Start the CED meeting.

Everyone on the committee is present, and all presenters it looks like are also here.

So Mr.

Hillman.

Bill 20 and manage the Part 2 General Legislation, Chapter 660 Zoning, Article 5 Uses, Table 6604, Use Table, and Section 66038 Manufacturing Industry Group, adding the use category data center use and Article 14 measurement and definitions, Section 660, 135 terms beginning with D and Section 660149 terms beginning with R, adding the definition of data center, data center accessory use and renewable energy.

All right.

So the staff has been receiving inquiries, has been researching data center ordinances, and I would like to turn it over to Jennifer Gomez, who is our planning director, who really has done an extensive deep dive with her staff into other ordinances and put together what we feel is a productive and rather straightforward or as straightforward as this topic could be ordinance for the city.

Okay, thank you, Vicky.

Jennifer Gomez, I'm uh planning director, and we worked extensively on this ordinance.

Um we reviewed all of the other ordinance to date that had prepared various data center ordinances and processed them through Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.

We've also worked with their staff with the model ordinance through Penn Future with the Allentown Environmental Advisory Councils feedback as well as feedback from almost all development related departments throughout the city.

So Vicky did a good job introducing it.

Um, a few details of the ordinance.

One, it it for the first time defines data centers.

We also have defined accessory data centers so we can review all of the equipment associated with that as well.

Uh we have defined locations where they would be allowed in in Pennsylvania per the NPC, you do need to allow them somewhere within your city.

So we've identified two industrial zoning districts.

The city currently has three industrial zoning districts.

Uh, the IX district, um, the IX district is um uh a blend of commercial and industrial type zoning and is it typically closest to some of our commercial and residential uses.

The IG and the IM general industrial excuse me and general industrial and industrial manufacturing zoning districts are um our most uh intense zoning districts throughout the city.

Uh it is not a buy-right use, it's a a uh uh special exception use, which means it needs a zoning hearing board decision before a public hearing before a decision can be made.

Through this ordinance, we've defined a very specific process due to the uh potential impacts of this use.

We thought it was really important to get feedback through the Allentown Environment Allentown Environmental Advisory Council as part of the process.

So we will get the their feedback when a specific application comes in.

Um like any special exception use that involves the site plan change, it'll also go to the Allentown Planning Commission for their feedback.

And uh, if we need the the Shade Tree, Allentown Shade Trees feedback on specific buffering and trees around the use, we will take it there as well.

Ultimately, it will the use decision will come to the zoning hearing board upon review of the criteria in the code as well as the feedback provided.

Within those uh zoning districts, we have the IGN IM for anything over 50,000 square feet.

So this starts to turn into the larger data center type uses.

There's a minimum acreage requirement of five or eight acres, um, depending on the zoning district.

Um, what that does is really limits the locations where these industrial uses can go to some of our larger industrial sites that are more equipped to handle it.

Uh we also have setbacks, um, 75 feet from a street.

Um there's 200 feet from certain sensitive uses such as residential, civic, institutional, and child care uses, and 50 feet from all property lines.

So this helps us ensure that the buildings, if they're constructed, are further back and deeper into the sites and away from the streets, streets and the neighbors.

Or building design standards.

We require a 25-foot landscape buffer.

We've got prescriptive standards throughout both this use as well as throughout the regular zoning industrial separation requirements.

Any buildings that are facing the street have to meet certain design standards.

There's a maximum height that is at 50 feet.

And for those districts that allow higher heights, up to 70 feet max.

And most importantly, we require extensive studies, including environmental impact, noise and vibration, water utilization and sewer, power, encouraging renewable energy.

They must submit plans for any electronic waste for heat mitigation and emergency response.

And we do, as the city, have a right to work with a third party reviewer if needed to review and evaluate those environmental impacts and whether any additional mitigation is required.

We've received positive feedback from the Allentown Advisory Council from the Lehigh Plant Valley Planning Commission and letter support from the Allentown Planning Commission.

So this is a new emerging use.

And before we open it up, I just want to add that a lot of thought went into those setbacks and those distances based on noise and based on buffering for the activity.

But then will also run continuously during a true regional grid power outage.

So some of those setbacks and things like that are designed to buffer noise should heaven forbid that happen, or during the testing part of the operation.

Okay.

Okay.

Anyone from council?

I've got I've got a couple things, so I'll wait till the end.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So thank you, Zar, very much for going through the questions that I submitted.

And also I just wanted to start off the top.

I want to say I appreciate that you guys did engage with the Allentown Environmental Council because I think it's crucial when we when we do these that we get feedback on how the impact's going to be.

What percentage, if you would, off the top, I looked at the map, would you say of available spots that this would be in would is of Allentown?

Like you think it's it was hard to tell from the map how much that would possibly be.

So I can get that number for you before the public hearing, and I'll be able to answer.

I can also email that to you.

Um eyeballing the map, I would say a small percentage.

It looked really small.

That's what I'm just kind of curious if we what we were actually like looking at scope perspective.

It seemed pretty pretty small.

So okay, no worries.

I just didn't just wanted to ask.

Um with respect to, I know you had mentioned about the generators, um, and I didn't include this on my my questionnaire.

So um fuel delivery.

Um, that's a that's a common uh process that happens whenever you're gonna make these run constantly.

Was that outlined?

I may have missed that in the in how that's being handled.

Uh one second.

Well and I don't really, I don't know what we might be able to even do with that, but I just didn't know if there if if we if we outlined as you're doing food delivery, it has to come in these routes or has to come in these times or like that.

So I don't believe that we've defined fuel delivery specifically.

However, we do have um extensive um review built in through our fire department, um, and they'll review any battery storage, any devices, um, and also review any um uh fire suppression and uh fall under flame of a liquid with the fire department's code.

So okay.

Um yeah, and the fire department is also included when any new land development comes through, and we'll make comments on the site.

So there's the prescriptive standards that are laid out within the code, but they review all projects regardless of code for fire safety and um uh the ability to suppress any fires.

Okay.

And one of the things you had mentioned about the or one of my questions was specific to the to the noise and that um there's noise studies.

Now, if during the course uh data center goes up, um it's running, you know, people who are neighbors that are around there are complaining that it seems like it's it's louder than it's supposed to be.

Um, and they a new need a noise study has to take place again to see if they're in fact, and I think you I think it said in in the if I remember correctly, it would outline that it had to be checked after it was in production.

But if it needs to be rechecked, um, who pays for that?

So we would have um I mean we would have I I suppose that additional review would end up falling on city staff to go out and do and and enforce it just as we would any other enforcement um matter or any other noise complaint.

Um so I do think it's more extensive.

Uh, this additional requirement in terms of the pre and post sound review, it's more extensive than other uses.

So I think um it also looks at like ambient noise and and um low frequency.

In addition to all of that, the city has a noise ordinance um that this also connects to, and um I think uh Vicky's probably the best to speak to the status of that noise ordinance.

Currently, our noise ordinance is under consideration for review.

It's a combined ordinance right now, which puts industrial noise with nuisance noise.

We're working to separate the two back out under the health department's purview for enforcement is industrial noise with a caveat that is prolonged uh exposure would lead to hearing loss.

So that's how it falls in the health code.

However, there's a current investigative formula that's used for industrial noise, and there are specific sections in the current noise ordinance that deals with the measurements of those noise.

In the past, when we've had industry that creates noise that goes above that level, the risk the cost to fix that level lies on the industry.

Um I would hope that this ordinance coming into play would also be transferred into a new noise ordinance that really looks more in-depth into the industrial noise.

The other part of the noise that will be separated out will be like noise from cars, noise from parties, noise from fireworks, noise from whatever.

But the industrial noise piece will be moving, I'm hoping, into a separate um health ordinance soon.

And then that's where I think we would address specifically the remediation of the noise would fall to the property owner.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um just scanning down, and I'm just gonna highlight some of my questions.

I know you you answered them, but just in going through this.

Um the one was I know the language for uh using on-premise uh power generation.

I understand we can't based on based on the law can't it can't require it, but um, but I think any time we can we can advocate for um having solar or having some sort of uh renewables, that's obviously gonna be beneficial to everyone.

Um they agree.

And then I didn't get to read the whole, and I apologize for this for the for the penalty perspective from both what I'm seeing you highlight is that we really can't do anything from uh if they're if they're in a violation, or could you summarize um the section where I asked about penalties that there's no real um if they violate change the scale yes, we would have to issue the typical zoning violations for that use.

We can't alter it for specific use.

We did um speak to legal about this one in particular.

Uh the city has other legal measures that we could use for this or any other use if it becomes um such a problem.

Um, so we would explore those at the time, but we can't make zoning violation specific for this.

Okay.

That question kind of was born out of, I think there was a recent about uh a township where uh an overwhelming amount of water was just consumed and no one so I was you know not expecting that to happen, but always try to think about the I appreciate the question and and understand the goal.

Um my last question, which was probably out of the blue for you for the um which I'm sure you may have a joint.

Um so that is specific to industry-wise, a lot of um perimeter protection for data centers and that kind of stuff has been moving more and more towards um autonomous and automatonic, if you want to if you want to use that word, um protection systems.

So I'm merely putting this out there to say as we consider going forward, because industry-wise, these are already being deployed in data centers and applications, they're not currently armed.

It's a matter of time.

So it's the kind of thing where I just would like to make sure we maybe look at that as we're going forward to how we would make if if there's a request to do that, because I think of if law enforcement's trying to come into a perimeter and there's there's uh something that's coming after them, it it obviously makes it a challenge.

It would be good to know if we had some way of containing that or at least designing so people knew what that that might be in place.

Sorry, that's bubbling around there, but that was what the point of the crush was.

You really give us something to think about on that one.

All right, I can send you fit some videos if you'd like.

It's quite terrifying.

Anyway, um, I think that's it.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Um, Mr.

Napoli, anything?

Um thank you, uh Ms.

Gurloch.

Yeah, just a uh piggyback on my colleague, Mr.

Bender.

I mean, the penalty phase, I think definitely we um any opportunity we have.

I mean, my big worry is is you know, we're dealing with companies that are worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Some of them, some of them might be trillion dollar companies soon.

And you know, thousand dollar day fines in our current zoning is cost of doing business for them.

And I think we have to find ways to hold them accountable.

Um, and I'm hoping that the law department can help with that because you know, we can't have our residents being impacted negatively, and they're just you know, again, it's just a cost of doing business payment for them.

It's literally nothing to them.

So something that that's something I would want to continue to look at to uh Mr.

Bender's point.

But I mean um Ms.

Gomez and I serve on the Lee Hallow Planning Commission.

We've been talking about this for feels like for six months.

So um I've I'm thankful for you to you know getting this to the finish line here uh to present it to us.

I know it's been through the the Allentown Planning Commission, the Leah Valley Planning Commission, uh thankful for the EAC playing apart and uh Shade Tree.

So I think there's it's a great opportunity to try and um manage this use in an effective way uh in our city.

So um, but really for me the big the big issue is gonna be the penalty, and I think you know these things are gonna evolve.

I mean, we all talk about you know, right now they are saying they're gonna be X.

Well, maybe in five years gonna be Y.

And we need to find a way to make sure this legislation um you know continues to evolve and hold them accountable because I just don't want to see a bait and switch where they say, yeah, we're gonna do this, and then a year later they switch to something different, and we're kind of caught holding the bag.

So um so thanks for um looking into that penalty phase, and um at this point that's all I have um for now.

Yeah, thank you.

Um so I apologize.

I I did not email my questions ahead of time, and I should have because they are kind of in depth.

So if you can't answer it now, all good.

Um my first question is at the state level, I've heard Governor Shapiro talk about requiring uh community benefits agreements.

Um are we able to include that sort of language at a local level?

So that's something that we would need to explore further with legal, but my understanding is that through zoning, we're only allowed to ask for those um types of um well impacts, uh excuse me.

Let me rephrase.

We can only um we can't um have exactions other than those that are specifically defined in the MPC, which are um park fees and and traffic fees.

Those that is where we would be limited through a zoning ordinance amendment.

Um if there's additional capital improvement projects or um additional incentives being given, that moves it out of the zoning world.

Um, but within the zoning code, my understanding is that that type of ordinance wouldn't be possible.

Okay.

Um and then uh because this is definitely not an area of my expertise.

I rely on the experts.

I look at Penn Future, I you mentioned them as you know, one of the organizations that are experts.

And so I looked at their model ordinance and just did some cross comparison, and overall um our ordinances in alignment with with their model ordinance.

There are some areas that their ordinance, of course, are stronger.

Um and then there's areas in which our ordinance is actually um stronger.

So, like having um a review from the EAC and a greenhouse gas review, uh thermal impact, um, and then e-waste.

That's not in Penn Futures model ordinance, but it is in ours.

Uh the areas, let me scroll down my notes.

Um the areas where Penn Futures and I know I know the purpose now is just to get it passed, and then potentially there could be amendments made in in the future.

Um I would like to see amendments to make it stronger in the future.

Um I think that the day we start trusting mega million billion dollar corporations to do the right thing, I think is the day that we're all about to find out.

Um so I think the strongest ordinance that we can have um the better, knowing that right now we need to have something.

Uh so one of the areas is um to kind of make ours more in in alignment with Penn Future is um adding a sensitive receptor definition um and applying the 200 foot setback to all sensitive receptors, not just residential civic and child care uses.

And I'm gonna email a more in-depth kind of thing, but just for now.

And then strengthening the water protections.

Penn futures standard says, quote, no data center shall be approved unless the applicant demonstrates adequate water supply, and that withdrawals dash discharges will not adversely affect groundwater surface waters or nearby water users.

So it's a very strong language there.

Adding more detail uh groundwater testing and monitoring language, um that includes pre-construction, post-construction, annual water reporting, public complaint process, a 60-month uh presumption that the data center is responsible for adverse well impacts within the area, um, adding remediation and financial security and uh scroll down.

Oh the um so making uh water efficient cooling mandatory, not just strongly encouraged when something's strongly encouraged, it won't be done.

Um but if it's mandatory, well, it's mandatory if it's legally allowed.

Um and then adding equipment screening.

Um I think that's it.

Yeah, but there's there's a whole lot um when I read through Penn Futures that I think could make ours even better.

So think I yeah, that's it.

Uh anyone else from the day is before I go to the public.

Any other okay, anyone from the public.

Good evening, everybody.

Good evening.

Good evening, everybody.

My name is Kyle Rowski, 58 North Burke Street.

I'm chair of Allen Towns Environmental Advisory Council.

Um, I just want to start here by saying that we did provide a letter that I believe is attached to the agenda here for your view.

It goes into greater detail on the comments, so I'm not gonna be you know very specific here.

Um I also want to give a major shout out to our planning uh bureau here.

They've been incredible throughout the process.

They approached us early on for initial commentary, uh, which we provided.

Uh you can view that on our Alenton EAC.org website.

Um that's got a little bit more detail, some maps, some other interesting content there.

Um with that being said, just to clarify off the bat, I urge your support in the advancement of this bill on data center use.

Environmental protection is not separate from community well-being.

It is a fundamental part of it.

The quality of our air and water, the resilience of our infrastructure, and the protection of our natural resources all directly affect public health, neighborhood quality of life, and the long-term sustainability of our city.

Our environmental resources are assets that need to be recognized more as critical public infrastructure.

For example, our street trees and the public right away are not simply aesthetic features, they help manage stormwater, reduce urban heat, improve air quality, and provide measurable public benefits in the same way other infrastructure does, like sidewalks and roads.

As new and intensive forms of development that emerge, such as data centers, is important that our city has clear standards in place to evaluate and mitigate potential impacts to both our built and natural infrastructure systems.

We're encouraged to see the provisions included for environmental review, infrastructure and water capacity analysis, energy management planning, noise evaluation, heat mitigation, and site buffering and landscaping requiring professional studies and technical review helps ensure that impacts to residence infrastructure and environmental resources are identified early and addressed appropriately.

We appreciate the collaborative process that occurred during the drafting of this amendment, and we thank council and staff for their continued attention to environmental considerations and land use decisions and protecting the environmental resources that support our community's health and sustainability.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else, any other members of the public?

Um maybe a question.

My name is Samuel, and if you hear about the noise levels of limits.

Um the data center.

I didn't hear that you mentioned was the limit.

Is the limit on that?

So the noise levels would default to the industrial noise level standards within the overall city code.

However, there's additional provisions written in to address some of the low frequency ambient noises, humming tones, those types of noises.

So we wrote that in and also added in regulations regarding vibrations or any noise that could create any vibration.

So we put that in the this particular ordinance, and we required a pre-and post-sound analysis.

So we're not just going to take their word for it, we'll go out and do an assessment afterwards.

If they have sounds then that are above those levels, they would need to propose mitigation for it.

Beyond that, I think as uh was previously mentioned, the city is looking overall at the noise ordinance for all uses.

So it'll be continue to be an area where we explore further.

Okay.

Yeah, and just my concern is the yes, you have a noise limit, but since these data centers run 24-7, maybe they're under the limit, but when you run 24-7, any noise is gonna create some health easier for people on them.

So that's my concern.

And the others seeing that I heard um you say please voyage on me.

Does your name?

Yeah, you mentioned that these um amendment has to these legislatures need to pass.

Is it something in specific that need to pass um in some uh window of time?

Do we have any data center coming or something?

So yeah, so yes, sir.

So the reason why I said that is um, so in order for this ordinance to even be before us, it had to go through like all these different steps.

It had to go to the planning commission and it had to go to all these different entities.

If we were to not pass this ordinance now, it would have to start all over again.

Um, but if there is something in here that um upon discovery after passing, we're like, oops, this isn't gonna work, we could always just go back and amend it.

Okay.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

Yep.

Thank you.

I I would also like to add, if I may, that this is a zoning ordinance.

So just like any other zoning ordinance, any citizen can always have a public complaint or can file a zoning complaint, which results in zoning officers conducting an investigation and providing a response to that complaint.

So this would fall under the existing like way we operate under any zoning code, and also when there is a zoning violation, the mitigation of that violation cost always goes back to the owner.

If they put up a sign illegally and they violated a zoning code, it's their expense to take the zoning code down.

So some of the provisions of the overarching zoning code, all of those provisions stay in place, and this is an additional add-in to that.

So we do have some protections on a couple of the things you mentioned, but if you forward that entire list, we can answer those questions more in depth.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, uh Mr.

Bender.

Uh just real quick with the noise, and just since you brought up a good question on that one.

I know you're doing a pre and uh pre and post.

Is that with or without them running on generator?

That's a good question.

I think we would have to uh review both circumstances, so I appreciate that comment.

Okay, yeah, they think that would be helpful, especially if they had to a situation where let's just say gas is not as expensive as right now, um, and they decided to supplement their power, it would be unlikely.

But if it was running for a prolonged period, it would be good to know that that so that will uh definitely be part of our questions when they submit the generator uses is something that we get a lot of attention.

Um, having seen um L VPC's comments on some of the data centers that have already come in throughout the High Valley, the uh generators or something specifically they typically comment on, and also there's different tiers of generators that can provide um lower emissions and then also um lower sound.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Uh anyone else in the public or the dais or the administration.

All right, is there a motion to move this forward to the regular meeting?

I'll make a motion to move it forward favorably.

One second.

All right, all in favor.

I so this will move forward to the regular meeting.

Um, and then we have our next bill, which is bill 33, right?

Uh bill 33 uh repeals chapter 135 abandoned real property blight in its entirety and adopts chapter 611 vacant and at risk property and establishes certain regulations.

Okay, Ms.

Kissler.

Um, yes.

We put a lot of time effort, but also consideration from complaints we receive from a variety of city departments, along with a variety of city council members into this ordinance to try to cover what's different about a blighted property process or a blight remediation process and what applies to a vacant property process.

You can't even begin the process of dealing with a blighted property until it has been a blighted property for more than a year.

This process looks at empty, vacant, commercial and residential properties.

A property that someone has gone into a nursing home for rehab and they vacated their property.

A property that is in good condition and is uh in it's a snowbirder who's leaving for a couple months out of the year.

What we're looking to address with this ordinance is the properties that many of you call us to report that we do full detective work on.

It's not that we drive by and say the weeds are high and this property is vacant, but we make an attempt to reach a property owner, we make an attempt to uh ask neighbors, has anybody come or gone?

We make an attempt to ascertain whether or not the mail is piling up, the weeds are growing outside.

Um is the home uh starting to fall into condition that doesn't look like it always looked like before.

And we're looking to address from that moment on, putting this property into a registry.

A registry that then provides contact information to our first responders who may respond to this property, but to put that property into a condition that allows it to appear better to not decrease the quality of the properties around it, but to also increase the safety if there has to be a first responder response.

So for example, right now we get reports that someone has broken into a vacant property.

It's pitch dark.

The police department has never been in that property before.

They don't know whether they're going into that property and there's gonna be five people inside, no people inside, ten dogs inside, a huge bow of constrictor.

They don't know what they're walking into.

So some of the provisions of this says if your property is going to be vacant for an extended period of time, we're gonna register that property and we're asking you to put a light on.

Put a light on with a timer so that we can see when we're going in there in the dark, that it appears to be occupied because we can tell you just from our own city-owned properties.

When they appear vacant, they get broken into.

It creates mold, it creates tons of other issues within that property.

So we're trying to get a handle on that.

We're not trying to put any undue burden on folks that have an existing process.

Like we're not looking for a property that clearly has a for sale sign in front of it, that someone's actively trying to market that property.

But if you have that for sale sign on that property for five years, it it's a very obvious sign that after a certain period of time, that property should be listed as vacant.

We should have contact information for that property, and it should appear to have lighting and be in decent condition.

Um, our sweep department tells us that we have homes where an individual has passed and their kids are fighting over what to do with the property for five years.

So they've had to have a contractor mow the lawn up to 20 times in five years and lean the property.

This pulls down the whole neighborhood.

The neighbors are calling every time the weeds get high, and that's not what we want in our neighborhoods.

So that's the impetus for this, not undue hardship, a registration fee, an inspection to make sure that water's not running, and kind of a listing that when someone calls and inquires, we know that that's a vacant property, and we can tell APD or AFD or whoever's been called to that property that we have a contact information to reach somebody connected to that property.

Mark, is there anything I missed?

Heidi Westerman actually uh constructed this, but unfortunately she couldn't be here tonight, and she based this ordinance off other ordinances.

This is actually far less restrictive than some of the ordinances we looked at, where it involved things like vacant property insurance and a number of other things that our law team felt was too restrictive for us at this point.

So this is mostly a registry and an inspection and a contact and turning the lights on.

We're open to any questions.

Okay.

Anyone up on the dais.

Thank you.

A couple things.

I mean, when we look at vacant properties in the city, I mean we I think I want to look at them too, obviously residential versus commercial.

Residential, you know, we we all know we have a housing shortage in Allentown.

We know this market is a very robust market.

So having homes that are vacant on the sidelines doesn't really help our residents when it comes to capacity, when it comes to stabilizing rents.

When we talk about vacant properties, I'm talking for years and years and years.

Obviously, there are properties that are in transition for six months, nine months, we get that.

But the long-term ones are a concern from a residential standpoint.

The commercial ones are also concerned because when I see a commercial property, I see jobs.

And I think that's something that we'd want for our residents to have, you know, as many of these commercial properties being activated as many as possible, um, which only increases um you know jobs in the city, um, which is which is obviously very crucial.

Um I'm glad you didn't include the vacant property insurance.

Um that is super expensive.

And um it is massively expensive compared to normal insurance.

So that's something that I think could have been a rub for a lot of folks, and um I think that's something that you know probably better we don't include it.

But um, but no, to your point, Ms.

Kissler, I you know, I think um from a public safety standpoint.

I mean, if a if a residential property is deemed vacant and is on the registry, if there are squatters in it, then Allentown Police Department knows they shouldn't be there if it's on the registry.

So I think that's a um will this information be shared, like between departments, like absolutely, and that's the point.

Okay.

That right now when they're responding to these properties, if it's listed under ownership from an LLC and they can't, you know, identify or reach that LLC, they go in and there's somebody who says, I have permission to live here, and they have no way of knowing if they actually have permission to live here.

If the property is registered, we think it actually serves a very valid purpose for its owner that we'll put those people out of that home.

We'll have a contact information for that owner.

We'll make sure that it's safe, it's it's uh not being broken into the water's not running without the owner knowing it.

Um so we see this as a benefit, definitely.

And the information will be shared with the police, fire, and among our code enforcement folks so that they know to keep an eye on it.

Okay, and that's that's crucial if if um that's something that's really important with the sharing of information.

Um I did hear some concerns about, and you mentioned it about you know, folks are men and women serving in the military, um, snowbirds.

I I did look the one definition I think covers it, but I I hope if we need to do more, it defines a vacant property as a property.

I'm sorry, um, let's see, property which remains furnished, has utilities connected or in use, does not exhibit evidence of vacant property, shall not be considered vacant.

So if there is a snowbird and they leave for Florida for four months, as long as they don't take all their furniture, there's it's not vacant, right?

Um it's uh so I think and same with the folks that serve in the military.

Um assuming they're still leaving stuff there.

So um so they wouldn't be covered by this, right?

Exactly.

People who are going into a nursing facility, people who have a temporary setback, it it's not a vacant, empty place.

Okay.

And we also understand, fully understand that there are times in this market where if I'm selling my house and I'm buying a new house, that my new house may become available and I'm may move.

And I may take all my furniture with me, but now I have to sell this existing house.

And that's why we came up with the 90 days.

Most homes in the Lehigh Valley have some type of activity within that 90 days.

They're listed with an agent, they have showings coming in and out, they're on the market, they're actively being marketed.

We're not looking at that as a vacant house.

Now, if any, you know, months and months go by and there are no showings and there is no activity on this property, it's vacant, and we need to put it on the registry.

Vacant doesn't mean blighted.

Vacant doesn't mean um complete eye sore necessarily.

It could be, but vacant means nobody's there, and we need to address the issue that we need to keep a handle on where do we have these properties that no one's there, and how do we make them look like somebody is there.

Okay.

Looking at definitions, you know, vacant storefront.

Um, you have um you know, you have that set not lawfully operating a business open to the public for a period exceeding 60 days.

Um that seems short.

Um, if a business closes, you know, March, I mean, it's tough to get someone in there by May.

Um, but um, it's just something to think about.

Maybe it just feels a little short for that.

Um, another concern I had, and I I don't know, legally residential versus commercial.

Um, I think when we look at the fees for the vacant property registration, it seems for residential to be excessive, like for regular homeowners or you know, so I'd like to talk, I'd like to speak more about how we can handle residential versus commercial.

You know, when you talk about a small home on in center city versus uh commercial property that could be 5,000 square feet, you're essentially paying the same thing.

Um, so I don't know if there's a way to um update that to make it a little bit more even for residents versus we had a we had an in-depth conversation and frankly went back and forth about that.

This, if you notice, this isn't talking about like a building code official doing an inspection.

That happens on your pre-sale, that happens when you're occupying the property.

This is an enforcement person driving past, making sure that um nobody's been going in or out by talking to neighbors by making sure that there's not a stack of the morning calls sitting at the front door that the mail isn't there.

We we don't see a huge difference between that in a commercial property and that in a residential property, other than once, of course, they get inside, they may have to look at more pipes to see if they're their bursts or to see if the windows are broken or whatever.

But this isn't a high level um, this is a time management thing.

We're basically trying to cover the costs of maintaining the registry, doing the repetitive drive-by, and going inside once a year to make sure the property's stable.

And that's how we arrived at the fee.

Um, certainly if you felt the building commercial building needed to be higher, we could talk about that.

But the residential property being lower, we really hope that this is going to serve as a deterrent to allowing your property to simply be vacant enough that we realize it's vacant.

You can have a vacant property that flies below the radar.

I mean, we want you to register that property, but when we're able to find it and easily identify it, it means we've spent some manpower on that.

So that's simply to try to recoup the loss.

Okay.

Um, last concern uh the appeals process.

Right now, it looks like letter A, you have it going through the blighted property review committee.

Um, is this board act?

Is this board active and staffed?

Um at this time, it does have some members, it is not fully staffed, and we are working to try to resolve that, and we can certainly use council's help if there are any individuals you'd like to recommend who live or work in the city that you think would be an addition to the board.

We are actively recruiting for that board, so we would love to add more members to that board.

Okay, but so that that's where you'd want these appeals to go through.

If this ordinance passes, and you can you start to do this work, you'd want it to go through that committee.

We are, and and not to confuse blight with vacant property, but we are really struggling to find interested individuals to serve on housing related boards, so we're really hesitant to create yet another one.

So we'd like to use an existing board and hopefully encourage folks who really want to weigh in on this vacant property ordinance or really have some of those issues to serve on that appeals board and and be able to have a say in whether or not that that fee stands or that declaration exists.

Okay.

I mean, as long as they have the capacity, I just didn't.

I didn't want to see a situation where you know you have a appeals and then it can't be heard because we don't have enough board members, and like that's setting ourselves up for failure.

So I just want to make sure, and I think you know, from an optics standpoint.

I mean, should the name of the board be changed to you know, the blight and vacant review board?

We've talked about that.

You know, we've talked about the fact that um we're actually hoping to come back to council shortly with a combined board that may just have a housing related title to it to combine several boards again because of our struggle with getting folks who want to serve on the board.

Okay, that's as reasonable and and because ultimately, you know, the last thing we want is to say, hey, we're we have you're in a vacant property, um you violate the vacant property ordinance, but then we're sending to the blighted review board, like it does from a resident standpoint or property owner seems a little um off.

So having changing that and maybe updating the mission or the bylaws or whatever the case may be to reflect the fact that it's doing different things, and uh I think would be um really important before this before we start actually you know implementing the ordinance.

So um okay.

I think that's it for now, but um, I'm sure I'll think of more as as the conversation continues.

Thank you, Miss Ms.

Garlack.

Yep, anything, uh Mr.

Bender?

Yeah, no, go go ahead.

Thank you.

Um, so a couple questions.

One, um, I and you may have defined this already, but the at-risk versus the vacant fee.

What is the what's the differentiate behavior?

Sure.

And at risk um is a way uh this really came out uh back in 2008, 2009 with the mortgage foreclosure crisis.

Um we had a lot of properties that were heading into foreclosure.

And um what was happening was the banks would foreclose, kick the people out, and you know, people were just walking away from their mortgage.

Um so it wasn't vacant.

It it's a early detection system.

So when they default on their mortgage, um, they need to notify us, and the bank needs to register the property uh as an at-risk property uh for being vacant.

So the difference there is you know, if it's truly vacant, unoccupied, and there's no mortgage issue, it would be a vacant property.

If there's a mortgage issue, um it goes on the at-risk registry.

Okay.

And then speaking on this registry, uh, just so I'm understanding it, so the city is looking to basically create a database of all of these.

Are we planning to then connect to the county from a tax role perspective to see so the way we envision this being managed would be through our Energov licensing and permitting?

We can uh put parcel holds so it would be tracked within our existing database, and this would be a new designation that gets put on it, and um what's nice about it is you can put these flags on properties that like any time you look up that parcel comes up right away.

Hey, this is a vacant property, so that people know there's something different going on here, and we'll have their contact information right there.

I think more specifically what I'm asking for is the and thank you for that information.

Um, is it if so if a property if someone someone passes away or something happens and taxes aren't being paid on that, will that can that automatically kick it onto the registry without having to have a manual?

No, not automatically.

It would be a trigger to have us have an enforcement officer uh take a look.

And that's one of the things that when the tax bills go out and the tax bills come back referred to the to a new address.

Okay, they got forwarded.

Um that's a trigger to us to figure out did they get forwarded and there's a new occupant that needs to pay that tax, or did it get forwarded because somebody moved and the house is vacant?

So that's where we would contact with the other contact information, the email or the phone number that we would have for that property, contact the owner and say, who's in the house now?

What's the status of the house now?

And if they said, you know, well, I had the mail forwarded because that was my father's house and he's passed and we're actively selling the house, and we confirm that there actually is a for sale by owner or a realtor involved in this, then that's a whole different story.

But if we find that the mail is forwarded because the owner has moved and that there's no activity in the home, that could be a trigger to identify that this property is a vacant property.

Okay.

And I'm also wondering, and this might be something to explore when it comes to setting this up, is if this database could actually reach out to and look at the NLS and say, okay, here's active properties, here's the MLS listings.

That would be a I think a cleaner, easier way of having to do that.

But unfortunately, like right now, that's a manual like take somebody to do that research and make that determination.

There's no easy way for the two for like our system to talk to the MLS.

Okay.

And it is definitely something that our citizens use to say that there are properties being advertised as rentals in their neighborhood that aren't certified rentals.

So we do have a number of individuals that call us constantly to say there's three properties in my neighborhood and they're on the MLS as rentals, or they're on Craigslist as having rooms.

So the MLS is a valuable tool, but right now it's not an interactive tool with Energy.

I'm just so what I guess the question with that one would be was it might be worth exploring like what the cost is to set that up because you're gonna save in the long run of the extra stuff.

So I think that's that's probably worth I don't think the technical hurdle is as much as there, but uh, but it's probably worth exploring.

Um the other thing, so the main the starting points for all these is going to be, you know, one you didn't pay your taxes, or two, is it prepared to then a neighbor is it that a neighbor that's you know calling up a sweeps violation, or what are the other what are the other impacts or uh the starting points for the we get neighborhood complaints that you know my neighbors um I'll tell you about one that's in my neighborhood.

Um no one has taken in the mail for days.

Uh we get those calls from the post office that mail is piling up, or that you know, there's the free periodical that the morning call throws out every now and then, they've stacked all over the driveway of this house.

Um high weeds are one.

I hear running water is one from a neighbor or somebody taking a walk.

Uh recently we had one with a fly accumulation inside the windows.

Um we think someone's broken in because we see what looks like flickering light from a candle or a flame.

Um they go across all of our different departments.

Um, and then they call building standards and say, you know, we don't know if we have a nuisance property, a vacant what like we don't know what we have here, and then that's when the little bit of detective work goes into the A, has anybody paid the taxes?

B does anybody paid the rental registration?

C, has anybody been in there from our team recently?

Because we can look at the inspection reports, and then we start to do a little bit of a deep dive.

The guys that are out, one of our dispatch persons says to one of them, you're in the neighborhood, drive by this house, knock on the door, see if anyone's there, put your business card in between the screen door and the front door with a note on the back that says, please call me, um, put a letter in the door the next day.

We do all of those things to try to make a contact with whoever has responsibility for that property.

If we get nothing, or if we get from the next door neighbor, these individuals moved away a year, a year ago, people that were living here, we haven't seen them in a year.

Then we are pretty sure we're dealing with a vacant property.

So taking the legislation going through the whole process, you've now gone through everything, it's been vacant for over a year.

What's what is the what where does that lead the city?

Like what steps does the city take or is it not in this?

So uh I view this as a precursor to the blight process.

Okay.

Um so the blight process really can't start, like one of the minimum criteria for determining blight is that the property has been vacant for a year.

So by establishing this registry, once it's on there for a year, if it's still vacant, it becomes a candidate for the blight process, which you know is stricter enforcement.

Um, you know, and eventually if it does get determined blighted, could result in eminent domain to redevelop the property.

Um so, but you know, at its core, it's saying this property is vacant.

This is the contact information.

If police fire, building safety and standards needs to get in there, we know who to contact to be able to have access, and it allows us to track it better.

And really, it tells us that nobody's supposed to be in there.

So if we see somebody in there, we've got to figure out why they're in there.

Okay.

I think it's all that for now.

Okay.

Um, thank you.

Uh so all right.

So someone doesn't pay their mortgage 30 days goes by.

The bank is then supposed, if this passes, the bank would then notify the city.

They currently do that.

They currently already do, yes.

Okay.

And so now the 200 fine would then be applied to the person who hasn't paid their mortgage.

The bank is responsible for that.

The bank.

Okay.

All right.

Um, that answered my second question.

Um are there any unintended consequences?

Negative unintended consequences.

And how could they be mitigated?

Because I'm thinking of some.

I'd love to hear that.

I'm thinking of a neighbor that doesn't like another neighbor calls and says there they've got weeds and they've got this and they've got that.

We deal with that all the time.

Um, you know, we tend to figure out is this a civil dispute between two neighbors, or is there really a problem here?

And if somebody's living in the property, it's not vacant.

Right.

And if their garbage goes out and goes in, it's not vacant.

And if we can see them and talk to them, it's not vacant.

And if the lights are on and the furniture's in there and the mail goes in and out and somebody's there, like it's a neighborhood dispute.

And we get a lot of those, and we send out our outreach team from uh APD sometimes to sit and have a mediation session with them with both sides of the neighbors.

We go out and explain to the neighbor who's being targeted that they have the ability to go to a magistrate, and we sit and tell the complainer that they have the ability to go to magistrates, so that hopefully one is afraid of that, and one knows they have that at their disposal, but we do our best to not fall into that.

And we can kind of tell because of the repetitive nature of the reports.

Like if someone is constantly reporting and an inspector is constantly finding unfounded, unfounded, we know we know what we're dealing with.

And we're not unreasonable, and I know that you can't write into an ordinance we will not be unreasonable, but we haven't been unreasonable.

Like we have we we understand that people have extenuating circumstances, and we work within that.

This isn't like an automatic thing.

Um for example, like we've had a veteran recently who didn't pay rental registration on time and they didn't pay that because they flew out to see their son and fell and broke their leg and couldn't get back from wherever they were and couldn't figure out how to pay online.

I mean, we work with we work with people with those stories every day.

We try to figure out a way to help them.

So again, this isn't targeting the person who just um, you know, went away and fell on some bad luck.

This is targeting the vacant properties that are pulling down the property values.

A lot of the calls that we get are from realtors saying, you know, I've had this house on the market, and every person I'm bringing through from a showing is saying, is that a crack house next door?

Is that a is that a place where you know people break into next door?

Like I can't in good conscience buy this house because we've got boarded up windows next door.

Um we're trying to address that.

We're trying to say we gotta get those properties sooner under control.

Okay.

Um have there has the conversation of other unintended consequences came up.

Um I think you'll have a speaker to some of those.

You'll have a representative here that will like to speak to what they believe some of those consequences will be.

Am I correct?

Yes.

Yep.

Okay.

Would you like to speak now?

Or it's appropriate.

Yeah, sure.

Go uh members of the public will go to that portion now.

It's a long walk up here.

Well, good evening.

Thank you for uh the opportunity.

Um Asher Shabone with the uh Greater Lehigh Valley Realtor Association.

I do just want to say that I appreciate uh Vicky and Mark, you guys have been extremely flexible since I called on Friday.

We've had multiple meetings, and I certainly appreciate it.

I know given the timeline of this being talked about tonight and voted on uh next week, I thought it was important not only to send out just some of the concerns that that we had, uh as well as um you know come tonight and answer any questions.

Um so obviously I'm here representing the realtors, but we also look at private property rights, and I think this fits more under that situation.

Um so I do want to say that you know I I do believe that you have the right to purchase property and do with it what you want as long as it complies with all the city codes and zoning and everything else.

Uh so what you want to do with your property, you can do it, but that right is an absolute.

Um if you're a derelict and your property falls in disrepair, there's gonna be consequences.

You pull down the value of the properties around you, that's a problem.

Um what I'm hearing is that there are exceptions to this that I think we would all agree are reasonable.

Um we heard the military, uh, we heard you know, somebody gets sick, somebody's you know, grandmother gets sick, they got to take care of her house, she didn't cancel the newspaper.

Um, those are the things that that again, I know that there's a handful of properties that I'm sure that have been brought to the council's attention that are real problem properties, and I get that.

I guess the main concern that that we have is that the vacant property definition is extremely broad.

Um, if you look at the definition, it talks about vacant property is uh not currently occupied for a period of 90 continuous days or has been determined to be vacated by an enforcement officer.

It would be nice to have some objective uh criteria for what's considered vacated.

I mean, is it a couple of newspapers on the front porch?

Because in those situations, canceling the newspaper is not gonna be the first priority on your on your to-do list.

There's a lot of other things to do.

Um, so that's a concern.

Um and then going now to the the next sentence, a property which remains furnished, which we talked about, um, has utilities connected or in use, and then there's the word and in there, and does not exhibit evidence of vacant property.

So you could have your utilities connected, you could have your property fully furnished, but if the enforcement officer comes and says, Well, this property is vacated, it would be nice to know what those conditions are that you're now gonna be considered a vacant property.

Um, so again, all three of those conditions have to be met according to to this.

And I understand what the intention is, and I don't disagree with the intention.

It's just, you know, once once this law goes into effect, it's very hard to reopen it.

I'm sure, like with the zoning uh ordinance, I know that was a year and a half, if not longer process.

Um, so there's a lot of feedback, a lot of things went into that because once you put something in writing, um, I know at the data center you guys are looking to amend that, but you know, all we have to go off of is is the letter of the law.

And I I do trust the intentions of the administration, I do it's just you know what happens after the next person comes and I'm not here or they're not here, and they look at that and say, we're gonna we're gonna implement this to the full extent possible.

Um I threw out a couple of the exceptions.

Um, and then you know, is there a need for this too?

Because this is gonna replace the blight ordinance.

There are so many laws on the books that have to do with the property maintenance code, IMPC, weeds, nuisance abatement, um, cockroach and vermin control, uh, and then like I like I mentioned, the uh the blight law that currently exists.

So the public nuisance ordinance gives the city broad power to I think target a lot of these issues that that we're talking about.

Um there's things uh that the city can, you know, uh if it determines uh in danger or endangers the health safety of causes heart heart, heart, hurt, harm, inconvenience, discomfort, um, and then it goes on and on, and it talks about for any of the following reasons one, a menace, threat, hazard to the general safety or health of a community, two is a fire hazard, three is a building or structure that is unsafe for occupancy or use, or four property that is so inadequate or insufficiently maintained that it diminishes uh or depreciates the enjoyment of such property um relative to I'll just paraphrase the rest of you know the people in the community.

So again, I think there are a lot of laws that are currently in place, it seems like at the city level.

And again, I'm not here to fight this.

I don't want to say, you know, we're completely opposed to this.

There, there are just some things that I think are unintended consequences that again, if we are just going after certain properties that are in certain conditions, why don't we say that?

Why don't we narrow the definition or keep the definition as is and provide a whole list of exceptions that we just talked about, and we agree sound pretty reasonable.

Um I I don't want to go on too much longer, but but things like furnished, what what exactly does that constitute?

Is it half furnished?

Is it a desk in there?

Is it, you know, so these are real things that again not opposing it, but would just like some clarification on what exactly needs to happen order in order to avoid being on the registry.

Um the 10-day appeal process, I know that you know, uh we talked about this in the city has a standard 10-day appeal process.

Um the concern is that if a letter goes out with the date and it goes through the USPS, okay, I don't know how long that's gonna take.

Maybe it takes four days, maybe somebody's away for a week, they come back, now that's they're at 10 days.

Um so the concern is that they won't see it in enough time where they can act on it and file an appeal.

Um now I know that I think emails go out and there's some other communication efforts that are made, but again, I would I would argue that there are situations where somebody goes away where they don't have service, where again I think that's pretty reasonable to maybe extend that to 15, 30 days.

I know it might not be what the city has typically done, but just something for your consideration.

And then possibly a some kind of hardship provision.

Um, I mean, if these fees are so over the top for somebody that maybe can't afford it, um, as far as the registration fees that we talked about.

So that's that's it again.

I want to thank Vicky and Mark.

And if it wasn't due to the compressed timeline, I think we would have had um, and that's no fault to you or the administration, like that's the way that these ordinances work.

Um, but I just wanted to get as much information because I we have had a lot of conversation about this, and there's a ton of ordinances that come across every single day that we look at, and this was one where where again we just wanted to say have we considered, and I I know that a lot of thought went into this, and I just wanted to bring this up for your consideration.

So thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

If I can um Skerlot, just offer um two responses.

The first is this is an ordinance, this is not like our zoning rewrite.

This is an ordinance that is fully within council's realm to amend at any time they choose.

So, should we find that there was an unintended consequence that none of us caught, we would come back before council to have that discussion and create that amendment, or any citizen could reach out to you and request that amendment.

So this this is an amendable um ordinance.

Also, this is not eliminating our blight, our whole ordinance on blight and problem property.

This is repealing chapter 135 and adopting chapter 611.

So the rest of the ordinance around our um nuisance and abandoned properties and all those other things are all still in place.

This is pulling out the section that talks about abandoned real property and substituting in vacant and at-risk property.

So the rest of the ordinance, I just want to be clear to them that they understand we're not getting rid of all the rest of the provisions we have in our blight ordinance.

Um also the definition of what an enforcement officer is going to be looking for.

We have to be like clear.

This isn't going to be a determination that is reached with, as we discussed, um, single criteria.

This is something that we're going to do everything we can to determine whether or not this property is truly vacant.

And I think that um I know that it relies on the words enforcement officer, which can be intimidating to some, but I mean, we aren't we can't easily determine a property be blighted.

We can't easily determine a property to be code compliant.

It takes a lot of work to reach both of those decisions.

It takes work to reach the definition of vacant.

And I don't think it's something that you know we're gonna do just because we see three morning calls in the driveway.

There's got to be that whole determination process.

And again, we aren't condemning this property.

We aren't um flagging this property in the public viewpoint, we're putting this property on a registry as being vacant.

So this isn't like we're putting an Eon sign in the front window that says vacant property.

Like this is a flag in our system that tells our first responders and our code enforcement folks, and has a fee.

And again, the reason for the fee is because not only do we recoup our staff time, but because we want, as Mr.

Santo Napoli said, we want properties occupied.

We want people to have a shot at them.

And the whole like window covering and the discussion is when you walk past a property, if you can tell it's vacant, easily tell it's vacant, it's a prime target for crime, and it's a prime target for blight.

And we we've been charged by counsel repetitively to take a firm approach to blight and to clean up our neighborhoods.

So this is our attempt at that.

We are certainly open to amendments if you think of them that have unintended consequences, like we're in.

But um we just we just feel strongly that we need to get this under control.

Yeah, I mean, listen, what was your name again, sir?

Asher.

Asher.

So listen, yeah.

Um, I think he was getting at uh articulating maybe what I was I was worried about is um it would be, I think maybe amendments might be needed because it seems, yeah, it seems like it seems like there we do need to maybe narrow that definition because of what it seems as though by the way it's written, I'm not saying it could have it would happen, but potentially it could happen by the way it's written, that all of the qualifications could be met, but a cold enforcement officer could still trigger the process by the way it's written.

It doesn't mean that it would happen.

If the code enforcement officer would accidentally tag a property vacant, and a property owner would contact us and say, it's not vacant, I'm here.

We meet them at the property.

If they could contact you, but like if they're in treatment or whatever, then it would continue to go through that process.

Or they don't speak a link, like you.

But if they're in treatment and it hasn't been occupied for 90 days, like it's vacant.

We need like if there's an emergency at that property, who do we contact?

Who do we get in touch with?

The whole purpose of the registry is to identify who to contact.

So hold up.

So someone's in treatment for whatever, it's like a six-month, three-month treatment program, they own the property.

But their furniture paying everything, their furniture would be there.

Hopefully, their lights would be on.

If they're away and it's truly vacant, like an abandoned property, no one's taking in their mail, no one's maintaining their property, no one's cutting their lawn, no one's there's a good possibility that we're already mowing their lawn and leaning the property due to citizen complaints.

We're already breaking down the door to do a check the welfare because someone's saying we haven't seen him in six months.

So this is a way to register your property to prevent that, and that you can be on this vacant property registry, and we're not going to go that distance knowing you're coming back.

But if you go away and you truly leave no contact information and you truly leave your property for six months with no maintenance happening to that house, we need it on that registry.

And then that property owner who is away for whatever reason, they would pay that.

They get a lien against this property.

That's what's happening to them now.

Only we don't know it's vacant.

Let's say God forbid I get arrested tonight and I'm incarcerated for the next six months.

If I don't come up with a plan for my property, chances are the city is going to that property and is mowing the lawn through a contractor and leaning my property.

They're shoveling the snow through a contractor and leaning the property because my neighbors are all calling saying the weeds are this high, the snow hasn't been shoveled.

An enforcement officer drove past and saw it.

So a tag will show up on the outside of that property saying, owner, call us, like the orange tag, call this number.

If no one calls that number, it looks like it's an abandoned property.

We're going to keep doing those things, and we're going to keep putting that through the process.

And eventually it becomes a property we can take.

If the owner registers the property as vacant, we're not taking that property.

It's on the registration list.

We're not breaking down the door to see that anybody's dead in there.

We're not, we we know that the property is vacant for a reason.

That's some of the beauty of the registry is that the registry simply gives us more information on that property.

Because they didn't register the property.

And I I know it sounds harsh, but you can't for whatever reason, you can't simply walk away from a property and let it deteriorate or let it create bugs or a green swimming pool or kids throwing rocks through all the windows, and then rodents come in and they go into the next house and the next house.

Like we can't allow that to happen.

So we need to communicate with you.

And if you communicate with us and you say I'm going into treatment for the next so many months, if you want an amendment that says someone who has a three-month commitment to whatever, we'll work on an amendment.

But we need we need to get a handle on why is this property empty?

And if I am changing my life and treatment, and now there's six people lighting a campfire in the living room of my home, we need the cops to know that and go in there and get them out.

So I do think maybe having some sort of hardship provision, like clearly state, because I mean I'm thinking like someone could get deported, like stuff is happening, you know.

And I think we could have a hardship provision that maybe waives the fee.

I'd still want it listed as a vacant property so that we have that contact information.

Um the other key thing is it gets us in for an inspection.

I want to make sure there isn't a hole in the roof that you know the property is taking on water.

If nobody's in there, you don't know what's going on.

Okay.

Yeah, I definitely get the intent.

Like clearly we need something.

I just do think sometimes um there are unintended consequences, and it might be good to amend this at the council meeting before this even gets uh voted.

We could work on something like that.

We do have a provision in one of our ordinances right now for a hardship review board, like a hardship team, like a little group of a team that reviews a hardship before it moves to a fine.

So let us work on something we can bring back to you on that.

Okay.

And if there's a way to also make it a little bit more uh, I guess delineated, like what it said, okay, papers are piling up.

Is it like papers piling up and weeds and this and that, or is it just like I don't know, a bunch of political mail still sitting there?

Like what exactly is that?

Um we can we can discuss that, but in honesty, we need some flexibility.

And the reason we need some flexibility is that again, we're not we're not targeting or looking to put an undue burden on a home that is not devaluing or putting at risk other individuals.

But we get information all the time about a building that's been abandoned, like totally abandoned, walked away.

And we know it.

We know it right off the bat, it's been told to us, it's we can verify it to put that off because we didn't let the mail pile up, or we didn't meet every criteria in that definition.

We need it on the registry, and we need to be sure that the owner is aware that it's on the registry and that the owner is working to get it off.

And again, we keep talking about owners as though owners are individuals.

We're talking about LLCs and corporations.

We're talking about banks and lenders.

We're talking about lenders from states far, far away who own a property that they've foreclosed on and they just have no desire to do anything with it.

We actually are also talking about governmental agencies where a governmental agency has repossessed a home and has let it sit for months to years.

Like we need to nudge them somehow.

I'm not saying a $300 fine is going to nudge them, but eventually we're going to be able to nudge them with those more stiffer penalties, and the neighbors who are surrounded by them are going to stop going nuts, especially in our connected homes.

Like when we have one of these in the middle of a row, it is torturing both ends of that row because when there's a there's a hole or there's a door that's left unattended, or somebody left the window open and six feral cats went through the window, then we have that noise going on, and that I hear babies crying, I hear whatever.

Then cops are breaking down doors to see if there's babies crying and they're feral foxes.

So it's I know it's not something that you see all the time, but it's something that's sucking the resources out of housing folks.

It's not an easy decision to say that this is vacant.

We make sure we have our ducks in the row.

So we'll try to work on an amendment for a hardship, and we can certainly discuss whether there's any criteria such as this and this and this, but not only this and this and this, that could lead to that definition, if that'll make it clearer.

I think that would yeah, that would be helpful.

Uh Mr.

Bender, do you have something?

Yeah, I think just to jump on that, because I because you had this suggestion for another ordinance, which is like a scoring matrix, and I think that that sort of thing would be if you if you listed all these criteria and you met, you know, it gives you flexibility, but if you met that value of what in the score, and also it gives it a very clear every single time someone goes out that's an enforcement officer, they're using the same criteria.

You know, you had weeds, you had mail, you had this, you had that, you didn't have this, that gave you a value of 12 and 12 or above or 12 or below gives you something.

Like that might be more structured, I guess.

I don't know if that is too structured, but I think that that might be something that maybe make it more.

What I don't want to turn this into is something that is complex enough to require more people than what I've got.

So a checklist idea, I think we could work with.

I just don't want to make it too complicated that it involves complicated databases or scoring sheet.

You know what I mean?

I I I promise you that we'll work on something reasonable.

And maybe what we do if it makes everybody feel better.

I don't have any problem if this doesn't get referred to the May 20th council meeting and it gets referred to the first meeting in June and it gives us more time to have more discussion.

We're not opposed to that.

This isn't something we really wanted to rush through.

I'll be honest with you.

This has been stuck in a round of revisions and comparisons for a while.

So we're not in any hurry to exclude input.

Um, but I I wanna I I don't mean any disrespect to to realtors, and I don't mean any disrespect to um banks, but this is something that our our property owners have been complaining about to us for quite a while, and I feel an obligation to them when they have one of these properties next to them.

I I just feel an obligation that we do something.

So if we can do this in June, I'm okay with that if that gives us more time, but we got to do something because it's I'm getting the same calls over and over and over about the same properties, and I feel genuinely sorry for the people who are living next to them.

One other question uh is the fee annual?

Yes.

Okay.

And does it increase each each year?

No.

And again, we don't want to make it a hardship penalty, but we want something to cover some of the cost of this, but also to say, and and again, this can be a real tool.

We have some very viable properties that could house a lot of people or put a lot of businesses in them, and they've been vacant for years because the property owner wants an exorbitant amount of money way beyond what the building is worth.

I would hope that it could be an incentive for a realtor to be able to say to somebody, okay, your property is going to be flagged as a vacant property by by paying this fee and putting this property on this list, it actually starts a clock ticking that if in a year your property's starting to fall into disrepair and you're not making investments in this property, it could potentially end up on the blight list.

You have to become more reasonable in what you're willing to accept for this property, and you got to move this property, or you're gonna start this process, and that property eventually could be taken if it falls into terrible condition.

Like we want those really candid conversations to happen because what eventually is happening to some of these properties that have been vacant for 10 years is the roofs are coming in, their their eyesores, and then we when we take them, we're stuck with them because then you've got to invest a ton into them, or you still in eminent domain, you have to pay the value to the property owner.

Like you don't get that property for free.

The property owner still gets the value, but you're stuck with the property that then is in horrible disrepair.

So we kind of want to work together to get them to move.

Just one last question.

Um, using your incarceration analogy.

Um, in that in that instance, if you're gone and your phone's been confiscated in that process, how how how is the city going to notify that?

Like, what does that look like in that in using your example?

I would hope that if you're incarcerated and you got a public defender, or you got an attorney, which I believe most do, or a parole officer, or even a counselor, that one of the things that would be discussed with you is what's happening to your home.

Because one of the first things that happens when you get incarcerated is they start an exit plan.

Like they want to know what you have to go back to.

They want to know who your family members are for medical decisions or for whatever.

So I would assume I could be wrong, but I would assume that there would be some connection within that prison who could identify your property.

And I also would think that most property owners, unless they were truly walking away, most property owners would say, I need somebody to go cut my lawn.

I need somebody to go.

If that doesn't happen and we find it's truly vacant and we can't reach you, when you get out, we owe you the two, you owe us the $200.

Like we've put the $200 fee there.

$300.

I'm sorry, the $300.

You're gonna owe us that when you come out.

I how we gonna get it?

I don't know.

But you're still gonna be on the vacant list.

And we're still, I hate, we're still gonna do the due diligence of checking on your property.

We're gonna drive by and make sure now the windows are broken.

We're gonna drive by and make sure that if the mail's piled up, we're gonna take it away from the front door.

We're gonna make sure that the weeds are cut.

I mean, I hate to say this, but we're gonna do that service because we need to for your neighbors.

But I would hope that someone would identify to someone within that institution.

I have a property in need of maintenance.

Yeah, it's not happening.

But you have a friend or they have a family member or they have someone, and if we have a business card stuck to the door, I would hope that somebody might take the the card off like they do now and call us and say they're in jail.

Like we get that all the time.

I can't I can't pay the rent.

He can't pay the rental registration, he's in jail.

We'll put the house on the list.

Thanks.

Uh Mr.

Apple.

Okay.

Um and listen, if we're gonna take some extra time, you know, one thing that I I wanted to focus on, I know legally it's it's challenging, but when we look at the central business district and find a way to in a lot of our ordinances, it's clearly defined about the CBD is clearly defined.

What whether we're talking about um parking, whether we're talking about festivals, like the CBD is defined as a different place in other ordinances, and I just I I know it's challenging, but I would really like to explore.

Um, you know, we have vacant properties downtown that have been vacant for 10 years, and and we're talking a few of them that just the owners have no desire to rent them, to sell them, and it's just dragging down, you know, other properties, you know, next door.

So I think um I hope I hope there's a way to continue to work on that um when it comes to um commercial properties and and and the effect it's having on um on other commercial properties nearby.

So it's just and I fully understand that, and I again I mean no disrespect, but we've got a bunch of them on Union Boulevard that are commercial properties that are driving people nuts.

We've got them.

I mean, that's one of the reasons why we put commercial properties in here.

So we can certainly tailor, but we need an attack on some of our commercial properties.

I mean, we've recently had a number of break-ins to abandoned commercial properties that could have resulted in huge destruction when you're lighting bonfires to be able to smoke, or you're lighting bonfires to be able to have light.

And these aren't by people seeking shelter, these are by people with illegal activity that is dangerous.

And again, we don't even know those properties are vacant or abandoned because their signs are still up, they still look like they're a commercial property.

And how would we know that they haven't been in business for the past five years unless we actually dug in and realize that they were a vacant property?

So I agree.

I, you know, I every time I walk past that coming soon sign, you know, I talked to you about it.

There's a first floor property on Hamilton.

You walk past the coming soon sign and you look in the window, and there's just paint cans everywhere and debris everywhere and jumbled up paper everywhere, and it's very obviously vacant, and it's very obviously vacant for a long time.

And we should have a light in there, and our police officers shouldn't have to go in there in the pitch dark.

Okay.

And so it doesn't have to be, you know, the CBD, it could be commercial properties everywhere.

I'm okay with that.

But I think that they need to be held to a higher standard.

Again, those are opportunities for jobs, and um, and when we when you have folks, especially out-of-town folks who just it's just uh an asset on their balance sheet and they don't care and they're just leaving it vacant and it's dragging down neighborhoods or it's dragging down um you know, joining property owners is something that I think we we need to hold them more accountable.

So if there's a way to do it for commercial property owners, I really would want to explore that with you.

So thank you.

That's important.

Yeah.

Um so my question now, I know you had mentioned the um vacant property insurance, how costly it is in that stuff is from a commercial perspective.

Is that something that would make sense to have outlined in this?

Because that if we're holding it to a different standard, you're much larger building, your footprint, you know, you're you're more likely to have um require that kind of stuff.

So we don't believe that legally that's an avenue we can pursue.

We had discussions with our law team who felt that there was a very slippery slope on requiring a renter or an owner or a commercial property to have that insurance.

Um, mortgage companies do it all the time because they have that financial interest.

I wish we could, but it sounds like it may have been defeated elsewhere.

But we can we can do another deep dive.

Okay, well, thank you.

It's uh it's a great, it's a great thought.

And um, you know, and the reason it's so expensive is you know, insurers, there's no one there to report anything.

So to Mark's point, um exactly.

And listen, I've carried vacant, it's it's obscene how expensive it is.

Exactly.

There's no one there to report a leak, there's no one there to report a uh smoldering electric wire that creates a fire, so they charge you a lot for it.

And um, it's a shame that it's been a challenge, you know, legally, but we have an Allentown property owner on one of our major thoroughfares who feels her wall at night to be sure that it doesn't feel warm because the row home attached has been broken into before, and she is so afraid she's going to burn.

And I completely understand where she's coming from.

Property's been vacant, I bet you over a decade.

There are examples of it everywhere.

Um, I know many in center city that there are folks from again out of town that just own these row homes and just are sitting on them.

There's it's just an it's just an address on their balance sheet, and meanwhile, we have folks that could be living there.

So thank you.

Okay.

Um any other questions from the dais or the public or the administration?

All right.

Is there a um knowing that there could potentially be some amendments coming up in maybe June?

Um, is there a motion to move this forward?

Um I'll make a motion to um I don't know what's I'll make a motion to table it for one more round of revisions for amendments, and then we can this as long as we can get this on the first council meeting in June.

So we'll skip May 20th.

Is that okay, Mr.

Annland?

Yes.

We can set up another CD meeting when the administration has some amendments prepare.

Okay.

So there's a motion to table um until potentially June.

Is there a second to the table?

Just a question on that.

Are we do we tailor it or do we just not advance it right now?

I would when table, I would just uh basically refer to another CD meeting with the proposed amendments.

Okay, are you willing to revise your okay?

Thanks for the closed.

So I'll uh I'll um refer to a next CD meeting, uh pending amendments from the administration and some more research from us from from our committee.

Second, okay.

All right, all in favor?

Aye, all right.

So this will be forwarded to a future meeting once we have some time to look it over.

Oh, so the last thing, I think, right?

Last thing is uh Bill 34.

Bill 34 is simply an amendment to the general fund that amends the fixed cost distribution for two employees, so it expenses the grant fund recompete program to replace to reflect the performance under the grant and all right.

Thank you.

Uh Ms.

Kissler.

This sounds a lot more complicated than it is, but within the the administrative money for the recompete grant, we're able to flip the senior planner and the assistant planner from 75% general fund, 25% grant to 50% general fund, 50% grant, meaning that 25% more of that position could be grant funded.

The assistant planner position is 50% general fund, 50% grant, and we can flip that one to 75% grant uh general fund and 25% grant.

What happens is if we do this, we save between three and four thousand dollars of general fund money.

Um that's what we'd like to do.

So this is a simple adjustment of the cost centers within the budget to make the more expensive position a higher percentage funded in the grant and the less expensive position a lower percentage funded in the bank grant to maximize the grant reimbursement.

Okay, any questions, Mr.

Bender?

Yes, just so I understand the grant reimbursement.

Um are we taking from uh a bucket for lack of a better word for administrative costs that's fixed, or is this 3K coming away from what could be used for um outreach or for something else?

Excellent question.

Fixed.

Okay.

Um when they give us the the salary buckets, and we have a staff person change, like a personnel change.

If a person comes in at a lower salaried amount than another person, and we can make a flip, we can recoup more of the cost of the other person, as long as we're being truly accountable for where the workload is falling, like how much work each person is doing.

So, no, we're not taking away from any uh services to the public.

We're just using the higher salaries in the proper capacity within the grant caps.

person as long as we are being truly accountable for where the workload is falling like how much work each person is doing so no we're not taking away from any uh services to the public we're just using the higher salaries in the proper capacity within the grant caps so the only thing we would be doing or potentially doing unintended um would be if there were other administrative um resources that could be used for this during this grant those wouldn't be available anymore because the funding for them have been used for a higher salary employees as part of this change I gotta think about that um it's a it's a how do I want to say this it's a pool and we have to define what each person is doing within that pool as we use more technology as we advance in this process we are tracking who's spending how much time doing what this is the real number of the reflection of who's doing what at what rates as opposed to what we thought everybody would be doing going into this so as we're tracking real time in these grants it turns out that if we bill it real time we have recouped more grant funds and lessened the burden on the general fund and these are the realistic percentages of what we need so moving forward if we found that the senior planner needed to do less and we needed more secretarial work we'd have to come back to you and flip it again.

And when is that how often is that evaluated?

Every year okay any other questions Mr.

Napoli no from the public all right anything else or I just have one other issue to bring to you that at some point in the future we are going to be bringing a reclassification request to all of you to um change a position within our grants management department to be more of an to have more of an administrative role within that grants department it will actually be a downgrade of a position to better fit the needs within that grants administration program as well and we'll have an explanation of of why and what we need anything else all right yeah is there a motion to forward this I'll make a motion to forward it favorably to full council.

Is there a second all right all in favor?

Aye so those will move on to the regular council meeting I think that's it right all right uh so with that I will adjourn this meeting thank you so much