Apr 13, 2017 3 min read

About 30 Donegal Township residents, some carrying drafts of the township’s 85-page proposed land-use zoning ordinance, attended a three-hour long planning commission meeting Tuesday to voice concerns about the ordinance.

For more than a year, a group of citizens opposed to the proposed ordinance has sat through planning commission and supervisor meetings, expressing worries that the regulations, which are under consideration in the only township in Washington County without a zoning ordinance, will impact the township’s rural quality and the ability to operate farms and businesses.

Residents have taken the township to court over the matter.

“I don’t think we need zoning,” said resident Sherri Laird. “I don’t think you as a zoning board should be able to tell me what to do with my land. This is a rural town. There are farming roots here. Nobody has the right to come in here and tell us farmers what we’re going to do in the future.”

Laird said she believes the township is, among other things, preparing to enable residential housing plans to be constructed.

Lee Rodgers, chairman of Donegal Township planning commission, said the township is attempting to strike a balance between preserving agricultural uses and “protecting all of the residents, not just individuals.”

The proposed zoning ordinance has been in the works for nearly 1 ½ years. Zoning discussions were spurred after Markwest built a compressor station in 2014 without a building permit.

In addition, the township received complaints from residents over loud noise from Washington County Machine Guns, 25 Greaves Road, which is about a quarter-mile from the village of West Alexander, but because the township doesn’t have zoning, there was little it could do.

Rodgers referred to a recent article in a Pennsylvania township magazine that encourages townships to address zoning in advance of the state issuing permits for growing medical marijuana.

Without a zoning ordinance, he said, there will be no restrictions on where growers, producers and dispensaries may be located, except for near schools and daycares.

The township wants an ordinance to address situations like that as they arise in the area.

The proposed ordinance has undergone several revisions with residents’ input, and during Tuesday’s meeting, attorney Michael Cruny, of Sweat & Associates, took comments from citizens about sections in the zoning ordinance regarding junkyards and mobile homes.

Cruny said the proposed ordinance, if adopted, will be one of the least restrictive in the county.

One resident, J.D. Martin, said he believes the ordinance, overall, leaves too many “gray areas.”

He worries parts of the ordinance will be interpreted differently by residents and officials, which could end up in legal action.

And Martin doesn’t want the rural feel to be lost.

“There should not be an opportunity for farming to be lost in this community. This (ordinance) says it’s to protect the character of the community. This document shouldn’t change that in any way, shape or form,” said Martin.

Rodgers, who said Wednesday he has not yet read the entire ordinance, said he does not have a timetable for when the planning commission and Cruny will complete revisions to the ordinance.

When revisions are done, the planning commission will make a recommendation to the board of supervisors to accept it or not.

It is the responsibility of the supervisors to either approve or deny the zoning ordinance.