Agenda
Roll Call – Joe, Sean, Sid, Andrea, Stephen, Scott.
Minutes – November Meeting Notes approved.
Planning Commission Seats – Open seats (1) to be continued to be advertised, no interest to date. Discussion around terms coming to conclusion at the end of 2025. Members of the Planning Commission who wish to continue will need to submit a new letter of interest to Janet, the Rutledge Borough Secretary.
No Updates
- Borough Comprehensive Planning
- Grants Research – Rutledge Resiliency Hub
- Rutledge Participation in the CPRG (Climate Pollution Reduction Grants) Program
- Zoning Set Back
Planning Commission 2026
Role and Scope of Planning Commission
Radar Plan
- Scope of Control – What do we, Rutledge, control, influence, or have no control of?
- Domains: Stephen identified 15 domains and assigned some indicators to build out our radar.
1. Health, Safety & Emergency Systems
2. Infrastructure, Utilities & Energy
3. Environment, Ecology & Pollution
4. Food Systems & Local Security
5. Housing, Land Use & Homelessness
6. Economy, Work & Technology
7. Transportation & Mobility
8. Education, Childcare & Lifelong Learning
9. Community Life, Well-Being & Culture
10. Governance, Finance & Inter-Municipal Relations
11. Demographics & Social Change
12. Technology, Data & Information Integrity
13. Neighboring & Regional Dependencies
14. Environment & Sustainability (PRP/BMP Alignment)
15. Cross-Cutting “Radar Indicators”
Discussion:
- What are the BIG three for each of us?
- Andrea: Health and Safety, Community Life, Governance/Finance/Intermunicipal
- Sean: Health and Safety, Community Life, Neighboring and Regional Dependencies. The biggest risk we have is apathy. We have the same 15 or so people raising their hands to contribute, how can we grow that number? How can we create savings or change by partnering with neighbors? How do we grow partnerships we already have with Swarthmore, Morton, etc?
- Joe: Leverage & opportunity & Priorities—finding out what other neighboring boroughs are doing? How do we create a process to integrate with our neighboring boroughs? Need to manage short & long term, high & low cost, human capital / engagement requirement.
- Stephen: Need more information; gathering of information would also contribute to cultivating ideas for focus. What questions can we ask people, specific questions to understand and create objectives? (how do you get to work, how do you handle kids in the afternoon) We have control over housing, land use, aging in place—brings up topics similar to the ADU discussion. Which projects are important to us, the watershed, transportation & sidewalks?
- Commentary: Adhoc historic committee will be doing interviews that could be potential source of some of this info, if PC wants to participate in question crafting
- Scott:Infrastructure and Health services—something that residents are generally expecting to work and are reliant on every day. When there are negatives or they are out, it is immediately a problem. For #10, focus is around the Finance part of this. Focus on how can we ease tax burdens on residents. #13 for dependencies, it feels almost that there is no getting around this.
- Sidd: Many of these roll up into regional dependencies, this will end up being the biggest priority. Agrees there has not been the due process in the perspective of the planning commission to this. Also highlighted demographics and community-life. Rutledge community life appears to be going quite well, perhaps the lack of involvement is a symptom of things going so well. However, dependencies will be an important consideration. We do have use of our land, which makes the LCAP such an interesting initiative.
- Possible actions: Setting up opportunities to raise points—is there anything new and in need of attention?
- Partnerships & Gathering more information:
- Setting Tangible benefits for Borough where the borough would benefit, doing the homework to see what other boroughs are focused on.
- Understanding what other PCs / Boroughs are focused on, gathering information from residents, researching county level, researching neighboring planning commissions. Leveraging the entire process as an engagement tool to foster community and volunteering
- Comp Plan boroughs, plus Ridley and Springfield and other neighboring boroughs– Everyone take 2.
- Check their minutes, comp plans, etc. and don’t forget to check ordinances.
- Stephen – Swarthmore and Rose Valley
- Scott – Ridley
- Sidd – Morton and Secane
- Sean – Springfield
- Andrea – Nether
- Joe – Clean Up Hitter
- Check their minutes, comp plans, etc. and don’t forget to check ordinances.
- Infrastructure/Utilities
- Need to develop the radar so that we can determine what needs to be focused. – Stephen will review
- Comp & LCAP tracking:
- Propose to create standard cadence for liaisons to update on Planning Commission each month: Council Members would submit paragraph/detail for action items to Planning commission when they feel they have achieved or moved an action item to a new phase (Phases not determined yet, iirc, but perhaps: Not Started, Planning, In Progress (0-25,26-50, 51-74, 75-99), Complete)
- Planning Commission would be able to judge and update tracking based on updates and provide details on what is missing (e.g. communication plan on weatherization needs to be longer, needs measurability, needs expanded scope of methods, etc.)
- Actions to be taken by: Joe, Andrea, Stephen
- Partnerships & Gathering more information:
Environmental Advisory Council
- Communication went out in Rutledge Borough Communications; need to continue to seek volunteering and ways to create engagement.
New Business:
- None
Public Comment:
- Adhoc Historic Committee came to invite all Planning Commission members to be invited by the Adhoc historic committee. Interviews are about 30-60 minutes and cover background, neighbors, communities, school and education, changes over time, and reflection. Potentially adding details around conflicts.
Adjourn
Adjournment at 8:58PM