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Boardman planners suggest rezoning for plaza
AUSTINTOWN
The Mahoning County Planning Commission has recommended rezoning land along Market Street in Boardman to accommodate a new retail plaza.
The proposed plaza would be built on now-vacant land where a Borden Dairy plant operated until 1995 and was demolished in 2002.
The 10 parcels on the west side of Market Street between Ewing Road and Wildwood Drive, which total 2.41 acres, are already zoned commercial to a depth of 100 feet; and the developer, Cocca Development Ltd. of Boardman, seeks to rezone the rear 150 feet of the parcels from residential to commercial.
This change would return the lots to their previous fully commercial zoning.
Kevin Downey, Cocca’s vice president of commercial leasing, said potential tenants for the plaza include a discount store and an auto-parts store.
“We can develop on it and have tenants and produce jobs, revenue and taxes” with the rezoning, Downey told the commission.
All of the surrounding land fronting on Market Street is zoned commercially with residentially zoned land behind it.
Downey supplied a drawing showing 18,875 square feet under roof in the proposed plaza, divided into four storefronts; 98 regular and six handicapped-parking spaces; a rear delivery drive; and a continuous 6-foot-high wooden fence at the back of the development. Proposed landscaping would include 40 trees and 100 shrubs.
The planning commission’s favorable recommendation occurred during its 2,000th meeting Tuesday. The commission was founded in 1955.
The rezoning proposal now goes before the Boardman Township Zoning Commission and then to the township trustees. The trustees must be unanimous to overturn the zoning commission’s recommendation.
“If the zone change goes through, then they will be required to go before the site plan review committee, and we will address all of the green space and plant material and the buffer by the residential area,” behind the development, said Anna Mamone, township zoning inspector.