Agenda - Planning Commission - 04/04/2013

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IC)l�l t�t,y� lIl l Abou Dean S. Severson, AICP, is a principal agricultural and rural plan- ning analyst for the Lancaster County (Pennsylvania) Planning Commission. He has spoken atAPA national and chapter confer- ences on a variety of rural planning issues. Severson is also a member ofAPA's Small Town and Rural Planning division. He holds a bachelor's degree in agricultural economics and master's degree in urban and regional planning, both from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. o online during the month of , tok' l,t participate in our `Ask e Author" forum, an interactive feature of Zoning Practice. Dean . Severson, Alcr, will be available to answer questions about this article. Go to theAPA website at www.planning.org and follow the links to the Ask the Author section. From there, just submit your questions about the article using the e-mail link. The author will reply, and Zoning Practice will post the answers cumulatively on the website for the benefit of all subscribers. This feature will be available for selected issues of Zoning Practice at announced times. After each online discussion is closed, the answers will be saved in an online archive available through theAPA Zoning Practice web pages. It is in this context that the Lancaster County Planning Commission (LCPC) cre- ated its Rural Strategy in an update to its comprehensive plan in 2006. The goals of the Rural Strategy are to protect natural and agricultural resources, focus growth in rural centers, and support the rural economy. The county was among the first in Pennsylvania to adopt a growth manage- ment strategy in the early 199os focus- ing on the adoption of urban growth boundaries (UGBs) centered on the City of Lancaster, the incorporated boroughs, and suburbanizing portions of incorporated townships. These early growth manage- ment efforts did not focus on areas outside of the UGBs. �11i The updated comprehensive plan recog- nizes the need to look closer at the other side of the land -use coin and calls for the creation of both Designated Growth Areas (DGAs) and Designated Rural Areas (DRAs). DGAs are the successors to the UGBs, but DRAs are a new concept that formally recognizes rural areas as worthy of planning attention. These new designations are intended to address a con- cern often expressed by the public that plan- ners only look at rural areas, and particularly farmlands, as holding areas for future expan- sions of the DGAs. Designating an area of a municipality for long -term rural use, whether agricultural, resource, or rural center, con- notes a sense of permanence in both policies and actions. DESIGNATED RURAL AREAS In order to implement the vision forthe coun- ty's rural areas, the LCPC has established a three -step planning process for each compo- nent of the DRA— agriculture, natural lands, and rural centers —to be implemented by the municipal planning partners. In Pennsylvania, local municipalities are enabled to adopt their own land -use regulations, and all 6o of the county's municipalities have adopted a local zoning ordinance, while 41 have adopted a municipal subdivision and land - development ordinance. AGRICULTURAL AREAS The first step is to identify agricultural re- sources with GIS mapping. Because much of ®Approximately 75 percent of Lancaster County has soil classified as prime farmland or farmland of statewide importance. ZONINGPRACTICE 3.13 AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION I page 3