Quick update to bring everyone up to date with the “Deemed Approval” issue which is becoming quite active. There are several events that you should be aware of:
• On October 9th, Lynn Allen and Tom VanVreede attended a hearing at which the lawyer for Friends of Laurel Wood with the lawyers for North Whitehall Township and the developer appeared before the Judge to request that FOL can officially appeal the developer’s claim of “Deemed Approval.” The Township had previously indicated that they supported our move, and the developer did not object. In the end, the Judge approved our petition and allowed us to participate in the court case.
• At the hearing the developer announced his intention to file a request to have the Township appeal of the Deemed Approval dismissed. His claim appears to be based on previous legal decisions in a case involving a different township where a judge did not allow that township to appeal details of a deemed approval case. Our lawyer and the Township’s lawyer are investigating this in more detail, but their initial reaction is that this precedent deals with the fact that a township cannot appeal the details of zoning of a deemed approval after it occurs. In our particular case, North Whitehall Township is not appealing the details of the zoning, but is appealing the process of granting deemed approval in the first place.
• The Developer has two weeks from October 9 to develop and file his brief, and then the Township and FOL have two weeks after that to file their objections. At the end of that period the Judge will schedule a hearing to reach a decision. The Township and our lawyers are fairly confident that the Judge will not grant the Developer’s request. Even if he does there are other options and actions that they can take to prevent the Developer from proceeding forward.
The developer’s request to dismiss the Township’s appeal has delayed the previously scheduled hearing on November 4 to determine the outcome of the deemed approval. When a new date is set we will let everyone know.
• After the hearing on the 9th the Township’s lawyer was still very optimistic. She believes that the Judge will find in the Township’s favor on the Developer’s new claim on the appeal, that there are several other filings and actions that the Developer should have taken and has not, and by Township ordnance the Developer must secure a separate Conditional Approval from the township for the sewer system. They cannot build and operate the senior living community without this approval, giving us another opportunity to address our concerns.
• In addition to the above the FOL organization has been working on proposed changes to the senior living community ordinance. We presented our recommendations to the Township Supervisors at the September meeting. They have tabled our recommendations for now. They stated that they will take them under consideration following the resolution of the Deemed Approval case.
• We have limited expenditures at this point, for the lawyers to develop the petition for our participation in the case. We postponed hiring consultants to address the other issues to minimize expenditures. Before we made this decision we first came to the conclusion that there is a high likelihood that the Judge will not approve the Deemed Approval, and if he does it will only take two weeks to prepare for the testimony. We feel confident that the Judge will allow this time.
• Even though we have limited our expenditures, bills will soon be submitted for the work done. For those who have committed to support this effort please start sending funds now if you have not already done so. We understand that there are a lot of demands on each of us, and many of us are on fixed incomes. However, please remember that we proceeded based on statements everyone made so please contribute if you can. For those that have not committed funds, please consider donating at this time.
• It is vitally important that we collect the money that was promised! We authorized the lawyers to perform work based on these promises. If the money is not contributed we can not ask the lawyers to proceed and must stop. At that point we will no longer be able to influence the developer and the final outcome of the development will be out of our hands.
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