The owner of the Bellefonte Airport and a developer seeking to construct a campground on the property have asked a Centre County judge to overturn the Benner Township Board of Supervisors’ decision to deny the plan.
The Board “abused its discretion and erred as matter of law,” in rejecting the conditional use application submitted by airport owner Marina Elnitski and Maison Lodging, attorneys Marcy Colkitt and Andrew Kennedy wrote.
Elnitski and Maison Lodging are looking to add a campground with 100 RV spaces, a 2,500-square-foot clubhouse, recreational spaces, utilities and an internal road system in the farm field adjacent to the private airfield at 225 Snow Bird Lane. The campground primarily would be designed to provide on-site lodging to those flying in on private aircraft, particularly for Penn State football games.
The property is in the agricultural zoning district, where campgrounds and RV parks are permitted conditional uses.
After stirring controversy last summer, a corrected conditional use application was submitted in November and a public hearing was held in December, after which supervisors Larry Lingle, Randy Moyer and Thomas Moyer voted unanimously to deny the application.
In the decision sent to Elnitski and Maison Lodging by township solicitor Rod Beard on Jan. 4, supervisors wrote that the campground would generate “significant additional traffic” and create a safety concern when large RVs are leaving and entering the property at the same time buses are transporting school children to and from nearby Benner Elementary.
Campground users’ likelihood of engaging in “tailgating and reveling activities,” including potential alcohol abuse, in close proximity to neighboring residential properties on Seibert Road, Raymonds Lane, and Willow Bend Drive would be “harmful to the health, safety and welfare of the community,” the supervisors wrote.
Its location next to an airfield often used by inexperienced pilots for instructional and flight training exposes patrons of the campground “to risk of accidents,” according to the decision.
The proposal also is “not in harmony with the orderly and appropriate development of the area,” the supervisors wrote, and “would alter the essential character of the neighborhood.”
The application also did not present adequate passive and active recreational space to meet requirements of the zoning ordinance, according to the decision.
On the latter point, Colkitt and Kennedy argued that the supervisors used “standards that plainly do not apply,” and that the plan shows more recreational area than is required on the 30-acre site.
No substantial evidence was provided to show that the development would harm the health, safety and welfare of the community, present safety problems, materially increase traffic congestion alter the essential character of the neighborhood, or not be in harmony with the orderly and appropriate development of the area, they wrote.
Instead, according to the appeal, the board relied on “irrelevant, incompetent and speculative testimony.” Six members of the public who spoke in opposition during the hearing focused their testimony on “vague, general complaints, personal opposition and speculation,” which can’t be used as a basis for denial, Colkitt and Kennedy wrote.
Because the applicants met the requirements of the ordinance, the burden should have been on the objectors to prove a threat to the community would result from approval of the application, according to the appeal.
Elnitski has owned the Bellefonte Airport since 1988. She operates it with her sons as Pleasant Valley Aviation.
