2007 News
October 15, 2007
Bucks County Commissioners Support Moratorium During Municipal Plan Updates
Planning Commission Executive Director Lynn Bush Speaks before Pennsylvania House Bill 904 Hearing, Oct. 12, in Buckingham Twp.
Emphasizing the “importance of good planning and zoning” in the challenge of managing growth, Executive Director of the Bucks County Planning Commission Lynn Bush detailed the county administration’s support for House Bill 904 – which, if passed, would allow municipalities to impose temporary moratoriums on development when they are rewriting their land use ordinances.
Ms. Bush spoke during an Oct. 12 hearing at the Buckingham Twp. Municipal Building. House Bill 904 is co-sponsored by Northampton County Rep. Bob Freeman and Bucks County Rep. Bernie O’Neill.
“Bucks County Commissioners Charles Martin, James Cawley and Sandra Miller support the efforts of Rep. Freeman and our Bucks County representatives Bernie O’Neill, Paul Clymer, John Galloway, Anthony Melio, Scott Petri and Katharine Watson, to give municipalities a chance to adequately prepare and plan for development, as proposed by House Bill 904,” Ms. Bush noted during her opening remarks.
Ms. Bush discussed six underlying reasons of offering support of the bill, including the following key points:
1) Providing community services to meet community needs cannot be achieved when development outpaces schools, emergency services and transportation systems.
This point, based on the “principle of concurrency that other states have in place,” states that when unplanned development occurs, municipalities have to play catch-up with schools, wastewater and water services, emergency services, public safety services, and road improvements. Pennsylvania law currently gives almost no ability to get developers to provide for needed community facilities;
2) Municipal planning and land use decisions are handled by volunteer members of the local planning commission and board of elected officials. In a period of rapid growth, the review of development plans takes up all the limited resources available to local government. In order for Pennsylvania to effectively sustain local government control of land use planning and zoning, local officials need more tools to do the job.
Pennsylvania has made a commitment to keeping decision making at the local level, and we support this. At the Planning Commission, we devote time and effort to assisting those communities that seek our help and work with them to develop good plans and ordinances. But this cannot ease the burden on local officials who have the ultimate responsibility for planning and zoning;
3) Valuable community resources need to be identified and protected.
Pennsylvanians treasure the farmland, forests, and waterways of the state, and municipalities across the commonwealth have enacted rules for protection. From the statewide Natural Areas Inventory initiative to DCNR’s greenways program to the Pennsylvania Agricultural Land Preservation Program, the valuable lands that should be preserved alongside development must be identified and preservation measures put in place. Communities must have the opportunity to do the planning and zoning for this to happen;
4) Taking time to plan and control development won’t stop development.
Giving local officials time to think about their planning will not lead to reduced development, but it will result in better communities. Municipalities will still have to follow the rules of the Municipalities Planning Code and of Pennsylvania case law. With adequate time to study the community and its needs, we can look forward to better conceived community development plans that enhance development potential;
5) Getting serious about the Commonwealth’s Keystone Principles for Growth, Investment and Resource Conservation – Let’s be as good as our rhetoric.
The Commonwealth’s adopted Keystone Principles of 2005 set forth a framework for planning better communities. The Keystone Principles make a point of saying that services such as water and sewer should be planned in accordance with development areas and that service extensions should be consistent with comprehensive plans and implementing ordinances. These principles can be advanced by state investment decisions, but the real action is at the local planning commission meeting or board of supervisor meeting where land use decisions are made. Let’s make this real by giving local officials a chance to do their planning;
6) Add a definition for “development” to HB 904.
The Municipalities Planning Code does not define “development,” but HB 904 describes suspending “applications for development.” We need to define what this means. There could be ambiguity as to whether this means building permit applications, land development plans, subdivisions, special exceptions, or conditional uses.”