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Independent planning commission led to start of county planning department

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Today the Sun-Gazette offers the next installment in a weekly history series that tells the stories of those who came before us.)

The Lycoming County Department of Planning and Community Development has its roots in what initially was the Lycoming County Planning Commission, an independent agency created in 1966 and whose members were appointed by the county commissioners.

Its first executive director was Charles Zaleski, who left the commission after three years to go to law school, said Jerry Walls, who replaced Zaleski in September of 1970.

The commission was located in a private rental space in a Williamsport office building before an effort to rearrange the county courthouse led to the commission moving there. Though it was in a county building, it remained an independent organization, Walls said.

“At that point, we had a staff of about six people and we started taking on functions that were of help to the municipalities,” he said. “In the meantime, we had been able to get an enactment of a county subdivision and land development ordinance.”

The commission went on to write its first solid waste plan in 1972, designing the solid waste system and turning the landfill into the model for state regulations on lined landfills. The plan also laid the framework for the co-generation capabilities for recycling methane gas at the landfill.

“One of the things I was told within a year after I got here was that the city dump was running out of space. The Williamsport dump was the primary place people used, individuals and industries,” Walls said. “So I set about a countywide search for a site for a new landfill. I was chased off five potential locations, then I learned the U.S. Bureau of Prisons at Allenwood was having difficulty getting rid of waste because they manufactured furniture at that prison.”

Walls arranged a meeting with bureau officials in Washington, D.C., and asked if the county could take up some space on its more than 4,000-acre property in Montgomery. They agreed, he said.

After running the numbers, Walls said he realized opening a county landfill would be too expensive unless it collected enough local waste. He created a waste flow control agreement that was signed by most county municipalities as well as some nearby counties, stating their waste would go to the new landfill.

A citizens group fought the landfill development and took Walls and Allenwood officials to court, he said, but the judge ruled in favor of the county landfill partly because it was expected to close more than 80 local dumps. Walls invited members of the citizens group to inspect the landfill anytime, he said.

The first county comprehensive plan was written in 1975, and included many new project and regulation ideas as a result of Hurricane Agnes’ catastrophic flood damage throughout the county.

“It caused us to ramp up a number of programs including flood plain management and more proactive work in the use of zoning to avoid development on the flood plain,” Walls said. “That became a majorly important way to avoid future risk of flooding.”

The commission later realized that, in order to help direct growth where it needed to go, it needed the capability to create public water and sewer systems, he said. So, in 1989, Walls encouraged the county commissioners to form a Lycoming County Water and Sewer Authority.

Around that time, the planning commission was growing substantially, Walls said. In the mid-1990s, the commissioners created the county Department of Planning and Community Development and Walls took on the role of executive director for that entity as well. The additional responsibility allowed him to go after funding, develop projects and more, he said.

Before the planning department’s founding, the commission would have been considered a “strong commission” in governing terms, meaning it had the power to hire and fire, appoint directors and “chart the direction of what work was done,” said Kurt Hausammann, who took over as planning department director in 2007.

The commission still exists separately from the planning department, but its responsibilities are more legislative while the department does hands-on work to develop projects, secure funding and complete other community tasks.

“What we have now is still a commission, but with a strong planning department,” he said. “Over the years, the commission has evolved, and we now are part of the county budget through the planning department. We follow all county budgeting procedures.”

Hausammann said the department does projects the commissioners outline, as well as projects the planning commission suggests, so long as those projects are approved in the budget through the commissioners. As the director of both groups, Hausammann keeps each entity abreast of what’s going on with the other and ultimately reports to the county commissioners.

“I try to make sure that both boards are working toward the same goals, and I try to keep both boards completely informed of what the department is doing and what the commission is doing so we don’t have any conflicts,” he said.

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