Zoning in Clinton County, PA: The Seven-Township Ordinance

Most Pennsylvania counties leave zoning entirely to individual boroughs and townships, with the county playing at most an advisory role. Clinton County is a real exception in a specific, limited way: the county itself directly administers a County Zoning Ordinance -- permits, variances, and all -- in seven named townships, while the rest of the county zones itself independently.

This page covers what's specific to Clinton County. For the general explanation, see the national guide.

Which seven townships, and what "county zoning" actually means here

Clinton County's Planning, Grants & Zoning department directly administers a County Zoning Ordinance -- issuing zoning permits and enforcing the ordinance itself -- in seven specifically named townships: Colebrook, East Keating, Gallagher, Grugan, Logan, Noyes, and West Keating. These are generally the county's more sparsely populated, heavily forested northern and western townships, several bordering or near Sproul State Forest. For a parcel in any of these seven townships, the county's own Zoning Ordinance (most recently amended through October 9, 2024) is the actual, literal, controlling zoning code -- not a model ordinance or a fallback, but the real one that applies.

This matters because it inverts the usual Pennsylvania pattern this project describes on nearly every other county hub, where the county's planning department is advisory and each municipality -- including Clinton County's larger boroughs and townships, like Lock Haven itself -- administers its own separate zoning ordinance. In Clinton County specifically, "the county administers zoning" is true for exactly these seven townships and nowhere else in the county.

The Zoning Hearing Board, permits, and fees

Clinton County's own Zoning Hearing Board -- a three-member board with two alternates, each serving three-year terms -- hears variance requests, special-exception applications, and appeals specifically for parcels within the seven county-zoned townships, functioning exactly as a municipal zoning hearing board would elsewhere in the state, just organized at the county level for this particular jurisdiction. Zoning permit applications are available directly from the Clinton County Planning Office (Piper Building, 2nd floor, Lock Haven), and the county's published fee schedule lists a renovation/addition permit at $35 and a new-construction permit (which the county's own schedule notes explicitly includes manufactured homes and trailers) at $75 -- both modest, flat fees consistent with the county's rural character.

This page did not independently confirm the specific dimensional standards -- minimum lot size, setback distances, permitted-use tables -- for the zoning districts the county ordinance establishes within these seven townships; the ordinance itself (posted on the county's site, amended through October 2024) is the authoritative source for those details and should be read directly for a specific parcel rather than assumed from a general Pennsylvania zoning framework.

Everywhere else in the county: zoning is (or isn't) a separate municipal decision

Outside the seven named townships, every other Clinton County municipality -- Lock Haven, Mill Hall, and the rest of the county's boroughs and townships -- administers its own separate zoning ordinance, or, consistent with Pennsylvania's statewide optional-zoning pattern, may have no zoning ordinance at all. "Clinton County zoning" is never a shorthand for a single countywide answer outside those seven townships; a buyer looking at land anywhere else in the county needs to confirm the specific municipality's own zoning status and ordinance directly, exactly as in most other Pennsylvania counties.

The practical upshot for any Clinton County parcel: first identify the specific township or borough, then ask whether it's one of the seven under the county's direct ordinance (in which case the Clinton County Planning Office is the actual zoning authority) or one of the others (in which case the municipality itself is, if it has adopted zoning at all). Don't assume either direction without checking -- a township just outside the seven-township list handles zoning entirely on its own, with its own permit fees, process, and (if any) zoning hearing board separate from the county's.

Zoning in Clinton County: The County's Own Ordinance in Seven Named Townships

Which seven townships, and what "county zoning" actually means here

The Zoning Hearing Board, permits, and fees

Everywhere else in the county: zoning is (or isn't) a separate municipal decision

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