Watershed Conservation Plan - Destination Erie

comprehensive vision or plan, have significant potential impact (e.g., increased tax base, private investment),
and demonstrate local capacity, technical ability, and leadership to implement the project.
• Plan regionally, implement locally—Support multi-municipal, county, and local government planning
and implementation that has broad public input and support and is consistent with these principles. Provide
education, training, technical assistance, and funding for such planning and for transportation, infrastructure,
economic development, housing, mixed use, and conservation projects that implement such plans.
• Be fair—Support equitable sharing of the benefits and burdens of development. Provide technical and
strategic support for inclusive community planning to ensure that social, economic, and environmental goals
are met.
This state-level leadership is critical to direct communities toward reaching sustainability goals, and the
provision of proper planning tools from the state level is a vital part of attaining these goals. However, it will
be even more important now for local and regional leaders to prepare both short- and long-term plans that
address sustainability, and those plans will need to be implemented on a day-to-day basis. Locally elected
officials who advocate "smart growth" have a very difficult job, because implementing local plans and
regulations that advance sustainability may be viewed as an affront to the "status quo" of how things have
been done in the past. In the interest of sustainability, however, the ten principles of Rendell's Economic
Development Cabinet (2005) be given priority consideration by decision-makers in all of the watershed's
municipalities, whenever any land use planning, policy changes, or rulings are made.
Traditionally, municipal planning and land use controls have been weakly applied when it comes to
sustainable growth. Whenever new municipal comprehensive plans have been developed, they rarely have
been multi-municipal in scope, and invariably have called for the development of additional land without any
major concern about the loss of agricultural or other rural enterprises, or the loss of natural areas and wildlife
habitat.
Even if a municipal comprehensive plan does call for some restraint in the amount of future
urbanization, infrastructure like water and sewer is not tethered to these plans. In fact, the Pennsylvania
Municipal Planning Code specifically states in Section 608.1(c) that the plans of municipally created water
and sewer authorities do not have to comply with municipally adopted comprehensive plans. Water and sewer
authorities may extend lines to areas that have not been targeted for growth.
Local land use controls, such as zoning and subdivision/land development ordinances, also do not have
to be in accordance with adopted plans for a community, although it is encouraged that they be "generally
consistent" with each other. Also, municipal plans and land use regulations are not required by state law, so
some areas have no land use plans or controls at all. Communities in the western portion of the Pennsylvania
Lake Erie watershed fall into this category.
Although the previously stated definition of sustainable development relates to future generations,
urbanization's continuing advancement into local hinterlands also affects the current generation. Since there
is little population growth, what is largely a duplication of infrastructure into newly developed areas is costly,
and affects the fees and taxation rates for extending water and sewer utilities, energy and communication
services, and roadways. These costs therefore have a substantial impact on quality of life issues, especially
when they are subsidized by local and state bonds—which, of course, must be financed by all taxpayers and
not just those individuals who are directly benefiting from the newly developing area.
8.4 Achievement of Sustainable Development
Achieving sustainable growth will be difficult in Pennsylvania. The state has the second-highest ratio
of land consumption to population growth in the United States. The study area community faces two choices.
We can continue our current development practices and witness the continued development of outlying areas
in a sprawling, non-sustainable manner, or we can reform our land use policies and practices to support
smarter development. The survey conducted by the Erie County Department of Planning (2002), previously
described in chapter 1 of this document, indicates that the three "highest priority" needs for action are
reserving woodlands for recreational use, protecting open spaces from development, and preparing long-range
community plans to guide future growth. Both surveys summarized in Chapter 1 indicate that the people of
Erie County want development to occur carefully in ways that will not compromise natural resources. It
remains to be determined how this outcome can be brought about.
155