View by Section
- Introduction/Community Profile
- Land Use and Housing Plan
- Environmental Conservation Plan
- Community Facilities and Services Plan
- Transportation Plan
- Community Development and Revitalization Plan
- Action Plan
Purpose
The Comprehensive Plan focuses on the future development and conservation of Salisbury Township. The Board of Commissioners adopted Salisbury’s last Comprehensive Plan in 1992. This Plan updates that document.
The Township will continue to change as it has done throughout its history. Salisbury prepared this Comprehensive Plan to help ensure that change in the community is positive and that Salisbury retains its best qualities. People should compare any proposal that may affect local land use, roads and community facilities to this Comprehensive Plan. The question to ask is: “does this proposal help carry out the goals of the Plan or not?”.
Plan Inter-relationships
This Plan addresses the following major topics:
- Future Land Use and Housing
- Environmental Conservation
- Community Facilities and Services
- Transportation
- Community Development and Revitalization
Policies the Township enforces with regard to one of these topics often affect the other topics as well. For example, the decision to construct or widen a road may affect the conservation of surrounding lands and create new road maintenance obligations. Conversely, decisions to permanently preserve a tract zoned for residential use may alleviate the need more roadways and reduce the overall demand for municipal services that serve new homes.
Timing of the Plan
In this Comprehensive Plan, Salisbury is looking ahead 10 to 15 years. The Township can begin carrying out some of the Plan’s recommendations right away. Other parts of this Plan, such as those that concern movement in the private real estate market, may not come into play until later years.
Consistency with County/Regional Plans
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC) adopted its most recent Comprehensive Plan in 2005. Lehigh County officials, Northampton County officials and others try to use the policies espoused in that Plan to influence land development and conservation decisions across the Lehigh Valley’s 62 municipalities.
LVPC planners recognize that Salisbury is a diverse area – part urban, part suburban and part rural. Because of this diversity, many different aspects of the LVPC Comprehensive Plan apply in the Township. In low-density, rural areas, the Salisbury Comprehensive Plan mirrors LVPC policies on protecting sensitive environmental resources, conserving open space, and minimizing residential growth. In the Township’s more suburban vicinities, the Salisbury Comprehensive Plan follows LVPC’s lead in trying to ensure that new homes are built in appropriate places and adequately served by central water and sewer lines, roads, common open space, schools, and convenient recreation opportunities.
In preparing this Comprehensive Plan update, Salisbury incorporated LVPC guidance on protecting against strip commercial development and other types of unplanned business growth. Overall, the Salisbury Comprehensive Plan is in close step with LVPC on big picture issues like stopping sprawl, preserving community character, minimizing traffic congestion, and promoting only well-planned growth.