Last spring, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court addressed the question of who is entitled to standing in matters before a municipal zoning hearing board, and more importantly, who has standing to file an appeal from a board decision. In South Bethlehem Associates v. Zoning Hearing Board of Bethlehem Township, 294 A.3d 441 (Pa. 2023), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held in a 3-2 decision that while the Municipalities Planning Code, 53 P.S. Section 10101 et seq., (the MPC), allows the board wide latitude to grant party status, a grant of standing by the board does not automatically convey appellate rights absent a finding that the party is entitled to judicial review under the Local Agency Law, 2 Pa.C.S. Section 105 et seq., only if they qualify under the “aggrieved party” standard, which requires that they had suffered a harm to an interest that the law is intended to protect. However, this was a narrow decision, and the dissenters would allow any grant of party status by the board to also grant appellate standing. The result would be a dramatic relaxation of appellate standing requirements in zoning hearing board cases.

In South Bethlehem Associates, the applicant, a hotel owner, applied to the Zoning Hearing Board of Bethlehem Township (ZHB) and requested a dimensional variance. At the public hearing before the ZHB, counsel for a business competitor of the applicant appeared and claimed party status by signing in on the provided form as an objector. The applicant objected to the objector’s participation because the objector’s hotel was outside of the 400-foot radius required for formal notice of the hearing. The applicant argued that the objector was only appearing as a business competitor to oppose the construction of a nearby hotel and therefore the objector lacked standing to oppose the requested variance.