SUGAR NOTCH, Pa. — It's a plan many residents in Sugar Notch have been adamantly against from the start. A property owned by the Diocese of Scranton is up for sale, and a bus company has been looking to take it over.
Holy Family Church, once a thriving place of worship in Sugar Notch, has been left to the birds. Faced with dwindling membership, the church recently joined with another parish.
Now, real estate signs are posted on the Holy Family property, and some neighbors aren't happy about who wants to buy it.
"I'm not for it one bit," said Harry Ahouse, Sugar Notch.
Harry Ahouse lives across the street from the old church. When he learned an area school bus company hopes to purchase the church and use the large parking lot to store the buses, Ahouse was immediately opposed.
He's most concerned about emissions from the school buses.
"Like in the winter, the air doesn't move. So all of them gas fumes are just going to lay low and seep into everybody's homes," said Ahouse.
Ahouse joined dozens of residents at a Sugar Notch zoning meeting, where Richard Andrrjko of H A Hanover Holdings appealed a previous board decision that denied needed variances to the bus company.
The company wants to buy the whole property and build a repair garage in the parking lot area, storing its 27 buses there year-round. The area is zoned residential.
Andrrjko again met resistance from residents who said they don't want to stare at a chain-link fence out their windows or hear the buses backing up.
"I am in the process of buying a home from my mother. So now you're telling me I'm coming in paying $200,000 for a home that's going to go down. Am I wrong? You know, so," Lisa Moratori Amorin, Sugar Notch.
Andrrjko says the company would only operate buses during the school year, beginning each day at around 6 a.m. He claims he's been looking for a lot for nearly a year, and the former church is the right distance from Hanover Area School district.
Residents didn't see it that way.
"As we stand here, is that property an R1 or is that property a B1? It's an R1. Then what are we doing here? He can't park a bus there anyway," said Herman Balas, Sugar Notch.
In its final decision, the zoning board once again denied the company's appeal.
A board member told Newswatch 16 Andrrjko did not provide enough evidence to prove a zoning variance was necessary.
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