CRANBERRY TWP — Manager Jerry Andree said it’s no secret why the township continues to grow by leaps and bounds while multimillion dollar companies continue to flock here.

It’s all part of the plan. The Cranberry Plan.

The 224-page document called the Cranberry Plan shapes almost every aspect of the township’s governance, Andree said, from setting policies to managing growth to setting priorities for infrastructure and building projects.

The colorful document, filled with glossy graphs, spreadsheets and graphs, governs every major decision in the township, Andree said, and will continue to do so until 2030.

A committee comprised of 100 township residents, all on a volunteer basis, crafted the document during a two-year span starting in 2007. The board of supervisors approved the document in April 2009, and it has been in constant use ever since.

“The strength of the plan is that it’s the voice of the people,” Andree said.

The plan outlines projects being seen even today. For instance, the township recently finished a project to provide free Internet connectivity in all of its parks and public spaces, an idea contained in the Cranberry Plan.

Furthermore, the township is about to embark on the renovation of the Brush Creek sewage treatment plant, which could cost up to $65 million. The township is already in the midst of renovating its municipal center for the first time in decades, a project that will cost more than $2 million.

Both projects were outlined in the Cranberry Plan.

“It’s our vision for how we move forward,” Andree said. “Planning isn’t done in a vacuum here.”

Andree said the need for such a road map is indisputable.

The Cranberry Plan has its origins in 1995, a time when the first version of the planning document was crafted by township residents.

The township’s population at that time was around 16,000 and growing, and officials realized the need for a sensible road map to manage future growth. The population ballooned to 23,000 by the year 2000 and now sits around 30,000.

The Cranberry Plan projects the population to shoot to more than 52,000 by 2030, up until the end of the plan’s life span.

It wasn’t an easy transition in terms of drafting the original Cranberry Plan in 1995, Andree said. Swarms of residents filed “massive” lawsuits against the township, Andree said, while that same vocal group waged a campaign to unseat all of the incumbents on the board of supervisors.

The lawsuits were tossed and the supervisors retained their seats on the board, decisions that directly shaped what Cranberry Township looks like now and what it will look like in 15 years.

Ron Henshaw, director of community development for the township, called that moment in 1995 a “pivotal moment” in the township’s history.

Henshaw said it wasn’t crafted just to collect dust on a shelf somewhere. The township’s chief planner said he consults the plan on a weekly basis, which is why the document is so useful.

“It’s a rarity when a governmental body has such a useful document,” he said. “This helps us gauge where we’re going. The importance of the plan is in using it.”

Andree agreed and said that the 1995 plan irrevocably changed the township’s direction, saying that planning up until that time had been done “haphazardly, with no rhyme or reason.”

Now, everything has a purpose.

The Cranberry Plan contains 21 specific “goals” to accomplish during its life span, while each goal has a subset of “strategies” to help achieve those goals.

Everything from infrastructure to culture to finance and sustainability is contained within the Cranberry Plan. The township’s annual budget is even crafted after the ideals set within the plan.

Andree said he’s “extremely pleased” with how the plan was crafted and how it’s being executed today. He pointed to the fact that the plan won a statewide award in 2009 given by the Pennsylvania Planning Association as evidence that others are pleased too.

It’s not just a road map for the township’s future, he said. It’s what has helped make Cranberry what it is today and what it will be tomorrow.

“It’s ingrained in our culture,” he said. “It’s truly how we think and operate here. It has all of our nuts and bolts.”

Andree said township officials are embarking on the early stages of setting up a committee that will review the first five years of the plan.

Dick Hadley has served on the township’s board of supervisors since 1995 and has seen both versions of the Cranberry Plan come to fruition.

He’s confident the township achieved all the goals set forth in the 1995 plan, just as he’s sure the township will realize all the goals set forth in the newest version.

Hadley knows a thing or two about planning. He spent his career as a municipal manager in Allegheny County and now serves as an employee in the Allegheny League of Municipalities.

“To the degree that we’ve crafted the latest iteration of the Cranberry Plan, to my knowledge I haven’t seen another community go to the extent we’ve gone in looking long-term in the future, with the broad-based community development we’ve had,” he said.

Hadley also reiterated the notion that the Cranberry Plan isn’t something that serves as a paperweight.

“We’re not putting it on a shelf and dusting it off 10 years later to see what happened,” he said. “We are actively going out and working the plan and achieving those goals we set.”