As of today in fall 2009, every township in York County has adopted an agricultural security area, or ASA, to benefit and protect the farms and farmers within its boundaries. Designation of a parcel into the ASA is entirely voluntary and provides three critical protections to farmers – protection from nuisance suits under the Right-to-Farm law, access to a state review for any attempted condemnation action, and access to the state’s farmland preservation program – without placing any restrictions on the landowner’s rights in the property.
As with any state program, municipalities must be familiar with the requirements and nature of the ASA program in order to successfully administer it. For example, every municipality is required to create and consult an ag advisory committee to hear and make recommendations on applications; to follow specific adoption procedures for applications; and to conduct a 7-year review of its ASA in order to maintain the protections of the program. And as with every law, legal cases have allowed our court system to help define the limits of the program.
For example, a recent case in Lancaster County severely curtailed the discretion of township supervisors when considering whether or not to accept a petition to create an ASA. In In re: East Lampeter Township ASA, 974 A.2d 1213 (Pa. Commw. 2009), the court ruled against supervisors who refused to create an ASA because they felt that they already had sufficient land use planning in place, and therefore did not need to also adopt an ASA. The Court found that supervisors did not have discretion to refuse to create an ASA if petitioned. It remains to be seen whether the East Lampeter case similarly would prevent township supervisors from refusing to allow a specific property to be entered into an ASA if they felt it was not in the best interests of the township. It is clear, however, from an unrelated York County case, that a municipality which seeks to enroll ground in its ASA must carefully follow the procedures of the law. In In re Rebert, 964 A.2d 506 (Pa. Commw. 2009), the landowner sought to have his ground in one municipality entered into an ASA in the neighboring municipality, but never notified nor applied to the controlling municipality, as required by the ASA law. The Commonwealth Court affirmed a lower court decision that the notice requirements of the ASA law must be followed for the protections of the ASA to be put into place.
Once a farm property is in an ASA, it is eligible for application into the Pennsylvania Bureau of Farmland Preservation’s protection program, which pays farmers to permanently restrict their ground from future residential development. The preservation program has been immensely popular for both farmers and for municipal officials who recognize the economic benefit to the community of assuring that properties stay in farming. In fact, an increasing number of municipalities in York, Lancaster and other nearby counties have initiated their own preservation programs, setting aside funds to target particular tracts for preservation and in so doing being pro-active to control the path of development within the municipality.
Timothy J. Bupp
717.848.4900 ext. 121 
717.843.9039
tbupp@cgalaw.com
