deciduous tree per 10 spaces with shade trees in the islands, and tree canopy covering 30 percent of the lot at maturity, with at least two-thirds of the trees native species (pp. 14-15). A 10-foot planting strip would separate parking from any public street and a 15-foot strip, with a six-foot screen within three years, from any residential district (p. 15). Along every public street, the developer would install decorative street lights matching Park Road and Penn Avenue, pay the borough to plant one street tree per 45 feet, and install a bench every 300 feet and, on frontages over 1,000 feet, a landscaped seating area of at least 400 square feet; work along State Hill Road and Route 422 needs PennDOT approval (pp. 19-20).

Holding all of this together is a lot owners association, a legal body that every owner of a lot in the site automatically joins and that cannot be dissolved without council's written consent (p. 17). It would own and maintain the shared stormwater basins, private water and sewer lines, parking lots, drive aisles, snow removal, landscaping, sidewalks and signs, levy assessments on each lot, keep a capital reserve based on a study updated every five years, and report to the borough at least yearly (pp. 17-18). Unpaid assessments would become a lien on the lot, a legal claim that must be paid before the property can be sold free and clear. If the association fails to maintain stormwater, utilities, life-safety items or landscaping after 30 days' notice, the borough could do the work itself and lien every lot "in the manner provided for municipal claims" (p. 18).

Everything would be approved through one Master Redevelopment Plan, a single site-wide plan showing lots, buildings, parking, landscaping, stormwater, utilities, streetscape, a traffic study, a phasing schedule and the association documents, reviewed by the Planning Commission and approved by council with land development approval (pp. 20-21). Signs are loosened too: wall signs would not have to face a street, and freestanding signs could be 25 feet tall and 100 square feet per face, one per 1,500 feet of frontage (p. 18).

Where the line is drawn

The ordinance describes the overlay as the commercial and industrial land south of the Warren Street Bypass bounded by Paper Mill Road and Woodland Road, "and shall include the entirety of the property known as the Berkshire Mall, 1665 State Hill Road (PIN No. 96439719529232), together with all commercially zoned properties adjacent thereto lying between State Hill Road, Woodland Road, Paper Mill Road, and Route 422 (SR 0422)," even where they fall outside the general description; a lot split by the line is wholly inside (p. 5). The current code's boundary paragraph does not name the mall (Chapter 27, p. 27-103).

The map is labeled "Scenario B," not the "Exhibit B" the ordinance's Section 2 refers to (p. 2), and the borough posted it two ways: a one-page PDF of the borough zoning map sheet, prepared by McCarthy Engineering and dated Jan. 26, 2024, with the outline, seven business labels and an unsigned official-map certification block, and a cropped image on the web page that adds six more. By the image's labels the white outline encloses the Berkshire Mall, Berkshire Mall West, the "Old Navy, Aldi, etc." center, the Crowne Plaza, Home Depot, AMC Theater, the Shoppes at Wyomissing, a "Rest. Store," Best Buy, Days Inn, Wyo Fit, Studios on Spring and the Comfort Inn, nearly all of it on land the map keys as C-2 Retail Commercial. A residential R-3 parcel along State Hill Road appears to sit just outside the line. The map does not label the parcels it does not name, and we have not matched the outline to county parcel records.

The Sept. 16 deck says the borough Planning Commission recommended the boundary "include more real estate tax parcels north of the original proposal, but to also include the Wyomissing Inn and Berkshire Mall sites" (slide 9). The posted map does not label a Wyomissing Inn.

The county's 18 comments

The Berks County Planning Commission reviewed the draft and sent an Oct. 16 letter signed by planner Taylor Lawrence with 18 numbered comments. Under state law the county's review is advisory; council can adopt the ordinance over any of them. Among the points:

• No "Exhibit B" was in the submission, only the map labeled "Scenario B." A county planner "confirmed via a phone call on 9/29/26 with Salzmann Hughes, P.C. law office" that the Scenario B map is the right document and should be relabeled (p. 1). The posted ordinance still says Exhibit B and the posted map still says Scenario B.
• The same call confirmed that the white outline, "in addition to a 50ft. buffer area," is the intended boundary; the county asks the borough to hatch and name the overlay on the official zoning map (pp. 1-2).
• Part of the outline touches an R-3 residential district where apartments are allowed by right, and the overlay bans new ground-floor homes. The county asks whether that "may conflict with the purpose of the R3 district" and what portions lie "outside of the boundaries" (p. 2).
• Because offices, shopping centers and banks are already allowed in the underlying C-2 district, the county asks whether an applicant must say which rules it is building under and whether the overlay's standards, its landscaping rules for example, are mandatory or optional (p. 2). Council got a partial answer in September, from a speaker the minutes do not name: "A developer could choose the underlying development standards, partake in the RD3 standards, or could follow the proposed incentives plan" (Sept. 16 minutes, pp. 4-5).
• The terms "parcel," "lot," "area" and "site" are used interchangeably; "Master Redevelopment Plan" is never defined; neither are "commercial or industrial development," "majority" or "originally constructed" in the 30-year test; and grocery store, supermarket and specialty food store have no definitions (pp. 2-3).
• The county recommends "sufficient financial assurance" in case the lot owners association fails (p. 4), moving the Master Redevelopment Plan section to the front so applicants know it is required (p. 4), a table of uses, and a tracked-changes version of every amendment (pp. 3-4).

Three passages the letter quotes, from §502A.C, §506A.3 and a conflicts clause it places at §506A.6 (the posted draft has it at §501A.6), do not match the posted draft in wording or numbering; its quotations from §501A.4, §501A.5 and §507A.1 do. The posted file's name dates it Aug. 6, before the Sept. 17, 2026 date carried in the county's project number, so the version council will hear may differ from the one on the web page; the borough has not posted a tracked-changes version, a response to the county's comments, or a statement of which text was advertised. The deck told council in September that if it makes "substantive changes to the proposal following feedback at the Public Hearing," state law would require a second advertised hearing about 10 days later (slide 9).

Two landscaping ordinances ride along

The borough page also posts two unnumbered drafts. A 13-page zoning amendment adds a definition of "Landscape Architect" and rewrites §604, the borough-wide landscaping section, to require a landscape plan drawn by a registered landscape architect with every preliminary or final land development plan (pp. 1-2). It sets one street tree per 45 feet of frontage, bought and planted by the borough at the developer's expense (p. 3); six-foot screen buffers between residential and non-residential uses that fill in within three years (pp. 3-4); one tree per 10 parking spaces in any lot of five or more (pp. 4-5); a two-thirds native-species rule and a ban on species the state lists as invasive (p. 5); and recommended tree lists (pp. 6-7). Its later sections insert the same landscape-plan sentence into a dozen sections covering ten districts and overlays, including "Section 505A" of Part 5-A (p. 10), a section number Ordinance 1464-2026 would reassign to fee-simple subdivision.

A three-page SALDO amendment makes the matching changes to Chapter 22, the subdivision and land development ordinance, which governs how plans are submitted and reviewed: it revises the landscape architect definition and requires the landscape plan with both preliminary and final plans (pp. 1-2). The county's Oct. 2 letter on that amendment says "Staff has no adverse comments" (p. 1). No county letter on the §604 zoning draft is posted.

The Reading Eagle legal ad of Oct. 28, as excerpted on the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association's public-notice site, says council will hold a hearing Nov. 10 at 7 p.m. "to consider and receive public comment on two proposed" ordinances; the free excerpt cuts off there. The borough page posts three drafts. The ad's full text sits behind a CAPTCHA we did not attempt, so we cannot say which two were advertised.

How it got here

Council voted 6-0 on Aug. 11 to let its special land-use counsel, Sam Wiser of Salzmann Hughes, advertise the amendment, contingent on reviews by the solicitor and the borough and county planning commissions, with "any material modifications returning to Council for review prior to advertisement" (Aug. 11 minutes, p. 4). Wiser walked council through the revised draft Sept. 16, saying the revisions "are not meant to encompass the needs of any developer specifically" and that "no concept plans have been provided for formal land development review" (Sept. 16 minutes, p. 4), as we reported in our September story. The deck from that night told council the county needs at least 40 days after submission before a hearing and that adoption was "unlikely" before November (slide 9). The Planning Commission also suggested rideshare facilities as a parking credit (slides 7, 9); the posted draft's credit table does not include one.

The mall itself has been for sale for a year. Namdar Realty Group, the owner, told WFMZ in October 2025 that the roughly 60-acre property was under contract, and WFMZ reported that the buyer, Abrams Realty and Development, planned to demolish everything but Boscov's for new retail (WFMZ, Oct. 14, 2025; Oct. 15, 2025). In March, WFMZ reported that a concept plan developer Peter Abrams had shown the borough about a month earlier, posted with the agenda of an Economic Development Committee meeting that was then postponed, was already outdated, and that a consultant's March 4 letter evaluated a 20-year tax increment financing structure to support $15 million; Abrams said closing had been pushed back to mid-July, the story's final line says the sale is now expected to close in September, and he put demolition and improvements at about $30 million (WFMZ, March 24, 2026; TIF story). As of Aug. 14, PhillyVoice described Abrams as "reportedly under contract" for the mall. We found no report that the sale has closed. None of the ordinance documents names a buyer, but council's Aug. 11 minutes record "brief discussion that Abrams, the potential mall redeveloper has been made aware of the proposed overlay changes" (p. 4), and a resident's written comment, dated Oct. 9 and attached to the Sept. 16 minutes, asks "how the proposed changes relate to ideas previously presented by Peter Abrams" and objects to allowing fuel stations by right rather than by special exception (pp. 7-8).

This is a mall redevelopment, not a data center; our data center tracker keeps the two apart, and Wyomissing's separate data-center draft is still in committee.

How to attend

The hearing is Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 7 p.m. at Wyomissing Borough Hall, 22 Reading Blvd.; the borough's calendar entry blocks it from 7 to 9 p.m. and titles it "Council Meeting | Public Hearing." The same night is council's regular November meeting, when the budget calendar calls for adopting and advertising a preliminary 2027 budget; see our budget preview, which covers the session that reconvenes Nov. 3. As of Oct. 31 the Agenda Center listed no Nov. 10 agenda, so the order of business is not yet public; the September deck's "next steps" slide lists "Council action on Ordinance No. ____ of 2026" right after the hearing, so a vote the same night is possible (slide 10). The Planning Commission's posted Nov. 2 agenda does not list the overlay.

Pennsylvania's Municipalities Planning Code requires a public hearing before a zoning amendment is enacted, and the ordinance's own recitals say that step has to come first (p. 1). Council's posted agendas this fall have carried public-comment periods at the start and end of each meeting. Borough Hall is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., at 610-376-7481. Our guide explains how to find any Berks municipality's meeting schedule.