Main Line Gardens Denied Agricultural District Designation

At its organizational meeting Tuesday, Jan. 3, the Willistown Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to reject 's request to be included in the agricultural security district.

The designation would have exempted the garden center from nuisance laws, including those addressing excessive noise and smell. Residents who live in the area have complained about loud trucks, dirty air and unhealthy soil caused by the business.

None of the interested parties were present at the time of the vote, as the 7 p.m. meeting had been advertised on the township website as beginning at 7:30 p.m. After the meeting concluded, several neighborhood residents and a representative from Main Line Gardens arrived to find the supervisors had concluded the public meeting and gone into a closed-door session.

The representative from Main Line Gardens was unsurprised that the request had been denied, but declined to comment further.

"The main issues we're having with them is they're operating a waste dump on the property for wood chips," said Deirdre Blackburn, who lives nearby on Woodland Drive.

The woodchips are green, uncured and possibly hazardous, according to the neighbors who gathered in the township office hallway. Many said that they did not have any complaints until 2008, when the company was sold to George Camp and his family, who also own Got Mulch.

"Since he's moved in, there's like 20-some trees that have just died," including those on residential properties, Dean Reichelle, another Woodland Drive resident, said.

"It's absolutely destroyed our nice quiet little neighborhood," Reichelle said. "One neighbor ... was trying to have a birthday party for his kids, and they had to move it inside, because of the smell and the dust."

Main Line Gardens had laid out its case at the supervisors' Nov. 28, 2011, meeting, when Camp and his lawyer James Tupitz highlighted various sections of the security district criteria that they said applied to them.

Supervisors Norman MacQueen and Bob Lange, who operates the farm, appeared unpersuaded by the garden center representatives' rationale, particularly the assertion that having property that could potentially be used for agriculture was sufficient for the request.

"You could do anything with a property," township solicitor Mark Thompson said. "I could own eight acres and have a single family home on it. That doesn't mean, just simply because I could grow crops on it, that it's a farm use or an agricultural use."

Tupitz disagreed, saying, "For ag security, that is what's important. It's not a matter of the fact that he has trees back there. It is, 'Could somebody else, if they wanted to, engage in agricultural activities there?'"

At that November meeting, Joanna Drive resident Susan Graham said Main Line Gardens had always been a good neighbor, but the business didn't need exemption from nuisance laws.

"I guess what I don’t understand is, the sign says garden center," she said. "I’ve never gone there in the 24 years I’ve lived in the area and felt like I was going to a farm."