The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Local News

November 19, 2007

Hermitage School Board says 'no' to new institutional zone near schools

Final verdict is up to city commissioners

By Joe Pinchot

HERMITAGE — Hermitage School Board members continued the trend of failing to reach consensus on a proposed new zone with a 4-3 recommendation that it not be created.

City commissioners are eyeing creating the institutional-3 zone and rezoning the area south of Highland Road, west of North Hermitage Road and north and east of school property. The property is currently zoned institutional.

The zone proposal was developed by city staff members upon the request of commissioners, who were faced with the third request in recent years to rezone the Luann Franklin property on North Hermitage Road, just north of the Douglas and Joseph law firm.

Hoss’s Restaurant Operations, Dunacansville, Pa., asked that the property be rezoned from institutional to central commercial so a Hoss’s Steak and Sea House Restaurant can be built there. The school district has opposed all three proposed changes to central commercial.

The proposed institutional-3 zone would allow all the uses currently allowed in the institutional zone, and add restaurants without drive-throughs, beauty salons, barber shops, fitness centers and other personal service uses, and day care centers for adults and children as conditional uses, meaning commissioners would have final say.

The zone also would set criteria for traffic flow, architecture, parking, signs and other concerns.

Hermitage Planning Commission in a 5-2 vote recommended that the zone not be created. Commissioners appear to have the votes to approve the zone — the official vote is not due until Dec. 19 — but two commissioners are uncomfortable with the proposal.

Voting Monday, school board members Raymond Slovesko, Victor J. Ellenberger, Timothy Kizak and Diane Skinner voted to recommend that the zone not be changed, while Jane Levine Matusick, Laurie Ann Biblis and Dr. Morren J. Greenburg voted that a change was OK with them.

Ellenberger said he likes the use limits in the current institutional zone, and does not want more options for owners of land that abuts school property.

“I get nervous about having businesses that close to the school,” he said. “I’d just like to keep it the way it is.”

Greenburg said he believes the new uses are appropriate for the area. He also said city and school officials have worked together in the past, and he would like to continue that in this issue.

“I feel very strongly we shouldn’t hold that up anymore,” he said.

Ms. Matusick and Ms. Biblis also said they favor a collaborative effort with city officials.

“I think it’s time for progress,” Ms. Matusick said. “It’s time to move on.”

Ms. Biblis said she believes Hoss’s would be a good neighbor, but she would work with whoever buys that property.

School officials made an offer to Mrs. Franklin, but can’t afford to buy it, she said.

“The Franklins deserve to have their property sold,” she said. “We can’t leave it like it looks now.”

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