Status of County Comprehensive Plans and the Development of a Regional Plan for Southwestern Pennsylvania by Lew Villotti

Lew Villotti is the Planning and Development Director for the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC),the ten county regional commission responsible for transportation planning and local development in southwestern Pennsylvania. Villotti talked about the status of the county comprehensive plans as well as the status of the new regional comprehensive plan. Villotti began by explaining that there are different types of regional planning, from city and county planning, to multi-municipal planning, and multi-county regionalism. Municipal comprehensive plans should be generally consistent with county comprehensive plans, which according to Villotti had been either very old or nonexistent until recently. Three counties had recently adopted comprehensive plans or amendments to their comprehensive plans at the time of the 2004 conference, and the other seven counties in the ten county region were not far behind. Villotti anticipated that all ten counties would have comprehensive plans within three years for the first time in the history of southwestern Pennsylvania.

Villotti discussed the role of the SPC in the region and explained that they are "the forum for regional consensus in public decision-making.” They receive state and federal funds for regional decision-making. SPC had a requirement to develop a 20 year regional plan, which is the “new” regional plan since the region became ten counties. The plan's purpose is to empower the new ten county region, focusing on the positive qualities. Villotti noted that seventeen states have populations less than the southwestern Pennsylvania region making it comparable to a state as far as population goes, so developing a new regional plan for the ten-county region was important as far as coordinating transportation and economic development and responding to industry demands and market realities.

The new plan built on the past two regional plans, while emulating successful strategies from comprehensive plans across the country, or the use of technology for a stronger, more thorough approach to public participation in forming a comprehensive plan. Visual presentation of information, expanding the use of the internet to reach people, and visioning processes to identify communities" wants and needs are all part of this. The three goals of the plan are to empower the region, transcend boundaries, and build on what came before. Empowering the region includes involving all members of communities in a transparent planning process, while identifying common goals among different sectors within the region by transcending boundaries. The SPC holds many public meetings in addition to collecting information from the public via internet.

Click here to read the SPC's 2035 Transportation and Development Plan for Southwestern Pennsylvania, which was adopted June 28, 2007.