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Planners back zoning change for church

WEIRTON – The city’s planning commission is recommending that council approve a zoning change that the Resurrection Lutheran Church congregation hopes will make their building more marketable.

At Wednesday’s meeting, commission members were told the church council wants part of its property currently zoned single family residential reclassified as a C-2 regional commercial district.

Resurrection Lutheran is located at the intersection of Cove Road and Pennsylvania Avenue.

“We’ve talked to four realtors, and they all told us the chances of another church buying our property is very slim,” Resurrection Lutheran Council President Linda Leonard said, “and (the prospect) for building homes on the property is also very slim. They said we’d have more opportunity to make money on the property if it was zoned commercial.”

Part of the property is already zoned commercial, she added.

“Our membership is elderly,” she said. “We’re too old and too poor to keep the church open any longer … and there are no young people to take over.”

Surrounding properties are, for the most part, also commercial, Chief Code Officer Rod Rosnick said.

Leonard said proceeds from the sale will be donated to charity.

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