August 2, 2005, Public Hearing

The Clarion Borough Council held a Public Hearing on August 2, 2005, at 6:30 p.m. in the Assembly Room of the Clarion Free Library, the purpose of the hearing was to receive public comments regarding a petition from Ms. Pamela Songer for Clarion Borough Council to re-zone a 35.31 acre parcel of land in Clarion Borough formerly owned by the Lake Erie, Franklin, and Clarion Railroad and identified by Property Map No. 05-02.0-001-000.

A list of those people in attendance is attached to the Official File Copy of these minutes.

Ms. Vavrek, Chair of the Housing and Zoning Committee, called the hearing to order at 6:30 p.m.

Ms. Vavrek:  Once again, we’re having a hearing for the Songers.  Ms. Pamela Songer of 212 Arch Street, New Bethlehem, has submitted a petition to Clarion Borough Council for re-zoning of a 35.31 acre parcel of land in Clarion Borough.  The property is currently zoned I-1, Industrial, and is bounded on the northeast by a single-family residential (R-1) housing development known as the Troese Addition; on the northwest and west by Owens-Illinois; on the west by other lands of Owens-Illinois and lands of Allegheny Power and Areto Associates; and on the south by a single-family residential (R-1) housing development known as the University Manor; and on the east by lands located in Clarion Township.  Mr. Songer is requesting the zoning of this parcel be changed to R-1, Single-Family Residential, for purposes of development.  The Clarion Borough Planning Commission did meet on Tuesday, July 20th, and did recommend the R-1 change and also recommended that Mr. Songer work on the right-of-way issue prior to the Council Meeting on August 2nd.  I don’t know whether you’ve had a chance to do that or not. 

Mr. Rick Songer: We found out that it’s actually up for tax sale.

Ms. Vavrek: Oh, okay.

Mr. R. Songer: So, we’re going to try to purchase this through tax sale for the right-of-way, which would be the one that’s coming from the railroad, that railroad bed that we had talked about.  That’s what we’re in the process now.  We got to wait until that comes.

Ms. Vavrek: I don’t know whether anyone else here wishes to address this again.  We had a hearing before, whether any of the Councilmembers have any other questions, anything new other than the right-of-way that you want to talk about.

Mr. R. Songer: That’s about all.  We’re actually right at a stalemate right now.  That’s where we’re at right at this point.

Ms. Vavrek: Okay.  Earl, did you have any questions?

Mr. Zerfoss:  Yea, you don’t have a right-of-way yet?

Mr. R. Songer: Right.

Mr. Zerfoss: And are you going, when you get the right-of-way or whatever, you want to sell it, is that your intention?

Mr. R. Songer: Yes.

Mr. Zerfoss: To sell it, all 30 some acres not lot-by-lot or

Mr. R. Songer: Yea, we want to sell it all one lump sum, yes.

Mr. Zerfoss: One lump sum?

Mr. R. Songer: Yes.

Mr. Zerfoss: And again you don’t have to answer this, is there a buyer for it in the R-1?  Is he requiring, is this what you’re, he wants you to get the zoning change before he does the buying?  I think that might have been the

Mr. R. Songer: The actual, first reason we had tried to go as R-3 before it caused such a problem, we were recommended that.  We had a person that wanted, that was thinking of buying it and they said it would be better off to re-zone it.  And, at the time, I had talked to Mr. Troese, well it was young Henry, I’d spoken to him about a right-of-way through this section of his and talked to his father, which has recently passed away, which I’m sorry to hear.  They were planning on giving us a right-of-way through Riverview if, as long as we rezoned it.  It had to be rezoned as R-3 or R-1.  Well then it, he wanted after we had filed the first time, a lot of people got upset; so they called up and he told his son to tell me to go at R-1.  So, we rezoned as R-1.  We’re still at a stalemate being the fact that Mr. Troese has passed away and we haven’t really discussed it since the last meeting.  We’ve also been looking at an alternative route, which is coming through by where the old roundhouse was?  Okay, if you go down that road there beside the roundhouse, the tracks actually run right across the road there and go on down towards the property.  We have been looking at that as an alternative, trying to keep the traffic away from the Troese Addition if we can.  The biggest thing is a person doesn’t really want to buy property without having a right-of-way.  Because we’re trying to find an alternative route to go through there because we don’t want to sue for it.  I mean because the law states that if we can’t get a right-of-way, we can sue for it and we will get one.  They’ll go with the easiest route through, which we don’t want to get into a legal, any legal battle or anything to get a right-of-way.  If we can purchase the right-of-way without any problems and then get it changed over to industrial or not industrial but over to R-1 or yea, R-1, it would make the property more marketable to be sold.  We’ve had people come and look at it.  We’ve drove, I’ve drove probably 4-5 people looking at it.  Nobody with a solid offer or anything like that, just wanted to see what was there and whether or not it would be developable.  That’s where we’re at right now.

Mr. Zerfoss:  So, if, with the hearing, if Council takes action tonight granting, again granting you the R-1,

Mr. R. Songer: Um hum.

Mr. Zerfoss: and again, you’re intentions is if you don’t have a buyer, you don’t have, you’re going to let it sit until you have a buyer where you can sell all 36 acres?

Mr. R. Songer: Yes, we have

Mr. Zerfoss: You have no intention

Mr. Douglas Songer: It has to be sold.  We have no money to develop it whatsoever.

Mr. R. Songer: Yea, we don’t have the resources to develop it.  And if we would sub-divide that would take a lot of money just to sub-divide it into parcels and then we’re going to get stuck with a section of ground that is basically not worth a whole lot being that it’s underneath the power lines go back through there.  So, what we’d like to do is is we’re trying, we’re going to have somebody come in and appraise and everything else, try to find the fair market value for it and then sell it to be, somebody that wants to take it and develop it and put houses in.

Mr. Zerfoss: Because you’ve got to spend money to make money,

Mr. R. Songer: Exactly.

Mr. Zerfoss: but in your, your theory is I just want to spend enough to get by to sell it and get it over with.

Mr. R. Songer: Well, yes.  Because we don’t have the resources in order to do so.

Mr. Zerfoss: Because I had asked and

Mr. R. Songer: Because it has to go and they’d have to have engineers come in and everything else.  I was talking to a fella that was talking about approximate, just to get it started in order to have somebody come in.  Just an engineer to come in to look at it and start drawing a blueprint, you’re talking $20,000

Mr. Zerfoss: Yea.

Mr. R. Songer: right off the bat.  That’s not even breaking ground on anything.  That’s not even building a road, which we have a good basis if we come through on the railroad tracks.  Well you’re still talking maybe another $20,000 to get just a railroad, just to get down there and a lot of that road next to it is not going to be able to be developed.  So, you’re talking of a loss of money that goes through there.  I talked to a few people that have looked at it and said there’s one section of it on the far side, which is over between Owens and what is that, Pete Chernicky’s property up on the hill there

Ms. Lapinto: University Manor.

Mr. R. Songer: There’s about 5-6 acres in there that is developable, maybe a little bit more.  Then there’s, on the other side of the power lines next to the railroad tracks there’s probably maybe 5 acres in there.  It has to be all laid out.  Somebody has to come in there, find out how everything would want to be laid out, have it approved and then start the work.  I had a guy that said that he would sit on it for 10 years before he would do anything with it.  Because of the constant price of property in the Clarion Borough’s keep going up because it’s getting harder and harder to come by.  This is the last, one of the last large pieces of ground left in the Borough before everybody’s taxes start going up, because there is no more developable ground in the Borough.  That’s another reason why we figured if we’d go over to R-1 and the people would build houses in there, that would raise more money for the taxes.  So, it would keep the people that lived in the Borough without having to pay more taxes within the next 10 years, because this would probably be developed. 

Mr. Zerfoss: You’re consistent this month with last month; even though last month you wanted R-3, this month you

Mr. R. Songer: Well the reason

Mr. Zerfoss: want R-1.  And the reason you want it is you don’t have the money or the resources to develop

Mr. R. Songer: Right, if I had the money to develop it, yes, I would develop it.

Mr. Zerfoss:  You want to sell the property.

Mr. R. Songer: Correct, yes.

Mr. Zerfoss: That’s all I have to say.

Mr. R. Songer: Okay.

Ms. Lapinto: Where you able to get a clear deed on that?  I know what I had to go through.

Mr. R. Songer: Yes.

Ms. Lapinto: Because I, there was no, everything was right-of-way with the railroad company

Mr. R. Songer: Um hum.

Ms. Lapinto: (unintelligible) there.

Mr. R. Songer: Well actually that right-of-way that we’re talking about that comes in on the tracks, normally if it was a right-of-way it would go back to the rightful landowners, which is actually us and Mr. Troese owns the top section of it.  But the part coming from the corner, top left corner, to the roundhouse is actually one, is a deed.  It’s one separate deed.  That’s what we’re after right now.  Is that one, one section of ground.  It’s just a couple acres that (unintelligible) less than 100’ wide. 

Ms. Lapinto: It runs up against the Borough’s property.

Mr. R. Songer: Yes, yes, it comes straight over against the Borough’s property and runs like a half of a circle goes around and it runs

Ms. Lapinto: I know exactly how that property’s divided out there.

Mr. R. Songer: Basically it’s worthless.  All it was was an old track bed and (unintelligible) that’s all it was.  All it was a deed, what had happened, how it came about that it got deeded off was when the Borough took the roundhouse by eminent domain, they took what they needed and then they more less took the piece they needed and sub-divided it.  It would be 63-2 on the map; that is an actual separate deed.

Ms. Lapinto: The only reason I, it took us two years to find out who owned that property.

Mr. R. Songer: Um hum.  Which is the Heidrick

Ms. Lapinto: The Heidrick, yes.

Mr. R. Songer: yes, yea.  And I’ve talked to the Heidrick heirs and we were in the process of buying it from him and then I found out that there was quite a bit of taxes left on it.  And I checked with the tax assessor’s office in the Clarion Courthouse and they said well if you’ll hold off a little bit, it’s on

Ms. Lapinto: Tax sale.

Mr. R. Songer: judicial sale actually.  So, if we can pick it up and have a right-of-way in there, then we won’t be looking for another right-of-way to come through.  So, that’s where we are right now.  We’re at a standstill waiting to find out whether this comes up or whether somebody else tries to get it or, that’s where we’re at right now.

Ms. Vavrek: Anyone else have any questions?

Mr. Herman: So, currently there is not a right-of-way?

Mr. R. Songer: Right.

Mr. Herman: What would you do with the property if you’re unable to secure a right-of-way?

Mr. R. Songer: Well then we’d have to, there’s a law on the books that say we could sue for a right-of-way and we’d get one.  They can’t land lock us.  It’s illegal to keep a person landlocked.  They would have to give us a right-of-way through the easiest route through, which then it would have to be they’d, we’d have to go to court for it.  It would probably more and likely, if we didn’t get the right-of-way down through the railroad tracks that we’re looking for, they’d have an engineer look at it and they would probably say that Riverview would be the way that it would come through.  And that would be the most likely and the shortest route to it.

Hearing no other questions or comments, Ms. Vavrek adjourned the Public Hearing at 6:43 p.m. with action to be taken at the Council Meeting.

                     ______________________________

                     Carol Lapinto

                     Borough Secretary