{"id":23156,"date":"2014-09-15T11:54:29","date_gmt":"2014-09-15T15:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=23156"},"modified":"2014-09-15T11:54:39","modified_gmt":"2014-09-15T15:54:39","slug":"newlin-supervisor-responds-to-horse-ordinance-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=23156","title":{"rendered":"Newlin supervisor responds to horse ordinance coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editors Note:<\/strong> We typically do not run letters responding to the stories written in other publications, in this case, The Kennett Paper. However, as we were unable to cover last week’s Newlin Board of Supervisors meeting \u2014 we have limited resources (and yes, we’re seeking to hire additional staff) and felt that covering the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District Board of Education meeting and the planned presentation on possible elementary school redistricting served a greater community good. I did, prior to the meeting, extend the option to the Newlin Board of Supervisors the chance to offer their side of the issue and they opted to accept that offer, and asked this response, which has been sent to other local media outlets as well, be published.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To The Editor,<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Letters1\"<\/a>As a member of the Board of Supervisors of Newlin Township, I would like to respond to\u00a0your front page article of September 11, 2014 regarding a proposed horse ordinance in\u00a0Newlin. The writer of the article failed to report on any of the facts that I presented at the\u00a0start of the hearing on September 8, 2014 on the proposed ordinance. I would like to do\u00a0so at this time.<\/p>\n

First let me assure your readers that the sky isn’t falling in Newlin\u00a0Township nor is the horse industry threatened by either the existing or proposed\u00a0ordinance, both of which deal with commercial <\/b>horse facilities. Neither ordinance\u00a0applies to residents who have their own horses on their own property and who do not\u00a0offer boarding and\/or other commercial activities.<\/p>\n

Under current <\/b>zoning, all horse boarding facilities and riding schools are required to go\u00a0to the Zoning Hearing Board for a “special exception” in order to operate their businesses,\u00a0just like all other Township businesses require “special exception or conditional use” to operate. The current ordinance has been in effect since 1980 when the Township first\u00a0adopted zoning. No applications for a “special exception” or request for a permit to\u00a0operate a commercial horse facility have been received by the Township in the past.<\/p>\n

Our Township is blessed to have many properties where horses graze in the fields and no\u00a0authority of the Township has gone to these properties to inquire as to whom the horses\u00a0belong or what kind of activities are happening on the properties.\u00a0I don’t know of any township in the county that does not have regulations on commercial\u00a0operations within their township and many have regulations on commercial equine\u00a0activity especially in the less developed communities.<\/p>\n

The issue surrounding the allowance of horse boarding and riding schools in Newlin has\u00a0been on the regular monthly meeting agenda of the Board of Supervisors for 14 straight\u00a0months (after a number of residents threatened a lawsuit to enforce the existing\u00a0ordinance). In addition, there have been three joint work sessions with Newlin’s Planning Commission on the issue. The Planning Commission also had the issue on their agenda\u00a014 straight months.<\/p>\n

All meetings were open to the public and advertised in a local\u00a0newspaper as required by the Sunshine Law. Minutes of the Board of Supervisors’\u00a0meetings are posted monthly on the Township web site. There was more than adequate\u00a0opportunity for residents to comment and ask questions over 14 months and 31 advertised\u00a0and open meetings and many have chosen to do so. Some have offered their own\u00a0proposal for an ordinance.<\/p>\n

The hiring of an independent municipal attorney and land planner was a decision made at\u00a0a public meeting. The consultants met with the Board and the Planning Commission on two\u00a0open and advertised occasions to offer suggestions on how to address the issue of over 30\u00a0unlawful, non-conforming horse facilities in the Township. Keep in mind that this\u00a0represents a very small percentage of the approximately 500 residences in Newlin. Since\u00a0the majority of the uses were boarding facilities that did not offer lessons or training, the\u00a0consultants suggested making their use a “use by right” with some criteria that would\u00a0have to be met and no special exception would be needed. 1bis would provide relief for\u00a0the majority and especially the small land owner. The eight or nine larger businesses in the\u00a0Township would be allowed to operate by “special exception” through the Zoning\u00a0Hearing process.<\/p>\n

The “3 and 2” referred to in your newspaper has to do with lot size and not how many\u00a0acres have to be fenced on commercial equine facilities. Fenced pasture land just needs to\u00a0be adequate for the number of horses. The current <\/b>ordinance requires a minimum of 10\u00a0acres which again affects the small property owner, especially with “2 and 1” acres\u00a0required to be fenced.<\/p>\n

In reference to the “petition” mentioned in the paper’s article, the number quoted does\u00a0not represent the population of Newlin. Quite to the contrary, the “petition” was passed\u00a0over social media and a web site designed by a professional web designer\/public relations\u00a0consultant being employed by one of the larger commercial horse facilities in the\u00a0Township who also happened to be quoted extensively in your article. Signers listed on\u00a0the “petition” were from California, Oregon, New Jersey, Georgia, Texas, Colorado,\u00a0Alaska and many other states. Many names were listed multiple times. Of the 1285\u00a0residents of Newlin, I have located only 60 or fewer residents who electronically signed\u00a0the petition.<\/p>\n

Janie H. Baird, <\/strong><\/p>\n

Chair<\/strong><\/p>\n

Newlin Township Board of Supervisors<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editors Note: We typically do not run letters responding to the stories written in other publications, in this case, The Kennett Paper. However, as we were unable to cover last week’s Newlin Board of Supervisors meeting \u2014 we have limited resources (and yes, we’re seeking to hire additional staff) and felt that covering the Unionville-Chadds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[606,6099,172],"class_list":["post-23156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters","tag-board-of-supervisors","tag-horse-ordinance","tag-newlin-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23157,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23156\/revisions\/23157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}