Plum mobile home park owner argues expansion denial deprives residents of flood protection

Plum’s rejection of a mobile home park’s expansion plan, in part because of flooding concerns, denies the people already living there protection from flooding that the expansion would provide, the owner argues in court filings.

Following a hearing last September, Plum’s zoning hearing board in November rejected a proposal to add 23 homes to Plum Creek Estates on Hulton Road.

The project also would include upgrading the utility infrastructure, roads and lighting and adding a park management office, new recreation space and a stormwater detention facility.

The owner, Plum Creek MHC, argues the zoning board abused its discretion and committed errors of law. It is asking an Allegheny County judge to reverse the denial.

The zoning board and the borough, which intervened in the case, argue the board’s decision should be upheld and the owner’s appeal dismissed.

Plum Creek MHC bought Plum Creek Estates in December 2022. It owns 20 manufactured home communities in nine states, including four in Pennsylvania, according to its brief filed in Allegheny County Court.

The park is a nonconforming use in an area zoned for single-family residential.

Much of it is in a flood plain.

Of the community’s lots, 41 were occupied at the time of the zoning hearing while 11 are unusable, having been lost or damaged in a flood.

The zoning board heard a substantial amount of testimony and evidence about past flooding at the property and concerns about future flooding.

James Sims, the borough’s emergency management coordinator, testified that it flooded in 2019, 2021 and 2022. It had to be evacuated during the 2019 and 2021 floods, with the 2019 flood significantly damaging or destroying 20 to 25 homes.

Engineer Don Housley, a witness for the borough, testified at the hearing that many of the proposed new lots would be at serious risk of flooding, the borough’s brief states.

The proposed expansion, the board found, “would be detrimental to the public health, welfare and safety, and in particular would impact current and future residents of the manufactured home park by exacerbating the flood-prone conditions that currently exist at the property,” the board said in its court brief.

In its brief, Plum Creek says it is undeniable that there is flooding in the area.

“The (zoning hearing board’s) decision to deny on public safety concerns actually creates a safety concern of its own as the investment, oversight and permitting measures associated with flood control and management, in addition to the infrastructure upgrades already underway by the applicant, are a boon and a safety reinforcement for those individuals already residing in the community,” the brief states.

“The (zoning hearing board) and the borough have deprived their (residents) of this investment and oversight to apparently protect the health and safety of hypothetical (residents),” the owner says in the brief. “This is not only an abuse of discretion, but wildly impractical.”

But in its brief, the zoning board said Plum Creek gave no testimony or evidence establishing that a water detention facility would resolve or even mitigate the flooding that already happens during heavy rainfall. No stormwater management plan was presented, the brief states.

While the board also found that Plum Creek failed to submit the required plans, studies and other supporting materials, Plum Creek argues that it can’t deny the application as being incomplete because the borough accepted it, along with a fee and held a hearing on it.

The case now is assigned to Allegheny County Judge Mary C. McGinley, who is reviewing the briefs, according to her office.