FOUNTAIN SPRINGS - The Butler Township code enforcement officer will be focusing on getting property owners to cut high grass and weeds following complaints to supervisors.
Chairman David Kessler spoke briefly of the problem at Tuesday's meeting of the Butler Township supervisors, directing Code Enforcement Officer William P. Anders of Lehigh Engineering to issue citations as needed.
"There have been an excessive amount of people calling as far as high grass, junk and garbage, and things like this," Kessler said to Anders. "I think we've been pretty kind to these folks along the line. My suggestion is at this point that once you call them, notify them, and they're not complying, file a citation."
Anders said once the property owner is contacted, they have 20 days to comply. If the violation continues, the citation would be filed with the magisterial district judge, and there would be another 30 to 40 days before a hearing would be held.
"A lot of these people are repeat offenders who we have to deal with summer after summer," Kessler said.
Kessler said after the meeting that the complaints are coming from different areas in the township.
"As I mentioned before, we're in this situation with repeat offenders," Kessler said. "It goes on year after year. We've been bending a lot and trying to work with them."
In other business, Anders, who is also the township's municipal consultant for Lehigh Engineering, provided a report on two projects reviewed during the June 9 and July 14 meetings of the Butler Township Planning Commission. The first was the commission's review of the North Schuylkill Elementary School land development plan.
"The applicant (Penn Terra Engineering Inc.) submitted a revised land development plan consisting of seven sheets for review as required by township ordinance," Anders said. "The applicant had conformed with all the required items needed to be addressed. The planning commission at their July 14 meeting voted to recommend to the board of supervisors final plan approval."
According to the general description of the project provided by Anders, the plan is to construct a new classroom building addition of 2,228 square feet. The proposed building is for additional classrooms only and will not increase students enrollment. The proposed classroom addition will utilize the existing stormwater basin for stormwater control. The proposed land disturbance will be less than 5,000 square feet, will be located on the existing school complex property, and will utilize the existing parking lot.
The addition of new classrooms is designed to deal with an overcrowding situation at the elementary school.
The supervisors accepted the planning commission recommendation and approved the land development plan.
The supervisors also approved a land development plan submitted by Raymond A. and Cynthia L. Smith to relocate the Lavelle Motors business to an adjacent site. According to the general description, the plan proposes a used vehicle sales lot consisting of a 14- by 32-foot office building, three spaces for customer parking and a 180- by 50-foot gravel area for display of vehicles for sale. The lot size is 3.01 acres and the plan submitted proposes approximately a half acre to be utilized. The office building will have no water or sewer connections and will be used to conduct sales transactions of title transfer. The property is currently being used as an offsite sales lot to the existing Lavelle Motors. The remainder of the property has no development planned at this time.
The supervisors hired two part-time police officers: Leo Securda and Robert Reichwein.