Mar 30, 2017 3 min read

The Mt. Pleasant Township Zoning Hearing Board denied a bid by an environmental group to halt the issuance of new drilling permits until township officials rewrote their zoning ordinance.

The board found in a decision rendered Monday that Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future “failed to meet the heavy burden imposed upon it by applicable law to invalidate” the township zoning ordinances.

The group, known as PennFuture, filed a substantive validity challenge on behalf of its members who live in the township in May, claiming township zoning rules are constitutionally invalid because they allow oil and gas development in all zoning districts.

The zoning board disagreed in a 36-page “findings of fact and conclusions of law.”

Township Solicitor Tom McDermott said that while the township allows some form of oil and gas development in all zoning districts, it is subject to a conditional-use process that allows officials to impose additional requirements on drillers.

“We believe that, in the context of our rural community, that’s a rational decision, and we’ve been vindicated in that,” McDermott said.

The zoning hearing board said the “substantial and significant conditions” allow officials to “protect the health, safety and welfare of the township.”

PennFuture spokeswoman Stephanie Rex said the group will appeal the decision “in all likelihood” and said its “legal staff will be meeting with the clients in the coming days.”

PennFuture’s challenge – which alleged the township’s zoning ordinance violated residents’ environmental rights under the state constitution – came as supervisors were considering a Range Resources application to build the Yonker well pad less than mile from the Fort Cherry School District campus. Officials approved Range’s plans for that pad, the third one near Fort Cherry schools, in September.

Range intervened in opposition to PennFuture’s challenge.

“We are pleased with the board’s decision and agree with many township residents that the comprehensive ordinance in place protects citizens, while also allowing for the responsible development of natural gas,” an emailed statement from Range spokesman Michael Mackin read, in part.

The township zoning ordinance, adopted in 2006, was amended in 2011 to make oil and gas activities subject to conditional approval.

In 2013, the supervisors declared the zoning ordinance invalid “insofar as it fails to provide for the principal use of impoundment” or other water-storage facilities for well sites.

Supervisors said in a resolution at the time that they would prepare a “curative amendment” to address that flaw. Because officials never did so, PennFuture argued permits issued under its zoning ordinance were invalid.

The zoning board rejected that assertion, finding “the failure of the municipality to adopt a curative amendment to the sole issue of water impoundments … does not invalidate the entire ordinance and does not impose a moratorium on all development until the alleged deficiency is remedied.”