In its May 6, 2025 decision in Protect Elizabeth Township v. Elizabeth Township, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined that a local zoning ordinance required oil and gas facilities to be the principal structures on individual tax lots. Because homes were already located on the parcels where oil and gas facilities were proposed in that case, the Commonwealth Court concluded that the oil and gas facilities were not authorized by the local zoning ordinance. This focus on ordinance compliance from individual lots is not solely related to oil and gas cases.
In Lebanon Solar I, LLC v. North Annville Township Board of Supervisors, No. 189 C.D. 2024 (Pa. Commw. Ct. May 23, 2005), a municipality denied a solar energy developer’s proposal for a solar energy generating facility covering approximately 858 acres. That geographic area involved 12 contiguous tax parcels, all of which were zoned “A-1”, where the proposed solar farm development was a conditional use.
After public hearings, the Township’s governing body denied the proposed solar farm conditional use application based on three grounds. First, the solar energy developer’s failure to prove that each of the individual tax lots complied with the conditions for solar farm development in the zoning ordinance. Second, the solar energy developer’s failure to submit a stormwater management plan and bond. Third, the solar farm developer’s failure to propose an adequate vegetative buffer that was governed by the zoning ordinance.
Whereas the Township denied the conditional use application on August 5, 2022, it issued its written decision on May 12, 2022. The solar farm developer filed a land use appeal from the decision on May 12, 2022 and an amended land use appeal on June 17, 2022. In its appeals, the solar energy developer challenged, among other things, the municipality’s requirement that the proposed solar farm development satisfy the zoning ordinance requirements on each of the individual lots that made up the project.
That set the stage for an issue similar to the one in Protect Elizabeth Township. Was zoning ordinance compliance required on each of the tax parcels that made up the project? But, the Commonwealth Court did not answer that question in Lebanon Solar I. The Commonwealth Court concluded that it did not, and could not, reach the merits of the land use appeal because it was untimely. The Lebanon Solar I court concluded that the land use appeal that the solar energy developer filed was untimely. The first land use appeal in early May 2022 was premature and procedurally improper because it preceded the actual written decision. The “amended” notice of appeal was untimely because it was filed more than 30 days after the written decision.
As a result of this procedural dismissal of the appeal, the Commonwealth Court did not substantively address the question of ordinance compliance on individual parcels as part of a larger solar energy development. But, the fact that the municipality denied the conditional use application on that basis, along with others, suggests that compliance with ordinance requirements on a parcel-by-parcel basis is a critical point of consideration in the consideration of any conditional use or special exception application.
