"Deemed Approval" Situation Update

After much discussion regarding the new situation of supposed "Deemed Approval," our lawyer recommends encouraging the judge to address the overall question if the Township acted properly or improperly in reviewing the last draft of plans submitted to the Township.

• If the court rules the Township acted properly addressing the zoning issues with court will not be required.  
• If the court rules the Township acted improperly then the zoning issues will be addressed. 

Updated with further explanation:

The Township has filed their appeal to the claim of Deemed Approval for the Development with the court of common pleas.  Tom has a copy of that filing and it appears to be complete.   In addition, the developer's lawyer has provided an electronic copy of the submitted plans.  Tom will be reviewing the submittal this weekend.

Our lawyer believes it will be worthwhile that we also file an appeal, and to request that the Judge in the appeals case address the case in two steps.  Step one to address the issue if the township acted correctly.  If they did then the case would be over and there would be no reason to pursue the detailed zoning issues.  The second step would occur only if the judge decides that the township acted incorrectly. He would request that the Judge would schedule those arguments at a later time.  This would be beneficial for us in that the bulk of the expenses would be related to the zoning issue and we would only need to become heavily involved in that if we needed to make the arguments.  It would be also beneficial to the court in that the first hearing would be fairly short and the judge would not need to spend the courts time on the zoning issues unless it would be needed.