Proposed construction of a campground on a little over 53 acres in Cummings Township was approved with conditions by the Lycoming County Planning Commission at this month’s meeting.

When completed, the campground will include six cabins and 147 RV (recreational vehicle) camper sites. The property, which is located at 5276 Coudersport Pike in Cummings Township, is owned by John Grand.

Conditions set by the planning commission included the combination of two tax parcels into one deed of record for a total of 53.267 acres so that the parcels will be considered as one for subdivision, land development and zoning purposes to prevent future conveyance of the property without prior subdivision approval.

Other approval conditions were: provide revisions to the plan as required by the Subdivision and Land Development Administrator, Lycoming County Planning Commission (LCPC) consulting engineer, County Conservation District, and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP); provide an acceptance letter from Century Engineering stating that the revised stormwater management plan, stormwater management narrative, road design, and opinion of probable cost are acceptable prior to signing and recording the land development/lot-consolidation plan; provide a revised NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit prior to signing and recording the final land development/lot-consolidation plan; provide a community on-lot water system approval letter issued by Pennsylvania DEP prior to signing and recording the final land development/lot-consolidation plan; and LCPC staff must be contacted for final land development and stormwater management inspection. As-built drawings must be submitted by a qualified professional for all improvements including stormwater facilities prior to occupancy and the release of financial security.

The Planning Commission also stipulated as a condition that upon their staff’s and consulting engineer’s concurrence of a cost estimate to complete the required land development improvements, “an Improvement Guarantee Agreement with Financial Guarantee must be established within 60 days of final land development approval.”

It was noted that an extension of the 60 days would be at the staff’s discretion and is to be provided prior to signing and recording the final land development plan.

Following approval by the Planning Commission, the land development plan and the signed approval letter must be recorded within 90 days of the date when all the conditions have been met. Grand would then have six months from the conditioned approval date to satisfy all conditions. Any extension would be at the staff’s discretion.

In other business, Kelsey Green, emergency management specialist, presented the updated hazard mitigation plan to the members of the planning commission.”One of the big things that we did during the plan was update all of our critical facilities and community assets,” she said.

“We need to understand where those assets are at, to understand what they’re being impacted by when it comes to natural and manmade disasters,” she said.

Green noted that there are 388 critical facilities in the county, including all emergency response buildings, hospital, schools, care facilities and shelters

The plan also included a risk assessment.

“It allows us to focus on the areas of the risks that impact our county,” Green said.

These include events such as floods, flash floods and ice jams as well as hazards that were just added for invasive species and extreme temperatures.

The capabilities assessment part of the plan was broken down into four categories, Green explained.

“The planning and regulatory capability is what plans impact each municipality? Who are they working with? Are they under county zoning? Do they have their own zoning office? Are they participating in floodplain management and risk reduction,” Green said.

“We want to see everyone implementing that and really having cohesiveness throughout all of the plans, the admin and technical capabilities,” she said.

Mitigation strategies were identified in the plan. Those included such things as creating and updating land use regulations and stormwater management plans throughout the county, the acquisition, demolition and retrofitting of buildings.

From that six high priority actions were then identified as part of the mitigation action plan.

The entire disaster plan update is on the county’s Planning and Community Development website.

The Planning Commission meets at 6 p.m. on the third Thursday of the month at the Lyco Conference Room, 3rd floor, Third Street Plaza, 33 West Third St.