Bellefonte Borough

To resolve Bellefonte's issues and achieve its goals, Bellefonte has been receptive to working with local civic organizations like Historic Bellefonte, Inc. (HBI) and Bellefonte Historical and Cultural Association (BHCA). It has worked with private consultants and the Hamer Center for Community Design for a vision plan. The Borough continues to work with the Clearwater Conservancy and the Spring Creek Watershed and is active in the Greenway project. Bellefonte is also pleased to be a part of the regional municipal comprehensive plan.

The regional municipal comprehensive plan is an example of where the state government has relieved various pressures from individual municipalities. Bellefonte Borough appreciates the opportunity to work regionally to accommodate land use issues. With only about 100 undeveloped acres of land in the Borough, the Borough had, if presented, few options to accommodate land use requests such as mining, industrial and mobile home park. The future of the local municipalities may also combine police force efforts, saving each municipality much money in operating their own forces.

Although all of the above efforts are moving the Borough forward in meeting their objectives, there remain issues such as downtown land owners with insufficient funds to refurbish their buildings, thus not bringing in the desired businesses that will spawn more tourism, new residents, and additional financial resources. However, the Borough has had recent success in securing a building complex through use of state grants and private philanthropic support. This may be a path for the Borough to take in more cases.


Walker Township

For the past three years Walker Township has being working on its new comprehensive plan. It seeks to preserve farmland while accommodating the anticipated increase in housing developments in the area. The goal is for more infilling of the developments. The barriers the Township is experiencing is from bodies outside the control of the municipal government.

Interstate-99 was planned and built by the state. The state did include local municipalities in impact studies, but ultimately, the Township will need to accommodate the people who are expected to seek out housing due to improved transportation. Likewise, the Benner, Spring, Walker Sewer Authority operates separately from the municipal government. In cooperation with the state, the sewer authority determines the sewage treatment needs of the community. The result is, the Township land will not be able to accommodate the septic systems for all of the new houses. As well, there are aging septic systems in the small villages. Thus, the sewage authority is expected to expand the sewer lines well into the Township. This will mean sewer lines going across active farmland. The concern is that the sewer lines increase the value of farmland, prompting farmers to sell their properties and, thus, contributing to greater sprawl.