1 week Ago By Ben Orner The Sentinel
Zoning ordinances decide what can go where. Can this warehouse be built so close to these homes? Can this unused piece of land be turned into a gas station? In Cumberland County, where decades of housing and industrial growth have lined two interstates that run the length of the county, it may be surprising that not all its municipalities have these ordinances. Three townships – Cooke, Upper Frankford and Upper Mifflin – do not have zoning laws.
Theoretically, this means anything could be built on this land. However, there are reasons there is no zoning. First, the relative remoteness of these townships keeps local leaders from worrying about suitors like housing developers or industrial giants.
Cooke is the starkest example. The township is completely on South Mountain and is mostly comprised of Pine Grove Furnace State Park. Upper Frankford and Upper Mifflin townships are a mix of undevelopable land and homesteads.
Cooke has a comprehensive plan in effect that regulates some things, said Patricia Sangialosi, a township supervisor and president of the Western Cumberland Council of Governments. But it’s also “very expensive” to create a zoning ordinance, she said, and it would require establishing a zoning hearing board. At just over 200 residents, the township lacks the manpower.
“We can barely get enough volunteers for our planning commission,” Sangialosi said. In Upper Frankford, south of the Pennsylvania Turnpike is state game lands, and the far north of the township is North Mountain. The township’s midsection is mostly homes and farms on and around Route 997.
Upper Mifflin Township, to the west, has more developable land, but its northern section is also the southern face of North Mountain. The combined populations of the three townships is just 3,468, according to the 2020 U.S.
census. These residents have spoken through electing their officials to say, “zoning isn’t important to us,” Cumberland County planning director Kirk Stoner said. “In the future, if they see a lot of growth coming or maybe they get locally unwanted land uses that start showing up that they can’t restrict or regulate because they don’t have zoning, their opinion may change,” he said.
Subdivision land development ordinances govern how development physically occurs, but having no zoning ordinance means these places can’t restrict certain land uses in certain areas. “If you’re going to regulate land use, it has to be through the zoning ordinance,” Stoner said. Industrial developments – like warehouses, for example – tend to cluster by highway interchanges.
They’ve become a noticeable presence off the turnpike and Interstate 81 in places like Silver Spring Township, Middlesex Township and municipalities on Carlisle’s western border. Upper Frankford and Upper Mifflin townships lie along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, but they’re far from any exits and are thus not desirable warehouse locations. Large commercial and housing developments also need robust access to water, sewer, gas and other utilities, which these rural communities may not be able to provide.
Their sparse population also means fewer people to sustain commercial developments like a Sheetz. Cumberland County’s role in any future zoning additions in the three townships would be advisory, Stoner said, since the county wants townships to have local autonomy. The county planning commission can review zoning changes, but the decision to implement a first ordinance would be the township’s.
“We respect the fact that the three of those don't have zoning,” he said. “We wish them well. If they need help on land use issues or if they want to do zoning in the future, they're always welcome to work with the county, and we'll help them out.
” Camp Michaux is located in the Michaux State Forest in Cooke Township near Pine Grove Furnace State Park. The space has existed as Bunker Hill Farm from 1787 to 1919. It was used as a Civilian Conservation Corps camp from 1933 to 1942.
From 1943 to 1945 during World War II, the space housed one of three secret POW interrogation camps in the United States. Afterward it became a church camp from 1946 to 1972. Today, a self-guided walking tour leads visitors through ruins still visible at the site.
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