Application.

Administration and enforcement.

Violations. Failure to secure a permit prior to the change in use of land or building(s) or the erection, enlargement or alteration, demolition of a building or failure to secure a use and occupancy permit shall be a violation of this chapter. It shall also be a violation of this chapter to undertake other deliberate actions which are contrary to the terms of this chapter or other existing statutes.

Fines and penalties. Any person, partnership or corporation who or which has violated or permitted the violation of the provisions of this chapter enacted, upon being found liable therefor in a civil enforcement proceeding commenced by the Township, shall pay a judgment of not more than $500, plus all court costs, including reasonable attorney fees incurred by the Township as a result thereof. No judgment shall commence or be imposed, levied or be payable until the date of the determination of a violation by the Magisterial District Judge. If the defendant neither pays nor timely appeals the judgment, the Township may enforce the judgment pursuant to the applicable Rules of Civil Procedure. Each day that a violation continues shall constitute a separate violation, unless the Magisterial District Judge determining that there has been a violation further determines that there was a good faith basis for the person, partnership or corporation violating the chapter to have believed that there was no such violation, in which event there shall be deemed to have been only one such violation until the fifth day following the date of the determination of a violation by the Magisterial District Judge and thereafter each day that a violation continues, shall constitute a separate violation. All judgments, costs and reasonable attorney fees collected for the violation of this chapter shall be paid over to the municipality whose ordinance has been violated.

Enforcement remedies. In case any building, structure or landscaping is erected, constructed, reconstructed, altered, repaired, demolished, converted or maintained, or any building, structure or land is used, or any hedge, tree, shrub or other growth is maintained in violation of this chapter or of any regulations made pursuant thereto, the Township, nor any aggrieved owner or tenant of real property who shows that his property will be substantially affected by the alleged violations, in addition to other remedies provided by law, any appropriate action or proceedings, whether by legal process or otherwise, may be instituted or taken to prevent, restrain or rejoin such unlawful erection, construction, reconstruction, alteration, repair conversion, demolition, maintenance or use, to restrain, correct or abate such violation, to prevent the occupancy of said building, structure, or land, or to prevent any illegal act, conduct business or use in or about such premises.

General requirements.

Fees. All permit fees under this chapter shall be determined by the Board and a schedule of such shall be made available to the general public. The Board shall be empowered to reevaluate the fee schedule and make necessary alterations to it. Such alterations shall not be considered an amendment to this chapter and may be adopted at any public meeting of the Board by resolution.

Issuance of refusal of permits. If the Zoning Officer determines that an application is in compliance with the provisions of this chapter, it shall be his duty to issue the appropriate permit. If he determines that an application is not in compliance with the provisions of this chapter, it shall be his duty to refuse the permit, in which case he shall instruct the applicant in the method of appeal or application to the Zoning Hearing Board.

Notification to applicant. All applicants for permits or certificates shall be given written notice of the status of the application within 30 days, unless otherwise specified. When an application is refused, the Zoning Officer shall specify reasons for the refusal.

A zoning permit shall be required prior to a change in use of land or buildings; a change in use or extension or enlargement of a nonconforming use; or development within the Floodplain Conservation District. The placing of vacant land under cultivation shall not require a zoning permit. It shall be unlawful to commence any site work or other work requiring a zoning permit shall until a permit has been properly issued therefor.

Application for zoning permits. Application for permits under this section, along with accompanying plans and data, may be submitted by the Zoning Officer to any appropriate governmental agency, authority or representative for review and comment relative to compliance with existing statutes and the Zoning Officer shall consider those comments in action on the application. All applications shall be accompanied by:

Temporary zoning permits. A temporary zoning permit may be authorized by the Zoning Officer for a nonconforming structure or use which it deems beneficial to the public health or general welfare, or which it deems necessary to promote the proper development of the community, provided that such nonconforming structure or use shall be completely removed upon expiration of the permit without cost to the Township. Such a permit shall be issued for a specified period of time, not exceeding one year.

Requirements of building permits. A building permit shall be required prior to the erection or alteration of or addition to, any building or other structure or portion thereof. It shall be unlawful for any person to commence work for the erection or alteration of, or addition to, any building or other structure or portion thereof until a building permit has been duly issued therefor, except as provided by special exception.

Application for building permits. All applications for building permits shall be made in writing on forms furnished by the Township and shall be accompanied by a plot plan drawn to scale and accurately showing the exact size and location of any buildings or other structures existing on the lot in question or upon abutting land within 50 feet of the side and rear lot lines of such lot, and the lines within which the proposed building or other structure shall be erected or altered. There shall, in addition, be included with all applications, such other plans, documents and information as may be necessary to enable the Zoning Officer to ascertain compliance with this chapter and all other pertinent ordinances. The Zoning Officer shall reply to all building permit applications within 30 days of receipt.

Issuance of building permits. No building permit shall be issued until the Zoning Officer has certified that the proposed building, structure or alteration complies with the provisions of this chapter and applicable ordinances. Upon completion of the erection, addition to, or alteration or any building, structure or portion thereof authorized by any building permit obtained in compliance with this chapter, and prior to use of occupancy, the holder of such permit shall notify the Zoning Officer of such completion. Use and occupancy shall not be authorized until the Zoning Officer has certified that the work has been inspected and approved as being in conformity with this and other applicable ordinances, and has issued a use and occupancy permit as provided below.

General requirements. It shall be unlawful for the applicant, person or other entity to sell, occupy any building or other structure or parcel of land until an occupancy permit, if required, has been duly issued therefor. Occupancy permit shall be required prior to any of the following:

For any occupancy permit required by Subsection A, no permit shall be issued unless the following items are satisfactorily inspected by the Building Code Officer of Upper Uwchlan Township, and determined to be in good working order as best can be determined by a site inspection:

Application procedures. All applications for use and occupancy permits shall be made in writing on forms furnished by the Township and shall include all information necessary to enable the Zoning Officer to ascertain compliance with this chapter.

Issuance.

An application for a conditional use shall be filed with the Board of Supervisors, and shall state:

The application for a conditional use shall be filed with the Secretary of the Township on such forms as may be prescribed for that purpose, and shall be accompanied by the application fee, prescribed from time to time, by the Board of Supervisors. No application shall be received for filing unless accompanied by the required filing fee. The Secretary shall submit the application to the Township Planning Commission within five days of receipt, and the Planning Commission shall review the application and make a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors within 30 days thereafter.

The Board of Supervisors shall hold a public hearing on the conditional use application in accordance with the following procedures:

In granting or denying a conditional use or establishing conditions with reference to such grants, the Board of Supervisors shall use as a guide in evaluating a proposed conditional use, and may determine to be mandatory, those standards established for review of special exception applications by § 200-126J of this chapter. The burden of establishing compliance with those enumerated standards shall be upon the applicant by a fair preponderance of the credible evidence. The standards required by this subsection shall be deemed a part of the definitional aspect under which a conditional use may be granted, and the failure of the applicant to establish his compliance with all of the standards shall, in the discretion of the Board, be deemed either a basis for the establishing of conditions or limitations on an approval or the basis for a determination that the applicant has not met the requirements for which a conditional use may be granted.

Nothing in this section shall be construed to relieve the applicant for a conditional use approval from obtaining other required approvals mandated by Chapter 162, Subdivision and Land Development, or other applicable ordinances.

Appeals from a determination of the Board pursuant to any application for conditional use shall be only as prescribed within such times permitted by the applicable provisions of the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code.[1]

In granting an application for conditional use, the Board may attach such additional reasonable conditions and safeguards as it deems necessary and appropriate to insure compliance with the provisions of this chapter and to protect the health, safety and general welfare of the community. The Board of Supervisors, in granting an application for conditional use may approve modifications to applicable area and bulk regulations when said modifications are deemed by the Board of Supervisors to be in the public interest and in furtherance of the goals set forth in this chapter of Upper Uwchlan Township. In approving such modifications, the Board of Supervisors may attach any conditions deemed necessary by the Board to ensure adequate screening, landscaping, buffering of neighboring properties, or other means to mitigate potential impacts resulting from modifications to area and bulk regulations.

Where a conditional use application involves land development and/or subdivision approval, any conditional use approval granted by the Board of Supervisors shall be governed in a manner consistent with Section 917 of the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code, 53 P.S. § 10917, which provides that the applicant shall be entitled to rely upon the ordinances in effect at the time of conditional use approval if the applicant submits land development and/or subdivision plans within a period of six months from the date of such conditional use approval. A conditional use approval that does not involve or require land development and/or subdivision approval shall expire if the applicant fails to obtain a building permit or a use and occupancy permit, as the case may be, within six months from the date of the Board of Supervisors' conditional use approval. The Board of Supervisors may authorize an extension of time to obtain such permits, or to submit land development/subdivision plans, at the time of the hearing, or upon a future written request by the applicant which may be acted upon by the Board by motion at a regularly scheduled public meeting.

The applicant shall establish by a fair preponderance of credible evidence that the use intended at the location intended shall not be contrary to the public health, safety and welfare.

The applicant shall establish by a fair preponderance of credible evidence that the capacity of the road network providing access to the premises in question, when the incremental increase in traffic attributable to the proposed use is superimposed upon the existing use of the road network, shall not lower the level of service of the roads or any portion thereof below the level of service that would occur in the future without the proposed development.

The applicant shall establish by a fair preponderance of credible evidence that the external access locations and interior traffic circulation for the proposed use at the proposed location, including but not limited to acceleration and deceleration lanes and parallel access road where required at the proposed entrances to the location, shall be adequate to provided safe and convenient circulation for users of the facility, visitors to the facility, employees of the facility and all emergency vehicles that may require entrance thereon.

The applicant shall establish by a fair preponderance of credible evidence that the facility provides safe and convenient pedestrian access and internal circulation within the grounds of the facility and particularly for points of access from the facility to the parking areas.

The applicant shall establish by a fair preponderance of credible evidence that adequate screening is provided between the lands in question and surrounding residential uses and residentially zoned districts to screen the facility from view, preclude any glare from lighting or excessive noise from being ascertainable beyond the boundaries of the property.

The applicant shall establish by a fair preponderance of credible evidence, which shall include but not necessarily be limited to a certificate from the chief of the fire company providing services to the facility, that the said company has adequate facilities to reach the highest points of the building with ladders and hoses or, in the alternative, that such facilities satisfactory to the fire company will be provided by the owner or operators of the facility.

The applicant shall establish by a fair preponderance of credible evidence that adequate water storage is available at the facility for fire-fighting purposes without impairing the uses of the water supply for ordinary purposes on the premises. The evidence shall include but not be limited to a water supply plan, a fire plan and a certificate of the adequacy of both executed by the chief of the fire company providing services to the facility, and the plans shall be prepared and certified as correct by a registered professional engineer and approved by the Township Engineer.

The applicant shall establish by a fair preponderance of credible evidence the adequacy of public water supply (Chapter 183, Article I, Public Water Supply), sanitary sewer facilities, stormwater management facilities, and all other utilities that the development will access or otherwise utilize. The applicant shall specifically document the availability of capacity within the sanitary sewage system that will service the proposed facility.

The applicant shall submit information that documents conformance to all requirements of § 162-9H of Chapter 162 (impact statements - traffic, recreation, and historic, as well as fiscal impact statements), as established in both § 162-9H of Chapter 162 and the following Subsection J.

The applicant shall submit a site analysis and impact plan, pursuant to § 162-9D of Chapter 162, Subdivision and Land Development.

A fiscal impact analysis shall be prepared for all conditional uses identifying the likely impact of the development on the Township's tax revenue and expenditure patterns. Included shall be a determination of the revenues to accrue to the Township as a result of a proposed development, as well as an identification of the costs associated with delivering services to the proposed development. The analysis shall deal with the impact of the proposed development on the ability of the Township to deliver fire, police, administrative, public works and utility services to the development. The applicant shall utilize one or more methodologies described as appropriate for the proposed land use(s) in The Fiscal Impact Handbook (Rutgers Center for Urban Policy Research, 1978), The New Practitioner's Guide to Fiscal Impact Analysis (Rutgers Center for Urban Policy Research, 1985), The Development Impact Assessment Handbook (Urban Policy Research, 1994), or a more recent publication/methodology as may be available. Population and other demographic multipliers used in preparing the analysis should be developed from local sources when available (such as from Upper Uwchlan Township, the Downtown Area School District and the Chester County Planning Commission) or from the most recent information published by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. In the preparation of the fiscal impact analysis, the applicant shall also solicit information from Upper Uwchlan Township officials (administration, public works, police, fire and emergency services, parks and recreation) regarding the need to add staff, facilities or equipment in order to properly service the development proposal and the associated costs of providing these services.

The Board of Supervisors may impose such conditions, in addition to those required, as are necessary to assure that the intent of this chapter is complied with, which conditions may include, but are not limited to, harmonious design of buildings, planting and its maintenance as a sight or sound screen, the minimizing of noxious, offensive or hazardous elements, adequate standards of parking and sanitation.

The provisions of this chapter shall not apply to Upper Uwchlan Township nor to any building or land of the Township or extension thereof, or to the use of any premises by the Township, nor shall its provisions be construed to apply in any way to any building, lands or premises owned or operated by the Township. The provisions of this chapter shall also not apply to West Vincent Township with respect to Uniform Parcel Identifier No. 32-2-6-E.