Security fencing ordered for Lock Haven’s Fallon Hotel as city awaits plans for fix-up
LOCK HAVEN, PA – A new development this week relative to the future of the “structurally deficient” Fallon Hotel on E. Water Street in Lock Haven: The city code board, in its first meeting in decades, directed hotel owner C & Q Investments to erect a security fence around the building’s perimeter. At the same time the officially named Lock Haven Code Enforcement Board of Appeals and Review (CEBAR) gave C & Q until Nov. 12 to submit required plans for addressing city concerns, detailed earlier in the summer, about the now vacant building’s fitness for occupancy.
The CEBAR order came Wednesday following a three hour hearing with C & Q’s Carey Chisolm. The CEBAR board heard the appeal from Fallon owner C&Q Investments. The city was represented by its attorney Sam Wiser of Saltzmann Hughes of Harrisburg and the city’s state-certified Building Code Official Cyndi Walker.
C&Q Investments was requesting more time for its engineer and/or architect to complete the required plans for the submission of an administratively complete permit application under the state’s Uniform Construction Code. Under the state’s Uniform Construction Code, and “administratively complete” application for a building permit must include plans by a design professional, whether an architect or an engineer. This is required of all applicants for a commercial permit. After hearing discussion from both sides, the CEBAR, which is a quasi-judicial board under the legal advisement of its solicitor Frank Miceli, issued its order:
Because of the deficiencies detailed in both the city-issued Notice(s) of Violation including a deficient roof, structural deficiencies in supporting walls, and falling glass from unmaintained windows since they were first requested to be secured in 2019, as well as deficiencies listed in C&Q Investment’s own engineering report; a security fence must be installed around the perimeter of the property immediately to ensure public safety; and
C&Q Investments testified at the hearing that an engineer had been contracted to provide plans for the correction to all violations noted in the city’s Notice(s) of Violation as well as C&Q Investment’s own engineering report. The CEBAR issued an order that a letter from the contracted architect or engineer be provided to the CEBAR by the close of business October 20, 2021 that confirms that the design professional will complete the necessary documentation under state law for a permit to filed; and
The CEBAR also required that all administratively complete permits be submitted by said architect and/or engineer for the work necessary to ensure building structural integrity and public safety as detailed in the Notice(s) of Violation as well as C&Q Investment’s own engineering report by November 12, 2021. C&Q Investments testified that the engineer has already been working on the drawings required under state law for 2 to 3 weeks prior to the hearing, and the CEBAR’s decision gives the design professional an additional 4 weeks to complete their task in order to submit the state-required permit application with design professional documentation to begin to undertake the work to make the building safe for the public; and
The CEBAR reiterated the moratorium put in place by the Building Code Official that work on the building that requires permits under the state’s Uniform Construction Code cannot take place until the proper state-required permits are applied for including the state-required architectural or engineering design plans.
Official notice of the orders of the CEBAR will be forthcoming from the office of Atty. Frank Miceli, solicitor for the City of Lock Haven Code Enforcement Board of Appeals and Review.
A snow fence was being installed on Thursday and Friday this week around the Fallon’s foundation as a security barrier, but it is understood that fence is not a construction security fence as required by the CEBAR’s order, an issue reportedly being addressed by the city.
