Jim Roth, chairman of the Hanover Fire Museum Committee, speaks during the meeting at the Hanover borough building on May 16, 2016.
Hanover’s Fire Museum is one step closer to moving into the old Eagle Fire Station, following the Hanover Borough’s zoning board ruling Monday night.
The board voted unanimously to grant the museum a special zoning variance to occupy the station, located on East Hanover Street.
Still, there are more hurdles to jump before the museum can formally call the station home.
Fire museum committee members want a definitive answer from council on whether they should continue renovating the building. Some members of the public and members of Hanover Borough Council question if the collection of items in the museum should be moved at all.
Zoning hearing issues
About 60 people, many sporting “Save old Eagle Co. Fire Station” stickers on their chests, poured into the Hanover Borough Council chambers Monday evening to express their thoughts about the fire museum’s location.
Members of the Hanover Borough Council’s facilities committee recommended last month that the museum apply for the zoning variance — a step that the former borough council originally deemed unnecessary when it voted to move the museum to the old Eagle Station last May.
The fire museum committee, represented at the hearing Monday by chairman James Roth, specifically asked for a variance on parking spaces and building usage. The committee wanted to use the building, which was categorized as “non-conforming” in a residential zone, as a museum. Committee members also asked that the number of required parking spaces be reduced to the current 10 parking spaces available.
Local landlord Scott Roland, who owns an apartment building near the old Eagle Fire Station, testified during the hearing that the parking situation in the neighborhood is dire and would only worsen if a museum moved to the neighborhood.
“We’re going to add to a problem we have no solution to,” Roland said. “I don’t understand what’s wrong with the existing location. If this weren’t a fire house, I don’t believe we’d be having this discussion.”
Zoning board members asked Roth numerous questions about the museum’s foot traffic, hours of operation, meeting times and need for a new building. In the end, the board voted unanimously to approve the variances, to great applause.
“Very seldom have I seen this many come in favor of something,” zoning board member Vance Stabley said before casting his vote. “I’m a firm believer in listening to the people.”
Ongoing debate over the museum
The topic of the Hanover Fire Museum and its relationship with the Hanover Borough has been the subject of some dispute between council members, retired members of the fire department and members of the public.
In March, Hanover Borough Council, which has five new members this year, resurrected a discussion of the borough-owned, volunteer-operated museum and its potential burden on taxpayers. The former borough council voted last May to move the collection to the old fire station after learning that a smokestack attached to the museum’s current location in the old boiler room behind Pennrose Properties is crumbling.
“As we sat in the museum last Tuesday, we could hear the bricks hitting the roof,” Roth testified during the hearing.
According to the lease with Pennrose, the borough is responsible for making any repairs to the building, which would be paid for out of the general fund. Pennrose officials priced the repair at about $100,000, Roth said.
Still, there are other problems with moving the museum to the new building, Roland said. He worried the repairs needed in the old Eagle Fire Station, which fell into a state of disrepair while it was being used as a workshop for Hanover’s public works department, would be costly to the taxpayers.” Where they are is better than where they want to go,” Roland said. Museum committee members contend that the repairs needed at the station, along with additions such as an elevator, will not be paid for by Hanover taxpayers but, rather, private donations. Volunteers have been working in the old Eagle Fire Station since last fall, cleaning, painting and prepping the building for the artifacts to be moved in.
That effort was halted last month when several new members of the borough council expressed an interest in taking a closer look at the plans to move the museum and the way it is managed by the borough.
Looking forward Though the zoning board’s decision was a win for the museum, the volunteers who maintain the collection are wary of continuing their renovations just yet.
Some members of the public have criticized the borough’s role in operating a museum. Others, like council member Brian Shea, have expressed a desire to form a comprehensive fundraising plan and consult a professional museum curator if the collection continues in borough care.
Roth was very pleased with the results of the hearing but said there are still more questions to be answered before the museum knows definitively where its permanent home will be.
When asked what the future of the old Eagle Fire Station would be if the museum does not move in, council’s facilities committee chairperson James Baumgardner replied, “Sell it.”
Roth, who in addition to representing the fire museum committee also serves on Hanover Borough Council, plans to ask his fellow representatives for direction at the next meeting May 25.
“I would love the public to be at the next couple of council meetings to let council know this is important to them,” Roth said following the meeting. “We have a long way to go.”
