Facing The Gas Rush With Flexibility Not Zoning

Last month, the citizens of Franklin Township polled themselves about zoning. Their poll showed a 65% response rate with 87% opposed to zoning. That response was more than double the response to the original NTC survey of 2003 with a very different outcome. With time and awareness, people had become far more interested and opposed.

Their town leaders should listen to their views and act accordingly. Indeed, all towns should make a comparable assessment before voting any new regulation so dramatically different and rigid as zoning.

There are benefits and costs to zoning. A major cost and risk is rigidity of zoning ordinances, especially those based on a comprehensive plan that never considered natural gas exploitation. The “Gas Rush” is new and gas exploitation is likely to be the primary driver for our economy.

State code does not allow zoning ordinances to be changed rapidly or frequently, with even less flexibility for joint ordinances or individual ordinances subject to a joint planning commission.

We need to understand the real changes facing us and be able to adapt quickly and flexibly. Consider this excerpt from the Penn State website on Natural Gas Impacts - Local Government Information: "Many local governments will need to greatly expand and upgrade their comprehensive community planning efforts. The fast pace of gas drilling--and all of its related activities--means planning has to be done on a continuous, daily basis. Every new well drilled changes the community a little bit. Once-a-month meetings of the planning commission can’t keep up with the change. New thinking about how to plan for gas exploration must also exist."

There are alternatives to zoning that can meet local needs and provide for flexible county-town partnerships. For more facts, references, and ideas on gas and zoning, along with a high-growth non-zoning success story, visit this website at http://jessupjottings.blogspot.com/.

To meet the uncertainties of the gas rush, we need flexibility not rigid zoning based on a plan already overtaken by events.

( This post also appears as a "letter to the editor" in the 28Jan'09 editions of the Susquehanna County Transcript and the Susquehanna Independent.)