About CRPC

The Capital Region Planning Commission (CRPC) is a Council of Governments serving the eleven-parish Capital Region, which includes the following Parishes: Ascension, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberville, Livingston, Pointe Coupee, St. Helena, Tangipahoa, Washington, West Baton Rouge, and West Feliciana. A Council of Governments is a voluntary association of independent local governments who, through planning and communication, foster cooperation and coordination in resolving area-wide problems beyond any individual constituency's authority or competence. Individual governments are represented by locally elected officials who must constitute a majority of representation on the Council. CRPC gets its authority, as do the other Regional Commissions in the state, under Louisiana Revised Statutes 33:131 et seq, as amended. All parish and municipal governments in the Capital Region may join CRPC. At present there are 11 parish members and 38 municipal members.

The reason for CRPC's formation was to respond to four basic needs:

• To provide an effective means of coordination for joint action in resolving common problems resulting from shared air, water, transportation systems, drainage, communication systems, economy, etc.;
• To review numerous federally funded programs to certify conformity to local and regional plans and to prevent redundancy in federal funding;
• To provide comprehensive regional planning; and
• To provide technical assistance to constituent governments, especially for the smaller parishes and municipalities with limited resources.

Programs and services provided by CRPC are funded by local member dues, set by the Commission, and by contracts, approved by the Commission, with any local, state, federal, or private agency needing the expertise of the CRPC staff.

CRPC is the Baton Rouge area's designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), which each metropolitan area must have in order to carry out regional transportation planning efforts and receive federal highway funds. As the regional MPO, the Capital Region Planning Commission focuses a great deal of its resources on transportation planning issues and activities, which includes highway planning, the regional ridesharing program, and air quality issues.

In addition, CRPC is one of eight sub-state planning and development districts which cover all 64 parishes in the state of Louisiana. Toward that end, CRPC provides technical assistance for economic development, comprehensive planning, and zoning to its members.