Oct 21, 2016 2 min read

Alleging Cecil Township’s zoning ordinance illegally targets its property to restrict development there, a golf course has taken its challenge of local land-use rules to court.

Southpointe Golf Club filed an appeal Wednesday asking a Washington County judge to reverse a July 18 decision by the township zoning hearing board and declare a recent amendment to the zoning ordinance invalid.

Attorney Robert Blumling, who represents the club, alleged in the appeal an ordinance township supervisors enacted in May “is unlawfully designed to prevent future development of the (golf course’s property) and to ‘freeze,’ sterilize and encumber it in a substantially undevelopable state.”

The ordinance altered township zoning rules in the special development district, which includes the golf course. Under the new provisions, the golf course, categorized for land-use purposes as residential, could only be recategorized as commercial or industrial with the approval of 100 percent of the owners of adjacent properties, of which there are about 160, according to the appeal.

“There is no other property in Southpointe, or Cecil Township, that is restricted to just one land use,” Blumling wrote.

Township solicitor Chris Voltz and hearing zoning board solicitor Patricia McGrail couldn’t be reached for comment.

The zoning board largely sided with the township supervisors, deeming valid most of the new ordinance, including a requirement that development plans get a unanimous nod from neighboring land owners – a decision Blumling called erroneous.

Southpointe Medical Associates is seeking to rezone property owned by the club to build a special-needs pediatric facility, called the Hope Learning Center, near the sixth hole of the golf course. Township supervisors voted to deny a conditional-use application.

The challenge to the July hearing board decision is only the most recent of several actions by the golf course’s owners in civil court.

The club filed a challenge last year arguing the Southpointe Property Owners Association no longer has veto power over development plans on the property.

The club also filed a challenge to the zoning ordinance in Washington County Court in May after supervisors approved the amendment for the special development district, and a challenge to a subsequent amendment to that ordinance earlier this month.