Bamboo, an ordinance and bad blood in Middletown Township

It’s stuff that’s sweet to pandas but to some residents in Middletown Township, bamboo has been the root of acrimony, sweat and cost.

Thomas Feely lives at 40 W. Knowlton Road and had a bamboo perimeter along the back and on the side of his acre-and-a-half property.

In December 2021, Middletown Township Council passed an ordinance requiring a 10-foot buffer between any bamboo and an adjacent property.

Feely, who removed his bamboo this July, says that was due to the discontent of his neighbor, Norm Shropshire, a 37-year township councilman whose last meeting occurred on the day the bamboo ordinance was passed.

Shropshire, who concedes his wife did not like the bamboo, said in his almost four decades of service, he never used his position in such a manner to impact one individual and that the ordinance had been in the works for years before that.

Relationship disintegrates

Maybe it’s all a matter of which side of the bamboo you’re on?

Prior to all of this, the Feelys and the Shropshires were close neighbors. They exchanged Christmas gifts. The Shropshires gave birthday gifts to the Feelys’ boys and even attended some school events.

Somewhere along the way, neither Tom Feely nor Norm Shropshire recall, the relationship went in a different direction.

After the ordinance passed, the Feelys got a letter from the township five months later, in May 2022, telling them they had to remove the bamboo.

“Then the township came after us like a freight train,” Feely said. “Curiously, it got passed as he left and he referenced his wife.”

Her name is Gerry.

As the ordinance was passed in December 2021, Shropshire said, “Also known as the Gerry’s ordinance, I also want to mention that.”

After receiving the letter, Feely went to the township to learn more about it.

“The only people that really had to comply were people who abutted his property,” Feely said.

At the time he approached the township, five properties were impacted, four of which were in that immediate vicinity.

Since then, township officials say 13 properties have been impacted by the ordinance, of which, seven had intervention by the township.

Were they targeted?

“They were going to take us to court,” Feely said. “They threatened to put a lien on our property.”

So, he decided to take it down over the summer.

“I had to give up a good four weekends of dealing with his nonsense,” he said, adding that he took down portions of it and hired a contractor to do the rest for a total cost of $8,000. “It was a very arduous task.”

Feely said he doesn’t think it’s true that it’s invasive and wrecked his neighbor’s property.

“They didn’t need to go to this length,” he said.

Feely said he and his wife had an exchange with the Shropshires in May 2022.

“We share a driveway,” he said. “We had words in the driveway … They never gave us the opportunity to make it right.”

Feely said Shropshire should have recused himself on voting for the ordinance.

“He used his authority, his power, his cache on council to force compliance, ” he said. “I think it was a cowardly way of going about it.”

Feely said they chose to remove the bamboo to comply, but they just don’t like it.

“We have to do this,” he said. “We’re not going to mess with it. We just feel like it’s wrong, especially the time and the money. Now, it’s awful. I don’t like going outside when they’re out there and they don’t like us either. Man, this is just wrong.”

Long time coming

Mark Kirchgasser is president of Middletown Township Council and was serving when the bamboo ordinance passed.

“We started talking about it in 2014,” he said. “Council worked on this for the better part of seven years before we passed it. It’s been a thing with a lot of municipalities.”

Kirchgasser said they used Rose Valley, Haverford, Nether Providence and Concord as examples when drafting the ordinance. They didn’t want to reinvent the wheel, he said.

“The idea is that bamboo is obviously not illegal, (it’s) an excellent screening device but it’s exceptionally invasive,” he said. “When it encroaches, (it’s) 4 to 5 feet deep with the root structure. It just keeps going. It’s not necessarily at the surface.”

Kirchgasser gave the example of a resident who had bamboo cut far back from the roadway, however, roots began coming through the asphalt on the road approximately 10 feet away.

“It’s very strong,” he added, noting that a 4-foot piece of metal has to be driven into the ground to keep bamboo’s roots from encroaching the property line.

He said the ordinance was not meant to be punitive.

“We’re really not trying to penalize people for it,” Kirchgasser said. “We’re trying to make sure that it’s a remedy.”

13 cases total

Since its passage, the township has intervened in seven cases and there’s been another six cases that property owners resolved the issue without Middletown interceding.

Kirchgasser said he likes both the Feelys and the Shropshires.

“I know Tom,” he said. “I know Norm … they’re both great families. I don’t think this was passed with Mr. Feely solely in mind.”

Shropshire insists the ordinance was not directed at any one person.

“That certainly wasn’t the case,” he said of it being drafted to penalize Feely.

As the township was drafting the ordinance, they were also dealing with other issues such as the Mariner East pipeline. In the meantime, bamboo was getting into rights of way, sewer easements and even on roadways.

“We were trying to figure out how to address this in a fair and equitable way,” the former councilman explained.

He said the township had attorney Charles Miller evaluate how other municipalities had dealt with the plant.

“We asked him to explore the situation as far as what could be done,” Shropshire said.

‘No ill feelings’

He said he’s known the Feelys for 16 years.

“I have no ill feelings towards the Feelys whatsoever,” he said.

Shropshire said the bamboo was encroaching on his property and he also had to have it removed to the tune of $9,000, which included the building of trenches and the installation of an 4-foot underground fence-like structure to keep it out.

He said his wife did not like the bamboo.

“My wife was really upset by this situation,” Shropshire said of his spouse of 50 years. “She was extremely upset.”

Not understanding the time it takes for governmental action to occur, Shropshire said she would continually ask, “When are you going to do something about it?”

And, he added that his wife was not the only township resident pursuing the ordinance.

He also addressed his comments when the ordinance got passed calling it “Gerry’s ordinance.”

“I understand his being disturbed by that,” Shropshire said.

He also spoke of the discussion that turn heated last year between the families.

“There was a situation he and his wife came at me angrily,” Shropshire said, saying they called him an asshole.

When asked why Shropshire didn’t first ask his neighbor to remove the bamboo, he said, “I can’t really address that.”

The issue needed to be addressed, he said, adding that it wasn’t initiated against the Feelys personally or anyone else.

“I have never, ever drafted anything against any individual,” Shropshire said. “I’m sorry Tom feels this way but that’s not true.”