Ferguson Township has chosen not to contribute financially to the Urban Village revitalization project despite previous contributions; however, the township's input will still be welcome, State College Borough Planning Director Carl Hess said.

"Participating would be preferable, but we will continue on our own," he said.

Ferguson Township manager Mark Kunkle said Ferguson Township would still like to be kept involved with decisions regarding Urban Village.

The Urban Village is an area west of Atherton Street where Penn State students occupy a majority of the houses. It is bordered on the north by the newly developed West Campus and on the south by Calder Way and downtown State College.

Kunkle said Ferguson Township could not contribute financially because it had not budgeted anything for the Urban Village project in its 2006 budget.

"We were not approached to participate financially," Kunkle said. "We had no idea there would be a consultant obtained, we were given no input and we did not put it into our budget."

Hess said he believes it is a misunderstanding that Kunkle said he was never approached to participate financially.

"I never sent anything to them directly, but the report that was done on the project said that the recommendation for the next phase would be to put together a revitalization strategy. I thought it was understood that we would both participate in that," he said.

Kunkle said that Trisha Lang, Ferguson Township planning director, and a member of the Ferguson Township Planning Commission are both still interested in being involved with the plan.

"We would hope that the borough would keep us in the loop," Lang said. "We don't want to see the door shut. We understand the borough is moving forward and we appreciate that they have an immediate need to do something in the area."

Kunkle said Ferguson Township paid 40 percent of a market feasibility study, which cost $27,500, and State College Borough paid 60 percent.

The study was done to determine student-spending patterns in the area. Ferguson Township participated because, although all of the area zoned as Urban Village technically lies within the borough, areas within Ferguson Township were still studied, Lang said.

Hess said after Ferguson Township split the cost of the study, he was under the impression the township would continue to contribute financially to the project.

"They were a partner in the market assessment study that was done, and there was an anticipation that they would continue to participate," Hess said.

Lang said it might look like Ferguson Township does not have an interest in the area, but the issues were not pressing enough to the township for the board to have decided it needed to contribute financially.

She said that in the future, if it comes to a point where Ferguson Township needs to contribute financially, it would be considered.

Borough Council member Elizabeth Goreham said the borough would go forward with Urban Village revitalization plans without Ferguson Township.

"I hope we can discuss this further," she said. "Intermunicipal cooperation is very important."