Four Townships Say They're Still Owed Impact Fee Money

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

October 19, 2012 | 4:43 PM

Susan Phillips / StateImpact Pennsylvania

The Robinson Township Municipal building in Washington County. Robinson Township is a plaintiff in a case to overturn local zoning restrictions in Act 13. The township's share of the impact fee has been withheld.

Four Pennsylvania townships that have had their impact fee payments withheld say the Public Utility Commission has no right to deny them the money authorized by the state’s new drilling law. Those same four municipalities have sued to have aspects of the new law, Act 13, overturned. A state appeals court ruled in their favor, saying the provision of Act 13 that denies local municipalities from passing their own zoning rules regarding drilling activity, is unconstitutional. The state has appealed that decision to the Supreme Court. The New York Times has more:

The townships — Cecil, Robinson, South Fayette and Mount Pleasant — are scheduled to receive a combined $986,000 that could be used for projects like road repair, sewer construction or inspection of gas facilities.
But the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, which administers the impact fee, said it was withholding payment to the townships until it resolved five “requests for review” that were filed by four local landowners and by Range Resources, a Texas drilling company that has been active in Pennsylvania.
Jennifer Kocher, a commission spokeswoman, said the payments were not being held because of the legal case.
“This has nothing to do with the pending court proceedings but rather the proceedings before the P.U.C. where local residents and producers have requested a review of the municipalities’ ordinances,” Ms. Kocher wrote in an e-mail.

Under the new drilling law, the PUC is charged with deciding whether or not local zoning ordinances comply with state law. If not, then impact fee money can be withheld.