Murrysville council approves auto-body shop that has drawn neighbors' anger

Dayne Dice summed up the unenviable position where he and his fellow Murrysville council members found themselves Wednesday night as they approved a proposal for an auto-body shop that has drawn the ire of hundreds of neighbors.

“To me, voting ‘no’ tonight would feel really good but would not be in the best interest of our residents,” Dice said.

At issue was Caliber Collision’s plans to build a 12,500-square-foot shop just east of the Manordale Farms neighborhood on Route 22. Manordale residents have attended meetings to decry the loss of the nearby woods and to question why Caliber officials cannot use another suitable property along the road.

Ultimately, council voted 5-2 to approve the project, a permitted use on a business-zoned parcel. Council members Jamie Lingg and Jason Lemak voted no.

Council members sympathized with residents’ concerns about the proposed entrance, given its proximity to Berkshire Drive (the Manordale Farms entrance) and the average speed of drivers on the highway.

“I still have concerns about how PennDOT determines that’s acceptable,” Lingg said. “After making several trips down there, I still feel it’s just not safe. That’s just my commonsense feeling about it.”

“We’ve even had comments from (Caliber representatives) about the speed on the road being high,” Lemak said. “I think people make mistakes, and I think PennDOT has made a mistake here with the entrance.”

Councilman Carl Stepanovich said he was frustrated with the perception that making an appeal to PennDOT would be of little use.

“I know we don’t have control over them,” Stepanovich said. “We keep hearing that there’s no use talking to them, but have we tried?”

Dice — an attorney — as well as Murrysville solicitor Wes Long agreed rejecting the project without a basis in Murrysville’s ordinances would open the town up to a lawsuit which it almost is guaranteed to lose.

In his vote to approve the project, Dice pointed to the legal rights Caliber had as a property owner, along with a list of more than 25 legally-binding conditions, not required by ordinance, that its attorney had voluntarily agreed to abide by.

“I’ve been a solicitor for councils that rejected a project because they wanted to get a thumbs-up and have people say, ‘Good job, you told them no.’ And then they lose in court,” Dice said. “That would mean all these voluntary conditions are gone, and Caliber still gets to go ahead with their project.”

Councilman Mac McKenna said it was a tough decision.

“If I lived there, I’d be just as concerned,” he said. “But we also have to look at the permissible use and whether or not having these conditions is really the only way to add some protection for residents and for the municipality.”