Eleven farmers' battle against East Lampeter Township leaders to create an agricultural security area goes before Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court on Monday.

The farmers want the township to designate a 13-farm, 788-acre ag security area to discourage nuisance laws that restrict farming and to restrict the government's ability to condemn farmland.

Ag security areas also allow farmers to apply for farmland preservation through the county preservation program, but farmers in East Lampeter have not cited that as a concern.

The township says farmers already have enough protections under local measures, and creating an ASA could cause future planning problems.

The balance of local and state powers hinges in a case lawyers on both sides agree could affect ag security decisions for years to come across Pennsylvania.

Lancaster County Court Judge Margaret C. Miller and President Judge Louis J. Farina ruled last July that under the state Agricultural Area Security Law, the need for ag security areas is determined by farmers, not the municipal governing body.

The East Lampeter Township Board of Supervisors disagreed, appealing the ruling to Commonwealth Court, where oral arguments will be heard Monday.

Legislators who created the 1981 ag security area law "recognized it needed to be decided on the local level," said the township's solicitor, Randall M. Justice of Blakinger, Byler & Thomas. "The local board has the initial discretion deciding on cases absent an error in law."

But attorney James Tupitza of West Chester, representing the farmers, said he'll argue that, under the law, East Lampeter Township must create an ASA."Townships can't go in and frustrate the purpose of the Legislature," Tupitza said. The decision of whether to preserve a farm should not be up to a board of non-farming supervisors, but the farmer himself, he said.

A panel of three judges will hear oral arguments at 1 p.m. on Monday in Courtroom 1 on the fifth floor of the Irvis Office Building, Commonwealth Avenue, Harrisburg.

Lancaster has about 152,000 farm acres in ASAs, according to county Agricultural Preserve Board Director Matt Knepper. About 80,000 of those acres have been permanently preserved from development.

Besides East Lampeter, the only townships in the county without ASAs are Leacock, Paradise and Upper Leacock. Twenty-three farmers in those three townships are petitioning for ASAs totaling 1,353 acres.

The East Lampeter farmers requesting an ASA have been turned down three times by supervisors. Following the third refusal, the farmers appealed to Lancaster County Court.

"Legislators who wrote the statute — their purpose was that they wanted to present agriculture with a vehicle for people who wanted to preserve farms in perpetuity," Tupitza said. "The supervisors don't believe people should be able to do that."

Tupitza said the law has five criteria, such as soil quality, that a local board can consider in deciding on an ASA. The East Lampeter farmers meet all five, he contends.

But Justice said the law mentions a factor that can be considered is "any other matter which may be relevant."

That vague language should give the supervisors leeway to consider factors such as the general use of land and whether farming as a practice is already protected in the community, he said.

Supervisors have said farmers already have proper protections through measures such as the Right to Farm Act and township laws, and creating an ASA could cause long-range planning problems.

The supervisors' position "is not an anti-farming stance," Justice said.

Knepper and Karen Martynick, executive director of the private Lancaster Farmland Trust, disagree with that statement.

Farmers have the right to include their farms in an ASA and their local officials shouldn't try to take that away from them, the two preservationists said.

Martynick said the trust supports ASAs because they expand options for farmers and "increase the likelihood they will be able to make it a go on the farm.

"Anything that diminishes those options is not in favor of farmers," she said.

Tupitza said it usually takes about three months for the Commonwealth Court to make a decision.


Staff writer Ryan Robinson can be reached at rrobinson@LNPnews.com or 481-6032.