VERNON TOWNSHIP — One Vernon Township resident said he vows to not give up the fight to save his neighborhood from being designated an industrial zone.
Officials in Vernon, Sadsbury Township, Conneaut Lake and, to a lesser extent, the City of Meadville have been working to establish the Central Crawford Region Multi-Municipal Comprehensive Plan. The basis of the plan, officials have said, is a new land use map that includes zoning change proposals for commercial areas on routes 322, 19 and 98; Harmonsburg Road; Radio Tower Hill; and also a designation of the township’s Kerrtown area as industrial.
It’s that last proposal that’s prompted lifelong Kerrtown resident Donald Dean to voice his opposition before the township’s board of supervisors. At a public board meeting Thursday, Dean — accompanied by two young Kerrtown residents — said he’s provided the township a petition with roughly 90 signatures in support of retaining Kerrtown as a residential area.
Following the meeting, Dean said he may even go about seeking a formal designation of Kerrtown as a historic district, which could effectively prevent all future industrial growth there.
With the current proposal, “our neighborhood’s very existence is in jeopardy,” Dean said. “I’m standing up for our values in that area, for our children in that area. ...We’ve been short-changed in that section of Vernon Township, and I’m sick of it.”
Dean said he has all intentions of being present at an Oct. 16 public hearing on proposed zoning changes under the plan. He’s one of several township residents who previously filed a now-defunct lawsuit against the township that alleged officials were unable to produce any formal documentation of a 1992 zoning change that allowed industrial growth in that area.
That lawsuit “was dropped not because of my lack conviction, but because of a lack of financial resources,” Dean told the board Thursday.
Dean said in his opinion, the Crawford County Planning Commission is the body that should assume official zoning map-related responsibilities.
Township supervisors thanked Dean for commenting, but didn’t respond to his points on the plan at Thursday’s meeting.
Dean also talked about the referendum he got on the upcoming November election ballot that will ask township voters if the township’s Board of Supervisors should be reduced from five members to three. One of the young people who joined him, 18-year-old Jeremy Piercy, held a large sign reading: “Township Supervisor Reduction Referendum Vote Yes!”
Township officials each indicated they plan to vote no on that question, maintaining that many of the township’s current successes in commercial growth, infrastructure advancement and in other areas is due at least in part to the input of a five-member board with various degrees of experience and fields of expertise.
Another potential issue, officials said, is that returning to a three-member board could create a two-against-one atmosphere in which there would effectively be little place for opposing viewpoints.
Ryan Smith can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at rsmith@meadvilletribune.com
You can go
A public Vernon Township Planning Commission hearing on zoning changes under the Central Crawford Region Multi-Municipal Comprehensive Plan is scheduled for Oct. 16 at 6:30 p.m. at the Vernon Township Municipal Building, 16678 McMath Ave.
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