In an effort to provide better safeguards to surface and mineral rights owners who might not otherwise become aware of proposed municipal actions that could affect their property interests, such as a municipality’s consideration and adoption of a new zoning ordinance or zoning ordinance amendment, Gov. Tom Corbett signed Act 36 of 2013 into law July 2, 2013. Act 36, which took effect Aug. 31, 2013, amended the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code to add a requirement that municipalities provide “mailed notice” or “electronic notice” of public hearings concerning proposed zoning ordinances and zoning ordinance amendments to the owners of tracts or parcels of land or the owners of mineral rights in tracts or parcels of land located within their borders upon request by those owners.
Prior to the enactment of Act 36, the MPC imposed upon municipalities a number of notice and distribution requirements for the adoption of land use ordinances. For zoning ordinances and zoning ordinance amendments, these requirements included: (1) a public hearing; (2) publication of notice of the hearing for two successive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the municipality, with the first publication being no more than 30 days and the second publication being no less than seven days from the date of the hearing; (3) publication of notice of the proposed enactment of the ordinance at least once no more than 60 nor less than seven days prior to passage, with either publication of the full text or a summary of the proposed ordinance, in which case copies also must be provided to the newspaper publishing the notice and to the county law library; (4) transmittal of a copy to the county planning agency for review and comment at least 30 days prior to the public hearing; and (5) in the case of an amendment involving a zoning map change, posting of the property and mailing of notice to the addresses to which real estate tax bills are sent for all real property located within the area to be rezoned.
