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Austintown to consider rezoning proposal
By Peter Milliken
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County Planning Commission recommended rezoning 14.35 acres on the northeast corner of Kirk and Raccoon roads from single-family residential to business, which would allow for retail development of the Austintown land.
The rezoning proposal now goes before the Austintown Township Zoning Commission, which will consider it at 7 p.m. Thursday at Austintown Township Hall, 82 Ohltown Road.
The proposal will then be considered by the township trustees, who would have to be unanimous to overturn the township zoning commission’s ruling.
The rezoning was requested by the Rev. Peter Thomas, pastor of St. Anne Ukrainian Catholic Church, 4310 Kirk Road, owner of the 14.35 acres, which has 1,301 feet of frontage on Kirk Road and varying depths.
The land proposed for rezoning, which would be divided into four business lots, constitutes the church lawn and was the site of the former Rose Lake swimming resort.
Father Thomas said the church wants to sell the acreage for development after it is rezoned.
“The funds that we would acquire from the sale of the property would help us to build a smaller, more efficient and more comfortable church close to the parsonage,” along Raccoon Road, Father Thomas said.
Father Thomas told the planning commission Tuesday that a 58-foot wooded buffer zone would shield houses along the east side of the property from any commercial development.
He added that he intends to keep the wooded northern section of the church property in its natural state.
The pastor also said he’s considering selling the building, which houses the church and previously housed the church school, to the township for use as a multigenerational community center.
Because the congregation’s membership has declined and it no longer derives tuition income from the school which closed five years ago, it can’t afford to continue maintaining such a large church building and its current 39.42 acres of grounds, the pastor said.
“We think that it’s compatible with the area, and we think it’s good for Austintown,” the church’s lawyer, Phil Arbie of Warren, said of the church’s proposal.
Jim Johns of Poland, who would be the developer for the first two lots east of Raccoon Road, said no prospective commercial occupants have yet viewed those two lots.
On the south side of Kirk Road, across from the area proposed for rezoning, is a shopping plaza containing the Rulli Bros. supermarket, the Big Lots discount store and other retail establishments.