Township trustees place moratorium on PUDs

The planning and zoning commission requested the moratorium, which will last for one year.
By JEANNE STARMACK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
CANFIELD -- The township has placed a one-year moratorium on planned unit developments.
The trustees, at the request of the township planning and zoning commission, voted to allow the moratorium at their meeting Monday.
PUDs that are now going through the approval process will not be affected by the moratorium. Only new applications will not be accepted, township officials said. The moratorium lasts until June 1, 2007.
Regulations for PUDs, which allow more units per acre to be built, were amended to the township's zoning resolution about two years ago.
Since that time, about six PUDs have come before the township planning and zoning commission. Deciding whether to pass the plans hasn't been easy, and at times, developers were told at commission meetings their plans weren't acceptable.
Within the past 10 days, said township Trustee Paul Moracco, the commission wrote a letter to the trustees asking for the moratorium. The commission decided at its June 1 meeting that it wants time to review the PUD regulations and make necessary changes.
Unrelated to Westbury
Commission secretary Chuck Coleman said the request wasn't because of a PUD plan for the Westbury Park subdivision off Gibson Road, which neighbors have been fighting for about six months.
Residents there are upset because their developer wants to put a 45-acre PUD in the middle of the subdivision close to their single-family homes. The developer, TC Quality Homes, recently won a zone change for the plan.
Coleman said the request has to do with "an accumulation of issues that occurred on the half-dozen PUDs we looked at to date."
Issues the commission wants to look at include PUD size, the number of them in the township, whether a density of 3.4 units per acre is desirable, green space (the type, location and access to it), the percentage of recreation areas allowed, whether streets should be public or private, and whether fee-simple lots should be allowed. A fee-simple lot means a homeowner owns real estate outside his home. In a condominium, the homeowner owns property only from the walls in.
starmack@vindy.com