The city economic revitalization committee offered a positive recommendation on a few zoning ordinance amendments regarding hedges, swimming pools and off-street parking affecting Lycoming College and Pennsylvania College of Technology.

The zoning text amendments happened after speaking with planning commission, zoning hearing board, and officials at both college campuses.

The first part of the proposed change is a section on fences, walls and hedges, said Gary Knarr, city zoning officer.

“We have a ton of people putting up privacy fencing,” he said.

Many are putting up wooden privacy fences.

“I feel it is a requirement of having the finished side facing out,” Knarr said. This is in regards to new fences should these changes pass by council in two readings — not existing ones.

Another change is in relation to the city getting quite a few businesses in light manufacturing zones wanting to put barbed wire on their fences.

The barbed wire idea isn’t a nice looking sight and it poses a safety risk, so the compromise is to got from six feet to eight feet chainlink but not barbed wire, Knarr said.

Another section is on obstruction to view.

“We have people with hedges on a corner lot and they must be kept down enough to see pedestrians walking,” Knarr said.

Councilman David Banks asked and was assured these proposed amendments will be for hedges and privacy fencing on corner lots and driveways, not the rear or back yards of residences.

“We dropped it to a six foot triangle from a 12 foot triangle,” he said. It is enough to see the oncoming cars, pedestrians and bicyclists, he said. One property codes regularly keeps an eye on is at Grampian Boulevard and Market Street because of hedges and line of sight.

Another zoning change is a revision regarding swimming pools.

“Normally we have a 10 foot setback,” Knarr said.

More people are putting in-ground and above-ground pools,” he said.

“We want them to be able to do that without restricting them with the setback,” he said.

Recently, the zoning hearing board heard 15 variances regarding pool setbacks.

After speaking with the board, Knarr said he is looking at taking the setback down to five feet from the water’s edge. If the property has a deck on the pool the owner will maintain six foot from the property line.

“It still provides a buffer and does not require a variance,” he said. Requesting a variance with the zoning hearing board costs $500.

The final were small revision of off-street parking and loading requirements. Some adjustments were requested for parking spaces for Lycoming College and Pennsylvania College of Technology and for retail parking, Knarr said.

Neither colleges had issues with changing from square footage off-street space requirements to actual employees and students, he said.

The proposed change at Penn College, for example, will help in the potential reconfiguration of the Lycoming County transfer station.

The college has an under-utlized parking lot near the station, according to Chris Miller, college police chief, and Pat Marty, college chief of staff.