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WILKES-BARRE — Opponents of a plan approved by the city Zoning Hearing Board last month to convert the Times Leader building into classrooms appealed the decision Monday on claims the panel’s action was an abuse of its discretion made without supporting evidence.
The appeal comes a little more than a month after the board approved the measure but rejected a related request by the Wilkes-Barre Area School District to move in hundreds of students from nearby Coughlin High School while the structure was demolished to make way for a new consolidated high school.
The appellants — nonprofit Save Our Schools as well as city law firms Borland & Borland and Brady & Grabowski — argued the board erred on several fronts when it voted 2-to-1 to grant the conversion plan by Coughlin on Main LLC, the company formed by John Panzitta to develop the newspaper building and lease it to the school district.
The board’s decision was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of its discretion and was not supported by substantial evidence,” they argued in the appeal, filed in Luzerne County Court. They say the board, among other errors, failed to find that added pedestrian and street traffic would create unsafe conditions in the area.
Frank Hoegen, the attorney representing Coughlin on Main and developer John Panzitta, said he hadn’t been served a copy of the appeal, but indicated Coughlin on Main would challenge it.
“I suspect my client will vigorously defend any appeal,” Hoegan said Monday.
Wilkes-Barre Area School District Solicitor Ray Wendolowski did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday, but had previously told the Times Leader it was unlikely the district would appeal the board’s decision to deny their request.
