Nov 5, 2014 3 min read

The businessman who wants to convert a former convent into a boarding house for Marcellus Shale workers will argue in court next month Washington officials are illegally blocking his development.

Lawyers for Robert Starr of Phive Starr Properties filed a brief in Washington County Court last month appealing the city’s decision earlier this year to reject proposed changes to the zoning code that would allow a boarding house at the convent on North Franklin Street formerly owned by Immaculate Conception Parish.

The proposal by Starr to renovate the aging building so it could house up to 28 people temporarily working in the area was met with stiff resistance from parishioners who said they were concerned about the transient nature of those tenants. Starr’s Pittsburgh-based lawyers, William Bresnahan II and Harlan Stone, wrote in their brief filed Oct. 8 that those concerns had no relevancy as to whether the city’s zoning laws were defective because they did not allow for boarding houses.

“Their testimony was entirely anecdotal, based on vague speculation, and unsupported by any facts,” the brief reads. “Such testimony cannot be credited as establishing a basis for justifying the total exclusion of an identifiable form of housing throughout the city.”

Oral arguments between the two sides before Judge Katherine Emery are scheduled for Dec. 5.

In Washington’s counterclaim against Phive Starr filed Oct. 28, city solicitor Jack Cambest writes there is nothing restricting a boarding house, but the city rejected Starr’s development because it had specific concerns in the application. The city also claims it has no reason to tweak its ordinance.

“An ordinance is not required to provide for every conceivable subcategory of potential use,” the city’s brief states.

The city also called Starr’s contention his plans to run a boarding house is similar to an apartment complex “a desperate analogy at best.”

But Starr’s lawyers contend the former Sixth Ward School is being used as “an alternate use facility” under conditional use despite no definition for it in the ordinance.

The brief argues the allowance for temporary housing there but not in other parts of the city specifically excludes Starr’s plans.

“There was no evidence whatsoever that the zoning ordinance made any provision or allowance for the proposed use anywhere in the city,” the brief reads.

Washington Mayor Brenda Davis said she could not comment specifically on the legal briefs, but that she was confident the city’s zoning ordinance is legal.

“We’ll have to see how it plays out and let the courts decide,” Davis said.

Starr purchased the property from his previous business partners on March 10 for $39,245 after that group, PA Wealth Builders LLC, abandoned its development plans for the site.