Residents Fight Mobile Home Park

Sunday, April 30, 2006 by Joel Berg, for the Daily Record Sunday News

Residents of Huntington Township in Adams County are ready to pounce.

Their intended target is any state or federal permit sought by the developer of a mobile-home park slated for construction in the "fruit belt" region of Adams County. Huntington Township is in the northern part of the county.

As permits wind through the approval process, residents plan to continue weighing in on the controversial development, which was approved in 2004 after a lengthy court battle. The permitting process allows for public comment before an approval is granted.

"We just have to be very, very vigilant," said Jeff King, a dairy farmer whose fields border the proposed mobile-home park. King spoke April 25 at the second annual meeting of Save Our Rural Heritage, a group formed to protect the fruit belt from development.

About 65 people, including Republican state Rep. Steven Nickol, R-Hanover, attended the event at York Springs Fire Hall.

Nickol and others at the meeting said development in the fruit belt could undermine the millions of tax dollars invested in preserving farms and fighting plum pox, a disease that threatens fruit orchards.

As for the proposed mobile-home park, critics say it is in a bad spot and out of sync with the agricultural area that would surround it. Plans call for about 280 units on farmland between Route 94 and Idaville-York Springs Road.

Residents also raised concerns about traffic and water issues. The proposed development includes a sewage treatment plant that would discharge into a creek. Such plants need permits from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

"We'll continue to pursue whatever channels we can to try to stop it," said Amy Worden, vice president of the group.

The controversy began in 1999 when Bowmansdale-based developer Caco Three Inc. submitted preliminary plans for the Peakview Mobile Home Park. Township supervisors denied the plans but eventually were ordered to approve them by Commonwealth Court.

Robert Mumma II, Caco's president, said his company still expects to go forward with the development.

"It's up to us to design it in such a way that it meets the township requirements at the time we got the preliminary approval, and that's what we're going to do," Mumma said.

Caco has no immediate plans to begin construction, Mumma said. He said he wasn't concerned about public comments on any permits his company needs.

"As far as I know, permits are not based on public opinion," he said.

Similar fights could come to other areas of the fruit belt. In the last few years, more than 1,000 homes have been proposed for the agricultural region that spans western and northern Adams, according to Richard Schmoyer, the county's planning director.

"We weren't expecting to see anything like that," Schmoyer said at the meeting April 25.