Pennsylvania Statutes Title 16 P.S. Counties § 5204. Plans of subdivisions; jurisdiction; scope of subdivisions; regulations; procedure; penalties

(a) The county planning commission shall have jurisdiction and control of the subdivision of land located within the county limits. For the purpose of this section, a subdivision shall be construed to be a division of any part, parcel or area of land by the owner or agent, either by lots or by metes and bounds, into lots or parcels, three or more in number, for the purpose of conveyance, transfer, improvement or sale, with appurtenant roads, streets, lanes, alleys and ways, dedicated or intended to be dedicated to public use or the use of purchasers or owners of lots fronting thereon. In counties of the second class all plans, plots and replots of land laid out in building lots, and the streets, highways, alleys or other portions of the same intended to be dedicated to public use or the use of purchasers or owners of lots fronting thereon or adjacent thereto, located within the county limits, except those located within any city or borough within the said county, shall be submitted to the county planning commission and approved by it before they shall be recorded. In counties of the second class A all plans, plots and replots of land laid out in building lots, and the streets, highways, alleys or other portions of the same intended to be dedicated to public use or the use of purchasers or owners of lots fronting thereon or adjacent thereto, located within the county limits, except those located within any city or borough or within a township having adopted by resolution or ordinance land subdivision regulations, shall be submitted to the county planning commission and approved by it before they shall be recorded.

(b) It shall not be lawful to receive or record any such plan in any public office unless the same shall bear thereon, by endorsement or otherwise, the approval of the County Planning Commission, if one has been created. The disapproval of any such plan by the County Planning Commission shall be deemed a refusal of the proposed dedication shown thereon. The approval of the commission shall be deemed an acceptance of the proposed dedication, but shall not impose any duty upon the county concerning maintenance or improvement of any such dedicated streets, highways, alleys or other portions of the same, until the proper authorities of the county shall have made actual appropriation of the same by entry, use or improvement. The owners and purchasers of such lots shall be conclusively presumed to have notice of public plans, maps and reports of the commission affecting such property within its jurisdiction.

(c) Any owner or agent of the owner of any land located within a subdivision who sells, transfers or agrees to sell any land by reference to or exhibition of or by other use of a plan of a subdivision before the same has been approved by the County Planning Commission shall, upon summary conviction thereof before any alderman or justice of the peace  1 of the county, be sentenced to pay a fine of not less than fifty dollars ($50) or more than one hundred dollars ($100) and the cost of the prosecution, or undergo an imprisonment for a term of not more than thirty (30) days, for each lot or parcel transferred or sold or agreed to be sold; and the description of such lot or parcel by metes and bounds in the instrument of transfer or other document used in the process of selling or transferring shall not exempt the transaction from such penalties or from the remedies herein provided.

(d) The county may also enjoin such transfer or sale or agreement by action for injunction brought in any court of equity jurisdiction, in addition to the penalty herein provided.