The Centre Regional Planning Agency (CRPA) has taken steps to update their Centre Region Comprehensive Plan (CRCP), “One Vision For 2045.”
The CRCP, also known as “Plan 2045,” is intended to assist in directing the growth and development of the Centre Region — the area of Centre County, including State College — through receiving feedback from residents using online surveys and outreach programs.
Pam Adams, the planning director of the CRPA, said that while the CRPA is required to review the CRCP every decade, the decision to plan 20 years into the future allows for further exploration of potential improvements to the CRCP.
“We always look beyond the ten year horizon,” Adams said. “We hope we get more things right in the next 10 years about planning … but we try to look at a longer picture; we can make changes over the next 20 years if we start them now.”
Adams said Plan 2045 is intended to be a “visionary” projection that guides the drafting of “concrete” capital improvement projects by municipalities within the Centre Region through looking at aspects such as future land usage.
She said gaining input from community members via surveys and outreach events helps to develop Plan 2045 to better meet the needs of those living within the Centre Region.
“It’s not going to be helpful if we list 100 things that we wish we could have, but if we could say, ‘Here’s the top 10 things we can do under housing,’ that would be way more helpful than saying we’re going to do 100 things,” Adams said.
Todd Dolbin, the vice president of economic development at the Chamber of Business and Industry for Centre County (CBICC), said that his organization had assisted the CRPA in local outreach efforts for Plan 2045.
Dolbin said the end goal for the plan is to help grow Centre County in a smart way for students, residents and visitors to live, work and thrive in.
He also said the CRPA had used data from the CBICC’s most recent Centre County Economic Development Strategic Plan, as well as data from other sources, to aid in planning out Plan 2045.
“(Plan 2045) is very in-depth and it’s a lot of many different topics,” Dolbin said. “The idea is to make it a more friendly environment for our local businesses in our community to grow and to remove any barriers or to update any outdated regulations.”
A pedestrian crosses South Allen Street along College Avenue on Wednesday, April 3, 2024 in State College, Pa. State College borough recently received more than $4 million to make improvements to the road.
Dolbin said he believes the comprehensive plan effectively tackles national scale issues such as housing and transportation within the Centre Region, while taking into account new technologies to better meet the needs of both Penn State and State College in the long term.
Matt Herndon, the State College Borough representative on the Land Use and Community Infrastructure Committee (LUCI), said that while Plan 2045 will not directly impact State College, its data will still help to provide input for future developments.
“A plan like this doesn’t have a direct impact in that it is not,
say, zoning, which we are currently also doing,” Herndon said. “We can still learn things from it. Those results can help us, even if the future land use map and the comprehensive plan isn’t done in time for zoning. We can still look at those survey results and see what people in the borough are interested in and also in other parts of (the Council of Governments).”
As a member of the State College Borough Council Herndon said the surveys help him to better understand what State College residents want to see in the borough’s future.
“Certainly for myself, I want to think about what do my constituents want and how do you know that,” Herndon said. “These surveys are another really strong way to get information from people and what they want.”
He said he believes it’s important for municipalities to look into the data gathered for Plan 2045 so they may be better informed with how they can improve their communities.
“I think every municipal authority or board or commission would do well to look at the results of this plan to inform their actions,” Herndon said. “I think it’s a way to help these organizations better reflect the will of the community when they’re making their decisions or recommendations.”
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Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include a statement from the Pennsylvania Stat…