Dec 1, 2017 4 min read

RUFF CREEK – Most residents of Washington Township would like to see their community remain rural and agricultural.

That finding, gleaned from comments at public meetings and from a resident survey, helped guide a township steering committee as it worked to prepare the township’s new comprehensive plan, a blueprint for the community’s preservation and development.

“Washington Township always has been and will continue to be rural and heavily agricultural. We want to maintain that agricultural character and the township’s natural beauty,” township Supervisor Walter Stout said.

The idea of preserving the community’s rural character is featured prominently in the plan’s vision statement, which was developed during a lengthy planning process. That process has resulted in the preparation of a draft comprehensive plan that is expected to be considered for adoption next month.

Township residents will have an opportunity to comment on the plan at a public hearing at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 6 at the UMWA Career Center, 197 Dunn Station Road, Ruff Creek.

A comprehensive plan provides the township with strategies to address the “nature, pace and location” of growth in the community and serves as a policy guide for decision making, according to the plan’s introduction.

The plan also includes an assessment of community needs and a statement of the community’s vision in regard to future growth, development or preservation.

Though the plan acknowledges the community’s desire to keep the township rural, it also recognized the need to promote growth to maintain the township’s tax base, Stout said.

“We recognize we have to have areas that can be developed for housing and for commercial uses,” he said. “We have to grow the tax base so people aren’t taxed out of their homes.”

This is especially true as mining in the township continues and tax revenue from coal declines, he said.

The plan indicates future commercial development should take place in areas where it already exists. Residents who provided input continue to believe the majority of space should be preserved for rural and agricultural uses, the plan said.

Any “high-impact” uses such as commercial and industrial uses, should be confined to the area of the Interstate 79 interchange, it said.

In regard to new housing, the plan calls for preserving existing housing stock and considering new housing in existing residential areas. The plan also indicates public water is a priority throughout the township, while public sewers should be focused primarily in the Ruff Creek area.

The township began developing the new comprehensive plan in February 2016. It would update a development plan adopted in 1989.

The steering committee, formed by the seven members of the township planning commission and six residents and assisted by Mackin Engineering, held four public meetings on the plan during the planning process. Additional public input was received from a mailed survey. Public input was an important part of the process, Stout said.

“It’s a plan that was developed by the people who live here, not by township officials,” he said. “In general, it lets you find out what the people think is important and where they would like the township to be 20 years from now.”

The plan notes the township has experienced few changes in recent history except for those prompted by the rise of the natural gas industry.

Population has remained fairly stable since 1980 at between 1,000 and 1,100 residents; housing units, at 438, have remained substantially unchanged since 2000. In regard to land use, the plan notes 93.5 percent of the township’s 27.2 square miles of land is forest land or crop or pasture land.

The plan addresses goals and objectives developed through the planning process and through public input in regard to economics, housing, community facilities, environment, transportation and land use.

It is fairly general in regard to recommendations, providing the township with more of a direction, or “big picture,” Stout said, from which specific action or policy can be developed through, for example, land use or zoning ordinances.

The township has zoning as well as its own subdivision and land development ordinance, both of which were last updated prior to 2007, before the boom in natural gas drilling. The plan calls for updating both ordinances.