From making decisions on contentious public issues to learning the ins and outs of the Municipalities Planning Code, being a member of a zoning hearing board can be a challenge. In this course, Elam Herr, retired PSATS’ assistant executive director and the chair of the East Hempfield Township (Lancaster) zoning hearing board, has a wealth of experience and will help you to better navigate this challenge. Topics to be covered include procedures for deciding variances and special exceptions, handling hearing-related questions, Ethics Act requirements and much more. Attendees will also learn specific, practical tips that will leave them better prepared for their next meeting or hearing. While this course is geared more toward newer zoning hearing board members, those looking for a refresher on their obligations will also benefit.

Traditional public outreach efforts often fail at soliciting input from every segment of the community. As a result, municipal projects may not meet the true needs of their constituents. This session will explore which groups are often under-represented in traditional outreach programs and provide creative engagement strategies to ensure all voices are heard. Participants will also hear real-world success stories from local municipalities that have used these strategies.

The session will focus on Planning in Rural Communities during the development of Westmoreland County’s first rural Active Transportation Plan. The Smithton Borough - Scottdale Borough Active Transportation Plan was adopted in December 2020 and provides an excellent example of how planners, local officials and county and regional partnerships, non-profits and institutional resources and state agencies can collaborate on community engagement and planning efforts. Capacity building at the local level was vital to developing a Plan that advanced active transportation priorities, projects and initiatives within local budgetary parameters and that met local governmental expectations.

Supervisors who enact zoning ordinances must understand the purpose and function of zoning. This workshop explains why we have zoning, how we implement it, and the tools it affords townships to protect the public’s health, safety, and welfare. The workshop is intended to educate both the newest supervisors and the ones who have seen it all. We will discuss the legal roles of supervisors and others, zoning hearings (including conditional uses), and several other important aspects of zoning ordinances that are often overlooked or misunderstood.

The recent publications by Daniel Parolek of Opticos Design and policy changes from around the country have spurred a renewed interest in ‘Missing Middle’ Housing. Missing Middle Housing includes a diverse set of housing types that were fundamental building blocks of pre-1940s neighborhoods. Today, typical single-family zoning often prevents a range of housing options within a given district or proposed residential development. This presentation will review how Cranberry Township has worked to create greater flexibility and remove regulatory barriers imposed by typical Euclidean zoning. Specifically, the presentation will examine the Township’s recently adopted Planned Neighborhood (PN) Overlay and its elements. In addition, the presentation will review important metrics to consider as other communities analyze their existing housing stock and plan for long-term solvency and financial sustainability.

As individuals grow apart in today’s society, communities need to come together. Communities not only provide a geographic location where people live, they also offer social interaction and common ties that bind their people together. Ideally, these community features and related opportunities should be available to benefit all within a community, including the very young and old residents. Many communities would like to engage citizens in an all-age inclusive planning process, but do not have the knowledge, staffing or expertise to develop such assessments and strategies to capture information for use in a decision-making process. In this webinar, representatives of Penn State Extension will first engage participants in a discussion of challenges they have faced and provide practices for how they can address them to the benefit of their communities.

In this webinar, representatives from the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission will review key issues that are important to your township’s comprehensive planning and implementation efforts (using Susquehanna Township as an example), including infrastructure, land development, open space, housing/building stock, cultural resources, and transportation. They will also discuss how you can most effectively use the tools in the Planning Toolkit developed by TCRPC.

In this webinar, Jason Wert with RETTEW will review the many benefits – financial, long-term resiliency, and sustainability – that grid-independent solar operations can bring municipalities and municipal authorities. He will use as a case study the University Area Joint Authority in State College, which incorporated a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) into its original solar array and has since achieved approximately 80% grid-based energy independence through this integrated system at its wastewater treatment and reuse facilities.

Designed to emphasize the importance of parks and public open space as essential elements in community infrastructure, this webinar will highlight opportunities for land managers to improve maintenance, operational efficiencies, and sustainability efforts. Participants will also network in small groups to share best practices in resource management and capital planning across various industries, that can be applied to public works, facilities, grounds, and public property stewardship.

In this webinar, representatives of the Montgomery County Planning Commission will cover several new and emerging areas in the planning world and their efforts to address them. They will review the impacts the COVID-19 pandemic has had on commercial environments and how those impacts might continue. They will also share suggestions regarding what municipalities and developers are doing or could do in the future to address the pandemic impacts on their commercial areas. In addition, they will address the uptick in the number of multifamily residential developments that have been proposed or are in development and review new research on the impacts of multifamily housing and how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts this residential segment.