Mobile home park under scrutiny
Township explores long-standing property maintenance issues during hearing
LIMERICK » Long-standing property maintenance issues at Ridgeview Terrace mobile home park brought the owner and about 40 residents to a special hearing of the Limerick Township Supervisors Tuesday night.
It began with a March 16 letter to GSP Management Co. of Morgantown from Robert F. Loeper Jr., director of code services for Limerick Township.
In it, he outlined what he and Fire Marshal Gregory Breyer saw as a number of potential safety and code problems during a March 1 inspection tour of the property, located in the 100 block of Ridge Pike.
The letter noted problems with large, un-repaired pot holes in the roads, electric power lines less than 18 feet above the ground, debris that could harbor rodents in some yards, an absence of uniform street addresses, and, perhaps most significantly, no fire hydrants.
Breyer showed the supervisors photos of units with broken windows as well as outside fuel tanks, propped up with leaning cinder blocks and spare pieces of wood.
Frank Perano, who appeared on behalf of GSP with an attorney, responded to each of the items by contesting its requirement in the mobile home parks code of the township.
Perano, who said his company manages some 70 other mobile home parks around the country, could not provide documentation for water pressure tests, but said although he had signed a 2009 agreement to put a fire hydrant “in the public right of way” in the neighborhood, Pennsylvania American Water had refused to do it there.
But he could not provide documentation of PAW’s position, or recall how he had notified the township fire marshal of the conflict nine years earlier.
Perano also told Supervisor Thomas Neafcy during questioning that he was not aware of any code enforcement or fine his company had paid to any other government agency.
However, a 2012 report on WFMZ documents a $1.3 million fine the company paid for state and federal laws at 73 facilities in three states.
“A settlement agreement has been filed after the agencies found 4,300 Clean Water Act violations at 15 mobile home parks in Pennsylvania, where the company treats waste water, and more than 900 Safe Drinking Water Act violations at 30 mobile home parks, also in Pennsylvania,” the news station reported.
In the end, however, the formal part of the hearing became moot when Loeper testified the letter
did not serve as a notice of violation, despite language to that effect, but rather as a way to start a conversation with GSP about how to resolve some of the long standing issues.
“I guess I could have worded it better,” said Loeper.
As a result, GSP’s attorney agreed to withdraw the company’s challenge to the letter, which had triggered the formal hearing in the first place, pledging instead to work with the township to address some of the problems.
“This stuff is so simple and inexpensive to fix,” said township solicitor Joseph McGrory. “I can’t imagine through dialog we can’t make some improvements to make it safer for your residents.”
But the evening did not end without those residents who had sat patiently in the audience for two hours having a chance to have their say.
One resident said she had to pay to have gravel poured in her driveway to keep her car from sinking into the mud, this despite the lease agreement which states driveways will have gravel or be paved.
Another resident said standing water in her backyard was causing a “sinkhole” that was causing her oil tank to lean. Still another said he had lived at Ridgeview Terrace since 1984 “and since 2000, nothing has been done except raising the rent.”
Another resident said the water often gets turned off without notice, which poses a danger to her son who has special medical needs.
“It’s time these things were done, now we’re going to get involved and hopefully you’ll cooperate with us,” said McGrory. “A couple potholes and street addresses won’t bust anybody’s budget. If not, we can show you what codes you are violating” that are not in the mobile home zoning code.
“It’s time these things were done, now we’re going to get involved and hopefully you’ll cooperate with us.” — Joseph McGrory, Limerick Township solicitor