Dec 13, 2019 4 min read

Canonsburg’s officials are hopeful that potential zoning changes and the borough’s recent property purchases could bring more development and a positive “reshaping” to downtown Canonsburg.

Over the past few months, borough council has been in conversation with the borough’s engineer, Veronica Bennett, of KLH Engineers, about making changes to the zoning map. The conversations began, Bennett said, because an area behind Sarris Candies “wasn’t zoned correctly.”

“That’s 90% residential but zoned as office space,” she said. “They want to change it to mixed use to bring back the ability to build single-family homes.”

On Monday, Bennett presented council with a first draft zoning map along with another proposed zoning change. She suggested council eliminate the transitional district and change it to mixed use.

“When we read through our zoning ordinance, the transitional zone didn’t fit what its goal is,” she said. “It didn’t seem like it made sense for the uses that were in it.”

In the current map, there are three sections of transitional districts on the north and south ends of the central business district. She said the borough will further discuss this option at a January committee meeting.

“We still need to make sure all uses allowed in transitional zones would be permitted in other zoning districts, including mixed use,” she said.

Council President R.T. Bell said council had been discussing changes to the zoning map most of this year, after receiving concerns from residents.

“We started running across some problems, but we want to keep our town moving in the right direction,” he said.

That direction includes a recent purchase of the Eagles Lodge property at 122 N. Central Ave. Mayor Dave Rhome said the Canonsburg chapter of the Fraternal Order of Eagles had a “dwindling membership,” which led to financial struggles related to payments and maintenance on the building.

“The members that have the actual charter decided they wanted to put the building up for sale,” Rhome said. “They had a few people look at it, but no one was serious about buying it.”

In late summer, the borough began conversations with the real estate agent about purchasing the property.

“We asked them if we could make an offer, which they later accepted,” Rhome said.

At the Nov. 12 meeting, council approved purchasing the property for $100,000 plus closing costs, to be paid for with the borough’s capital projects fund. Rhome said the closing is pending.

“There was an outstanding mortgage on the lodge,” Bell said Monday. “We feel as the borough council that sometimes we have to do our own development.”

The building isn’t in great shape, according to borough officials. Rhome said a previous assessment deemed that repairing the building would be “cost prohibitive.” He and Bell said that with so many parking concerns in the borough, the property may be of more value to the borough if the building were demolished.

“All we’ve been hearing from our downtown business owners is that we need more parking,” Bell said.

The council is also open to hearing ideas or pitches from developers.

“It’s a great asset to have as we continue to reshape our town,” Rhome said. “We’re looking for the person or persons who would like to be a part of the development of that land.”

He and Bell said they’d also like to see development of first-floor commercial buildings with loft-type apartments above the storefronts.

“We’ll soon own a whole lot of property downtown to continue to reshape and improve the business district,” Rhome said.

The borough owns multiple parcels along Loubell Drive, from the Eagles Lodge to the former nursing home at 119 Greenside Ave., with a parking lot between them. The four-story Greenside Avenue house was purchased by the borough in 2018 for about $146,000, and is expected to be demolished by the Washington County Redevelopment Authority within the next few months.

“Our council, over the last four years, has been trying to help develop the downtown, rather than wait and hope someone will do it for us,” Bell said.

Council member Eric Chandler challenged the rest of council to continue the momentum in Canonsburg by reviewing and updating the comprehensive plan, once they’ve completed the new zoning map. He said the plan was last updated in 2005.