Regional strategy to be used to plan growth

The concept lets municipalities reject what they don't want.
MERCER -- Mercer County is in a position to become one of the first Pennsylvania communities to engage in multimunicipal cooperative planning.
This means that instead of each municipality independently making plans for growth and development, they meet with neighboring communities to form a regional strategy.
A study by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public & amp; International Affairs concludes that such cooperative planning offers advantages such as: zoning flexibility, greater likelihood of attracting state funding and permits, better local planning, and availability of more planning tools from the state for cooperating municipalities.
What's behind this: The cooperative effort is the result of Act 67 of the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code of 2000, which allows two or more municipalities to work together for planning.
Cooperating municipalities may designate areas where growth or retention of rural character are desired, plan for zoning across a multimunicipal area and work together on developments and other facilities that have large-scale impact.
The concept calls for the county to be divided into subregions for planning, but allows municipalities to reject what they don't want.
Reason for choice: David Miller, associate dean of the graduate school, said Mercer County was chosen for the study because it has long been strong in planning and cooperation.
The study included formation of a steering committee of 20 county leaders which had meetings over the last 18 months.
County commissioners approved a resolution Thursday promoting multimunicipal cooperative planning in the county.
Dennis Puko, director of Mercer's regional planning commission, said the concept will be put into practice as his office begins work on the state-mandated updating of the county comprehensive plan.
He said he expects to submit a grant application by May for state funding to help prepare the plan.