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Homeowners take N. Strabane to court over hospital

3 min read

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In an inch-thick sheaf of documents filed with Washington County Court, the attorney for the Linden Vue Homeowners Association filed complaints against North Strabane Township, its board of supervisors and the zoning hearing board over the conversion of the Bradley Center Inc. to Southwood Psychiatric Hospital at 342 Linden Creek Road.

Fred C. Jug Jr. of Pittsburgh claims there is no record of the township supervisors voting to enter into a consent order in a previous case related to the use of the property as the former Bradley Center, therefore the board violated the state Sunshine Law requiring that action be taken at public meetings.

It also named the Bradley Center Inc. and Southwood Psychiatric Hospital LLC as defendants in the complaints, saying the hospital is detrimental to its neighbors because it is located at the entrance of the Linden Vue plan of homes.

Jug contended his clients were not notified of developments in litigation of the 2009 case on the same piece of property as it progressed through the courts during 2012, and that Linden Vue property owners learned of these developments and the consent order by attending a board of supervisors meeting the night of Dec. 10, 2013.

Township meeting minutes of 2012 and 2013 make no reference to the consent order or an agreement to settle or discontinue the 2009 land-use appeal, and Jug maintains the Second Class Township Code requires the supervisors to vote affirmatively at a public meeting to transact business, including entering into a consent order to conclude a lawsuit.

“While litigation may be discussed at an executive session, the Sunshine Act requires that a vote occur at a public meeting,” the Linden Vue homeowners assert. Without a public vote, the consent order should be declared void, Jug claims.

A 1989 case provides that there can be no expansion of the facility without municipal approval of its conditional use.

He also asked that a township-issued certificate of occupancy dated Nov. 25, 2013, be declared void because it is based on the consent order, “which is void as a matter of law,” and asked the court to rescind it. He also asked the court to have the township schedule a public hearing on conditional use of the property and notify constituents.

Jug asked President Judge Debbie O’Dell Seneca to reconsider his Dec. 19 request to intervene in a 2009 suit on the same piece of property. On Monday, she again denied it, saying that when the Linden Vue Homeowners Association gave notice in May 2009 that it was intervening in the suit, its notice was “insufficient” because “an adjacent landowner has no automatic right of intervention under the Municipal Planning Code.”

Only municipalities and “any owner or tenant of property directly involved in the action'” have an automatic right to insert themselves into the middle of a case, the judge wrote, and the Linden Vue residents must “pursue intervention subject to the Rules of Civil Procedure.”

Steve Quigley, chief executive officer of Southwood Psychiatric Hospital, 2575 Boyce Plaza Road, Upper St. Clair, notified the township in September that it entered into a sales agreement to purchase the former Bradley Center and relocate the 40-bed Southwood residential treatment program to 342 Linden Creek Road. Quigley called Southwood a “for-profit company which will contribute to the continued financial stability of the North Strabane community.”

Quigley also wrote in a letter to Frank Siffrinn, North Strabane Township manager, about its Bridgeville operation, “This is a specialized program that supports male children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders and intellectual developmental disorders. We do not and will not accept children who have been adjudicated and/or convicted of violent crimes.”

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