Agenda - Planning Commission - 12/06/2018

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October 10, 2018 I Volume 12 I Issue 19 Zoning Bulletin ate housing on land currently being used as BART parking. Specifically, the bill allows BART's board of directors to "adopt transit -oriented development (TOD) zoning .. , that establish minimum local zoning requirements for BART-owned land that is located on contiguous parcels larger than 0.25 acres, within one-half mile of an existing or planned BART station entrance, in areas having represen- tation on the BART board of directors." The bill had previously passed in the State Assembly in May, but the Assembly will now have to consider the Senate's amended version separately. Source: Curbed San Francisco; https://sfcurbed.com/2018/8/24/177786481a b-2923-bart-housing-senate-vote MASSACHUSETTS Attorney General Maura Healey has reversed her office's decision that al- lowed communities to ban medical marijuana dispensaries. In late August 2018, a spokeswoman for Healey announced that "[a]fter further review, we have determined that under the statute, towns are not permitted to enact bans on medical marijuana establishments." The Attorney General's office now states that "such a ban would frustrate the purpose of [the medical marijuana law] to allow qualifying patients who have been diagnosed with debilitating medical conditions reasonable access to medical marijuana treatment centers. [The law's] legislative purpose could not be served if a municipality could prohibit treatment centers within its borders, for if one municipality could do so, pre- sumably all could do so." S ource: CommonWealth magazine; httvs://commonwealthmaaazin.e.oro PENNYSYLVANIA In early August 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted the petition for allowance of appeal filed by certain environmental groups challenging the Commonwealth Court's decision to uphold a municipal ordinance allowing nat- ural gas drilling in a mixed residential and agricultural zone. (See Delaware Riverkeeper Network, et al., v. Middlesex Township Zoning Hearing Board, No. 270 WAL 2017.) In doing so, the Supreme Court vacated and remanded the lower court's June 2, 2017 decision, telling the lower court to reconsider its de- cision in light of the Supreme Court's more recent decisions in Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation v. Commonwealth, 640 Pa. 55, 161 A.3d 911, 84 Env't. Rep. Cas. (BNA) 1838 (2017), and Gorsline v. Board of Supervi- sors of Fairfield Township, 186 A.3d 375 (Pa. 2018). In the Pa. Envtl. Def. Fund., the Supreme Court overruled an environmental balancing test that had been used by the lower court to decide that the municipal ordinance allowing the natural gas drilling did not violate Section I, Article 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, also known as the Environmental Rights Amendment ("ERA"). The court held that local and state government agencies have an obligation under the ERA to act as trustees for the environment and the natural resources of the state, and as such must prohibit their degradation and affirmatively act to protect them. The Commonwealth Court had also relied on reasoning in Gorsline, which was subsequently reversed. Source: Lexology; www lexologv.com 12 © 2018 Thomson Reuters