Coalition
Members

Apolacon Twp..
Bridgewater Twp.
Choconut Twp.
Forest Lake Twp.
Franklin Twp.
Jessup Twp.
Liberty Twp.
Middletown Twp.
Rush Twp.
Silver Lake Twp
Friendsville
Little Meadows
Montrose

VI. MULTI-MUNICIPAL COMPREHENSIVE PLANS & CONSERVATION PLANNING

Over the past year the township supervisors, county and regional planning staff, members of the various watershed organizations in the county, and other concerned citizens have begun a progressive and groundbreaking process to develop a multi-jurisdictional comprehensive plan. During this time, the scope of the plan grew to eventually include ten townships and three boroughs. The previous sections of this report provides a brief background on the characteristics of the landscape and natural systems in the Northern Tier communities, and discusses the conservation targets and threats to the region as a whole. This final section of the booklet is designed to provide assistance to the NTC communities as they enter the comprehensive planning process in three major ways: 1) discuss the multi-jurisdictional nature of the NTC comprehensive plan, 2) address the basic steps and elements to the comprehensive plan and 3) review a number of strategies that will both directly and indirectly address the threats detailed in the previous section of this report.

INTER-MUNICIPAL STRUCTURES AND THE PLANNING PROCESS

With the passage of Acts 67 and 68 in the 2000 Session of the Commonwealth’s General Assembly, municipalities are enabled to undertake a variety of intergovernmental agreements in the areas of comprehensive planning, municipal service delivery, tax revenue sharing and transfer of development rights. These new municipal powers provide powerful tools for the municipalities in the Northern Coalition to address agricultural and open space preservation through complementary ordinances, joint review boards and a multi-municipality comprehensive plan. In addition, development of a service-sharing and tax-sharing agreement will help issues of development and equity in the region.

Why plan regionally? Why work with other local municipalities to plan for the future? The first simple answer is that it saves money. The second is that it will allow each local government to better plan for their future by helping other municipalities plan for theirs. Inter-municipal cooperation involves a variety of planning and service provision issues – each with a history in Pennsylvania communities and governments. The delivery of municipal services, the building and maintaining of municipal infrastructure and the promotion of economic development are all important aspects of inter-municipal cooperation, and the contracts (or Inter-municipal Agreements (Imams)) provide the legal basis for the cooperation.

Imams provide the contractual basis for municipalities to plan together, or to carry out in a partnership, or as a collective, any governmental activity that they could do alone. Hence, any activity – from snowplowing to land use regulation – can be implemented jointly. Such activity allows municipalities to implement a comprehensive plan together, as well as develop more complicated regional mechanisms such as revenue sharing. In the realm of planning and land use regulation, intermunicipal cooperation typically takes two forms: 1) the adoption of complementary ordinances and 2) the formation of joint review boards or councils.

In Pennsylvania, the recent passage of the commonly referenced “Growing Smarter” legislation allows Pennsylvania communities unprecedented opportunities to plan regionally, while maintaining local land use authority and control. The first major, and most important, authority given by the legislation to the townships is the power to develop joint and multi-municipal plans. The law also authorizes manipulates who write a multimunicipal plan to jointly develop a “toolbox” of land use mechanisms, including zoning ordinances, joint zoning and planning boards, and planning commissions. Other tools include enabling language for tax revenue sharing among municipalities, public infrastructure areas that cross municipal boundaries, locally designated growth areas where funding and infrastructure would be prioritized, and provisions for transfer of development rights programs. Joint planning and review boards encourage equal consideration and application of the various ordinances and regulations across municipalities that take into account various municipalities interests. Moreover by sitting together on joint boards local lawmakers gain additional opportunities to work together on land use decisions – interaction that may benefit other areas of municipal action as well. Growing Smarter does not mandate any of the above planning mechanisms. Rather, it merely enables municipalities to use them if they wish. In doing so, joint review boards and complementary ordinances backed by a single comprehensive plan for the entirety of the region are the keys to an enforceable and successful plan for long term sustainable development, as well as conservation of the rural community of the NTC, its landscape and its way of life.

Perhaps even more importantly, Growing Smarter has removed the “all uses in every municipality rule” which the courts had required in the past for comprehensive plans and zoning overlays passed by communities. With Growing Smarter, any judicial review of local land use, which seeks to determine if all necessary uses are allowed and planned for in a community, must take into account the entire area bound by the intermunicipal agreement (Local Government Commission, September 2000). Therefore, under the new statute several townships can create a joint comprehensive plan, subdivision regulations and site review process, which allow municipalities additional creativity in protecting their unique character. The more rural townships may choose to zone for agriculture and attempt to maintain their rural character (for instance, Jessup or Forest Lake), while other townships or boroughs may be more urban in nature and choose to encourage development (Bridgewater). Through tax sharing those townships that choose to give up their development will still gain some of the benefit of regional growth. Moreover, if the townships are challenged for a specific use, they will have a much greater geographic area under judicial scrutiny within which the use can be accommodated.

Another important feature of the Growing Smarter legislation is the requirement that State agencies consider local comprehensive plans and ordinances when permitting for projects. State agencies are also directed to give priority funding consideration to communities that develop multimunicipal comprehensive plans, with particular attention to the “designated growth areas.” The legislation also provides for streamlining of the development review and permitting process at all levels of government in areas that are zoned commercial and industrial and fall within the designated growth areas in order to provide developers with greater certainty and expedition in the review process. At the local level, Growing Smarter provides direct enabling language for communities to use mixed-use zoning and encourage traditional neighborhood design through additional flexibility in site review and setback standards.

Application to the Northern Tier Coalition Figure 6.1 depicts a possible organizational chart for a multi-municipal comprehensive planning process and subsequent enforcement in the Northern Tier Coalition. Under this model, the NTC Planning Board would be the chief land use arm of the coalition. It is through this board that the specific plans and programs designed to achieve the NTC’s desired land-use would be developed. The Planning Board would also oversee the development and updating of the NTC Comprehensive Plan, as well as the writing of the various ordinances designed to enforce land use goals. Finally, the Planning Board would be the responsible for Site Plan Review.

The NTC Conservation Board would be responsible for coordinating the development of environmental conservation plans and programs, as well as writing the rules and regulations designed to protect the environmental quality and health of the townships. This board could also coordinate farmland preservation efforts, and work with timber and quarry interests to promote and enforce good management practices, as well as the protection (from development) of rural resource zones. The NTC board would be the liaisons for the NTC to other agencies and individuals (such as Soil and Water Conservation District, Watershed Associations, Penn State Extension, Recreational & Sportsmen interests and Pennsylvania DCNR).

The NTC Zoning Board of Appeals would be responsible for enforcing the zoning ordinances in the townships and establishing the rules and regulations as necessary to enforce the zoning ordinances of the town. The board hears requests for variances from zoning ordinances and appeals to zoning changes and revisions.

The NTC Board of Revenue Equalization is designed to oversee any type of revenue sharing program that the NTC may design. Revenue sharing is one of the many powers the NTC townships are enabled with through recent state legislation and the board would determine the formula for a revenue sharing system, and enforce the transfer of revenue.

The NTC Board of Public Works and Infrastructure would determine issues of resource sharing between township governments for snow removal, road repair, and various other public works issues. The board would also oversee sewer and water infrastructure plans and enforce the public infrastructure areas as designated by the comprehensive plan (public infrastructure areas are discussed in following sections for the report).

The NTC Landmarks Commission would oversee documentation and designation of locally important historic landmarks, roads and landscapes. The commission is empowered to draft and approve ordinances to protect and preserve historic landmarks, and acts as the liaison with other agencies (the state historic preservation office) to list properties on the National Register of Historic Places.

Each of these boards are designed to meet other various needs of the NTC, and to ensure as much participation in regional government as possible in order to take advantage of the various expertise of residents and public officials in the NTC. This involvement is crucial to the development and enforcement of a regional comprehensive plan. In many ways, this planning structure needs to look and feel like the communities it represents, in order for it to succeed. A plan is only as good as the people who put it together and are empowered by its provisions. On that note, it should be emphasized, however, that each of these boards, and the power delegated to them, are based in the local township supervisors power. The exact legal development of power sharing is a further topic, and one in which legal expertise in local government and land use planning must be sought.

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