Commissioners wary about ‘Keep Pike Green’ details

By DAVID HULSE

MILFORD, PA — Despite the recent media attention drawn by a new smart-growth development plan for the county, the Pike County Commissioners said last week that they are not likely to take any position on authorizing a referendum for the $10 million conservation bond issue sought by proponents of the Keep Pike Green movement.

Waving the current copy of the Pike County Dispatch headlining a Keep Pike Green story, Commissioners’ Chair Harry Forbes said last Wednesday that the public could get the wrong impression of the commissioners’ position. “A lot has been put out there, almost as if the commissioners have blessed [a referendum for a bond issue.] We haven’t…. We’re far from any determination,” he said.

Recently Peter Pinchot, grandson of the conservationist and former Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot who made his home in Milford, outlined a plan to lessen the environmental impact of 100,000 new residents expected to settle in Pike in coming decades.

Pinchot warned that currently, local zoning and subdivision standards would allow new housing for those residents to consume up to 100,000 acres of currently vacant forest land. He said that kind of development could destroy the rural environment that people are moving to Pike County to enjoy.

Instead, Pinchot proposed that the new population be directed into as many as six newly created towns, each employing about 700 acres and providing about 2,000 homes. The new towns would cut the land consumption for housing by about 80 percent, he suggested. Unlike the residential communities already developed, the new towns would contain varied land uses to allow for commercial and light industrial development and related employment.

Citing a proposal by Northhampton Community College for a Pike satellite, Pinchot suggested that a college community could become the center of one of the new towns.

In addition to zoning changes, Pinchot also proposed a $10 million public lands conservation bond issue to help local governments acquire environmentally sensitive properties and development easements.

A telephone survey of Pike residents commissioned for Keep Pike Green revealed that 69 percent of those survey would agree to pay the cost of a bond, said to be $22 annually, said Sue Currier, executive director of the Delaware Highlands Conservancy.

But the commissioners say the jury is still out. Asked why they would support more public land acquisition when 30 percent of the county is already publicly owned, Commissioner Richard Caridi said, “That’s a very valid point. That’s one of the reasons we want more time.”

The commissioners agreed last week that they want to study the results of the county’s comprehensive plan survey and that county staff were still receiving data from that survey last week. “Those surveys go to the heart of the same issues,” Forbes said.

Compiling and digesting the survey data will take some time, Caridi said, and time limits for putting a referendum on the November ballot are short. “That’s a lot to digest in a short time. I’m not sure that spring primary time might not be better, to give us time to digest it,” he said.

“No one is against rural green preservation,” said Caridi. “The question is what level.”

Caridi said the county already has to meet spending obligations for a new administration building and a court to accommodate a second county court judge. “There is a finite limit on what we can sustain in capital projects,” he said adding, “But that doesn’t mean ‘no’.”

Forbes suggested that a bond could be structured through the county planning department, “to assist, not supplant, local efforts to acquire easements and property.”

Commissioner Karl Wagner agreed that a bond would better serve planning department efforts. “You can’t really buy a lot of easements for $10 million,” he said.

Commenting on the commissioners’ remarks, Currier said she was happy that the commissioners are seriously considering Keep Pike Green proposals. She noted that Keep Pike Green proponents are continuing to meet and consult with the planning department and the commissioners and that its organizers have no desire to either pre-empt the county’s decision making or create an adversarial situation. “We’re trying to work with all the related parties, so we can all work together,” she said.