3 Things a Pennsylvania Neighbor Might Report That Are Usually Legal
There’s always that one neighbor who notices everything and has opinions about it.
In Pennsylvania, what they notice is sometimes allowed, even when they report it.
Here’s what those reports might be about, and why they don’t always go anywhere.
Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Each numbered item below is generally legal under state law, but your township, county, deed or homeowners association can add rules, and all of it is subject to change.
1. Running a Home Business
A neighbor who thinks your home business breaks a zoning rule may take the complaint to the township.
Shippensburg Township in Cumberland County, for one, requires its zoning officer to keep records, open to the public, of every complaint of a violation.
Running a business from home is still legal in every residential zone if it qualifies as a no-impact home-based business.
The state’s Municipalities Planning Code makes every zoning ordinance allow that kind of business by right.
You can’t employ anyone outside your household, and your customers, clients or patients can’t add traffic beyond what a home normally sees.
Parking, signs or lights that make the business visible from outside would fail the definition.
The business has to stay inside your home and use no more than 25% of the habitable floor area.
The business also has to be compatible with the residential uses around it and can’t involve any illegal activity.
The definition also rules out retail sales, equipment that creates noise or odors, and waste beyond what a home normally produces.
If you live under a deed restriction or in a homeowners association, its rules can still bar the business.
2. Watching a Neighbor’s Kids
Could a neighbor report you for watching other families’ kids at your house?
Watching one, two or three unrelated kids at your house doesn’t make it a family child care home.
The state’s definition of a family child care home starts at four unrelated children at one time.
A home caring for four to six unrelated children needs a certificate of compliance from the Department of Human Services (DHS).
If a neighbor believes your home is operating without one, the DHS complaint page takes reports online.
Regional office staff investigate complaints about family child care homes that don’t follow the operating requirements.
A family child care home can’t go past six unrelated children at one time.
A home with more than six falls under a different DHS category.
The rule lets you leave close relatives, as it defines them, out of that count.
Psst! How much do you know about the everyday laws next door? Take our quiz and see if you can ace it.
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3. Lighting a Fire Pit
In Allegheny County, a neighbor bothered by your fire pit smoke can report it to the county health department.
The Allegheny County Health Department takes those reports on a 24-hour complaint line and through an online form.
A backyard fire pit is legal under a state exemption for open burning.
Pennsylvania's air regulation, 25 Pa. Code § 129.14, bars open burning in an air basin.
Outside an air basin, it bars burning whose emissions are visible past the property line or whose odors are detectable outside it.
But the regulation exempts "a fire set solely for recreational or ceremonial purposes."
It exempts a fire set solely for cooking food too.
A Legal Fire Pit in Allegheny County
The county's open burning rules apply to burning of any kind, even recreational fires in a fire pit.
Your fire pit stays within those rules when the fire is no larger than 3 feet wide by 3 feet long by 2 feet high.
The fire also has to sit at least 15 feet from the nearest neighbor's dwelling or inhabited area.
The county's wording for that area includes the property line, roadway, sidewalk or other public access area.
Only clean wood, propane or natural gas can burn, with narrow exceptions such as commercial fire logs and charcoal for cooking.
Your township's ordinance may be equal to or more stringent than the county's rules.
Right to Farm Act
If a neighbor sues you over your farm, the state's Right to Farm Act limits nuisance lawsuits against qualifying agricultural operations.
To qualify, your operation has to have run lawfully as a normal agricultural operation for at least one year, with conditions substantially unchanged.
Expansions and substantial changes become protected after one year of operation or if a nutrient management plan approved beforehand addresses them.
The Act binds municipalities too, so one that defines or prohibits a public nuisance has to leave normal agricultural operations out of that definition.
The Act also tells every municipality to encourage the continuity, development and viability of agricultural operations within its jurisdiction.
The exemption holds so long as an operation doesn't have a direct adverse effect on the public health and safety.
The section leaves intact the state's authority to protect public health, safety and welfare, and a municipality's authority to enforce state law.
A neighbor can still recover damages for injuries caused by an operation conducted in violation of a federal, state or local statute or governmental regulation.
If you grow at least half of what you sell, the Act authorizes direct sales from land you own and operate, despite municipal ordinances and zoning prohibitions.
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