Pennsylvania Smart Growth

ELI studies local and state land use and development laws and policies in Pennsylvania. Approaching the state as a model and case study, ELI evaluates practices and promotes those that foster smart growth while offering solutions to problem policies that create sprawl.

ELI’s work in Pennsylvania includes:

• Concept for Pennsylvania Urban Sewer Rehabilitation Funding. ELI examines a possible new approach to funding the rehabilitation of sewer infrastructure in older urban municipalities.
• Pennsylvania's State Water Plan: What Now? Pennsylvania's new State Water Plan offers some opportunities to improve integrated water management in communities and watersheds across the state, and some needs for legislation and funding support.
• Funding Green Infrastructure on a Watershed Basis: Lessons from the Pennypack Experience. Green infrastructure is unnecessarily hard to do on a multi-municipal basis. Some basic reforms could improve Pennsylvania's ability to take advantage of this new tool.
• Saving $ — Managing Water: Regional and Collaborative Approaches to Water, Sewer, and Stormwater Management in Pennsylvania. A conference was held on May 22, 2008 in Harrisburg, PA for elected officials, authority managers, watershed organizations, planners and engineers, and citizens interested in new and innovative ideas for regional and collaborative water resource management. Read the conference report.
• James M. McElfish, Jr., “New Paths in Existing Law: Opportunities for Pennsylvania to Avoid Sprawl,” Widener Law Journal, Vol. 16 (2007).
• An issue paper published in December, 2005, Planning For Development and Sewage Infrastructure: Can We Be Consistent?
• Sewage Facilities and Land Use: Collaborating for a Sustainable Future. Held on October 24, 2005, the conference included a briefing on two cutting-edge new studies; a forum for discussing the interaction of sewage facilities planning, land use, and prosperity with expert panelists; and an opportunity to share practical innovations in collaborative governance and identify legislative and policy solutions.
• A 1999 report, Plumbing the Future: Sewage Infrastructure Sustainability in Western Pennsylvania, which discusses the relationship between sewage infrastructure decisions in southwestern Pennsylvania and effects on the urban, suburban, and rural landscape of the region.
• ELI is examining a Pennsylvania program that targets state investments using sustainable development principles. Its 2008 review Targeting Public Dollars for Sustainable Development examines Pennsylvania’s Keystone Principles for Growth, Investment & Resource Conservation coordinated interagency approach to support sustainable economic development and conservation of resources. The Principles, unveiled by the Governor’s Policy Office at ELI’s 2005 Sewage Facilities and Land Use Event, can make Pennsylvania a national leader in governance.