Hopewell Township officials received a memo in September about a developer's interest in putting a drug rehabilitation center at the former Five Points Elementary School. But a representative for the zoning hearing board says that memo was never shared with his board.
HOPEWELL TWP. — Township zoning officer John Bates informed township officials in September that developer Larry Dorsch was working with Resources for Human Development to possibly operate a residential drug and alcohol program at the former Five Points Elementary School on School Street.
However, zoning hearing board solicitor George Patterson said his board never received that memo before a December hearing to grant a special-exception use to Dorsch to use the building as an extended-care facility.
The 19-page memo, obtained by The Times on Tuesday, was sent to the Hopewell Township board of commissioners, then-Township Manager Norm Kraus, solicitor Mike Jones and engineer Marie Hartman, who now serves as township manager.
Residents and commissioners have expressed outrage that RHD planned to operate a 39-bed drug-treatment facility in the residential neighborhood. Beaver County Behavioral Health awarded RHD a $2.8 million contract in June 2017 to operate the program, but at the time officials said they did not know where it would be located.
About 70 residents attended a meeting Monday to ask questions of Resources for Human Development, or RHD, and Dorsch. During that meeting, which was attended by the zoning hearing board, Patterson said he wished RHD officials would have attended the December hearing.
"It would've been a whole lot better if you had been at our hearing," Patterson told RHD unit director Kevin Kordzi. "A whole lot better. I say that because our zoning hearing board I think has a sense that, at best, the testimony was evasive, and disingenuous, that night."
Kordzi said that RHD has not signed a lease with Dorsch and that, in December, things were not finalized for the treatment facility to be located at the former school.
"(Dorsch) was keeping all of his options open, because he had no guarantee from us that we were going to follow through with it," Kordzi said Monday.
The zoning hearing board is "bothered" that information was withheld from them, Patterson said.
"Another thing that bothers the zoning hearing board is that everyone knew what was coming into this building except the zoning hearing board," he said Monday. "We learned the township had information that wasn't given to the zoning hearing board."
That information was the memo, Patterson said.
When contacted by The Times in December about the potential use of the building, Bates said, “It’s going to be for people who have overnight stays. ...Of the uses that are available under special exceptions, nursing home or extended-care facility were the closest definition to what they have in mind to do.”
Included in the memo is portions of the zoning ordinance defining special exceptions for the zoning district, including for an extended-care facility, which is the exception sought and granted by the zoning hearing board. An extended-care facility is defined as "a long-term facility or a district part of a facility licensed or approved as a nursing home, infirmary unit of a home for the aged or a governmental medical institution."
Bates also highlighted definitions of a nursing home and an intermediate-care facility, which also are special-exception uses in the zoning district where the building is located.
Officials repeatedly publicly said they had not been informed that Dorsch intended to lease the property to become a drug-treatment center.
According to the memo, Dorsch also told Bates that $500,000 of the $2.8 million given to RHD to create the program will be invested into changes to the building.
Dorsch has not returned numerous requests for comment. Bates did not return a call requesting comment Tuesday.
Patterson told residents Monday that the zoning hearing board could retract its ruling that a drug-treatment center would fit the extended-care facility use. Patterson said Tuesday the board has not decided if they will meet to re-evaluate the decision.
Times staff writer Kate Malongowski contributed to this story.