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Peters Twp. denies variances for restaurant

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McMURRAY – Peters Township Zoning Hearing Board denied two variances requested in connection with a restaurant proposed for a site off Valley Brook Road.

Plans for Over the Bar Bicycle Café at McMurray Grist Mill call for a 5,694-square-foot restaurant with an outdoor seating area of approximately 1,400 square feet. The owner and manager, Mike Kotyk, has other locations on Pittsburgh’s South Side and in the North Park Boathouse in McCandless.

“I’ve been looking for about two years to find somewhere in the South Hills, specifically centered around the Montour Trail,” Kotyk said at the board’s Tuesday meeting.

The board, though, denied requests for variances to allow part of the building to encroach on the required setback from the street and for the placement of fill on the part of the site that lies within the designated floodplain adjacent to Brush Run.

The property is across the street from Valley Brook Road’s intersection with Rahway Drive and commercial ventures including the National Slovak Society headquarters and a Jordan Tax Service office. A private residence is next to the NSS building, sharing its driveway.

In voting against the requests, some board members expressed skepticism about fitting a building of the size proposed onto property that includes a floodplain.

“Everybody keeps coming in here asking for variances for the same situations,” board Chairman John Thacik said. “They buy 10 pounds of potatoes and want to put them into a five-pound bag, and say, ‘Oh, geez, I have a hardship. I can’t get the potatoes home.’ Well, buy five pounds of potatoes, then.”

Grant Shiring of Franklin Park-based engineering consultant PVE LLC, representing applicants OTB and property owner Valleybrooke LLC, told the board the request for encroaching about seven feet into the 25-foot required setback was for construction of a distinctive front porch and vestibule along Valley Brook Road.

“One thing we really wanted to try and do is create a unique and aesthetically pleasing building,” he explained. “We wanted to emphasize that front entrance and give it some visual appeal.”

The request for filling within the floodplain related to plans to provide adequate parking for the size of the building, with a total of 93 spaces proposed. Hydraulics and hydrology engineering studies have been conducted at the site to determine the potential impact on nearby properties along Brush Run.

“Upstream, downstream, based on the calculations that were presented, seems to work,” board member Ted Donald acknowledged. His was the only vote in favor of granting the fill variance, while the vote against the setback encroachment was unanimous.

The applicant has the right to file an appeal to Washington County Court.

Also expressing opposition to plans for the restaurant were some residents who live near the site, including Craig and Kelly Baldassare, who own the residence next to NSS.

“We’re not against development in Peters Township,” Craig Baldassare said. “We’re actually fans of Over the Bar. We’ve frequented both of their restaurants many times.”

With three young children, though, they are concerned about the presence of such a venture so close to their home and about the potential for negative impact on its value.

Kotyk referred to OTB, which has operated on the South Side since 2008, as a “community-oriented, family owned business.”

“I opened the city’s first bike corral, which is an off-street bike parking that takes up two parallel spots on Carson Street where we can now park 30 bikes instead of two cars,” he said. “This is not your typical Carson Street bar.”

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