Board of Supervisors v. Centre Hills County Club
Board of Supervisors v. Centre Hills County Club
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
College Township, Centre County, here appeals from the order of a judge of the 46th Judicial District specially presiding in the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County (the 49th Judicial District) effectively setting aside a decision of the township supervisors approving a planned residential development of 450 dwelling units to be located on a tract of about 88 acres and directing approval of a development thereon of 743 dwelling units.
The appellee is Centre Hills Country Club (Country Club), a private golf and country club organized as a nonprofit corporation with a present membership of about 340 families, who enjoy, in addition presumably to other privileges of membership, the use of an existing 18 hole golf course. The Country Club desires to have a 27 hole golf course. To this end, it obtained options to purchase 157.56 acres of land adjoining its existing facilities. Forty eight of its members formed a business
The tentative plan was filed for approval of the township supervisors pursuant to the township’s Planned Residential District Ordinance adopted under the authority of Article VII of the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code (MPC), Act of July 31, 1968, P.L. 805, as amended, 53 P.S. §§10701 through 10711. The Board of Supervisors, after hearing, granted tentative approval of the plan with conditions, one of which provides the issue in this case — that the total density or number of dwelling units to be constructed should not exceed 450. The Country Club declined to accept the condition that the number of units be reduced from the proposed 743 to 450 and appealed the supervisors’ decision to the Court of Common Pleas which, as noted, directed approval of the planned residential development with the number of units proposed by the Country Club.
The tract proposed for development is located in an R-l Residential District of the township zoning ordinance
Section 107(14) of the MPC, 53 P.S. §10107(14) defines the Planned Residential Development as “an area of land, controlled by a landowner, to be developed as a single entity for a number of dwelling units, the development plan for which does not correspond in lot size, bulk or type of dwelling, density,, lot coverage and required open space to the regulations established in any one residential district created, from time to time, under the provisions of a municipal zoning ordinance.” (Emphasis supplied.) The single entity, as the plan filed shows and as the Country Club’s insistence on its entitlement to construct 743 dwelling units further demonstrates, is the entire 157.56 acres. The 69 acres to be devoted to the uses of the Country Club’s golf course addition, being a part of the entity, is subject to the controls established by the MPC and the ordinance. Since no dwelling units are proposed to be constructed on the 69 acre golf course addition, that area is what the MPC names “common open
“Let’s say you have 100 acres of land — farm land. You want to develop a Planned Residential Development, ok, that means that 5 units per acre in R-1 you could put 500 dwelling units on that land. You could compress it into a very small space and designate the agricultural land as agricultural land because it is open space. ... You could continue to farm the open space and no farmer, believe me, is going to tolerate people running around walking their dogs through crops. . . . I’m saying that the term golf course or not golf course is almost irrelevant. It’s open space and who can use it and is it available to the residents. And I think in the case of farm land or golf course, it has a very restricted use to the people [of] the additional dwelling units that are being generated by that land. I think both of them are really contrary to the intent of the Ordinance.”
The Country Club makes two arguments meriting brief mention. It correctly notes that it has provided on
We cannot devise a better statement of our view of the Country Club’s proposal than a sentence spoken by another lay witness at the supervisor’s hearing: “It does not seem logical to us, or legal either, that you carve out approximately one-half of this area and say that the residents cannot use it and expect [that] the same number of dwelling units [should] be put on the remaining land.”
Order reversed.
. The record reveals that about 125 homes could he constructed on the 157.56 acres under the regulations for the R-l Residential District.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- The Board of Supervisors of College Township v. Centre Hills County Club and Centre Hills Realty, Inc.
- Cited By
- 2 cases
- Status
- Published