The vacant lot at the corner of Hunter and Spruce streets has been an ongoing headache for Tamaqua Borough Council. At Tuesday night’s meeting, council took some preliminary steps to finally sell the property.

Council President David Mace said that the CRIZ authority has advised the borough that there is a party interested in purchasing and developing the lot as a parking lot. Since part of the lot is currently being rented out by the borough for seven parking spaces, and there is the potential to have up to 24 spaces in the area, council considered its options.

Council discussed stipulating that the property had to be used for parking, which is badly needed in the area, but borough solicitor Michael Greek advised against putting any sort of deed restriction on the property, as it could limit future development. Greek instead advised making it a condition of sale, and if it wasn’t followed through with, the property could revert to the borough.

Councilwoman Mary Linkevich said that there has been a long-standing plan to develop the lot into a parking area, however, the borough has hit a roadblock every time they’ve tried to procure funding for the project.

Councilman Brian Connely voiced concern that the borough might be limiting any kind of future development that didn’t include a parking lot.

“We’ve struggled with this for how long and nothing’s been done with it. There’s nothing to say that someone wouldn’t do something else with half the lot and use the other half for parking.” Connely supported selling the lot, but voted against the motion because of the parking lot limitation.

Resident Tom Schlorf questioned whether the proposed sale was a “backdoor deal.”

Mace responded that someone had approached the borough about the project. However, the lot was being offered for public auction, and any member of the public would be free to bid on the property. The motion to advertise the property did pass, with Connely being the lone negative vote. The minimum bid is to be $12,000, and it will be stipulated that the property is to be used for parking.