2026-10-14 - Community and Economic Development Committee

00:01.19] All right, good evening. We have quite a lengthy agenda tonight, so I'm going to begin on time myself, as well as Mr. Bender and Mr. Napoli are all present.

00:14.19] I have a feeling why most of you are here. No disrespect to the other bills, but our Bill 82 and Bill 66. So we'll go ahead and get started. Ms. Ortega, Bill 82.

00:25.51] Bill 82 amends the Allentown City Code by adding chapter 653 workforce housing to promote the development of workforce housing within the city of Allentown by establishing affordability requirements for certain multifamily rental housing developments involving 10 or more dwelling units that receive tax abatement under the city's LERDA program, receive at least $250,000 in City Housing Trust Fund funding, or require or utilize publicly owned or controlled land subject to certain exemptions.

00:54.66] All right, thank you so much, Ms. Ortega. Just because we might all be in different spots about how this legislation came to be. Just a quick recap.

01:06.26] About a year ago, Councilperson Pennibone over or Vice Mayor Pennibone over in Easton, he was planning to introduce something. So Dr. Mota, I believe met with him. This is maybe even longer than a year ago, and got some like preliminary information.

01:26.35] And then the legislation for workforce housing in Easton then passed in the spring of 2026. So myself, Councilperson Bender, Councilperson Mota, Genesis, and Mr. Pennibone, we met and we got some more details.

01:44.35] And soon after a bill was introduced that essentially modeled right after Easton's down to the T, even the numbers. And that was a lot of the feedback we received.

01:59.35] We received feedback, myself, Mr. Bender, and Dr. Mota, that, you know, what works for Easton might not work for Allentown. So we need to fine tune the numbers.

02:11.35] We need to fine tune the language to make sure that what we pass will work in Allentown. It was suggested that we meet with developers. Oh boy, did we meet with developers. Many of the developers are in this room tonight.

02:25.35] Dr. Mota took it upon herself to go the extra mile and meet with even more developers. Thank you for doing that.

02:32.35] Based on that feedback from developers, as well as several meetings that we brought in the community and economic development director and Mark Cartney, who also sat in on these meetings with developers.

02:49.35] So it was a very comprehensive, very collaborative process. Through all of that, we were able to fine tune that language. We were able to make it more Allentown centered and make it so it would actually work.

03:03.36] If a developer chose to take advantage of this legislation once we have ALERTA. So I'm very happy with the fact that it was a very collaborative process and now we have a product that will work for multiple stakeholders.

03:24.48] You know, I am also not going to be shy to say it's not, it's not, it's not every day that you've got community members who don't exactly talk favorably of developers and developers in favor of the same piece of legislation doesn't happen too often.

03:46.44] But nonetheless, we did receive a letter from one developer who couldn't make it here tonight, who is in favor with a tweak, but is in favor overall of this piece of legislation.

03:58.47] Perhaps there are some other developers here that will speak in favor. There are community members here that are in favor of this legislation.

04:07.47] This legislation is now in alignment with our zoning rewrites. Before, it wasn't. So some of the feedback we got from developers myself Mr. Bender and Miss, Miss Mota, is that because it was not in alignment that it would, you know, perhaps create an undue burden on developers who have to be in alignment for this funding mechanism and that funding mechanism.

04:32.47] Now we're adding another layer of, of requirements. So that's not the case anymore. Now it is such that our requirements 20%, 80% AMI overall weighted in 20 years direct alignment with our zoning rewrite that the city worked tirelessly on.

04:53.75] As we know, a big component of this piece of legislation is the LERDA. In addition to any piece of, as Miss Ortega had mentioned, any piece of land that is essentially like government owned that is sold to a developer below market rate, this would also kick in, as well as any developer that is utilizing funds from the housing trust fund.

05:20.72] Now with the LERDA, usually I wait to do all this until all of you have spoken, not doing that tonight, I'm going to keep going. So with this LERDA, a major component of this piece of legislation is having a LERDA. No one can deny that.

05:42.78] This legislation will be amazingly effective with a LERDA. We received a housing study two years ago that said we need to begin working on a LERDA. We still don't have a LERDA.

06:05.12] So if the premise of not doing anything tonight is let's wait till we get a LERDA, we've been waiting for two years. Do we continue to wait another two years until we can get a LERDA or do we pass this legislation knowing that once we pass a LERDA or if we pass a LERDA in collaboration with the school district, in collaboration with the county,

06:31.80] there could be some tweaking to this legislation. Do we wait to pass that in hopes that somehow something that hasn't happened in the last two years somehow magically happens now? Or do we pass it now knowing that it will spark those conversations that have not necessarily happened over these last two years?

06:56.03] Because guess what it already has? There's a meeting scheduled with the superintendent about this legislation and the LERDA. That wasn't happening in the last two years. It is now scheduled. And why is it scheduled? Because of this legislation.

07:11.03] This legislation will spark the LERDA. It lays the framework. It lays the foundation for the LERDA. That is why we need to pass this legislation now. It doesn't mean that the school district and the county won't have a say in this.

07:31.60] This is not a LERDA legislation. This is bill 82 saying that if we ever have a LERDA, we need to have parameters for workforce housing. The LERDA legislation will be in collaboration with the school district and with the county.

07:47.60] That will come. That will come. No worries. That will come. It's already happening on the 23rd. So I would just say that as we have this conversation as a dais, as the administration in the public, that we keep some of these thoughts in mind that I just mentioned.

08:09.24] We passed a zoning rewrite a year ago. In that zoning rewrite, there is language. There are incentives for developers to build workforce or affordable units.

08:21.55] We passed it knowing that it might not work on day one, that it's not like we passed the zoning rewrite with these incentives. And then the next day, all of a sudden, we have affordable housing. It's a year later. Do we have any affordable housing from that zoning rewrite? If we do, great. If not, then you know what?

08:40.56] I'm okay with not every piece of legislation you pass is going to be 100% effective the next day. This is one of them. Bill 82 will not be the golden goose the next day. It just won't be. But once we have the LERDA, it will.

08:54.97] I think for now, the final thing I will say is that passing this legislation now or forwarding it to full council to be passed will give the administration will give the CED department time to organize and to figure out how they will implement this without being bombarded by LERDA applications.

09:20.99] Just imagine we wait to pass this and we pass it with a LERDA. They're going to get a bunch of applications as we've already heard from developers all at once, and they're going to have to figure out on the spot how to operationalize everything versus if we pass this now.

09:39.39] It will give them perhaps months, maybe a year to really figure out how they're going to operationalize this by the time the LERDA is passed and the applications start coming in, they'll be good to go because they've had the time to get their stuff together.

09:56.60] So that's all I have. I'm sure I'll have more, and I'm sure we'll have a lively discussion tonight. So I'll start with my committee members, Mr. Bender and Mr. Napoli. Do either of you have any comments, questions, anything?

10:10.60] I'd like to hear from the administration. You mentioned them a few times. I think they should chime in.

10:22.70] So I'm going to do council, and then we're going to do the administration, and then we're going to do members of the public. Do you have any comments or questions of your own?

10:28.70] Right now, I mean, I still have concerns. I mean, listen, you know, this legislation, I understand what you're saying, Ms. Gerlach, about let's just pass it, but to me, it's something where I feel like there's more data that we need to really look at.

10:48.41] I think our Community Economic Development Department and our Finance Department could play a role. And I think, you know, I'd like to hear more from the administration because ultimately they're the ones tasked with administering this.

11:06.18] I mean, that's something that we need to understand where they're coming from. I wasn't able to take part in those meetings with developers, but I think hearing from them would be important.

11:16.59] I've heard multiple times that if, if alerta is passed, and we don't know if it will be, you're right, we don't know.

11:25.74] Ultimately, we need the school district and the county to play ball. If one of those entities says we're not playing ball, then it doesn't happen.

11:33.34] And that's something that, you know, hopefully we can figure it out. That's the hope. I would like that to happen, to be crystal clear, that we get this passed.

11:42.57] But if it doesn't happen, you know, it's a concern because this legislation is tied to it.

11:49.79] I do know that the zoning rewrite did put a lot of, you know, it encouraged affordable housing.

11:58.50] I'd be curious if we have any data from our CED department of how that's worked so far.

12:04.53] How many affordable units do we have based on that? So, and I think the one thing that I heard at a previous meeting, and I think this was brought up, is if we do alerta, that the legislation would almost have this as part of it.

12:22.26] So it comes down to, I don't know how that looks again, I would want to hear from our administration, is alerta has this, what you're proposing, is a duplication.

12:37.77] I don't know the answer to that. I've never done alerta. So, again, I'm here to listen tonight and trying to figure out how this looks and how it works.

12:46.01] But listen, I'm all for affordable housing that's that goes without saying, I think we just have to figure out the best way to get there.

12:52.99] And, and I just want to make sure if we do this we get it right and not rush it through. So it's just happy to have the conversations and see how we can get it there. So, thank you.

13:03.58] Thank you, Mr. Bender.

13:04.74] Thank you. So, just kind of echoing that I think, you know, I wholeheartedly support the vision and the intent of this legislation and, you know, I am grateful the council person girl I brought this up.

13:17.80] Thankful that Vice President Mota actually worked on this, what, a year ago, certain this process.

13:23.77] One of the things that when this was in Bill 63 format I was a co sponsor on that bill with a council person girl I can vice president motor.

13:34.66] After that meeting it being, it became clear once we met with some developers that one of the key components to this which will say this work multiple times tonight is is this is this need to have alerta or a tax incentive program in place in order for this to be successful.

13:50.82] And vice vice mayor now, vice mayor pinto bone took time out of his schedule which I truly appreciate to come and present to this body.

13:59.04] It even became more clear that, though there's success in this in Easton, the three components that that leans on is both a nonprofit entity that's actually managing and ensuring compliance in this, that there was an established learned it in place and I think they spoke of.

14:19.12] There's five properties, I think is what he said it was either five or 10 properties that they're focusing on right now, and they also had a tax rate that was actually attractive enough to be able to incentivize developers to take advantage of it.

14:33.00] In addition, as you had stated, it leans very heavily on on having alerted in place. I know that it calls out a lot of the public funding, and how that is incorporated into this legislation but the public funding that's in place right now to my understanding

14:50.09] director kissler could correct me if I'm wrong but the state already mandates, most of this, or all of this information in when you're using that those funds so that's already somewhat baked into this.

15:03.38] The other thing is the, the use of the was it for.

15:09.43] The transfer tax so that was bill 92 that was passed in 2005 that already put a framework and how we're using these funds. That's, that's already outlined in that bill that bill was passed and you know I think we're at, you know, I knew we had a meeting earlier

15:22.55] this year about what what that looks like so we're still in discussion of actually how we're even to use those funding, those funds.

15:30.47] Yeah, you had mentioned, Council President like you mentioned that, you know, this started two years ago in the discussion of the Lerta, to your point, it took three years to do it, the zoning rewrite that went through consultants that went through multiple

15:45.47] hearings to go, I mean obviously that's a little bit larger than this, but there was a significant amount of data of framework of back end framework that was in place in order to do this in what I'm observing now, you know we started with bill 63.

16:00.03] Then we pulled it rewrote it with, and I appreciate and I was, I'm happy that I was grateful that you invited me to some of the meetings and I'm happy that we met with a lot of developers and this to help provide a little bit more data to support what we're doing

16:19.27] but then we basically it was it was changed a lot it was modified a lot and then it was introduced last Tuesday. So, what's concerning me, I guess, in this case is the pace that we're going to your point. This really doesn't do much until there's a Lerta in place, but we're, we're kind of plowing

16:38.73] head really really quickly. When there's a lot of other information that I think would be super helpful for us to be able to understand before we put forth legislation, because there are certain components to this that

16:49.95] I don't think are necessary if we actually have a good tax program in place, or tax incentive program. Yes, those can be removed later we can adjust things later, but all of those are things, it's a legislation that is kicked off when something happens.

17:09.08] And I know many of us sat on this dais twice this year we had to vote on something, because someone made a decision before we were here, and then we had to then, I don't say be forced to vote on it but we, we had to go and vote on something.

17:24.24] I'm not a big fan of just putting legislation forward for the point of just putting it forward. I think it's incredibly important for us to be able to set that vision and that tone I think it's incredibly important for us to go ahead and have a well defined path

17:41.60] for what that looks like for a learner or whatever that looks like from the next step, but just putting something in right now, for the sake of doing it. I don't feel like that's getting us there, I feel like this is this is a very very important thing this is an important thing

17:56.47] for residents in Allentown housing affordability is something we hear every day. That is one of the things that the zoning rewrite worked diligently on and I'm excited to hear what it is that we are seeing from that, but we also only have 10 months of data on it.

18:14.01] I kind of feel like we should see how that works out too in this process. I don't know maybe before maybe in tandem with but if we make so many changes simultaneously, that might be great, that also could be somewhat dangerous.

18:27.47] People need to have a chance to adjust on things. So, I guess, I have a couple things that I, you know, I, I'd like to hear a little bit more from the administration and some feedback before I make any recommendations but you know that's kind of where I am right now with this.

18:41.69] Thanks. Thank you and I'll go to back to Santo or Mr Napoli then I'll go to non committee members. And one thing I want to add, because there are folks here that weren't at the last meeting, one of my concerns, and I'll just echo them because again there's some fresh faces here.

18:57.48] The in lieu fee is concerning. You know we're looking at $30,000 a unit. So if a developer wants to build a apartment building, they can pay the city $30,000 a unit to say we don't want to include affordable.

19:13.44] Okay, so let's say the city gets for 20 units, I think the number on the legislation was $600,000 to for the city to actually build affordable. It's around 300,000 a unit. So what's happening is we're letting a developer we're giving a gift to a developer that they can have

19:32.24] 20 market rate apartments, and meanwhile we can trade off for 22 to affordable units, do that over and over and over. We're not getting anywhere. So that's a huge concern for me that, you know, this legislation could just let developers just buy their way out of affordable housing

19:51.36] because I think we should be incentivizing them to actually build it, because that's what they're good at. We're good at sending ambulances to people's homes when they need help. We're great at sending fire trucks.

20:03.55] We're not good at building things is now a city's job. And to me, we need to really focus on these developers and find ways to incentivize them to build the affordable housing that we all want because I think there's all something we agree on.

20:17.96] But if we're getting these in lieu fees back to us, they don't have a mechanism to build affordable housing. So what are we doing? And that's a concern that I have. I mentioned at a previous meeting, I just wanted to mention it again because again there's some fresh

20:33.31] faces here. And I would like to see more, more of the legislation find ways to encourage the developer to actually accomplish our goal, which is delivering affordable units for our residents. So I just wanted to mention that again. Thank you, Ms.

20:49.21] Thank you. Anyone on the committee, Dr. Modo? As everyone know, we do need workforce housing in this city. We worked so hard with this legislation. We met with many developers, because we were asked to meet with the developers because the numbers needed to match.

21:13.34] The numbers needed to make sense. I don't know what happened. I have no idea what happened. I thought that we were all in sync. I thought that we were all, I mean, we worked so hard, Mr. Bender, you were there throughout. I don't know what change.

21:34.49] We can always amend it, you know, we can always change. This is a working document, you know what I mean? I'm not saying that this is going to be, you know, this can be changed. This is the beginning so that we can get a LORDA.

21:54.17] In the beginning, it was nothing new. We knew from the beginning that in order for this piece of legislation to work, we needed a LORDA. And we needed the school district, the county, and the city working together.

22:09.37] I do not know what happened, I'm just going to leave it like that. I'm just in shock. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Moda. Anyone else, Mr. Pongo? Thank you.

22:22.63] So I guess I just kind of want to really dig into the actual legislation a little bit, just talk through it a little bit. So I think the key, you know, we keep talking about the LORDA, but the way it's written, it also includes, you know, the stipulation on using city housing trust fund money.

22:35.63] There's also stipulation about acquiring publicly owned land at a, you know, discounted price below market rate. So I think there are other parameters that could potentially go into effect here, even without LORDA.

22:46.59] I agree with the sentiments that we definitely want and need to hear from the administration to talk about any input on that side. I am glad to see the steps that this has taken from where it was at 63, now to 82.

22:59.72] I think it's definitely done a lot to avoid some of the kind of complications with other pieces of public funding, you know, because ultimately federal and state funding will take president presidents over anything that we pass.

23:15.79] As far as some of the terms, I do have to agree, a big concern of mine is also the in lieu of fee. I think obviously we can work on the amount. Being in the industry, I can tell you, there is so much that goes into using state, federal, any sort of public funding that makes building that much more expensive.

23:43.03] So I think a one for one cost of what it costs to build an affordable unit as it in lieu of fee, you know, could get us in a situation where we can't take advantage of either program.

23:55.44] I understand the need to incentivize developers, you know, like I said, I think the amount could be worked, I would also like to see something that kind of, I think, I think there's ways to achieve it, whether that's like progressive rates for the in lieu of fee, but I don't like the concept

24:12.68] that right now as written, there is an opportunity for someone to enter a LERDA and potentially buy their way out of all the affordable units, specifically because again, the LERDA in itself is a tax abatement program so I think while the economics may work for the development side to build affordable

24:32.82] units and maybe pay the in lieu of fee, we got some money to build, you know, affordable units but then there's the implication that we have to build it at a more expensive rate, but then also the tax implications for everyone else involved too so like

24:49.03] what effect does that also have, especially if, you know, we got, you know, $600,000 for affordable housing but now there's also this, you know, tax abatement that, you know, is going to affect all these other entities and you know what is the calculus

25:03.03] of that, because I think, you know, as written I think it does make sense to help incentivize developers but I'm wondering, what is that downstream for us school district, county all these sorts of entities, and again that will happen, you know, those conversations

25:19.52] happen as part of a LERDA conversation we're just talking about the framework, but specifically as it relates to the framework.

25:27.61] We'd like to see something that, you know, adds a little bit more disincentive to buy your way out of all the units, at the very least. So, yeah, like I said I'd love to hear from the administration so thank you.

25:40.60] Anyone else, Miss alpha Miss girl up you did a very powerful and good dissertation on this dissertation.

25:50.13] You really, you're always very powerful with your speeches but you made total sense, and I, I understand we all understand no one can hear out of thinking in the room, especially on the dies, doesn't want to see affordable housing.

26:09.70] There are problems. And I'd like to address what you brought up LERDA, what two years, we're waiting, are we going to wait another two years this is the argument. I have to agree with you. But for now, I would like to hear from the administration I'd like to hear from the CD department

26:26.83] before I make any of the decisions. Like I said usual very powerful, I'd like to hear from them now too. Okay, Mr binder. Yeah, I can add something else. So two things one, to, to jump on a constipation point said, so I completely agree with the in lieu of the other thing

26:43.30] is the waiver side which is terribly concerning to me as well. It feels like a lot of this legislation is creating ways to make it work when if there's a tax incentive program in place, it would just do that you wouldn't need all of these other aspects and I think

27:02.94] that's part of to your point when you're asking what has changed. It's the order of events, like, and I understand the waiting for two years and that's the concern and I'm, I'm, I have not I did I was not aware of two years I was not aware of the process nor

27:17.45] know even where we are in this process from the learner, but like the the anchor point to this being successful, both in Easton, and for us in the city is having that program. We don't have that program, and we're making legislation and I get a lot of work to do this

27:35.24] and we're not not discrediting that but like we're making legislation to accommodate for that when we really should just be putting that in place and that's, that's what I'm seeing is we're putting the card before the horse in this case and that's, that's where I'm, I'm very very concerned

27:49.94] because I still have a lot of questions on this and it just doesn't. It feels disjoint right now so I just wanted to address those two things.

28:00.17] And I think we've had significant changes both in, especially at the county level where there's a lot more interest I think in this than there was two years ago, so that that that change alone.

28:22.34] I think is what you're seeing, you know, potentially as a catalyst to this. In addition to the, the legislation that's here is but the dynamics have changed and I think that's why you're starting to see this, and I putting this forth changes that

28:38.88] and I totally agree with that, but I believe that there's a different way of doing this that's going to allow us to move forward, or we maintain with what we have right now but we get a little bit more information and we have a better understanding of what the key players are and what feedback

28:58.63] they have. I think there's a couple different routes we can take but, but I can can someone tell me what is the information that is needed. What is the information that you, that you want to get or bill 82 not the learner for this bill what data, what is the information

29:14.51] Yeah, so for this information, I mean, the learner is a component of it. So, as you acknowledge, it's not the entire thing. Also acknowledge that so specifically for this bill what data do you and Mr. Napoli need. So one of the things I would like to see since the zoning code has changed

29:31.51] is that we identify how many people have taken advantage of these new programs that we have, not the programs, the adjustments to the zoning, or are we seeing a positive thing and in part to that point I said this has only been going since January, we, it was

29:45.83] enacted by this previous well, so enacted by this council when I wasn't on, but it went into effect January 1 so that's one of the things I would like to have a better understanding of what the impact is for DC ED to actually administer this because as I had mentioned previously,

29:58.83] or maybe I didn't mention previously, like, the fact that a publicly, a public or a public developer is policing itself to ensure that it's maintaining compliance with this ordinance I think is, is, is misguided.

30:16.67] So that really should, and in Easton that's held within that nonprofit entity I can't remember the name of the one that he talked about whatever it was but that's, there's an entity that does that. Right now we don't have that entity.

30:28.98] So that would fall under DC ED so I would like to know from DC what does that look like if this gets enacted I know you what you're saying is like oh there could be a groundswell of applications but alert a process would take, there's several steps

30:43.59] to that because you have three different entities so I don't believe that overnight there's going to be a light switch, but it would be helpful to know what is that impact overall, if we do shift the legislation where they managed compliance what does that look like.

30:57.84] Like those things I think are valid questions, and I think from a, from a city perspective I'd like to understand from, from finance, say we don't get alerted anywhere.

31:06.98] We don't get it with county we don't get with the school district it's only the city and we wanted to try this and see what it looked like. It'd be great to have a study done to say study that sounds a lot more robust than it is but basically some sort of response from finance

31:20.19] to say, here's what it would look like. It would be great to know from planning here's the areas we'd want to target, like, there's just, there's, this is, it's so broad and it's not really like if we're trying to target something if we're trying to really

31:35.67] make meaningful impact for affordable housing to when, when Vice Mayor Pinto was here is like, they had specific properties they were looking at, they wanted to get these developed so how do we do that and how can we take advantage of those simple, those processes

31:53.11] and I understand what you're saying there are some properties that are here that could be leveraged, I don't know. And maybe director Kessler can speak to this but I would imagine there is currently metrics in place that say if you buy a public

32:07.20] property for less than a certain amount of money, that there's something I don't, I don't know maybe I'm incorrect on that one but that is about the only thing that and the, the.

32:19.08] Do you know that information. I was gonna say the housing fund, the one oh yeah, yeah, that those are the only really two things and the housing fund that we have really is not intended to directly fund building contractors it's it's, it's

32:32.30] clearly defined in that 2092 2025 legislation that it has containers at score so it's really not, we're kind of deviating from that with this legislation because we're, we're co opting what we are ready said we wanted it to do for this.

32:47.35] So, if we take all that away we're basically talking about a government property or a public property that's being sold under value right now. And this just, it's a lot, lot of questions a lot of things that seem like they're kind of out there for, for where

33:05.31] we are right now and I'd love to refine them, I think we could I mean but this has been, this has been public. I've only seen this for eight days. So like I think we've been working on you guys have been working on it.

33:16.78] I think we could do a lot more. I'm not saying it should go away I'm not saying it should be, you know, disbanded but like, I think there's more things we've done.

33:25.42] So a couple of things. When it comes to the housing fund there was public conversation and if not it was private and now it's going to become public about giving Colorado $1 million from, I believe it was the housing fund to help him develop workforce housing.

33:45.53] So, not from the housing fund where was that money going to come. Oh, I'll wait. Oh wait, because the minister I want to stick to order. Okay. So, you can correct me when that time comes.

33:56.92] In addition to that, I'd be open to changing language when it comes to the waiver and making it so it's very, very strict. Originally there was not a public accountability aspect to the waiver which concerns me as well.

34:14.92] My concern was that the city would just you know grant waivers for anything and then next thing you know, no one would be doing fee in lieu of or building housing.

34:25.92] The other thing is my understanding and when if any developers choose to speak they'll be able to use the developer lingo but my understanding is based on meeting with developers, myself, Mr. Bender and Dr. Moda.

34:43.10] My understanding and then Ms. Kistler and Mark Hartney is that what was explained in those meetings is that it would actually be more of an incentive to build the units because yes there would be a fiscal loss, but that loss would occur over time versus paying up $600,000 all at once.

35:09.41] So, that was my understanding they'll be able to speak in more technical terms, but that's what I gained from the meetings and I am happy to say one of the best meet two of the best meetings we had were myself, Ms. Moda, Ms. Kistler and Mr. Hartney, and I too am a bit perplexed because we left those last two meetings with Mr.

35:36.90] Colosuano who received a letter who is supporting this bill, and Mr. Strauss, who I think he's here tonight maybe yes, and he is supporting this bill, we left that meeting with excitement from the administration that we have someone to provide the specific numbers

35:55.99] and like and like really, really make sure this language is working so I'm, I'm a bit confused as well I look forward to hearing the administration to see what changed in between that meeting with these developers that the administration has to be part of, and then now,

36:14.94] and to address if this were it. If we were to pass this, and we were able to then later pass a alert up. And if this were duplicative of if bill 82 were duplicate duplicative of the learner or vice versa legislatively can an ordinance be revoked or like,

36:42.85] can that happen, like if we pass the learner, could we not just revoke this this piece of legislation because we no longer needed it legislatively. I mean, and my other question is, if we passed bill 82, and we all can't get our stuff together between the three governing

37:01.34] entities, and we have no Lerta, does this do harm this bill 82 do harm, because that would be the reason to not pass it that if we, if we're so tied up with this Lerta, and we can't have this legislation without alert in place.

37:20.19] Let's go worst case, we don't have alert in place, but we have bill 82. What happens, what bad thing happens. That's, that's what I and I seems like Mr. Bender has a bad thing going on.

37:35.02] I think, I think, I'm going to stick the perspective I have on this is it becomes just strictly performative. We're passing legislation which I think says what we would like to see we're saying to the public and the administration this you know this

37:49.52] is a definite area of concern for us and we want to see how to do how to fix it. But we're generating law that doesn't do anything. And it's, it's like, it, to me it's just it's disjoint from the approach of saying hey we know what's going to fix this we know how to get

38:11.28] there, that goes in place, while that's going in place when it when it gets figured out and then we put on the requirements so that we can actually have effective affordable workforce housing, and we're great.

38:22.56] It's just we're putting something in there to put it something in there so we can say, because I'm going to say so it feels like we can say, great we did something when we really didn't do anything and I just I think that's what the public gets frustrated

38:35.54] about when it comes to looking at the political process and like, I think we all want to do something we all want to see a positive movement in this, but like, there's a lot here and I just, I'm not sure that the harm that you're saying I think is just another bill

38:51.79] that great, you guys did that. And so we but we did do something because look all the developers here, and look part of the community is here. So we did accomplish something. Yeah, I know I think it's all here, you started.

39:07.01] This is point of the conversation I think this is like, this is, this is a great momentum in that the thing to fix it is getting alerted in place, so that we can get the tax advantage in, and then we can actually have this product work.

39:20.14] That's, that's the, that's the key that's missing I think that's the order of events which is, I'm getting thrown off. So if we pass this and we then never had alert and then the Allentown school district decides that Harrison Morton is no longer and now we have a school district,

39:36.36] empty building, and a developer wants to buy that building and put housing where Harrison Morton is this would then kick in, even if we didn't have alert and any, any governmental property wouldn't, we wouldn't have, and the same thing with the county if the

39:51.45] county were to have a piece of property or the city, or the Allentown parking authority, some governmental entity were to have a piece of land and sell it to a developer and that individual, just imagine if we would have this in the state hospital.

40:06.28] Just imagine. So, to say that this won't have any effect that this is just performances is factually incorrect based on the language in the legislation.

40:16.33] So, I mean, imagine if we would have this for McKinley imagine if we would have had this for Cleveland, like this is effective, even without the learner now of course more effective with alert up, but even, but it's effective, even without the learner.

40:30.33] If a public entity is selling property to a developer, below fair market rate, it ought to benefit the public, none of us here want to see luxury, luxury apartments in a former school or, I mean, like, none of us want that this will, this will prevent that.

40:51.30] If you want to fine tune some of the waiver language let's go at it, but to say the whole thing is no good, because you want data on alert of that is going to be worked out like can't buy that anyone else on council before I move to the administration.

41:07.20] Okay, Miss Kistler Mr. Hartney. Okay, I'm hoping that you're going to indulge me because I've got like 10 points to this. Yes, we want to start by saying that the developers in the room are all people that we work with in partnership all the time.

41:27.04] And I mean no disrespect, and I'm hoping that we come out of this all in the same page, the advocates for housing in the room are also people that we work with, and what the Department of Community and Economic Development has been tasked with and charged with is the creation

41:43.60] of more affordable housing. So I want to start by saying nothing has changed since those meetings in those meetings that we had with developers we talked about things that could make a difference.

41:54.30] We didn't talk about the extent to which that difference can or cannot happen. So for example well first I really want to start with, we haven't just sat around ignoring alert or a housing study and its effects for two years.

42:11.69] If you recall, we've had nothing but conversations about the zoning rewrite, which in fact this piece of legislation is in conflict on page five point C, where it says that every unit will be the same size, when in fact the incentive within the zoning rewrite

42:29.86] says that when you build affordable you get extra units, and you get a smaller size per unit, and you get a parking allowance. So we do have a discrepancy between the two legislations which by the way, we didn't see this final draft until it got posted

42:44.30] to the public agenda. So we're reading it even more recently than Mr. Bender. The second thing is we talked about a waiver and a buyout. Where did $30,000 come from $52,000 is in Bethlehem's Florida.

42:59.40] Where did that number come from? Have we done a performer, where again no disrespect, that we talked to these developers about a $17 million project, and what happens to them if we give them the LERDA as we are crafting in our minds of a 10 year LERDA with a graduated tax relief form.

43:19.84] What is the hit to the city's tax base on that overall property, and would it be smarter to say 1% of every new cost of the improvement of development doesn't go to the general fund but goes into a housing trust fund.

43:34.64] We haven't done that financial analysis. We pulled numbers from somewhere. I don't know where Easton got that number. I had no idea a year ago you were talking about LERDA because in honesty, I have not heard from Council in the last two years, the priority is LERDA.

43:53.04] We have been working on setting the stage for LERDA. We have met with Volunteers of America. We met with the United Way. We met with Michaels out of Pittsburgh, all about creating a housing entity here that could actually build affordable housing.

44:09.89] And that could potentially learn from some of these developers, one in particular who I think has his unit cost really low, to say if we had a housing development group here, which none of them, by the way, were willing or able with the bandwidth they have to create one here for us.

44:27.78] What would it take to build those units? Because right now if you take $30,000 per unit and you put it in an account, I can't build a house. Our city's structure can't build a house.

44:40.38] So what we got to do is we got to accumulate 10 of those $30,000, and then I got a contract with one of these guys who's going to charge me a development fee, because they need to, to build us a unit, one unit.

44:54.65] Is that really the best use we're going to have of the money coming out of this? We don't have a nonprofit entity. We don't have a housing organization with the bandwidth to help us. We've been trying to develop that.

45:08.54] We're bringing up this legislation when our finance department has been totally occupied with the budget.

45:13.54] So I can't go to them and say, "Can you tell me what a tax relief on a LERDA at an 80/20 will give us on a $20 million project right now, and then tell me what would be smarter? What are we losing over time, money-wise?"

45:28.80] I don't know, but you should need to know. We also have not had the political climate where everyone has said LERDA. So don't think we haven't brought up the discussion before.

45:39.65] We have a totally different county executive in a different position on housing than we've had before. We need that partnership, because frankly, the city of Allentown's tax base in Allerda is the small part of what these guys are paying in taxes.

45:55.09] But the county, and most importantly, the school district. So we think we need to go into a discussion at a higher level than me with what does this mean to your taxes?

46:07.09] What does it mean to what the school district's going to lose? What does it mean to what the county's going to lose? What does it mean to what we're all going to gain?

46:14.28] And then what collectively happens to that money? In the Housing Trust Fund, in every single conversation it had before you, it's been on homeownership and owner-occupied rehab.

46:25.60] And that's what we've been focusing on. Beefing up our staff, beefing up the ability to be able to do better homeownership, talking with CALV about their capacity, looking and writing grants.

46:37.09] I'm sure Kaliswano approached the city about writing a grant together. And if you remember, the letter came to you about how he got the grant and can't use it.

46:47.09] Because it has governmental strings, and it makes it so affordable. In his trying to build affordable units, the state of Pennsylvania actually required him to pay more money and to make the whole entire building.

47:00.48] Davis-Bacon and prevailing wage. That's why no one wants our money. You're talking about city-owned land? The reason the city-owned lands is because they're in swamps. They're undevelopable.

47:13.11] So we need to provide incentives, huge incentives, to some of those if we even get to the point where we want to sell them.

47:20.20] But think about what the city owns. The other thing is, legally, I don't even know if we can oppose this on something that is somebody else's governmental entity that gets sold.

47:30.61] I've never heard of that. I've never heard of, and again, I'm hoping Maria has researched that for you, but I don't know if we can say we're collecting this money off of something that the state sells to someone on a deal we're not involved with.

47:45.67] Maybe we can, but that's not something I know. We've flipped totally to data centers and to all different things in our zoning code, but we haven't talked about amending the zoning code to reflect this type of development.

48:01.47] HUD and federal funds are useless to these guys. We know that. That's because they come with restrictions. Is the money that we are going to turn around and pay them to build affordable housing has no restrictions?

48:15.15] I mean, we haven't built that in. The other thing is that the management of this program, although I do believe that in here it says that developers are going to self report.

48:25.51] You still need somebody to self report to, and you still need a system of checks and balances. We need to go out and audit.

48:32.51] These people have to be income eligible, and they need to be audited. I need to develop a staff to do that. I don't have extra people to go out and do monitoring.

48:41.60] So is the cost of that coming out of the housing trust fund? We haven't gotten that far.

48:46.60] So I think this is a great first step for discussion. I just don't think this is a great first step for passing.

48:54.17] I think we have to have a lot more candid conversations. And again, no disrespect to my friends, but are they going to look at you and say $30,000 is too low?

49:03.65] I don't think so. So I would hope that this would be the jumping off part for a whole lot more discussions with our finance department, a whole lot more discussions collaboratively together.

49:15.81] I mean, yes, Mark met with Mr. Jandl and two council people. I met only with Mr. Kalaswano, Mr. Strauss, and one or two council people.

49:25.77] So, yeah, we looked at this and said this is a great jumping off part, but never did we think in less than a month we'd be voting on it.

49:34.79] So at this point, I think it's incredibly premature. And I hope that we haven't offended our city or our school district and our county partners because we really need some deep in-depth conversations with them if we're going to pass alert.

49:49.20] And again, I mean, no disrespect, but we passed legislation in the past that says you can't sell something in the city that we don't have a place that sells it.

49:57.22] So I agree with Mr. Bender. I don't want to buy out to affordable units. I want affordable units. And I don't think we're going to get them by $30,000 in the bank account per unit.

50:08.49] I do agree that I think we should have alerta, but does it go to all projects in the city everywhere? Is it geographically specific?

50:18.63] Bethlehem's, it's geographically specific. It's not everywhere. We haven't done an analysis to determine what that means. So I'm grateful that people have been talking about housing.

50:31.48] I wish we would have been involved in that conversation from the beginning. Then we would have a year into this, like all of you do.

50:37.85] But frankly, to have this come the way it's come and to say we're pushing this through, I just wonder why now.

50:45.29] And it's not like we're sitting around saying we don't want alerta. We're absolutely excited about the opportunity.

50:52.02] And we're welcome for your leadership and our leadership to approach our county and city partners and see if it's even a possibility.

51:00.02] But I don't think we're in a position to give $250,000 of housing trust fund money to any developer at this point.

51:07.49] And I certainly don't know that we have any city land that anybody wants. And I don't know that any of the people behind me have ever used any of our federal or state funding that we have available through our head programs.

51:20.71] So I just think this is a great jumping off part. And I hope we can create a think tank to go much further. But I think it's way premature. Mark, do you have anything to add?

51:30.98] All right. There we go. I think a lot of good work has come in here. And I think when I look around the room and see the developers, I think what has come out of these conversations is, yes, we need to develop some incentives to incentivize the creation of workforce housing.

52:08.04] It's a critical need for the city. And one of the other things that I think really came out of this is an agreement on the definition of what area median income is to start modeling these pro formas.

52:26.16] To me, that was a huge piece of clarifying information that we can take. But when I think about this ordinance and the way I've been thinking about the LERDA, if we did a LERDA, it would be a workforce housing LERDA.

52:48.66] You wouldn't need legislation like this because these restrictions and requirements would be built into the LERDA ordinance.

53:00.30] So, you know, I don't see where this legislation gets us to building more affordable units. And at the end of the day, that is the goal is building more workforce housing units.

53:21.57] And, you know, with the buyout clause in this, I do have serious concerns about that. To me, I'm never going to turn down $600,000 to advance affordable housing, but I think it's way more efficient if we can get the folks that build stuff to build it.

53:45.47] Like you already have a housing project, you already have a location, it's gone through all the land development. Like if they can build the unit while they're building the rest of them, that's way more efficient than us getting $600,000.

54:00.26] And then we got to find a site, we got to go through the land development, we got to, and it'll be more expensive for us to build it.

54:07.26] So, again, I think this is a good jumping off spot, but we really need to build consensus with the other taxing bodies and build those partnerships to make sure that we get a LERDA in place.

54:25.03] And I would just be really curious when the developers give their comments, if there is no LERDA in place, does this provide any incentive to you to build affordable units? Anything else from the administration? Okay.

54:46.08] So, we'll be turning it over to the public and if there are any developers here that would like to speak, definitely come up. It's definitely members of the public as well. And just as a gentle reminder, although the LERDA is a big component of this legislation, as it has been said time and time again, it is not the only component, the only incentive of this legislation.

55:11.08] So, yeah, if no one was going to buy a public land, I guess it wouldn't impact them at all. And I wish -- I thought during the conversations that we really stressed the urgency of passing this.

55:30.25] I believe I even listed dates, but I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough with those dates, but I believe during those meetings I listed dates.

55:39.26] If I wasn't, I apologize. I think you were very clear about the dates, Ms. Gerlach. You were very clear.

55:45.26] Oh, okay. I thought I heard that it wasn't clearly understood that we'd be voting on this so soon.

55:50.23] No. I totally understood that you wanted to vote on this so soon. I just feel that it's too soon.

55:56.54] Okay. And I just want to just -- one thing before the public is when I believe in the spring of 2026, what Easton passed was an amended version of something they had already passed.

56:11.18] So, their original legislation wasn't perfect either. I don't even think -- to my knowledge, I wish we could get Frank on the line right now.

56:21.40] To my knowledge, when they originally passed their legislation, they too did not have a nonprofit entity to handle the compliance, but they passed it.

56:32.52] They did it. And then they developed that. And I also remember in conversation myself, Dr. Mota, Ms. Kistler, I think Mark Hartney was there.

56:42.74] And it was either with Colosuano or Strauss the conversation about how we already have an auditor that I guess we use in some capacity, that that person would be the one who would help with the compliance and make sure that these developers are in compliance.

56:59.73] And did I misremember?

57:01.73] We have our grants team who monitors the HUD grants, and they have a consultant. We would need to contract with someone. We'd need to budget for and contract with someone to serve in that capacity or create a nonprofit.

57:17.20] Okay. So, there's a potential pathway. Okay. All right. That's wonderful to hear. Let's see.

57:28.70] I'll go ahead and turn it over to the public. If anyone so I know if you go to council meetings you need to fill out the card. It's a committee meeting if you have something to say, please come up to the mic state your name for the record say your city off to give your full address, just your city that you live in.

57:45.70] And that's it. So, and try to we have a timer three minutes try to keep it to three I know this is a passionate issue.

57:53.30] Okay. Good afternoon everybody. I am here in support of the lady to.

57:59.59] I do want to say that it's incredibly ironic that this is being followed by an encampment bill. But what do I know.

58:07.64] Every time I speak here I feel like open up a door to my life and I tell you guys some things that I'm going through.

58:14.63] And that's going to continue today. I've been in Allentown resident for three years and I love it here. I absolutely love it here.

58:23.10] I can't imagine where I'd be without this city. I struggled for a long time though. I didn't know if I'd be able to eat or pay my rent or even afford the bus ticket that was going to take me to work.

58:34.80] Initially, I didn't move here voluntarily I was gentrified out of my neighborhood in South Bethlehem, which is historically the poorest part of Bethlehem, and it's become more expensive than the west end of Allentown, which is known for being unaffordable.

58:50.14] I felt called to come here today because I would hate to be gentrified twice or watch people that are born and raised here be kicked out of their neighborhoods that their families have lived in for decades.

59:01.20] I don't really think that it's fair that developers that are often not from the Lehigh Valley have more sway on our living standards than residents.

59:10.44] I do also criticize the $30,000. I don't think that's enough. There shouldn't be a number to kick people out of their homes and if there has to be one it should be a hell of a lot more.

59:21.49] The developers can afford it, and they will utilize it to push us out. Every single one of you ran for office to represent Allentown in our residence and I think it's important that we follow through with that idea and say yes to Bill 882 to protect your constituents.

59:37.75] Something is better than nothing, especially when that something can be amended at a later date. I'd also like to add to Mr. Bender, you had mentioned not wanting to push things just to push things, but I would like to introduce you to the idea of trigger provisions, which they would effectively have an ordinance on hold until the predefined thresholds are met.

60:00.00] But you're not just pushing just to push, like it could change.

60:04.48] And when change happens, it happens fast and I think that we should be prepared.

60:08.67] Thank you.

60:11.08] Thank you.

60:12.08] Anyone else?

60:12.99] You just step up.

60:19.70] Good evening, Council.

60:20.70] My name is Jonathan Strauss, representing Cortex Residential.

60:26.29] As you know, we are an affordable housing developer in this city and in the Lehigh Valley.

60:32.01] I was contacted to take a look at this workforce housing bill and see if it was viable, if

60:38.53] there were things that needed to be changed to make it viable, and how do we incentivize

60:42.15] developers that may not be currently building affordable housing to build a workforce product.

60:48.77] To start, I can confidently say that you will not get market rate developers to build workforce

60:55.06] housing without the LERDA, period.

60:57.12] It's not economically viable, they will just simply not build.

61:00.92] And that's just the way the market is very efficient.

61:04.52] And that's the way the market will work.

61:07.77] From our perspective as affordable developers, our business is like every developer affected

61:15.96] by interest rates, affected by inflation.

61:18.52] As rates go up, believe it or not, tax credit pricing goes down.

61:22.52] Currently we're looking at 76 to an 80 cent tax credit price.

61:27.97] Our project that we're currently under construction on in Allentown, we sold at 93 cents.

61:33.01] So GAAP funding becomes a growing concern for truly completely affordable projects.

61:40.05] And if you want a market rate developer to build workforce housing, you're going to

61:43.97] have to incentivize that developer, otherwise the project just won't move forward.

61:49.48] So I am supportive of a workforce housing bill, I'm supportive of this bill pending

61:54.94] some potential revisions.

61:56.22] I think there are a lot of good comments that were made tonight.

62:00.76] One comment regarding the in lieu of fee, I think that you can, you know, do the math

62:07.90] and you can play with the in lieu of fee amount if you would like.

62:11.78] But we keep saying it costs $250,000 to $300,000 to build a unit today.

62:17.74] That is correct.

62:18.74] However, if you look at our project at 8th and Walnut, City Council and the administration

62:23.74] were extraordinarily supportive.

62:26.30] They awarded our project a significant amount of money as GAAP funding.

62:31.90] That allowed us to go procure tax credits.

62:34.70] We brought $14.5 million of additional funding to the city.

62:38.86] So it's kind of like the Clydesdale concept.

62:42.34] You've got a Clydesdale that can pull 10,000 pounds.

62:44.94] You put two of those together and you can pull 40,000 pounds, right?

62:48.62] So I think that Councilwoman Gerlach is correct, like momentum is the key here.

62:54.54] And I think that this does trigger the next step, which is the conversation around the

62:59.58] LERDA.

63:00.58] I know waivers was a concern.

63:03.64] I think you need to have waiver language because there always needs to be flexibility.

63:07.59] There's two developers in this room, actually three developers in this room right now that

63:11.99] face issues on their development sites, such as environmental concerns.

63:17.75] Someone brought up the state hospital site.

63:19.39] I don't know if many of you know this, but the state hospital site actually has a landfill

63:23.27] buried on it.

63:25.31] The riverfront was historically industrial land.

63:28.23] There's remediation that has to take place.

63:30.19] I think you need to have a waiver mechanism to provide flexibility and it really is going

63:34.87] to come down to the city's priorities.

63:36.99] Do they want to clean up brownfields and have the flexibility to pause on a workforce

63:44.66] component to allow that cleanup to happen?

63:47.00] Well, with LERDA and with a workforce ordinance, I think with the right language you'll get

63:51.46] both of those things.

63:53.36] And then lastly, a point to hopefully add context and put the administration's mind

63:59.74] at ease a little bit is everyone keeps talking about enforcement, compliance, all of that.

64:05.90] You can do what the city of Easton did, which I think is actually a more onerous task,

64:10.06] which is assembling and creating a nonprofit to govern this.

64:13.78] Or you could very simply do what a lot of LIHTC developers do.

64:16.58] They hire a consultant called, such as M&L Compliance, they're a very affordable group.

64:23.26] They've got consultant vets and audits to developers, income certification documents,

64:29.66] and then that gets packaged and sent to the city.

64:31.98] If the city chooses that there's a reason to audit a developer, you can take a deeper

64:35.66] dive, but I don't think that the onus should be or needs to be put on the city.

64:39.90] So I'm speaking quickly to kind of stay within this timeframe, but those are some points

64:44.73] that I wanted to just kind of lay out and I wanted to reiterate, I'm very supportive

64:48.39] of a workforce housing ordinance.

64:50.31] I think developers would be happy to build workforce housing and the way that this was

64:54.95] written with a weighted average component, we could even get some deeper affordable

64:59.27] units built with this.

65:00.91] I think it's a great tool and respectfully ask that you guys consider passing this.

65:06.23] Thank you.

65:08.79] Thank you.

65:09.79] And for anyone who's thinking that he got more time, he's a developer, so he represents

65:13.63] his company.

65:14.63] If you are here representing an organization, please state that so that you will also get

65:18.71] the five minutes, so you're not being gypped.

65:22.18] Anyone else want to come up and speak for themselves or an organization for or against

65:28.44] or just questions and just say your name and your city or org.

65:35.41] Hi, I'm Alan Jennings, I've lived in the city and my entire adult life.

65:40.94] Good to see you all.

65:43.78] What she said, I agree with Councilwoman Gerlach, I think this is an opportunity you have to

65:49.84] take advantage of.

65:50.84] There is a huge market shift taking place out there, the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission

65:55.66] says we need six thousand units of housing in the Lehigh Valley.

66:02.76] The new development that LVA DC is bringing in, when I first heard about the Lilly project,

66:08.40] I sent a note to Don Cunningham saying, congratulations on your Lilly win, where are these people

66:14.88] going to live?

66:16.68] And so there's an opportunity out here that we are going to blow if we don't get this

66:21.62] done and done as quickly as possible.

66:23.54] I agree with Vicky that the city's staff is desperately under capacity, is way overtaxed.

66:33.61] When I went on the board, I was a founding board member of Anista and from the day I

66:38.58] got on there, I was trying to find ways to steal as much of that money as I could for

66:43.14] the neighborhood surrounding the central business district.

66:47.45] And I failed, I tried all different kinds of ways, including something similar to this

66:51.81] proposal.

66:52.82] What I was told was, well, we need twelve hundred units first and we got to twelve

66:57.32] hundred and then I said, no, it's two thousand units, then we didn't say twelve hundred,

67:00.32] we said two thousand.

67:01.56] So the target kept moving.

67:04.58] So I think you need to move on this today and make something happen, make it clear

67:10.93] to the developers, not just these good guys that are here tonight, but all developers

67:15.33] that the opportunities that are coming come with a price of doing business in the city

67:19.97] of Allentown.

67:22.69] The one of the things that Anista did is it expanded the tax base.

67:29.71] So this new revenue that we didn't have before, that the city, the county and the school

67:37.79] district are all getting the benefit from, I think we need to get a piece of that and

67:42.63] for council to set it aside specifically for the purpose of increasing the staff for

67:47.67] the D.C.D. offices, they cannot possibly handle the demand.

67:52.99] Redevelopment authorities, work that's coming, all these new initiatives, the Housing Trust

67:58.11] Fund, need staff support to make them work right and otherwise we're going to screw

68:02.49] it all up.

68:03.90] And that's not, you know, anybody's fault except ours for not being foresighted enough

68:08.95] to understand what it takes to make things like this happen.

68:12.20] So I agree with Councilwoman Gerlach, I think she deserves our credit for having the guts

68:17.04] to confront us as aggressively as she has, as she always does.

68:21.81] But I also think that Vicki Kisler's issues are very real, but I don't think we put off

68:28.50] dealing with this.

68:29.50] I think this gets done, it gets done now, gets done very aggressively and we make it

68:33.26] very clear to developers, I want to do business in the city of Allentown, this is the price

68:36.94] of doing business.

68:37.94] So thank you very much.

68:41.26] Thank you.

68:42.23] Perfect timing.

68:43.23] Anyone else, and just say your name and your city or org.

68:56.83] Jose Rivera, community member, Allentown.

69:00.30] I have a personal relationship with a lot of youth, but I'm just going to speak what

69:03.74] I know about in that community.

69:06.03] As a long time resident of Allentown, I'm asking you to give our community a win.

69:10.26] We hear a lot about economic growth, stability, public safety, but how can we build stronger

69:14.82] communities if the people who work here raise their families here and have invested years

69:18.74] of their lives here can no longer afford to live here.

69:22.94] Life is good for business, is good for community.

69:25.22] Workforce housing is part of that conversation.

69:26.90] Our residents need a fair opportunity to find housing.

69:29.78] They can afford, put down roots, support local businesses and build their future right

69:34.22] here in Allentown.

69:36.91] The city's own housing plan recognizes the problem.

69:40.48] According to the 2024 housing assessment, rents rose by over 44% over five years and

69:45.80] more than half of the region's workers could not afford a typical one bedroom apartment.

69:50.85] At the time of the study, this was not just a talking point.

69:53.87] It is a real life challenge for working people and their families.

69:57.53] Our community voted for leadership because people want to see progress and people also

70:02.63] want to have a future here.

70:05.94] So why are we still afraid of taking that meaningful step towards finding a solution?

70:11.09] I heard a lot of what you all disagree, but I haven't seen any youth say what you agree

70:15.86] on and how we can make any of this better.

70:18.53] You sat here and you had your little talking points.

70:20.61] I don't agree on this.

70:21.61] I don't agree on this.

70:22.61] What do you agree on?

70:23.79] Because if we continue kicking this down the road, we have a lot of residents that live

70:28.53] check by check.

70:29.69] While we're sitting here trying to figure out what's next, we have people being evicted

70:34.52] because they can't afford these rents.

70:36.89] And there are a lot of our working class.

70:41.00] Yes, change comes with challenges, but our residents are living with the fear of rising

70:46.62] cars, housing and securities, and not knowing whether they will be able to afford to stay

70:50.50] in the city that they call home.

70:52.99] I'm asking youth to build that bridge, bring residents, businesses, developers and community

70:56.91] leaders to the table, find practical ways to expand that workforce, housing while protecting

71:02.35] neighborhood safety, maintaining quality and creating opportunities and development.

71:11.99] Growth should not just mean growth, should not just mean buildings and new investments.

71:16.03] It should mean that the people who make Island Town what it is can share in that growth.

71:20.65] I'm asking you to help lay the foundation for a stronger future where working families

71:26.22] have stability, local businesses have stronger communities to serve, and the residents have

71:31.28] a real opportunity to live, work, and grow here.

71:34.00] Island Town belongs to the people who call it home.

71:36.68] Let's make sure they have a future here too.

71:39.94] I'm in support of this.

71:40.94] I may not agree with a lot of it, but I also see that the foundation needs to be laid.

71:46.53] I'm asking youth, please, let's start moving forward.

71:49.05] We're all going to disagree on some things, but let's work on what we agree to at least

71:53.83] move this forward.

71:54.83] Thank you.

71:57.20] Thank you.

71:58.20] Anyone else in the public?

72:00.89] Hi, I'm Christina DiPiero from one of the co-chairs for the Commission on Homelessness.

72:13.42] I also live in Allentown.

72:18.05] So yeah, it is very ironic and coincidental that we're going to go right from this to

72:22.25] the encampment ordinance.

72:24.97] I know I've been up here before and had discussions with all of you for one of the solutions

72:30.21] to homelessness is more affordable housing.

72:32.73] So I 100% support this bill to create more affordable housing because our city absolutely

72:41.03] needs that.

72:43.53] I'm not an expert on lerter or what that is from what it sounds like and what the other

72:51.52] gentleman was saying that the one thing, well, let me go back with the other gentleman was

72:56.51] saying the thing that I know that all of you agree upon is that this city does need

73:01.39] more affordable housing and waiting again and again and just waiting for it to come

73:09.92] and not take action when you have the opportunity to do that now with or without the lerter.

73:15.72] I don't know where you get it from.

73:17.20] It sounds like you want some additional partnership with the school district to maybe also be

73:23.88] a co-sponsor to also provide funds.

73:26.44] So right, it could come, but you have to start somewhere, right?

73:31.53] You have to start somewhere, you want affordable housing and the city is desperate to need

73:35.89] it.

73:36.89] 1-800-102 is the highest eviction rate for the entire Lehigh Valley.

73:42.38] And if you don't have affordable housing for people to live in, you're going to have

73:45.46] more homelessness, which we know is increasing as well.

73:49.10] So I hopefully, hopefully you will all get to that page where you'll be able to vote

73:54.25] on this and to approve it.

73:56.17] Thank you.

73:58.35] Thank you.

73:59.35] Anyone else?

74:08.38] Good evening, council.

74:09.38] My name is Robert DiLorenzo.

74:10.38] I'm here on behalf of City Center Group.

74:13.22] We're an Allentown-based developer.

74:16.04] We've developed over 1,800 market rate units here in the City of Allentown over the last

74:20.80] decade.

74:21.98] I'd like to thank Councilperson Gerlach, Binder and Moda for meeting with us upon the initial

74:29.94] bill that was introduced.

74:32.53] We quickly got together and had discussions around some of the concerns that we saw in

74:38.64] the initial bill.

74:39.64] I'll also just state I am familiar with the City of Easton.

74:42.83] We've developed over 500 units in the City of Easton, two projects, both that used ALERTA

74:51.01] in the City of Easton.

74:52.01] And that would not have happened if it were not for ALERTA to make those projects feasible.

74:59.48] I do appreciate the revised ordinance that's before us this evening that's being discussed.

75:05.32] I think there's a lot of productive revisions that have been made to the ordinance.

75:11.25] I think that it is 90 percent very sound and makes sense from a developer's perspective.

75:19.63] I also acknowledge the fact that without the ALERTA, the ordinance doesn't necessarily

75:25.77] do anything or make a huge impact to actually seeing tangible results of workforce housing

75:30.37] actually being developed.

75:31.37] But I do think it's a really good positive start and we talk about the momentum.

75:36.44] I do think that this bill is creating momentum around having productive conversations around

75:42.24] the start of putting together some type of ALERTA ordinance.

75:45.80] I do think that we need ALERTA here in the City of Allentown.

75:49.49] Having developed over the last decade, I think a lot of people have gotten used to

75:51.81] seeing City Center do a bunch of ribbon cuttings with new buildings opening.

75:56.33] But we currently have a building that just opened up a few weeks ago or that we opened

76:00.96] up this past June.

76:03.65] And since that, we don't have any other apartment projects planned that are teed up to break

76:09.34] ground on.

76:10.34] So, you know, development is slowing down.

76:13.80] Housing development is slowing down.

76:15.04] In spite of all of the studies that we're reading, LVPCs, attainability and housing

76:20.07] supply study, you know, it talks about the need for ALERTA as an incentive to see more

76:24.82] workforce housing developed and to meet our housing needs.

76:27.46] The City of Allentown issued their housing needs assessment two years ago.

76:32.37] One of the findings of that study was the need for ALERTA.

76:34.91] So I guess I'll just say I'm encouraged by the dialogue this evening amongst everyone.

76:39.33] I appreciate the acknowledgment around starting to have conversations around ALERTA.

76:45.52] I hope that the developers can continue to be engaged just as we were as a part of this

76:50.13] bill.

76:52.53] And so with that, I'll say I'm supportive of the bill from the perspective that I think

76:58.79] that it's relatively overall sound and does support and incentivize development.

77:04.74] But without the ALERTA, obviously there isn't going to necessarily be a huge tangible impact

77:10.27] to the bill upon being passed.

77:11.79] So I think it's a good draft.

77:14.75] I would hope that we can continue to collaborate as this moves forward.

77:18.43] I hope to see that it does move forward.

77:20.71] And I do appreciate everyone's time this evening.

77:23.63] Thank you.

77:25.62] Thank you.

77:26.62] Anyone else?

77:27.55] Public comment.

77:28.67] I see you asserted yourself.

77:31.96] Yeah, we all know I hate doing that, but here we are.

77:38.28] I'm Alicia Ruthroff.

77:39.28] I'm an Allentown resident.

77:42.35] To be honest, I'm not going to be able to state this more eloquently than all the people

77:45.67] before me have, but I will do my best.

77:51.66] As someone, I've lived in Allentown for six years.

77:54.30] I have lived in the Lehigh Valley for over 13 years now.

77:58.66] As others have stated before me, as many members of the community have stated, as you

78:03.03] guys yourself have stated, affordable housing is such a big need, and it is just ever growing.

78:09.46] The price of apartments and rent and housing prices is just gone up and up.

78:15.18] I can tell you it's looking at the average apartment.

78:19.69] Rent I think right now is over double what I was paying when I moved to the Lehigh Valley

78:25.13] in 2013, which is crazy.

78:28.67] That's not that long of a time.

78:32.27] Every election, I go out and I knock doors, and I talk to people in the community about

78:39.91] the issues they are facing, yes, to get them to go out and vote ultimately.

78:47.05] One of the biggest things I do hear about is housing and things like workforce housing.

78:51.84] I literally talked to someone a few weeks ago who was like, "I see the work that council

78:56.00] and that the city is doing for the unhoused community, and that's great, but what about

79:02.12] people like me who we're working, we're close to the median income, what's going on?

79:09.75] What are we doing to make it more affordable for me?"

79:14.21] I think that this bill is a great step forward to help people who are already in the community

79:23.38] who need this housing.

79:26.59] I do hear people's concerns.

79:28.39] I really do.

79:30.63] I definitely appreciate wanting more data.

79:34.52] I am an engineer.

79:35.72] I love data, but I would ask that we don't hold up progress for the sake of perfection.

79:45.68] I think, unfortunately, when we do that, it just keeps being pushed out and pushed out

79:53.12] and pushed out.

79:54.20] Like I said, I think this is a great foundation.

79:58.70] I think this is a really good, concrete step forward that we can take without just putting

80:05.05] it off.

80:08.24] If we need to make revisions, we can make revisions.

80:12.20] That's where I'm going to leave it.

80:15.88] Thank you.

80:17.45] Thank you.

80:18.64] Anyone else?

80:26.29] Good evening, Councilor Pete Persons.

80:28.13] My name is Zachary Jandl.

80:29.13] I represent Jandl Enterprises and the Waterfront Development Company here in Allentown.

80:33.97] I do carry a last name that could be somewhat regarded as a bad word in some communities,

80:37.80] but I'm here today to talk about more of my passion for Allentown.

80:41.32] First and foremost, not to look at this bill and beg for any changes other than just an

80:46.40] encouragement of the Council to basically look at the language within the bill.

80:52.28] I really look at this from the perspective I understand the need and the value of workforce

80:56.80] housing in Allentown.

80:57.80] I encourage this.

80:58.80] I think Robert said it best.

81:00.20] We're inspired by the dialogue that Councilperson Gerlach and multiple members of the community

81:06.46] are the Councils here tonight.

81:08.18] But I was fortunate enough to sit with Councilperson Gerlach and Councilperson Binder along with

81:12.33] members of the city of Allentown.

81:14.70] And I think it was a great dialogue, a great conversation, and I love the bill for what

81:18.42] it is looking to do.

81:20.05] I would just really encourage the Council to really look at the language and iron out

81:23.73] some of the specifics throughout the process, just between now and the voting itself, I

81:30.39] should say, because I can tell you that the first thing and foremost that scares developers

81:34.94] is the unknown.

81:36.11] And when you look at a piece of legislation that does have some gray to it that can be

81:40.45] misconceived by future Council people in the future at whatever time, that's going to

81:45.53] be the first thing that's going to inhibit future development.

81:47.93] And as now, Antonian, sixth generation, very proud, I lived in the West Park District

81:52.49] for until my family couldn't live in the house we were in anymore due to our own family

81:58.09] expansion.

81:59.05] All I want to do is see Allentown succeed.

82:01.17] And that means workforce housing.

82:02.81] That means all kinds of development, which this bill is obviously intended to inspire.

82:08.23] So all I would really do from the development standpoint is not to ask you to change any

82:11.53] of the terms.

82:12.53] I'm not here at hand asking you to change any of the in lieu fees or move or add or

82:16.33] whatever it may be.

82:17.57] It's more so just making sure the details are ironed out just through your conversation

82:21.21] so that we can really proceed with very positive forward momentum into the future that a lot

82:25.97] of people here have talked about tonight.

82:27.07] Thank you very much.

82:29.63] Thank you.

82:30.63] Anyone else?

82:31.63] Members of the public?

82:41.56] Hello.

82:42.56] I'm John Finkelstein with Make the Road PA.

82:45.46] Want to say a few words on behalf of some of our members who came here tonight.

82:50.48] It is not very easy for us to get a group together to come to a meeting.

82:57.92] They have families, jobs they have to get to.

83:01.88] So I really want to just stress the importance of taking action now on this.

83:09.31] I have heard from the mayor and other officials describe what we are experiencing as a housing

83:17.68] crisis.

83:19.99] As you know, eviction rates are high in this city and our residents are dealing with enough

83:27.17] problems.

83:28.23] Our community works in immigrant communities who are experiencing targeted violence and

83:37.30] the housing crisis just makes that so much worse.

83:40.58] Of course, the biggest cost in their life, the biggest barrier to living a free and

83:45.26] happy life on top of all the challenges they already have.

83:53.06] So I know that the process isn't always as smooth and clean as it could be in an ideal

84:03.67] world, but I just want to reemphasize to see the community's passion about this and

84:15.82] know that the momentum will not always be here.

84:21.44] Thank you for Councilperson Gerlach, Councilperson Moda, I understand you started working

84:26.16] on this years ago.

84:28.76] Please don't let that dissipate.

84:31.98] I know there are things that need to be fixed.

84:34.36] So let's fix them together, let's seize this momentum and see this through.

84:38.40] Thank you.

84:40.58] Thank you.

84:41.70] Anyone else?

84:42.70] Any public comment?

84:43.65] And I believe Español, Dr. Moda can translate.

84:53.43] Ultra personas, right?

84:55.59] Okay, I'm seeing, I'm seeing Make the Road, some head shaking and plus, I mean, you spoke

85:21.64] on behalf of Make the Road, so don't feel pressured to come up.

85:25.44] Yeah, I'm just offering.

85:28.52] Well, thank you all, unless there's any public comment, I'll close public comment.

85:40.78] Liz's?

85:41.88] No?

85:42.97] No.

85:43.97] No, you're sitting down.

85:44.97] I was about to say.

85:45.97] Okay, so then public comment is closed.

85:49.45] I would like to thank everyone who provided comment, my colleagues, the administration,

85:57.25] this, I mean, this is an important, this is an important bill.

86:01.69] Just for clarification, it seems as though based on public comment, based on feedback

86:09.82] from colleagues, that the overwhelming number of folks want to take some sort of action

86:18.33] on this.

86:19.70] My fear is that, and I'll just be honest and transparent, is that tonight, the only way

86:26.48] that action will be taken on this bill in the future is if it is forwarded favorably

86:36.13] or even unfavorably, but forwarded to a full council meeting.

86:42.45] My colleagues, the only people who get to decide that tonight are myself, Mr. Bender

86:49.37] and Mr. Napoli.

86:52.97] So I understand Mr. Napoli and Mr. Bender, you do not support this bill and that is

86:58.91] well within your right to not support this bill.

87:02.03] There's been plenty of legislation I have not supported and I vote no.

87:05.95] What I would ask is that because we've got developers, and if you would have told me

87:11.16] a year ago I'd be sitting down with developers, I would have said funny, just funny.

87:18.38] Good laugh.

87:21.54] We've got developers, we've got housing experts, advocates, residents, organizations, AARP,

87:28.82] members of council, co-chairs of city commissions who want a vote on this bill up or down.

87:38.17] I would ask my colleagues on this committee to not stop that from happening.

87:43.65] If you don't think this bill should be passed, then vote no at full council.

87:48.41] But to stop it now is disrespectful to all of those folks that I just named.

87:57.10] So with that said, I will make a motion and go ahead.

88:04.78] I'm disappointed in your choice of words.

88:08.82] Never against it.

88:10.46] We all agree we need more workforce housing.

88:13.34] So for you to say that I think is disingenuous.

88:18.19] My only concern was it's being rushed and when things are rushed, they tend not to be

88:23.36] as good as they should be.

88:24.68] No matter what we're doing, whether it's here, whether it's in the business world,

88:28.58] whether it's in our personal lives, we rush things, things tend to not be as good as you

88:32.87] want them to be.

88:33.85] That was my only concern, Ms. Garlock.

88:36.45] All for the bill, okay.

88:38.35] So to make that crystal clear, okay, because your words were different.

88:44.29] I also thought that maybe some more data would be beneficial just to make sure we get

88:48.65] it as good as we get it.

88:50.41] I'm looking at some folks in the room right now.

88:54.48] When we all want this to be better, if possible, if there is an opportunity to make something

88:59.69] better or should we just stay with what we have, I mean, it's not the way it works.

89:04.36] We should always want the best.

89:05.56] Do we want perfection?

89:07.37] Agree.

89:08.37] There's never perfection.

89:09.67] So I'm not looking for perfection.

89:11.64] Not looking to find ways to stall this or to put, you know, whatever, all the stuff

89:17.47] you said, wrong, okay.

89:20.66] Just wanted more data.

89:22.58] And I think I was a little concerned to be, and we heard from our administration, they

89:26.91] saw this, what, seven days ago?

89:29.21] Like it's something that I wish there was more time to work on making this the best

89:34.71] it could be.

89:36.27] You have obviously a timeframe in your mind where you want it done in a certain amount

89:40.07] of time.

89:41.05] That's fair if you want that done.

89:43.98] But for me, my concern again was, how can we make this the best possible legislation

89:50.22] that I would 100% support because I want what you want.

89:55.21] We all want workforce housing.

89:56.99] There's no disputing that.

89:58.82] I just want it to be better, sorry, guilty.

90:02.08] So that's all I want to make sure that's clear to everyone in this room, that that's

90:05.40] all I'm looking for.

90:07.24] And if you want to rush this through and we want to get it to the finish line just

90:10.44] to say we did it, I mean, that's, you know, but I don't need the pressure tactics.

90:15.55] We'll figure this out.

90:16.79] We'll get this going.

90:17.79] And I just wanted to make sure it was clear where I stood.

90:19.67] Thank you.

90:20.67] Mr. Bender.

90:22.53] Thank you.

90:23.53] So I guess one of the questions I had in this, in what we're actually voting on.

90:28.21] So if we look at the screen, everything on that first up to receive at least 250,000

90:35.24] city housing trust funds is, is my understanding from developers is the crucial thing.

90:40.46] But really we're not, it's not in place right now.

90:42.42] So that's not impacting affordable housing affordability right now in any way, shape

90:46.88] or form.

90:47.95] So we go to the next thing, which is the 250,000 housing trust fund.

90:51.77] That's in direct conflict when a direct conflict, it's in conflict with the bill that this

90:56.17] body voted on in 2025 for what that money was intended for.

91:00.38] So effectively that line's not really doing anything for housing affordability.

91:04.92] So then we go to the next one.

91:06.62] Can you go to the next screen?

91:07.62] My chance.

91:09.80] You can't go to this.

91:10.80] Okay.

91:11.80] The next, the next line I will just read it from the, from the thing here is or acquire

91:16.98] or utilize publicly owned or controlled land.

91:19.80] So what's concerning is even in the example that you brought up with, with the state

91:25.56] hospital or any of the schools, I think what director Kristler brought up is I don't know

91:30.62] that we can control that.

91:32.51] So I don't know that we even have a legal lever to pull on that line.

91:40.14] So I guess I'm just trying to figure out what are we voting on that way.

91:42.42] I just, that, that was the whole paragraph.

91:44.54] Like, I don't know what we're doing to actually impact housing affordability.

91:50.66] I think that there's a ton of good things in here.

91:52.50] And I think to, to, to, to echo what council president Napoli is saying, it's like we

91:57.65] all want to do this.

91:59.31] I would love if we had something in front of us right now.

92:01.95] And I guess this would, this is my question is from the administration.

92:04.45] I don't know if they can speak to this, but how could this body either legislatively or

92:11.46] what, what vehicle could we take to move or incentivize alert a process?

92:17.75] Cause that feels like what I'm hearing from every developer is the thing we need to do.

92:25.12] The city officials, county officials, and school district officials first have to determine

92:31.75] whether there's interest among the three bodies for alerta.

92:36.06] If there's interest for the alerta, we're prepared to vet out there.

92:43.56] Several examples of alertas that have been utilized in different ways in different places,

92:48.08] but it comes down to the administrations of those three entities agreeing to sit down

92:54.36] at the table and discuss the alerta.

92:58.38] At that point, I would hope we would vet whatever, um, Lerta conditions would come out of those

93:05.39] conversations, assuming all three parties are interested to a national housing expert

93:10.30] on Lertas and an attorney, all three attorneys and all three finance directors so that everyone

93:16.75] understands the financial implications.

93:20.03] And then should all three, I believe have to vote that in among their governing bodies

93:25.67] to accept the Lerta.

93:28.33] So is it something that we could, I guess I understand what all the opponents here,

93:31.89] but what, what can we do?

93:33.85] Is there anything we can do?

93:34.85] Can we believe that the council could approach the administration mayor Turk and decide

93:40.38] whether or not we're going to go forward with conversations with the county and conversations

93:45.44] with the school district to get to that point.

93:49.56] So if that's the case, why are we not given what we heard from the developers given that

93:55.94] the majority of this has been, it's not doing anything right now.

93:59.98] And that information, why are we not doing the thing that will actually fix housing affordability?

94:07.27] So this piece of legislation will spark those conversations that have yet to happen.

94:14.15] I do know you've mentioned conversations about where to have happened with a number of other

94:19.89] organizations, but not the three entities that we need that we legislate that, that

94:28.50] if we pass an ordinance that says Lerta is a major component of this ordinance being

94:33.94] effective, that then puts pressure on us to step up the county and the school district.

94:42.77] It's not just, Oh, we'll meet when we can get around to it.

94:45.45] No, we've got to meet because we literally just passed a bill that is highly reliant

94:50.83] on the Lerta.

94:54.21] Your question is valid.

94:56.09] What I was hoping to hear, maybe you or someone else has is if we do not pass bill 82 to

95:03.93] lay that foundation, to lay the groundwork, what other legislative action can we, because

95:10.09] we're a legislative body, we're told all the time, we can't direct the administration

95:14.05] to do anything.

95:15.57] We're a legislative body.

95:17.23] So legislatively, what can we do to make sure that a Lerta happens?

95:24.05] I don't know.

95:25.05] Is it a, is it a funding?

95:27.45] Is it the kind of thing where we could, as part of our process, say, Hey, we would like

95:31.74] to fund this research process or we'd like.

95:34.46] I don't think so.

95:35.46] I think there needs to be a conversation among the three entities and certainly the

95:39.46] attention that our public discussion has had now.

95:43.92] I'm sure that that's going to spark conversation, whether that be positive or whether that

95:49.28] be negative.

95:50.44] I mean, ideally, I, ideally I think what happens is that official to official to official,

95:57.03] they sit down and have a conversation first.

95:59.78] Unfortunately, I do believe now there, there is pressure just because we've discussed

96:04.55] this publicly.

96:05.55] Now there's pressure.

96:06.67] So whether that will affect them positively or negatively, I'm hoping for positively,

96:10.91] but I don't know that.

96:12.51] But I do think there needs to be those conversations and I will certainly take it back to the

96:16.79] administration that that is the, the situation we're facing and I'm sure that conversations

96:24.22] will happen now if they're not interested at this point in alerta, if they've already

96:29.32] done their research and have decided that this isn't something they want to participate

96:34.40] in, then that's a whole different story.

96:37.60] But I think we've heard confidently from developers that without alerta, this legislation

96:41.60] isn't affecting workforce housing.

96:43.68] Yes.

96:45.96] So I guess my other, you had asked what negative possible things.

96:50.24] Yes.

96:51.37] So in hearing from director Kistler in our zoning code from, and it's been a bit since

96:56.77] I read it, but my, I'm correct on it.

96:59.97] There is a clause in that says if there's a more restrictive ordinance that's passed

97:04.41] in the city, that takes precedence over the zoning code.

97:08.96] So effectively, if what director Kistler is saying is that there is a conflict with

97:14.97] the zoning code in some way, shape or form.

97:16.73] I know it's rather nuanced and we might not, but, but.

97:19.97] It's a huge issue.

97:20.97] Okay.

97:21.97] And the reason it's a huge issue is because right now the incentive is that the units

97:25.93] are smaller.

97:27.24] If the units go to comparable size, as written in this, I've been told that it no longer

97:32.48] affords them the opportunity to save any money.

97:35.54] However, they would have to weigh that against the benefit they get for the parking reduction

97:40.70] and the two extra floors stories.

97:44.98] So I think it will make some think a little more as to whether or not that's truly an

97:49.80] incentive, but I'm not sure what happens.

97:52.56] I think the zoning code would be negated, but I'm not an attorney.

97:57.75] And if that's the case, then they've lost the incentives in the zoning code.

98:01.79] If this is more restrictive.

98:03.13] Anything?

98:04.45] I'm sorry.

98:05.51] No, I was just, so then potentially if that is the case, we would have to maybe change

98:10.15] the language of bill 82 so that it would be in direct alignment with the zoning code.

98:15.19] And then the problem solved.

98:16.19] I think part of our issue, like our lawyers have not looked at this ordinance.

98:21.84] So there's been no legal review against the zoning code.

98:30.66] So that would be something I'd want to look at.

98:33.70] Sorry.

98:35.79] No, no, no, go ahead.

98:36.79] I think that that's what I can't, I understand what you're trying to like, we're all moving

98:44.77] on this the same direction.

98:47.12] But there's a lot of questions and it just seems like we're trying to just sure in this

98:54.12] through for the sake of doing it.

98:55.96] It's not really most, it's not really doing anything.

98:59.18] And we have a bunch of questions about why we're doing it and we could be in violation

99:01.94] of the zoning code.

99:02.94] So it's like, it seems like the prudent thing at this point would be to do is to say, let's

99:08.38] get some of these questions answered.

99:11.04] Let's refine it so that it's doing what we want it to do.

99:14.99] And hopefully we, by doing that we're doing what you want, not what you want, sorry, what

99:19.71] we all want in this process.

99:21.71] And that is to get the conversation of the learner going, that's the thing.

99:26.52] So I guess that's why I'm just trying to understand, it seems like there's more information

99:31.20] that's needed.

99:32.20] I mean, I have a lot of questions about some information I'd like to receive, but that's

99:36.66] kind of where I am.

99:37.66] About bill 82 or the LERDA?

99:38.98] About bill 82.

99:39.98] What specifically?

99:40.98] Because I just heard LERDA data that you wanted.

99:42.82] So one of the things which was, well, with the LERDA is part of it.

99:45.90] So it's like, and this is where it's like, I understand.

99:49.81] We can't develop a LERDA without the other entities.

99:52.17] This is just bill 82 that says when we have a LERDA, this isn't a LERDA, is it?

99:55.69] This isn't supposed to be LERDA legislation.

99:57.93] That's not accurate.

99:58.93] So, so, a LERDA ordinance can be passed by any.

[100:05.88] Yeah, I know, it's not as effective.

[100:08.32] Yeah.

[100:09.32] Like, I mean, without the school district and some of the other taxi body, it doesn't

[100:13.62] become enough of an incentive.

[100:16.37] But the city of Allentown could pass its own LERDA ordinance and it would be subject

[100:22.78] to the city of Allentown's property tax.

[100:25.51] And we all know it wouldn't be as effective.

[100:27.07] We've all been in those rooms, the conversations that we've all made it clear that we need

[100:30.95] all three entities.

[100:31.95] So that's almost like a mute point.

[100:34.03] But in terms of, it is because if we know that we need the city and the school district

[100:39.95] and the county to all get an agreement, like Director Kistler just said, we know that just

[100:44.63] passing it with the city would not be effective.

[100:47.71] Like, we're not going to do that.

[100:49.27] Like, that's not going to happen.

[100:50.91] It would take, what's the point?

[100:52.72] Like...

[100:53.84] Well, then that's...

[100:54.84] Yeah.

[100:55.84] Back to like, what's the point of what we're doing?

[100:56.84] Because like, that's the, the corrupts of it is getting that foundation in place, getting

[101:02.00] all the entities to agree to something.

[101:05.45] I believe everyone in the dias here would, would take the, I can't say everyone can speak

[101:11.22] for everyone, but like the things that were in here, the meat of this, the goal of this

[101:16.34] is would be put together with that LERDA and it would be put in place and we'd be

[101:22.16] effectively doing something to actually address workforce housing.

[101:25.52] Yeah.

[101:26.52] I mean, I think the point, I think we heard it from multiple people, including developers,

[101:32.16] it gets that momentum going.

[101:36.03] I mean, on October 23rd, we're going to be meeting with Dr. Burks.

[101:43.67] That conversation hasn't happened, like that hasn't happened until this legislation.

[101:48.75] Now because of this legislation, there is going to be conversation about, with the school

[101:54.04] district, about bill 82 and at least the initial conversation about, you know, like

[101:59.55] LERDA and what her initial thoughts are.

[102:03.16] That wasn't happening before.

[102:04.40] So it's already been effective without even passing my, would you like to table this?

[102:09.28] So I asked the solicitor ahead of time and I appreciate your, your, your goals on this

[102:14.07] thing.

[102:15.07] But I asked what, what, what happens when things are in committee like this?

[102:17.55] Because what is the preferred route?

[102:19.23] The response from that is when, when a matter is referred to committee is expected to study

[102:24.22] and report back.

[102:25.88] The committee may continue to work on the report and report when it is ready, committees

[102:29.64] can generally take as long as needed, suspect, subject to council's rights to give further

[102:34.32] instructions or potential discharge of the committee.

[102:36.96] And at the next council meeting, a committee chair should report back on the progress.

[102:41.52] So the, it isn't ideal, because I asked this question, like, should it be table and it's,

[102:47.32] it's the actually response in committee is no.

[102:50.57] What's supposed to happen is we, we dialogue, at least I'm understanding from the, from

[102:54.92] the attorney.

[102:55.92] Which attorney?

[102:56.92] The cities or ours?

[102:57.92] Ours, okay, is that we dialogue in it, we get some of these questions answered because

[103:02.32] I think there are questions.

[103:04.48] We received something from AARP asking for some changes, received something from a developer

[103:08.72] asking for some changes.

[103:10.59] You know, there's, there's too much stuff that's outstanding right now.

[103:13.79] I think I would like to see us receive some information from finance, some information

[103:19.43] from DCED.

[103:20.43] I'd like to see the feedback of what happens with the meeting you're having with the school

[103:24.39] district in the, in the, in the county.

[103:28.12] Those all shape what this legislation will look like.

[103:31.04] And there's nothing since it's literally, since it's not doing anything right now, there's

[103:35.61] no time contingent to move it just to make changes later if we can make it right.

[103:43.50] That's what I'm not hearing anyone answer the time thing since it's not doing anything.

[103:48.02] So with the timing aspect, so then I'm hearing you say then if we were to, so when you, when

[103:57.58] we have these committee meetings, yes, dialogue and questions answered and, you know, discussing

[104:02.46] potential amendments.

[104:03.46] And typically there are bills that are referred to full council, actionable items, correct.

[104:09.60] This is one of those bills that is an actionable item, it's not a discussion item.

[104:14.70] So then moving it forward to full council doesn't necessarily mean that it's next council

[104:20.32] meeting.

[104:21.32] It means a future council meeting that this will be on the agenda.

[104:25.02] So is that objectionable to, to move this forward to a future council meeting?

[104:30.12] We don't want to move this forward at all, knowing that there will be conversations to

[104:34.20] clear up and make potential amendments available at that full council meeting.

[104:39.70] And all I'm going off for is what the solicitor suggests when it goes to committee, the point

[104:44.42] to my understanding and anyone can, who's been here longer than I can with is to dialogue,

[104:48.66] is to come back, is to get reports, is to say like, okay, we do need to change this.

[104:52.50] Maybe we need to shape this.

[104:53.66] Once it moves to council, my understanding is yeah, we can make amendments, but it's

[104:57.38] really the bill is supposed to be refined so that it can be discussed and then voted

[105:02.91] on.

[105:03.87] And it, it, there's a lot of pieces here, even hearing from colleagues here from DCED

[105:11.08] and from, from some people in public, like that, that should be changed.

[105:14.88] So why would we not get, what's the, what is the urgency since the bill literally does

[105:20.64] and nothing right now to force it through versus just getting the information, putting

[105:27.98] together a good bill and then moving it forward, not saying that your bill is not good, just

[105:32.36] a better bill.

[105:33.36] It's fine.

[105:34.36] Um, so I make a motion to move this forward to a future council meeting.

[105:37.28] Is there a second?

[105:39.93] When you say future council meeting, a future council meeting.

[105:46.21] Okay.

[105:47.33] Um, any meeting future just as long as it doesn't, you know, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna

[105:52.99] take it a step farther.

[105:53.99] Um, I don't know if we can have this done by next week, but if it is at a future council

[105:58.60] meeting, I will go on record that I will give my colleague, Ms. Gerlach full credit

[106:02.77] for getting into the finish line, even if she's not here, um, because that's something

[106:07.18] that is important.

[106:08.18] Um, I've done that in the past in, in other situations.

[106:12.53] So if it is a future council meeting, let's say hypothetically, it's in December.

[106:16.26] I, I'm going to go on record now saying that I will give Ms. Gerlach full credit for, uh,

[106:21.20] this legislation.

[106:22.20] I don't, I don't need full credit.

[106:24.56] You I'll take my name off as a sponsor and put you as a sponsor and get no credit.

[106:28.60] No, it's not.

[106:29.60] I'm just saying I'm just because it's for the, for the public, there's, there's a chance

[106:34.55] that Ms. Gerlach won't be here, um, in a few weeks.

[106:37.94] So I think I just want to make sure it's clear.

[106:39.98] Like this is her legislation and I want to be respectful.

[106:43.35] And if we can't get this done by a certain time, because we are trying to make it better

[106:47.97] as always, it's all we're talking about is making it better.

[106:52.31] And I think that, you know, while some folks may find that critical, like, uh, but I think

[106:57.10] it's a good thing for the public and, um, I'm, I'm happy to have it at a future council.

[107:02.47] I mean, I think thanks week is tough because there's a lot of changes.

[107:05.93] A lot.

[107:06.93] I mean, the city solicitors haven't looked at it.

[107:09.87] Like they look at every piece of legislation, I don't know what's the turnaround.

[107:13.43] Do we have a turnaround?

[107:14.43] I can't speak to the turnaround there, but I honestly think we need financial information

[107:19.03] and I know that they are, they're, they're swamped.

[107:23.80] I'm not saying that this should be an indefinite postponement either.

[107:26.48] No, absolutely not.

[107:27.48] And I think that we're willing to work with any subset of council to keep meeting on

[107:32.16] these topics and to keep refining this.

[107:34.88] We've always been available whenever you've asked, um, but I just, we are going to need

[107:40.38] a little bit of time.

[107:42.14] Yeah, I'm aware of that.

[107:44.07] So I know there, I know there's a motion on the floor.

[107:47.04] I am going to, um, I'm going to second that motion.

[107:52.56] I, I'm going to publicly say that I don't know if we can do this for next week, but

[107:57.21] if it, if we can't, and it happens in December, I want to invite you back as a member of the

[108:02.23] public and I want to, I want to find a way to get this to the finish line.

[108:06.04] Once we get the information, all we're looking for is to make sure we get this right.

[108:11.22] That's it.

[108:12.18] So that's my, that's where I'm going with that.

[108:14.06] I'm on record.

[108:15.67] Oh, and I just, I wanted to, I appreciate that.

[108:18.93] And I also do need to make clear just like you felt the need to make clear when you

[108:22.21] felt like I misspoke about maybe your intentions.

[108:25.53] Um, this is, yes, there I'm on city council now.

[108:34.13] What happens in the future is what happens in the future right now I'm on council back

[108:38.91] in the spring.

[108:39.91] I read an article about a council person in Easton who did a thing with affordable

[108:44.95] housing and I'm like, wow, cool, spoke with Dr. Mota and she said, Hey, I already met

[108:50.15] with the guy and then we all met.

[108:52.31] So we all kind of just happened since the spring of 2026 and here we are, um, in the

[108:59.59] month of October, uh, having to, to make this decision right now, I am on city council

[109:05.55] and that is what matters and why this, why this is important to me is because when I

[109:09.91] read the, like the urgency of it, when I read the housing study and I see that one

[109:14.71] of the recommendations is that we enter into alerta and that there is a piece of legislation

[109:20.63] that could be passed that could kind of spur that, uh, uh, speed that up a little bit.

[109:26.76] Ah, that sense of urgency, there's people with needs out there, you know, like affordable

[109:32.32] housing is a, it is a crisis.

[109:34.24] I think we all agree on that and, and we have a potential mechanism to, to kind of

[109:39.56] get things moving and I just really want that to happen because we've all met people who

[109:45.28] literally like they're, they're at their last draw, like up here, you know, we might

[109:51.43] all have a couple of dollars of disposable income now and again, some of us never, but

[109:55.87] some people might, there, there's a lot of people in this city that need something like

[110:00.01] this past now.

[110:02.23] And if it's performative, let's perform, let's perform and let folks know how important

[110:09.07] affordable and workforce housing is.

[110:11.51] Let's let's perform, let's show people by passing a piece of legislation and telling

[110:16.75] them we've got your back.

[110:18.11] We hear you because up until now, what have we, you know, like it just shows people we

[110:23.23] hear you.

[110:24.23] We got your back.

[110:25.23] We're going to figure this out.

[110:26.23] And so I appreciate you seconding that motion so that in the future at a future council

[110:30.55] meeting council will be able to take action on this.

[110:34.99] And again, it's not about credit, it's about people who literally need some hope.

[110:39.36] Can I ask a question?

[110:41.73] Yes.

[110:44.28] So game this out.

[110:45.82] It goes through it.

[110:46.82] Let's just say it passes next week.

[110:49.06] Right now this has attention and it would continue to have attention as we work on it.

[110:54.46] If it passes, it will sit there and it seems like then it's losing steam, like it's there,

[111:03.31] but then the entities could just simply say, okay, well it's there and we're not really

[111:07.03] doing anything then, it's we're not going to do it and therefore it just sits.

[111:10.91] Wouldn't it be most beneficial to keep the conversation going?

[111:16.08] I guess that's what I'm trying to understand.

[111:17.72] I mean, I guess that will be up to you all if you, if this doesn't pass or next week

[111:25.20] or whenever that whoever's on council, that will be up to the folks on council, including

[111:31.36] myself, depending on the timing as to when this goes to full council.

[111:37.88] So if you want, if you feel like kind of, I'm gonna say dragging it out, but like waiting

[111:43.32] longer would actually be more effective in terms of building a sense of urgency, well

[111:51.12] then by all means, I'm sure you'll speak to your colleagues and you'll get folks to

[111:56.80] be in alignment or perhaps based on conversations that happened on the 23rd, we're all ripping

[112:01.72] and ready to go.

[112:02.72] Who knows?

[112:03.76] I think it does seeing a future council meeting does provide a level of flexibility for legislative

[112:11.16] members of the legislative body and the other entities as well as those who came and spoke

[112:16.76] favorably.

[112:17.79] And I don't want to drag anything out.

[112:19.27] I think what I would like to see just again going on record, the issues, the concerns

[112:23.92] we have, let's get to it tomorrow.

[112:26.08] Like if there's conflict with the zoning code, let's figure this out so that at a future

[112:30.44] council meeting it's clean because right now it's not.

[112:34.42] And that's all the concerns that were raised tonight weren't in opposition.

[112:38.43] It was more about getting it right.

[112:41.20] So again, I think that's needs to be clear.

[112:44.80] And I think in the next few days for it to be on the next council meeting, we need to

[112:49.71] start seeing some substantial, some changes to make it move in the right direction.

[112:55.11] So that's all I'm asking for.

[112:56.41] Point of order.

[112:57.41] Yes.

[112:58.50] In this process, so you're asking for some things I have, I would like some things.

[113:04.14] You have a motion to move it forward.

[113:05.74] Is your, is your second, are you, are you making like a friendly amendment to the things

[113:12.51] you actually want to see before that goes forward?

[113:14.39] Because I'm a little confused as I understand that we can't make amendments in council.

[113:17.95] We can discuss things that we would want to make amendments on at the regular council

[113:22.95] meeting, but we can't actually make the amendments in council.

[113:25.92] I mean, and so in committee meeting, yeah, no, what I'm, what I'm saying is like, if

[113:30.00] there's, if there's things that, uh, president, president Napoli is concerned about, and

[113:34.76] I would like to see before we vote on it, is there a method or a metric from the standpoint

[113:41.50] of, uh, this is more procedural, like should that be outlined before like now, um, maybe

[113:48.54] not this moment, but we'll work with our city clerk throughout the week, right?

[113:52.26] And uh, and get this stuff.

[114:01.19] My motion and now, um, I'll make a verbiage change.

[114:05.45] So my motion will be, and I don't know if you'll still second it, is that we forward,

[114:10.95] uh, bill 82 to a future council meeting, um, with potential amendments, knowing that there's

[114:20.72] going to be amendments.

[114:21.72] I mean, I have amendments I'd like to make.

[114:24.61] I'm just asking the question.

[114:25.61] So how do we get the, how do we get the information from the city in that case?

[114:30.45] It's the same way we've been.

[114:31.45] I mean, when we first introduced that original bill, they said, that's not good enough.

[114:36.61] So we all got together, we met, we made changes, we met with developers, we met with the administration

[114:41.93] as Kistler and Mark and, and we, we got together and we developed something that we thought,

[114:47.81] you know, would be more amenable.

[114:50.25] It would be the same thing.

[114:51.53] So we, um, I know some of the developers have specific, uh, concerns about, uh, some of

[114:58.41] the language in, in, in the, in the bill, we'll meet with them again and, and address

[115:04.13] that specific language.

[115:05.61] You have concerns about waivers.

[115:07.91] There's a lot of members that might have concerns about fee and low in lieu of.

[115:10.93] I hear that.

[115:11.93] I agree.

[115:12.93] Um, well, it's, it's the same thing.

[115:15.57] It's not any kind of like, you know, radical process is just having conversations again,

[115:21.75] again.

[115:22.75] Okay.

[115:23.75] Which, which we can do.

[115:24.78] I just hope, I mean, can it be done in six days?

[115:27.62] I don't know.

[115:28.62] But, uh, that's my concern is like, I'm not going to get the information.

[115:31.14] But she said, oh yeah, I'm not saying six days.

[115:33.10] I'm saying future council meeting.

[115:34.54] If you all want to take six months, go for it.

[115:36.80] Okay.

[115:37.78] Um, but I think, uh, future council meeting, uh, again, it's, uh, we, we have, we have

[115:42.62] questions and once we get these questions answered, I think we're in a better spot to

[115:45.86] pass it.

[115:46.85] And again, I'm supportive of it, but I just want to get it right.

[115:50.59] So, okay.

[115:52.45] So there's a motion on the floor.

[115:53.57] There's a second, um, so any other, okay.

[116:00.92] All in favor?

[116:01.92] Aye.

[116:03.04] Aye.

[116:04.04] All right.

[116:05.04] Uh, future, future council meeting.

[116:08.56] Um, so thank you all again.

[116:11.16] What a conversation.

[116:12.68] Um, so I will say, um, that we, we do have bill 66, which is the next kind of big point

[116:20.28] of conversation.

[116:21.72] If you do not want to stay for that, now is your time to thank you for being here.

[116:28.57] And now is your time to, to depart and we'll take like a minute or so as that happens.

[116:34.57] So we're not, uh, shuffling as we speak.

[116:39.59] Yeah.

[116:41.32] Yeah.

[116:42.54] Okay.

[116:43.54] So I'm going to, um, we will have time to chit chat, uh, cause I mean, anyone, no one

[116:46.82] could deny that that was a very intense, emotional, uh, item.

[116:50.42] So I'm sure we all have feedback we'd like to provide for one another, but in essence,

[116:55.04] um, for the time, uh, sake of time, uh, we're going to move on to bill 66.

[117:01.48] Another really important ordinance.

[117:03.36] Uh, miss Ortega.

[117:06.19] Bill 66 amends the Allentown city code by adding chapter one 30 Allentown city's response

[117:11.27] to outdoor encampments on city owned property.

[117:15.04] Okay.

[117:16.27] Um, I will just say that this language came from the administration.

[117:21.15] I appreciate the administration for working on this, um, spent a while, um, spent a while,

[117:28.84] but we're here and you know, we definitely don't want everything to go on for a while.

[117:34.16] Um, but, uh, here we are.

[117:37.44] So, um, I'll just pass it over to the administration since it's your ordinance.

[117:42.76] Before we bury council person, Gerlach, this is one thing we're going to get done.

[117:46.72] So, uh, look, we did work a long time on that, but I appreciate, I mean, the language

[117:50.68] is ours, but it's also yours.

[117:52.00] It's also, uh, council person benders, council person pungo.

[117:56.56] I mean, all of you really had some contribution.

[118:00.00] Most of the people on the dais right now.

[118:01.80] Uh, this is, you know, as we approach the unsheltered, um, I think the thing to keep

[118:09.37] in mind is we can ask anybody to move and we can, we can kind of ask and we can kind

[118:16.06] of make some people move.

[118:17.86] If we've tried really hard to help them, you know, find other locations, as long as

[118:24.26] you do with humanity and as long as we help people to connect to services, I mean, that's,

[118:31.13] that's basically the essence of what this policy says.

[118:33.85] So, um, hopefully we're all ready to move it to, to, to, uh, a future meet to the next

[118:40.52] meeting and pass it.

[118:43.95] Yes.

[118:44.95] Um, any questions from committee members, Mr. Bender or Mr. Napoli?

[118:49.72] I just say that I'm, I'm excited that it was a long, a long haul to get to this point.

[118:56.62] I'm glad that council person Gerlach, um, you know, also kept moving, moving forward

[119:01.78] to get this into an, uh, into some sort of document form.

[119:05.66] Um, yeah, I'm just, I'm happy that we're actually moving progress on this.

[119:09.64] So thanks.

[119:11.49] Um, Mr. Napoli, anything?

[119:12.49] Um, I, I have no issue with it.

[119:14.99] I'm glad that they, um, I think that, uh, the feedback we heard a while ago was, um,

[119:20.47] there was some concern about parks that's clearly stated in here.

[119:23.59] So I think we're good.

[119:24.95] I think the concerns I heard, I think at the, was it a year ago, been a while.

[119:30.53] Um, I think parks was a big concern.

[119:32.98] So the fact that that's spelled out, yeah, I'm good.

[119:36.68] Okay.

[119:38.67] Um, Mr. Bender.

[119:39.67] Yeah.

[119:40.67] I just wanted to think, I also wanted to just say thank you.

[119:41.67] I know the administration met with a ton of different organizations on this.

[119:46.59] It wasn't just us up here.

[119:48.27] I mean, it was, it was lots of organizations of, of, of folks weighing in on this.

[119:53.64] So I really appreciate that there was an effort and an ender, our focus on actually including

[119:58.48] all of the people who, who.

[120:00.07] work on on on some of the challenging issues like this and yeah I just

[120:04.27] appreciate that so thanks anyone else that's mr. Pungo anything sorry I

[120:12.27] apologize I did miss like maybe the first part of it but I'm just curious

[120:15.81] the solicitor's gone through this and is hundred percent or is this look you

[120:22.70] know your solicitor gives you advice and you take it or you you know you accept

[120:27.36] a level of risk I mean I'll be honest our solicitor would like to not be bound

[120:31.02] by any policy but I think that the will of this board and the agreement of the

[120:34.80] administration is we're gonna do these things anyway so why not codify them I

[120:40.72] mean that's you know we're willing to do that and maybe we bind future people

[120:47.06] who are less well-intentioned into you know treating people humanely as they

[120:52.81] try to you know keep them safe and so forth so you know we are we are as an

[120:58.62] administration on the aggregate are willing to accept the level of risk that

[121:04.42] this policy creates yeah there's just some warning where I'm wondering yeah

[121:14.68] well I think yeah I for the all-in-all I think it definitely put together like

[121:19.29] everyone said just all the different efforts so I think it tries to capture

[121:22.49] as much of that as possible thanks yep um and yeah I mean I appreciate your

[121:28.89] comments in terms of risk because I think some of the conversations we had

[121:32.53] is there's risk right now people sitting in this room the moment we open up this

[121:36.53] building to anyone in the public there's a risk someone could fall they could sue

[121:39.89] us like so no matter what we do there's always a risk so I appreciate that and

[121:47.60] this is not the ordinance I would want to pass but it's nothing is ever what

[121:52.99] you always want this is what we could come up with together and I I look

[122:00.84] forward to advocates and the Commission on homelessness and anyone that's paying

[122:06.48] attention to the unsheltered crisis in the city of Allentown and the Lehigh

[122:11.80] Valley broad more broadly to you know really document and and if you see

[122:19.21] elements of the ordinance that are working wonderfully or not wonderfully

[122:22.85] be ready to come prepared with proposed amendments to this legislative body so

[122:29.25] that it can be made even better but but that said I'll open it up to members of

[122:35.97] the public again come up you don't need to fill out a card or anything to say

[122:39.63] your name or your and then your order your city whatever you've got if there's

[122:43.33] anyone that wants to speak just your name and your city or okay work I'm

[122:59.62] Jennifer salon I'm in Allentown Pennsylvania my my in reading the

[123:04.15] ordinance I appreciate the detail that's in there there are a couple of things

[123:08.11] and I aren't quite clear and one of them is the rubric I don't know what the

[123:13.72] route there's a rubric that we're gonna use to decide things that is not

[123:19.13] included in the event and it's not available to the public I give it to

[123:25.00] them I don't know why it's in the I think that needs to be attached to this

[123:29.60] bill it is described two or three times in there and it's not when you pull the

[123:35.69] bill down or whatever it is yeah it's called a bill when you pull it down this

[123:39.97] does not come with it and I think that is a shortcoming of the bill itself the

[123:45.80] other thing that I wanted to say which is kind of off topic but not I and

[123:49.90] other people have applied to be on the Commission the Commissioner has asked

[123:53.54] the leading commissioners have asked for more people on the Commission we

[123:56.82] have put our applications in and we have heard nothing at all thank you

[124:05.25] thank you and I'm sure that's noted by the administration in terms of

[124:10.96] applications and the Commission yes yes mr. Bender just for confirmation was

[124:22.07] the rubric added to the bill I know it wasn't on the downloadable version it

[124:26.04] did you just not make it because it was a PDF that was weirder okay and then to

[124:39.09] make it clear the language is the same it's just visually more understandable

[124:43.01] it's like a graph a chart yes so then are there any more questions or comments

[124:52.29] from the public can I say yes I see Christine from the Commission on

[124:57.66] homelessness there oh I just want to say thanks she was very helpful too in the

[125:02.73] process hello and just in your name and you city your work Sharon Miles Young

[125:08.24] Bethlehem and I work with the Lehigh Council Conference of Churches I just

[125:14.66] wanted to say that after our last discussion I see in this ordinance I'm

[125:21.79] glad that we have it but of course there's not detail in here and I'll

[125:26.39] have to look at the rubric too but thinking about the last discussion we

[125:32.95] had discussion discussion about procedures everything has to be clear

[125:36.43] and it's not as clear right here so I just want to be clear that when you're

[125:42.19] saying the established requirements and procedures what's timelines what you know

[125:49.48] those kinds of things so just think about that with the unhoused are we

[125:54.70] really thinking it through thank you so in the ordinance so that's kind of

[126:02.87] just like a summary that's on the screen but in the ordinance it does get a

[126:05.67] little bit more specific like 30 days notification yeah so is there a copy in

[126:12.12] the back yeah I don't know is there a copy Jennifer Jennifer so there's no

[126:18.60] like actual copy of the ordinance okay all right um please come up hi my name

[126:29.28] is Marina Patterson I'm an outreach case worker at the conference of Lehigh

[126:33.24] Valley so I go out to the encampments four out of five days of the week and

[126:36.78] we work with pretty much all of the unhoused community in the entirety of

[126:41.44] the Lehigh Valley obviously I can't speak for our brothers and sisters that

[126:48.13] are outside because I do not have that experience but I do want to come up

[126:53.09] here and kind of shed light on the issues that they face outside

[126:56.95] specifically with evictions there's been so many instances where yes they have

[127:04.21] outreach case workers but there's such a limited amount of outreach case

[127:09.19] workers and other case workers in the valley to be able to provide them with

[127:12.47] housing and there's limited affordable housing as well in the valley as

[127:15.79] everybody knows as per the last bill that we were just talking about so with

[127:20.63] the whole eviction situation are there is there any criteria set up to put

[127:28.20] people in place with like mental health and other community resources to make

[127:32.88] sure that they could maintain whatever comes after the eviction because

[127:37.48] they're just gonna end up on the sidewalks and we're gonna be stepping

[127:40.64] over them okay so your is there like a city policy or law like an eviction

[127:45.68] mitigation sort of thing we didn't live in this bill not necessarily it just

[127:51.20] it's more so saying that before so the city goes out they find the encampment

[127:57.19] the encampment rises to a certain threshold of problematic that before the

[128:02.87] city just removes people that they must make some sort of attempt to offer

[128:10.76] mental health services housing what what not they they can't just say you

[128:16.36] gotta go so it does it but like that's in there it's in there yes at least

[128:24.49] that an attempt must be made it's hard to say that it's required because I

[128:28.69] mean you just said there's not enough services so to require us to do

[128:32.49] something and then there's not enough housing like yeah at least like it's

[128:36.84] good to hear that something's gonna happen instead of just like okay you're

[128:40.24] out I don't know what you're gonna do next but good luck yeah I mean and

[128:43.56] Christina might be able to speak more to like the resource hub like with the

[128:47.18] eviction we're not counsel but some people decided to in the city decided to

[128:53.94] evict all the folks down at Jordan I believe there's like a resource hub

[128:58.82] that was set up and some of those resources involved mental health I think

[129:02.90] conference maybe was yes there maybe or tried to be yeah but yeah so that

[129:10.76] and then I also have two quick questions for the rubric that you just

[129:15.16] handed me it says hazard risk I know one thing that we come across a lot in

[129:20.68] the unhoused communities are like human hazard waste is that included in the

[129:25.88] ordinary in the bill and if so what is to happen with the human waste where

[129:32.36] are they supposed to go only if that we didn't include we included trash

[129:37.93] accumulation which I guess is where that would fall I mean we didn't break out a

[129:41.93] separate category for bio waste a point of this is that trash accumulation and

[129:46.57] hazard risk no a hazard risk is like there's a fire there's a you know

[129:51.97] there's like a dangerous situation but but but for the trash accumulation one

[129:56.37] thing is one thing that's important is they ought to be allowed the opportunity

[130:01.09] to mitigate their trash I mean if the trash is a problem that they should be

[130:06.67] allowed the opportunity to clean that and you know and so and then get

[130:11.39] rescored okay so biohazard is not like a part of this we didn't we didn't make

[130:18.21] biohazard a special broken out portion though okay I was just curious and then

[130:24.96] um for the garbage accumulation we do know that private dumpster is it's

[130:31.42] illegal to dump our trash and just like somebody's dumpster so what is going to

[130:36.26] be set up for their ability to dispose of this trash properly I'll defer to

[130:45.88] mr. Cain other than that I know in the past that other encampment sites there

[130:51.76] have been dumpsters brought in and I feel like after the major eviction

[130:58.93] someone came up and they they reference but I don't know that some developers

[131:04.25] some construction company had like easy dumpsters that would be easier to get

[131:11.40] back to like the dump site so they exist but I think I'm not to cut you

[131:16.72] off yeah but our recycling bureau could provide that if they if people were

[131:20.52] willing to clean up their own trash yeah that's what they've been doing so

[131:24.80] I guess I would just have to continue I mean we have we have porta-potties also

[131:29.29] within the budget and I think some of them are even special like allocated

[131:33.84] for beyond shelter community yes as you say is there any way to add that to our

[131:40.34] resource network if there are people interested in assisting with you know

[131:44.81] trash removal whether it's a business whether it's individuals who you know

[131:49.53] if that could be one of the I mean and I know the commission does a lot and I

[131:54.49] know the city you know does a lot and so it's just I'm just trying to think

[131:57.93] like if there's a way to maybe open that opportunity just because I think

[132:02.67] there's some people who want to help but maybe don't know the best way and I

[132:06.85] think I remember mentioning something about like those like dumpsters that

[132:10.05] can be wheeled and all that sort of stuff and if there's a way and it's you

[132:13.25] know the city can do it okay but I think really the the thought was to not

[132:18.01] explicitly say how the city has to do it but specifically say like they need

[132:22.01] to do it the best way possible so whether that's connecting to a service

[132:25.61] or whether that's it makes more sense like I don't know if it's just a small

[132:29.22] amount of waste and it's like one city truck to get its own I don't know I'm not

[132:32.58] gonna say what that mechanism is but I'm just wondering if there's an

[132:36.49] opportunity to create that as part of the service network if there's someone

[132:40.29] in the community that exists that wouldn't mind helping out yes putting

[132:44.00] that out there yeah there's gotta be yeah it's gotta be any other members

[132:49.09] it's it's only a question Regina video West End so I'm saying like the two

[132:55.83] points no score one through ten and like what is the threshold number right

[133:01.25] like you're getting all these points out at 20 it's in the it's in the

[133:04.25] ordinance I think it's 20 I don't have it either it's not in the rubric it

[133:15.61] doesn't say 20 points on the rubric but this just looks a little bit different

[133:36.05] than that so we don't see the whole half of that so that is something that

[133:42.16] that Genesis prepared from this and that's actually the one they're gonna

[133:46.52] it looks nicer and right that's what yeah so like on the other end of Regina

[134:00.43] we apologize down because I noticed it wasn't attached we apologize for

[134:05.39] director Cain's lack of technical creative skill okay that was pretty much

[134:11.35] it I just wanted to know out of what thank you yeah yeah 130 - 12 does note

[134:19.96] the 20 point yeah yeah I see that good because I was there um yes so anyway I

[134:32.34] just want to start by saying this has been a long time a very long time and a

[134:39.18] long process over a year and the CC brought this to the Commission when the

[134:47.83] Jordan Creek encampment after the Jordan Creek encampments were being

[134:51.47] swept so I do want to publicly thank the administration and all of you for

[134:58.79] really taking the time and trying to embrace this to come up with the plan

[135:04.59] so that we don't have another experience like we had at Jordan Creek

[135:10.15] with being called into a room and being told that people need to leave in two

[135:13.87] weeks because that's what happened and that's what prompted this so this ordinance

[135:18.41] is really just a procedure so that people are not just kicked off of where

[135:24.73] they sleep without any without with somebody just making a decision that

[135:31.26] that it has to happen everything that we wanted in it to be honest with you

[135:37.65] is not there it's definitely not what it was prior when we first started

[135:42.27] looking at it and I understand I'm not a politician thank God I am stubborn and I

[135:50.82] would not be able to have that hum because I know what I see as right and

[135:57.54] what needs to be done is not going to be something that's going to be on the

[136:01.14] paper at the end this is a good starting point and I think it's a good

[136:06.74] example for other communities in the Lehigh Valley to hopefully follow so

[136:12.27] that the individuals that are sleeping outside have some rights to where they

[136:19.75] are sleeping instead of because other municipalities are not as nice or as

[136:27.08] understanding is Allentown to be honest since we have been talking about this

[136:34.52] as long as we have the administration they made a promise that they weren't

[136:39.04] going to sweep any encampment unless it was a danger something that was very

[136:44.93] dangerous and they didn't and they have not since then what I'm afraid of is

[136:51.90] that when we do put this into place is that the sweeps are gonna come because

[136:57.50] we have the ordinance the rubric was not included online and I think that is

[137:05.17] needed for the public before it goes to counsel and I think you all need to

[137:09.59] understand the rubric as well because I don't quite understand it either and

[137:16.03] then going forward with what needs to happen next is encampment resolution and

[137:23.28] that's what Marina that's what you were talking about because in this ordinance

[137:30.28] it does say and that was one of the suggestions from the commission that we

[137:34.00] that if we did have to sweep there would be a choice we should provide

[137:38.12] each individual that is sleeping in that spot a choice of either going to a

[137:45.52] shelter or a housing option whether or not they take that or not is their

[137:50.69] choice what I wanted it to say even further that if there was no choice and

[137:57.24] what it should say is that then they don't have to leave where they're

[138:01.64] sleeping because that's really encampment resolution encampment

[138:08.75] resolution and I brought this up to your attention before and I brought it

[138:11.93] to the commission is basically a human centered approach connecting the

[138:17.84] unsheltered individuals living in the encampment to stable housing and

[138:22.55] supportive services rather than displacement or sweeps so it's more of a

[138:27.35] harm reduction model before you go in before there's going to be a sweep

[138:31.23] before something becomes a hazard with garbage or whatever which by the way

[138:37.27] the commission did this is before your time even before Jordan Meadows was

[138:42.15] swept had three cleanups of Jordan Meadows in three separate areas and

[138:49.63] pulled out tons and tons of garbage with the community's help with the people

[138:55.07] that live there help and they were providing a dumpster the city was

[139:00.75] providing the dumpsters and the things needed for those cleanups and then they

[139:04.75] even had a dumpster for a short period of time where individuals can continue

[139:09.71] to bring their garbage which is what is needed so people don't have to live in

[139:15.41] garbage nobody wants to live in garbage but to go further the city needs to

[139:22.51] embrace encampment resolutions because not only would it bring all of the

[139:27.33] providers in the area more collaboratively to work together but

[139:32.17] maybe it could bring more solutions for the individuals of where they need to go

[139:37.17] from other entities like the city and the county and so on and so forth so I

[139:45.75] would really like to see that happen with the development in the commission

[139:50.31] and bringing it forth to council and going further with that because this

[139:55.37] only does so much it's just a procedure it's gonna be codified so it won't be a

[140:02.87] policy that will be ignored because that is what happened before and I just I

[140:09.13] thank you guys for really really taking the time to do this so I think that's

[140:14.94] it yeah any questions that I can answer thank you so much thank you um I really

[140:24.48] can't say that enough and I wish some of the unsheltered folks who came were

[140:29.21] here and beyond thankful for them to come and speak their truth we wouldn't

[140:34.61] be here if they didn't show up anyone else okay so I will make a motion or no

[140:46.68] wait is there a motion I got into the mode of having to make a motion last

[140:50.40] time so um I would suggest if there's a way to include language that that

[140:56.47] rubric is definitely part of this ordinance so is there a motion to move

[140:59.83] this forward inclusive of the rubric motion with that board favorably sir

[141:04.43] I'll second it all right all in favor aye okay so let's move forward to the

[141:08.29] next next council meeting um now the rest of the items are you know very

[141:16.30] important um and also it's okay to leave okay so we're gonna go ahead have a

[141:29.92] good night thank you all for coming drive safely so we have next up bill

[141:36.77] 64 bill 64 minutes a 2026 general fund budget to provide for a supplemental

[141:42.49] appropriation of $15,000 from the PA Historical and Museum Commission to fund

[141:47.53] year two of the contract on preserving and providing public access to

[141:51.89] historically significant records that document the development planning and

[141:55.73] cultural heritage of the city of Allentown yes thank you uh miss Kistler

[142:02.30] or anyone from the administration basically what you're gonna see on all

[142:06.58] the next bills that you have in front of you are either pass-throughs or

[142:11.53] grants coming into the city for a specific purpose and I want to thank

[142:15.89] Terry de Kuganow who's our grants manager who's here tonight we've just

[142:20.29] been slammed between the our caps the LSAs and a number of others this one in

[142:25.25] particular does exactly what it says they want significant records and we've

[142:31.37] gotten a supplemental appropriation got you miss Kistler because I mean I don't

[142:38.37] want to say these are just like obvious things to approve but do you want to go

[142:42.65] through each of them when it comes up or would you prefer just hey miss Ortega

[142:46.93] reads it and then we take a vote or it's it's fine if you want to read them

[142:50.93] and vote and if you have questions just okay so I'll ask if anyone has

[142:55.00] questions if they do perfect okay um so does anyone have questions comments

[142:59.68] with bill 64 on the committee or off the committee okay um so with that said

[143:07.76] is there a motion to forward bill 64 I'll make a motion to forward it to the

[143:12.11] next council meeting I'll second all right so all in favor aye aye all right

[143:16.95] so I'll be forwarded next up is bill 67 mr. Ortega bill 67 amends the 2026

[143:23.83] grant fund to provide for a supplemental appropriation of $500,000

[143:27.51] from the PADC EDE local share account grant these funds are a pass-through

[143:31.51] grant that will support the ripple community ink all right thank you any

[143:35.34] questions comments from council yeah I just have to make a comment so pursuant

[143:39.26] to the Pennsylvania Ethics Act I have to abstain from voting for bill 67 my

[143:43.34] partner is the executive director of verbal community ink so voting on this

[143:46.14] bill would be would present a potential conflict of interest I filed a written

[143:50.02] momentum memorandum to that effect with the on town city clerk and I will not

[143:53.54] vote any other questions comments all right so then I'll go ahead and make a

[144:00.26] motion to forward bill 67 to the next council meeting is there a second I'll

[144:04.88] second it all right all in favor aye all right thank you so bill 69 bill 69 is an

[144:12.24] ordinance providing for the expenditure of certain monies received by the city

[144:16.12] of Allentown under title 1 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1976

[144:20.58] as amended new homeless emergency assistance and rapid transition to

[144:25.08] Housing Act of 2009 and title 2 of the National Affordable Housing Act of 1990

[144:30.08] as amended for the purpose of undertaking programs of housing and

[144:33.68] community development within the city thank you any questions or comments

[144:37.94] okay is there a motion is there a motion to move bill 69 forward to the next

[144:45.48] council motion move that forward favorably I'll second it all right all

[144:49.62] in favor aye okay thank you next up bill 72 bill 72 amends a 2026 grant fund

[144:56.61] to provide for a supplemental appropriation of $384,048 from the PA

[145:02.29] DC EDE local share account grant these funds are a pass-through grant that will

[145:06.59] support the Civic Theater of Allentown thank you questions comments okay is

[145:12.79] there a motion to move bill 72 forward to council I'll make a motion to move

[145:16.75] it forward I'll second all right all in favor aye aye so next thank you next up

[145:22.21] bill 73 bill 73 amends a 2026 grant fund to provide for a supplemental

[145:27.30] appropriation of $29,400 from the PA DC EDE local share account grant these

[145:33.98] funds are a pass-through grant that will support the Planned Parenthood thank you

[145:37.62] any question any questions comments okay is there a motion to move forward

[145:42.22] motion to move forward favorably I'll second it all in favor aye aye okay moves

[145:47.58] forward next up bill 78 bill 78 amends a 2026 grant fund to provide for a

[145:53.64] supplemental appropriation of $1,300,000 from the state office of the

[145:58.32] budget redevelopment assistance capital program these funds are a pass-through

[146:02.44] grant that will support resurrected a community development corporation early

[146:06.32] childhood education facility thank you questions comments is there a motion to

[146:12.98] move forward I'll make a motion move it forward I'll second all in favor aye aye

[146:17.93] and lastly bill 79 bill 79 amends a 2026 grant fund to provide for a

[146:24.43] supplemental appropriation of $855,000 from the PA DC EDE local share account

[146:30.19] grant these funds are a pass-through grant that will support the Allentown

[146:33.43] Art Museum hey questions comments all right is there a motion to move forward

[146:39.71] I'll make a motion move it forward is there a second I'll second all right all

[146:44.26] in favor aye aye so this will move forward to the next council meeting um

[146:49.67] I'm is there anything else anything from the administration okay then I will

[146:56.46] adjourn this meeting thank you so much for your evening thank you