"Professional" planner Carson Helfrich billed to make Eldred's zoning consistent with others, but he violated that goal without informing anyone

During late 2013 and early 2014, regional planning body CJER was putting the finishing touches on a three-year-long project to align the definitions in the zoning ordinances of the member townships Chestnut Hill, Jackson, Eldred and Ross.  The main agents of this final effort were planning consultant Carson Helfrich of Community Planning and Management LLC, the author of Eldred's first zoning ordinance in 2004, and the Monroe County Planning Commission - the ultimate planning and zoning review body in Monroe County.  It has been reported by planner Matt Neeb of CJER/CJERP and senior planner Eric Koopman of the Monroe County Planning Commission that an overarching tenant of this project was consistency.  A project goal that relies on consistency was to share uses between the townships, so that each township would not have to provide for all uses - this state requirement may be spread across municipalities that participate in regional planning (CJER/CJERP) and define uses similarly.

It should be noted that a planning consultant must be ever aware that changes in definition must be carefully done so as not to inadvertently change land use.  Land use is the concept that different use categories come with different impacts on adjacent uses, and the zoning map reflects a carefully thought out placement of the categories so they do not unduly impact each other.  A professional planner advises local planners (planning commission) and the advisory body (BOS) on changes to land use - it is ultimately the BOS that adopts changes after careful and public deliberation.

Mr. Helfrich's task was to go through each township's ordinance, and make the definitions the same in each township.  He did this, prior to the March 27, 2014 CJER meeting at which the ordinances of all the townships would be adopted.  At the Mach 27 meeting, Ross Township was not prepared to adopt, so another meeting was scheduled on May 1 to adopt the ordinances simultaneously.  However, at the March 27 meeting, multiple members of CJER and consultant Mr. Helfrich all spoke of how the changes were "minor", to bring the ordinances into alignment through consistency.  There was no discussion of land use changes to a higher intensity use in a zoning district in any of the townships.

Mr. Helfrich mentioned an amendment to change the definition of water extraction in Eldred Township that he had received from a landowner's attorney (improper - it should come from the township), and he said that he already had the change on his list.  He then said if the Eldred Supervisors would authorize it, he would move forward.  They did not authorize it, but he left this meeting and went forward with it.  Remember, this is a professional.  The transcript reflects that Mr. Helfrich did not:

The ultimate and painful irony is that Mr. Helfrich describes what he did in April 2014, when he drafted the water extraction amendment, as "Final consistency changes".  In drafting and submitting this amendment, he violated the core principle the entire effort was based on - consistency - without warning a single person.

When asked by a resident in 2015 how this could have happened, Mr. Helfrich explained that he does approximately thirty ordinances.  Evidently he was saying that as a professional, he has trouble remembering what he is doing.  Yet he bills for professional services.

In a recent Pocono Record article, when questioned about receiving the amendment request from the landowner's attorney, Mr. Helfrich replied that he "[doesn't] remember speaking with the gentleman."  Does he receive requests from landowners or their attorneys routinely to change zoning ordinances?  Evidently the definition of "professional" is different for Mr. Helfrich than for the rest of the world.  Mr. Helfrich's memory was a lot better on March 27, 2014:

 This is downright irresponsible, incompetent and in a word, bullshit.  You just could not make this sh!t up, people - go ahead and try.  You could not.