The Benner Township Supervisors Meeting will take place at 7 p.m. on Monday, March 4, at 1224 Buffalo Run Road, Bellefonte, PA

Planned Public Comment by David Roberts:

I am David Thomas Roberts, long term resident of Benner Township at 1995 Valley View Road, Bellefonte, PA.

In addition to these spoken public comments I have submitted written comment concerning the draft Benner Township Zoning Ordinance of 2019.

I am strongly opposed to the Benner Township Zoning amendment proposal to repeal the Spring Creek Canyon Conservation Overlay and to reduce building lot sizes from 1/2 to 1/3 acre.

Benner Township is a long standing regional stakeholder in the development of the Conservation Overlay and the Spring Creek Canyon Master Plan.

Back in 2004, Benner officials recognized that growth could pose problems, but hoped to limit growth and minimize its impact. Officials recognized that our landscape holds many important and sensitive natural features. They recognized that undisturbed natural settings are necessary to purify our public water sources, and that these natural settings should be immune from rampant suburban growth.

Back in 2004 Benner officials were committed to preserving our fertile valley’s agricultural areas and were committed to the conservation of Spring Creek Canyon.

The need for preservation and conservation in the Canyon has become more, not less, urgent in the last 15 years. This proposed repeal of the Conservation Overlay and the decrease of building lot sizes goes against all the past efforts of Benner officials and the public to preserve our water resources.

The Overlay was adopted by Benner supervisors in 2010 to protect surface and groundwater in the region and to minimize site disturbance. The Spring Creek Canyon Conservation Overlay is even more essential in 2019 for the protection of the water quality of Spring Creek and for the protection of our shared water sources for public and private use, including water for drinking and agriculture.

Spring Creek is an internationally renowned fly-fishing stream and a protected Exceptional Quality Cold Water Fishery. The cold water trout habitats of Spring Creek are extremely sensitive to thermal impact from stormwater runoff and to pollution from development. This proposed zoning ordinance is a direct threat to Spring Creek and to our water resources.

The Canyon lands contain Native American cave dwellings, Revolutionary War-era settlements, industrial artifacts, and was the cradle of Centre County.

You have the choice here to preserve our lands for future generations or to Pave Paradise and Put Up Parking Lots.

Bear in mind that Spring Creek Canyon holds 1,200 acres of environmentally sensitive land, 150 acres of land deemed not suitable for human intrusion, and 400 acres of Class 1 agricultural soils.

This environmentally fragile Canyon has been mostly closed to the public for more than 100 years. This proposed zoning ordinance will throw open the Canyon for development and destroy 100 years of protection.

This zoning proposal will also jeopardize the Canyon’s use as a regional greenway to the detriment of the entire region.

The purpose of the Spring Creek Canyon Conservation Overlay, under threat by this zoning proposal, is to:

• Minimize disturbances;
• Promote conservation;
• Restore native plant communities,
• Create riparian buffers;
• Restore critical native wildlife habitat areas;
• Preserve our cultural and historic resources;
• Safeguard our vital groundwater recharge areas;
• Protect Spring Creek’s surface water quality;
• Protect the economic value of Spring Creek to the community; and
• Balance recreation opportunities with sensitive environments.

Do you really wish to throw this all away?

In 2004 Benner Township signed on to one of the most important recommendations of the Spring Creek Canyon Master Plan. That recommendation to adopt stream corridor overlay zoning in Bellefonte Borough and in Spring and Benner Townships was fulfilled by Benner officials in 2010, but now, eight years later, Benner is proposing to repeal the Overlay so vital to Spring Creek’s survival as a exceptional cold water fishery.

The repeal of the Overlay protection by Benner Township will undermine and make ineffective the critical protections adopted in 2010 for the conservation of Spring Creek Canyon. The benefits that the existing Spring Creek Conservation Overlay provides to the many should not be overthrown by the interests of a few.

The Ordinances of Benner Township includes the stated purpose to protect our water, prime agricultural lands, and natural resources. The proposed changes to the zoning ordinance are in contradiction to this stated purpose.

In addition, the Benner zoning proposal is inconsistent with the Nittany Valley Region Comprehensive Plan to which Benner Township is a longstanding member.

The Nittany Valley Regional Plan includes the goal to protect important natural features and farmlands located just beyond public utility service lines and sewer service. These public sewer lines in Benner Township were installed as remedial sewer service to small pockets of older development, not to encourage new development. This zoning proposal plans to extend these very lines for new development in direct opposition to the Regional Plan.

The Nittany Valley Regional Plan recommended for officials to find ways to compensate farmers for potential loss due to conservation zoning. This compensation recommendation was made to avoid this current situation. Instead, this zoning proposal will throw open the doors to development in this sensitive area and officials have done little or nothing to find alternate ways to compensate landowners.

The regional plan calls for the protection of natural features in outlying rural areas and to discourage development to avoid stormwater drainage problems.

The plan promotes greenways along streams to protect surface water quality and to provide wildlife habitats and to vigorously defend the rural character of the region, including the lack of installed infrastructure.

Again, this proposal is in direct opposition to these goals.

Rather than to encourage rampant development officials are tasked to devise pro-active land use policy that eliminates incremental rezoning and eliminates development that lacks vision for the conservation of our natural resources.

Very importantly, and with true vision, the regional plan calls for avoiding undue influence from special interest groups. This zoning proposal will unduly benefit special interest groups to the detriment of the Nittany Valley community.

The 2004 Regional Plan called for officials to rein-in past practices that permitted the scattered and haphazard location of various developments and utility extensions, and to regulate point source pollution in Special Protection Waters such as Spring Creek.

Need I say again that this proposal is in direct opposition to this regional goal?

Our existing comprehensive plan policy for development calls for the protection of municipal and private water supplies, and for local officials to actively protect our invaluable surface and ground water resources.

Safeguarding public groundwater sources, along with wellhead and spring headlands is a particularly sound investment.

Protection is 40 to 50 times more cost effective than cleaning up a contaminated water source.

The Plan’s overall strategy is for local zoning ordinances to reduce potential impacts upon the watershed by ensuring that less development pressure will be exerted in the areas where nature can continue to manage our water resources effectively. This proposal will increase development pressure dramatically to the detriment of our natural water purifiers.

The Spring Creek Watershed Commission is proposing for the adoption of a regional Water Resource Management Plan that highlights the scientific basis of the need and the means to protect and conserve Spring Creek’s water resources.

This zoning proposal is ill-timed and fails to consider the important work of the Spring Creek Watershed Commission and many other conservation groups in the region.

This zoning proposal will create destructive development opportunities within Benner’s protected Spring Creek Canyon, forest conservation zones, and agricultural lands for a handful of landowners and developers. This zoning proposal flies directly in the face of the stated purposes and objectives of Benner’s own zoning ordinance, the region’s comprehensive plans, the Spring Creek Canyon Master Plan, the Spring Creek Watershed Commission’s water resource management plan, and the desire of the region’s citizens for the conservation and protection of our natural resources.

I ask that the Spring Creek Canyon Conservation Overlay be preserved and not repealed. I ask that our forest conservation areas, agricultural lands, and water resources be responsibly preserved by Benner Township officials.

Thank you.