Background
Keith Valley Associates, LLC owns a 100-acre property in Horsham Township, Montgomery County. In December 2024, Keith Valley’s counsel notified Township officials by letter of the company’s intention to commence forestry activities on the property. Keith Valley did not request a zoning determination. Despite that, the Township’s zoning officer—in what the officer acknowledged was the first sua sponte zoning determination in his 15-year career—issued an Order and Determination requiring Keith Valley to obtain a zoning permit before commencing any forestry work. Keith Valley appealed the Order and Determination to the Horsham Township Zoning Hearing Board.
While the Board appeal was pending, Keith Valley also filed a three-count petition for review in the Commonwealth Court’s original jurisdiction under the Agriculture, Communities and Rural Environment Act (ACRE Act or Act), 3 Pa.C.S. §§ 311–18. The ACRE Act authorizes any aggrieved person to file an action in the Commonwealth Court to invalidate or enjoin an “unauthorized local ordinance”—defined as one that prohibits or limits a “normal agricultural operation” without express or implied state authority. Keith Valley sought (1) to enjoin the Township from imposing “relentless impediments” on its forestry operations; (2) a declaration that the zoning officer’s unsolicited Order and Determination was null; and (3) an injunction against requiring zoning permits for forestry activities. The Township filed preliminary objections, arguing lack of subject matter jurisdiction, failure to exhaust statutory remedies, and legal insufficiency—chiefly on the ground that Keith Valley had never alleged the Township’s ordinance was an “unauthorized local ordinance” within the meaning of the ACRE Act.
The Court’s Holding
The Commonwealth Court sustained the preliminary objections and dismissed the petition with prejudice (Judge Wallace, with Judges Dumas and Senior Judge Leadbetter). The court’s analysis turned on the distinction between challenging an ordinance’s validity versus challenging the interpretation of a valid ordinance.
The ACRE Act prohibits a local government from adopting or enforcing an “unauthorized local ordinance”—one that “prohibits or limits a normal agricultural operation” without state-law authority, 3 Pa.C.S. § 312. Keith Valley had explicitly conceded in its petition that the Township’s ordinance permitted forestry as an agricultural use by right in the R-1 district and exempted Right to Farm Act activities from permit requirements. Keith Valley’s complaint was not that the ordinance was unauthorized—it was that the zoning officer was misinterpreting the ordinance by requiring a permit that the ordinance did not require. That framing was fatal to the ACRE Act claim: because Keith Valley “ha[d] not alleged the Township’s Ordinance is an ‘unauthorized local ordinance,’ and in fact concede[d] the opposite,” Keith Valley had not stated a valid ACRE Act claim.
The court then addressed exhaustion. Under Section 909.1(a)(3) of the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code (MPC), 53 P.S. § 10909.1(a)(3), zoning hearing boards have “exclusive jurisdiction” to hear appeals from zoning officer decisions. Keith Valley’s proper avenue for contesting the Order and Determination was to proceed with its pending Board appeal, then to a court of common pleas, and only then to the Commonwealth Court. The ACRE Act confers original jurisdiction in the Commonwealth Court to invalidate or enjoin an ordinance under the Act—not to bypass the MPC’s administrative appeal ladder for disputes over the zoning officer’s application of a valid ordinance.
The court carefully distinguished McNew v. East Malborough Township, 295 A.3d 1 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2023), where it had overruled an exhaustion preliminary objection and allowed an ACRE Act petition to proceed. In McNew, the landowner had challenged the validity of specific ordinance provisions as unauthorized restrictions on timber harvesting—exactly the type of claim the ACRE Act is designed to adjudicate, and for which the Attorney General had also concluded the ordinance was unauthorized. Here, by contrast, Keith Valley attacked only the zoning officer’s enforcement decision, not the ordinance itself. McNew’s exhaustion exception applies to challenges to ordinance validity; it does not authorize direct filings in the Commonwealth Court whenever a property owner disputes how a valid ordinance is being applied.
Key Takeaways
- Pennsylvania’s ACRE Act confers original Commonwealth Court jurisdiction to invalidate or enjoin “unauthorized local ordinances” that restrict normal agricultural operations—but a petitioner must actually allege the ordinance is unauthorized. Conceding an ordinance permits the activity at issue and challenging only how the zoning officer applies it does not state an ACRE Act claim.
- The MPC’s administrative appeal ladder (zoning hearing board → court of common pleas → Commonwealth Court) governs disputes over a zoning officer’s interpretation of a valid ordinance; the ACRE Act’s direct-filing mechanism does not substitute for MPC exhaustion in such cases.
- McNew v. East Malborough Township’s exhaustion exception applies when a landowner challenges ordinance validity under the ACRE Act, not when the quarrel is with the zoning officer’s application of a facially valid ordinance.
- A forestry or agricultural operator who receives an unsolicited zoning determination must exhaust MPC remedies—appealing to the zoning hearing board—before seeking relief in the Commonwealth Court, even if the underlying conduct is presumptively protected under the Right to Farm Act.
Why It Matters
The Agriculture, Communities and Rural Environment Act was enacted to curb municipal overreach against farming and forestry by giving agricultural operators a direct line to the Commonwealth Court. But Keith Valley v. Horsham Township clarifies that the ACRE Act’s direct-filing mechanism is reserved for attacks on the ordinance itself—not on how the ordinance is enforced in a specific case. Landowners and forestry operators facing zoning officer pushback in the absence of an explicitly restrictive ordinance must use the MPC’s administrative pathway: appeal to the zoning hearing board, then to common pleas. Only if the ordinance itself is alleged to be an unauthorized restriction on agricultural operations can a party leap directly to the Commonwealth Court under the ACRE Act.
For rural property owners, the decision is a cautionary tale about framing: the same factual dispute about permit requirements could potentially support an ACRE Act claim (if framed as an ordinance challenge) or require MPC exhaustion (if framed as an enforcement dispute). Counsel planning ACRE Act petitions should ensure the petition squarely alleges the ordinance—not merely its application—constitutes an unauthorized restriction on a normal agricultural operation, and should consider consulting the Attorney General’s office for a preliminary review under Section 314(a) of the Act.