Not Without Permission . . .
Whoa there, all you Leg Up Farm people. You don’t really think you can just go ahead and open up a rehabilitation center for sick kids, do you? Not without our say-so, you don’t.
And hoops to go over?
What an unfortunate reaction by East Manchester Township officials to such a wonderful project.
Late last month, East Manchester Township landowner Barbara Warren announced that she would allow part of her 200-acre property to be used for the Leg Up Farm. The farm is the dream of Lou Castriota, Jr. of Shrewsbury Township, who has been working for several years to create a rehab center for children with a variety of physical disorders.
The dream began while he was shuttling his your daughter, who has a disease similar to cerebral palsy, around to various therapy locations. Light bulb: Why not create a rehabilitation center with all the various therapies available in one location, in a farm-like setting? The center, he imagined, would include a pool, a gymnasium, and indoor riding arena, etc.
The only problem was finding a place for the Leg Up Farm. Then last year he met Warren, and the siting problem was solved. She would generously allow part of her property to be used for the farm, and Castriota could turn his attention to raising the $7.2 million he needs for start-up.
The two invited local media, township officials and others to a press conference March 28 to announce the good news.
The media showed up. Lot of other interested folks did, too. But no one from the township.
So municipal officials had no one but themselves to blame for the fact that they had to (horrors!) “read about it in the paper.” They were dismayed that Warren and Castriota had failed to inform officials of their plans.
Imagine the nerve: A property owner planning to do something with her land without so much as a “by your leave” from the local burgomasters. Never mind that Barbara Warren was planning to do something decent and generous. She can’t do any such thing in the supervisors’ little fiefdom without their permission first.
So they had their lawyer fire off a letter to Warren advising her of such. “There are hurdles she needs to jump through,” said Supervisor Terry Gingerich.
The letter notified Warren that she would be required to share her plans with municipal officials, and the project would likely have to go through the township planning commission, possibly the zoning hearing board and the board of supervisors – the whole bureaucratic ringer.
Of course, a friendly phone call might have sufficed as a gentle reminder of the zoning imperatives. Had township officials bothered to call (or showed up at the press conference announcing a major initiative in their municipality), they might have learned that Warren was well aware of the permitting process and the zoning of her property. In fact, she might have reminded them that she had served for more than 10 years as a member of the township zoning hearing board.
Instead, supervisors took the officious route and sent out a letter from a lawyer – a methodology that’s all too typical of municipal officials nowadays. And that’s truly unfortunate, given one common justification for Pennsylvania’s vast web of municipal bureaucracies. Apologists say we need all these little jurisdictions because they offer more personalized service than large, faceless governments. But in practice, they behave just as impersonally as any imperious federal bureaucracy.
Zoning laws are important, of course, and Leg Up should be required to meet all requirements. But it’s a pity East Manchester couldn’t have welcomed a land-use proposal that will preserve open space (as opposed to, say, a housing development with 1,000 cookie-cutter homes) rather than greet it with a bramble of legalese.
Oh well. At least there’s a silver lining: The township’s zoning warning served to give Leg Up, which has a lot of money to raise, some free publicity (call 843-8341 to donate).
And at least Warren can take comfort she doesn’t live in a place where they take zoning rules really, really seriously – a place like Fairfax County, Va., which for two months has jailed a golf course owner for failing to plant enough trees and shrubs.
East Manchester Township isn’t that bad. Not yet, anyway.
Our Views, The York Dispatch/Sunday News