Minutes of the Wilmington Township Planning Commission
Meeting of February 16, 2010
The meeting was convened at 8:07 p.m. at the Township Building.
Members present: William Allen; Frank Antoniazzi, chair; John M. Byler; Frederick Neikirk, secretary; and Lynn Williams.
Members absent: None.
Visitors: John R. Byler, Jacob Mast, John Matis, Russell Miller, Tom Palmer, Frank Sokevitz, Steve Trainer.
1. Secretary’s Report
a. The minutes of the meeting of January 19, 2010, were distributed. It was moved, seconded, and carried that they be approved as presented.
b. The Secretary presented a draft Annual Report for 2009. It was agreed to return to this at the end of the meeting.
2. Mr. Byler was present in support of his request for a conditional use approval to allow him to operate a large farm based business as part of an agricultural mixed use. He said he had submitted the application materials by mail, but those materials were not available to the Planning Commission. [Note: After the meeting the Secretary spoke to the Township Secretary. She had been ill and thus had not been able to leave the application out for us.] It was agreed by common consent that we could not act on the request without having the application before us. (See item 5 for a procedural action on this matter.)
3. Mr. Mast was present to ask if it was legal to construct a barn on a piece of property before he constructed a house. The advice of individual members of the Commission was that the use in this case is “farm” and a barn is accessory to the farm use, so it seems there should be no bar to his being able to build the barn first. Mr. Mast was reminded that the Commission does not have final authority to grant permits or approve uses, so our advice cannot be taken as binding on the Township.
4. Most of the visitors were present to discuss the proposed noise ordinance (see 01/19/10, item 3). There was a strong feeling on the part of those present that the Township needs either to adopt such an ordinance or to find some other way of regulating the noise from off-road recreational vehicles. Individual members of the Commission expressed various concerns about the proposed ordinance. It was moved, seconded, and carried that the Secretary send the proposal to the Supervisors as a preliminary proposal for comment only, asking specifically if a) the general direction meets the concerns they were asking us to address, and b) if so, what suggestions they want to make on the draft. The Secretary was also asked to pose the same questions to the Township Solicitor, and to solicit his understanding as to whether we could legally adopt an amendment aimed solely at off-road recreational vehicles.
5. It was moved, seconded, and carried to docket consideration of Mr. Byler’s conditional use request for our March meeting, and that the Secretary notify the Supervisors of this pending request, suggesting that they schedule a meeting for shortly after our March meeting to allow them to act on Mr. Byler’s request without undue delay.
6. The Secretary reported that he had been contacted by the Supervisors who expressed concern about the lack of clear limitations on signs. As the Supervisors were reviewing a previous request for a conditional use for a large farm based business they realized that the portion of the Zoning Ordinance dealing with signs does not clearly limit the size of signs in areas zoned agricultural. It was agreed by common consent that the Secretary should draft language to rectify this.
7. The proposed Annual Report was read. It was moved, seconded, and carried that this be adopted and forwarded to the Supervisors. (See Attachment 1.)
There being no further business that could be accomplished at this meeting, the meeting was adjourned at 9:48 p.m.
Frederick R. Neikirk
Secretary