Administrative Watch
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently handed down its opinion in Harley- Davidson Motor Co. v. Springettsbury Twp., — A.3d — (2015), in which the Court discusses the impact of environmental contamination on a property’s value for real estate taxation purposes, when the current owner is a party to an agreement with the government to remediate the contamination. The site’s current owner, Harley-Davidson Motor Company (HD), is a party to an agreement with the United States government (including the Department of Defense and Navy) to share in cleanup costs of a former weapons manufacturing plant and is and participating in the EPA’s “One Cleanup” program, under which HD’s cleanup of the property is governed by Pennsylvania’s brownfields remediation statute (Act 2). The cleanup has not been completed.