YORK, Pa. — West Manchester Township will be taking public comments Thursday as part of their efforts to start the rebuilding of Mr. Q’s Family Skate Center.
On Jan. 16, a two-alarm fire left Mr. Q's completely demolished with both owners devastated and community members in absolute shock.
Under the township’s current 40-year-old zoning law, the owner’s of Mr. Q’s were able to operate, but would not be allowed to build a new rink in its place.
The original plan was that on Thursday, the West Manchester Board of Supervisors would hold a public hearing on proposing a change to that local zoning law that would allow the owners of Mr. Q’s to rebuild.
West Manchester Township Supervisor Ronald Ruman proposed the amendment, but plans to start rebuilding might take just a bit longer.
“The township planning commissioners had some questions and concerns about making certain that the language clarifies that anyone who would rebuild, would only rebuild to what the prior structure was, nothing bigger and the use wouldn’t change," Ron Ruman, the West Manchester Township Supervisor said.
Ruman says they are making the adjustments necessary to ensure that the language is clear. Because of logistical issues, they are also not able to get the advertising out in time to hold the official public hearing and the vote, they say.
"We can make those changes, then we can go forward and if you do make a change before you vote, then you have to re-advertise, because you’re not voting on what you advertise you’re going to be voting on," Ruman said. "This (meeting) will allow us to, if the board so chooses, make any changes to address the issues raised. (This meeting is) to make sure that everyone’s comfortable with this going forward and then we would do the official public hearing and the vote in April."
However, officials are still planning on taking public comments from the community at Thursday’s meeting.
"Although we are going to be accepting public comment on this proposal tomorrow, it won’t be the official required public hearing," Ruman said. "But all these comments will be taken, they will certainly be listened to by us very, very closely, and what folks have to say certainly does matter."
The meeting is at 7 p.m. at the West Manchester Township Municipal Building.