Hope Hospice will expand its facility in Ross to serve up to 13 clients in the final stages of their lives.

Ross commissioners this week granted conditional-use and site-plan approvals for the project at 3292 Babcock Blvd.

"This will be a real jewel for Ross," Dean White, president of the nonprofit institution's board of directors, said of the new structure.

Hope Hospice provides most of its services to patients in their residences, Mr. White said. Its existing building on Babcock Boulevard has space for up to three patients who cannot be cared for at home, and demand for that option is rising.

The plans presented Monday night to the commissioners call for replacing the smaller existing building with a two-story structure. It will have rooms for 13 patients and offices on the second floor. Plans also call for parking for 22 cars and shrubs at the front and rear of the property.

Access would be via Babcock Boulevard with no entrance on Evergreen Road.

The new facility has been designed to offer a home-like, rather than an institutional, setting, Mr. White said. The need for hospice services has increased along with the region's elderly population, he said.

Demolition of an existing structure will begin as soon as weather allows, Mr. White said. The new facility should be open by October or November.

In other business, commissioners tabled action on an offer by the North Hills School Board to install additional storm-water control devices on and near its McIntyre School property. In return, the district requested waiving of approval, inspection and bonding fees for the $15 million project.

The school district offer, described in a May 9 letter from finance and operations director David Hall, included construction of a concrete headwall to slow water under Byron Road and the replacement of more than 1,000 square feet of water-shedding concrete and asphalt with "pervious" materials that would allow absorption of storm water.

Commissioners also indicated they wanted a more formal arrangement with the district than Mr. Hall's letter.

They requested a report from township engineer Art Gazdik on how much the district would save if the township waived various fees and how much it was putting into storm water control improvements.

Commissioner Grant Montgomery, whose ward includes the area around the school, said residents along McIntyre and Byron roads already face storm water problems that leave their properties soggy and eroded.

He said he hoped to see more of the money the school district saved on inspection fees being used to reduce storm water problems.

An engineer for the school district told commissioners in March that the amount of storm water leaving the property would be cut following expansion of an upstream detention pond.