Uniontown council denies rezoning request for Veech Street detoxification facility
Mike Tony | Herald-Standard
Robert Hall of Evergreen Terrace voices an objection to a rezoning request to accommodate a proposed detoxification facility on Veech Street in Uniontown at city council’s meeting Tuesday. Council subsequently denied the request, citing neighborhood opposition to the proposed facility.
Mike Tony | Herald-Standard
Uniontown City Councilman Joby Palumbo said he was swayed by the arguments of residents living in the neighborhood surrounding Veech Street against a rezoning request to accommodate a proposed detoxification facility on that street. “You guys came today, raised some very good points,” Palumbo said, adding that he had initially leaned toward voting in favor of the request since a friend he trusted was hoping to operate the facility there.
Mike Tony | Herald-Standard
Uniontown City Councilman Martin Gatti was one of four council members to vote to deny a rezoning request to accommodate a proposed detoxification facility on Veech Street. “It’s just too much opposition,” Gatti said of neighborhood residents objecting to the request.
Uniontown City Solicitor J.W. Eddy said the city didn't have jursidiction to address a request to amend the city’s zoning ordinance to extend a local business zoning district to accommodate plans for a detoxification facility on Veech Street Tuesday. Council subsequently voted 4-0 to deny the request.
After stressing how difficult it felt its decision was, Uniontown City Council voted to deny a request to amend the city’s zoning ordinance to extend a local business zoning district to accommodate plans for a detoxification facility on Veech Street, acknowledging that vocal neighborhood opposition to the proposed rezoning swayed them enough to turn down the request.
Council voted 4-0 to deny the request to amend the city’s zoning ordinance to extend the C1 local business zoning district to properties at 7 and 9 Veech St., where Dr. Scott Tracy and Dr. Robert Baker, co-owners of Wellness Recovery LLC, were hoping to operate a detoxification facility. Wellness Recovery LLC holds a lease on the property owned by M.O. Common Properties LLC.
“We’re just on board with the community here and the neighborhood itself,” Councilman Martin Gatti said, speaking before a packed council chambers consisting largely of residents living near Veech Street who came to voice objections both to Wellness Recovery’s proposal and the notion that the zoning district be extended for any business enterprise at all. “It’s just too much opposition, in my opinion. Too many concerns.”
“Legally, the opinion that I have to give is I think this is more appropriate for either a request for nonconforming use, a special exception or a variance, which we don’t have the jurisdiction to address at this level,” city Solicitor J.W. Eddy said.
Eddy noted that Tracy and Baker could still make such requests through the city zoning hearing board, adding that none of those requests would have to come before city council again.
Prior to council’s 26-minute executive session, council heard several impassioned pleas from neighborhood residents to deny the rezoning request, many of whom had also urged council at a public hearing last month to turn Wellness Recovery away as it considered the company’s request.
“You can’t take a residential area and dump a C1 into the middle of it and think it’s going to be for the better, whether they’re putting in a doctor’s office, a tattoo shop, a body shop … whatever they’re putting in,” Evergreen Terrace resident Robert Hall said.
Community residents also expressed specific concerns about Wellness Recovery, several of whom recalled that a suboxone operation based on the property had been shut down by the city last year.
Tracy, a psychotherapist, and college counseling professor, was not present at the council meeting but said at last month’s meeting that Wellness Recovery intended to operate a state-licensed short-term inpatient detoxification facility using non-addictive medicines. The facility would have seven beds. Tracy stressed that it would not be a methadone treatment program and added that the program would be insurance-based, so all patients would be pre-approved and insured.
Tracy said that the facility would be staffed with a nurse 24 hours a day, with a physician and counselor onsite during daylight hours.
Neighborhood resident Samantha Nutt said that Tracy and Baker hadn’t been transparent enough about their plans for the proposed facility and expressed concern about its close proximity to the everyday lives of surrounding residents.
“There’s a swing set across from there, there’s kids’ yards,” Nutt said. ” … It’s not a proper place to have an actual business.”
Representing the Veech Street Concerned Citizens group newly formed by residents living near the street, attorney Jack R. Heneks Jr. petitioned council to deny the rezoning request, arguing that the rezoning was “out of character from the rest of the neighborhood” and would potentially benefit only one private owner while residents bore the brunt of the zoning change.
“This is the classic definition of spot zoning,” Heneks said.
Eddy pushed back on several of Heneks’ points prior to council’s executive session and subsequent vote to deny the rezoning request.
“What are the specific things that everyone is envisioning may happen?” Eddy asked. “Are we worried about a crime wave or homes broken into?”
“All those are concerns that have been expressed to me,” Heneks replied.
Eddy cast doubt on Heneks’ assertion that the rezoning request constituted spot zoning, noting that the county’s drug problem affects everybody and that the proposed detox facility wouldn’t benefit just one individual or group.
A former assistant district attorney, Eddy said he had tried 126 criminal jury trials in his career and had five homicide convictions.
“And one thing I can tell you from that is that just punishing these people and throwing them in jail doesn’t fix a thing,” Eddy said.
But Eddy added later that the rezoning request was “over-broad” and too sweeping, acknowledging resident concerns that if the detoxification facility were to be relocated or go defunct in the future, it would still be zoned C1, inviting the possibility of other undesirable businesses there.
“At the end of the day, that’s the decisive factor,” Eddy said.
Councilman Joby Palumbo explained his vote to deny the rezoning request slowly and solemnly, telling the crowd that Baker was a “good friend” and that he initially was “really leaning towards voting for him because of what’s he’s trying to do.”
” … We need help badly,” he said.
But Palumbo said neighborhood citizens “made a lot of great points” and acknowledged Eddy’s point that only the zoning hearing board can issue amend the zoning in a way that doesn’t lock the rezoning in as a C1 area.
Tracy said Thursday that a special exception or variance that wouldn’t lock C1 zoning in for the property beyond any Wellness Recovery operations there would be a “great compromise,” confirming that he and Baker are still interested in potentially continuing to pursue facility operations on the property, adding that M.O. Common Properties would have to approve any further zoning-related requests as owner.
Tracy said he was disappointed with council’s decision and said that support for addiction treatment throughout the city and beyond was greater than the neighborhood opposition that swayed council.
“What we need are politicians with the courage to step up and (address) this pandemic,” Tracy said.
“I love what the doctors are trying to do,” Mayor Ed Fike told concerned Veech Street neighborhood residents at the meeting. “And I can understand what your people think too.”