Earlier this year, our colleague Claudia Shank blogged about the revival of the Environmental Rights Amendment (the “ERA”) after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Fund v. Commonwealth, 161 A.3d 911 (2017). The PEDF decision breathed new life into the 1972 amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution, but also left many unanswered questions about the ERA. One such unanswered question of particular interest for municipalities and developers was the meaning of the revived ERA in the land use context.
Last week, the Commonwealth Court took a first step in answering this question, when it handed down a decision in the case of Frederick v. Allegheny Twp. Zoning Hearing Board, 2018 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 593 (Commw. Ct. Oct. 26, 2018). Head on over to the McNees Land Use Blog for an analysis of this decision by our colleague Jon Andrews.