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Waynesburg council approves agreement

4 min read

WAYNESBURG – Waynesburg Borough Council agreed Monday to restructure payments on a $50,000 donation the borough is making toward the development of a 52-unit apartment building for seniors on High Street.

Council earlier voted to donate $10,000 a year over five years to the developer, PIRHL Development LLC of Warrensville Heights, Ohio.

In December, a representative of the company gave council an update on the project and asked if it was possible for the borough to provide the donation over three years.

Council agreed and had its solicitor Pat Fitch draft the agreement, which was approved Monday.

PIRHL plans to construct the apartment building, called Gateway Senior Housing, on the north side of High Street, between High and Nazer streets.

The company purchased four lots and will demolish existing buildings at the site, including storage units, a single-family house and a house previously used as offices by the late Dr. Stanley Fowler.

The new building will contain one- and two-bedroom apartments designed for independent seniors, 62 or older, whose income is about 60 percent or less of the medium income for the county.

Work on the project is expected to begin in April or May, borough manager Mike Simms told council Monday.

In other business, Councilwoman Lynne Snyder made a motion to grant the six non-union borough employees each raises of 3 percent.

Snyder said she believed the employees deserve the raises and the total cost would be only about $6,000. The motion failed to receive a second.

Annual 3-percent raises to employees, including the manager, assistant manager, administrative assistants and sewage plant operator, were called for in the borough’s employee handbook.

Council voted last month, however, to rescind the handbook with the idea of re-writing it.

Councilman Miles Davin said raises would be considered when council re-writes the book and could be retroactive. Snyder and Councilman Dar Fitch both said they would like to see council begin work quickly to re-write the handbook.

Councilman Mark Fischer asked that parking enforcement continue during inclement weather. People know that when the temperature falls to a certain degree, parking ordinances are not enforced, he said.

Mayor Duncan Berryman reminded residents and business owners to shovel snow from their sidewalks following a snowstorm. Many people have not been doing it and they can be cited, Berryman said.

The borough ordinance requires property owners to shovel snow from their sidewalks within 24 hours of the end of a snow fall.

Simms reported the owner of an abandoned brick house on the northwest corner of Lincoln and Washington streets agreed to donate the house to the county redevelopment authority.

The property owner made the decision after being cited by the borough for the poor condition of the building, he said.

Council voted to approve an agreement with the Emerald Mine to allow a bore hole to be drilled at the borough dump in Franklin Township to release methane from the coal seam in advance of longwall mining in the area.

It was announced that a workshop will be held at 6 p.m. Feb. 23 in council chambers to discuss the preservation of buildings in downtown Waynesburg.

A group has been meeting to discuss what can be done to preserve downtown buildings possibly through the adoption of a demolition ordinance or an historic preservation ordinance. Anyone interested in such matters is welcome to attend the meeting.

The idea for the workshops grew out of the discussion council and residents had several months ago regarding the demolition of the old county office building.

Bob Dengler of Gannett Fleming gave an update on his firm’s work to develop a plan to address required improvements to the borough’s sewage treatment system.

The company has been monitoring flow in the sewage lines and measuring groundwater infiltration into the system.

Dengler asked council to hold a workshop to discuss options to address overflows in the system as required by the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Council appointed William Batchelder, a history professor at Waynesburg University, to the zoning hearing board.

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