Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

So I'll just wait for the OK. You ready? Yeah.

OK.

At 533, we will call the meeting to order. Approval of the minutes from July 1, 2026.

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from July 1, 2026. I'll second.

We have a motion on the floor and also a second for the approval of July 1, 2026 minutes. All ready for the question? All in favor, let it known by saying aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Hearing none, ayes have it, motion carried. Number three, subdivision and land development. 132, 134 South Prince Street, Prince Street HUD.

Good evening, Cheryl Love with the LA Group and Marisol with the Housing Authority. So she'll give a brief introduction and I can speak to a couple things and it should be pretty straightforward presentation for you.

Good evening, so the 132, 134 South Prince Street, we are currently demolishing the one portion of that building right now. But we are hoping to construct on the first floor nine transitional units. We're going to provide services on that first floor such as a career link will be there, possibly a medical space in there for the residents or clients that will be there. On the second and third, 31 new apartments there. The project will be for low to moderate income folks and hoping to provide a service that's much needed in our area.

Okay. So from a site standpoint, the majority of all the buildings will be removed other than the one townhouse that's in the front here in this area, the Bricktown row house that's there would remain. And so the third floor will be added. Originally this project was planned for renovating the current building that was there and putting a second floor on it. And then through geotechnical testing it was realized that we needed to change up our planning approach and it was not able to support a second floor and at that point they made the decisions to move forward and put it into a full new three story building. So they did have a number of zoning approvals prior and they're listed all on the plans. stormwater is being captured from the roof water and directed into the black rectangle that you see there actually in under the floor slab of the new portion of that side of the building and it will be pumped and reused for greywater reuse for toilet flushing and we've worked through all those numbers and all of those Technical comments are addressed within the plans. We are removing one tree out front we had in a prior year received shade tree Commission approval for that as well as shade tree on the species for new trees So as you see along Prince Street, we will have those five new trees there Brick strip will be provided out front with proper tree openings There is a small driveway depression there. We will be removing that replacing all the sidewalk and putting new curb where the depression was and we do have all the PennDOT approvals for that work as well. And then limited parking would remain as approved by our zoning hearing from Water Street there at the back of the site. Again we are replacing curb and proper concrete apron sidewalk driveway aprons out back as well. One of the most recent comments was to provide one additional tree which we squeezed in out back along Water Street there in coordination with your urban forester. However, we are seeking a modification that is listed on the cover sheet of our plans to not provide the one additional extra required street tree So that would be section 265-33M, I believe it's A. And that is simply because we just physically can't fit the one additional tree that we would be required to provide out there. Other than that, the project, we're down to administrative items. We're waiting on the review of our financial security estimate. We had turned in our other agreements, so we're looking for feedback from the city and or approval to go ahead and execute those, that being the storm. Operation a maintenance agreement that would go with the cistern and also the developer agreement that would go with the financial security posting There are some bike racks that we are providing They're a little bit difficult to see on this plan, but where the the black rectangle is There is a porch covering there the bike racks were providing more than is required there as much as we can fit and Back in under the brown area there. So those are kind of under roof of the porch, which will be the new overhang there And there is also an that gray dot there is an access manhole lid that we most recently provided a detail for that to remain locked As requested by our city review comments and that's just for access into the cistern for occasional maintenance so Honestly, otherwise, we've really wrapped up all of our comments other than these couple administrative items that we're looking forward to gaining approval and moving this project forward. It's much needed in the community and we're excited to get this going. So any questions?

I just have a question regarding the safety aspect of the plan and maybe some lighting I'm not 100 percent clear but on both sides of the building it looks like there's a sidewalk or a passageway that you can get from Prince to Water Street is that is that a walkable through fare for a pedestrian not like it's a pedestrian pathway but if somebody wanted to walk from the front of the building to the back of the building is that a way that they could do that.

That is, no, it's not able to do that. I think you may be seeing, the gray line is a shadow line in our rendering. That's a bit misleading, so I apologize for that. That's the actual neighboring property. However, there are gates out front in that upper corner, and that is meant to, to have the residents are able to come and congregate inside of that courtyard space in there. There's some movable benches and chairs and end tables inside that space. That is securely gated in the front that will be controlled and also there is a small fence area, I'll point on the plan here, that closes off a slight opening between that property and the property to the north. So there is a secure contained space inside of that. But what you're seeing here is truly a shadow line on the bottom part of the plan. So I apologize that And that's a bit misleading.

As soon as you said shadow, I kind of giggled a little bit because I did think like, seriously, is this a sidewalk? But and then I just my question then follow up would have been like lighting and ensuring it was safe and no hiding spots for it. But being a shadow, that's irrelevant anyway. So thank you.

Is the only modification you're requesting for street trees?

One street tree that we can't fit. We worked hard to squeeze. We did not originally have that one along Water Street, but we took a pavement strip there. We could still keep our eight parking spaces that we were approved for with zoning. But yes, that is, we made everything else, just the one. So we've squeezed it in.

Okay. You said career link and what else is going in there?

so currently we are in an rfp process to find out exactly what's going in there but one of the partners that have already agreed has been career link also have talked to penn medicine to have a medical space in there so those are the two that we know will be in there and then we're hoping that other agencies that provide homelessness type services will also be leasing space from this from the first floor yeah thank you

Another question maybe for you. What are program requirements for residents.

So on the second and third floor they are going to be normal typical apartment units but on the first floor there's nine transitional units and they will follow the services that will be provided and the rules that will be set forth would be from the homelessness coalition. they're the ones that are managing that space.

On the nine units on the lower floor, will that area be able to support men, women, and children, or just women and men? Is there separation that we can accommodate?

Yep, nine individual units. Some of them have been, we have, made the space for families and also then some for women and some for men yeah and then we have kind of the it's not your traditional shelter like you may have seen on Clay Street these are specific rooms great thank you that's much needed

And do we have the planning staff behind what we're looking at? Do they recommend approval tonight?

And so the recommendation would be for conditional approval as we just have those final elements, like the developer's agreement, the financial security, the O&M agreement. Those are the things that need to get wrapped up. But because of that, it would be conditional, but it's only conditional on those. OK.

any public comment i would like to make a motion to approve 132 134 south prince street with a conditional approval you just have to um do the modif with the modification with the um with the street tree modification waiver being accepted do you need the specific o and m and that stuff okay

I'll second that. We have a motion on the floor with the modifications, conditional approval. Ready for the question. All in favor let it known by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

I'm very proud to say aye and thank you so much for this project. It's very needed in our city, very needed. Thank you. Thank you, we appreciate it.

Motion carried. Number four other business, staff report.

So again, I included our most recent land development tracking. This might actually be one older, there might be one more newer one, but this is, it's pretty much, it's pretty much there. And so there really isn't much updating to be done. You'll note that the one update I would say is the 150 Pitney Road, which is the city Department of Public Works plan, will be before the commission at our next meeting. And so we will be having our next meeting. So just mark your calendars for that. And I'll be sending out a packet with that information and so i think that that we don't have anything else that that is um coming up in terms of readiness for next week are there any questions from you as you've looked through the letter um i was just curious to know how the progress of sycamore ridge was going So they are still working toward resubmission. The city has been working with them fairly extensively. The two biggest hurdles that they have right now are actually intertwined. And so it's one of these like, which comes first in order to get over one, they need to get over another. And so there's essentially two hurdles that we're trying to figure out how to work with them. And so they are working at it. I don't really know how close they are to submission.

I was just curious. I think that is somewhat of an exciting project. I know that they have a lot of development hurdles to overcome in order to make that vision kind of come a reality. But just we haven't heard anything so it's just kind of curious.

Anything else.

That's all from me. Okay, any public comment?

You all should have received an email from me today for a focus group. So we will have our consultants here the 17th through the 19th of August. We'll also have like an open house presentation so they'll come before planning commission on the night of the 19th and then they're going to move over to another location to do an open house. So you guys are welcome to attend after our planning commission meeting is over. Yeah, we've got a bunch of stakeholder groups and a community advisory committee that we're formulating, and they'll all meet there. If you are unable to make the focus group, we will have other opportunities. They're willing to do virtual meetings. It's just that they'll only be here for those three days. So I don't know if anyone has any questions on that.

my only question regarding the ordinance update is the do we have an estimated timeline now that we have a consultant like working do we have what's the execution period for this yeah it's gonna be about two years so I think right now we're estimating 27 months but some of that is gonna include

um kind of an after adoption portion where they're going to prepare all the applications for us as well as standard operating procedures that we have guidance on how to enforce the ordinances and interpret them so so in the it does your two-year timeline include the adoption and the actual like execution of those ordinances or is that the two-year timeline is them drafting and getting approvals to the public approval yeah adoption okay awesome

Is there any, I mean, two years, gosh, okay, I'm gonna sound like a, I'm gonna, I don't know, it's just, we approved this comp plan two or three years ago at this point, I don't remember the date, it's just been.

It's been three years.

Yeah, I knew it's been a long time. So now we're five years out on these new zoning ordinances. Is there, assuming the answer is no but I'm gonna ask anyway but is there anything we can do to kind of expedite that process because I know that there are some recommendations that we had in the comp plan I think would be beneficial to future development in the city and I'd hate to see that that take another two to three more years to get those things executed

Right. We are looking at some housing related recommendations to see how feasible they are and how much of an impact making changes to those would have on the rest of the ordinances. I think once they get through their assessment which should be in the next couple of months after the kickoff meeting they'll go through they're like we've already provided them all of our ordinances that even relate with zoning and land development signs stormwater all of that. So they've started their assessment already but like after this project launch then they'll have some more feedback from the community. on what to look for. So once they have that assessment we anticipate potentially having some housing things that we can do in the near term. I would say it took us a year to get through the data center ordinance alone and that was just a small amendment so in theory.

Right and that's what I just would hate to see.

So like rewriting the whole ordinance is obviously going to take and we're doing two ordinances so it's just going to take time.

yeah I guess I guess it's just I'd like to see this I mean I know government is always slow and things take their time and that's just how it is but I would really if there's any way that we can expedite it or prioritize certain ordinances that I think will benefit certain communities over not that the whole ordinance overhaul isn't important but some of them I think are more essential or would benefit if they could happen a little bit quicker. So I would be interested to know if the consultant would be able to identify like, hey, maybe we could do these in a year timeframe and then this would be the ultimate two year timeframe.

Yeah we have talked with them about that. So I do think that's part of what they'll be looking at when they do their assessment to determine if there's things that can be done quicker. I think the most important thing is making sure that there's no conflicting information between the two ordinances and that they work hand in hand together versus having.

Agreed.

Yeah issues. So they are looking at that and I would just recommend that during the if you are able to make a focus group meeting then just to provide that feedback to them.

I'll take some emails. I'm moving my daughter into college. Gotcha.

Well again we'll have other opportunities for and I think we'll have to do a virtual because I know there's a lot of people it's hard when it's the summer but we have been trying to get them here since June and we haven't we've been kind of focused on the data center ordinance and so I just think that kind of shows how much even a small amendment takes time away from doing other things so. Like we'll try, and with them being able to draft it, I think it would be much easier. But no guarantees on when it'll be done.

I guess my point is I would just it just seems like this is taking so long and it was so exciting and now it's kind of just like stale and I want it to be exciting again and I think revitalizing these ordinances or getting some of these things done in a quicker fashion could be beneficial to a lot of individuals as well as the city as a whole. But we're going to market it.

It's going to be marketed.

There's gonna be gear And just for clarification is this a

When we talk about ordinances, is this also going to take into account adopting the zoning map, or is that separate, or is that the zoning ordinance?

No, the zoning map would go along with the zoning ordinance. Okay, just want to make sure it's all one piece. Yeah, they're part of the same. We are looking at also doing an official map, which we currently don't have.

Right, that too.

Yeah, so that is part of the process, and we are hoping to move that to the front, because that can be a fairly simple win, Because they were looking at doing all three at the same time so we're hopeful to move that to the front, because at least it would provide us some protections when land development does come through.

Thanks.

Yeah again just reach out if you aren't able to make it and we'll work on getting something else scheduled with the consultants, because I think it's important for all of our planning Commission members to have their voices heard. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. So, any further public comment? Hearing none. At 5.56.

I'll make a motion to dismiss, adjourn our meeting.

Second.

We have a motion and a second to adjourn the meeting to 5.56. Ready for the question. All in favor let it known by saying aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye's have it. Motion carried and meeting adjourned. Thank you for your time. Close, no, no, I think, no, no, we had one just a little bit, this is second place, second place.