Continuing its commitment to preserving its rural character and historic legacy, Richland Township is asking its taxpayers if they want to renew the related 0.1% portion they pay on their Earned Income Tax (EIT).
The portion has been in place since a 2003 referendum, when it was established for 15 years, and was renewed by referendum in 2018, for five more years. The present action calls for another five years.
The action was taken at the Oct. 10 public board of supervisors meeting, through unanimous authorization to advertise an ordinance to allow for the “submission of a referendum question … at the (May) 2023 Primary Election … for the purpose of conserving, improving and maintaining open space, recreational, and historic lands pursuant to the PA Open Space Act.”
The ordinance notes purposes of the tax as including financing “future acquisition of open space, historic, and recreation lands,” as well as “agricultural, conservation, and forest protection easements.” Also included is the allowance of “up to 25% of the annual revenue collected to develop, improve, design, engineer, and maintain open space lands and historic lands and properties acquired by the township, and payment of the attendant transactional costs associated with such actions.”
Also at the Oct. 10 meeting, pending further consideration, supervisors opted to table a motion to add three new areas to the Primary Development Area described in its current comprehensive plan. The township planning commission had recommended adding three of four proposed additions, and supervisors indicated support for only two of those three. Detailed descriptions of the proposed additions are available on the township website via the Oct. 10 meeting agenda.
Township approval of such a plan update would be subject to advertising and conducting a public hearing, and then “submittal to the Bucks County Planning Commission, the Quakertown Area Planning Committee, the Quakertown Community School District, and all municipalities that are contiguous to Richland Township.”
Later in the meeting, in a current historic preservation matter, supervisors authorized Township Engineer Gilmore & Associates to conduct a study regarding roof replacement for the Central Schoolhouse building. The purpose is to “see what the state of the entire structure is in, and to help determine what is the best plan to take.”
At their public meeting last March, supervisor heard from Land Preservation Board Chair Kathy Fedorocsko, on a request for support for repair and maintenance of the historic building, which was the former one-room schoolhouse on Station Road. Noting her group’s mission statement also includes historic preservation, she described deterioration of the structure, which has “sat vacant since its donation to the township” in 2000.
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