The Logan Township supervisors Thursday ordered that hunting will be prohibited on the township’s 100-acre Strawberry Hills tract in the Juniata area, because construction workers are laboring there to prepare for installation of soccer fields and other recreational facilities.

The prohibition is likely to become permanent eventually because, once construction work is done, there will be youngsters playing soccer and others pursuing recreational activities on the tract, officials said at a meeting Thursday.

Workers are now grading in preparation for development of the soccer fields, a pavilion, playground, walking path, parking area, access drive, fencing, signage, landscaping, stormwater controls and utilities.

Those facilities would occupy about a quarter of the property, according to township Planning Director Cassandra Schmick.

Other potential facilities at Strawberry Hills include a training complex for first responders and an indoor sports complex, modeled on one in Centre County, Schmick said.

The only dissenter among the supervisors on the hunting ban was Patrick Jones.

“People have been hunting there for centuries,” Jones said. There’s no reason why archery hunting couldn’t continue, he said.

Archery shots go only 30 or 40 yards, he said.

“One (use) does not preclude the other,” Jones added.

CDBG funding

At the meeting, the supervisors held their first public hearing on the township’s 2025 Community Development Block Grant program.

The township has about $183,000 to spend this year, approximately $1,000 less than last year’s allocation from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, Schmick said.

Schmick asked the supervisors whether they had suggestions on what the money should go for this year.

Chairman Jim Patterson suggested following the usual practice of deferring to Schmick’s own recommendations — an idea seconded by Supervisor Joe Metzgar.

Schmick didn’t immediately share her ideas.

When asked after the regular portion of the meeting what she planned to recommend, Schmick said to wait until the second public hearing on the program Oct. 9.

The supervisors are expected to adopt a slate of projects Oct. 23.

The application for the money is due by Oct. 31.

Last year, the township initially proposed using its CDBG money for housing rehabilitation and sewer lateral construction.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.