13 Pa. Commw. 90 | Pa. Commw. Ct. | 1974
Opinion oe
This is an appeal by Lawrence Township which is located in Clearfield County, the Clearfield County Housing Authority and the Clearfield Area Housing Corporation from an order of the Court of Common
A number of procedural and jurisdictional questions are raised here which are disposed of in our opinion in Hughes, supra.
Lawrence Township had subdivision regulations adopted in 1958 pursuant to Article XII-A Second Class Township Code, Act of May 1, 1933, P. L. 103, since repealed and replaced by Article V of the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code, Act of July 31, 1968, P. L. 805, 53 P.S. §10101 et seq. Existing subdivision regulations were saved by the Planning Code, 53 P.S. §10103. The appellant, Clearfield Area Housing Corporation, a nonprofit corporation formed for the purpose of constructing the project and thereafter leasing it to the Clearfield Area Housing Authority for sublease by low income residents, the operation being subsidized by the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, applied to the Lawrence Township Supervisors for approval to subdivide 15 acres of land by the construction of 81 low-rent housing units. The supervisors approved the application. The instant appellees appealed the supervisors’ action to the Clearfield County Common Pleas Court
The only provision of the township subdivision regulations relied on by the appellees, and apparently the court below, is the following: “The Board of Township Supervisors shall not approve any subdivision plan unless all streets shown thereon shall be of sufficient width and proper grade and shall be so located as to accommodate the probable volume of traffic thereon, afford adequate light and air, facilitate fire protection, provide access of fire fighting equipment to buildings, and provide a coordinated system of streets conforming to the Township’s official plan of streets; and unless the land whereon buildings are to be constructed
It was the appellee’s contention that the supervisors should not have approved the project because its connection, when completed, to the township sewage system
The record does not support the lower court’s interference with the township supervisors’ action approving the developers’ application. As noted, the court’s action was based upon the alleged inadequacy of the township’s sewer collection system. The record clearly establishes, however, that the system’s problems were not related to capacity. Indeed, the township’s consulting engineer testified that the system has a capacity of 1,700,000 gallons per day, that the proposed low-income housing development will contribute only 47,-600 gallons per day which, added to present use, still leaves an excess capacity of 1,178,000 gallons per day in dry weather. The problems with the system in wet weather, in the engineer’s opinion, are the results of
Furthermore, we have difficulty understanding how the mere approval by the township of the application for subdivision could imperil the health of existing residents based upon deficiencies of the township sewer collection system. That action gave the applicant no right to discharge sewage to the system. We are aware that the township had issued a tapping permit for the project shortly prior to the receipt of the Department of Environmental Resources’ order. Even had the supervisors’ subdivision approval or its issuance of a tapping permit permitted use of the sewer system, higher authority in the form the Department of Environmental Resources had enjoined discharges pending improvements to the system. We finally note that the Commonwealth has intervened here as well as in the Hughes matter and filed a brief in support of the appellants’ cause for reversal.
In summary, the supervisors’ approval of the Clear-field Area Housing Corporation’s application for subdivision approval was proper. It posed no threat to public health based upon the then inadequacies of the township’s sewer system, because (1) the system had
Order reversed.
Section 1007 of the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code, 53 P.S. §11007 provides that persons aggrieved by a develop
The sewage collected by the township sewer system is treated at a plant owned by adjacent Clearfield Borough.