West Homestead City Zoning Code

The buildings in the West Homestead's residential and commercial areas represent valuable meets, both in terms on monies invested and providing a basis for a sustainable community.

The design and appearance of buildings convey both immediate and long-lasting impressions of the quality of West Homestead.

Numerous examples of building changes exist in West Homestead's older neighborhoods that have operated to degrade the character of those areas.

The areas of Calhoun Manor, Estates, and Village currently represent viable and sustainable neighborhoods in West Homestead.

Inappropriate changes to the exterior portions of buildings and grounds can negatively impact the monetary values of neighboring properties and create a negative impression of West Homestead.

Inappropriate building changes can occur in any area of West Homestead.

Borough-wide design guidelines and standards are needed to prevent degrading building changes that can lead to decreased property values and a poor impression of West Homestead.

The adoption of these design guidelines and standards are a reasonable means to preserve and promote the unique urban character of West Homestead, protect investments by West Homestead's property owners, and enhance the sustainability of West Homestead for future generations.

The adoption of these design guidelines and standards can also be a means to correct past degrading changes.

Retain, reflect and enhance the dominant aesthetic or visual qualities of the neighborhood as much as possible.

Encourage and promote a sense of design continuity that appropriately relates the historic past of the neighborhood to ongoing revitalization and redevelopment efforts.

Appropriately relate proposed development to existing designs, styles, building forms, and land uses.

Encourage and promote the sensitive and contextual design of buildings, signs, sites, and public spaces through the use of design elements, details, styles, and architectural features as well as other amenities, materials, or treatments that may be appropriate to further the design standards. Blank end walls should incorporate building components or design features. Blank rear walls should be screened with landscaping.

Encourage a pedestrian-oriented and human-scaled right-of-way, public realm and streetscape, and promote safe pedestrian movement, access, and circulation.

Define access from streets, sidewalks, and public right-of-way and, where a service alley is viable, garages and loading areas should be accessed only from the alley.

Encourage and promote the incorporation of design features and other amenities in the private and public realms that reinforce the importance of terminating streets, public ways, and vistas with focal points.

Encourage and promote the use of predominant existing building materials within the neighborhood and the predominant existing building materials, architectural features, and fenestration on specific structures as a guide in determining appropriate replacement and new construction materials. Where possible, all replacement windows in elevations visible from any public right-of-way should match the original windows in size and configuration.

Protect, respect, and expand the design of green space, landscaping, and open space within the neighborhood and encourage public and private development that enhances this character with landscape design details such as trees, lawns, plantings, and/or fountains.

Encourage and promote direct visual access to views and vistas within West Homestead.

Any facade facing a sidewalk, public right-of-way, public street, or open space district shall have an active building elevation. Active building elevations shall include windows, building entrances, and other architectural features that enhance the pedestrian scale and experience of the building facade.

New construction shall respect existing building widths by providing a division of the facade into visible building increments no larger than the average width of existing buildings on the block.

Where the street frontage is defined by a continuous building facade, the proposed new building or infill construction shall maintain such continuous facade by building from side lot line to side lot line unless access is required for rear yard parking.

Structures where all building elements are less than 35 feet in height and with wall surfaces of more than 1,500 square feet shall incorporate fascias, canopies, arcades, building setbacks of three feet or more, or other design features to break up large wall surfaces on the street-facing elevations. Wall surfaces shall be visually divided by such features into areas of 750 square feet or less.

Street Curbs, Street Right-of-Way. Concrete-deck, roll or straight curb; stone; bituminous.

Street Curbs, Private. Bituminous-full depth; bituminous surface coarse aggregate base; concrete.

Edging Curbs for Planting Strips. Concrete; brick; stone; wood; poly vinyl chloride (PVC) or equal; metal.

Stop Bar. Precast concrete; poly vinyl chloride (PVC) or equal; wood; metal.

Fences and Screens. Wood-picket, panel, post and rail; poly vinyl chloride (PVC) or equal-picket, panel, post and rail; metal-chain link (fabric of aluminum, steel or plastic coated, bent selvage on tip), panel, post and aluminum or steel wire, picket; concrete-panel (not including solid concrete or concrete block).

Walls, Free-Standing. Stone-natural, block stone or rubblestone; brick-plain or glazed; concrete-plain or textured; concrete block-patterned or glaze; tile.

Walls, Retaining. Stone masonry; brick: concrete; cribbing-concrete or metal; sheet piling; treated lumber.

Walkways, Private. Concrete-colored or uncolored, textured finish; terrazzo; textured surface only; brick; precast blocks; flagstone; rubblestone; blockstone.

Driveways intersecting public street within the street right-of-way:

New nonresidential development shall be constructed to be generally compatible with buildings on the same block frontage within 200 feet. This provision shall be satisfied by constructing the subject structure so that at least three of the following features are similar to the majority of other structures within 200 feet on the block frontage (both sides of the street):

Along street frontage(s), all exterior building walls and structures shall be constructed with durable materials such as masonry, stone, brick, finishing wood, stucco (EIFS), or glass.

Renovations of the first floor of existing buildings shall not decrease the area of transparency. Where feasible, renovations shall increase the area of transparency to that required for new construction unless the original historic character of the building requires less transparency area.

All glazing shall be clear or lightly tinted.

In all AVE-BUS, MU, C-1 Commercial Zoning Districts, all new construction along the street shall provide areas of transparency equal to 70% of the wall area between the height of two and eight feet from the ground.

Concrete finishes or pre-cast concrete panels (tilt wall) that are not exposed aggregate, hammered, embossed, imprinted, sandblasted, or covered with a cement-based acrylic coating shall not be used as exterior building materials and shall be prohibited on all exterior walls.

Metal panels with a depth of less than one inch or a thickness less than U.S. standard 26-gauge shall not be used as exterior building materials and shall be prohibited on all exterior walls.

In all zoning districts, no unpainted masonry or brick materials may be painted if originally designed to be unpainted. This shall not include cement block construction.

In any district, mirrored glass with a reflectance greater than 40% shall be prohibited from covering more than 40% of the exterior walls of any building.

Retain the storefront features (for example, display windows, transoms, lintels, etc.).

Remove the entire storefront and redesign the facade to a residential appearance.

When converting only one portion of a building, the entire commercial character of the storefront must be retained.

In cases where demolition of a commercial addition to a house is proposed, the new facade shall approximate, as closely as possible, the original design of the house.

The applicant for conversion of a commercial storefront to a residential use in an area that is predominantly commercial shall be required to maintain the commercial character of the storefront.

Roof style/overhang (e.g., gable, mansard, hip, A-frame).

Garage orientation and access (e.g., attached/front-loaded, attached side-loaded, detached/alley-loaded).

Building massing (e.g., ranch, two-story with attached garage, two-story with detached garage; multi-level).

Floor Area.

Front porches (existence of).

Exterior building material.

Pattern of window and door openings (e.g., central door and four windows; offset door end three windows).

Except for driveways, parking areas and walks, no portion of the front yard shall be paved with asphalt or concrete.

Decorative stone surfaces shall be used only when an integral part of a landscape plan.

To the maximum extent practical, the front yard, side yard and the unpaved area between the sidewalk and the street paving shall be covered with turf grass or vegetative ground cover.

To the maximum extent practical, the rear yard shall be fine graded to ensure proper grades and drainage.

Unpainted lumber.

Treated lumber.

Wooden handrails.

Wooden steps from sidewalk or street to any building entrance.

Any change in occupancy of a commercial structure that also requires a permit pursuant to Chapter 5, Construction Code.

Any increase in the number of units in a residential structure.

Any building that fails to meet the requirements for light and ventilation as per the International Property Maintenance Code as adopted pursuant to Chapter 11, Part 1, Property Maintenance Regulations.

On and after the effective date of this amendment to this chapter, any person proposing a new building shall make application, on forms available at the Borough offices, to the Zoning Officer. The Zoning Officer shall forward the application to the West Homestead Planning Commission. In reviewing the application, the Planning Commission may request an advisory from the Steel Valley Historical Architectural Review Board (as established at Chapter 26 of this Code). The Planning Commission shall forward its recommendation to Council, which shall approve, approve subject to conditions, or deny said application.

For any application, the applicant shall submit such information as the Zoning Officer or Planning Commission may require to properly evaluate the application. This information may include, but is not limited to:

Minor Building Changes. If the Zoning Officer determines that the proposed changes are minor, and otherwise conform to the part, the Zoning Officer may issue a zoning certificate authorizing the proposed changes, provided such changes conform to the standards in this Part.

Significant Building Changes. In the event the Zoning Officer determines that the proposed changes are significant, the application will be referred to the West Homestead Planning Commission. In reviewing the application, the Planning Commission may request an advisory from the Steel Valley Historical Architectural Review Board (as established at Chapter 26 of this Code). The Planning Commission shall forward its recommendation to Council, which shall approve, approve subject to conditions, or deny said application.

For any application, the applicant shall submit such information as the Zoning Officer may require to properly evaluate the application. This information may include, but is not limited to: