Court Opinion

ID: 9637173
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:59:45.546707+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:54.162275
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The majority holds that because the General Assembly authorized the acquisition of the Polish National Alliance College property to be used specifically as a state correction institution in the Capital Budget Project Itemization Act for 1990-1991 (“Act 223”), the General Assemble clearly expressed an intent to override the local zoning ordinances. The only way the majority could reach its decision today is by inferring legislative intent. In Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of General Services v. Ogontz Area Neighbors Association, 505 Pa. 614, 628, 483 A.2d 448, 455 (1984), this court refused to infer a legislative intent that the Commonwealth agency has preemptive land use powers.
I think the Commonwealth Court correctly held that the clear legislative intent necessary to preempt or override the local zoning ordinances of the Borough of Cambridge Springs and the Township of Cambridge cannot be found in Act 223. Section 3(l)(ii) of Act 223 merely provides an appropriation and a general authorization to acquire the Alliance College and convert it to a prison. The granting of authority to purchase a specific parcel of property “does not clothe [an agency] with the power of eminent domain or the right to supersede local land use regulations”. City of Harrisburg v. *96Capital Housing Corporation, 117 Pa.Commw. 408, 543 A.2d 620 (1988).
In Ogontz, supra, a majority of this court stated:
Of course, should the legislature determine that one or more Commonwealth agencies or projects should be empowered to supersede local land use regulations, it need only pass legislation to that effect.
Id., 505 Pa. at 628, 483 A.2d at 455. In his concurring opinion, Justice Zappala noted:
Through the zoning enabling acts, the Legislature has granted municipalities the power to carefully plan and supervise the comprehensive development of their land. Yet this specific grant of power would be highly illusory, and its purpose thwarted, if another public entity were able to override it by implication. I would hold simply that absent a specific legislative grant of authority exempting an agency from local zoning regulations, the local regulations must control.
Ogontz, 505 Pa. at 629, 483 A.2d at 456 (Zappala, J., concurring, Larsen and McDermott, JJ., joining) (emphasis in original).
If the legislature intended to nullify or negate any local zoning or any other land use controls, they easily could have provided for such intent by including specific language relating to that subject matter in Act 223. There is nothing in the Act which states that the local land use regulations are preempted by the project or by the agencies charged with constructing and administering prisons.
Merely providing for an appropriation to purchase a location for use as a state institution or facility does not provide a specific legislative intent to nullify local zoning regulations and ordinances. To accept the majority’s decision would, in effect, overrule Ogontz and would allow the Commonwealth and the General Assembly to override local zoning merely by appropriating money for a specific purpose. This clearly is not what this Court intended in Ogontz; nor has the legislature seen fit to “overrule” Ogontz.
*97Therefore, I would affirm the decision of the Commonwealth Court.