I’ve been getting a lot of emails, PMs and YouTube comments asking what is going on with my land issue.
The answer has been that there is a lot of apparent dead time in the process, where necessary things are going on behind the scenes.
On 12 April 2023, I had my appeal heard by the North Hopewell Township Zoning Board.
The Board voted 2 to 1 to reject my appeal.
At that point my team knew we would be filing suit in the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, but we couldn’t file the suit until we had the official, written decision from the Zoning Board.
By statute, the Board has 45 days to issue their official ruling.
The Zoning Board released their ruling on 8 May 2023.
My legal team spent the last month preparing our case to appeal the Zoning Board’s decision, and we officially filed it in court today.
Next will be a period of motions and briefs and counter motions and briefs.
That could result in the judge issuing a summary judgement. For instance, he could throw out my suit, as un-founded.
Or, conversely, the judge could tell North Hopewell Township (NWT) that they are wrong, and must rescind the zoning violation.
If that doesn’t happen, we will probably go to trial in a few months…yes…Months.
I’m not a lawyer, but the NWT Zoning Board’s hearing decision looked legally pretty weak to me.
My lawyers agree.
We are attacking the decision in three areas:
1. Their basic zoning decision that my target shooting on my own land constitutes operating a shooting range, based on the Acting Zoning Officer’s opinion concerning, Primary vs Ancillary use of the property is legally wrong.
2. The NHT ordinance as they are enforcing it violates both the Pennsylvania and the United States Constitutions.
3. The NHT Zoning Board appeal hearing violated the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code that governs such proceedings. The way the NHT ZB structured the testimony at that meeting was in the opposite order as required by the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code, which put my case at a disadvantage.
So, we’ll go forward from here.
I want to thank you all for your support. If it wasn’t for your Go-Fund-Me support, I would not be able to afford this.
I’m sure the NHT folks were expecting to put out their violation letter, and I would fold, sell my land, and move on, because normal people simply can’t afford to stand up for their rights in this system. So, bullies in government can get away with almost anything, as long as they pick on people who can’t afford defend themselves.
Thanks to you, this time, they picked the wrong guy.