Politics & Government

Sewickley Council Narrowly Adopts Zoning Ordinance

The borough planning commission will review comments from the county and make recommendations to council.

 narrowly passed a new zoning ordinance after a lively debate Monday night came down to a split 4-4 vote.

Carole Ford, Glenn Ford, William Cornman and Charles Driscoll voted in favor; Robert Glenn, Susan Aleshire, Stan Ference and Robert Hague voted against adoption.

Councilman Thomas DeFazio was absent, which meant Sewickley Mayor Brian Jeffe, for the first time, was called to break the tie. Jeffe voted to approve the ordinance, which goes into effect today. 

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With a dance studio and parking project in limbo, Jeffe said, because the ordinance wasn’t flawed, that it was important to “vote positively to get things moving along.”

Solicitor Richard Tucker said council had the choice to resubmit the ordinance to the planning commission or adopt the ordinance as submitted and consider various amendments.

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While the mayor and half of council wanted to move forward on the two-year effort, members of the borough’s planning commission hoped to wait just a bit longer.

Planning Commission members Joan Miles and David Saint-Jacques urged council to give the commission time to review some of Allegheny County's final suggested changes.

“I think it makes the borough look bad that we're adopting this in an almost emergency fashion,” Miles said.

'No fatal flaws'

Andrew JG Schwartz, managing principal with the Pittsburgh-based  Planning & Design, told council that county officials found “no fatal flaws,” but the Allegheny County Economic Development singled out a few policy changes for the planning commission’s review. Schwartz said the revisions include modifying the definition of a yard and adding a diagram that shows yard configurations in a situation that calls for multiple buildings on one lot.

The county’s comments unfortunately were late in getting back to the borough before Monday's hearing so the planning commission never had a chance to carefully review the potential revisions.

Schwartz said any amendments would require the changes to be submitted to the county for review. That means another 45 days would have gone by before the borough could take action in order to provide enough time for public review.

Council approved a second motion, by Ference, who is the planning commission liaison, to send the county's comments to the planning board for a recommendation.

Residents voice opinions

Residents voiced their opinions during the public comment portion, including Mike Lyons, who said he was concerned about the Sewickley Country Inn property being the only mixed-use location, which he believed was spot zoning.

The owner of the Select Market building at 510 Beaver Street said plans for a dance school in the middle retail space hinged on zoning changes to the overlay requirement. 

Mary Lyn McGinn, a member of the Sewickley Manor board of directors, said plans to demolish a parking garage and provide paved-surface parking for condo residents before winter depended upon the zoning passing Monday night. She said the project was already delayed because of a glitch in the old borough code that limited the size of all open, off-street parking lots to a 400-square feet maximum.

“I would like everybody to know how important this is. This affects 86 people who won’t have a place to park,” McGinn said.

Council could have re-advertised an , but that vote wouldn’t have come until mid-September.

A great deal of work

Councilwoman Susan Aleshire said the planning commission put a great deal of work into the ordinance and should be given time to review the county's comments.

Councilman Charles Driscoll pointed out that the new ordinance is far better than the old one.

“I don’t see this as a step backward,” Driscoll said. 

Saint-Jacques said the planning commission could have resolved the issues during its meeting next month, rather than going through a much more complicated amendment process.

After the hearing, Saint-Jacques said that he understood why council wanted to pass the ordinance.

“I can see both sides of the issue,” he said. “…Of course, we wanted to present an ordinance that was complete, but I understand.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the dance school was going in the old TravelWares space on Broad Street. 


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