FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio -- Debbie Tsiros is asking the people of Fairview Park to help her family sell their home there.

Unless voters pass Issue 29 on the May ballot, the property cannot be rezoned and a new buyer cannot get a mortgage.

Tsiros said the sale nearly closed late last year, but the buyer's lender said the house was on a lot zoned for commercial use and no bank would extend a loan for it.

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Mayor Eileen Patton did some digging and found that there were about two dozen residential properties in Fairview Park on commercial lots.

There used to be upward of 75 on lots that were zoned so adjacent businesses could expand, the mayor said. But when the city implemented a master plan in 1998, many of those lots wound up zoned as residential.

The home owned by Tsiros' parents, Donald and Pauline Kurtz, is on West 224th Street. The family has found itself caught between some old law and some new economic issues.

Patton said several similar homes had changed hands over the years without a problem. But with the recent mortgage crisis, lenders started imposing stricter terms.

Troy McMahan, a loan officer with Fifth Third Bank in North Olmsted, confirmed that most lenders today would not extend a residential mortgage for a house on a commercially zoned lot.

All zoning changes in Fairview Park must go before the voters. Tsiros' family and the mayor got Fairview Park City Council to pass an ordinance placing the rezoning on the May 4 primary ballot, just beating the deadline, Patton said.

The mayor said the city wanted to extend the same help to the other affected property owners, but it was too late. Those issues will go on the November ballot.

Ken Fisher, law director for the city of Brunswick, said some Ohio municipalities could have fixed the zoning with a simple ordinance; while others -- like Fairview Park -- place such issues before the voters.

Fisher said the Fairview Park situation is unusual because property rarely gets rezoned from commercial to residential. Typically, it gets rezoned the other way because commercial property is deemed more valuable and saleable.

Fisher and McMahan said another problem today is that most lenders are not making many commercial loans.

"There's just no development going on right now," Fisher said.

Ed FitzGerald, Lakewood's mayor, said his city has a number of homes on property with the potential for commercial use, but the zoning is set up so the homeowner can elect to retain its residential status or can sell it as a commercial property.

That hasn't interfered with home sales in Lakewood, he said, adding that he hasn't gotten any complaints.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: jewinger@plaind.com, 216-999-3905