Following a 3-3 tie vote in June and a postponed decision in July, developer Paul Ficcione and his attorneys were set to vote on a proposal to create 24 “luxury subdivisions” along Wistertown Road in Murrysville.
Attorney Bill Sittig said his client has no interest in extending the deadline until mid-September to await a vote by the full council. Council members Matthew Olszewski and Mac McKenna were absent from the council’s most recent meeting.
“Their absence doesn’t change anything,” Sittig said. “We have everyone we need to vote tonight.”
Fischione initially asked the City Council to rezone the rural residential area into 28 lots in early 2023. The request was denied, and his subsequent zoning proposal was debated and tabled multiple times in 2024.
“Initially, we came here to build a few homes, but that was turned down,” Sittig said. “This is a plan by right. It’s strictly staff review. Staff reviews it, and we agree with their recommendation to approve. A vote is taken, and if council isn’t willing to follow the law, we’ll go to court. But the priority property rights here are ours, not our neighbors’.”
Michael Tomeczko, who lives near the proposed entrance across Wistertown Road, cited concerns about increased traffic on the one-lane road in recent years, but Council President Dane Dice noted that the 24-lot zoning “doesn’t change anything in terms of encouraging vetoes based on traffic concerns.”
The council found itself in a similar situation earlier this year regarding a proposal by Caliber Collision to build an auto repair shop on a site on Route 22 east of the Manordale Farms neighborhood. Many Manordale residents did not want the shop built next door and lamented the loss of nearby woodland, but the application was approved as meeting all of Murrysville’s development ordinances.
In discussing the council’s role in development, Dice repeated a phrase he had used during the Caliber debate.
“We are not the ‘Lords of Murrysville,'” he said. “We cannot just whimsically say this development will be allowed and this will not. This is a matter of private property rights, and our job is to make sure the application complies with our ordinances.”
The council ultimately unanimously approved Fischione’s excavation and development application.
“If you follow everything, you follow everything,” Councillor Jamie Ring said, “but I think this recognises that Wistertown Road has a lot of traffic and I hope that this gets across to the residents who are moving in.”
Patrick Varin is a Triblive reporter covering Delmont, Export and Murrysville. A native of Western Pennsylvania, he joined Triblive in 2010 after working as a reporter and editor for the former Dover Post Co. in Delaware. He can be reached at pvarine@triblive.com.
