When North Huntingdon developer Bob Shuster wants to build multi-family housing units like those he proposes near Oak Hollow Park, he must obtain a variance because the township's zoning ordinance doesn't take such homes into account.
“North Huntingdon is exclusionary when it comes to multi-family (units) or single-family joined at the center. You need to have zoning for it,” Shuster said this week presenting plans to the township's zoning hearing board and planning commission for 28 new homes, sharing a common center, along Morris Avenue near the Penn Township border.
Shuster said he has built 136 such multi-family homes in the township, selling 12 in the past year.
Without a specific zoning district designated for multi-family homes, the zoning board on Tuesday granted Shuster's RWS Land Co. five variances to build 14 multi-family homes — each with two units — in the fourth phase of his Brook Haven housing plan, which is in a residential zoned district.
That approval followed the planning commission's recommendation that commissioners approve the plans despite strong objections from Andrew Blenko, planning director, who said Shuster's design doesn't conform with the zoning ordinance. Revised plans addressing the concerns had yet to be submitted.
The township is looking to address that zoning oversight and update its ordinance through a review its former planning director, Allen Cohen of Cohen Municipal Planning Consultants LLC, has conducted over the past year. Cohen said he hopes to present a draft ordinance after he reviews the existing zoning ordinance and a proposed ordinance that Delta Development Group of Mechanicsburg Co. prepared about five years ago. Cohen said he met with the township's planning staff to discuss whether it's feasible to implement Delta's draft and how to improve its clarity and consistency.
“We're including a use table for every possible (land) use. We want to make sure the standards are sufficient to address any impact of that use,” Cohen said.
Blenko said the zoning ordinance, adopted in 1991, is outdated.
“The North Huntingdon zoning ordinance seriously needs redone,” said Donald R. Housley, planning commission consultant.
Housley, project manager for R.F. Mitall & Associates Inc. of Plum, said new land uses such as cellphone towers and medical marijuana suppliers are not addressed in the ordinance.
“That's something the township commissioners have to consider,” said Fred Wawrzyniak, zoning board co-chairman. Commissioners must approve zoning ordinance changes.
Zoning ordinances regulate land use, such as what property owners can build and what uses are permitted. In Westmoreland County, 24 of 67 municipalities have no zoning regulations. Of that number, half are rural townships such as Derry, Donegal, East Huntingdon, Loyalhanna, Salem, South Huntingdon and Mt. Pleasant. Others are small boroughs, where development opportunities are limited.
It took Penn Township almost nine years to “totally revamp” its zoning ordinance, which was adopted in September 2016, said Alex Graziani, township manager. It reduced the number of zoning districts and added more uses in each district, providing more flexibility, he said.
As Penn Township was revising its ordinance, the state enacted Act 13, which overhauled the oil and gas laws, Graziani said. In response to the drilling into the Marcellus shale natural gas reserves, a citizens group organized and in a series of public meetings fought over a proposed district for mineral extraction.
“The key to any successful zoning ordinance is clarity and consistency. If it is not (clear and consistent), it becomes unusable and indefensible” in court, Cohen said.
Joe Napsha is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-836-5252 or jnapsha@tribweb.com.
