A property owner who owned 67 acres within the Township’s agricultural zone received a variance to operate a log processing business on part of the land. When the owner decided to convey part of his property to his brother, he sought permission from the Township to relocate the log processing business onto a portion of the land he was planning on retaining. His requests that this be considered a permitted use within an agricultural zone, or in the alternative that he be granted a use variance, were both denied. He then requested that his log processing business be considered a forestry use (because State law provides that zoning ordinances may not unreasonably restrict forestry activities), which the zoning enforcement officer denied and the Zoning Hearing Board on appeal agreed with the zoning enforcement officer.
The Appellate Court affirmed the Trial Court’s decision finding that the log processing business was not a forestry use under Pennsylvania law. State law defines “forestry” as “the management of forests and timberlands when practiced in accordance with accepted silvicultural principles, through developing, cultivating, harvesting, transporting and selling trees for commercial purposes, which does not involve any land development.” See. MPC, 53 P.S. §10107. The Court noted that while the landowner cuts down and transports trees for commercial purposes, the cutting is not done on his land, and he is not engaged in land development. Further, the Court noted that the landowner has admitted that the land he owns is farmland, and that he does not claim to own forested land, and that the definition of “forestry” is the “management and maintenance of land that contains a forest.” Lastly, the Court said that rules of statutory construction do not allow for the interpretation of a statute that produces an absurd result, and the “landowner’s claim that the definition of forestry encompasses a business contained on land without trees, where trees are merely transported via trucks in order to be cut, is an absurdity.”
Stoltzfus v. Zoning Hearing Bd. of Eden Tp., 2007 WL 3274837 (Pa. Cmwlth. 11/7/2007).
The opinion is also available at: www.aopc.org/OpPosting/CWealth/out/343CD07_11-7-07.pdf
