An Official Map can provide municipalities with a powerful tool to plan for future needs by identifying lands that could provide future public benefits—everything from a site for a new firehouse or public park, to infrastructure improvements including sewer or stormwater facilities, to transportation networks including trails. In 2024, the Brandywine Conservancy assisted West Brandywine Township in the adoption of their first Official Map. Read on to learn more about what goes into the development and adoption of this important tool, and how the Conservancy can help your municipality adopt its own Official Map.
The Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code (MPC) is the enabling legislation (Act 247) that permits and guides municipalities in the Commonwealth to plan for their development and regulate land uses. More commonly referred to as the MPC, the legislation outlines a set of planning tools and establishes requirements for their implementation and regulation, especially with respect to public involvement and notice. You might be familiar with planning tools like the Comprehensive Plan and municipal ordinances, such as Zoning and Subdivision and Land Development, but another tool permitted through the MPC, the Official Map, is less familiar and less commonly implemented across the Commonwealth.
Public Process
Adopting an Official Map, which is separate to a municipality’s Zoning Map, is best done during or soon after having completed an update to the municipality’s Comprehensive Plan, as this document will help identify priorities that can then be incorporated into the Official Map. While not a lengthy process, the successful implementation of an Official Map relies heavily on an extensive and transparent public process that fosters community and landowner understanding and support for what the Official Map does and does not do.
Once priorities are identified through this public process, and after a Public Hearing is arranged (pursuant to the guidelines contained in the MPC), the governing body is free to adopt the Official Map as another ordinance within their planning toolkit. Upon adoption, and if a landowner who has lands identified on the Official Map approaches the municipality for land development or other activity requiring a permit, the municipality has up to one year to negotiate with that landowner for the public benefit identified on the Official Map. This negotiation and outcome can take many forms, depending upon the public benefit identified and the triggering application before the municipality.
Furthermore, this process does not stand in the way of the land development process—it can happen in parallel, therefore not impacting the timeline associated with the proposed change in land use. In some cases, a municipality may choose to pass on their interest if priorities have changed, or in the case of some public benefits, may seek conditions from the landowner or developer that those be incorporated through the land development process (such as part of a trail network). It should be noted that upon adoption and without any triggering action on part of the landowner, the land identified on the Official Map continues to be held in private ownership and does not impact the landowner’s existing rights to the use of their land.
Adopting an Official Map
Within Chester County, approximately one-third of the County’s municipalities have adopted an Official Map as one of their regulatory planning tools. Most recently, the Brandywine Conservancy assisted West Brandywine Township in the adoption of their first Official Map, having updated their Comprehensive Plan back in 2020. This represented the first direct involvement of the Conservancy in implementing an Official Map for over a decade.
At the same time, staff at Brandywine provided mapping services to Tom Comitta and Associates as they worked with East Brandywine on the implementation of their Official Map. Upon adoption of their Official Map, Chuck Dobson, Chair of West Brandywine Township Board of Supervisors, stated that the “adoption of an Official Map was a logical step upon completing our Comprehensive Plan a few years ago, helping to identify the Township’s interest in opportunities for public trails, park land, and agricultural and conservation easements in our Township.”
While not an expensive project to undertake, funding is available for Chester County municipalities through the Chester County Planning Commission’s Vision Partnership Program to hire a qualified planner to assist in the development, the associated public outreach, and adoption of an Official Map. If your municipality would like to learn more about the Official Map process, please reach out to staff in our Municipal Assistance Program at [email protected].