The Public Opinion Soapbox

Irish1 · Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Posts: 63 Location: Montgomery Township

Coppy you hit the nail on the head "wanting to do w/o being told otherwise."
I am not from this area originally but have lived here for 16 + years, I have had the pleasure of living in four regions of the country. When I first moved here I found it hard to believe some of the things that were done or tolerated, (open burning and never pulling a building permit). Most of the municipalities have zoning ordinances to deal with most of the issues but there is always a lack of enforcement. Check out the Topix comments on the Mercersburg Water Ordinance all this bellyaching because the PO headline said Mercersburg to FORCE residents to tye in. If I were a gambling man I would bet that there is only 1 maybe 2 structures that were not in compliance either once the ordinace was found and properly enacted or as the rule and regulations of the water authority state.
St. Thomas had a zoning ordinance that they repealed, now they have a quarry they don't want.
Every local boro has a snow removal ordinance that is never enforced, I had a friend slip and fall break his hip on a snow/ice covered sidewalk 50 feet from the boro hall last winter nothing was done to the property owner.
In some states you need a permit and a licensed electrican to install a low voltage doorbell in PA its ok to run 100' of Romex or a 100' orange extension cord tacked onto the outside of the house from one room to another and add another outlet to an overloaded fuse (not breaker)panel.

Irish1 · Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Posts: 63 Location: Montgomery Township

Coppy you hit the nail on the head "wanting to do w/o being told otherwise."
I am not from this area originally but have lived here for 16 + years, I have had the pleasure of living in four regions of the country. When I first moved here I found it hard to believe some of the things that were done or tolerated, (open burning and never pulling a building permit). Most of the municipalities have zoning ordinances to deal with most of the issues but there is always a lack of enforcement. Check out the Topix comments on the Mercersburg Water Ordinance all this bellyaching because the PO headline said Mercersburg to FORCE residents to tye in. If I were a gambling man I would bet that there is only 1 maybe 2 structures that were not in compliance either once the ordinace was found and properly enacted or as the rule and regulations of the water authority state.
St. Thomas had a zoning ordinance that they repealed, now they have a quarry they don't want.
Every local boro has a snow removal ordinance that is never enforced, I had a friend slip and fall break his hip on a snow/ice covered sidewalk 50 feet from the boro hall last winter nothing was done to the property owner.
In some states you need a permit and a licensed electrican to install a low voltage doorbell in PA its ok to run 100' of Romex or a 100' orange extension cord tacked onto the outside of the house from one room to another and add another outlet to an overloaded fuse (not breaker)panel.

Wile_E · Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 51

Coppy · Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 2615 Location: Chambersburg

Irish; the zoning in St. Thomas was shot down because it was "too restrictive." Now they have a quarry. An example someone gave me was that the proposed zoning in St. Thomas wouldn't allow people to "wash their cars" and farmers were upset that they couldn't leave their farm equipment out in the fields overnight.

I don't really believe those are the problems though; people wanted to do whatever they wanted to do with their land AND have zoning that prevented any sort of development or construction in St. Thomas. It just doesn't work like that; nice communities have zoning and ordinances that prevent people from letting their land look like a landfill. But no one seems to have a problem with that...

I'd love to see the actual, written zoning proposal for St. Thomas before it was voted down. I bet it really wasn't all that bad. So you can't leave an uninsured junk car on your lawn... boo hoo.