Murrysville elevates in-house staff to community development director

Murrysville Council has named municipal engineer technician Emily Mallisee as the new director for community development.

“She’s been with us in an engineering role, but she’s been handling some things on the development side,” Murrysville Chief Administrator Michael Nestico said. “As you know, we haven’t had a community development director in quite some time. Myself and our former administrator (Jim Morrison) were both handling that role to some extent.”

Mallisee has been with the municipality for about seven years.

As community development director, Mallisee will review applications for subdivisions, site plans, zoning changes, grading permits and environmental impact statements.

She will recommend requirements, terms and conditions to the Murrysville Planning Commission and help provide adequate density control, protection and preservation of the environment.

She also will make recommendations regarding state and federal funding available in areas like water, sewage, parks and recreation or other areas affecting Murrysville’s growth.

“I’ve been working with staff in the community development department already on a daily basis,” Mallisee said. “So they approached me to ask if I’d be interested in taking that director position temporarily.”

A community development employee who will join the municipality in August is expected to step into the director’s role.

“The thing with hiring someone new for the department is they have to figure out what’s what and what their role is,” Mallisee said. “I’ll probably work with them for about a year, and then I’ll be able to focus on the engineering department.”

“There are a lot of different opportunities for the municipality to advance this office,” Nestico said. “We think this is a big decision that will help our internal structure and pay dividends for developers coming into town, and for residents who are having development-related issues.”

Nestico said staff has budgeted a little more than $100,000 as the potential top-end salary for the position.

“I think the goal right now is just to get someone into that role to deal with developers,” Mallisee said.

One thing that Mallisee or the future community development director may tackle is an in-depth look at Murrysville’s zoning map, with an eye toward carving out space for higher-density projects.

In recent years, council has turned down several development proposals, nearly all of which were seeking a higher zoning density for their projects.

In rejecting them, multiple council members said they didn’t object to higher-density zoning but did not want to set a precedent for up-zoning that developers would cite in similar requests.

“That would certainly be something the community development director would take part in, and our zoning officer would also have some input on that,” Mallisee said. “We also haven’t updated Murrysville’s comprehensive plan in quite some time, so I think looking at zoning and where things are situated throughout town will be a part of that.”

As far as the municipality’s engineering department, Nestico said there are plans to hire an engineer technician who will work under Mallisee.

“We’re looking to get back ahead of the curve,” he said. “I don’t want to say we’ve slipped behind, but we’re kind of treading water in some of those ways.”