Judge pulls permit
Perry Township Supervisor A.J. Boni said Friday he is pleased with a Fayette County judge’s decision to vacate a special permit that would have allowed a methadone clinic to operate there. In a ruling handed down Thursday, Judge Steve P. Leskinen remanded the request to the county’s zoning hearing board to decide the matter under the county’s new zoning code, adopted Nov. 1. The decision to grant the special exception for the clinic was based on a 1968 zoning ordinance, passed when methadone clinics were not around, Leskinen indicated.
The updated ordinance has a special section for methadone clinics.
“We have a model school district and a great community and we try to err in the side of the residents,” Boni said.
He said he felt that Leskinen understood the concerns of the township’s 2,800 residents. And while residents did not attend the 2005 hearing about the clinic’s request for a special exception permit, Boni said the township solicitor was there to represent their feelings.
“Be assured if this comes up again, there will be a room full of people, and they might have to move (the hearing) to the State Theatre,” Boni said.
In May 2005, the county’s zoning hearing board granted a special exception for the methadone clinic to operate in Perry Township.
Stephen J. Shaner, who is involved in medical services, and general contractor Louis E. Waller wanted to use a vacant building on a 5-acre tract of land at Route 51 and Rehoboth Church Road for the clinic.
Shaner and Waller were met with opposition from the owners of a farm across the street from the proposed site, the township supervisors and officials from Frazier School District.
Lack of water and sewerage for the proposed clinic also was a concern cited by the supervisors, and Boni said the area has been the sight of numerous vehicle accidents.
The intersection is a “bad location” for traffic coming and going from the clinic, Boni said.
Shaner and Waller both said they hoped to find a way to bring both utilities to the clinic, but said the facility could operate if neither was available. That area of the township does not have either utility.
The clinic was to employ 12 to 15 people and see patients from 5:30 to 11:30 a.m. daily, Shaner said. He also told the zoning board that security measures would be in place.
The clinic would be the second to open on Route 51 in Fayette County. Another treatment facility that uses methadone, Addiction Specialists Inc., has operated at Mountain View Plaza in North Union Township, since July 1999.