Updated: 4:10 p.m. Friday, May 23, 2014 | Posted: 11:00 a.m. Sunday, May 25, 2014

Trustee: Residents have more to fear fromlocal zoning than Taliban

By Eric Schwartzberg

Staff Writer

    WEST CHESTERTWP. — The gloves seem to becoming off in the fight to revamp zoning laws in Ohio’slargest township.

    Trustee President George Lang this weeksaid that residents have more to fear from West Chester Twp.’s zoningdepartment than they do a certain Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan.

    Americans are slowly losing theiropportunity to go where they want to go, do what they want to do, be what theywant to be, live the way they want to live and pray the way they want to pray,Lang said during a West Chester Tea Party meeting.

    “They’re taking those rights away from us,”he said. “You’ll say ‘What does that have to do with West Chester?’ Well, it’s going onat the local government, as well. You have more to fear from your local zoningdepartment, than you do from the Taliban.”

    Lang went on to clarify that, “Yeah, theTaliban is horrible. Yeah, what they can do to America is horrible,” butreiterated that the individual has more to fear from local zoning.

Hesaid he believes fully in the principles of the Tea Party, including limitedgovernment.

“That’sthe reason why West Chester as a township has flourished and prosperedwhile the rest of the state has suffered, because we have limited government,”he said.    “Business can come here … andmake more money than going to just about any other community that surrounds us.No one can compete with us, because our costs are lower and, in general, wehave a kinder, friendlier zoning department, but we’ve been losing that.”

    Lang said that over the last six years,township zoning has become “more strict, more onerous,” and that he was happyto have Mark Welch elected to the board of trustees last November.

    “We are starting to undo what I feel areunjust zoning laws,” Lang said, eliciting applause.

    Laws that trustees recently voted tosuspend until the township’s zoning code can be revised include prohibiting commercialvehicles from parking during certain hours in the right of way, prohibitingcommercial vehicles from parking during certain hours on private property andforbidding a business from using a costumed mascot with a sign to advertise.

    Trustees also voted to disallow anonymouszoning complaints.

    “Think about that,” Lang said. “You couldbe someone’s competitor, you could be someone’s brother-in-law who’s upset,someone’s spouse, and you could call the township and make an anonymouscomplaint and the township was forced to act on that anonymous complaint. Itmay not even have anything to do with what the complaint is. It may be apersonal vendetta.”

    Trustee Mark Welch said a free people onlyneeds two laws: “do all that you agree to do,” which he said is the basis ofall contract law, and “do not encroach upon other people or their property,”which he said is the basis of all criminal law.

“Zoningis one of the things that, I see it’s kind of encroaching on folks,” Welchsaid.

    For the past year, a committee has beenexamining the entirety of the township’s zoning code, Lang said. That committeelikely will make recommendations to trustees sometime in the next six months.

    “It is my hope that the three of us can gettogether and significantly reduce or eliminate the zoning regulations and howthey affect businesses and individuals in West Chester,” Lang said.

    Trustee Lee Wong told the Journal-NewsThursday that both Lang and Welch are “trying to pull the enforcement teeth outof the code.”

    “The township only has two code enforcementofficers,” Wong said. “They took away the anonymous caller away.”

    Wong also said people are now“uncomfortable to report violations” and that Lang employed a “fear tactic”when he made his zoning-versus-Taliban rhetoric.