Citizens group plans to picket over development

February 04, 2002

Citizens group plans to picket over development

By RICHARD F. BELISLE / Staff Writer

WAYNESBORO, Pa. - The citizens group opposing a 138-acre housing development made plans Saturday to picket the Washington Township Supervisors meeting next month.

The supervisors unanimously approved on Dec. 3 the Glen Afton Estates development planned for Harbaugh Church Road.

The residents who opposed the development filed a lawsuit against the township Dec. 28.

The case faces a hearing March 7 in Franklin County Court, John Blair, citizens' group spokesman, told 25 people at a status meeting Saturday morning in the historic Harbaugh Church.

The project, a planned residential development, will include 133 single-family homes and 33 duplexes.

It will border Harbaugh Church Road and surround the church, now owned by the Waynesboro Historical Society and an old cemetery adjacent to the church.

The historical society is not a party in the suit.

Much of the land is zoned agricultural. Township zoning codes allow residential development on land zoned for agricultural use.

Signs that the citizens' protest is gaining intensity surfaced at Saturday's meeting when they decided to picket the supervisors March 4 meeting three days before the court hearing on their suit.

In addition to printing more than a dozen signs, the group plans to "stack" the meeting with Glen Afton opponents, to uniformly turn their backs on the supervisors during the meeting and to pay for an anti-Glen Afton Farms message on a highway billboard in the township.

Blair reported that the group had raised $4,600 in cash to pay for its legal fees. The goal is $10,000.

"We're creeping toward it," he said.

The citizens are represented by attorney Hubert X. Gilroy of Carlisle, Pa. The township is being represented by attorney Stephen E. Patterson of Waynesboro.

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