Borough Zoners Clarify Regulations For Firehouse Project

By Andrew Gorosko

The Newtown Hook and Ladder Volunteer Fire Company has received an interpretation of certain borough zoning regulations from the Borough Zoning Commission that will help guide the fire company through the borough land use review process for the fire company’s proposal to construct a small addition to its firehouse at 45 Main Street, behind Edmond Town Hall.

After lengthy discussion at a September 8 session, the borough zoners decided that their zoning regulations implicitly allow multiple governmental land uses on the same building lot. That legal interpretation would allow the fire company to seek borough approvals for the firehouse expansion project without needing to submit the project for a zoning variance review by the Borough Zoning Board of Appeals concerning that specific multiple governmental land use issue.

However, after construction plans for the project are submitted, some Borough Zoning Board of Appeals review of the proposal may be required concerning other issues, said Borough Attorney Donald Mitchell. After construction plans are submitted for review, it would become clear which specific borough land use approvals are required, Mr Mitchell said.

In June 2003, the fire company filed a court challenge over a Borough Zoning Board of Appeals decision that affected the prospects of the fire company’s controversial proposal to build a much larger firehouse addition than is currently proposed. The fire company later withdrew that lawsuit.

The fire company currently proposes constructing a small addition to the firehouse. That expansion project involves the eastern wing of the firehouse. The town owns the firehouse.

The fire company wants to extend that 19-foot-wide section of the building by five feet to the south, resulting in a 95-square-foot addition. The roof over that section of the building would be raised about 18 inches.

Newtown Hook and Ladder representative Mike McCarthy said the project would provide the fire company with better vehicle storage at the Main Street firehouse.

Fire company members would do much of the construction work themselves to hold down costs, Mr McCarthy said. They hope to complete the project before the winter, he said.

Mr McCarthy termed the project “a temporary fix” for the fire company’s fire truck storage needs. The organization is reviewing the construction potential of a Sugar Street site for a new firehouse, he said. That land at 4 Sugar Street, which would be donated for firehouse construction, is near Town Hall South, about one-half mile to the south of the existing firehouse. A new firehouse is estimated to cost $1.5 million or more to construct. It is unclear how such construction costs would be covered.

In the spring of 2003, to improve its fire facilities, the fire company proposed demolishing one existing garage bay on the eastern side of its firehouse and replacing it with a brick, three-bay garage covering 2,750 square feet.

That proposal met with stiff opposition from neighbors in the residential area who claimed that such an expansion would be disruptive to the neighborhood. The Edmond Town Hall Board of Managers then charged that that firehouse expansion project would interfere with its plans to add an elevator to the northern side of Edmond Town Hall.