Murrysville officials, consultant look at modifying business overlay district

Murrysville officials are working with a consultant to modify the municipality’s general business overlay, part of a larger examination of the town’s zoning.

Overlays are used to add extra zoning controls in a specific area, to address special community needs or objectives. An example would be Murrysville’s gas recovery overlay district, which is superimposed atop the existing zoning map and lays out where fracking wells can be built.

“Council charged us to update the business overlay to, first, stimulate development,” said A.J. Schwartz, with Pittsburgh-based Environmental Planning & Design. “One of the things we’ve heard from the private sector is that while it’s possible to have residential in the business overlay district, it’s almost impossible to get the density to make the financing work.”

Murrysville’s business overlay district provides ways to integrate new development into the town’s existing commercial corridor, with a focus on enhancing traffic flow by interconnecting properties and eliminating curb cuts along Route 22, integrating open space into commercial and mixed-use development that includes residential aspects.

Council has hit some development road bumps in recent years that have led to a desire to reexamine Murrysville’s zoning laws. Council rejected a 2023 request by Redstone Highlands to rezone property on Cline Hollow Road in order to build higher-density senior apartments.

And while members of council said they did want that type of housing in Murrysville, the current zoning and ordinances make it a challenge.

“One of the things the planning commission wanted to do is better tune where residential uses, specifically planned residential developments, would be permitted,” Schwartz said.

Currently, planned residential developments can go anywhere within the overlay. However, because they must be on land that is at least 10 contiguous acres, many of the properties within the area are too small.

“We eliminated some of the areas on Route 22 that didn’t make sense because of their parcel size,” Schwartz said. “Some of the properties between Old William Penn Highway and Route 22 can’t actually take advantage of the overlay because they don’t meet the criteria.”

Murrysville Council President Dayne Dice said the goal is to create an overlay that can be put to good use and to explore the potential for commercial development along a highway corridor where space is at a premium.

“I think we’re looking to tailor it not just for the imagined needs that are more economic, but also really looking at parcels that can make good use of it,” Dice said.

Dice said part of the reexamination is to determine if and where to permit high-density residential development.

“I don’t know how much we want to expand multi-family apartment buildings,” Dice said at council’s Sept. 17 meeting. “Those tend to get a lot of pushback.”

Planning commissioners, on the other hand, have expressed some interest in expanding the availability of multi-family apartments.

Schwartz said he and the commission have been working on revising the overlay’s standards to better reflect the way contemporary retail functions.

“We’ve been working with both Murrysville and a number of local developers over the years,” Schwartz said. “So we talked through some of the issues people have expressed with the current ordinance in place. We used that as a starting point.”

Schwartz said planning commissioners also expressed interest in creating “sub-districts” within the overlay, to tailor the properties of each so they will better fit in with the surrounding development.

“We could fine-tune things like lighting requirements to each area,” Schwartz said. “Because what’s happening in the areas near Monroeville is not the same as what’s happening out closer to Delmont.”

Schwartz said he hopes to have a review draft of the overlay update ready by the end of the year. At that point, it will be ready for public comment and a public hearing before council.