Parks and Recreation Committee Meeting - March 18, 2026
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Parks and Recreation Committee Meeting - March 18, 2026
This meeting of the Allentown Parks and Recreation Committee, held on March 18, 2026, featured presentations from the Environmental Advisory Council (EAC) and the city's Sustainability Coordinator. Discussions centered on environmental initiatives, tree planting policies, and citizen concerns about tree maintenance costs. No formal votes were taken, but several follow-up actions were noted.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Mary Tomlinson (373 West Liberty Street) expressed concerns about residents becoming averse to trees due to high maintenance bills and being forced to bear those costs alone. She reiterated points made earlier by committee members.
Discussion Items
- Environmental Advisory Council Annual Report (Kyle Ropsky, EAC Chair): Kyle Ropsky presented the 2025 annual report, highlighting accomplishments in five purpose pillars: advising on environmental issues (litter reduction research, invasive species management), encouraging sustainable design (supporting the climate action plan, electric vehicle pilot, urban forestry master plan), protecting natural resources (educational tree brochures), maintaining open land (participation in comprehensive parks master plan and Zone Allentown meetings), and promoting community programs (Youth Climate Action Fund, Lehigh Valley EAC network, Birdtown PA gold status). He noted the EAC now has a website and will focus on supporting the climate action plan, improving community engagement, and policy research on litter reduction and stormwater reduction in 2026.
- Sustainability Coordinator Presentation (Veronica): Veronica provided updates on the urban and community forestry program (funded by a $1 million grant, including a complete street tree inventory of 15,000 trees, a species selection plan, and a plan to plant up to 600 street trees in environmental justice areas). She also discussed the electric vehicle fleet pilot (purchased 7 of 8 planned vehicles using $250,000 in grant funds, tax credit recovery efforts), the Youth Climate Action Fund (two rounds funded, applied for additional rounds, decision in April), and the upcoming climate action plan (community outreach starting late spring/early summer, survey open). She announced a new citizen science pilot with Community Bike Works, Penn State, and Easton using air quality sensors funded by the Urban Sustainability Directors Network.
- Tree Fee in Lieu of Planting: Council member Cece Garlock raised the issue that the fee developers pay in lieu of planting trees (currently approximately $400–500 per tree) is too low compared to actual costs. Veronica estimated a contractor price of about $750 to plant a tree and potentially $1,000 for stump grinding. Garlock noted that the fee seems cheaper than planting, incentivizing developers to pay the fee. She suggested the fee should be increased, which would require legislative action to amend the ordinance. A vote on related legislation was expected later that evening.
- Homeowner Tree Responsibility and Opt-Out: Council member Ms. Apple expressed strong concerns that homeowners are forced to accept trees in front of their properties and bear significant maintenance costs (trimming, root damage, lightning damage). She argued homeowners should have a choice to refuse a tree, or the city should help with maintenance. Veronica explained that the shade tree ordinance requires replanting in the right-of-way, and the city's current program targets areas out of compliance, offering to help replant. She noted the city is trying to find creative ways to support low-income homeowners but acknowledged that even non-low-income residents face high costs. Kyle Ropsky added that the city is working on making the compliance letters more friendly, as suggested by Mr. Binder.
- Letter Softening: Mr. Binder requested that the letters sent to residents about tree planting be made softer and more friendly to increase buy-in. Veronica agreed to review the letters for the next round.
- Collaboration with Lehigh County: A committee member mentioned a Lehigh County workshop on community gardens and hydroponics, encouraging collaboration with the county to achieve environmental goals.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes or decisions were recorded during this committee meeting.
- The committee discussed the need to increase the fee in lieu of tree planting, with a legislative action expected later that evening (not part of this transcript).
- The Sustainability Coordinator will review and soften the language of tree compliance letters for future mailings.
- The EAC and Sustainability Coordinator will continue work on the climate action plan, urban forestry master plan, and other initiatives as outlined.
Meeting Transcript
But I might say maybe he said that. Welcome everyone. I'd like to begin the Parks and Recreation Committee. Let the record show that my committee members, Mr. Pungo and Mr. Binder, are present. And today we have a variety of presentations and discussions. The Environment Zero Advisory Council and your report. I believe Kyle is here for that. Whenever you're ready, we can come up and start. All right. Good evening, everybody. My name is Kyle Ropsky, 528 North Berk Street. I'm chair of Allentown's Environmental Advisory Council. So tonight I'm gonna be giving you an annual report presentation. So this is a presentation format of our required annual report. Um, as it says in the ordinance, we're required to submit every year. Um the report this year is about 13 pages. Last year it was 27, so we're getting a little bit better and cutting it down. But um this is obviously top level, so this is much shorter than that. But I'll just preface this by urging you all to read the report. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. So for starters, um, I've been chair of EAC for around two years now. Uh, one of my main focuses since I um got involved was ensuring that the AC is meeting the goals of its purpose statement, that we're doing exactly what we're intended to do by ordinance. Um so, in line with that, I just wanted to bring it up to the top uh so we can address it at the beginning so you know what kind of is guided everything, guided the report and the presentation. Um I'm not gonna read the beginning, but it runs on five main pillars to be advised as to environmental issues within the city of Allentown to encourage sustainable design and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, including the use of renewable energies to protect and preserve natural resources within the city of Allentown, to maintain possible uses of open land in the city of Allentown, and to promote community environmental programs. So, this is our purpose statement in the annual report in this presentation. I try to use this as a guideline so I will organize everything and put everything into at least one of these buckets. Um it's just for organizational purposes for mine. A lot of them do have overlap, but that's gonna be a guiding theme of this. So for first, last year, um, in regards to advising on environmental issues. We did a lot of research on litter reduction strategies. If some of you remember our work on containerization, um, we're interested in that. Uh, we I want to give a huge shout out to the Sweep Department. They were very helpful in allowing us to do this research. They met with us, they attended one of our meetings and allowed us to ask questions. Um there will be more on this in the coming months, but as you all know, litter is a major issue. Um, and we will be doing some more cleanups this year to kind of deal with that. I also want to talk on invasive species management through the Mueller College's Office of Community Engagement. We were provided a summer intern, um, and she focused her research project on invasive species, um, what they are, how they impact the city, how we deal with them. I also want to give a major shout out to the parks department for helping our intern out with that. And as you can see, it resulted in this joint resolution here that was passed in December, um, where we are committed to using less herbicides as well as pursuing sustainable land management practices. I would love to see uh goats uh eating our grass. Thank you. Uh moving on. Also a reminder all of our meetings are public and they are not only for you all to attend, but also for city residents to attend if they want to. Last year we saw a numerous presentations, including in the beginning in January, we saw uh inventory of greenhouse gas emissions presented by students involved in Penn State's local climate action program. We also saw a presentation from the Little Lehigh Watershed Stewards on winter salting and local waterway impacts. That's that one's really interesting. Um then as you can see on the right side here, these are also included in our report.
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