Fountain Hill Planning Commission voted March 11 to recommend a text amendment to the residential office zone on Delaware Avenue.

St. Luke's Health Network officals asked for the change so they could continue holding university classes in the Estes office building and other offices across the street from the hospital. Under the current zoning, classrooms are allowed but a university is not.

Representatives of the hospital told planners they were not aware they could not teach the medical students in those buildings when they entered into an agreement with Temple University three years ago. The hospital's nursing school is on the other side of Delaware Avenue and is a permitted use.

The members of the planning commission were told that the medical students are taught in small lecture rooms or mock doctors' offices. The change would not allow the hospital to build or run a full scale university that would include all the extra buildings and services of a university, such as dormitories or cafeterias.

Hospital officials also assured the planning commission that they adhere to the parking requirements of most universities, and even though there is a parking lot behind the Estes Building, their students are told to use the hospital's main lot.

The change now has to go before council.