The Role of a Planning Commission in Zoning

- Each community in Pennsylvania must work to protect its quality of life.

This work is done by planning commissions that organize how their land is used and creates zoning districts for different purposes.

Hi, I'm Peter Wulfhorst, an economic and community development educator for Penn State Extension.

I'd like to talk about the instrumental role, Pennsylvania planning commissions play and how the zoning districts are created.

Pennsylvania planning commissions have tasks and responsibilities for determining the future of their communities.

For this they rely on a Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code or MPC, first passed in 1968 by the Pennsylvania legislature.

This document enables local governments to have a say in the plan for the land use and applies to all local governments in Pennsylvania, except for the cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in Allegheny county.

The MPC contains 14 articles that address planning agencies, land use regulations, including subdivision and land development and zoning, as well as administrative procedures.

Planning commissions in Pennsylvania have many tasks and responsibilities that they undertake.

In doing so, they have an impact on future growth and development.

This includes the development of a zoning ordinance, and a review of zoning applications addressed in Article six.

Zoning is very common in Pennsylvania, with about two thirds of Pennsylvania local governments having zoning ordinances.

In this map you can see that the majority of municipal zoning ordinances are in the Eastern and Southwestern parts of Pennsylvania.

Section 29.1 defines a principal role of planning commissions as drafters of the zoning ordinance.

They also have the job of preparing amendments to the ordinance and reviewing amendments prepared by the governing body or landowner.

Zoning ordinances consist of text on a map.

The zoning map is important for property owners to know what zoning requirements apply to their property.

Putting together a zoning ordinance can be complex and time consuming, because there must be a rational reason for regulating private property.

The zoning ordinance should reflect goals and development objectives of an adopted comprehensive plan, which should be overseen by the Planning Commission.

And since a zoning ordinance regulates land use basic issues in the drafting process include, which land uses?

What are the combinations of compatible and related land uses in the community, and why should land uses be separated?

How many zoning districts should there be?

Do we have simple or complex land use patterns that require few or many zoning districts?

Can use as be combined or do we need distinctions between uses?

Where is the location of land use boundaries?

How much land should be devoted to each type of use?

What are the lot sizes, building coverage on a lot and other dimensional requirements?

And finally, how to handle existing uses that don't conform to the new zoning regulations.

We call this last one nonconformities.

The question becomes whether nonconformities can expand or be changed or disallowed.

These issues will need to be addressed by the planning commission, often with public input, as they continue to draft the ordinance.

Planning commissions work for the citizens so their involvement is crucial.

Good zoning needs ideas from as many points of view as possible.

Public should be engaged from the beginning.

Often, failure to involve citizens in the drafting of a zoning ordinance can result in the ultimate defeat of the ordinance.

Property owners want reassurances that their investments are secure.

A zoning ordinance assigns rights to properties in different zoning districts, designating what a property may be used for.

One such used is a permitted use or use by right.

A permitted use requires a permit to be obtained from the zoning officer.

This residential, R-1, zoning district has minimum lot sizes, setbacks, lot coverage and height requirements for the permitted uses.

There are other uses that need more scrutiny because of the impact on the community and adjoining properties.

These are complex forms of permitted uses.

These are called special exceptions and condition uses, and undergo extensive review.

This review by the planning commission must address whether the use is identified as a conditional use in a zoning ordinance, the specific standards that must be met by the applicant and whether granting the conditional use will adversely affect the public.

It's important to remember that zoning can change with the times.

If the municipality thinks its zoning ordinance may have some defects and wants to change the ordinance, before there is a challenge, they can draft a Municipal Curative Amendment.

The amendment will cure a perceived defect in the ordinance.

Planning commission review the Municipal Curative Amendment before it is adopted by the governing body.

An example of this is from 2015, is when Jessup borough and Lackawanna county adopted a Municipal Curative Amendment to address the sighting of the power plant in the borough.

Jessup borough added electric power generation plants serving a power system including code generation plants as a conditional use in an M1A business park zone.

They decided to exempt the plant from being within an enclosed building, and meeting the height requirement of 44 feet.

This plant can now utilize natural gas for the Marcellus Shale formation and provides local employment opportunities.

Importantly, planning shall not happen in a vacuum.

It is crucial for commission members to keep up with legislative changes, court decisions, and good planning practice.

Legislative changes to the Pennsylvania Municipality Planning Code and legislative decisions can affect the legality of a municipality zoning ordinance.

The MPC was amended by Act 43 of 2002 that defined and provided a no impact home based business as a permitted use in every zoning district.

This underscores the need for a planning commission to be flexible in having the ordinance be in line with the state legislation.

Pennsylvania communities are lucky to have planning and oversight and the role of the Planning Commission in drafting and enforcing a zoning ordinance is crucial to help communities thrive.

This process sets the direction of future development design and limits is negative impact on a community