The March 15 editorial (“Little Valencia’s big move is responsible, exemplary”) could not have been more appropriate with housing development across southern Butler County dominated by the PRD regulations in the Pennsylvania Municipal Code. Valencia Council Vice President McKenna stated the Valencia Zoning objective is to “ensure the needs of residents” which is a dramatic departure from the PRD regulations that heavily favor development and developers in Adams Township and other Butler County municipalities.

Having lived in a Rural Conservation zoned area of Adams and knowing the primary goal of the Comprehensive Plan is to maintain the rural characteristics of the township, we had not attended township meetings until it was learned that high density housing using a PRD was being planned for Davidson Road. We, along with several neighbors attended that next planning committee meeting to speak primarily about the existing Route 228 congestion, the condition of Davidson Road, and the strong desire to restore the one-acre minimum lot size featured in the existent Rural Conservation zoning.

Our education began at the planning committee meeting, where we learned the PRD regulation, optionally adopted by the Township, overrides the Rural Conservation zoning permitting high density development without regard for road condition and future traffic impact. Attending subsequent meetings, the following characteristics of the PRD were observed which essentially assures resident needs are ignored and property rights are only honored for specific landowners and their developers.

First and foremost, it was declared by the township supervisors and the township solicitor that the PRD must be approved by the township once received at the township. This position was repetitively stated throughout the approval process for the Davidson Road project. Eventually this position was altered to the following: “If the supervisors do not approve the PRD, the township will be sued and will lose the lawsuit.” The PRD essentially minimizes any resident impact to superficial changes but, even more importantly, reduces the supervisor role to nothing more than advisory. The development must proceed or “move forward” under the legal advice of the solicitor and must do so within PRD rigid timing requirements.

Second in importance is the PRD emphasis on timing requirements where it is very clear that the timing required throughout the approval process is the priority while quality is secondary, if considered at all. This factor was repetitively stressed by the planning committee with complaints that they could not do appropriate analysis because of time restraints. The planning committee routinely recommends approval prior to completion of storm water plans, soil samples, sewage system requirements, and even finalized site drawings.

Third, unbelievably, the township engineer views the position as being one to primarily support the developers. Never have we seen any indication of priority for resident concerns and rarely are concerns voiced for township concerns other than developer code shortfalls.

There are multiple other factors that facilitate the approval of any PRD presented to the township; however, the above three items collectively assure the approval process to be nothing more than a suggestion system to compensate for developer deficiencies while tentative and final approval are assured regardless of resident concerns and critiques.

Unlike enlightened Valencia, resident concerns voiced in the PRD approval process are typically ignored or referred to the developers.