Why PA's Land Use Law Needs to Change
In the words of Becky Bradley, the law is "a little crazy"
“Why are there so many warehouses?” “Why can’t we stop them?” “The traffic is awful!” “Why doesn’t someone do something?”
How many times have you heard those and similar complaints in the last 15 years in the Lehigh Valley? I’m guessing lots of times.
Two weeks ago Becky Bradley, Executive Director of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, tackled those questions and more in a detailed column in The Morning Call. I suggest that you take a pause right now and read it if you haven’t already. It’s worth every minute.
Okay, are you back? Becky outlines all of the reasons why our planning process has become completely unworkable, primarily from the planning perspective. I’d like to add the sustainability component to it.
Despite the best efforts of municipal and county planners, our defective Municipalities Planning Code (MPC) rides roughshod over the environmental impacts of helter-skelter development. Municipalities have not been able to require the consideration of clean energy sources for new warehouses (i.e. solar panels) or the restriction of impervious surfaces that would limit run-off that contributes to flooding. The number and frequency of tractor-trailers at a facility have a direct impact on the air quality not only around the warehouse but also, in the aggregate of increased numbers of trucks on the roads in the Valley, on the communities along the highways that the trucks use to get to the warehouses.
How insane is it that the law requires every municipality to accommodate a landfill? Or a warehouse? Or that it must permit growth when it’s already “built out”? What does that do to the air we breathe or the water we drink or the safety of the roads we travel on? Why shouldn’t municipalities be able to balance the environmental effects, especially the public health effects, of development against the economic benefits to the developers? And give those effects equal if not greater weight? And then enforce it?
Becky’s right. “[I]t’s time for statewide reform.” How? Here’s part of Becky’s answer: “It’s time to call your state representative and your senator and urge them to build managed growth tools into the community decision-making process and make them easily accessible and useable by local and county governments.” Her final paragraph gives more details on what we should ask for.
Want to take personal action?
Here’s an action checklist for more that you can do:
Call your state representative and senator and demand an update to the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code (MPC). If you don’t know who they are, you can find the listing here. Put in your address, search, and then when the list of your legislators turns up, click on each one’s name to get contact information.
Many of our municipalities are sending letters to PA legislators asking for an update to the MPC. Contact your local municipality and find out if they have sent such a letter. If they haven’t, ask them why not or how you can request that they submit a letter. You can see a copy of the letter that the Lower Saucon Township Council approved in their meeting last week, if you need an example.
Send your own letter to your state legislator outlining the reasons they need to update the MPC. Here’s a sample you can use.
Our state legislators are wasting their time on ridiculous attempts to overturn the previous election. They need to spend more time on things that actually affect the lives of their constituents. It’s time we raised our voices and demanded representative government in Harrisburg that works on our behalf.