In its first meeting of 2013, the State College Borough Council began to review the Centre Region Comprehensive Plan.
The purpose of the new plan is to guide future growth and developments for the municipalities in the Centre Region, including the State College Borough, CRPA staffers said.
The plan will identify multiple items including infrastructure needs and community initiatives, all individually developed for the needs of the State College Borough, not of the Centre Region Council of Governments, CRPA staffers said.
Centre Regional Planning Agency staff members were in attendance, presenting the council with new updates to the plan and how it will look going forward in the upcoming year.
Many items that were included in the original 2000 plan were included in the new plan. The new plan also includes plans for sustainability, as well as community and university relations — all of which were not included in previous plans.
All updates to the comprehensive plan stemmed from community surveys and public hearings held earlier in the year, and staffers said that they will always be looking for comments to help improve the plan in any way they can to help the State College community, CRPA staffers said.
The implementation of the plan will require a strategy based on different levels of yearlong goals, CRPA staffers said. Annual reports will both measure progress and identify new actions and policies, CRPA staffers said.
A complete review of the comprehensive plan will be done on March 1 and the CRPA plans to compile all comments received to begin a 45 day review period. That time will allow community members to give input on what has been added, what is lacking and information and projects that the community will want to see happen, staffers said.
Council President Don Hahn asked how the public would be able to see this plan, and the staff informed council that it is available on the COG website and will continue to be released as inputs are added.
Council member Tom Daubert said he had concerns about the updated map and how certain residential and commercial land uses are placed.
Maps are compiled by inputs from regional and local staffs, Planning Director Carl Hess said.
Borough Manager Tom Fountaine said the comprehensive plan will continue to be reviewed by the State College Borough Planning Commission in January and will be brought back to council in February.
In a staff report, Fountaine said the COG code program withdrawals are still in the process of receiving information and feedback from stakeholders and rental permit interest groups. Fountaine said the withdrawals will continue to be addressed for council during January meetings.
