HERMITAGE Lawyer alters plan for homes

The latest proposal would still require the city to grant the developer at least two waivers from its zoning regulations.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
HERMITAGE, Pa. -- Atty. Michael Ristvey has come up with another plan to put a small residential development on 20 acres of his land off Foxwood Drive.
City commissioners turned down an earlier version of that plan last month because it required waivers from city zoning requirements regulating the amount of traffic flow on residential streets and access to adjoining landlocked property.
Ristvey has come back with a revised plan that seeks to address those issues yet will still require zoning ordinance waivers, city commissioners learned at a work session Thursday.
Here's the plan: Ristvey wants to divide the land into four building lots but had planned to route traffic from those homes onto Foxwood Drive, which already has a daily traffic flow of about 900 vehicles trips daily from the Hunter's Woods single-family housing development.
Ristvey's site is behind Hunter's Woods and city zoning regulations say that he would have to put in a second access road to ease the traffic flow on Foxwood.
The regulations indicate traffic flow shouldn't exceed 500 vehicle trips per day.
Rather than build a road, Ristvey is proposing to set aside a 50-foot right of way that, at some time, could be used to build another access road into adjoining property to the east owned by the Assembly of God Church.
He is also proposing to give the city 20-foot rights of way as access points for bike/pedestrian trails into adjoining lands to the south and west.
Waiver needed: City Manager Gary Hinkson said that means the plan will still need a waiver for the increased traffic flow on Foxwood Drive but it would appear to solve the problem of providing access to adjoining landlocked properties.
Ristvey's revised plan, which is only preliminary at this point, also shows that only two of his building lots would have direct access to a cul-de-sac coming off Foxwood Drive.
The other two would be served by a joint private driveway that comes off the cul-de-sac.
Hinkson said that would also require a waiver because zoning regulations require that all new building lots have direct access to a public street.
Hinkson said the city's planning commission has recommended approval of Ristvey's latest development plan.
City commissioners will vote on it Wednesday.