Brackenridge, Harrison and Tarentum continue joint planning effort

An effort to develop a joint comprehensive plan for Brackenridge, Harrison and Tarentum is scheduled to take another step forward with a public meeting next month.

“We want everybody to come,” said Elaine Kramer, a designer and planner with the Pittsburgh-based consulting firm Pashek+MTR, which has been working with a 17-member committee of volunteers from the three communities to develop the 10-year plan.

Work began last February when Tarentum officials, recognizing their own comprehensive plan was outdated, approached their counterparts in Brackenridge and Harrison about coming up with a single plan to improve the communities.

At the upcoming meeting, scheduled for 6 to 7:30 p.m. Feb. 17 at the Salvation Army in Brackenridge, the volunteer committee and consulting firm will present several proposals to be included in the comprehensive plan and seek feedback on the proposals and additional recommendations from residents.

“It’s important to make sure our progress reflects residents’ thoughts and feelings,” said committee member Cody Nolen, of Harrison. “It also gives an opportunity to hear from some that haven’t been involved so far.”

Officials have said they want a plan that will result in things actually being done to better the township and two boroughs.

Kramer said four key areas for improvement identified so far include:

• Parks, recreation, trails and riverfront.
• Social entrepreneurship and community and economic development.
• Property deterioration and blight.
• Community identity.

Those issues were identified through a public meeting last summer, which about 100 people attended, and a questionnaire that more than 600 residents and business owners completed. Also, two dozen community stakeholders were interviewed, and “pop-up” events were held in the three communities.

Denise Sloan, a committee member from Brackenridge, said combating blight and property deterioration were the top priorities raised at a public meeting last June. Including it in a joint comprehensive plan “means that codes would need to be uniform across the communities,” she said.

A final draft of the plan is expected to be completed later this year. It will be presented for comment at a public hearing, and each municipality will vote to adopt it.

A $50,000 grant from Allegheny County Economic Development is covering more than half of the plan’s projected $90,000 cost. The three municipalities are sharing the remaining $40,000 cost based on their populations — $23,000 from Harrison, almost $10,000 from Tarentum and about $7,000 from Brackenridge.