Testimony on gas zoning continues
Supporters of gas drilling and development – wearing “Land Owners United” shirts – were part of a group of a hundred individuals listening to PennFuture attorney George Jugovich present his challenge on gas ordinances Tuesday to the Mt. Pleasant Township Zoning Hearing Board.
PennFuture Attorney George Jugovich presents opening statements Tuesday to the Mt. Pleasant Township Zoning Hearing Board as supporters of natural gas drilling wearing “Land Owners United” shirts listen behind him.
Don Fiori, of 191 Walnut Road, McDonald, testified “there are no guarantees,” with natural gas drilling, as a drill pad then a compressor station were built on the perimeter of her property.
HICKORY – The proposed Yonkers natural gas well pad that would operate just under a mile from the Fort Cherry School District campus has become the touchstone for a zoning ordinance challenge in Mt. Pleasant Township.
The township zoning hearing board heard testimony Tuesday from residents represented by environmental nonprofit Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future as it anticipates at least one more hearing on the issue. The board continued its hearing to Sept. 22.
PennFuture attorney George Jugovich Jr. told the zoning hearing board in the hearing continued from July 26 that current zoning ordinances that allow natural gas drilling operations in any district as an industrial activity is unconstitutional.
“A challenge has been brought because a single industry has been permitted to operate in all zoned districts … Mt. Pleasant declared in 2013 its ordinances invalid (after the Robinson Township Act 13 case) but failed to follow up with replacement language (or a curative amendment),” Jugovich said.
Dencil Backus, of 221 Walnut Road, a board supervisor at the time of the ordinance invalidation vote, said nothing has been done to remedy the invalidated ordinances. Members of the zoning hearing board said the township’s comprehensive plan has been going through further updates stemming from that action in 2013. Township solicitor Tom McDermott asked if Backus understood the ordinance invalidation was strictly construed to impoundments, not wholesale revisions to the entire ordinance. McDermott said the resolution’s sole purpose was to expressly include impoundments as part of its zoning rules to prevent lawsuits from residents or the gas industry.
“We didn’t have rules to cover those contraptions, correct?” McDermott asked Backus under cross-examination.
“We came to the realization that water issues were prevailing through a lot of issues in oil and gas development … yet supervisor Brian Temple, now chair, added and clarified to include any and all storage facilities (in that invalidation),” Backus said.
The specific legal challenge to the invalidation – and the legal weight the zoning hearing board should afford it per the challenge demanding the township’s current ordinances be declared invalid – has been central to the debate before the board.
“The curative amendment language challenge in 2013 is a red herring,” said Range Resources attorney Blaine Lucas, “as it was an assurance (of no potential action) against the township for 180 days while it figured out the means to move forward.”
Lucas said the 2011 ordinance language being challenged allows natural gas drilling through a conditional use process “with many parameters to be met before any operations could proceed.”
Gretchen Moore, an attorney for George Yonker, owner of the property along Baker Road, said the ordinance challenge is improper.
“This is only about the Yonkers well pad. It is not a substantive validity challenge … this should be about a specific application about a specific use, and no one had been ruled standing in that case,” Moore said.
McDermott echoed Moore’s objection.
“We, the township, look to defend this legal ordinance drafted over two years with residents familiar with their own history and place in the rural economy,” McDermott said.