Rail Trail Neighbor Protests Legal Fees for Gate

An Upper Saucon Township homeowner balked at a legal agreement to install a lockable access gate from his back yard to the expanding Upper Saucon Rail Trail when he found out that attorney fees were going to cost him more than the gate itself.

James Orlando of 6345 New St. wants the access gate. He even agreed to pay the township $250 to have it installed. Township supervisors informally agreed to that arrangement at their first April meeting, but decided to have solicitor Jeffery R. Dimmich draw up a formal agreement.

Dimmich’s charge for two hours of work to draw up the agreement was $300, which the township aimed to pass along to Orlando.

“Mr. Orlando was very upset about that,” Township Manager Thomas F. Beil told supervisors Monday night. “He said it was more than the gate.” Beil said Orlando was unable to attend the meeting.

Orlando’s property sits along Phase 2 of the trail, for which supervisors last month hired South Whitehall Township contractor Semmel Excavating to .

According to Beil, Orlando said the charges were unfair, especially since property owners along the completed first phase of the trail were granted cost-free gaps in the trail fence to accommodate easy access.

However, Beil and supervisors agreed that leaving a gap at Orlando’s property line is a liability concern. There is a steep drop from the former SEPTA rail line into Orlando’s property. A staircase actually connects the abandoned rail line to Orlando’s back yard now.

The only other option, then, would be to build the fence with no access point from the Orlando back yard.

By consensus, supervisors decided to eliminate the $300 charge to Orlando for legal fees since—as several of them pointed out—the money to draw up the agreement has already been spent.

Beil said it is possible that this agreement could also be a template for future agreements for trail access.