Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Text of Citizens v. Eldred Township Water Extraction Amendment Appeal, and Citations of Statutes and Case Law that Support Plaintiffs' Standing and Argument

Attached is the Appeal of the water extraction amendment.  There are notations added to show the pertinent sections and articles of law in the referenced documents that support the paragraph in question.

The referenced documents (click to see) are:

  1. Citizens v. Eldred Township Appeal Re: Water Extraction Amendment
  2. CJER Regional Intergovernmental Agreement
  3. Municipalities Planning Code Sec 610
  4. Municipalities Planning Code Sec 609
  5. Diefenderfer v. Palmer Twp Commonwealth Court Opinion
  6. Appeal of Hawcrest (see reference in Diefenderfer)
  7. Statute 42 PA.C.S. 5571.1 (see text quotations in Diefenderfer)
  8. Statute 53 P.S. 11002-A (see text quotations in Diefenderfer)

The advertisement published April 21 for the May 1, 2014 hearing in the Eldred appeal is at the following link:
It may benefit the reader to start by reading the Diefenderfer v. Palmer Twp opinion, to show both the foundation for an appeal based on improper advertising of an amendment containing a substantial change, as well at the standing of the citizens who become aware of a change after the 30-day statutory appeal period has expired. It is left to the reader to conclude whether Diefenderfer is substantially similar in nature to Citizens v. Eldred Township.  I've examined it carefully, and believe that it is.  The residents have standing, the amendment was a substantial change and not properly advertised, and the amendment was introduced after the first of two hearings.  Furthermore, several required steps were skipped as detailed in paragraphs 29 through 32 of the appeal.

As indicated, the last three citations are contained within the Diefenderfer opinion, so the source documents are not provided.

Here's a link to the concept of "void ab initio", which is what would invalidate any prior permit that may have been issued.

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