March 8,2016. The Stars have aligned a bit. I forgo a bee keepers meeting to visit the Plumbstead board of supervisors March meeting. I am one of 4 audience members. One seems to be a reporter committed to the end. An elderly gentleman seems to have something at stake but does not comment during all the opportunities presented. A young fellow perhaps traveled by bike takes notes after arriving late but also has no comments.
So this is the place to come when desiring to know more about policies that pretend to take the environment in mind but not really. Our zoning inspector wants clarity on how to permit run off from decks. Once upon a time decks were modest attachments to homes no roofs just big enough toseatacouple of hairs. Once upon a time yards in our rural township were two acres or more.
In present days decks are 500 square feet or more. In the fashion of home improvement tv shows everyone wants yards designed for outdoor living with zones. Patios of fake wood or concrete surface these zones and prevent runoff or not said the ability of the earth to absorb rainwater runoff from all the covered surfaces. In present days yards in subdivisions are 1/3 acre or less. Decking defines outdoor rooms and full size in ground swimming pools.
These are sites all asking for variances that will permit increasing numbers of homeowners to literally pave paradise to install their version of parking lots.
Our leaders don’t want to be perceived as the no township. Why not a standard variance that ups current run off limits now at 25 percent to be 50 or 75 percent? Then we won’t have to take time to make all those inspection visits designed to manage how we raped the environment?
Until rains inundate us and has nowhere to go but into the homes and extended yards we so thoughtlessly constructed as if thelandbelow was not a part of a living breathing system. Visions of Noah will remind us of the folly and tragedy that come from forgetting we humans are a part of the system and not its masters.