Well, I got the all right.

Good evening, everyone.

We are recording.

I ask that we all rise for the pledge to the flag.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States America.

And the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Mr.

Miller, please call the roll.

Present.

Ms.

Crimcy Smith.

Present.

Ms.

Queatek.

Present.

Ms.

Laird.

Present.

Ms.

Leon.

Ms.

Wilhelm present.

And Mr.

Cologne.

Present.

Thank you, Mr.

Miller.

I would like to acknowledge we have two local Boy Scout troops in the audience tonight.

3193 and 318 from Rosemont Lutheran Church are in the audience.

Welcome everybody for coming out.

I will share as I often do if there's anything that goes on tonight that you're unsure of or procedurally doesn't make sense, whether it's the scouts themselves or any troop leaders.

Feel free to follow up with Mr.

Miller or City Clerk or any of us if you want to discuss anything after the meeting or anytime, all of our contact information is on the city website.

We do have one citation tonight for recent city retiree Thomas Kiefer.

Mr.

Kiefer is not here this evening.

So we'll make sure that he gets his citation in the mail.

Moving on to approval minutes from the August 5th, 2025 City Council meeting.

Any discussion on the minutes.

Seeing none, the minutes stand approved.

Moving on to public comment.

Our first public comment is for anything that is not being voted on this evening.

We have five people signed up, so I'll go through and once the list is exhausted, invite anyone else who wants to make comment.

I will remind everyone we have a five-minute time limit.

So I will ask everyone to respect the five-minute time limit.

Our first person signed up this evening is Rebecca Young.

And when you come up to the electron, if you don't mind stating your name for the record for Mr.

Miller when he does the minutes.

He comes from Peru, which I don't care, but I'm not letting anyone from any country come into my house that does not know what we're expected to do as Americans in our homes.

Um, you just can't come in and say, Well, I'm gonna take care of it.

It doesn't work.

You can get very sick with some of the things that a plumber has to take care of in your home.

So I have that going on.

His wife is also in 2024, ran a daycare out of her house.

She did not have a permit.

She did not have it inspected.

She had nothing whatsoever to do this.

She had several children there.

Her house was not inspected.

They do have a dog.

And again, we have to be concerned about our children when we go into a daycare, that they have the things that we need to keep our kids safe, also.

Just within the last couple of weeks, they had been given dogs, I believe, from a man that is running a puppy mill, and he gave them several dogs for them to keep at their house to sell for him.

This is just not acceptable.

It seems like one thing right after another, that it is illegal that I could list.

Um, he just keeps going from one thing to the other.

It's all about money.

It's all about his family and his control over everything that is going on.

I've given counsel my paperwork with about I don't know, 15 pages of things that I hope you will read and promise me you will read concerning what is going on.

This is not a little thing.

I've seen it progress and progress over the last three years alone.

Um, it's more than that.

Like I said, he can do 10 other things in your home for you.

Um, like I said, David Taylor said just this morning, called me up and told me that they're gonna cite the people that own the house, not the man that's doing this.

That's not gonna stop him.

He's gonna go to anyone, unfortunately, and it's not being prejudiced.

He speaks Spanish and only Spanish.

Thank you, Ms.

Young.

Thank you very much.

Our next speaker this evening, Nicole Bonzik.

Hi, everyone, good evening.

I'm Nicole Bonchik.

Um, I'm a school teacher.

My husband John's sitting over there.

Um, we've lived on Eighth Avenue in Bethlehem for over 17 years now.

Um, and when a neighbor passed away, and I try not to get emotional, but it's my house.

Um, when a neighbor passed away, the last thing we expected was a developer um to buy it sight unseen to tear down a single ranch home next door to build a three-story um six-bedroom unit apartment.

Um, and we talk to people about it.

It just is a story of entitlement and greed because everyone seems to say this guy can do whatever he wants.

Um, and it's hurtful because we live in the city, we're taxpaying residents.

Um, and I I must, because I'm off in the summer, I was able to do a lot of my own research.

Um, and in doing so, there's really a lot that um I think he should be held accountable for um with any type of development, not just knocking down a single ranch home, which is difficult to find in the city, as we all know.

Um, if you look at 1301.03, that zoning ordinance to promote public safety, um, public health safety and general welfare.

It's already crushing our community.

We have a neighborhood with single families, single family homes, uh, close-knit neighborhood.

We don't have anything like that um in our area.

So we're already losing sleep at night.

Our mental health is suffering because of the whole situation.

Um, other components underneath that, encouraging the most appropriate use of land.

Um, this house would be this apartment building or complex, I should say, uh, would be right on top of us.

And he's seeking variances to get even closer.

The current ranch home, that's there, um, is 15 feet from us, um, siding to siding, 15 feet.

We measured it.

He wants additional feet to get even closer to us, which means this apartment building will loom over the top of us with decks on the side.

Um, and it would definitely affect our quality of living.

Uh, another point under that 1301.03, preventing the overcrowding of land.

I mean, that to me is a guinea, conserving the value of land in buildings, lessening the congestion of traffic on the roads, protecting important natural features.

I have a giant willow tree.

Maybe some of you have heard about it already.

Willow, she has her own Facebook page.

Um, she's almost 150 years old.

She was just accepted in the big big tree program um in the state of Pennsylvania.

Uh, and we're very proud of her.

She's a healthy, huge tree with lots of wildlife, um, all kinds of birds, squirrels, everything else.

Uh, and this development would certainly kill her, despite what the developer actually says, because her roots are there.

She was there long before any of the houses.

Um, so her roots extend.

We're trespassing on her land, really.

Uh, they go under at least five houses nearby.

Um, securing safety from fire, flood, and other dangers.

If you actually look at the blueprint, um, our basement stairs, it's a finished basement bar, we have our family friends over.

Uh, we would be walking right out of our basement into a retaining wall, like two feet away.

Um, so if we ever need a new washer, dryer, uh water heater, or God forbid, a medical emergency with one of our family members down there, there would be no access to them at all.

Um, giving reasonable consideration to the character of the district, no consideration whatsoever, guiding and regulating orderly growth and development.

That also is a strikeout.

Um, carrying out the authorized purposes of a zoning ordinance, which um, as we all know, is to ensure responsible development.

If he's granted uh these variances, it certainly is not gonna be responsible development.

And last, um, carrying out the purposes of the Pennsylvania Flood Plain Management Act.

You might scratch your head a little bit of that, but if you come over and you're free to come over any time and take a look at our property, um, in the back, we have a hill.

Um, it's a small alley, Carter Street Alley, which is a city alley.

Um, it goes downward at a slope, and at the bottom, um, it's gravel, it's not paved, and that is actually resident-owned.

So the alley itself is not a throughway.

And just the other day I took a picture of the flood that was down there from all the rain going down.

So if you build this parking lot, which the developer plans to do, that's going to take away all this grass that also absorbs the rainwater in a situation like that.

Um, so those are just some of the points I wanted to make out.

I did speak at the planning meeting um on July 10th.

And I plan to be here obviously for the zoning meeting um next week.

But I thought it was important to keep in the forefront um and address maybe today, because one of the big things that I know um as far as you know, awarding a variance is there needs to be a significant hardship um that's not created by the buyer itself.

And this hardship is obviously his the fact that he needs variances.

He knew what the land um the measurements were when he bought it.

So that's all I'm gonna say, right down to close to the end, right?

I think.

Thank you, Miss Bonche.

Thank you.

Sorry.

No, you're a little nervous and upset.

You don't need to apologize about anything.

And as you referenced, the property in question is on the agenda for the zoning hearing board next week.

Yes.

Thank you.

Our next speaker signed up, Mr.

Mark Will Weber.

Just smile.

Yeah, Mark, Mark Will Weber from the uh the drip, the citizens advocate for water and sewer stuff.

Uh I just want to resume.

Um, last month I was in here and I was talking about some of the uh apps like Aquahawk and I on water that uh would really benefit the cities here.

And uh in most places it is a typical add-on once smart meters are put in.

And I've I've continued to make a deep dive on this stuff and looked at various cities that have these things.

And uh we really need something like that here.

It would save a lot of wear and tear on people.

Uh it would save a lot of water.

And um it uh is something that really needs to be looked at, I think.

Uh, some of the cities I looked at uh included uh Roswell, Georgia, uh Redmont, Oregon, uh, places all over Appleton, Wisconsin.

And uh a couple things struck me uh when I looked at some of these sites.

Uh uh, first and foremost is uh, for instance, in the Appleton, this guy, I think Bill comes on and he has a little two-minute video.

And he's not only encouraging the citizens to download Aquahawk, but he's telling them, hey, this is gonna save you a lot of money, it's gonna help the city conserve water, on and on, and takes the people by step by step through it, shows them how to do it.

Uh, same thing in Ridman, Oregon.

Say, hey, you know, we want to show you guys how to download this app, Aquahawk, gonna save you uh a lot of money, gonna save the city uh a lot of water, and a place like Redmond.

Uh, it's it's really important because they only get like eight to ten inches of water a year.

The climatologists would tell us it's high desert or something.

So I think we got eight inches in June.

So, you know, do the math on that.

They're getting eight to ten inches a year.

I think we get close to 50, 45, 50.

Um, but the thing is, the thing that struck me is I came away and said, Oh, okay.

So this is how it's supposed to work when the sewer and water department actually works in conjunction with the people, makes them a partner uh in this sort of thing instead of an adversary, an ally instead of an adversary.

And there's there's a great idea, right?

Uh so these people aren't getting blindsided by megabills out of nowhere.

They're not three quarters go by and they get this enormous bill in the in the in the mail.

Instead, within hours, they know that something's gone wrong, and they catch it right away.

This lady from uh Montrose, Colorado, where they have Aquahawk, is in Denver for the long weekend, and an hour into it, she realizes a pipe is broken back in her home in Montrose and gets on the phone and gets it fixed.

Otherwise, it would have been a huge bill.

Um the other thing that struck me is some of these cities that had it for 10 years.

I thought this was a relatively new thing, but uh about the time Mr.

Boscola actually uh got its position with uh, I think the Donchez administration, these guys already were on this stuff and had it and quickly followed it by giving their citizens these apps.

So to put these smart meters in and not give the citizens access to these apps is a huge disservice, and uh it really should be looked into.

And if council is looking out for the constituents, you guys should be asking for it too.

And the mayor's office should be asking for it, and there's really no reason why we shouldn't have it.

Um I've been occasionally critical of water and sewer here, but if I was to one day look at our site and see Mr.

Boscola or Mr.

Davis on there saying, hey, here's how you guys can download Aquahawk.

And um, there's a think tank out of Chicago that shows that you can you can save as much as 15 to 20 percent water in your community if you have the people on these apps because they begin to monitor, hey, you know, we used a lot of water last month, and maybe we need to do this and that.

And um, so if the if the object is to save water, then this is your answer.

And certainly it would protect the citizens from you know the kind of bill that we got, and that the solitario woman got on and on.

Why is that so difficult?

I know I'm probably perceived as a loose canon, but I just want us to be treated like the people in these communities, and I have too many to list here.

Mr.

Clone would give me the Broadway hook and I'd be gone.

So I'll just leave it at that.

Thank you, Mr.

Woolweber.

Our next speaker is Ms.

Rodriguez.

Hello.

Um Diana Rodriguez, 315 Frau Street.

Um, I'm here today.

Um, I've been here many times, because um, like many of you, I'm also um a public servant, I'm also a teacher.

And many of my own students are actually um my neighbors.

Oh, which is uh actually funny at times.

Um, I have to say I'm a little, I'm not gonna say a leader, I'm actually very concerned and concerning the small world.

I'm actually terrified by the trend that we've seen that is happening um all through the city of all of this uh so-called housing opportunities that are mostly benefiting uh people who come here with higher incomes that one an everyday resident in Betling and can afford.

And unfortunately, um this is being done at the expense of our environment, our health, and the long-term housing stability of current residents.

And we know that historically this pattern of overdevelopment and abuse and environmental decline usually hurts the most diverse and racially diverse neighborhoods of our city, such as the South Side.

Um, and now, well, no, now really, like in the last five years or so, if also reached the West Side.

We can see that from the multiple projects that we've seen in the last year targeting the West side.

And we see it over and over again.

They're asking for these huge buildings, regardless of the little land that they have, which of course is gonna prompt ridiculously variances for hardships.

They create for themselves, and they go as far as questioning the interpretation of clearly written ordinances that are there exactly to protect the population from this type of abuse.

And I am talking from experience, I know what is to go through this because I live on the west side, right behind the armory redevelopment.

This is one of the biggest building in the West side, and it was brutally built in the middle of historic homes, which are not always the strongest one.

And multiple residents were here in these very meetings, begging the city to don't pass the building as it was because we knew I was coming, and we are now dealing with it.

Our neighborhood has become unfortunately more polluted, noisier, dirtier.

It has worsened asthma, allergies.

That building, that parking lot radiates 135 degrees heat in the summer, and still today, we are dealing with the structural damage that that caused with higher utility bills.

And today, uh, just like the case we saw here today.

I'm also for the second time in six years now, going through this again because next week another developer is gonna try to remove the only green relief that is left after the armory with the 312 Hanover Street project.

And yet, after all of this, I'm still hopeful though.

I have hope because I see that the city's taking the right steps.

Um, I see that there's gonna be some discussions about the sardo updates, and they seem to me that they are more aligned with the climate action plan.

And that gives me a lot of hope.

Um, but I'm just wondering if that is the vision that we have for Bethlehem because we know that environmental um sustainability is the way to protect ourselves against climate change and to really be here for the long run.

Um, I wonder why they're using language uh such as developers should consider they should do it when it's practical.

When we give them the option, we know they are not gonna care about our health, they're gonna get our profit, they don't care about our environment.

So we shouldn't give them the option, whether they want to protect our environment or not.

We should make it.

If that's what we're going for, we should make it a requirement.

So please, when we're considering this, let's expect a little more from them because we are all paying tax money, and I think if they get to develop here, they should get to contribute to our community as well.

And I don't want us to make it easier for them to destroy our health and our environment because we're trying to stay here for the long run.

And it's sad to see, and I have experience with this.

I've been through this, this is the second time I'm going through this.

I can't believe it.

That if you live in a part of the city where people get to be together because they have the financial means to hire a lawyer, they have a higher chance of keeping their trees, their greenery, and their oxygen.

And the rest of us, we just keep getting more concrete, more heat, and we keep getting sicker and people who are gonna live shorter life.

And I don't know how you call this, but this kind of division is clearing a climate segregation right here in Bethlehem.

Let's please outhold the ordinance of what we call here 130103, because that is a legal way to defend the environment and the health of residents in Bethlehem.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Rodriguez.

Next speaker is Artie Curtola.

Hi, I'm Artie Curatoli, 813 Loffer Street in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Before I speak about what I'm gonna speak about, I I have to say something that's been kind of bothering me for a while.

A lot of people from out of town have been talking to me all the time about all you can see is the back of the people's heads speaking.

And okay, the thing is really being a draftsman before I was a musician and uh entertainer, performing artist, and also the possibility of your next mayor.

The thing is I was a draftsman.

Okay, very easy.

Let's get this pulpit, move two seats out in the front there, maybe four, I don't know.

Put the pulpit over there.

Have the people go outside around to the pulpit so they don't trip over the step.

You'll have room over here for a row of six or seven, in front of that, another row of four or five, another row of three or four, another row of maybe two or three.

Why do we have all the space?

I never saw any mariachi dancers or mariachi bands playing here or any building dancers.

I'm you know, it's why do we have the extra space?

We don't need it.

But the thing is, we could use the pulpit there so people will see the front of the people speaking, and the people could still be speaking to the city council.

That's not what I wanted to talk about, but it's been bothering me for a while.

So I figured I'd present it because it would be more efficient.

We'd get more seats in case we get a lot of people, and people be able to see the faces.

What I want to talk about is our reputation of our city is well, before I even go to that, I won my uh I represented myself 20 at least 25 times in court by myself with no attorney.

And I I haven't lost just one.

And just this morning, I won at Perryville.

Well Bethlehem Township in New Jersey, a court case where an officer attacked me.

But the thing is, we don't need stuff like that going in our cities.

We don't have a city like that.

We don't have officers that use excessive force, police brutality, conditions on becoming of a police officer.

Other cities they do.

That degrades the country that I live in.

And now, what's degrading the city that I live in is we are being run by a fascist organization called ArtsQuest.

And I say fascist because I don't say it loosely.

If you disrespect someone and take away their freedom of speech, isn't that fascist?

Now, one person from city council, I'm not going to mention anybody's names, but he stated they can hire whoever they want.

Sure.

But when it comes to an open mic, that's an open forearm.

That's a more oh that's people speak to an open mic, or they play their music.

They're expressing it for free.

That is taking away somebody's freedom of speech.

And that's a reflection on our city.

We don't get this rectified.

I got an attorney that's going towards the police officer who attacked me for breaking my civil rights.

Now I'm going to have to do this arts quest because another person from city council said I should shoot Arts Quest.

So did my attorney.

So the thing is that's not going to be a reflection to my city.

That's going to be good.

So if you could straighten this out with Arts Quest, I would accept a proper apology.

Seven years to not be speaking at Arts Quest because they said I made race racist comments.

When I perform in Mexican restaurants all over the tri-state area, my music is in every major library in the country.

But you're all invited to see me perform Saturday at the Rosemont Fire Company with my band for free in Bethlehem from one to five.

It's open to the public.

Also, on Thursday from seven to eight with my 54-piece orchestra, I played a big timpani drums with that.

You're invited.

St.

John's Lutham Church in Nazareth.

So however, I hope you can straighten this out with ArtsQuest, because my civil rights attorneys are ready to move on in with the situation.

And I do have a case because you can't take away somebody's freedom of speech, step on their Fourth Amendment rights.

That's not how you should treat people.

Not in the city that I live in.

God bless you.

Thank you, Mr.

Cartola.

That exhausts are list of it signed up before the meeting, so I'll go around the room.

If anyone is concerned with the angle in which you're recorded, that is a live microphone at that lecture and over there.

They're welcome to.

So I'll start, Mr.

Faber.

So I'll start on the left.

So anyone who's unfamiliar, start on the left, and I'll work my way around the room for anyone else who wants to address counsel tonight.

Hello, Harry Faber.

First, I would like to commend Diana.

I thought that was an incredible public comment.

I thought she was so succinct and persuasive.

Secondly, I would like to address Mr.

Wilweber's comments.

I just have an answer to your question about why not.

It is because Aquahawk wouldn't be profitable under capitalism.

The profit motive reigns supreme always.

Now, first, I would like to use a quote I intended to say at the last meeting.

The quote is from Gustavo Petra, the president of Colombia, which he said at the Hay Group summit in Bogata.

He said, quote, Gaza is simply an experiment by the mega rich to show all the people of the world how they will respond to humanity's rebellion.

They plan to bomb all of us.

End quote.

Now, I know I talk relatively about the same issues, whether it's the genocide in Palestine or the destructive nature of imperialism, colonialism, or capitalism and all the contradictions that comes with it, but I rarely talk about myself.

I worked at the Hotel Bethlehem as a banquet server for about three years during college before I started working as a server, bouncer, bar back at three of the many bars we have here in the center city.

I worked at the bars for about two years.

I saw a lot, I experienced a lot, and I learned a lot.

For one, I saw how differently the police interacted with people in comparison to those in other cities.

I think it is a fair argument to say that we've got the best apartment in the whole of the Lehigh Valley.

But when you all talk about crime, the law, how we have to enforce it, I have to laugh.

It is contradictory to my own experience.

Everyone knows how much cocaine and fake IDs are on Lehigh and Moravian's campuses.

The staff and security at the universities know this.

The bar workers all know this.

Bethlehem PD knows this, but we aren't just locking up en masse all the rich drunk morons now, are we?

You're also not locking up the bar the bar owners who look the other way when presented with fake IDs.

Uh the law says we should, but we don't.

And I'd argue it's because of their socio-economic background.

Maybe you're lenient because they're young, but they're old enough to understand the consequences.

And the bars generate lots of revenue.

My point is the law is only enforced when it's convenient, when you can get away with it.

I mean, anyone who has studied anything in the humanities in college should be aware of the prison industrial system.

It's history and why we justify the caging of tens of millions of people for the crime of being poor.

Now I saw a lot at the bar.

I learned all people are capable, capable of doing good and capable of doing bad.

And I've been coming to Bethlehem City Council for over a year and a half now, and I've also learned a lot and seen a lot.

And I want to believe that everyone who has heard me rant, holler, and carry on for the last year and a half wants to do good.

I mean, that's why they come out here.

And I want to do good.

I want to do right.

And I'll give credit where it's due.

I actually agreed.

I've never praised this person, I think, in the history of my coming here.

But I actually agreed with a lot of the things Grace Crampsy Smith has said at the past few meetings that I haven't been able to uh address.

And I've been impressed.

I know you are all not, you are not not all bad, but this power structure and this political economy, this mode of production we have is all bad.

It perpetuates suffering and rewards indifference and obedience.

It is one thing to be indifferent about apples and oranges, but the enslavement and kidnapping of families is not apples and oranges.

A live stream genocide is not apples and oranges.

To summarize, when the law says we must go along with federal quote unquote agents, again, these are just people bestowed with tokens of power and weapons.

When these people lock people up because of the color of their skin, their housing status or where they were born, you shouldn't.

Now it is time to take a stand.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Faber.

Is there anyone else to left who wants to make comment?

Sure.

He was a little bit taller than me.

Hello.

Uh Tim Porcelli.

I live on 328th Avenue.

Uh, I did not know this meeting was happening tonight, and I've never actually been in this room nor knew this was going on here.

So, first time uh being part of a city council meeting, which is pretty pretty cool.

Uh, I've bumped into Nicole a few times where uh I became aware of her situation.

I live on Eighth Avenue, so I jog up and down the hill.

Not every day, though I try.

So it's very close to my heart dealing with or seeing what's happening with this.

Um, I think about I put myself in her shoes and I think about what would it be like to walk out of my basement and see a big retaining wall, as well as having this big apartment building on the west side.

And you know, I really can't see it.

And after looking at the plans too, it's hard to imagine one that they're gonna be able to fit this building on that space, but also thinking about the impact around the houses who are going to be dealing with this.

Um, certainly it's not going to be the people who's living there's fault, but it's gonna be the fault of the construction company putting that building up.

So I certainly don't have any, you know, facts or figures to speak towards this, but I think the quality of life certainly on the west side is going to be negatively impacted by this.

We're gonna see more traffic on our already biddy busy street.

I have two kids, and they I don't let them play outside because I'm already worried about just the foot traffic, not the foot traffic, but the cars coming up and down.

So seeing more cars on that road, I think will be also dangerous.

Uh, I do jog by the armory sometimes too, and same thing where there's lots of people coming in and out of the parking lot.

And again, we see more cars every year, and it's it's dangerous.

Um, I giving a little more context to where I we live in a house, it's a two-store, a two-bedroom ranch.

We have four people.

I've been looking for a house for six years and just seeing the houses.

My wife follows the real estate market very closely.

Single family homes within Bethelham, Bethlehem are very rare and hard to find, certainly at a lower price point for a starter home.

Uh, as we started, we were at a very low price point, and it keeps going up and up and up every year where the price of housing becomes more and more expensive.

So, thinking about the idea of knocking down single family homes, which I think everybody for the most part strives to own a home and seeing that replaced with an apartment building is something that I don't want to see.

Um, certainly again, you know, there are apartment buildings throughout the city.

And if you look at the armory and even some of the other ones that have been put up where uh certainly the placement and the additional foot traffic and cars coming in and out of it again, just making things more and more busy.

So uh I probably could ramble on for another two hours, two minutes and forty seconds, but I'll leave it at that uh without being fully prepared.

And I just thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mr.

Poor Sally.

And again, I know I referenced it earlier.

The property in question is gonna be discussed at the zoning hearing board meeting, which is next Wednesday, August 27th at 6 p.m.

here in town hall.

There's nothing on tonight's council agenda, but everyone's welcome to comment, of course.

Um else on the left.

I turn to the wide center, I'll go left to right from my left to my right, ma'am.

Terry Klober, 345 Grandview Boulevard.

Don't give up.

Whatever you do, keep fighting.

We are fighting, as you all know.

We are fighting against the building that they're trying to put in at Bennett's lot.

317 apartments, of course, that's been shot down in the oh, Harrisburg or Philadelphia court.

I mean, we've been fighting tooth and nail.

I can't tell you how much money we've paid our lawyer so far, but he's doing one heck of a job for us.

Um that's why I say to Nicole, don't quit.

If anything, we are delaying whatever gets built in there to have all those apartments in there.

It has to be re-restructured.

His plans have to be resubmitted because of the latest, um, from what I've heard.

But I just we will have across across our alley from us.

We won't have it as close as you will, but we'll have apartments rising up um overlooking our backyards and such.

So I I just, you know, it's us little people that have to fight against City Hall, fight against the the big, the big multi-billion dollar builders that want to just do whatever they want to do.

And who cares?

Let's get a variance for it.

Who cares what it's gonna do to the neighborhood?

Who cares what it's you know, how it's gonna ruin what they've got there?

We've got a great little two-story houses all up and down our street, and and that's just gonna totally ruin it.

But the other thing I wanted to talk about is um, Rachel, I know we talked to you.

Um, the My Bethlehem app.

Please get somebody answering these questions who knows what they're talking about.

I put an I put a complaint in about a light on a pole.

It was a white light.

I got it.

Uh response that it was allowed by the city.

And I was like, that's a solar light.

That's not allowed by the city on a telephone pole.

Well, maybe it's allowed by the city, but PPL, somebody made them take it down.

Uh about three weeks later, something like that.

I don't know.

There was another light on the pole, a solar light, big black one attached by two screws on this pole.

So I wrote another thing into the app and said there's now a black light there.

Oh, this is a duplicate request.

No, it isn't.

If you would have read my first one, you would have seen the first one was a white light.

This is a black light.

It is not the same request.

Oh, that's approved by the city.

No, it isn't approved by the city.

Well, we'll have the electrical department check it out.

What's the telephone poll number?

Gave that information.

Oh, yeah, it's okay.

It's approved by the city until the PPNL guy drove by and one of the other neighbors said, What about that light?

Oh, took it down.

It's not approved by the city.

Why are they telling me that?

There's also a light.

If y'all are familiar with Eaton Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue where they intersect, there's a courtesy light over here on the side, so that we can see when opposing traffic light turns red because we have a green arrow.

I asked if that could just be moved about an inch or so so that we, when we're sitting there waiting, we could see that.

Oh, good, their light turned red.

So we're gonna get a green arrow.

They wrote back and told me, no, that's for pedestrians.

That is not a pedestrian light.

I don't know who's who's answering these things.

But some of this stuff is just so assignedly dumb.

Um, and I didn't even write back to that one.

I just couldn't.

And there have been others.

There's weeds this tall.

When I wrote about it, I told him, I said, they're as tall as me, I'm five four.

They said, I'll call this number.

They gave me Bethlehem Recycling number.

Call Bethel Recycling.

They gave you the wrong number.

Call them back, you know, and tell me they gave you the so I wrote back again and they gave me the number, a number for somebody else who I don't think I could get through to.

So I gave up on that one.

But it's nothing's been done.

These leads, these weeds are literally as tall as me.

There was a third one for a car that's been parked in the same place.

The weeds are growing up around it.

It's been there for about a year.

I don't know how long.

Nothing's been done.

You can tell the car hasn't been moved.

So who is answering these questions?

I don't know if you got any answers.

Um, Rachel, I know you were gonna look into some of it, but it's just at least if you're gonna answer me, answer me with answers that make sense.

Thanks.

Thank you, Ms.

Clever.

Is there anyone else in the wide center who wanted to make comment?

I go from my left to my right, Shire.

Bill Shire, 1898 Avenue.

Well, first I have to feel compelled to do what I do whenever the Boy Scouts show up.

Uh it's a tribute to the Boy Scout organization.

So, as a former Life Scout, I would like to repeat for you once again the Scout Pledge.

A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

Last time I got a cheer from the scouts, but not this time.

Uh, about Eighth Avenue.

Um, if you folks can hang around, um, Terry and I can we've learned a few things over the years.

Maybe we can help a little bit.

Uh it's not a unique uh situation.

And it kind of ties into uh an issue at the last meeting about the nominee for the planning commission.

Um I I do think we need a little more scrutiny than we do when people are nominated for these boards and commissions because they do have considerable power.

I will say that, and you've heard me say this before.

I can't remember the last time the planning commission said no to anything.

The zoning hearing board is a little better.

Uh sometimes they attach conditions to their approval.

And as you may remember, in the case of the so-called Hanover apartments, the city administration is suing its own zoning hearing boy.

And there's been a positive development there about one of the variances requested by the developer, have been denied by the judge.

Uh there's a technicality in my mind that's still open that I won't belabor you with because it's a little involved.

Uh, maybe I should have been a lawyer instead of an economist, but uh anyhow.

The discussion at the last meeting about this uh uh gentleman who was approved, confirmed to be on the planning commission, got me thinking about such uh situations in general, and it's really something that uh is across the government as a whole.

There's a uh whenever we are considering election or appointment of officials who have a power to vote this way or that or approve this or not approve it, there's a tension uh always between expertise on the one hand and possible bias on the other, because expertise comes from in part from experience and in dealing with uh the people who are going to be appearing before the official in question, and it's not just boards and commissions.

Um at the national level, when an industry person is appointed to a commission that regulates that industry, or judges.

Uh judges are you almost always lawyers, which means they've been perhaps a prosecutor or a defense lawyer or a civil lawyers, and so there is this uh constant tension between expertise and uh being somewhat analytical in nature.

I came up with five questions that have to be answered or should be answered.

Question one how much expertise does the candidate have that's relevant?

Number two, how numbers have personal contacts been involving persons or organizations that will be seeking approval?

And I'm gonna run out of time once again.

Question three, how close have these contacts been?

Have friendships developed as a result.

Question four, how strong is the candidate's interest in the matters that will be considered.

And question five, the hardest of all.

How objecting objective can the candidate be?

One thing that should occur, I believe, and I had to go through a couple of times when there was controller vacancies, his personal interviews.

That way you can learn something, get some of these questions answered.

At the end, you have to make you have to make a judgment based on incomplete knowledge and hope for the best.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Shayer.

Was there anyone else in the wide center?

Mr.

Antalix?

Stephen Taleks, 737 Ridge.

The word on the street is that this current council is at a new low.

This is based upon the opinions of a goodly number of concerned citizens and some other city agencies.

Consider recently the disruption of a recent meeting, council meeting by protesters demanding a vote on a resolution.

How would a professional and capable leader have handled this?

They might have adjourned city council to their second floor chambers, have the authorities clear the room of the offenders, and when advised, returning council to the chamber and resume the city's business.

How did present council head handle this?

He immediately adjourned the meeting with no city business being discussed or voted on, thereby it becoming the first city council, first public city council meeting ever to end with no city business being discussed.

Visitors to other city agencies are treated and greeted as responsible and adult citizens.

Responsible citizens to recent council meeting were referred to by council prison as the peanut gallery.

Peanut gallery.

A very insulting and demeaning term, reducing them to irresponsible juvenile admirers of howdy duty.

Citizens attending other meetings like the Bethlehem Authority or BS BASD.

Anyone speaking during the public section public speaking section of this agenda, although there is a three-minute time limit, rarely, if ever are asked to see speaking if their comments are considered valid by the chair.

And their comments many times are responded to by members of that agency.

And within just five to ten seconds of exceeding the five-minute limit, are asked to sit down.

Rudily interrupting their chain of thought.

In some situations, a council member saw fit to make intellectually insulting comments on the speaker's content during the new business section.

There was a clear lack of leadership in the recent discussion of the mayor's appointment to the planning commission.

Council members were allowed to subjectively attack the character of other members who objectively spoke as a citizen watchdog against the mayor's choice.

This was viewed by some as a confrontation between the rubber the mayor's rubber stamps and the citizens' watchdogs.

Is there a solution to this problem?

One thought would be for the president of council to step down.

And if this doesn't happen, someone on council might have the courage to make a motion for a vote of confidence.

And if Congress is lost, appoint a new president.

Do I enjoy speaking out?

Since I a number of years back, a famous and respected commentator on a popular local newspaper appointed me the Gatfly of Bethlehem.

The definition of the term gat fly is a gadfly is a person who interferes with the status quote of the community by posing novel and potentially upsetting questions, usually directed at authorities.

Having attended council meetings headed by the likeness of the Grosso, Schweider and Donchus.

I feel I am in a comfortable position to evaluate comparatively president council, hence the new law.

Thank you, Mr.

Natalics.

Is there anyone else in the wide center who wants to make comment?

I turn to the right.

Is there anyone to the right who wants to make comment?

Seeing none, I'm gonna continue on with our second public comment.

We don't have anyone signed up.

So the second public comment is for any ordinance or resolution that's being voted on this evening.

So again, I'll go around the room.

Is there anyone to the left who wants to make comment?

Anything we're voting on tonight.

Is there anyone in the wide center who wants to make comments?

Ms.

Roger.

First, I just want to make comments on the right time of the meeting.

Um can I make comments about the saldo updates?

Yeah.

Is it the right time for the voting on the saldo tonight?

So yes.

Um more than comments.

Um, I'm kind of here to learn as well.

Uh, just one clarification in some of the items.

As I said before, I'm very hopeful about these updates because they have a lot more like environmental friendly language to it, and that's extremely positive.

You can tell the city's trying to take things to the right direction, and you can see that there is a growing concern for environmental decline in our neighborhood.

So I really appreciate that we're going this way.

And I expect nothing less from a city that has spent uh so much resources in a climate action plan in hiring a sustainability officer, uh, being called tree city USA.

So you might think this is a city that will come up with a way, which I think was what's gonna happen here, to combine all of this environmental effort into zoning ordinances.

Um, I think one of the questions I have, they have a paragraph there, um, which is uh letter C.

And I think it's um, let me make sure um it comes from landscaping 3949.19 in that document that can be found on page 82.

And um section A talks about street trees, so I'm understanding that everything that's described there will only apply to trees that are um taken care of by the city or belong to the city, but letter C says other landscaping provisions, and in that section it says that existing healthy mature trees shall be preserved wherever practical and protected during construction.

That part of the ordinance does not refer to street trees.

So, can we understand this since they are using the word S H A L L as an obligation that developers are gonna be required to take all of these measures for the protection of mature trees?

And that's a question I have.

I wonder if somebody can give me some guidance on that.

Thank you, Ms.

Well, this is your opportunity to comment.

We will have discussion on the saldo, though, and a little bit later in the agenda, and council members could pose questions too.

Okay, so I wonder if somebody can post that question for me.

Um, because I was just trying to understand what exactly that section means, because that does not pretend to street trees.

That is to existing trees.

Um, and it doesn't specify uh whether uh they are in the side or around, um it just says existing mature trees, which we all know the value that it gives.

That tree, that willow tree is protecting my own environment, just as a lindom tree that I have, because mature trees takes hundreds of years to be there, and planting a few sad trees that we don't even know if they're gonna grow, that's not gonna make up for what we're losing.

My next question is um I think I've heard um I I wasn't here at the last meeting, but there were conversations.

Um, I've been part of the EAC meetings as well, and I hope somebody can clarify this for me.

When a developer has to put several has to know, chooses to put several trees down because they are an inconvenient to the plan, or if they cannot meet the three requirements that they have for a certain parking lot or space, are they allowed to pay a fee in lieu of this um tree requirements?

Um I'm just wondering about that.

If they are allowed to pay a fee when they have to put so many trees down, or when they cannot meet the three requirements, I'm truly hoping the answer to that is not, because the message we're gonna be sending is that they can pay for our oxygen, they can get away from environmental standards just by paying for it.

So I have to ask how much is our health and oxygen worth?

And the last thing I want to know um if is this ordinance that keeps being repeated by so many people who are being affected by these developers?

130103.

This is our current coding ordinance, which clearly states that zoning has to protect the public health, safety, and welfare, and it needs to prevent overcrowding, fire, flood risk, and the destruction of natural fissures.

That is already our ordinance, that's already there.

So when plants are proposed in front of us, and we know that the result of that is gonna be the destruction of natural fissures.

Isn't that plan in violation of this ordinance?

Why are we saying we don't have a legal way to protect the natural features of all the adjacent homes of people who are being affected by this development?

We already have the ordinance for this.

So I'm kind of here learning with you because um I'm curious about this because we already have an ordinance that requires developers to protect existing natural features, and it doesn't say the ones at the city on, it says the land and natural features.

So these are just some curiosities that I have to learn.

I've learned a lot this year, so thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Ms.

Rodriguez.

Is there anyone else in the wide center who has questions?

Mr.

Hackett.

Hello, my name is Bud Hackett, and I live in Bethlehem.

Uh I am here on the soap box tonight to talk about.

Thank you.

Um here today tonight in my soapbox to talk uh about the way that council has approached the SALDO.

Um, but before I do that, I want to welcome the young ladies who are scouts here tonight.

It's great to see them.

I remember bringing a scout troop to council many years ago, and it was a great experience.

With regards to SELDO, I have reached out to some council members and received no response to my concerns.

I previously spoke at council, of course, we don't get a response from that.

Um, I did, however, write uh letters to the newspapers and receive quite a bit of response.

So, you know, it's not just me with some of these concerns.

My issue with the CELDO, this the subdivision and land development ordinance proposal, is not so much about many of the regulations, but about whether or not we truly understand the costs, benefits, and impacts of some of the changes that have been proposed.

In my opinion, the proposed changes to the ordinance regulating land development will raise the cost of housing and other buildings in the city.

Recently, when staff discussed the CELDO, uh they said they had received a lot of input from government agencies, but not necessarily.

They didn't mention receiving much import from the public.

Um it is very hard in reading the ordinance to compare the old with the new.

What is the motivation for each of the changes?

What's driving it?

Why do you want to make that change?

And more importantly, what are the impacts of the changes uh on the costs of housing development?

So, how much is it going to cost for each of the changes in the proposed ordinance?

You should at least know that before voting yay or nay on it.

Um I was trying to figure out and looking at it.

This will sound cynical.

How much client, how much climate will the new regulations save?

Do we know?

It sounds good, but what what are the impacts of these proposed regulations?

Um it would have been interesting given that you received input from Climate Action Committee and the Environmental Advisory Committee.

Why wasn't there an attempt made to look at the CELDO ordinance and say what is it we could change in our city to help reduce the cost of housing and other building development in the city?

That is being done in other communities.

They are looking at their regulations and saying we could streamline these and reduce the cost.

If you'd like that information, go to MSNBC morning Joe, where I heard about it, or call me and I'll get you that information.

So my major point is it that it is very likely that the new regulations will raise the cost of housing and other development.

Um and this is how housing costs get out of control.

One new regulation after another, one small bit after another.

Uh and let's see.

And it's it would be very interesting to me to know since the changes seem to be driven by the climate action initiative.

Um what kind of improvements in our climate are we likely to achieve by these regulations.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

Aggett.

Is there anyone else in the wide center who wants to make comment?

I think we vote on.

Yes.

Hello, uh Valerie Noonan.

Um so I'm also here to comment on the subdivision and land development ordinance.

Um perhaps not in the same capacity as some of the other commenters.

I'm actually partly at least in agreement with Mr.

Hackett that I found it difficult to actually review the documents.

Um because my my first thought when thinking um about this is a new ordinance replacing the old one is I want to know what's in the old one versus the new one, right?

Um so I went to the ordinances on the city website, and I tried to click on the existing subdivision and land development ordinance, and I got a 404 not found page.

Um so I clicked around a little bit.

I went to the way back machine, which if you're not familiar, is just a web archive that snapshots web pages on specific dates and times.

Um the page had only been archived a few times, but uh every snapshot I looked at, it was a 404 not found page, which means that that set of links hasn't been working since at least 2022.

Um thankfully, um, because of the way that it was all um laid out is that we have the numbers of the ordinances, and then it's like 0.01.02.03, and so on.

Um, if you clicked down a few numbers, you could get to a link that would take you to the entire ordinance, but it was not the top level link or even the first few links that I tried.

Um so it's difficult to actually access the existing ordinance online, and I thought you should be aware of that.

Um after that, I uh took the ordinance when I finally found it, um, and I tried just to run a comparison between that file and the one proposed on the agenda, and they they were just not similar enough for that to be useful, which that's fair.

I can see why it was proposed as repealing and replacing rather than uh making amendments because they were two different documents to compare using regular technological means.

Umfortunately, I haven't had the time to review this new document in its entire in its entirety because it's over a hundred pages long, and I just did not have the time.

I know there's been it's kind of been circulating, perhaps for uh a meeting or two back, and that there was a hearing, and that's on me for not um getting in on that.

But I I do think that for ease of use for transparency for everyone to get the chance to review and comment on what they want to comment on.

Documents like that should be correctly accessible, and it seems that that one was not accessible for years, um, properly speaking.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Mayor.

Is there anyone else in the wide center who wants to make comment on anything we're voting on, Mr.

Shire?

Bill Shire, 1898 Avenue.

Um, about Saldo.

It's a lot.

100 pages.

And as you may have noticed, I had four comments on the first 10 pages.

Took me five minutes to get through the first two comments, and then I gave up.

I have a feeling the council may feel that it's a lot to deal with.

Let's just pass it and we'll amend it later if we have to.

Not the best way of going about things.

Reminds me of the same thing happened with the zoning ordinance about 12 years ago.

That was also close to 100 pages, if not.

Also presented in the middle of summer.

Perhaps just a coincidence.

Um Saudo itself, I'd like to speak about the new medical buildings on Eighth Avenue near Eton Avenue, which did pass the planning commission.

And there's of course four corners of that intersection.

One is a bank branch, so we'll forget about that.

Two of them are St.

Luke's and one is Lehigh Valley Health Network, the new buildings.

And I want to comment on the design.

Style does cost money.

And uh Rocky and I agree on that.

He's a developer that I run into from time to time, and we have good conversations three times actually.

And I did criticize him on the boy departments saying it was too big and too plain.

But we agreed that style does cost money.

But these two new buildings are well.

Um the northwest corner is the oldest of the three corners, and that's St.

Luke's, and it's not as good as the St.

Luke's on the Northeast Corner, which is what they call the postmodern style of architecture, has some vague uh indications to medieval architecture.

The new buildings from Lehigh Valley Health Network, two of them.

I don't know what that style of architecture is, if it is even a style.

It reminds me of the new Broccoli school.

Uh looks like a bunch of cheap buildings crammed together.

And I don't know what the answer is.

I'm fond these days of just laying out questions and not answering them.

But it's something that's worth thinking about.

And if I'm permitted a little bit of an aside here, Mr.

President.

It's it's not being voted on tonight, but I'll make it very short.

Public sculpture.

And I'm particularly thinking of something called the cloud on Founders Way on the South Side is one of the most awful pieces of sculpture that I've ever seen in my life.

And it is my firm conviction that any piece of sculpture, public sculpture should be subject to a referendum.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

Shire.

Is there anyone else in the wide center who hasn't had an opportunity to speak who wanted to make comment on anything we're voting on tonight?

Anyone to the right?

All right.

That concludes our public comment.

Thank you, everyone.

Again, I'll remind everyone if you want to talk to council after the meeting, you're welcome to stick around.

Or you can follow up with any of us uh via email or the city clerk.

So now we're gonna move on to old business.

So now we're gonna move on to old business, any old business for members of council.

Any new business for members of council?

Oh, was this for old business or new business, Mr.

Cowley?

No.

New?

Go ahead, Mr.

Cowan.

There was no old business, right?

Okay, go ahead, Mr.

Kelly.

I got a I got a number of items tonight.

Um first of all, I want to thank the scouts for coming here.

Um I was a uh Cub Scout on Wieblo uh growing up and uh uh a Boy Scout for like three years.

And I I look back at you know what fond memories.

I went to uh Mincy uh trail camp and I went to Campbell Palmy up in upstate New York, uh just above uh Lake George's great great times.

So I you know thank you for coming here.

And uh I think you'll look back in the time that you were involved with this organization with uh fond memories as you get older.

So thanks for coming.

Anyways, um Miss Collins, you got a second.

Uh the first thing is um during FEST, uh I I had a lot of people telling me that the um the lights are out again at the steel stacks.

So can we get I don't know who who is dealing with this again?

I I I handled it last time.

Um I had uh a uh lighting company and engineering company call up uh Win Creek and um and they did get it fixed, but um I don't want to keep calling the same people, so I don't know who what we have to do.

They're on to the extent that they were fixed previously, which is a few of the lights are are able to illuminate.

I think there's um a limited spectrum of colors that they were able to put back on.

Um, you know, and and certainly I mean it it is not illuminated like it used to be, and it does require attention.

You know, we we do communicate regularly with Win Creek.

Um, and you know, there are active conversations about you know potential future investments to to actually make you know what fixes might be necessary.

What wasn't that a little part of part of the agreement?

Is it they were going to maintain them?

There was an agreement with Sands, correct?

That I I believe has yeah, and that and that agreement rolled over with Win Creek, I would assume with the with the purchase.

That's my understanding.

Can we check on that and just get those things lit up?

I mean, it's that we kept those there for a reason to honor all the people that worked in the steel over a hundred-year period.

It it is Win Creek's responsibility, yes.

It's not you know, the city is a very good thing.

Is there something that the mayor could do?

Could he call someone up and put some pressure on them to work as I said, we're having regular conversations with them on a variety of topics, yes.

Yeah, I keep I keep hearing these things and nothing's getting done.

So um the the second thing I wanted to talk about was you know a lot of the speakers who spoke here tonight, uh they're they're talking about all these residential, uh, you know, an eight unit going here, a 10 unit going here, or six unit going here.

And it's is there's an and we all notice there's been an extreme amount of of pressure being put on the rental market, and I don't know why I don't know if it's if it's you or the mayor or whoever it is, but obviously something's not moving along with the Martin Tower site.

Uh we've had they they had a uh I think they're allowed to put a thousand units in there.

They are yeah, is it they could do that today if they wanted to, yeah, but they can they obviously can't.

Uh is it have you talked to them?

We've gone over this many times.

All right, so I wasn't on, I wasn't on council at the time.

Okay, but what were do you remember what the deal was that the developer offered to the city for in lieu of fees?

I I know that I know that Mr.

Herrick came in here from New York.

So currently they are zoned for 1,085 units there.

They could build that today if they wanted to, right?

But they obviously can't because it is currently the densest residentially zone district.

What was what was the agreement?

I believe they have asked for approximately 1700 uh units on that site, which would make it far and away the densest district.

That's not something that we as an administration would decide.

If they wanted to change the zoning there for that, that would be a decision of city council.

So there's not really a deal to negotiate, but that is one of the things that they would be looking for from city council.

Well, I think it's not something at this point that we have supported.

We felt that that was too dense, even for that area there, especially when they can build 1,085 units currently today under the zoning that's there.

Yeah, I think if if you reached out and talked to them, uh I you would find that uh I think those numbers are changing drastically based on on the pressures of the market right now.

But I wasn't on council at the time.

So my question is when Mr.

Herrick came in, and I don't know if anybody on count that was on council at the time can answer this.

What was the offer that they are that the Mr.

Herrick offered to the city for the in lieu of fees and for the affordable housing?

So I believe what you're referring to is that in addition to asking for a zoning change to increase from 1085 to 1700, they're also looking for a 10-year tax abatement.

So alerta pay a graduated tax rate.

Right.

They want to pay you know, probably zero percent of their increased property tax values in the first year, 10%, 2030, etc.

through alerta.

Right, which is a substantial cost to the city, and we've identified you know, previously in conversations, plenty of public benefit that has already gone into that site.

They have a nine million dollar um RCAP that they used to build those medical office buildings, they have a CRIS designation on the entire site.

You know, it's been probably a couple of decades of history and public incentives going on the market has changed.

Well, you had said that you weren't around for previous conversations, so I was just reiterating some of the conversations we had before.

So on balance, again, that would be a question for city council if city council was willing to pass uh a tax abatement for them on that site.

Um, and you could build in a a payment in lieu of structure if you wanted to support affordable housing as well there.

I my my goal is to try to, I mean, instead of sticking these uh rental units in in these pocket areas within a city and upsetting all the neighborhoods that that are there.

I think if we added you know, if we added a thousand eighty-five units to that site, I think that would put a uh a tremendous, you know, supply and demand.

I think I think the it would it would lessen the the the pressure of rentals in the city.

I don't disagree that that site is an excellent site for additional residential for affordable residential, and you know, but we've we've tried to push for that as well for it not to just be 10,008 market rate units.

Um but so what was the what was the deal that was offered to the city?

I from from I I'm just I don't know this exactly, but from what I was told they offered four and a half to five million dollars or something like that for the in lieu of fee for the alerta.

Now it you know and I know, but just everybody else is on board.

Right now, we're getting zero taxes on the property that other than you know the the land that's not developed.

So by if getting alerta, it basically comes out to fit over a 10-year period, they pay 50% of the taxes on on that on all the new development.

Right now we're getting zero percent of zero.

I think 50% of 200 million of the development or whatever it would be is substantial, and I think that's not only school district taxes and city taxes, but county taxes.

So obviously something's not going on over there because there's no activity at all with the residential component.

So from what I from what I remember is that, and I don't know if anybody on council would like to chime in.

It was they offered four or five, six million dollars or something like that for the the city to get affordable housing to build affordable housing or to buy land.

They also offered from what I understood, a parcel of land.

So do you do you remember what the there were different conversations over time at points when we asked would you be willing to build affordable units on this site was definitively no?

Right.

So instead of that, they offered uh uh uh millions of dollars in Lua fees, which I think Miss Grace Crampsy Smith, it was the and if I'm wrong, correct me.

I think it was like 20 or 20,000 or 25,000.

I think your new ordinance bumped it up to 52,000 that the developers would have to pay in in lieu of fees.

Have you had any conversations with them in the last year at all about what's going on?

What can we do to help help this process along?

Our office has worked regularly with them on the development of the medical office building.

Right.

I know on a medical, I'm talking residential.

Sure.

They have not come back with an with a new plan or a new proposal.

Has anybody reached if you or their mayor reached out and said, hey, what's the problem?

Why isn't this going on?

Because there's obviously some reason why they're not moving ahead at all right now.

There's nothing going on over there now.

They are welcome to reach out anytime.

They are okay.

And we as I said, you know, we wouldn't the mayor be interested in adding we communicate with the developer, at least one of them on a regular basis, at least regarding the medical office building.

So if at any point he or his other partner had a new proposal with respect to residential for us to review, does anybody on council remember what the deal was?

Because I I wasn't part of the meeting.

I know he met individually with each individual council member at that time.

Does anybody remember what the deal was?

Because from for from what I understand, it was a substantial amount of money that they were willing to give to the city, so the city could use that to purchase land to for to buy the low-income housing area or to build low-income housing.

So I don't, you know, do you remember what it was?

What you said is my understanding.

I was I was on council at the addressing the chair.

I was on council at the time.

I believe that that was correct.

The only uh question that I had had for the solicitor at the time, which was not our current solicitor.

Um, and this was when we all first got on council when I met with him, he said that he would give roughly like four million dollars for in Lua fees if he could get alerta.

And at the time, my question was like, you know, that kind of feels like quid pro quo.

Like if I give you this, you'll give me that.

That was the only question I had.

But outside of that, I don't remember any other conversations, and I had assumed that they were going to present something to council at some point.

Um, but then we there has at least on my part, he's never reached back out.

He's never, and I actually didn't ever really get clarification on would that be a quid pro quo?

Because again, at the time, very junior.

If someone says, if you give me, you know, a couple million dollar tax abatement, um, I'll give you this.

That felt I wasn't sure if that was within our right.

If you want to answer that now, you can, or we can talk about it.

I can form the question for questions.

I I'm not going to address that.

Yeah, I I think I want to frame it better, and then we can talk about it maybe at another council meeting because I just wanted to make sure I understood it um appropriately.

And then my only other hang up was that it had already saved a couple million dollars in revenue.

But again, at this stage where it is just sitting there, I think there should be some movement.

But those were questions that I just had internally when I had the conversation with him.

So it was nothing that I think we discussed as a council at at any uh point.

I think it's a conversation worth having because we do have to see movement at that site.

But I I think back at that time, I believe that you're like that sounds what I remember, the conversation I had with him when he I I just I just remember that the money that the I think there was I don't know, eight seven or eight or four or five million dollars.

I don't know what it was, but the money that they got from the state was before the knocking down of the of the tower and also the um uh asbestos abatement.

No, I I completely agree with you there.

It's just when again, like this was probably one of the first conversations I had on council.

So when I'm looking at an area and I hear they've already gotten this many millions of dollars, and I'm learning what our cap is and all these things, I'm like, well, geez, we've already sunk a substantial amount in here.

And then my concern was when they originally said that they wanted to do 1700 projects.

I I appreciate the density there because as you said, it can sustain the density there.

The the roads are built for it.

Burnside is also right there, though.

And my concern was with that much density, what would the effect be on on burnside?

And I do remember him saying that he would partition an area of the parcel if the city wanted to develop affordable housing at the time.

I wasn't quite sure uh what that meant, but you you're you're explaining it accurately.

Those were the reservations I had at the time, but those were not ever questions that I think any of us really addressed as a council because nothing was presented by the developer to council.

Um, I think that if they had presented something, I think it's a conversation that we could have had, like the the difference between 17 versus 1,000.

You're reaching for your mic, so maybe I'm like, am I going off track here?

I think it's a worthwhile conversation because as you said, it's just sitting there.

There is we need to do something there, and if they're willing to move on 1085, which doesn't need anything from us, then they should.

I think they should present something because I think we all want to see some kind of increase in residential that's not burdening.

Can council uh if we agreed on uh in trying uh my whole goal on this is trying to take the pressure off all these little side neighborhood rental units.

I think if we could put a thousand eighty-five units in there, which is the number they were allowed in there.

If we could do that, I think it would take an enormous amount of pressure of of all these developers going in and buying all this land up and next to their house and this guy's house and that guy's house.

I I think it would help a lot.

Now, I know they don't want to put low-income housing in there, and in the in lieu of fee was set up for that, uh, which I think is a uh an enormous amount of money.

I think if they gave us five million dollars for the inloura fee, I I don't know about everybody else, but I I thought I talked to two other members on council who were 100% for that.

I I know that another member on council who's coming in in January wants to get something moving over there, and I just don't I don't know why there's no communication or why, you know, like let's get moving with this.

Let's take the pressure off these developers going into the neighborhoods.

Let's get their four or five million.

And I'm not saying that was the number, but that's what I heard.

Let's let's get their four or five million.

If they need alert, let's do the alerta.

And what basically what the alert is if they build 250 million dollars, we're collecting 50% of the taxes on the 250 million million dollar assist property versus no taxes because there's nothing being built.

I mean, I I just I keep on here, we keep on hearing, I think three different people talk tonight about uh rental pressures in the city and these development.

And here we got this uh a thousand unit property over there, which we and there's an absolutely no activity or communication with the uh with the administration on it.

We we've heard nothing on it over in over a year on the residential component, and and and and the two medical buildings are done, so that's over with, and that's now we're collecting we'll be collecting taxes on that because it's being leased.

So let's get the rest of this property going so we can take the pressure off these other neighbors and neighborhoods.

I mean, that uh to me, it's it's a no-brainer.

I can tell them that we're happy to talk anytime.

That that's your job.

I and as I've said, we've been in constant communication with them.

We speak with them regularly.

That's not true.

You might have spoke to them about you might have spoken to them about the Mr.

Cal Hannah.

I'm gonna ask you not to question motives and integrity.

I won't question her.

I know for a fact they haven't had any conversations that with with about the residential component.

That's my right.

I'm not I'm not saying that that she's lying, I'm just saying they they have never had any conversations in the last year.

There's no there's no communication on on the residential component, and I think that's fair to say.

Our our solicitor wanted to make comments.

Good.

I really appreciate the fact that you want to see this project get going in order to provide some relief to um the the rental issues out there in the city, which are um staggering.

Uh, but from a procedural standpoint, the way this gets moving is for the owner, the developer, to come to the city with a plan.

It's not that we can come knocking on their doors and say, hey, you need to do something.

Um the developer is free to move forward on their own timeline, and it's and it's them as the property owner, as developer who it initiates that process.

That's just the procedural.

Um that that may be what it's written in and legal, and I'm not sure it's legal, but those types of discussions are done with mayors and developers and councils all the time, all the time, all over the state, Lei Valley, and and and the US.

I all I'm asking is let's try to reach out to get something moving forward on this, so that a we can take the rental pressures off of the residents and the neighborhoods, existing neighborhoods.

Number two, um, we can start collecting some of the tax money, the substantial tax.

And I know if if there was alerta, I'm not saying that there would be, but if there was alerta, 50% of you know, millions of dollars is better than zero percent of zero dollars.

And and so they'd be paying taxes on that.

And so, and then and then the third point is that the uh the the property is a little cleaner and in it it and it's it it would be developed, and I think it would, you know, I think from the plans that we saw um years ago, you know, I think it'd be a beautiful site.

And then on top of that, we also, according to what I had heard when I wasn't on council, that there's a substantial amount of money that would be given to the city to use for affordable housing.

Right now we have nothing going in in affordable housing, and I think a four or five million dollar uh donation from a developer, if that's what the deal was made.

I don't know.

I from what I heard, he he had met with each one of you that were on council at the time, and and it was like a five million dollar donation in lieu of you know, the you know, the in Lua fee.

So I'm just trying to get things moving.

So are you telling us that council can come up and propose alerta?

Is that does that have to come from you, the city, or can that come from council?

If you wanted to propose alerta, you could just like you would propose any other ordinance.

Mr.

Sport the same procedure.

Is that true?

Do you know if that's true?

I I don't know if it's true or not.

Sure.

You would adopt that, yeah.

I I would I would like to contract zone would be my own.

Thank you, thank you.

That's it on that topic.

Um the um still me.

Yeah, yeah.

So the HARB just had a meeting, and the developer that went in there is proposing a seven-story building in the historic district.

The garage and the white box is in the historic district.

It's historic district land.

We don't have when we have six and seven stories buildings proposed for the south side, all hell breaks loose.

And now we got a developer wanting to propose a seven-story building in the historic district in the harb.

So when the process was going through for this white box, that came through your office.

And when we were reviewing them, did you know at the time when we we awarded them?

We declared that they were the winner of the of the bid process because there were several bids that came in.

I think there was four.

I'll just for legal clarification, it's not a bid, it was an RFP RFP, okay.

Legally, yeah, when the RFP came in.

We did you know at the time that their offer, their RFP included seven stories.

So we were looking for just a qualified developer.

All of the developers did present concept plans.

They were preliminary concepts, they were various sizes, heights, you know, number of units.

I think what we originally looked at from this particular developer was about 144 units from the time that they were selected as the qualified developer by the parking authority.

Uh they have had many conversations with neighbors with the public.

They've they've worked through the design, they've worked with us on the design.

It's been a very iterative process since the you know designation as qualified developer, right?

It wasn't selecting a project, it was selecting a developer.

Um, and so now it is down to 108 units, and it is at seven stories.

So but but that was about the height of most of the proposals.

There were a few that were actually taller.

Um, I think there was one that was shorter.

So the when they proposed it and they were and they were chosen.

Was that was there?

I mean, we obviously saw uh some type of layout or or or or scheme.

Was it seven stories at that time when they were chosen?

I probably I don't recall exactly.

As I mentioned, they were there were concept designs and part of the conversation and part of the request for qualifications, actually, RFQ.

Um, you know, it was indicated in there that the project would have to go to HARB, and that would be a component of the process whereby a design elements would continue to be refined and and and things like height as well.

Were the other proposals were any other proposals less than seven stories?

The ones that didn't win the RFP or the RFQ, yeah.

Um, I I believe one was a little bit shorter, like the concepts that they proposed.

Again, we were not selecting necessarily based on the project, we were selecting on the overall package, a qualified developer with the understanding that there was going to be a long process of actually developing a plan.

So the administration, are you in and the mayor in support of the seven stories in the R in the historic district?

Well, so my understanding, I mean, I I was at the meeting.

My understanding of what the board is looking for is for the developer to consider ways that they could either reduce the size or reduce the look and the feel of it.

There was a lot of conversation about stepbacks and architectural features that would make it look a little bit less tall from the ground, um, from like you know, your height at street level, and the developer is gonna go back and consider you know how that fits into the overall project, and if they can come down or if they can you know work on those architectural elements that Harb is looking for, that that would be that would be fine by us.

I mean, I think it's you know, part as part of the process, you know, they they are considering those different components, and you know, we are encouraging them to consider all of the feedback, including from HARB.

Yeah, I I would highly recommend it.

They they come off that seven-story number.

I I live in a historic district, as you know, uh probably about um a hundred yards away from there.

And I would find it atrocious to find a seven-story building in the historic district, and I think all of them uh residents in the Harb area would uh feel the same.

I I've had nothing but people calling me up saying, I mean, that's crazy that they'd want to put seven stories in there, and so I just was trying to figure out did you were you aware of the seven-story proposal in so I we're certain certainly aware that it was being presented as HARB and in that form?

And I will also just point out that it's you know, not building on a uh formerly vacant lot, it is replacing a former garage that is it's actually fairly comparable in size to the former garage that was there.

Well, it's actually higher than the garage that was there.

I said fairly comparable.

I didn't say exactly the same.

So the uh it's it's fairly comparable.

It's across the street from the 165 Bank of America building.

Right.

There are other buildings like Hotel Bethlehem that are much taller than seven stories in the heart of the of the historic district and right over top of the UNESCO World Heritage designated site for those.

And future development proposed there as well.

That's at tall as well.

So it doesn't stand alone in that regard.

Right.

But those buildings were also there prior to the HARP being formed.

Um the um I I I would just hope is there any chance that are they is there any chance that if they don't agree to going to a smaller building that we could bring in a we could, I mean, are they locked in now as a developer there, or is it there a chance it would if they don't agree to a smaller building that we could reopen it up and another RFQ again?

Well, I'll just ground you in the the process that is unfolding.

So, as you know, the HARB is a recommending body for any project that is proposed in the historic district.

So uh the developer will come back and they will present uh revision based on the last conversation that they had.

The board could decide at that point to recommend approval, they could decide to recommend denial, they could ask for more changes and they could continue to have a back and forth conversation.

At some point, there will be a recommendation, positive or negative to to you all counts.

Yeah, right.

And and at that point, then you could support their positive recommendation.

You you could vote for the certificate of appropriateness, you could vote against it.

In and if council voted again, if hard voted against it, we voted against it.

Are they locked in as the developer?

Or could we open it up to a different developer with a s uh uh a smaller um height of of a building?

Well, if they if they can't get approval at any stage, right?

Like their their agreement is conditioned on going through the land development process and getting approvals from various bodies, including city council, the planning commission, just all of the right like permits, all of those regular approval processes.

If they cannot produce a project, so they're not locked garnish those approvals.

Right.

We're not gonna leave a hole in the ground, obviously.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

I just want to make sure that if if they don't agree to the HARB, uh if if the HARP doesn't and the the HARB members that I did speak to, they're all against the seven-story concept as I am.

And I would hope the rest of council, I mean, I I don't know what they're the rest of the council is, but just knowing what the conversations were on the height of the buildings on a south side, uh everybody was against seven-story buildings over there.

I just can't imagine you know that it would be um something that would be agreed upon for the for the harb area.

Uh so I mean if participate they'll go back, I think it in October is when they're likely to come back to the Harbor My fear is this that if uh seven stories is approved there, uh seven stories are gonna go up everywhere in a city because if you could put it in the harb, you could put it anywhere.

I don't care what part of South Side or North Side or West Side.

I mean, we're talking about the HARP with the most historic area of our of our city.

So um I I have some other things, but I'll wait to the next meeting because I don't want to I've already taken up enough time.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Callan.

Thank you, Ms.

Collins.

Any other new business members countwoman Laird?

Um before you walk away.

I'm going out of order on my list, but I I don't want you to have to get back up.

Um for the former Martin Tower site.

Yes.

Um it sounds uh like previously the developer was interested in speaking to the people who were on council at the time, um, a couple years ago.

I was not, I've never been contacted by this developer or had any conversation with them.

So um would it be something you said we could reach out to the developer and say, hey, the city's willing to to talk about this, what's going on.

Would that actually be something that we as council members could be encouraged to do to contact would that be something your office would support to say, hey, let's go have a conversation um as council members to see what we can do for our community about the holdup here.

Obviously, as council members, we can also just do these things, but I'm I'm curious what what your office's input would be.

That's an interesting question.

Well, I I wouldn't suggest going like together as a group and sunshine laws, of course not as long as I'm not sure.

What you want to do with the developer.

Um it's not my legal advice, but that's just a thought.

Um, I certainly I like I said, we're very I'm very open to having continued conversations.

And you know, I do think I would hope, as in most of these processes that city council would ultimately look to the planning bureau, our planning professionals, our zoning professionals for their input on any proposals that come forward, which is why it it you know, typically that is the the way in which these things go, right?

We will review things first, and we might come forward with alerta um from like an economic development and a city finance perspective based on like our expertise, our analysis of both you know, a potential payment in lieu of, but as it compares to like the tax abatement and the taxes that we are giving up, you know, so sort of doing that analysis based on our expertise.

Um, and similarly with any zoning requests, like we would we would like that to kind of come through our office so that we can give like informed and professional input and advice.

Um, but but there's nothing that stops you as an individual member of council from having a conversation.

Certainly, and and to to clarify my opinion, intent would not be to go and like take professional duties from people who are experts in this.

But like I said, I wasn't on council um, you know, before during or now uh after for any of these conversations.

And um, if they have been willing to talk about their vision and ideas, it might be an interesting perspective um as the newbie here, but it's two years in, and I haven't heard from anybody on the on their side.

So uh just curious.

Um, I think that that was until we get to Saldo later.

I I think that that was uh my only questions for you.

So thank you.

Um Mr.

Bascola switch it.

We'll switch it up.

Um so you and I have talked before about uh the various complications about um water uh utility tracking apps and things like that.

Um, that there, you know, there is cost to the city and therefore to residents, um, that there's uh an ROI based on how many of the smart meters are already installed versus not, uh, and the technical capabilities to to install these um implement uh system like this in your office.

Um so one question I have now uh is at this point, what percentage of the meters have been converted to smart meters?

Ballpark as of today.

A little more than 50%, so 20,000 plus out of 37,000.

Okay.

So 20 divided by 37.

And by year end, so next budget year, uh what would the uh what is the goal for the percentage?

I think there's probably there's maybe another 1500 to 2000, so maybe two 22,000, I'll say roughly speaking by the end of the year.

Okay.

Um, but that does tip us over into the majority realm.

Um so I'm wondering as we move into the budget season approaching.

Um could we see what the costs would look like or have conversations in preparation for budget review about implementing something like that for our water system and residents?

So we have started looking at these type of platforms, and it's a shame the gentleman who normally speaks on these matters left, but maybe maybe he's watching on YouTube.

But um so what we've learned so about these type of systems so far.

So there are several different models, software, they're all software platforms.

Um what we have uh found is that um we are desire is two broad goals if we're gonna roll out a platform like this for public facing for the for the consumer.

One is to offer the public access to their meter data, and like the gentleman uh speaks about a lot, tracking their usage, giving themselves alarms if there's a high usage so that they can track their metered usage on their own, right?

So they wouldn't have to rely on the city for that effort.

So that's one element.

The other element that often comes with these type of software packages is the bill pay and the several options available for paying their bills.

We get a lot more, I'll be honest about this.

We get a lot more inquiries from the public about this, that matter than we do about tracking their usage.

So right now everybody gets a paper bill and they pay their bill once a quarter.

Okay.

It's a one-time event every quarter or monthly.

People, what we do not offer yet is paperless billing, automatic billing.

Um, you know, we're we live in a economy now where more people, more residents, more homeowners are used to uh having you know uh ACH payments coming directly out of their checking account, you know, for things like utilities, insurance payments, mortgages and so forth, you know, household expenses that are re uh repetitive, routine, relatively constant from month to month or quarter to quarter, like a water bill, they'd like to see a lot of people don't want to see it.

They just get a paperless bill, you get an email, it comes out of your checking account, done.

Right.

So those so that type of platform that we're looking for.

Um, and it involves coordination with our IT department, our financial services department, because you know we're talking about moving money around.

There's a lot of data.

Obviously, there's you know, if you think about 37,000 customers monitoring all these data points every hour of every day.

So there's a lot of data transfer, there's security issues relative to that, because a lot of this information is now cloud-based.

Okay, so there's that issue.

Um so yeah, so we're looking at this these platforms just from every angle.

So um, but it is our goal to implement something.

Now I can't give you a time frame on this just because there's so many different pieces and moving parts involved, but it is a goal to try and implement something.

I can't say when, if it's next year, it would be good to try and get something in next year.

Um, but I can't make any promises just because there's so many moving parts and involves fine, it involves other matters like financial services and so forth.

We do we did get some at least budgetary costs, you know, the startup costs for these type of systems are in the low six figures.

Okay, 100,000 um for year one.

And then you have ongoing service costs, you know, licensing fees, cloud storage, that kind of thing that is usually somewhat less than 100,000 a year.

So in the five-figure range.

So that's kind of like from a budgeting standpoint what you're looking at kind of long term.

Okay.

So I I understand that you're going to do due diligence and include the uh, you know, teamwork with other departments.

So there's not a firm timeline at this point, but um, would it be reasonable to think that we might see a budgetary thing since you have gotten some round numbers included so that there's some money earmarked for for this potentially this coming year?

Yes, that would be a goal to try and fit something, at least at least uh an earmark or a but a line item in the budget um as a goal to try and get something moving on that.

Great.

I I appreciate the progress update on that.

Thank you.

Um, then I believe that this would be Mr.

Evans question.

Um in terms of the um the saldo ordinance, um this is not about the content.

Um, so that's why I'm asking it right now.

Uh the the link that Ms.

Noonan pointed out um is indeed broken.

Um you can Google it and find it through the planning and zoning office.

But if you go to the zone to the ordinances list and scroll down to Saldo, it's broken and you get a 404.

Um, I didn't go on Wayback Machine sitting right here, but I'll I'll take her word for it that it's been that way for a while.

Um, do we have something running on our city's site looking for broken links uh on any sort of regular basis?

Um, so that we don't encounter hiccups like that in the future.

Yeah, there are common reviews both with our IT, but also our our web support or KSAMD takes a look at.

So that's the first time I've heard of that one.

We'll have that looked at tomorrow.

Notify the IT department, and we'll go from there and make sure that gets put back up there.

Okay.

And and I think I I would just be curious um, you know, how often, if there is something that's kind of um scanning the site to look for broken links, how often that's happening and um you know whose responsibility it is to is that KSA and D, like where is it defined um to take the responsibility to make sure that um our people can always access the information that that we want to be sharing on our website.

Um then um in terms of the app we heard a few things, the My Bethlehem app.

Um, we heard a few comments from Ms.

Cloyber about um you know getting some incorrect responses, or at least she believes them to be incorrect responses.

Um and I know for uh for from a personal perspective, I put in a ticket and uh uh very recently um that you know kind of got the same auto response a few hours later, uh, just saying it's been sent to somebody um the exact same words.

It was it was odd.

And we've heard that before at meetings.

Um I'm curious.

Um if there's I know we have a service center that works hard and is trained.

Um, and I'm sure they get updated training.

Um, I'm curious if they have a central knowledge base that they access to get answers that they're sharing with people, or if it's kind of what they know or you know, they call somebody and ask like how are they providing the answers to city services information that they're providing?

Like it's a source.

Chief Chief Cott would answer she's not here tonight to oversees a service center.

So even for the city services matters that are outside of the police force, it's it would still fall under the police jurisdiction.

Yeah, it's one way the apps is not built as you know, or designed or does not function as a back and forth.

There's back and forth through email.

Uh, if you call 7,000, you could have a live conversation.

But those are people that work under the police department.

Uh, they are informed as much as possible, but they're it would be impossible for them to know or have answers to every single city function across all six departments that and everything that we take care of in the city.

So typically it's designed.

I mean, Chief Cock could expand on this maybe more at the next meeting, but designed for them to take and then dispatch questions or information to each different department.

That's what it typically would be.

And then the department could then respond as necessary.

But to answer live on the phone or email is not really the role that they could perform or expected to perform.

And so is that part, well, that would be a question for her, then I guess whether it's part of their training to not provide information and just say, like we have, which is the auto response I got.

We've passed your information on.

Um, you know, in instead of trying to answer a question via the platform that's not designed for that.

They are provided, and again, I'm kind of stepping into Chief Gott's zone here, but information when there's um closings, street closings, they may have wear right in front of them.

There's areas of recreation pools are closed.

That kind of information is passed down on them as that's as a matter of as a matter of practice, but uh yeah, an overall encompassing of changing of light balls in streets, that would belong to public works.

That's something that I believe they're expected to forward to public works.

And when it arrives at public works, they would then dispatch it to one of their 10 bureaus, wherever that specialty is, and that answer is gonna be delivered from that point.

Um, and the app overall, most of the um tickets would not be police matters, right?

Like most of the requests put in would not be like relating to direct police.

I don't know, probably not, no, I don't think.

So again, this the app came about before I was on council.

Um, what was the rationale for uh having it live within the the police because this service center performs 90% of their functions are not that there they do a whole lot.

If you if you met with Chief Cott, take a tour, she could show you all the things they do during the day.

Some of counsel may have been down there to see what they do between the cameras that they observe, the assistance with the police officers out in the field.

They get a number of them and a number of phone calls, but that's I don't know if you know the word the Genesis was.

It was the 911 center until the summer of 2019.

It was decided at that time in the previous administration that 911, the state, there's only two left in the state that belonged to cities.

It was Allentown and Bethlehem.

At that time, the state said pretty much delivered the directive that Allentown would consolidate to Lehigh County, Bethlehem would consolidate to Northampton County.

That went well, the transfer went well.

And at that time, administration had decided we do want to keep a 24-7 call line that can do.

It's not built for emergencies.

It's built to receive information and then distribute in the most efficient way versus someone calling all over the designers call the requests or the app or the email or the phone message will be delivered to where it is.

If it's overnight, they'll get it in the morning.

At least you can answer.

And if it is something important, they can direct it as needed, but they make those decisions based on their training.

Does it need to go right now, or is there something that waits in the morning?

Is it something that's delivered in an email?

Most of the requests that they come in will go into our service request, which is part of our enterprise software.

And then that way that in the morning, depending where what category gets classified as, that email goes to the appropriate pre-selected bureau.

So if it's grass and weeds is going to get delivered to a CED email, they'll then address in the morning.

That answer then, or that action would be dictated by the Bureau went to.

So yeah, thank you.

And I I will follow up with her.

Um, thank you for answering the case.

It's a great setup.

They just got a lot of new um new technology as well.

So I think it's a very worthwhile anyone on council who has not had the tour and visit and meet with them, see what they do day in, day out, because it is it is functioned, uh, it is staffed 24-7, sometimes two, three people, sometimes uh one to two people, but they're always able there to be there when they're working sometimes a lot busier than others, but it's a very helpful, I we believe, efficient function of the city.

Gotcha.

And I saw you were like getting ready.

I don't want to put you on this the spot, but if you have anything that you feel like you should be adding, otherwise I'll just follow up with cheap cotton.

Thank you.

Uh okay, I believe that's it for now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other new business from Councilwoman Cramsy Smith?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um this is regarding the developments, and I just have some some food for thoughts.

So we currently have, to my knowledge, four developments being proposed in which homes are going to be demolished for rental units.

First of all, um, if we're looking at demolishing existing home for apartments, it's not solving the problem of providing housing that's affordable to lower than middle count middle income folks.

And we found that out with the Garrison Street New Street, because we have many affordable units that are now going to be knocked down to put up 70 some apartments that will be not affordable.

Some of the buildings being demolished, as I said before, or providing housing.

Um in the case of Eighth Avenue, we have a ranch home to be demolished for apartments.

At a recent Lehigh Valley Planning Commission meeting, it was noted that ranch homes in the Lehigh Valley are unicorns, meaning they are unique and hardly ever available for sale.

I myself know many folks that are looking for a ranch home due to aging and physical disabilities.

So we're going to take an in-demand ranch home and take it off the market for unaffordable apartments.

The majority of residential development in our city again is rentals.

We need to balance this with owner-occupied.

Again, at the national and state level, I've said it before, the ratio is 30% rentals here in Bethlehem, it's 50 rentals, 50 owner-occupied.

The number of rentals are growing exponentially.

And most, if not all, are not affordable for the average citizen of Bethlehem or resident of Bethlehem.

From an environmental perspective, which we always talk about our environmental action committee and our climate action plan, the preservation of homes is congruent with environmentalism, while the demolition and new construction is the antithesis of environmentalism.

And a significant note in the case of Eighth Avenue, we have a willow tree that is a hundred to a hundred and fifty years old, which will see its demise if this development is approved.

And we have a similar case with the tree on Roach and Hanover Street.

Most important of all in these developments, I think we have to look at the quality of life of the neighbors and the preservation of that which makes our city special, namely our unique neighborhoods and homes.

Neighbors in this case will see their homes and properties encroached upon, garbage dumpsters probably are butting their yards.

Children are going to lose the alley that is their playground.

This rental apartment building will be the only three-story building among stuff, two-story homes in this neighborhood.

And we also got to consider the impact on local infrastructure.

The opening doors affordable housing uh study that the administration um paid for, call for eliminating and decreasing single family zoning.

However, this is very important nationwide, it's a tool to increase density for more affordable housing.

Eliminating and decreasing single family zoning is not a tool to increase density for non-affordable housing.

So I asked this what's our vision for a great city?

Is it a community that's going to be balanced with rentals and owner-occupied homes, preserving the neighborhoods that are predecessors created and so valued?

Or is it going to be the destruction of homes and neighborhoods to be a city of unaffordable apartments and the resultant exodus of residents who can't afford to live here?

So what I'd like to know, because it seems like this is becoming a snowball.

We have two proposals that are going to be on the zoning board for next week, if not more.

We had two that went to the planning commission this week that got approved.

And I'm wondering, and I don't know if this would be Mr.

Evans or Ms.

Collins, what's the what is the administration's position on these developments or the general movement of demolishing single family homes so we can put up rentals.

Thank you.

Yeah, I guess that's me.

Well, so just with respect to what's going before the zoning hearing board, you know, we we enforce the ordinances that are in place.

So, you know, currently under the zoning ordinance, it is permissible to knock down a single family home.

And depending on what residential district you're in, you know, you can build on your lot as prescribed by the zoning ordinance.

And it's those provisions of the zoning ordinance that are like the specific explanation of the the like whereas aspirational clauses in the beginning.

So, you know, by passing the zoning ordinance that says in a high density residential district, you could build, you know, three units on X size lots with these dimensions, like we are saying, or we said in 2012, like that is what's appropriate, that is what's good for the you know, neighborhood.

It's it is what accomplishes all of those whereas goals that are described in the beginning.

So if there are developments that do not meet certain requirements of the zoning ordinance, you know, we send those, our planning and zoning bureau sends those to the zoning hearing board, a quasi-judicial board to determine, you know, if they are, you know, can meet a variance or you know, hardship, you know, et cetera.

That's not for us to decide.

It's set up that way in our in our structure for the zoning hearing board to decide.

Um, there are some instances where we will perhaps go and play a more active role.

So, for example, with the 312 Hanover case, like we will have the solicitor's office there defending the city's position.

That's because in that particular instance, there is, as uh Ms.

Rodriguez pointed out, there's an interpretive issue.

So it's not just that somebody is saying, you know, we don't comply with the zoning, but give us a variance because we have a hardship, and then that's like a factual sort of question.

You know, there's a there's actually an interpretation of what our law says.

And so we will have our solicitor there to defend what the zoning ordinance says in in that instance.

So I guess um I'm I'm aware of like the variances and and how the process goes.

But I guess what I'm wondering is, you know, generally each administration or leaders usually have a vision for what they want, their plan for the city.

I mean, you know, I mean, you could smile, but um it's real, let's be real.

Um, and right now I think we're looking at, you know, in my mind, and a lot of the people that that talk to me, people here tonight, and everyone I talk to, all my constituents again, are really concerned about the fact that we're just you know building all these apartments, and especially when they look at what is to do in the neighborhoods where we're looking at taking down homes.

Um, and I don't bring this up because this is like one instant and isolated, it's not, it just seems like it's it's more and more.

So I'm wondering what's the administration's vision or where do they stand on that?

And because I know other people that have been on zoning hearing boards said, every mayor has already always given them a note or spoke to them saying, yeah, we're in favor of this or we're not.

So I guess I'm just wondering what what is you know, the vision for the city or the administration as far as this proceeding.

As as you in particular know, I mean, housing is a very complicated issue.

It's why we've been talking about it for many years.

There's many different approaches to you know, addressing our housing supply and demand challenge.

You know, the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission has identified that we are currently almost 1,100 units short in the city of Bethlehem alone by 2050, we're gonna be close to 5,000 units short in the Lehigh Valley in total.

I think it's something like 9,000 short currently across the Lehigh Valley and 54,000 by 2050.

Like those are those are massive numbers, and it's hard to ignore that there must be an increase in supply.

And I agree with Mr.

Callahan on that point.

Um, but of course, there is a balance.

And so we talk consistently about neighborhood compatible development.

Now, neighborhood compatible development can look like a variety of different things in different parts of our city.

You know, currently we're using the zoning ordinance as it's written.

Like that is our definition of of what's appropriate for neighborhoods.

But as you know, we've talked about in the opening doors plan, like looking back at our zoning.

We're starting with looking at accessory dwelling units as one component, and we're doing a deep dive and considering that across the city.

And we're doing a deep dive and considering that across the city.

But I think you know, there's opportunity to look you know broader than that and to consider you know what are infill opportunities.

And I don't think that infill opportunities in neighborhoods are necessarily a bad thing, but they must be compatible with the neighborhood.

And there are plenty of you know examples across the country where you can build townhouses, you know, next to a single family home and it can work, but not without you know thought and consideration for appropriate scale and size and all of those things.

So you know, I again, this is just one small piece of a very large conversation.

Um, but what I'll also add is you know, we can't we are subject to how the market is functioning, and that's just a part of might agree with Mr.

Faber on that point, right?

But you know, because of the nationwide and the Lehigh Valley wide increase in housing demand, housing costs, and the lack of supply, like it is currently as long as we are so deficient in supply across the Lehigh Valley and you know in Bethlehem, but across the country as well, as long as we're so deficient in supply, it is more profitable for anyone to tear down a single family home and build things that are potentially out of scale for a neighborhood or to consolidate lots.

We don't we don't want ness like we don't want people buying up nine lots in an area and consolidating them and building massive out-of-scale, you know, buildings.

We don't want that, but currently in the market with the supply and demand what it is, that that is the profitable approach, and it is you know, allowed a property owner is allowed to do those things by zoning, and we are limited sometimes in what we can do.

So I think you know, it's a combination of approaches to address all of these issues.

And I usually understand thoughtful neighborhood compatible development.

My cons my concern is that I'm not seeing that you know, we need so many, we need more rental units.

Um, we need 1100.

I mean, we could almost have that if we could get Martin Tower going.

But my concern is we're what are we doing to get affordable units, you know, because the problem is most of the units, people in the city cannot afford.

And so what are we looking at?

I mean, it seems like we're not really getting ahead in this situation here.

Definitely give up.

And if you know, if somebody needs a variance, that could be you know, um, a tool or an incentive or a carrot that we have, you know, that's what they do throughout the country, and I just don't see us doing that.

And that that's concerning to me that we're just putting up so many more units, but none of them are affordable.

Well, I'll definitely put in a plug.

We're having our next opening doors um update meeting, quarterly meeting in September.

I don't remember the exact date, but we are we're we're doing quite a bit of housing work and we do report on that regularly.

And I would encourage everyone, you know, to come to that meeting and and look through what you know, what we're working on, what we're checking off in you know, carrying out the opening doors plan.

But when you're talking about affordable units, it is extremely expensive to build affordable units.

It takes a lot of public incentive, it takes a lot of time.

Um, we're working.

I I think we're particularly proud of our partnership with LVIP and the project that we're working on in South Bethlehem, the um gateway project, it's going to be 120 units, two-thirds of which are going to be affordable, and a third will be marketed.

You know, it's a mixed income development, which is the model for uh most affordable housing development in the in you know in the LITEC space, so the low-income housing tax credits.

Um, we're waiting for our application to hopefully get a favorable result.

I think in September we'll be hearing back on that.

Those projects take a lot of time and they take a lot of effort.

Um, we're also working with the housing authority very closely.

Um, you know, um councilwoman uh um QuiTech or Leon can can talk to you about the choice neighborhoods project, which we've talked about before, but we I would love for you to come and get a more comprehensive um update at the opening doors meeting.

But that's a project to take 196 public housing units and you know, completely reimagine that Pembroke neighborhood, and it could add up to a total of about 400 or 450 units in that area.

Again, a mix of those public housing, some and then on a range of um affordable up-to-market rate in that area to create mixed income opportunities and like housing choice, so people aren't just congregated or are stuck in uh affordable um units, but have opportunities to grow.

Um, and we're hoping to you know work with Habitat as well for some potential homeownership opportunities as part of that.

Um, you know, and that's it, that's a huge chunk of like our time and energy is is into these kind of projects, these kind of partnerships.

Um, a lot of public dollars need to go into that.

And so those are you know decisions we all have to make moving forward about what we're able to support in terms of gap financing, but um, you know, there's there's a a lot of movement there.

And then we also know that you know, in terms of affordable, keeping people in their existing affordable units is of course uh a component of that as well.

It's why we work so closely and so well with community action development at Bethlehem.

We fund their tenant organizer who does an excellent job of you know working with individuals who are facing.

Excuse me, I excuse me, Collins, I know, but I think we're getting off target here.

We were talking about the developments, and I know all the things we're doing.

You were asking about affordable housing.

Yeah, and I think about affordable too, keeping them in their units.

We aren't doing that at the New Street and Garrison development.

But go moving on to sticking with developments.

Um, can I just ask for the Martin Tower?

Because I know I I did meet with the developers and they were, you know, the thing was you have alert, and it's not, it's it's not like you know they're paying to get something.

It's like the alert is there, and they said they would like to do the alerta and they would pay the fee in lieu, and we would get multi-millions and affordable housing, which would be great, as well as land to put affordable housing on there.

But I guess I'm wondering because based on your conversation before with um Councilman Um Callahan, how do other developers get the alerta?

I mean, you know, do they call and say, hey, you know, I have this, can I get alerta?

Or do you say, hey, you can get the alerta?

Like how does that we have never done a singular alerta.

We've never done a one-off LERTA, we've never done alert in response to a developer asking for one.

So in the city traditionally, I mean, we've had LERTA as a as a successful incentive for 30 years, and we've always done it strategically by it by a district.

So, you know, most of it started mostly in South Bethlehem and the former Bethlehem Steel site.

I mean, it is an economic development tool more than a housing tool traditionally, um, and and as it was intended originally.

So we looked across you know, the former Bethlehem Steel Land.

We looked at blighted properties because we let's not forget that it is not for any property, it is for blighted properties.

So for the five temp development, excuse me, the five temp flask was in that, so did they were just able to get the alerted because it was in the Bethlehem Steel blighted property?

Because it was in one of the districts that city council would have approved.

So, for example, you know, you as a member of city council have voted for the South Side LERTA 2 district.

That was the second iteration of a South Side district.

Um, you probably voted for the affordable housing LERTA district, which again was a district.

And so, you know, our office would look, we would really be driving the train on what incentives are necessary, like a butt for incentive to make properties or an area developable.

Um, and you know, we would go property by property, we would talk with you know different developers, but we would ultimately be creating like a full district looking at um overcoming blight and other and other kinds of challenges.

We're very hesitant to, as you're describing, respond to individual developer requests and other communities do that.

Easton does that for example.

Um, but our experience is that that is a very slippery slope because obviously every developer wants a tax incentive, every single one.

So if we set a precedent whereby we are responding to each individual request rather than being forward thinking and deciding for ourselves based on our own professional expertise, what's necessary in a particular area, we put ourselves in a disadvantage.

And you know, sometimes we talk in other contexts about um, you know, developers who will come in and they will ask for like a demolition by neglect.

They just let something go for so long, and finally it's like now I have no choice but to demolish this.

You know, developers in larger properties do similar things.

They let it go, they let it go, they let it go to sort of force your hand to give up, you know, incentives that we might not otherwise recommend.

And it's you know, it's just it's something that happens in this in this space.

Um, thank you.

I guess I just I have to say, um, you know, I'm just hearing a lot of people, everyone I talked to is just really concerned about this.

So I think it's something that I hope everyone really gives a lot of thought to.

Um, the only other thing I have for you is uh um also I've had a lot of people reach out and um are concerned about you know the the folks um residing down at the the canal and the the river and I'm just wondering is there anything being done to help them as far as give getting them services or looking at opening the shelter earlier, like they're doing in Allentown, you know, just because of for their sake, the way they're living, God forbid, you know, if there's um you know flooding there or fires or anything else is I mean, it's just not a real great way to be living.

We know that.

So is there anything that um is being worked on to assist them to try to get them somewhere else?

Yeah, so I think uh, you know, members of uh our health bureau have talked about this a number of times.

But we have a really robust community connections program that you know provides direct services to individuals who are living in encampments, uh working with many individuals one-on-one, really understanding exactly who is is where, getting people connected or trying to get people connected to services, trying to get people connected into housing potential um situations through various organizations, and maintaining really strong relationships with all the existing service providers who are doing work down there.

That's street outreach, that's um New Bethany, that's conference of churches, people who are on the ground doing one-on-one, you know, kind of social work on a regular basis.

Um, you know, we do also have Bethlehem Emergency Shelter, that is a uh temporary, you know, cold weather shelter.

Allentown is opening theirs early because they're clearing their encampment, you know, we are not in that.

I guess I'm just wondering, is there any way that we can open ours early?

Just because the numbers are increasing.

Well, right, but can we work with them?

We you know, if they came to us with a request to open early, like that would certainly be something that we would entertain.

They are currently restricted to their um months of operation based on a zoning decision that predates I think a lot of us, but when they moved into their location at um Christchurch in in historic Bethlehem, there was a uh zoning, I think it was a variance that they needed probably to operate there, and there were conditions placed on their approval, um, which doesn't allow them currently to open longer than they than they are.

Um, you know, so we we've had conversations, they know that if they wanted to open for for more months, or if you know we collectively decided that that was something that was necessary, with that they would have to go back to zoning.

We can't because again, because they're separate and zoning is quasi-judicial, we can't administratively approve that, but that is you know something that we could support.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, councilwoman.

Any other new business, councilman Leo?

I can make it quick.

Most of my questions um were asked.

Uh it's gonna be for you, so you can stay there.

But I just want to give a plug for a book because I do love to read.

Uh, The Color of Law is a very interesting book.

Uh, so anybody who wants to read it, specifically anybody on council has to do a lot with zoning and the history of certain zoning districts.

Um, I also had a question about not more not really a question, but an observation, as other communities that have said they wouldn't sweep are beginning to sweep.

I just hope that we are preparing for the inevitability of of what's to come because we do have great relationships with who already exists along the canal.

Um, but that community is in flux.

And and I'm already seeing uh the effects of of the people coming into to Bethlehem from some of the Allentown sweeps, and just want to make sure that we're obviously aware of the increasing number um as communities are sweeping into uh Bethlehem.

The only other question I had, and it's it's surface level, I'll probably ask more questions after I've read through this packet.

Um, but with this uh this business that's operating out of a residence, have have anybody gone and verified that it is a business operating out of a residence and not just the business that has the LLC associated with this address and just the thought process behind going after the landlord.

Is it just because this is a renter and you don't have a direct direct access to the renter?

You have to deal with the landlord.

Those are the only two questions because I really want to read through this and see what's going on.

Sure.

So the short answer is we've uh after receiving complaints, we've done a number of um observations.

We we were not able to cooperate the complaints that came in.

Um so last December, I want to say the property was up for a regular rental inspection.

And so that was the time that we were actually in the property, and we also did not find any evidence that that it was occurring.

But we've you know, more recently found um through a commonwealth source, like a connection with the LLC there, which is why we were able to send the violation warning letter.

Um, but by ordinance that goes to the property owner because it is the property owner who would be responsible for ensuring that its tenant gets the proper certifications.

And so in that district, you can have a home occupancy, you just need to fill out the proper permits.

So basically what we said is this is what we've determined.

Um, here are the forms, you know, fill these out and say that you know we can review them and you can come into compliance.

Okay, and this might be uh okay.

So if someone is allowed to operate a business and say it is a business that is like traffic heavy, i.e.

fixing cars or anything like that, and this business that is operating doesn't exist within an RPP.

How do we then make sure that a business that we're allowing to off to operate there doesn't have such a negative negative impact if it's like you know?

I mean, I have uncles that work in HVAC.

I would not want to live next to them if they're constantly bringing washers and dryers back, you know.

So like I'm curious as to if we're or do would they just not be given the business license?

How would we stop that?

So if you if you when I read this, I I think so.

So I think the letter that we sent out may have been circulated.

And so in there, that violation warning letter, it does cite the entire section of the zoning ordinance that has like the conditions before, yeah.

And and there's a variety of them.

I don't know them all off the top of my head, but there's a variety that would I think cover things like parking and traffic and impacts in the neighborhood.

Awesome.

All right, the only other question I have is for our solicitor, so thank you very much.

Um, I had a quick question about the zoning hearing board.

Um, so I've been to a zoning hearing board and spoke as a resident.

It was um one of Ronka's projects, it was infill on the south side.

Great project, got tripped up on some like river rocks or something like that.

I could speak at that.

I spoke as a resident, but if we have as council members have concerns, I think I've been vocal about my opposition of the eighth Av project, but if we have council members have concerns, are we within our right to go to the zoning hearing board and express those concerns, or do we have to comply with that geographical restricted area of the zoning hearing board?

Uh it would be my recommendation that you go before the zoning hearing board as a resident.

So we have to however those are open meetings.

So you in terms of notice, you know, not everyone necessarily gets personalized notice unless the zoning issue has some kind of direct impact.

But you so we would have to go as residents, and if our zoning hearing board, which they do, if you have to live within a certain distance, like a certain distance to the development, at least that's how I've seen it done at the zoning hearing boards.

Would we have to come like we would have to do that?

Like you would have to live within like a thousand feet or whatever.

Now, without without the benefit of any specific provisions of your zoning ordinance in front of me right now, I will say typically in other municipalities that the um that the ability to be recognized as a party is generally more limited to you know, people directly affected by potentially affected by a zoning decision.

But that I don't know of anything in your zoning ordinance that would disallow a citizen to appear and make comment.

Thanks.

Any other new business from members of council?

I I just have two quick questions.

Uh Ms.

Collins on the on the affordable housing units going on the south side.

You had said that one third of them are going to be market rate and two-thirds of them are going to be affordable housing.

Yes.

Okay.

Are the two is that forever, or is that just for a limited period of time?

There are period of affordability requirements associated with the funding.

Sometimes they're 15, 20 years.

I can't remember actually specifically.

All right.

So at some point they can just become market rate.

All right.

Um, I don't know who wants to answer this one, but um if Miss I I don't know this, but if councilman uh councilwoman uh Leone is correct in the Allentown, um, some of the homeless encampments are from Allentown or coming to Bethlehem.

Uh are we doing anything to provide them uh a warning system if there is um a flash flood?

I I can't I don't I've been here a long time.

I don't remember that area of flooding.

Um maybe once, but um I I know that Allen Town's reasoning behind it is the uh after effects of what happened in Texas.

So I just don't want um is there some way of one of the after effects of uh what happened at Texas was there was no warning sirens or or anything like that if there was flooding, and I'm sure that we'd have a lot of notice prior to a substantial rain that would bring that much flooding to that area.

But I mean, is there anything that we're doing to help alleviate some of the uh the overcrowding that's going to happen down there from the people coming over from Allentown?

And is there any chances of flooding or notification system for that?

I'm not aware of a notification system with respect to people coming from Allentown.

You know, our our community connections folks are down there on a regular basis.

We have good relationships with people, so we are you know trying to understand if people are coming from Allentown.

Um, so far we're not seeing a large um increase.

Um you may have also seen that Allentown delayed their removal by a month.

So it was supposed to be the end of August, and it's now not until the end of September.

So most people have not yet left the Jordan Creek area, and we have not seen an increase here, but we're spending a lot of time communicating again with the service providers, but also with our counterparts in Allentown and Community Economic Development and the Health Bureau, in addition to the service providers.

Um what they're doing over there is this they are doing case um management plans for each individual in the Jordan Creek encampment, and they are trying to get as many of those people of those people as possible to go to the Allentown Y, which is going to be opening early at the end of September.

So the first encampment that they are looking at, I believe is about 60 people.

I think I I don't I can't, I'm cannot speak for Allentown, but I think a majority of the people that they are interacting with who are currently in that area are saying that they're planning to go to the Allentown Y.

Um other people, I believe, are working with service providers on other potential housing options.

So I just want to dispel the notion that necessarily like 60 people are gonna, you know, stand up in Allentown and then and then walk to Bethlehem.

All right, but but uh councilman when one minute would there you have seen a little uptick?

Yeah, do you no?

I'm just saying I I think I should clarify my statements in like it's not like Allentown's is sweeping and they're automatically coming here.

It's just when Allentown has said that they were going to do that sweep.

So I've been thinking about this for about three weeks when Allentown initially did have that conversation.

I thought about the impact of other communities that have already swept their community because if you go down to the canal and you talk to people, it's not like everybody down there is a Bethlehem resident, they've come from somewhere else.

And it's it's uh common patterns that we we saw it in Hawaii a lot where people would get tickets from Chicago and fly them down to Hawaii because they didn't want to deal with them.

So if we if we have a standard practice of not sweeping, um, then we become a place that might be a path where people know that they can get services.

Um, so my concern is that if we are going to see other communities sweep when they have said they wouldn't sweep, um, unless they have a robust system of working with nonprofits that are there to catch to catch what they're sweeping, like these human beings that they're sweeping.

Um, unless there's a robust system there, they're going to go where they know that they can get resources, and that's here.

So I I'm not saying that Allentown anyone is coming here.

I'm just saying that if we're going to see an uptick in people sweeping encampments and doing it and saying 20 days as opposed to 60 or 90, which is what we know it takes to get someone connected with services.

I just want to make sure that that we as a community are also having the conversation of how that might affect us.

So I I didn't mean that they're coming here.

Um, I just meant that like if we're seeing, and I have seen a couple new faces.

I it is that time of year where people are transiting through.

Um, so I'm not implying that everyone that got swept from Allentown is immediately coming here.

I'm just concerned that if someone is given 15 to 20 days notice, that's not enough time for service providers to actually make a genuine connection and get them connected to resources because it does take takes way more than 20 days to do it.

So I I probably just worded that wrong.

Yeah, so that's that's what I meant.

Yeah, I maybe still also concerned about the safety if there is flooding in that area.

I I don't ever remember flooding coming up that high, but you know, I know that's the reason in an Allentown incited for for moving them out of that encampment was a flooding concern.

And I know that our our encampment is um a little higher above the Lee High, you know, but it is close to monoclasty and that floods often.

So thank you.

Thank you for the information.

Any other new business members council?

Just have a couple of things, Ms.

Collins, real quick.

It's just I know historically we would after zoning hearing board meeting, council would get through the clerk's office an update of what the rulings or decisions were.

I'm not sure if we've still been getting them.

Not that I could think of off memory.

I couldn't find any in my email.

So if you can please just coordinate with the clerk's office and identify wherever the the laps has been just to make sure, because there's certain things are more uh broadly discussed, sure just to keep us informed.

I appreciate that.

And similarly, thank you for, I mean, I had an opportunity to speak with some of the um speakers via email or phone tonight previously, and you had shared with me some you know, follow-up information that come through the clerk's office.

So I just appreciate you keeping, you know, whether it I reach out to you or other members of council reach out to you in form because it of course helps us to have more information as we try to communicate with people who on the tell people to email us.

It helps that we know what we're talking about a little bit.

So, but Ms.

Collins is one of the resources I use to get information.

So thank you.

And then just a quick question.

I don't have anything else, Ms.

Collins.

Thanks.

And appreciate all your time.

Uh, just a quick question for our solicitors.

We're talking about the zoning hearing board.

Do you have an opinion of?

I mean, it was referenced.

You know, sometimes people reach out to us, people will talk to us, things like that.

This is exclusive to the zoning hearing board.

Do you have an opinion of I'll just use myself, I councilman cologne.

If there is a uh something on the agenda for the zoning hearing board that I have an opinion of or want to speak on, do you have an opinion of me reaching out to you?

Because some of the folks on the zoning hearing board, you know, I may know personally, or we may we appoint all of them at one point or another.

Do you have an opinion of should we be reaching out to members of the zoning hearing board sort of offline or make sure that we're expressing any influence on the floor of a zoning hearing board meeting?

Zoning hearing decisions are within the purview of the zoning hearing board, which is a separate and distinct entity.

Um it would be my recommendation that any expression by a member of council of an opinion on a zoning hearing matter occur within the context of a public meeting.

Understood.

Thank you.

I don't have anything else.

I'm gonna continue on with the agenda.

Communication 6A, Mr.

Miller.

In August 12th, 2025 memorandum and proposed resolution from Edward Boscola, Director of Water and Sewer Resources concerning proposed change order to a contract.

The agreement is with Great Western Services Incorporated of Alentown to provide materials and labor to restore water and sewer utility trenches at various locations.

Additional work is recommended that would amend the original contract price of 196,424 to 324,677 for an increase of 128,253.

Resolution 10A is on the agenda 6B.

July 31st, 2025 memorandum with a proposed resolution from public works director, Michael Alcall.

Mr.

Alcall recommends transferring $85,000 from account number 69024 hyphen 66058 street overlays into account number 69024 hyphen 662056 4th Street sidewalks, both within the non-utility capital fund budget.

Additional money is needed to cover costs that exceeded initial estimates for the West Fourth Street Improvements, Bethlehem Business District Sidewalk Replacement Project, including ADA curb ramp upgrades.

Is on the agenda tonight.

An August 13th, 2025 memorandum from City Solicitor John F.

Spurk Jr.

with an attached use permit agreement and a resolution.

Permittee is ArtsQuest, and the event is the 2025 Octoberfest.

Events will be held from 5 to 10 p.m.

on October 3rd and 10th, noon to 10 p.m.

on October 4th and 11th, and noon to 6 p.m.

on October 5th and 12th.

Permit duration will be 4 p.m.

to midnight on October 3rd, 11 a.m.

to midnight on October 4th, 11 a.m.

to 8 p.m.

on October 5th, 4 p.m.

to midnight on October 10th, 11 a.m.

to midnight on October 11th, and 11 a.m.

to 8 p.m.

on October 12th.

Premises will include first street from Founders Way to Polk Street and Founders Way Northbound Lane from first and from first and second streets.

Resolution 10 C is on the agenda.

6D.

An August 13th, 2025 memorandum and proposed resolution from Edward Boscola, Director of Water and Sewer Resources.

Memorandum recommends approval of the resolution adopting the Palmer Township Act 537 plan, which would redirect sewage flow from approximately 165 mostly residential units from Easton's wastewater treatment plan to the City of Bethlehem's facility.

Resolution 10 D is on the agenda 6E.

In August 13th, 2025 memorandum and proposed resolution from Lori Gillio grants administrator for community and economic development.

Ms.

Gillio seeks authorization to amend resolution to apply for a grant in the amount of 340,625 through the multimodal transportation fund from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.

Request includes funds to improve the sidewalks on Getter Street, repair the roadway, and update the ADA ramps.

Council approved a similar request at its July 15th meeting.

However, the funding source requires a resolution with more specificity.

Resolution 10 is on the agenda tonight.

The July 31st, 2025 memorandum with a proposed ordinance from public works director Michael Alcall.

Mr.

Alcall recommends an additional an addition of funds to the non-utility capital fund budget adjustment reflects 1.3 million received from the three grant sources to be applied toward the gateway project, which is phase seven for revenue account number 006A hyphen 35080.

Account number 006A 35145 with Hampton County Greenway and account number 006A hyphen 35146 LVPC T A SA Greenway will be applied toward eligible greenway project expenditures and expense account 6999 hyphen 662043.

The adjustment will increase the non-utility capital fund budget from 28,170,464 to 29,470,464.

An ordinance nine A is on the agenda reports.

Do you only think you have to report is that the uh pension board appeal hearing for former police officer John Rupcher that had been previously announced, scheduled for August 12th, was canceled and will be continued to a date yet to be arranged.

So we'll make sure to announce that once uh a new date set.

That was all I had, Mr.

Evans.

Do you have anything?

Thank you, Mr.

Evans.

Ordinances for final passage, Mr.

Miller, please read Bill 39, 2025.

An ordinance of the city of Bethlehem, Counties of Lehigh in Northampton, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, replacing and repeat repealing and replacing part 13 of the codified ordinances relating to subdivision and land development.

Bill number 39, 2025 is sponsored by Ms.

Crampsy Smith and Ms.

Leon.

Discussion on final reading of the saldo.

I'll start with Councilwoman McQuyotech.

Thank you.

Um I just had a uh question about um something that Ms.

Rodriguez brought up uh was about uh protecting the mature existing trees and the word shall and um if you could just give us some context in terms of the enforceability of the saldo, the saldo is an ordinance, but the planning commission doesn't actually enforce or write that there.

Can you explain a little bit about what our what our leverage is in those kinds of situations where it's mature existing trees, not street trees.

So the I believe the language of that provision is shall, like where feasible something along those lines.

I didn't actually open it up or where practical for practical practical.

Um so I think the way that that works in practice, and I I think at points we were trying to add as much kind of strength in some of these provisions as we as we could, like recognizing where our legal limitations are based on you know the MPC and the statutory authority that we are granted, right?

So when we're working again, MPC, MPC municipal planning code, which comes to us from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, correct, which we are which we are restricted by.

Correct.

Thank you.

So in that instance, I think the way that that plays out in practice is that if there's a tree that is not a street tree, like in the middle of a parcel, like if we can convince the developer that has value that it, you know, that it must be maintained or replaced, like we we can work our way into that provision, but that's you know, it is not in all instances, and we don't have a lot of an enforcement mechanism surrounding that.

And then in terms of the other piece of the landscaping discussion about um, she asked about the um the payment in lieu of, but when it can comes to plantings, is it payment in lieu of or plantings in lieu of in terms of like trees and so if it's I believe if it's determined that you have to replace a tree, but if there's something that then makes it infeasible, maybe Mr.

Alcall would even know better than I would.

Like if you get rid of a street tree and you're supposed to replace it, but maybe there's a I don't know, curb cut or something that prevents you from putting it utility conflict with utilities underground.

Um, you might have to then pay into so that our forester can plant that a tree somewhere else to make up for the street tree that was not able to be replaced in kind at that location.

Thank you.

Because I was thinking about the payment in Lua for like street changes and things like that, where it was like, no, if the if you guys are going to do some you know infrastructure stuff, we'll give you money and you know, but this is a little different.

But the but the idea is that the money does go towards uh planting another tree somewhere else.

And I think the street payment in lieu of is similar.

So if there's a development that by the by its nature requires improvements to a street, you know, if for some reason those improvements can't be made exactly as like we said that they needed to be made, I think they need to pay a payment in lieu of so you know we can find some other solution to whatever the problem was that required them to make the street improvements to begin with.

Thank you.

And Mr.

Hackett um talked about cost a lot, and I just wanted to um maybe talk about that in terms of um, you know, from what I see in terms of connecting the climate action plan to the saldo to our our land development in the city, it actually can generate in some ways cost savings and less runoff because we're using more permeable materials and uh green roofs and things like that, energy savings by you know greater efficiency and things like that.

But can you speak to any of the the concerns that people might have that um some of the changes we made to our saldo would increase the cost of building?

Yeah, I I think it's again this balance between trying to you know add as much teeth as possible around some of the climate action provisions, but also recognizing that we are limited in what we can actually require.

And when it comes down to it, I think the document that you have in front of you is one that accomplishes that balance, but as a result, like we don't there's not many provisions in there that are requirements that are going to add substantial costs onto projects.

So there's you know a lot of efforts to have um you know more attention given to you know pedestrian improvements to you know bikeability to trees to these sorts of things, and and wherever we can put requirements in, we we've tried to do that, but a lot of it is a little bit more suggestive, which does lessen the financial burden, I think.

Um, and our our our assessment overall has been that it's not going to cause substantial burden.

And I I think you probably know the development community well enough to know that if there was a substantial uh cost differential between this ordinance and and the last, I think we would we would hear from some of those folks.

Thank you.

Any other discussion, Councilwoman Crange?

Thank you.

Yeah, similar to that, I guess I'm just wondering.

Um, you know, I think it's it's good that we have more of the input and components of the climate action plan and the EAC, but my concern is I'm just wondering, because it's not requirements that it says shall and all that.

How strongly is the administration committed to trying to assure that these input and components and and including the CAP and the EAC into this is going to really make a difference that we're really going to prioritize these environmental issues when we're looking at development.

Well, I I think that's a large part of why we're here and why we've done this work over the past, you know, three plus years.

I think our former planning director, Darlene Heller was deeply committed to this.

And this was really a project that she got all the way to the finish line right before she retired because it was so important to her to be able to have, you know, just a little bit more in the planning process to point to to incorporate a lot of these, you know, climate action provisions.

It's a recommendation of the climate action plan.

We're following the recommendations, you know, exactly as they've been as they've been laid out.

Um, you know, I think it it is, you know, more than you see in other communities, but as I've described, we're also you know limited legally by you know, where we are able to like make requirements versus you know recommendations or you know, uh work with you know property owners and and and have a certain level of you know flexibility.

We have enough that we can point to to say that this is important.

We have enough that we can point to to say, you know, here when it's feasible, this has to happen, right?

And and so that that does give us something, and I I think that's you know, demonstrating that it is pretty important to us as I hope so.

Any other discussion, Councilwoman Wilhelm?

Just quickly, since we're drilling down on the the shall in the in the examples.

I think this is actually for for our solicitor.

Um, in the examples that Ms.

Rodriguez shared, it does say shall be required, shall be selected, shall be surrounded.

There's no when possible.

Can you help?

I would like Ms.

Rodriguez to leave here feeling some clarity.

And I I think I would like it too on that word.

Um, is shall must shall is a mandatory word in in terms of whenever you're interpreting a law, you know, a statute and ordinance, shall is mandatory.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Because I think in all the conversation, that still felt a little uh cloudy to me.

So at least in those examples, it doesn't appear to be conditional.

Um, with the with the word shall being uh a mandatory.

Um that's the compartment.

Yeah, I I think it's it's the street trees that have the shall be required without any um oh yeah, mitigating language in number C in letter C, it does say whatever practical.

When practical by letter C.

Um, my understanding goes into Miss Rodriguez on good ass.

My apologies understood, but you don't need to apologize.

Thank you for clarifying that.

Yep.

Councilwoman Leon.

Um, how do we define the overcrowding of land?

It's something that she brought up in and in all of the reading, that one didn't stick out to me.

So is is there like a line?

Is there a definable how do we define preventing the overcrowding of land?

It was specifically zoning one.

Oh, it was in the zoning.

Never mind.

We're good.

Councilwoman Laird.

Um, I have a few questions, some of which others have covered though.

So um I'm skipping down here.

Um the so in the binder that we received at the public hearing, um, there was a a great document that kind of highlighted the changes.

Um it didn't necessarily point out what the former ordinance said, if I'm recalling correctly, and I forgot that binder tonight, but uh it did cover some of the some of the highlights for us here on council.

Um and certainly if somebody uh is able to, you know, access YouTube and watch the hearing, um, they could benefit from that information.

But has a document outlining those changes been posted anywhere for the public to be able to kind of have a quick reference to this is what the new saldo is.

So if you're referring, I think we included in there might be this August 4th memo that we sent to the planning commission that has the bullet point list of key provisions.

So that would have been a component of the planning commission packet.

So it would live online with the meeting materials.

I think I I'm not sure if it also was included online with the public hearing materials like that are associated with the July 1st public hearing.

Right.

But it hasn't to your knowledge been like shared out on social or like put in like a more educational area of like the planning and zoning.

No, but that's something that you know we could take a look at.

I mean, we could on the we have a whole page on subdivision and land development where there's a currently a an active and working link to the sal though.

It does exist.

Yes, I did see that.

It's just not in the other list.

I I don't see any reason why we couldn't include like a summary like this on that on that page, and that might be a good landing spot for everything saldo related.

It's it's something, and I think we had a similar conversation about the um the great visual that you had presented um at a community meeting about like the the planning and zoning processes and everything involved with that, that it's something that just touches so many lives in our community, but is so abstract to try to wrap your brain around that.

I I feel like as many of these simple uh digestible, you know, aids that we can put out there for people so that they uh can be more engaged, um, would be lovely.

Um lovely.

Um, but um okay, uh and then this kind of builds on some of the other questions, you know, shall is uh mandatory language.

There is some language in the saldo that says should and when reasonable, what you're saying according to the min municipal planning code, we uh cannot um say mandatory for some things, um, which I understand there's personal property rights, etc.

Um, but I mean, uh, we've talked on council before with other ordinances and resolutions that come before us or that people would like us to consider that we don't want to waste um not that this is overall a waste at all, but like we like to put things out there with teeth, right?

Uh and if we're putting legislation out, then I believe it should be enforceable.

So what you said some things are not, some things might be what recourse do we have if there's a developer who is like, I'm doing what I do, and you know, I I yes, you said it would be nice, but like nah, um, I'm not going to, or it says shall, but I'm not going to when the tree is gone.

And you know, I I yes, you said it would be nice, but like, nah, um, I'm not going to, or it says shall, but I'm not going to when the tree is gone.

Um, what is our recourse?

Well, so there's a couple of steps in the process.

So at the like plan review process, like as we are reviewing plans, whether it's a sketch plan, and then certainly when we have like a full land development review, you know, all of the different departments are reviewing various aspects of the plan, whether it's based on the fire code or whether it's based on you know ordinances that are coming out of public works or the saldo itself, and all of those comments go into a review letter.

And until somebody gets a clean review letter, like that project cannot move forward.

They can't record their project plans, they can't apply for permits.

So they they do actually need to at least present plans that meet the you know enforceable ordinances, and that includes many, many aspects of the saldo as well.

Um, you know, if there's an instance whereby after development they don't follow through with certain things, we have on most major projects, we have developers' agreements that give us a substantial, you know, that that do give us uh quite a bit of enforcement um opportunity.

We take a line of credit, you know, if if there are aspects of a project that are not completed, you know, we can take money from that line of credit and complete them ourselves, for example.

Um, so there's you know, there's absolutely quite a bit of teeth, you know, around various aspects, you know, of the saldo and and all of our existing ordinances that govern, you know, stormwater and street trees and you know, fire requirements and and and plenty of things that we deal with in the land development process.

Okay.

Um that's good to hear.

So it may be that uh somebody is referring to like a lower or lower, uh, a different ordinance, a subset of legislation in order to enforce.

Um okay.

Uh now uh speaking about trees, um in general, is our city forester someone who can enforce or are they like the planning commission commission is not an enforcement body?

Um can our forester site fine et cetera?

Yes.

Okay.

I thought so because I but um wanted to confirm that.

Okay.

Um there's some of the other um we have talked about um the environmental considerations, the climate action plan, the EAC.

I've been really happy to see all of their comments and involvement.

Uh somebody had raised the question about the housing affordability and the cost, which has been somewhat touched on.

Um was this planning document, the saldo, was it uh passed in front of the different housing affordability groups and uh you know, environmental justice groups in the area uh to also weigh in on um in addition to the environmental groups?

Yeah, so I I do believe that the saldo was presented to the environmental justice steering committee, maybe not in great detail, but I think it has been discussed in that group.

I I think um, but to my knowledge, we haven't taken it specifically in front of our housing steering committee, for example.

Okay.

Um in the process, which I I understand is years of of work, um, have there been financial projections done on you know, hypothetical projects um or existing published research um that's been referenced about the the cost questions that Mr.

Hackett brought up and the impacts.

Um I do understand that you know there are plenty of eyes on this from developers who would raise questions too, but I'm I'm curious what research on that front has been uh done.

I mean, we we haven't done project specific cost projections.

No, that wasn't a component of putting this this together.

What about just like general um like national trend studies and and whatnot on the financial costs?

Yeah, I mean, I would I would have to talk directly with our planning folks who did most of this work.

I mean, they are generally up to date on national trends and things, but I can't speak to specifically exactly what what documents they reviewed or what research they've done.

Um, and then uh kind of the flip side of that is what um, if any, are like the team's key performance uh data points that they'd be looking at to see like the success of implementing this over time.

Um, uh as this will, you know, if we if precedent is true, right?

We're uh or holds true, we're looking at decades of before there's an extensive overhaul of this document.

So um, how will success be tracked?

Well, I think if you're talking specifically about the climate components, I actually think that that happens more in the climate action plan and the subcommittees broadly space.

Well, I yeah, I mean, I just I think that that would actually be my specific answer.

I think that is the area in which you're seeing like the most like metrics tied to specific activities is is in the climate action plan.

It is in the different recommendations that that are being like carried out and kind of reviewed um with the subcommittees with our sustainability manager, etc.

But we don't have you know like those are those are the climate components of the saldo, and I think that would be where you're gonna most look at you know those kind of metrics.

Um, and then I believe at the last meeting we asked about um incentives that might, you know, if there are some things that are suggested but not um required.

Um, and we like one question that had come up was the stormwater, right?

If if you have more permeable surface, uh then you have less runoff, and that is solved naturally by uh the percentage fees.

But um what can we do or what plans are in place to do uh in terms of incentivizing some of the things that are not mandatory?

I think that's probably worth a broader conversation.

I and or or actually not broader, but more specific, probably like section by section, I think.

And I might need some other folks to you know, kind of work through the answers to those.

Um, what might be an incentive related to trees is different than what's an incentive related to pedestrian improvements, and there's a lot of different folks throughout the city who I think might have expertise to weigh on that.

If there were going to be some more um incentives associated with the saldo, would that be worked into the saldo, or would it be like would it have to be on official?

Uh like are the are you allowed to put incentives in the saldo?

I think that's a clearer way of asking my question.

I'm not sure how to answer.

I don't I think it would depend on specifically like what you might have in mind, and then it would probably be something to review with the solicitors.

It's a hard, it's a hard question to answer broadly.

Got it.

Yeah, and and I just understand just because I saw that was so varied, and there's we're talking about so many different things here, right?

Okay, um, thank you.

Any other discussion from members of council?

Mr.

Did you have something?

Council?

Could I actually make a motion to hold?

I'm gonna need to help on the specific wording of what I'm supposed to be asking for, but to hold this vote at our next meeting so that we have a little bit of time to look into some of the outstanding questions and um get some of those clear bullet points out to the community members who were asking uh questions and have been engaged in this process so far, etc.

So it would be a motion to postpone until our September 2nd council meeting, I think is what would accomplish what you're asking for.

Um yes, I think so.

So there's a motion on the floor to postpone the vote of the saldo agenda item 8a to our September 2nd council meeting.

Sorry, second.

I'll second the motion.

Second by councilwoman Leon.

Any discussion?

Did you want to elaborate on any anything else, councilwoman?

Um, I mean, I I think that what we've seen is great.

Um overall, and there's clearly been tons of work uh put into this, and I respect the work that that has been done.

Um, but just considering, like I said uh in another comment, the precedent that likely will, uh, you know, this is a huge ordinance, right?

And it's gonna be years until we look at this again.

And we've seen other bodies take years to look at their part of it.

So to take two more weeks to make sure that we talk to everybody that we want to talk to, and um, you know, not that we haven't been doing that going along.

Um, I just I feel like it's a substantial enough legislation um with a little bit more explaining and discussion that that could be done at two more weeks is not unreasonable.

We're we're not in a rush.

I my only request would be anything that you're looking for from the planning and zoning bureau, if you could kind of spell it out in writing.

There's been a lot of discussion, but to really hone in on what are the specific questions that would most help you, you know, make a decision.

And and and if that ends up being a a large amount of questions, and and we might need you know, maybe even more than two weeks to to make sure that we're answering that.

And that that's fine by us, and you know, whatever whatever you guys think is appropriate.

Sure.

Thank you.

Yeah, and I I have had some back and forth.

Um, but some of my questions kind of came up tonight and realizing like um, you know, that there was still some confusion out there from people who came in what so but yeah, it's much easier to get the questions in advance and so that we can have the appropriate people weigh in and answer them on the spot sometimes.

Yes.

Councilwoman Leo.

Um, I had questions about like, do we have to re-advertise this?

Is this like how what is this?

How does this affect us?

Is it gonna I mean granted, I know that the advertising it costs money, but I would agree with councilwoman Lair that this is a big enough um ordinance, a big enough change to the city that we eat the cost.

But I am curious as to how this affects um procedurally what we're gonna be doing going forward.

So we do have I'll I'll turn to the solicitor just to confirm, but I believe we do have advert any time we're gonna have essentially second reading, we have to advertise it.

So because it would be back on an agenda in two weeks, we would have to re-advertise.

Or is it because there are no changes, we wouldn't have to re-advertise.

You're required to make uh you to re-advertise when there are substantial amendments.

Um you're announcing at a public meeting that you are essentially you know, postponing it to the next meeting.

Um so my recommendation is the readvertisement would not be required.

Only if we made substantial amendments, correct.

Understood.

Because then it's not the same ordinance.

So that that answers my question.

And I would just say I am broadly in support of the saldo um as it is written, but given that it is a substantial um document, um, I I don't feel like it's been rushed.

I feel like it has been at the planning commission.

We've been talking about it for a couple of years, but there has been um some sentiment that maybe it caught people off guard.

So I don't think giving an additional two weeks um is detrimental by any stretch of the imagination.

I don't I don't see a problem with it if it's not gonna cost us anything.

So I'll support it.

Any other discussion on the motion to postpone councilwoman Cransman?

I think it's a good idea to spell them because there are a lot of questions and it is a lot of um information.

I mean, I tried to go through as much as I can, but I guess my only question is, and I'm not sure how to ask this is um with a lot of the developments, like uh several developments on the agenda next week that have environmental impact for zoning.

So if we delay it, if there's anything that's relevant to any of the zoning issues, they'll be going to the current Saldo Saldo.

Um, whereas if we would vote on it and pass it tonight, it would be relevant to the new amended one current.

Generally any um application that is in process will be subject to the ordinances that are that are in place at the time of the okay.

Yeah.

So it would be anything that came after that would be right subject to the new setting.

Sorry, it wouldn't change next week, right?

Like for any of those projects.

Correct.

It wouldn't change till after like the zoning meeting next week.

Like we will look at a September that we'd be looking at changing.

She's saying it wouldn't change it wouldn't impact what happens at the zoning hearing, I believe.

Any application that is currently pending.

Okay, would be subject to the current ordinance.

Okay, got you.

Regardless of whether or not they received final approval, you know, before or after this ordinance was passed.

I thought we had spoken at the last week something about retroactive, like that the the developer that if it was more uh um in their favor that they can go by if they're do you call that that if um it could be retroactive, if there's a developer that's already in application and the new one is more amenable to what they want.

I think I think I was in the planning, not zoning process.

ask me something about retroactive like that the the the developer that if it was more uh um in their favor that they can go by if they're do you call that that if um it could be retroactive if there's a developer that's already in application and the new one is more amenable to what they want i think i think i that was in the planning not zoning process we had that um i think i asked you that question the the first point as it relates to the meeting next week is that they're they're deciding based on the zoning ordinance so this has zero impact on that regardless right no i'm just saying remember i think the last meeting when i asked about the saldo the one thing was the in in it it there is something in the amended one stating that if it's um could would be amenable for a developer to go with the if they're already in application and you want to make a new amendment would be more amenable to them they could do it i believe but if there's someone appealing it like a resident that would not be the same I believe that's true yes so if you're okay if you're a developer and you I want to take one that like you have an active application I think right I recall you want to ask you that something and a new ordinance that is passed while your application is still in process I believe I so for the developer they can it can be applicable for them but not for someone who may be appealing with the developer is generally it you know you you can't disadvantage someone by a new ordinance that's that's passed after they're already their application is already in process okay all right thank you any other discussion for members of council the only thing I would say before we call the role is just as was alluded to and I know there were some some great questions tonight that is collins just couldn't answer on the floor so in that two week interval between now and the next meeting anyone who has questions or things that are outstanding please use the opportunity prior to the meeting and we could discuss them of course on the floor but to give Ms Collins an opportunity to engage whoever she has to at City Hall to get into some of the broader minutia that's been posed tonight.

Mr Miller call the roll Mr.

Callahan aye is cramcy smith aye Ms Quech aye Ms.

Laird aye Ms.

Leon aye is Wilhelm aye and Mr Cologne I pass 708A is postponed until second reading will be at the September 2nd 2025 city council meeting moving on to 8b Mr Miller 40 2025 ordinance of the city of Bethlehem counties of Lehigh and Northampton Commonwealth of Pennsylvania amending the general fund budget for 2025 bill number 40 2025 is sponsored by Ms.

Gramsci Smith and Miss Leon discussion call roll Mr.

Callahan is Cramcy Smith aye is quite aye is laird aye is leon aye is wilhelm aye and Mr Cologne I pass 70 new ordinances 9A please the ordinance of the city of Bethlehem counties of Lehigh and Northampton Commonwealth of Pennsylvania amending the non-utilities capital fund budget for 2025 bill number 41 2025 is sponsored by Ms.

Queertec and Ms.

Ms Wilhelm discussion call roll Mr.

Callahan aye Ms.

Gramsci Smith aye Ms.

Queertech aye is layard aye Ms.

Leone aye Ms.

Wilhelm and Mr Cologne I passed 70 resolutions 10 a yeah resolved by the council of the city of Bethlehem that the mayor and controller andor such other city officials is deemed appropriate by the city solicitor or hereby authorized to execute an amendment to an agreement with great western services incorporated to provide additional material and labor to restore utility trenches resolution sponsored by Ms.

Queatech and Ms.

Wilhelm discussion council sorry I just have a question I guess uh Mr.

Bosco and I'll call in reading the rec the reason um I guess I know in the past couple years there were issues where like roads were paved and then UGI or whatever had to do whatever and then they had to re be repaid is this the same situation where the road was newly paved road but then you have to repair old trenches and then have to repair them again is that the same kind of situation no good this is these are uh trenches this was a this is additional work that we identified because we have money available to do more trenches before public works pay overlays the roads so all right so basically we're not just digging up new roles and have okay great great thank you any other discussion call roll mr callahan aye is praying smith aye squeeze aye is laird aye is leon's down is wilhelm aye and mr cologne aye pass six zero tenb it resolved by the council of the city of Bethlehem that 8500 be transferred from account number six nine zero two four hyphen six six zero five eight street overlays to account number six nine zero two four hyphen six six two zero five six west fourth street sidewalks within the non capital fund budget the 8500 will cover underestimated costs for the uh west fourth street improvement Bethlehem business district sidewalk replacement project resolution is sponsored by Ms.

Queatech and Ms.

Wilhelm discussion council I just I just want to clarify because I spoke to um Linny regarding this and it's not coming out of the C D BG budget is from the non-utility budget it's basically a transfer because um the four street sidewalks with the ADA ramps and all are costing more than we anticipate and even though the streets are a big priority we have to comply with ADA and get the ramp construction done thank you any other discussion for members of council call the role Mr Miller Mr Callahan aye Ms.

Gramcy Smith aye is quite aye is laird aye is leon Ms.

Wilhelm aye and Mr Cologne aye pass six zero 10 C resolved by the council of the city of Bethlehem that the mayor and controller andor such other city officials is deemed appropriate by the city solicitor are authorized to execute a use permit agreement with arts quest for the 2025 Octoberfest resolution is sponsored by Ms.

Queatech and Ms.

Wilhelm discussion call roll Mr Callahan aye is grahamcy smith aye is quiet aye is laird aye is leone Ms.

Wilhelm aye and Mr Cologne aye pass six zero 10 D.

You resolved by the council of the city of Bethlehem that the council of the city of Bethlehem of Northampton and Lehigh counties has found Palmer Township act 537 sewage facilities plan update adequate for the wastewater disposal and management needs of the city and hereby adopts the Palmer Township act 537 sewage facilities plan update as revision to the official plan of the municipality resolution is sponsored by Ms.

Queatech and Ms.

Wilhelm discussion Council could I just ask for a a little brief explanation of what this means for us I I read and I think I get it but uh just want to confirm so so we're getting more business that's that's the short answer so currently there's a there's a existing community in Palmer Township where the sewage currently gets pumped to Easton for treatment they're revising their plan to abandon that pump station and connect those that small community of homes via gravity that's now going to flow through Bethlehem Township and then to city of Bethlehem to be treated at our wastewater treatment plant so that change so each township has a 537 plan where they manage or plan for their sewage planning for their communities and whenever you whenever you're moving sewage across municipal boundaries then you have to involve those other municipalities in terms of inreusable agreements and getting buy-in from those municipalities whenever so it's part of the act five the act the Pennsylvania act 537 forces the different municipalities to pass resolutions approving of the plan for that particular township so for so we have to do the same thing because we serve 12 surrounding townships if we do it we have to involve those people if they do it they have to involve us and so forth so the bottom line is that they're just changing the sewage flow from that currently goes to east and now it's coming to Bethlehem and we're confident that their uh standards in that development that would be switching meet our standards for what we accept yes it's it's all laid out in intermusical agreements we have an issue agreements with Bethlehem Township and Bethlehem Township and Palmer to pet for all that pass through so yes that's all covered okay thank you any other discussion call the roll mr callahan aye is cramcy smith aye is quite aye is layard aye is leon aye is wilhelm aye and mr cologne aye pass seven zero last agenda item 10 e resolved by the council of the city of Bethlehem that the mayor is authorized and directed to execute all application forms necessary to apply for a grant through the multimodal transportation fund to the Pennsylvania department of community and economic development to improve the sidewalks on Getter Street and update the ADA ramps be it further resolved that the mayor is authorized to execute such other agreements and documents as are deemed to be necessary and or related there to resolution is sponsored by Ms.

Be it further resolved that the mayor is authorized to execute such other agreements and documents as are deemed to be necessary and or related thereto.

Resolution is sponsored by Ms.

Queatech and Ms.

Wilhelm.

Discussion.

Aye.

Ms.

Quitec.

Aye.

Ms.

Laird.

Aye.

Ms.

Leone.

Aye.

Ms.

Wilhelm.

Aye.

And Mr.

Cologne.

Aye.

It passes seven zero.

That concludes tonight's agenda.

Get home safe, everybody.

Oh well.