In 1999, the Pennsylvania General Assembly amended the Municipalities Planning Code (MPC), 53 P.S. §10101 et seq., to establish statewide zoning regulations for methadone treatment facilities. Section 621 of the MPC, 53 P.S. § 10621, essentially prohibited a methadone treatment facility from being located within 500 feet of an existing school, public playground, public park, residential housing area, child care facility, church, meetinghouse, or other place of worship established prior to the proposed methadone treatment facility. Section 621 also authorized a municipality to permit, in its discretion, the establishment and operation of a methadone treatment facility within this established 500-foot spatial restriction so long as the municipality conducted a public hearing on the proposed request and provided prior written notice of the hearing to adjacent property owners.

In 2007, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in New Directions Treatment Services v. City of Reading, 490 F.3d 293 (3rd Cir. 2007), that the MPC’s methadone treatment facility restrictions violated Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §12131 et seq., and the federal Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. §701 et seq. In New Directions, the operator of a methadone clinic sought to open a new treatment center in an area of the city interspersed with private residences. Only three lots within the city complied with the MPC’s methadone treatment facility location-based restrictions; the property leased by the operator did not. After holding a series of public hearings, the city council denied the operator’s application based on Section 621 of the MPC. The operator and individual methadone patients filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, raising both constitutional and federal statutory claims.

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