City council rejects request to rent building

Council members said the center didn't mesh with the city's land-use plan.
By VIRGINIA ROSS
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- J. Richard Mauk had an inkling he wouldn't be allowed to rent a downtown building to an agency for a proposed life-skills center.
He was right.
Mauk was looking to rent a building to the Lawrence County Drug and Alcohol Commission and had asked the city for a conditional-use request on behalf of himself and the commission.
City council, at its public meeting Tuesday, denied Mauk's request.
The drug and alcohol commission proposed establishing a life-skills center for individuals who had successfully completed a drug rehabilitation program at 20 E. Washington St., the former site of the House of Brews coffee shop. Mauk manages the building.
At a recent public hearing conducted before council, Mauk said he was prepared to begin renting the property to the drug and alcohol commission as soon as possible. At that hearing, several people spoke in favor of the center; no one spoke against it.
Reservations
Last month, however, the planning commission sent council a recommendation to approve the request, but with reservations.
Planning commission members said they supported the idea, but they were concerned about the intended location because it would not coincide with the city's comprehensive land-use plan, which the city had not yet adopted.
"That did it for us," Mauk said at the time. "They've set us up to fail. They know what they're doing. There's no way council is going to give it to us now."
Council has since adopted the comprehensive plan, and council members said they concur with the planning commission's reservations.
The new comprehensive plan calls for downtown to be a business district. City officials said they felt establishing a professional service on that particular corner of the downtown area, where Mauk's building is located, would not be in the city's best interest.