Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Land Use Planning topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Franklin County planning director outlines Imagine Franklin 2035 goals, farmland preservation and infrastructure priorities
Summary
Planning director Quentin Clapper gave an overview of the department’s responsibilities, the Imagine Franklin 2035 comprehensive plan and priority programs including agricultural preservation, CDBG, housing trust fund, bridges, MPO planning and mosquito/tick control.
Quentin Clapper, director of the Franklin County Planning Department, briefed commissioners on the department’s work and priority items tied to the recently completed Imagine Franklin 2035 comprehensive plan.
Clapper said the comprehensive plan sets more than 60 action items and the department maintains a three-year implementation plan to tackle near-term priorities. "We have a goal of ensuring high quality of life, growth, and place in Franklin County," Clapper said, and he described the department's role as land-use planning, grant administration and advisory support to municipalities and several county boards.
Clapper reviewed multiple programs the department administers or supports: subdivision and land-development review in an advisory role to 22 townships and boroughs; the Agricultural Land Preservation program, which he said has reached a milestone of roughly 20,000 acres preserved; a wait list of about 60 farms seeking easement enrollment; and the county bridge program, which oversees 91 county-owned bridges and a shared bridge with Cumberland County.
He described funding and grant programs including an annual Community Development Block Grant allocation of about $350,000 for infrastructure, housing and public services targeted to low- and moderate-income residents, and a housing trust fund funded by deed-recording revenues. Clapper said recent deed-recording transfers have declined and estimated annual receipts at about $90,000 for the trust fund going forward.
Clapper also described the Franklin County Metropolitan Planning Organization’s role in programming federally funded transportation projects and noted recent studies including an Interstate 81 improvement strategy and a rail-trail extension feasibility study. He said the I-81 strategy prioritizes staged improvements toward an eventual three-lane cross-section in each direction but that timing will depend on replacement cycles and funding.
On environmental and public-health work, Clapper described the mosquito and tick-borne disease control program funded by a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) grant; the program supports a specialist and two technicians and provides surveillance and control for Franklin County and neighboring Bedford, Fulton and Huntingdon counties.
Commissioners thanked Clapper for the overview and had no substantive questions beyond clarifications; no formal action was required.
