Agenda - Planning Commission - 10/09/2014

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Zoning Bulletin September 10, 2014 I Volume 8 j Issue 17 PUC's jurisdiction to consider whether local ordinances violate Chapter 32 was also nonseverable. The court found that those sections were "so dependent on and interdependent with the unconstitutional provisions [of Chapter 33] that it [could] not be presumed that the General Assembly would give the PUC jurisdiction to review the validity of the local ordinances." The court concluded that §§ 3305 through 3309 were not severable and thus were also unenforceable. In so concluding, the court noted that the effect of the Supreme Court's mandate declaring all the substantive provi- sions contained in Chapter 33 to be unconstitutional and unenforceable, and the Commonwealth Court's holding that the portions of 58 Pa.C.S. § 3302 purporting to enforce Chapter 33 were likewise unenforceable, was that the statutory scheme (intended to have uniform regulations with uniform methods of determining whether a local ordinance violated any of the provisions of Act 13) could not be implemented. Local zoning mat- ters would now be determined by the procedures set forth under the MPC and challenges to local ordinances that carry out a municipality's constitutional environmental obligations. Because challenges to those or- dinances would have to be brought in common pleas court, the court found it "would further frustrate the purpose of the Act in having a uniform procedure." Accordingly, the court held that 58 Pa.C.S. § 3305 (authoriz- ing a municipality to issue an opinion as to whether a local ordinance violates the MPC, Chapter 33 or Chapter 32) and § 3306 (authorizing a person aggrieved by the enactment or enforcement of a local ordinance that violates the MPC, Chapter 33 or Chapter 32 to bring a court action to invalidate the ordinance) were not severable. Moreover because the over- all uniform statutory scheme was no longer capable of execution as intended by the General Assembly and because they were dependent upon §§ 3305 and 3306, the court concluded that § 3307 (relating to award of attorney's fees and costs in actions brought under § 3306), § 3308 (relat- ing to the withhold of impact fees for municipalities enacting or enforcing local ordinances that violate the MPC or Chapters 32 or 33), and § 3309 (relating to the applicability of Chapter 33) were likewise not severable and were therefore unenforceable. See also: Robinson Tp., Washington County v. Com., 83 A.3d 901 (Pa. 2013). 2014 Thomson Reuters