Dec 23, 2017 4 min read

Several citizens criticized Mt. Pleasant’s draft zoning ordinance Wednesday, arguing the new zoning rules don’t do enough to protect residents from potential harms of oil and gas development or preserve the rural character of much of the township.

“The ordinance provisions are arbitrary, they’re unreasonable, they don’t protect health, safety and welfare,” said attorney Jeffrey Ries. “They don’t protect residents, children, pets, livestock, property, and there’s a potential for contamination of soil and water supplies, which will hurt the farming that community development objectives are supposed to protect.”

Ries, who said he represents a group of “approximately 11” area residents as well as Clean Air Council, said during a hearing on the proposed changes to the ordinance his clients weren’t necessarily opposed to oil and gas development, but didn’t want those facilities in areas where they’re incompatible with the intent of the zoning designations.

Officials said at the end of the regular meeting that followed the hearing they would take Ries’ and others’ comments under advisement. They concluded the meeting without taking a vote, but could consider the proposal during their Jan. 22 meeting.

Supervisors Chairman Gary Farner declined further comment on the concerns raised in the hearing. Township Solicitor Thomas McDermott said many of the comments officials received that night weren’t pertinent to the proposed changes.

“The focus of these amendments is not on oil and gas activities,” he said.

Still, Ries and several others argued against allowing oil and gas development in the A-1 agriculture district, which the proposed ordinance would expand to include some areas currently zoned residential. Along with wells, the current zoning ordinance allows processing plants and compressor stations as conditional uses in that area.

The proposed changes to the ordinance would allow natural gas processing facilities only in the M-1 light industrial district – an area around Westland near the line with Chartiers Township – as a conditional use but would still allow oil and gas wells and compressor stations as conditional uses in areas including land zoned agricultural and in the R-L suburban residential district along the township’s northern edge, among other areas.

Kim Staub, one of Ries’ clients who lives on Walnut Road, asked supervisors about tank pads, which the new ordinance defines as an “aboveground (sic) assembly of fluid storage containers that are each certified by a nationally recognized testing laboratory or organization.” They would be allowed “as new development or on an existing approved well pad” with conditional-use approval in the agricultural and industrial districts.

“I question what the fluid storage containers might be,” Staub said. “I want clarification on that, if we could maybe address that. Is that fresh, or is that frackwater or wastewater? And I just do not believe it should be going in (the agricultural district). I just don’t think it should be where we live, where some of us farm.”

The current ordinance language allows oil and gas wells in all zoned areas under a conditional-use process. The proposed changes would continue to allow them as a conditional use throughout the township, except within a new mixed-use district that stretches along part of Route 50, including the stretch of the highway that passes through Hickory.

Another of Ries’ clients, Cathy Lodge, who lives in nearby Robinson Township and has children in Fort Cherry School District in Mt. Pleasant – told supervisors “more and more of the farms and its way of life are turning into industrial pockets for one industry in particular.”

“These ordinances seem in conflict with community development objectives,” Lodge added. “This does not appear to be economically sound, limiting growth in the community by zoning so much land for agricultural and so welcoming oil and gas development.”

Ries said his clients oppose having oil and gas facilities where they don’t belong.

He pointed to what he called “irrational” rules that “don’t make sense when you look at the oil and gas in those districts.”

For example, under the proposed new ordinance, gas stations, business or professional offices, commercial schools, crematoriums, dry cleaners, funeral homes, group homes, light manufacturing and warehouses would not be allowed in the agricultural and suburban residential districts.

“So there’s no reasonable relation to anything in the ordinance that says why oil and gas should be a favored industry over any of these other uses,” Ries said. “Heavy industrial and light manufacturing certainly are very different. Light manufacturing would fit better in an agricultural zone than heavy oil and gas.”