LH city council nixes Housing Coalition scaled back Dickey School housing plan

LOCK HAVEN, PA – Lock Haven City Council, on a 4-3 vote Monday night, effectively all but killed off a Clinton County Housing Coalition proposal to acquire the old Dickey Elementary School on S. Fairview Street and convert it to housing units.  The Coalition came before council with a revised proposal, 11 units of housing with 25 on-site parking spaces.

The formal request asked council to direct the city planning commission “to consider the impact of the reduction of the required parking spaces in the zoning ordinance to two per unit and return its recommendation to council.” That won’t happen after council rejected the request. “No” votes came from Mayor Joel Long and council members Jeff Brinker, Barbara Masorti and Steve Stevenson. Voting yes were Doug Byerly, Rick Conklin and Richard Morris.

There was little comment from council members, the vote coming after some 45 minutes of comments from several of a large contingent of hill district residents opposed to the project.

Housing Coalition vice-chairman Jeff Rich had provided council a letter with the revised request, cutting the number of housing units from an original proposal of 19 units down to 11 units of one-to-two bedroom efficiency apartments; a reduction in required parking spaces, from three to two per unit, was also proposed. The coalition’s revised request came after a September zoning hearing board turndown on the initial plans. Rich told council there “is a critical need for this type of housing.”

Rich was present Monday night to answer questions and at one point said the concern of opponents was not parking, but rather “they just don’t want the project.”

The coalition had entered into an agreement with building owners Dickey Realty, LLC to have the building donated to the coalition. The cost to convert the building to housing use, according to information at the September hearing, is estimated at $3.5 million, that amount to be covered by federal grants.

The school was built in 1966, replacing the former Lincoln School which was torn down.