Polk supervisors working on township nuisance ordinance

The Polk Township supervisors have been adjusting their nuisance ordinance the past few months. Supervisors had met with the Polk Township Planning Commission to ensure that the standards of the ordinance are appropriate for their specific needs. They also wanted to confirm that it is possible to enforce.

“What we actually did was take Chestnuthill’s nuisance ordinance and some other ordinances and streamlined it. We took about maybe half of Chestnuthill’s and tried to fit it into our community,” Supervisors’ Chairman Brian Ahner said. “We want to have it fit our community before we move forward on improving it. If we can’t enforce specific terms in the ordinance, we think they should be pulled out.”

Ahner hoped for an overall better sense of communication between residents. He thought this would help eliminate township involvement in most cases.

“It really is a shame that the community, we get it from both sides,” Ahner said. “The people that have issues don’t talk to the people that they feel were infringing on their rights. But we’re in the middle, so we try.”

Some of the main sections of the ordinance are junk, vehicles, unsanitary or dangerous material, dangerous premises, vegetation and noise. Local residents had questions about junk and noise complaints in particular. They wondered whether it’s permissible to have junk on one’s property as long as it isn’t visible from the road.

They also wondered if there was a specific decibel level that needs to be reached from outside for neighbors to call the police. None of the answers given were definite.

The supervisors agreed that the nuisance ordinance needs to be adjusted in these specific sections.