County Asked to OK Exit for I-80: Supervisor Wants Long-Term Transportation, Land Use Plans Amended to Add Interchange
By Anne Danahy, The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.
May 14–Rush Township leaders want the Centre County comprehensive plan to include a proposed Interstate 80 interchange, but county officials say the project is not consistent with plans in the surrounding area.
Rush Township Supervisor Pat Couturiaux said Friday the township’s attorney will send the county a formal request to change its plan. A Lancaster County company wants to build a municipal waste landfill in the northern corner of Rush Township and an I-80 interchange to access the site. State and federal reviews of both projects are on hold in part because the projects aren’t consistent with the county’s long-term land use and transportation plans.
“It’s all about trying to create jobs, and it seems like we’re being stonewalled through the county,” Couturiaux said.
He said the interchange would not affect Snow Shoe Township.
But the area for the proposed interchange and industrial park is next to land in Snow Shoe Township that is zoned for forest/open space, and the interchange would connect with a road that goes through a section of Snow Shoe Township.
Bob Jacobs, director of the county Planning and Community Development Office, said Snow Shoe Township has declined to change its zoning, which was in place before the Rush Township project was introduced.
Jacobs said his office reviewed Rush Township’s comprehensive plan in early 2006 before supervisors there adopted it. He said his office recommended a few changes, but those were not included in the plan, which was adopted in February 2006. In particular, county planners said the plan didn’t address land use conflicts on the border area with Snow Shoe Township, and the document lists public agencies as possible funding sources for the interchange.
“We recommended a fairly large transitional buffer in Rush Township along the border and asked them to remove all language dealing with public funds on Interstate 80,” Jacobs said.
He said his office will reiterate those recommendations.
Rush Township also has met resistance from the Centre County Metropolitan Planning Organization, which prioritizes county transportation plan funding.
In March 2006, the MPO tabled considering the interchange until the state Department of Environmental Protection approves the landfill, if it does so.
An April 19 letter from a U.S. Department of Transportation official to Rush Township says: “Because this will be a regionally significant project that will eventually require a Federal Action … some phase must be included in either the (MPO’s Transportation Improvement Program or Long Range Plan) for (Federal Highway Administration) to participate in the study.”
Anne Danahy can be reached at 231-4648.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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