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Blair Street residents make rezoning request

High traffic volume devalues homes, owners claim

HOLLIDAYSBURG — Blair Street was a different place 72 years ago when Robert Schaefer was born.

“We used to play kickball and ride our bikes on Blair Street,” he said.

Now he opens the front door of his 606 Blair St. homestead to the sights, sounds and smells of thousands of cars and diesel trucks per day.

Blair Street was a place where he would have liked to live for his entire life if it had remained the way it was when he was young. But his house is on the corner of Route 22 and Route 36 — the opposite corner from TK’s Six Pack.

Vehicles passing in front of the homes along Route 22 alone number about 8,640 daily, Schaefer said. And to the left of his front door is Route 36. All traffic combined, the streets around his home sizzle with about 19,400 vehicles daily, according to Schaefer’s research.

And yet another PennDOT project is set to bring traffic a foot closer to his property, he said. He and several of his neighbors want the area rezoned from residential to commercial so that they can sell their homes.

On Thursday, Schaefer explained his situation to the borough council.

“I come here to see where I stand. I can’t get help anywhere else,” he said during the council’s public comment session.

“They (PennDOT) are trying to tell me you can’t do anything. But (the council) has the right to rezone and that’s what we are asking so we can recoup the money and get out of there. This is not going to change and they (PennDOT) are not done.”

The erosion of his property value, he said, started with the Route 22 bypass in 1954. Then, in 1964, a house bordering his was removed to make room for the Route 36 intersection.

Parking areas for Schaefer and his neighbors were taken over in 1991. They use a back alley to access their houses.

“We live out of the backs of our homes,” he said. “Now comes 2018. …,” he said.

PennDOT’s latest project to widen a sidewalk opposite his home would squeeze traffic a foot closer to his door, he said.

The project began this summer, with contractor Cottles Asphalt Mainten­ance of Everett, working at the intersection by TK’s Six Pack to widen the turning radius of the Route 36 northbound lane turning right on Route 22 East. The project also would improve pedestrian access, PennDOT spokes­woman Tara Callahan-Henry stated in an email Friday.

The work on the project has been postponed as the delivery of signal poles have delayed things. Work will resume, weather depending, once they have been delivered, she said.

Schaefer and five of his neighbors signed a rezoning petition, which he submitted to the council in September. He asked eight property owners total but three refused, Schaefer said.

One of the three who did not sign it was Larry Daugherty at 612 Blair St. He is a member of the borough’s three-member zoning board. Because of his position on the board, he declined to comment about his opinion on the issue when asked Friday at his home.

Others who did not sign the petition are a landlord who doesn’t reside in the property he owns and a new couple who aren’t familiar with the zoning issue, Schaefer said.

Although Schaefer would like to sell his three-bedroom home, he questions what family would want to raise a child in a house where diesel fumes blow through the windows.

“My concern is health and welfare,” he said. “All the diesel fuel they have the right to blow into my house. You can’t open the windows.”

The area is best suited for commercial zoning, he said.

Mayor Joseph Dodson empathized with Schaefer and the Blair Street residents.

“I think this council should definitely take a look at Mr. Schaefer’s situation,” Dodson said. “Imagine yourself, in a beautiful house, with a beautiful yard on Blair Street, which was nice back in the day — but now fat cats move in and take it over. … Just think what his property is worth now, very little, probably, compared to what it was. And like (Schaefer) said, with the fumes and everything. … I think we need to help people there with zoning that whole area as commercial so they can sell their property and move out. They are in a predicament.”

Mirror Staff Writer Russ O’Reilly is at 946-7435.

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