Bethel Park Zoning Hearing Board denies YMCA appeal
The Spencer Family YMCA suffered another setback this week as members of the Bethel Park Zoning Hearing Board denied the YMCA appeal of the decision of the municipal zoning officer.
By a vote of 4-1, the board voted to uphold the zoning officer’s decision denying approval of educational studios, aerobic and weight lifting facilities as accessory uses to the building. The decision was a continuation of a hearing which began in July.
Voting in favor of the YMCA representatives request was board member Charles Koch, who, before the decision, tried to get the vote delayed to allow board members more time to review information.
Anxious to move forward with the process and to make the deadline for a decision by Bethel Park Council, which was scheduled for Sept. 8, YMCA representatives requested that the board make a decision.
“I’m totally floored,” Richard Perallo, vice president of facilities and construction for the YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh, said afterward. “Without this, we won’t proceed.”
The decision further delays the YMCA plan to develop the former BladeRunners Ice Complex into a $13.8 million replacement for it’s Upper St. Clair facility. Construction and renovation of the ice rink is planned for early 2015, Perallo said.
In 2012, the YMCA purchased BladeRunners for $2.5 million. Plans call for additions to the existing building to create a 74,033-square-foot building, which would include a gym, indoor swimming pool, as well as fitness and wellness facilities. In addition, because of intervention of the South Hills Amateur Hockey Association, the YMCA plans to keep one of the two sheets of ice currently located within the facility.
The YMCA has contracted with BladeRunners to operate the ice rinks until renovations begin, and the facility currently remains open.
YMCA officials have said the Upper St. Clair facility is too small to meet the needs of the approximately 6,500 South Hills residents the organization serves.
In May, Allegheny County Court of Common Please Judge Joseph James ruled that representatives of the YMCA hadn’t shown the zoning hearing board sufficient evidence that the facility could not be developed without an exemption from zoning restrictions that prohibit educational studios, bowling, aerobic and weight lifting facilities.
According to Robert Xides Jr., an attorney who represents Bethel Park resident Harry Chapman, HealthTrax Fitness & Wellness and Curves of Bethel Park, that decision has been appealed to Commonwealth Court and a hearing date has been set for Sept. 22.
Xides, whose clients are opposed to the YMCA providing competition to their businesses in a tax exempt building, said that in 1994, Bethel Park municipal officials designated the BladeRunners site as a conservation district.
At that time, BladeRunners developers had purchased the property, which sits adjacent to the high school, from the Bethel Park School District and residents were concerned about a business being operated so close to their homes.
“There is some very narrow criteria, with good reason, in the ordinance,” Xides said.