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Neighborhoods in Wickcliff continue to seek to ensure areas stay single-family residences
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
Single-family neighborhoods have applied to rezone their properties to ensure they stay that way.
Those areas have applied to be rezoned from R-2 to R-1, which specifies single-family homes.
Township zoning inspector Darren Crivelli said his goal is to wrap up the zone changes in neighborhoods in Wickliffe by the end of this year. Current duplexes or apartment buildings will remain untouched.
“Our concern is as homes go into foreclosure ... Some investor [could] convert [a home] into a duplex, and we don’t know about it,” Crivelli said. “We’re trying to keep this a family neighborhood. Keep it safe for families, and Wickliffe is our largest residential subdivision in the township. [It’s] very densely populated.”
The most recent section of Wickliffe to push for the zone change includes properties on South Meridian Road, Elmwood Avenue, Impala Drive, Collins Avenue, Daytona Drive, First Street and Forest Hill Drive. The Mahoning County Planning Commission recommended rezoning 80 parcels of land on those streets from R-2 to R-1 on April 28.
The Wickliffe area includes the site of the old Woodside Elementary School, which was demolished. The land was then graded and seeded near the end of 2013.
Mal Culp, supervisor of facilities and operations at Austintown schools, said the Woodside property, like that of the other demolished buildings, has sat as a park since new elementary and intermediate schools were built.
“As of right now, our plan is to just leave it as it is and maintain it,” Culp said.
That could change soon. Culp said during a June meeting he will make a presentation to the Austintown Board of Education on the old building sites — the former Davis, Woodside and Lloyd elementaries.
“The board has yet to really make a decision on whether we’re going to sell the properties or not,” Culp said. “I think the community appreciates the fact that we carried through with the project and made [the sites] like a park-like atmosphere.”
Crivelli said it isn’t known what type of developments could come if the schools sold those properties.
Across the township, available lots in subdivisions are thin. Crivelli explained, “There’s land available out there for development. The question is will developers take the risk to put in a residential development for new housing?”
He further said there is available land in the southwest and northern areas of the township, but those would require utilities to be extended.