Forestry activities get special status from the Commonwealth of PA

Quarrying also supported

By TOM KANE

WAYNE COUNTY — Zoning may not unreasonably restrict forestry activities. So says the newest version of the Pennsylvania Municipal Planning Code.

And in order to more surely protect this essential industry in the Commonwealth, the new code adopted in September 2000, emphatically adds that all forestry activities such as timber harvesting “shall be a permitted use by right in all zoning districts in every municipality.”

“This is not a conditional use but a principal permitted use in all zoning districts,” said John McKay, supervisor of Lackawaxen Township.

The Commonwealth wants to insure that this economically essential  industry will not be unreasonably restricted, according to Michael Mrozinski, community planning director of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.

“The Commonwealth does not usually get involved in the particulars of local zoning since it is a home-rule state and leaves these matters to the municipalities,” Mrozinski said.

But the Commonwealth wants to encourage maintenance and management of forested or wooded open space and promote forestry as a sound and economically viable use of forested land throughout the Commonwealth, he said.

Another addition to the new code gives support to quarrying. It says, “zoning ordinances shall provide for the reasonable development of minerals in each municipality.”

It specifically names dolomite, limestone, sand and gravel, rock and stone, earth, fill, slag, iron ore, zinc ore, vermiculite and clay, anthracite and bituminous coal, coal refuse, peat and crude oil, natural gas and others.

Recently Palmyra and Lebanon have experienced heavy opposition to the creation or expansion of quarries.

“A quarry company has asked us to change the zoning for part of their land from RR residential to commercial,” said Palmyra supervisor Alfred Wolf. The company, Molti, Molti and Godwin of Hawley, that now has permission to mine five acres, wants to change the zoning so as to include 87 acres in all, he said.

A meeting was to be held between the company and the township board this past Wednesday to discuss the change.

“The code says townships should be reasonable in limiting mineral operations,” said Palymra’s attorney, Jeffrey Treat. “There are a lot of controls a municipality has over operations like this. The state does not dictate details. What’s important is that the municipality be reasonable.”