Municipal Council - workshop

I'd like to call to order the North Town Municipality Council Work Session for Tuesday, August 18th. We have a moment of silence and Pledge of Allegiance. Madam Secretary, roll call, please.

Natalie Colson. Here. Jasmine Griffin. Here. William McCoy. Here. David McMahon. Here. Nadira Robinson. Here. Dustin Queenan. Here. Rashad Bates. Here.

We had executive session tonight on personnel matters and negotiation. Vice President Queenan, do you have any announcements?

George Washington Carver Center, August 30th. We'll have back-to-school haircuts and hairstyles from 12 to 3 p.m. That's it.

Any other announcements? Councilman Robinson?

Yes, not an announcement, more of an acknowledgement, if that's okay, President.

Absolutely.

Thank you. I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge and send our condolences to the family of Ms. Darlene Wright-Burris. Ms. Wright-Burris was with us here in council not too long ago while we were celebrating a young man here as part of the municipality. She was a resident of Narsetown and a longtime educator, as well as an educator, in our town area school district, most recently at Hancock Elementary School. She recently passed away and I wanted to send our condolences to her family who laid her to rest yesterday. I had the privilege of my son being in her class and many students have been impacted by her and the gift that she gave to this community. So again, I just wanted to send my condolences to that family, to all of the families that have been affected, and to the young ones who are preparing to go back to school, and parents like myself who have to prepare now for harder conversations as they begin to start this school year. So if you will, please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. And again, my condolences and well wishes to the family as they get through this time.

Do we have any public comments?

The first one is Holly Allen.

I'll stay right here, and then you can sit there. Hi. Everybody OK? OK. Hi, my name is Holly Allen. I presently live at 1301 Powell Street. And we are the residents that live at Montgomery Park Senior Housing. And so we're here today to talk about our concerns and things that are going on at our facility. OK, so I'll talk first. And then others will speak their piece. if that's okay. Okay, so I've been living at Montgomery Park for four years. And within the four years, my car has been towed three times from June's Towing Company. The first time I got towed, they told me that I was in handicap parking, but the management didn't tell me I couldn't park there, I was moving in. So they towed me and I had to pay $225. Okay, the second time I was parked and they told me that my tire was over the line. And so my car was towed again, once again, $225, and I had to pay that to get my car. The facility is located on, what is that, Ridge Pipe. It's a place where you can't even find it. And so it's two places there and you have to look really hard because they don't have a sign that's enlarged to let you know that's the place. I got told for the third time on August 11th. Their response was I was told that my placard was improperly displayed. A lady on my floor came and ran around and said, Holly, they're towing your car. I said, they can't be. So I went around to try to get down, because I had problems with my legs. I was trying to get down there to stop them from taking my car for the third time. They don't open until 10 AM. I had to get an Uber. I had to borrow money to get my car for the third time. And I'm just disgusted with Jones Towing Company. When I got my car, the lady asked for all my information, so I went in there. So when I was getting my car, she wouldn't let me go in the lot. So she rolled my car all the way in the back, came around, and my placard and my handicap placard was on the front of my dashboard. I just don't understand. We are senior citizens. Praise God, I can walk and I can move, and I have resources that I can go to to help me as far as getting my car and getting an Uber to get my car. I don't know what's going on. It's terrible. I was told by the manager, the, what is she, the regional manager. She had called me. I called her. She called me the second day. She didn't respond to my call. But she, this is what she said, and I'm going to hurry up. They don't come during the day because they have things to do. So they come after hours past five, and that's when they go around to tow people's car. But they're focusing on us, the people that live there, all the seniors. And I don't think that's right. So I normally have three minutes, and something needs to be done. And I just don't understand. And during the day when we come, we never see the towing company, Dion's Towing Company. They never come and tow cars that are going to the hospital. It's a hospital across the street. They always come and park. They take our spaces during the day. But nothing is never done. And their cars aren't towed, but our cars, the residents that live there, are the cars that's being towed. So that's why I'm here today, and I hope and pray that we get something done with that.

The next person is Vivian Powell.

Hello? Oh, that's good. Okay. I'm going to be Jane Doe. I live at 1301 Powell Street. I've been there for nine years. The management, higher management, not necessarily the office management, they are different. The higher-ups, her name is Marla Onup, have ignored every request to get anything done in there. Security cameras, our car was broken into and one was stolen two times and the last time we had to replace the shattered window, back window, and they found a bullet in the roof of our car. I have gone to management for nine years requesting security cameras which do not cost a lot of money. They refuse. Plenty of other members that live at this facility in the B and C have all asked for cameras that have still been ignored, okay? The towing. Broken intercom. Four months now, we have had no functioning doors to allow the people to come in. We've had no intercom for them to beep our apartment to allow us to buzz them in. Management keeps saying, oh, we're ordering the parts. We're ordering the parts. We're waiting for the parts. It's been four and a half months. The elevators go out. We'll have one elevator working in a whole building for 50 people. They have medications from the third, fourth, second floor, and they are forced to walk up and down the steps, handicapped, because there's no ramps, there's no nothing to assist true handicapped people. We used to have a thing on the wall that if something happened to us in the bathroom, we could pull it. It never worked in nine years. It was never set up. It sat there like it was a visual and that was it. They actually came last year and removed them because it served them no purpose. They are not interested in our safety in any way, shape or form. The intercom has been non-functional. Packages, medication, deliveries are not being given to the people that live there because they can be stolen. They're dropping them in the first door coming in because they can't get through the security door, which is unfair, costs us money that will not be reimbursed. There are visible cracks. C building was just built. It already has cracks from the ceiling to the top of the bedroom wood. There's probably 30 or 40 apartments up in there that have serious cracks in them that if it was brought to management, nothing has been done. C building should still be under warranty because that building has only been up maybe six or seven months. They told us a long time ago that they have one year to fix whatever is wrong there. These cracks are in A, B, and C building that have been ignored.

Good evening. My name is Nadine Hedgeman, and I live in Montgomery Park Senior Housing Building B. I agree with everyone, things that they stated, the drivers and their cars happening. I'm here for another reason, as well as that I stand with my neighbors. Last year, Montgomery County Park Management, Ms. Donna Roth, who had came in March, she was the new office manager for Building B and C. We've had several meetings. On January the 8th, the meeting concerns was our front door in the B building, it's broke. It has been broke for over a year. over a year. They said Stanley needed to get a part. Stanley was out in April. I have emails that I have sent to management, Ms. Beckett, CC Alderman, whoever the owner is, they do not respond. We have had meetings with the fire department, the Norristown Police Department before. We were supposed to do a fire drill. Those that were there at that meeting, that never transpired. I have literally pictures of people pulling the door and coming in. It is not safe. It's a law that we need to live in a safe environment. I am not safe at 69. I've been there for five years, but I've been dealing with all of them since the A building. They said in this meeting, Ms. Beckett, assured us last year that we were going to have cameras put in the B building outside because of the issues with the people cars being broken and stolen and now the towing. They're towing like they said. I go over to the drugstore and let them know about people picking up their medication that's parking so that my neighbors that drive can't park. The gentleman, he had to tell a lady this morning not to park there while she was going over to Jefferson Health. So what do we do? I called Tenant in Action Montgomery County. I Googled, got a phone number. I've called for four weeks. No one has returned my phone call. Where do I go now? I'm here for a resolution.

Mr. President, hold up before you start. Madam Clerk, do you have any of these names on your list? OK. And Mr. President, normally you would probably allow whatever, even though they didn't sign up, you would normally allow it. I just want to make sure I remind anybody who speaks that you did not give your name to the clerk. Please make sure you give your name to the clerk because she has to write the meeting minutes. So she has to reflect who spoke. And you would be doing a huge favor if you could give her your name, even if it's afterward, about it.

We signed a form back then.

No, I understand. But that's why I asked the clerk if she had everybody's names, and she said she didn't. So I just want to make sure for those who might have spoken that did not give the names that you just know to do it. I'm not trying to stop you. I'm here to worry about procedural stuff, and so that's why I'm interjecting. I apologize, Mr. President, Madam Clerk, ma'am. I apologize, but thank you.

It's okay. It's okay. My name is Felicia, and I just moved there in December. And I witnessed two, well, one fire drill. And I didn't know what was going on. Was out there until 3 in the morning, you know, waiting for the firemen to come so they can put out whatever was going on in the incinerator. Anyway, I was away. I left here July 28th. I came back August 3rd. The lights went out when I got home. I'm a senior. I'm a young senior. But anyway, I get home. August 3, my lights was out. And I said, what's going on? I know I paid the electric bill. Hit the flicker lights. My daughter was so concerned. You can't stay here. This house stank. I don't know why this apartment smelled this way. Come to find out the lights was out since Friday. They went out on Friday. They didn't come back on to late Saturday. All my food went bad. I went to management. Nothing can be done. So I went to the welfare office. They gave me a paper to go to the pantries to get free food if you want to eat, Miss Craig. And that's what I did. I went to the pantries, because they can't do anything. I called PICO, and I'm waiting for them to get back to me. They said send them a letter, and I did. So I don't know. In the cracks, look. I'm not used to paying rent. I'm going to be honest with you. This person, I haven't paid rent since 1986. You know, I had somebody else paying. But anyway, I pay $1,000. That's the bulk of my money. For a senior, $1,000?

I'm going to keep coming, OK?

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Linda Williams. I'm in Building C. My issue is people coming in my apartment. We have an exterminator. He'll knock on the door as he's coming in instead of waiting for you to say anything. This has happened to me several times. I'm missing credit cards, clothes. I went to management. I have a letter that I sent to her about that. Nothing was done. So I want to know what is the procedure for safety in this building because it's ridiculous, and everybody that got up here told you the same thing. We need help. We can't do this by ourselves. And I shouldn't feel, if I'm paying rent every month, nervous about when I go out and come back what's missing. So we need some help. Like we, you know, no mark. Maybe they would try maybe to do a fireman situation where we can do it so we'll know where to go and who needs help, who can't come out themselves, their families. Some people in that building don't have nobody. And they need help. And, you know, if you see one, hey, you need help? You want to go downstairs? Wheelchair? None of that. They found a lady on my floor, passed away. It was smelling so bad. There was no air on the floor. And I don't know if any of y'all smelled dead before, but just what it smelled like. We complained and we complained and we complained. Finally, probably from Monday to Friday, they came. The woman defecated and she had passed away. But we was exposed to that, smelling that, and telling the office that, and nothing was done. So, like, can y'all help us, please?

Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Anita Hampton. I'm going to make this short. My concern is that we have not been able to have a fire drill in... Yes, I've been there for six years and no one comes out. We have people living in our apartment that are 80, 90 years old. A lot of them are, not a lot, several of them are bedridden. Most of the people in there have walkers or scooters or canes. So my concern is that we have a fire drill. There was an incident that happened on Friday.

I'm not going to say the part about on Friday at 4.30 in the morning.

I heard the alarm go off. I don't think anyone in our building except maybe two people heard it. And because I'm adjacent from Building B, I was able to hear it. 4.30 in the morning, which I just found out today, We thought it was a fire, but it wasn't a fire, it was smoke. But nevertheless, people didn't come out. My concern is someone just said earlier that we can't make them come out. So I'm asking what do we do in a situation like that after knocking on someone's door and they refuse to come out? And then I was told not that long ago sitting here that there's something in the building near the stairwell where it's called a safe wall. Nobody knows that. I was told that if you come down and stand in that area, you're safe. But so far, I'm sorry to say, different things that have been going on with Altman for years are things they've not done. I don't even trust that safe wall. I'm down on the first floor, and God forbid if something happens, I'm going to at least try to knock on as many doors as I can, and then I'm coming out. I'm right next door to a side door that's used for, you know, exodus for fires. But so many people in this apartment are handicapped. I mean, lots of them. I guess in Building B and C as well. What do we do? Our windows are not made where they go up and down. They're made like an open book. So if you can't get out the front door, we would have to break the window, part screen and part is glass, to break it. And I'm not just saying this to be smart, but God forbid it was somebody 300 pounds or so, there's no way they could get out. There's no, so what I'm saying is we need the fire company to come out. There are plenty of people in there that don't even know how to use a fire extinguisher. So something needs to be done. It is not safe in that building. And then I was told that someone said that you're supposed to, if you're trapped inside,

I was in a lot of things. I'm mad at myself.

Okay, I have other names here if you're going to speak please let me know Vivian Perry Said queed Morgan These are all people that are on Powell Street. Linda Williams already spoke. Anita Hampton already spoke. Okay. Delilah Lewis. Were you going to speak or no? Jack. Okay.

We don't have any safety in the building. I do it. I did town watch down in Philadelphia, drug dealers and dope addicts. But up here in my building, I do it at 11 o'clock to 6 in the morning. I go around on my own, check all the floors, the doors. Keys aren't in. The doors are closed because people do leave keys in their lock. Don't close the door all the way. I check the trash rooms. I make sure... The doors ahead, like office, make sure that they're closed and locked. I do this on my own for the safety, because if I'm safe, everybody else will be safe too. And yes, people have left their keys in the door. People have not closed the door all the way. And also, because there's no safety, we have no security in that building. Anybody can come in that building. It's really not secure. It's really not secure. I do this on my own, and I do it, and I've been doing it for four years, and I haven't missed a night. Because I'm dedicated because I live there, and I care.

Thank you. Thank you. And we appreciate you.

The next person I have is Jacqueline Glover. Avita Brooks.

Right here.

OK. Nadine Hedgeman. OK.

The two individuals that appeared on this panel was at our meeting like. And you heard some of these same things at that meeting and you were there when the. Yeah, because we didn't have it. And also Ms. Wendy had started for the speed bumps. Yeah, so that's another thing. And it is, has to do with Alderman. Y'all about to open up another building? Is it the fourth building? They can rebuild four buildings.

No, no, that has not happened.

I'm just saying, well, it's working on it. That's what they said about the third building was supposed to be a park area for the people that ate dog.

Just to give you an update, they were approved for three buildings. They're not approved for fourth. If they want to try to do a fourth, they'll have to come back in front of us.

But they are over there working.

They built the playground, everything. I told them they're building a dog park for them and everything.

Right. But they're not going to . We'll look into that.

So Mr. President, I apologize for interjecting here again. You know I'm always worried about procedure and making sure the body is trying to follow it. As a reminder for everybody here in the public who aren't used to coming to the public meetings, there is a public comment section. As you saw on the screen, everybody gets three minutes to speak. There's a sign-in sheet. Typically, counsel, if you forgot to sign in, will usually be a little lax about that and allow you to speak. But it is important that you wait until your name is called by the clerk. That's why she has a sign-in sheet, so we follow that list, so we know we've checked off everybody. And this way, if you didn't get a chance, you'll have a chance at the end to try to speak. Additionally, because there are other business that needs to be conducted, we do need everybody to be limited to, you get one shot at your three minutes. And I'm not trying to be mean to council or to anybody in the public, but you can appreciate that there's a lot of other business that that council needs to address. And so please keep your comments to three minutes. Additionally, one last comment that I wouldn't normally make. As you'll probably see on the agenda, there's a public hearing tonight with regard to data centers and data center ordinances. If you signed up to give public comment with regard to data centers, I will not stop you. However, I would encourage you to hold that public comment off until the public hearing itself. During the public hearing, we have to accept public comment. That's why we have a stenographer here tonight. It would be probably more important to get your public comment about data centers on the stenographic record rather than on the regular meeting minutes record. So I'm not trying to discourage you from speaking, but rather I would encourage you to wait until the public hearing portion to provide your comment on that limited topic. So I'll stop there. Thanks. Thanks, Patrick.

There are, there's another, I think that is everyone that was from Powell. So the next person is a Dr. Channel.

Good evening, council president, council members, and community representatives. My name is Dr. Channell, and I am here tonight as a senior advocate speaking on behalf of elderly and disabled residents in our community. I am not here to repeat the concerns the residents have shared tonight. I am here to speak to a deeper issue, the responsibility we all share to protect seniors, to honor their dignity, and to ensure they can live safely and peacefully in senior citizens' homes. Many seniors in our community are living with disabilities, limited mobility, chronic health conditions, and fixed incomes. They are doing the best they can to navigate life with strength and grace, but too often they are left to struggle alone. When systems fail, when communication breaks down, or when policies are unclear or inconsistently enforced, seniors pay the highest price. What they need and what they deserve is compassion, consistency, and accountability. They need leaders who will listen, landlords who will act, and a community that refuses to overlook the most vulnerable among us. Seniors should not have to fight for basic respect. They should not have to fear losing access to their homes, their transportation, their independence. They should not have to beg for safety, clarity, fairness. Doing the right thing is not complicated. It means responding quickly when seniors raise concerns. It means ensuring policies do not harm those with disabilities. It means treating every resident, regardless of age or ability, with dignity. I am asking the council to stand with our seniors to ensure that their voices matter, to make sure that when they ask for help, they receive it and to hold every housing provider in Norristown to a standard that reflects compassion, responsibility and respect. Our seniors have spent their lives contributing to this community. Now it is our turn to protect them. Thank you for your time, your leadership and your commitment to doing what is right.

Uh, the next, uh, public comment, Al Johnson.

Good evening, council. Uh, two, two things I have here. First and foremost, who was the council rep for that area? For, uh, the, uh, senior living? That's you, Dustin? Okay. Dave, I'm glad you attempted to get up there Monday at the meeting that we all had up there. I'm also a resident up there now. My main concern is not with Altman. It's throughout the borough. There used to be a time when you park on a sidewalk, you got a ticket. When I leave the American Legion, where I'm the commander at, at work doing security on Friday and Saturday nights, 3 o'clock in the morning, 500 block of Walnut Street, 600 block of Walnut Street, 400 block of Moore Street, there's cars parked that's going to be there overnight. 3 o'clock in the morning, they're not coming out. The car's going to be there all night. Officer Butterworth, when he was doing the policing for the vehicles and whatnot, he would write tickets. I mean, these guys park like it's legal. Whatever happened to blocking the sidewalk? You know, not being able to park there. I mean, come on, guys. This is our community. Let's do something about this. People come in here and just think they can do whatever they want to do. As far as Altman goes, I know some of you council members did not want to approve that when they first came here with that proposal. So, oh yeah, Dustin, I know. And now they want to build a fourth unit. There's no room to park. You know what I mean? I think you guys, as the voice of the constituency here in Norristown, should get off your butts and do something about it. That's all. And I've said my piece.

You already had your time. I'm sorry. There's one last person. Sanita? Sanita Griffin?

First, I'd like to say I live in that neighborhood myself and I feel bad for all your complaints because I go around there often and see the situation that's going on around there and I didn't know any of that was going on. It really looks safe from the outside. So it's very hidden.

So I applaud you guys for coming down here and speaking up about it.

But really what I came here for is because there's a lot of conversations going on on Facebook and in the community about Norristown. We get a lot of outside people that decided to move out of Norristown that give a lot of comments about Norristown. They really shouldn't because they left. But there's people in Norristown that still love Norristown that live here and want to see the old Norristown that was there. I'm hearing a lot of comments about trash being in the community, just being dumped. the landlords allowing it to happen, who's responsible for it, the renter issues, just things like this. I know Chief Trail is here now making some changes and I'm applauding that. I know he has a ways to go. I know O'Donnell does what he can from fire, but I think What we're lacking is maybe the transparency of who do we really go to to get these things solved for? I mean, everybody attacks you guys as counsel. They do. And I think that They think that you fix everything. But I don't know that you ever give us an understanding of where to go to to actually get it fixed. I see Will responds. I still see other people respond on Facebook, trying to give some kind of comfort to the community. The community doesn't like that kind of comfort, obviously, even though you try. I just think we need a little bit more transparency as far as direction as to where to come because obviously there's individuals saying they come all the time and they're not getting any response or results. And Norristown is becoming trash and the streets look horrible and I've been here all my life. I've never seen it like this before. So I do think that there's something that needs to be done. What I don't know, if you guys can give us some line of sight or answers, if we're making the wrong moves or going the wrong way, then that would be

That is the end of this public comment Council do I have a motion to approve the minutes so move All favor Move on to presentations. Lafayette Street, excuse me, Lafayette Street Trail Gateway Project Final Report Presentation.

Are you gonna pull up the presentation? All right. Do you want me to hold on or should I?

Sorry, I'm sorry. What's the issue here? Oh, you don't have the... Do you have something I can email it to him or do you have it like on a laptop?

It appeared that Vince Papa was going to retrieve it. And we had sent it to him, and apparently it hadn't gotten to his colleague.

Will, we'll have you come back then. I don't want you to have to do the whole presentation without your presentation yet. Is that OK? Or do you want to start it now? That's up to you.

Well, I could give you the introductory comments if you think it will just be a few minutes for the presentation. It's what you would prefer.

How about we wait for Vince to bring it back down, and we'll bring you back up once he has it. Okay. Is that okay? Okay. Sounds good. Sorry about that. All right, we'll move along to planning municipal development. We'll open up the floor for the public hearing for ordinance 26-04, data centers and heavy industrial district.

Mr. President, before we move to the public hearing, I apologize. I was actually speaking with the administrator. I know there were some residents raising concerns with regard to a fourth building being constructed with regard to the Elon. And I was sitting here, if anybody's watching, going through my computer because I was scratching my head going, The last resolution I remember was for building number three, and there was nothing after that. I was able to confirm with regard to my records all that's been approved by council, and that last approval occurred in, let's see, by resolution 24-68 in 2024, had granted approval for the third building, which was the building I think that some of the residents had referenced. Subsequent to that, there has been no further approvals granted with regard to that property. In confirming with Ms. Musonye, if the applicant, or I say if the property owner or any subsequent property owner was looking to build a fourth building, they would have to come back in for land development approval. And we would have to follow the full land development process, assuming there was no zoning issues, in which case then they might even have to go to the zoning hearing board. So I want to make sure council was aware that, from a staff level, there is no pending application for a fourth building to be constructed there. From a resident level, if you were hearing rumors that somebody's building something, you can say, hey, I was at a municipal building, and I heard the solicitor say, you've not submitted an application. And if you're not sure about it, please feel free to email the administrator or the administrator's office to say, hey, has an application been submitted for that? And we will certainly provide you that information. typically uh if i remember quickly uh properties are being subject to land development are posted correct so you if there is a land development application the property would be posted as well to make you aware that they are looking for approvals um obviously i would caution council to not speak anything with regard to if there is some sort of future application to be submitted but i want to make sure you are aware of that that there is no there is no pending application for a fourth building if anybody's telling you one's going to be built I will tell you that the solicitor's office would say that is completely illegal. They cannot do that. Code should not be issuing any permits. That would not be permitted. So to the extent that we can help to offer at least some answers with some of the questions that were raised tonight, I thought I would at least do that since we had a few minutes until Mr. Papa has returned, which he has now returned. So maybe we can move back to the presentation. Thank you, Patrick. I appreciate it. Yep.

All right, so now we have it up. Okay, so we'll go back to the Lafayette Street Trail, excuse me, the Trail Gateway Project Final Report Presentation.

Wonderful, thank you. Good evening, council members, staff, and members of the public here this evening. My name is Ellen Miramontes. I'm with the Montgomery County Planning Commission, where I work as an open space and trails planner. I'm here together with Bill Hartman, our trails and open space planning manager, as well as our consultants for this project from SALT Design Group, Sarah Hsu and Katrina Rogas. So we are here to present the final draft for the Lafayette Street Trail Gateway Master Plan. This master plan focuses on a linear space, which you see here in the photo, going straight up and down the image there, right along the Schuylkill River Trail in Norristown along Lafayette Street there. It's about a half mile long. goes from DeKalb to Ford. It represents about four and a half acres of county-owned land. Pico has aerial and then surface easements across much of the property there. So just a little more background, the vision for this project was identified in the county's Trail Access Diversity and Awareness Study, which was done in 2020. This plan was completed to better understand and find solutions to challenges hindering the equitable use of county trails. In that plan, there were three study areas, one of which was the Schuylkill River Norristown Study Area, And within that section, there were several conceptual designs that were developed. Another project we're working on is the Hawes Avenue and Chain Street Trailhead Improvement Project. So that's one area. And then this was another area that got conceptual designs developed for it. looking at it as a gateway space, a space that could have park and trail amenities, make it more welcoming, a place for public art, areas for programming events, and also providing safe connections to the space. So after that study, we then pursued a regional trail program grant through DVRPC. We were successful in receiving that to undertake the master plan effort. We released an RFP, then brought on SALT Design Group just about exactly about a year ago. kicked off the project at Norristown's National Night Out. Some of you may have seen us there, where we introduced the project and invited early input. What followed was extensive site analysis, a lot of community and stakeholder engagement work, focused interviews with your staff, with our own county departments, local organizations, held an open house luncheon. You all were invited to at the Holy Savior Club. Surveys, a presentation to your body last November. And then we also had a community event at the library this past January inviting input on two alternatives that were developed and another survey following that. Lots of analysis, everything from site hydrology to sun, smell, noise conditions at the site. So all of this over the past year led us to where we are today sharing with you the final draft for the master plan. And so now I'm gonna hand it over to Katrina Rogas with SALT to take you through the master plan process and the resulting plans. Thank you very much.

All right. Thanks, everyone. And I'm wondering, am I looking to you for slides? OK, great. Perfect. All right. So like Ellen said, I'm Katrina Rogas. I'm a licensed landscape architect, and I'm the project manager working on this project for Salt Design Studio. Ellen gave a very comprehensive background, so I won't go into a lot of detail on the introductory slides, and we'll get right to the good stuff. Project context, project timeline, Ellen walked us through. So we started about a year ago, and then we were at National Night Out last year. We thought this was a fun slide to put in there since we just celebrated Norristown National Night Out again a few weeks ago. So just to orient everyone who might not be familiar with the site, these are the conditions today. So this is a linear piece of land, like Alan said, about four acres with the half-mile stretch of the Schuylkill River Trail running through it from DeKalb Street near the Trail Junction Center all the way to Ford Street. on the east hand side. And some images below just showing the conditions today. Very open, just the paved Schuylkill River Trail. There is a historic crane relic at the center of the site that is a focal point. And other than that, just large Pico transmission towers scatter the site. OK, so since we came to you last, we delved into the planning and design process, which started with developing a project vision statement. The Lafayette Street Trail Gateway is envisioned as a welcoming and accessible public space that connects Norristown's neighborhoods to the Schuylkill River Trail and provides an opportunity for long distance trail users to stop and rest, By improving safety, expanding comfort and accessibility, and creating opportunities for gathering, movement, and well-being, the Gateway will serve as a place where residents and visitors can experience nature, bond with community, and practice wellness. And our three primary goals were safety is number one, number two, connection and exchange, and number three was wellness. So our first study was looking at the trail alignment. Thinking about safety was at the forefront, so thinking about how pedestrians are interacting with cyclists on the Schuylkill River Trail. I won't go into too much detail, but we did study how we could align new pedestrian trails with the existing Schuylkill River Trail across the site. And then from there, we developed two distinct concepts. Again, I'm not going to go into a lot of detail to get to the final plan, but I just want to share that we came with two very distinct ideas for this site. And this is where we came back to the community to ask for preferences. So the first concept we titled the Lafayette Promenade. It was very much focused on providing this promenade space with destination and distinct gathering areas across the site. The idea was also to bring the trail together with pedestrians and cyclists and then split it apart as you move through the site. Go to the next slide for me. And then just some design inspiration that went along with concept one, the Lafayette Promenade, just to get a taste of what we could envision on the site with that concept. Next slide. And then the second concept we developed was called River Rhythm. So this one was distinctly different, where we actually took the trails together and undulated them in a curvilinear pattern, winding next to each other the entire route of the linear site. And in this one, we also introduced a unique eco experience, playing with topography and different vegetation types. So people got this really interesting way to navigate the site and be in nature. and some design inspiration that went with that concept, just for an idea. And then at this point, we had a couple of surveys. I think when we came to you last in November, we just had the initial survey out where we were gathering initial ideas. After that, once we had the two concepts developed, we put a survey back out to the public, and we asked just for preferences. Do you like concept one? Do you like concept two? Do you have ideas about both that you like that you'd like us to join together? From the public online survey, though we didn't get a lot of turnout for that one, there was a preference towards concept one on that one. And we did do some stakeholder interviews like Ellen mentioned. So just some images here from our open house luncheon that we had at the Holy Savior Club back in October, an interactive question and answer kind of interview process there. And then our stakeholder engagement went all the way to February. We were really engaging a lot with PICO at that point to really get their input on what the design could be on the site. And then our last larger public event was, like Ellen said, at the Norristown Public Library back in January. It was a very cold day, but we did get some brave souls that came out and met with us. We had both concepts there in person, and we were able to engage and get people to vote. We had a little voting booth, and you could tell us which concept you like. And we got a lot of important feedback that evening as well. Okay, and here we are to the final plan. I know this looks very tiny. I have some better images coming up in the next slide, some renderings and some enlargements. I will say that the final plan really developed as a hybrid of the two concepts. We heard a lot of feedback that folks really wanted this to be a destination for Norristown, for this to be somewhere where people could come out, there could be programming, or they could just come out with a friend, walk the trail, bike the trail, and hang out. So we took that idea of having a central focal point around the historic crane and developing a large central plaza there for flexible programming. But you'll see as we walk through the rest of the slides, there are some interventions across the site that can draw interest for different generations. We have multi-generational outdoor fitness equipment, nature play for the younger kids, and some areas for everyone in between. So the first rendering I'm showing here is over closer to the trail junction center, so on the west side of the site. So the historic viaduct wall that exists there today is really an opportunity area. This is where the site is very narrow. You're kind of pinched between the SEPTA rail lines and the historic viaduct rail, and it's just the Schuylkill River Trail right there right now. So this is a point where we could call it a trailhead and bring the new pedestrian trail as a convergence point. right at this new plaza space. The plaza space would bump right up against the historic wall there and we're using this as an opportunity for installation of art. So whether it's a public mural on the historic viaduct wall, there's also an idea of installing chalkboard paint where folks can come and do their own art and there could be like a chalk exchange at the Trail Junction Center chalk that people bring on their own. And just a way to bring people into the site, introduce them with seating and with wayfinding signage. So a plan detail here as we move towards the Ford Street side. So I'm walking you through the site. So we started all the way over on the west, and we're moving a little eastward now. So this area of the site is where we introduce a little bit of nature play. So this focal point in the center is a new area where we can have natural elements like boulders, stumps, logs, things like that, gentle topography for kids to really challenge themselves physically and make up their own play games. The reason why we're introducing this type of play is because the site is situated in the flood zone, the floodplain, both the 500-year and the 100-year. We can't actually do active recreation in this site. There's some restrictions in zoning. So by introducing nature play, it's kind of a loophole in where we can still have natural play elements, but it's not major play equipment or a destination playground per se. There's also the idea of the lawn with rolling topography that's closer to the east Lafayette Street side that will help buffer some of the noise and just the traffic that goes by at a high pace over there and introducing some native vegetation as well to help buffer the site from the street. Okay, now moving into the central area. So this is kind of that destination point that I was talking about that came from concept one. So right in the center of the image here is that historic crane relic, and we're proposing to build up tiered seating around it. And then around that, a central gathering point that has some plant beds integrated into it, shade structures, seating, and this can really be used for all sorts of programming. We've sized it so tents could be popped up if there were a larger event. There's also platforms there if there's a smaller event or a small performance happening with live music, per se, that can be utilized for something like that. And then the interesting intervention here is there's a pull-off area for parking right on this part of East Lafayette Street. And with that, it's a perfect area for pop-up food trucks or markets. If there's a small farmer's market, something like that wants to pop up. It's that kind of colorful painted area right on the street. And then we've introduced this terraced seating steps that bring you down to that area from the central plaza. If you go to the next page, this shows a nice image of it. So here's a perspective rendering of how that could turn out. So you can see the historic crane relic in the background there with the seating built up around it, our plant beds scattered into the central plaza, and then that terrace seating that brings you right down to East Lafayette Street. And those seating steps would really provide a nice opportunity, too, if you're hopping on the trail, want to stop, talk with a friend, or take a rest before or after your cycling. That's a perfect spot to do it as well. And then I believe this is the last enlargement. So again, we're moving a little bit further to the east towards Ford Street and a couple of other interventions proposed down on this part of the site. On the bottom, kind of towards the left, is a new fitness area, so introducing some very kind of low impact outdoor fitness equipment. It's all calisthenics style. If you want to hop off the trail and do a little workout, or if you're taking a walk, there's an area for you to get some other fitness and other physical activity in along your way. And then the idea here at the Franklin Street intersection is where we're really trying to amp up. And this is at every intersection, but this is a perfect example of what we're trying to do. It's introduced pedestrian safety across East Lafayette Street. It's high-speed vehicles. We know that. We know people zip down. And really making sure that they know that there's crosswalks there, raised speed tables, painted murals. And once folks get across the street into the site, there's a nice plaza space to welcome you with seating, some public art, and some wayfinding signage. And just some materials and character that we're proposing to go along with the final plan. So again, that gentle rolling topography, some of the tiered seating and the shade structures, an idea of what the chalk wall could look like on the viaduct wall. And then over on the right, some of the materiality that we're proposing, really giving a nod to the industrial heritage of not only Norristown, but this site in particular where the rail lines used to be and still are just adjacent to. And then there's a lot of small text on here, and I don't expect everyone to read it. But high level, we did provide a rough order of magnitude cost estimate. It's our opinion of probable construction costs that go along with the entire project. And also in this, I thought it was important for the council today to see what we've developed in terms of a funding strategy thinking about where we could get funds to develop this project over time. So we've included information about state grants that are available, federal grants that are available, and our philanthropic foundation partnerships, and even sponsorships and community partnerships that can help implement small pieces over time that can all contribute to the larger sum to make it all happen. And I believe this is my last slide. In tandem with the cost assessment, we did come up with a phasing strategy. So if there is, you know, it's just not in the budget, we can't get all the grant money, what does it look like if we phase this project over time instead of doing it all at once? And so what we've proposed here is a three-phase strategy. And instead of looking at this site section by section, what we thought about is if we can introduce interventions that layer upon each other over time, so then that way there's always improvements coming as this project gets developed. So phase one would include grading, all the stormwater management, the pedestrian safety at Lafayette Street, and all of the trail work, the pedestrian trails. The phase two would include implementing the large plaza spaces, all of the planting, the tiered seating around that central plaza space. And then the final phase would be all the fun extras, the nature play, the seating, the shade structures, the branding, the wayfinding signage, and the public art. Went very fast, so thank you. I appreciate everyone's time I'd love to open it up if anyone has comment or question on the council and I don't know if the public gets an opportunity to ask as well Thank you council.

Do you have any comments or questions? I do have a question here. So I saw what the crosswalk, great idea having bright colors. Was there any consideration of like the yellow flashing lights? Yes. Okay, I don't know if you said that, okay.

We, I glazed over. All of that. But for the sake of time, but we did put it in the cost estimate as well that there would be pricing out for, and it's in the detailed plan, although it was very small on the screen, there would be raised crosswalks with painted murals at each of the Lafayette intersections, and then we also did include pricing for the signalized crosswalks as well.

Awesome. Thank you.

So that's a good PennDOT grant to look for.

Okay. Well, thank you for your presentation.

Thank you.

So now we'll move on to planning and municipal development. I'll open to, I don't have,

Yes, so if it's all right, do you mind turning it over to me, Mr. President? I'm happy to run the hearing for you. Please. I'm happy to do that for procedural reasons. So at this time, I'm going to formally open up the public hearing for the proposed ordinance, ordinance number 26-04, titled An Ordinance of the Municipality of Norristown, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, amending Chapter 326. titled Zoning of the General Laws of Norristown to amend Article 2, Subsection 320.11 relating to definitions and to amend Article 16 subsections 320, 161 relating to uses in the heavy industrial district to establish and regulate data center uses by conditional use. First, I'm going to mark some documents, and then I'm going to explain generally how the public hearing process works, give some introductory remarks, and then I'm going to turn it over to your zoning department to give any further explanation of the proposed ordinance, if that's all right. So I'm going to mark as exhibits for the hearing, N1 for Norristown 1 is going to be a copy of proof of the legal advertising for tonight's public hearing. N2 is going to be a copy of the ordinance itself. And N3 is a copy of the municipalities, I'm sorry, of the Montgomery County Planning Commission's review letter dated July 20th, 2026. The Pennsylvania Municipality's Planning Code regulates how zoning is to be essentially operated and adopted and work within each municipality. When a municipality chooses to make revisions to its zoning ordinance, sometimes referred to as a text amendment, you are required to hold a public hearing. The public hearing is an opportunity for essentially staff to explain to you or go over questions related to an ordinance in case if there are changes you want to be made. It also allows a chance for the public to provide its comments with regard to the proposed ordinance, things for you to consider. So generally speaking for these public hearings, because we have a stenographic record that we keep, for it, I always suggest that the process be let me mark documents, which I've done, let me give a quick explanation, let the staff give an explanation of what it is, open it up to counsel for any questions that they may have or any comments they may have, and then after that is done, then it opened up to the public. for any comments that they may have. For purposes of public comment, I would suggest you follow your same public comment procedure. Obviously, we don't have a list, so just come up to the podium and stand in a line this way to keep things moving. But I would ask if it's okay, Kevin, if we can run the same three-minute cycle just so that we can keep things moving. It's totally fine if you stand up and say, I agree with everything that that guy just said, too. I think sometimes counsel can kind of get the gist and concerns. With regard to this specific ordinance, if I can, I would like to read the legal ad or the description of the legal ad so you understand what it is for. The proposed ordinance amends the municipality's zoning code to create a definition for uses called data centers and data center accessory uses and permits said uses in the HI heavy industrial district by conditional use. The proposed ordinance includes definitions for the terms data center, data center accessory use, data center campus, and sensitive receptor. The proposed ordinance also includes specific conditions applicable to the new uses that are included but are not limited to the following. One, street access requirements. Two, bulk standard requirements including lot size, height, setbacks, coverage, and distances from residential users and sensitive receptors as defined in the ordinance. Three, design standards. Four, energy usage plan requirements. Five, energy generation system and backup power usage requirements and limitations. Six, water usage requirements and restrictions. Seven, thermal impact mitigation plan requirements. Eight, noise restrictions and noise study requirements. Nine, air pollution and plume study requirements. 10, emergency response plan requirements. 11, electronic waste plan requirements. 12, parking requirements. 13, decommissioning plan requirements, including financial security posting for future decommissioning. And finally, 14, applicant public engagement requirements prior to the commencement of a conditional use hearing. I had marked the Montgomery County Planning Commission review letter that was on your first initial draft. I had actually attended your Planning Commission meeting where this initial draft was reviewed and commented. That was on July 14th. The administrator here asked that I attend given the importance of this topic for me to address any questions. Mr. Papa was there as well. I actually thought it was a great meeting, and there was some feedback that was had. I believe that feedback was shared with this council at its last meeting when it had previously discussed the initial draft. I would like council to know that those comments from the planning commission were incorporated into this revised draft, and those were specifically the requirements relating to it. The utility infrastructure upgrade costs, which would be the requirement that essentially that an applicant would have to be able to fund the costs of any public utility infrastructure upgrades that may be required or reasonably anticipated based on the applicant's proposed use or plans. There's some additional language there, but that's generally the gist of what the concern was by the Planning Commission. Additionally, as you'll probably remember from your last meeting when this was discussed, the County Planning Commission had some comments as well, and so this revised version reflects some changes based off of those comments from the County Planning Commission relating to bulk standards and definitions. One thing I would like to highlight specifically is there was some concern about energy generation, specifically the difference between backup energy generation and primary energy generation. With this revised draft, we have tried to clarify that so it is clear to an applicant that backup power generation would be considered an accessory use. Normal and incidental, people have a residential home, they might have a Generac system, that's a backup generator. That is not an uncommon thing. If it is a primary use, that would be its own separate use and would need to obtain its own separate approval. We've tried to address that under subsection E, energy generation system usage, subsection 2, where we specifically call out that such systems shall be considered a separate principal use and shall be approved according to all applicable state and federal regulations along with municipal zoning regulations. And I want to point that out because, again, using my house example, I don't know many people that create their own primary generation system for how they electrify their house, but a Generac is different. So the same kind of concept was here as well, that a data center user can't basically create its own primary electric generation system, at least without getting further approvals. Finally, and then I will shut up and let Vincent speak, so I don't want to take his thunder, is I know that there's been a lot of concern from residents across the Commonwealth and across the nation with regard to data centers. I can only speak to Pennsylvania law. I can't speak to any other state. Under Pennsylvania law, and I explain this to the Planning Commission, if there is a legal use within Pennsylvania, you have an obligation to provide for that legal use somewhere within your jurisdiction. Even if you don't like the use, you still have to provide for it because you have a legal obligation to do so. Local government does not have the authority to impose a moratorium, does not have the authority to restrict or prohibit a use that they find generally incompatible with the health, safety, and welfare. That would be an issue for someone much higher than you guys, and it does not involve you. I know that's unfortunate. Examples in the past would be shops that sell sex-related toys and objects. That's an example of one. Antennas, large-scale antennas, that was another example of one. These were all uses that when they first came out were not necessarily desired by municipalities, and yet the law makes it clear you have to allow for them some reasonable use somewhere within the jurisdiction. here um what the planning department has done and consistent with what your current ordinance says is has created the hi or heavy industrial district for the use which seems to be the most appropriate location for it again mr papa could probably speak to it as a planner than i can but i want to reiterate to council that unfortunately you don't have a choice You have to allow for it somewhere. And what this ordinance is trying to do is say, OK, we're allowing for these uses to be somewhere within the jurisdiction, but we have these additional criteria that must be met by an applicant before they can proceed to land development. To be clear, if someone is coming in to build a 100,000 square foot data center, just because they would get some sort of zoning approval doesn't mean they get to put a shovel in the ground. They will then have to come back for land development, which is a whole separate process. So I'm going to stop there. I'm happy to answer any questions later on if there are any, but I'll turn it over to you, Mr. Papa, if there's anything else you would like to explain with regard to the ordinance.

I could just kind of go over a summary of just how we got here, just sort of the history and dates and timelines. On May 25th of this year, Council authorized advertisement of the proposed ordinance. We advertised that to be heard at the July 21st public hearing. The Norristown Planning Commission then reviewed the ordinance on July 14th. The commission heard and received public comment and recommended approval to counsel this ordinance. The Montgomery County Planning Commission then issued a review on July 20th. The county supported the proposal and noted that placing this use in the heavy industrial district is consistent with the county's future land use designation. So for ordinance 2604, it identifies where the use may be considered, gives council conditional use oversight, and requires detailed review of site design, infrastructure, environmental effects, public safety, and eventually decommissioning. This ordinance does not approve any particular data center project. It creates the zoning framework that would apply if an applicant proposes one in the future. Under the ordinance, the data center and data center accessory uses would be permitted only in the heavy industrial, as Patrick pointed out, and by conditional use approved by municipal council. So with that overview, I'll turn it over to public comment.

Councilman, it's the first start. If you have any questions or any comments or statements you want to make, that might be the first place to best start. Council, any questions, comments? Nope.

Public comment now?

Yep. So if there is no comments or questions by council, then it would be great to just open up to the floor for any public comment. If they want to, like I said, come up before, come up to the podium, feel free to line up. Again, if you could, please state your name and address for the record, and then Kevin will start the timer. To the extent you can keep to three minutes, that would be great. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Good evening, Council. Nice to see everyone. Amber Queen, Narsetown resident. Queen, Q-U-E-E-N. Thank you. So I just wanted to come tonight to urge you once again to approve the updated data center ordinance 26-04. It is vital that our council and our municipality remain proactive in enacting measures that protect every resident of Narsetown, both today and for future generations to come. While not everything is within your control, tonight gives the seven of you a clear opportunity to make a lasting positive impact and set a gold standard for surrounding communities facing the same decisions. I was going to talk about how it is illegal to ban them, but Patrick already touched on that, so I'll move on. Ordinance 26-04 is a balanced, comprehensive safeguard. It protects our environment, our infrastructure, our local economy, and ensures we are covered if and when market conditions change, a.k.a. the AI bubble bursts, which I think we all know is going to happen. So this is a forward-thinking policy that all of Norristown can stand behind and be proud of. I just want to say thank you for your leadership and consideration on this matter, and I look forward to hearing a unanimous yes tonight. Thank you very much.

Good evening, council. My name is Kaden Beagle, K-A-D-E-N-B-E-E-G-L-E. I already spoke previously in a previous hearing on the approval regarding this ordinance putting in place to clearly define data centers and how to handle them to protect the community of Norristown and its surrounding areas. I just wanted to reiterate my support for putting forward this ordinance. It's very comprehensive and well-defined within the structure and the wording of it to ensure that we are protecting ourselves both now and in the future from a data center coming in and just causing all sorts of havoc for our community. Thank you.

Hello, I'm Stefania Luciani. I grew up in Norristown. I walked the trails. I walked Lafayette Street, Airy Street, Walnut Street over 10,000 times. I'm an artist and I grew up giving my best to the community. I started First Friday's Arts and Sciences right before COVID hit. and with the presentation that took place this evening with the Lafayette Trail, that doesn't impress me at all. It has no color, there's no attraction at all with any of the buildings in that area.

Excuse me, I apologize to cut you off. This public hearing is for the data center only, not for the Lafayette Street. There was no public comment. Okay.

Well I'll comment on that too. Okay.

Sorry.

Okay. So when is there going to be a percent for art? If there's going to be something of a new economy coming into Norristown, it doesn't have to be a data center. It could be an arts economy. and any new buildings or structures or businesses coming into Norristown has to give money for art and public art to be put in place that involves the artists with the community and makes it attractive. What's the use to have a data center if the people in Norristown are not gonna benefit from it and it's just corporate international greedy industrialists that want to feed on our people, everyday people. It invades privacy. There's no restrictions on privacy anymore. Cameras all over the place. Everybody knows my face just by driving around. The amount of spam that I get, where is the money going for cybersecurity? What if our infrastructure is attacked? Where in Congress, where are our representatives getting money? to protect us. We are being attacked by countries from all over the world. They know. They see openings.

Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Does anybody else have any comments with regard to the draft ordinance, the data center ordinance? And again, please feel free to form a line. It would be helpful so we don't have to wait. Thank you so much, sir.

Hi, my name is Paul Sutherland, P-A-U-L-S-U-T-H-E-R-L-A-N-D. I hope it's okay for me to speak. I live in West Norriton, but I'm less than a mile away from Norristown. I've been attending the meetings in Plymouth Township and... the other side of this Google as well, where a developer named Brian O'Neill has been trying to force his way into an incredibly large campus of data centers. I'm very new to this whole process. It's been eye-opening the sort of arrogance that a developer has had towards the process, the disrespect that people are able to portray towards towards their neighbors in order to get something to give them a lot of money and that's essentially what this is what this is all about this is why people are building data centers is to obtain large amounts of wealth even more even more than they had already and so I'm really grateful to see this ordinance written developed there are areas in which I would I like it to be a little stronger. I hope that there is room to review and add, for instance, that a data center may not use fossil fuels. I think that would be a really good strength to add on top of this. But I've been reviewing it just now. I'm very grateful for this proactive step, and I really encourage you to approve this. Thank you.

I hope I'm, my name's Sadiqa Morgan, Powell Street. Huh? Sadiqa, S-A-A-D-I-Q-A-H-M-O-R-G-A-N. If this is about, is this about the IT, I want to make sure I'm speaking about the right thing, right?

About the data centers?

The ordinance for the IT?

Correct, yes.

Or data center?

Yep, you're correct. Okay.

This is only my thought, but I know that there's a lot of minorities that are definitely going to agree with me. If it's anything like Tennessee and what's going on in Tennessee with the data centers that have been put up that have polluted all the people's breathing, and polluted and stolen their electricity where they are unable to even power their own houses because the data center has sucked all the water and the energy out of certain townships. I am definitely not in agreement with this. Not only that, but I feel that It's stealing jobs like it's already stealing across the whole United States right now. It's taking employment. It's making people poor. It's putting people on unemployment. Where is unemployment going to get the money from when there's hundreds of thousands of people that are going to lose their jobs due to data centers? Another thing is, where's the training coming from in Norristown, where they are trying to take people off the streets, where we are worthy of being fought for, and it seems like Norristown is not fighting for any minorities because no public housing has been created in Montgomery County since 1970. No housing for minorities. Everything seems to be wanting to do this and build that. So unfair to the people that have given blood, sweat, and tears in this county, paid taxes consistently, worked hard in this neighborhood faithfully. It's unfair to put something like that here, even if it's in a proximity of people where it's going to suck everything dry. And, yeah, you may not think about it 10 years from now, but they're going to end up taking over everything in Northam because that's what they do. They don't care about people. They care about the oligarchs. They care about this, that, and everything else. And we're at the bottom of the food chain. Thank you.

Seeing no other public comments. Oh, sorry.

Thank you again. My name is Nadine Hedgeman, and I just want to say, Hedgeman, H-E-V-G-E-M-A-N. No, because you said hold on. That's why I looked at you. Thank you. I just want to say I'm standing here. I came tonight. We had a fire in our building, and I'm under an asthmatic attack. I am an asthmatic person with very severe lung scar. That's no. I say no.

OK, if there is no other public comment, I did just want to quickly respond. I don't typically do this, but given the sensitivity and the importance of this, I'll reiterate again. Council doesn't have a choice. You have to allow for the use somewhere within the municipality. There are presently no pending land development applications. No one has submitted any applications to Norristown. As some of the public commenters has mentioned, you're essentially getting ahead of the issue in the event that someone submits a land development application. Should you adopt this ordinance tonight, then that would mean that if an application is submitted, they would then be subject to the requirements in here, which are all the 14 different categories that I had mentioned. And I would emphasize that those categories include having to provide an energy usage plan, would require having to provide a water usage plan, would require to provide a thermal impact study, would require to provide a noise study both pre-construction and post-construction, would require the applicant to provide an air pollution study. Essentially, as one of the public commenters had noted, it's trying to put all of the concerns, seeing how they have developed in other places, that they have to address them to you as a part of the conditional use process. So as you can see, staff has done its best to try to address all these things, including most of what the public comments are. So with nothing further, I think we can close this public hearing. So if there's nothing further in council, the hearing is formally closed. And I would suggest that council take a vote on the public record with regard to this proposed ordinance.

So, counsel, do I have a motion to consider ordinance 26-04, data centers and heavy industrial district? So moved. When you say consider, you mean approve, right? What did I say? I thought you said the word consider. Oh, I've read it off the paper. I did. You're right. Put it in front of me. I'll read it. Hold on. Let me do that again. Motion to approve ordinance 26-04, data centers and heavy industrial district.

So moved.

Second. Madam Secretary.

Natalie Colson. Aye. Jasmine Griffin. Aye. William McCoy. Aye. David McMahon. Aye. Nadira Robinson. Aye. Dustin Queenan. Aye. Rashad Bates. Aye. Motion passes.

Moving on to request authorization to advertise ordinance 26-05 for the chicken and rooster zoning amendment.

Thank you, Mr. President. Good evening, council. This action before council tonight is authorization to advertise ordinance 2605. This advertisement begins the formal review and public process and gives us the opportunity to receive comments and make any necessary corrections before council considers this at a later date. Before discussing in detail, I want to be specific that this proposal creates two separate forms of municipal enforcement. One is zoning enforcement under Chapter 320. The other is building and code enforcement under Chapter 103. They are administered through different enforcement authorities and are intended to work together or in tandem. On the zoning side, which I'll speak mostly today, the proposed Section 320.233 would allow no more than four female chickens or hens as an accessory use in single-family dwellings in the R1 and R2 residential districts. Roosters would be prohibited under this ordinance, and chickens would not be permitted as an accessory use to apartments, multifamily dwellings, or townhouses, as well as commercial chicken operation and residential slaughter would also be prohibited. The zoning amendment controls location and physical layout of the use. A coop, run, or associated fence would be treated as an accessory structure. and could not be installed until a complete application is submitted to the municipal zoning officer and they grant their approval. The proposed zoning standards require coops, runs, and associated fencing to be located in the rear yard. They must be at least 10 feet from any property line and at least 25 feet from any residential structure. The structures must also comply with other accessory structure standards of the underlying zoning district. The zoning provisions also require chickens to be kept in a sanitary and humane manner, secured indoors during non-daylight hours, and controlled so they do not enter adjoining properties or create a nuisance. Tenants would need written authorization from the property owner, and both the tenant and owner would be responsible for compliance. Recorded homeowners association restrictions would continue to apply where they prohibit the use. From a zoning enforcement perspective, the zoning officer would review whether the property and proposed structures qualify, the zoning district and dwelling type, rear yard placement, setbacks, screenings, structure dimensions, and other land use requirements. and a violation of those requirements would be addressed through municipality zoning enforcement process. And for the building and code side, Chapter 103 would require a chicken permit administered by the permitting officer and code enforcement. Proposed permit would be valid for two years. The review would address continuing operation in animal-related conditions, including closure standards, care, feed, water, sanitation, and waste handling. Code enforcement would have the authority to inspect, respond to complaints, issue notices of violation, and when warranted, deny, suspend, or revoke a chicken permit. The proposed ordinance is intended to create an enforceable structure, which as this issue is something that we deal with frequently and has gone unresolved, basically anyone that comes through for an issue like this, for a public nuisance, we kind of basically have to give them unsatisfactory answer and return, this would help fix that sort of breakdown. And with that, we are asking Council to authorize advertisement of Ordinance 2605. Is there any questions from Council?

Council, any questions or comments? I have a question. All right, Councilman McCoy.

So what would happen with the constituents that already have roosters? What would happen to those roosters?

from my understanding, and you can chime in Patrick, they would be grandfathered in at this point? Yeah.

It would depend. It would depend on the specific factual circumstances. The difficulty is, When there's a reference to grandfathering, it's this idea that if you adopt a zoning ordinance or afterward, anybody who had previously operated in that way may be entitled to certain pre-existing nonconformities. However, the burden is sometimes on the property owner to prove the pre-existing nonconformity. It is not on the burden for the municipality to disprove it, meaning that it can happen where you, for example, let's say have an illegal conversion of a property. That is not a legal rightful use if the municipality was not aware of it. So it would really depend on the factual circumstance from a zoning perspective as to whether or not a property owner who has chickens or any other livestock would or would not be grandfathered, and we'd have to look at it from an individual case-by-case basis.

Definitely. And the reason why I asked that question or proposed that question in specific is simply because I lived on Corson Street for the last three years and have been bothered by a rooster for three years consecutively. And it's problematic. In addition to that, how would we tell if someone just purchased a rooster after, like if the ordinance does pass, how could we even tell that it was a recent purchase or one that already has been purchased.

Again, if I can help out here. So let's say a hypothetical situation is the municipality is notified of a property owner who has a rooster. And this would say after this ordinance is eventually adopted. The zoning office would issue that individual a notice of violation. The notice of violation would give them essentially 30 days to file an appeal to the zoning hearing board. Should they file an appeal to the Zoning Hearing Board, the municipality would then present its case, which would simply be, do you have a rooster at your property? The answer would be yes. And that's when it would go to the property owner to have to prove, the property owner has the burden to prove when that rooster started occupying the property, the circumstances related to it. That's why I go from a, it really comes down to a case-by-case basis as to whether or not it would or wouldn't be grandfathered. Additionally, I want to note that in this draft ordinance, it's not only coming at it from a zoning regulation perspective, there's also a code enforcement perspective. Even if necessarily zoning would permit it, it is reasonable to say that this creates a public safety, health, and welfare situation, particularly with roosters. It's a very noisy animal, typically in a very dense urban area that is a problem from a health and safety issue. theoretically, it could be you might be permitted by zoning, but that still doesn't alleviate your burden of having to comply with its other code requirements, so you still might have to address that issue. Does that help, Mr. McCoy?

Definitely. Okay. Thank you.

So Mr. President, I mean, so typically you don't have members of the public. There's a public comment section. But I'm going to assume for a moment that let's say Mr. McCoy was asking that question about what do you do if a member of the public currently has a rooster?

Yeah, definitely.

So I'm going to assume Mr. McCoy asked me that question so I can answer that question for Mr. McCoy. I, if you have a rooster right now, I can't give you legal advice, but I would encourage you probably to let the municipality know that you have roosters now. Because if you don't let them know, then they are going to assume no property currently has those sorts of uses. That would be my recommendation to a property owner right now who might have a rooster. I would say you probably should speak to the zoning office right now whether or not that is a permitted use or not a permitted use in the district that they're located.

I was just going to ask that. What is the respective department? And I know people might ask, why am I asking all of these questions? But I think it's definitely relevant for the simple fact that the demographics in Norristown host a lot of these roosters in the community.

Yeah, so if there is a zoning issue or a zoning problem, those complaints should be directed to the zoning and planning office. There's a specific zoning officer who issues those notices of violation. That is separate from the code department, which is regulating the building code. So yes, if somebody has a zoning question, hey, am I allowed to do this at my property, that should be directed to the planning and zoning office.

Thank you. Yep.

Any other questions or comments? All right, seeing none, I have a motion to request authorization to advertise ordinance 26-05 for chicken and rooster zoning amendment. So moved.

Second.

Madame Secretary.

Natalie Colson. Aye. Jasmine Griffin. William McCoy. Aye. David McMahon. Aye. Nadira Robinson. Justin Queenan. Aye. Rashad Bates. Aye. Motion passes.

All right. Moving along to presentation for 600 East for Nance Development. I request authorization to prepare an ordinance for a proposed zoning text amendment to the R2 Residence District.

Thank you, Mr. President, Council. I'll call up Sarah Peck of Progressive New Homes LLC, who is proposing a 48 unit townhouse and multiplex development at 600 East Fournance Street. Just a little background on this property. It went through prelim land development approval back in 2019 for a dollar store that was denied. It then had a new proposal back in May of 2021 for construction of 21 townhomes. that came back through the land development process and was approved back in 2023. Those developers have not moved on that project since that time. And since that time, Sarah from Progressive New Homes has been in contact with them. And she can explain sort of that part of things. But I'll turn it over to her to go over that. She's also proposing a text amendment for the R2 district. be able to discuss that in further detail and you will have a chance to ask questions on this as well as you can gather feedback from you if you have any questions regarding the proposal of the townhomes and whether we would move forward with that text amendment. Thank you.

Am I going to just give you the nod? Okay. Hi everybody. I'm Sarah Peck. Thank you for squeezing me in this evening. I really appreciate your time. Vince pretty much covered it all, but just as some background, my company is Progressive New Homes. I specialize in new home for sale developments that are within walking distance of town centers and transit and retail and other amenities and basically the inner ring suburbs. And I've done four projects in Norristown successfully, most recently concluding Arbor Place, which is on the ball fields part of the old Kennedy-Kenrick High School. Pleased to tell you that we are 89 units sold out of 90. in less than two years, evidencing the demand for homes at that site and in Norristown. I heard over and over again from people who bought there, I've been looking for two years. I have not been able to find anything in my price range. This is the first time I found something that met my that checked off all the boxes and I realized that what Norristown had here was just something extremely special and these are all people who wouldn't have bought in Norristown otherwise. We have 15 Norristonians who bought. We have 75% first time home buyers who bought. We have a number of out of state people who've now come to Norristown. We have people who are out of the county from Pennsylvania. We have five nurses, nine teachers, two hairdressers, a truck driver, a guy who collects dinosaur fossils and sells them, which is an interesting profession. All kinds of interesting people they have in common, good credit. steady employment, desire to own a home. It's a passion and it's the American dream and I was very happy to see that all come to fruition. So I'd like to continue. I realize that Norristown has something special. It makes sense to continue. I kind of understand the market now and one of the things I found was that we're missing We're missing a new home with three bedrooms and the right price point that also has a two-car garage. There's nothing in the marketplace with two-car garage, side-by-side two-car garage. We have a lot of parking at Arbor Place, but it tends to be stacked parking where someone has to park in front of someone else, their garage, and then they have the driveway behind. So that's a policing headache. So I started to look around and found this site at Four Nance and Tremont. And I discovered that it was already being approved for something else. And in this course of talking to the folks who own this and who have submitted engineered plans for it, I learned a little bit about their objectives and the fact that they're not really that experienced. They're from Philadelphia. They're trying to gain a foothold in the suburbs. And from the looks of the plan that they proposed, I didn't think it was going to be successful myself. And I talked to them about the possibility of me taking it over. And they were open to that as long as I could act quickly, because they otherwise were going to proceed on their own. So if we could have the next slide, please. This is the site. It's at the corner of Fornance and Tremont. You can see it's undeveloped. It's directly east of the Markley Rehab Center, west of the current Terrace Apartments, south of the Bathtarsh Reservoir Park. and north of the row homes that are along Basin Street there. Next slide, please. It's about two acres. Actually, that's not true. It's about three and a half acres gross, but then you take away for right of way. The most notable thing about this site, which is really where this R2 request is coming from, and I'll get into that in a second, you can see all those very close lines. That means steep slopes. So even though it's largely open in the middle, On the far, I guess you'd say south, you can see very, very steep slopes. And then it drops down to a little plateau. And that informs how the site should be developed, but how it's not being proposed in the current plan. Could we have the next slide, please? So the current plan, I don't know if you can see it, but there are three different roads, all stemming from Tremont, and then an access out onto Bournance. The entire site is cleared, no trees left, and you can see all those retaining walls in the steep slopes holding up the development. Could I have the next slide, please? So you can see a little bit here without the grating lines, but you can see what I'm talking about. Those lines on the far left are retaining walls. And frankly, I'm not even sure if they're feasible to build because how do you actually get to them to build? And it's a lot of impervious. So I didn't think this was a good development. And I also didn't think it met the market because the homes here are only 18 feet wide. That may be appropriate for a couple decades ago, two, three decades ago, but it's really not the market today. People want more space. And frankly, you could barely fit the bedrooms in that width. Why did they do it that way? Well, the R2 zoning essentially forces them to do it that way. So your current R2 zoning is actually the reason why this site looks the way it does. Number one, it doesn't allow townhomes. It only allows row homes. Row homes can't be wider than 20 feet per year zoning. Number two, they have to be lotted out individually. So no homeowners association to allow for more of a, there's no community to this plan. This plan has no central open space. And that's because the zoning requires these individual lots. And what I'd like to propose is a solution to this. So let me show you the next slide if I could. I've already covered the market so we don't have to go there. So this is a concept that takes essentially the program from Arbor Place but does not have a stacked condition. It's an individual townhome, nobody above you, nobody behind you, individual walls with a two-car garage. And then you come up to your living level. And if I could have the next slide, please. You have your two bedrooms, and then your top floor is your owner's suite with a roof deck or something. Or you could bury it and have your owner's suite on the third floor and the two bedrooms on the top. But the bottom line is it's three bedrooms. Next slide, please. And when I make those homes not as deep, and make them wider and shallower, I can fit the product in a more community setting with green space in the middle. and keep out of the steep slopes. So what I like about this plan is that it meets the market because it's wider, it still has the three bedrooms, it has the two car garage, yet it still has communal open space and it stays out of the slopes and keeps keeps the woods. It still only has the one access onto Fournance, which is important because if you notice from the aerial earlier, all the other homes along Fournance have individual driveways coming out to Fournance, which is a traffic headache, whereas here you can control the traffic. Could I have the next slide, please? So on Fornan Street, we actually have the ability to sculpt the land such that we can take advantage of a higher elevation and make it look like three-story homes because the garage is actually buried and hidden behind. So in this product, you would come in straight at the porch. Next slide, please. So if you can imagine, the driveway is behind you. You're coming into your garage, but the garage is buried. So I tried to show you that. Your front porch is off Fournance and you come in straight at the living level. but these are only for the homes on Fordance and Tremont. The rest of the homes would look more like this. We tried to hide the top story with gambrel roof and dormers and the living spaces tucked inside, but it still has egress, so it meets code, but it looks more like a three-story. It's sort of an optical illusion. Next slide, please. So what text changes do we need? And I'm not looking tonight for a vote on this, I'm just looking for a sign of support from the council so I can proceed with all the other stuff that has to happen concurrently with your doing the process that you have to do. I know, I understand there's multi-steps ahead of us, but my option is very, very limited and essentially it expires the end of this month. So I'm kind of looking for a sign from the council, is this a good thing? And if so, I trust this council because I've done a lot of work in Norristown and I think you trust me and I would take that as a good sign and I would move forward. So I'm not looking for actual vote tonight on the amendments themselves. So the main thing, first and foremost, is to allow townhouses to be one of the permitted uses in the R2. Right now, we have single family, we have duplex, and we have row homes. We don't have townhouse and we don't have multiplex. I think that's doing Norristown a disservice because more housing means more tax base, more people growing roots here, more people participating in the community. I forgot to mention that when I did a little back of the envelope here, the tax revenue generated from these homes would be Approximately $200,000 a year in taxes and earned income tax and another $200,000 in fees that would be resulting from the development. So it's good addition to the tax base in addition to good people who are going to become part of Narstown's community. And then I also limited and give control to the council by limiting some of the things I'm about to suggest to developments of two acres or more where you can do a new home development as a community space. Next slide, please. So the key thing is to utilize the Uniform Plan Community Act, which your solicitor can educate you about. But basically, it's a unique law in Pennsylvania that allows the computation of a lot to be not legally described on paper with four corners like you would normally see in a legal description, but rather a legal description that is pictorial in space. So it's three-dimensional, and it allows for more flexibility for fee-simple homes, which is what we do. And we've now done it four times. So we know it's totally mortgageable. The title companies understand it. People can buy and sell. It's not any impediment to the marketplace. But we'd like to introduce the Uniform Plan Community Act and make it a definition in your definitions, UCPA, which is not there now. So we'd like to add that to your definitions and allow you to compute lot sizes on the basis of an average instead of each individual lot. Because when you do each individual lot, you end up with the plan I showed you a second ago. Um, I've also suggested that when you add open space, you could go down to something less than 2000 square feet, which is what the minimum is now. Next slide, please. Um, I want to just add, like I said, a definition of planned unit development, uniform plan, community usable, open space, and so on. Next slide, please. Now, the garages is the other issue. And I noticed in your parking that garages, two-car garages, only in the case of townhouses are not allowed to be counted towards parking. And I was confused about that. First, I thought it was a typo. But then I understood the origin for it came from the fact that, I guess, historically, maybe some people who didn't have enough space in their homes use their garages for living space, and then they didn't park in the garages, which is the whole point of having a garage. Most of these folks who buy a new home, they don't want to park their second most prized possession, which is their car, in the snow and ice in the winter and rust and everything else. The whole point of having a garage is to house their car. So I was talking with Jane and came up with some ideas and one of them is to add in some kind of limitation and make sure that it's deed restricted against any use of living space for your garage and that it's enforced by a homeowners association or some professional management company. So in other words, we already do that, by the way, and we also enforce it, and it's never been an issue because people don't want to use their garage for a living. They want to use it for their car. But if it's a concern that this could be abused, that was our suggestion, was to come up with some language. And I did, after the fact, send some language in, so I guess your solicitor can look at that. And then also, I didn't know why you had more parking requirements for these townhomes. which are all three bedrooms, versus the other three bedroom dwelling units that you have. All the rest of them are 1.5. I'm not saying we should go less than two, but I didn't understand why townhouses were required to have more per unit than the other three bedroom dwelling units that you have on your list. So I was suggesting that it be two per unit instead of 2.25 per unit. I believe that's everything I had. Yes, that's everything. So with that, maybe I can answer some questions. have a robust discussion.

Thank you. Well, I have a question.

I saw the plan and I hear what you're saying about the two garages. One thing I didn't see because, where's the visitor parking?

There were 12 spots in the, could I maybe put the, the rendered, yeah, there you go. So, if you look closely, okay, coming in off Foreign Answers, four spots there. Then you come down, there's another four or five there. Come around the corner, two there, another two over there. They're interspersed, in other words. So I think we got to maybe 12 out of the total.

So they get to use two parking spots for their house. What's the average household, how many cars the average household has?

It depends on whether they're a single or a double purchaser. Some purchasers, even two people, only have the one car. It's like an average between one and two. We don't allow more than two. So if you have more than two cars, you can't purchase. So we actually control the number of cars that way.

Okay. I'll be honest. Just for me, if people have this... How many homes is this again? Like 40... 48. 48. So, yeah, 12 parking if they have visitors or family or something like that.

It's law of averages. I mean, not everybody has, you know, the 100-year party. Like, that's always your measure. Like, what happens if, you know, you have this gigantic park? But law of averages, it doesn't, you know, if people have two-car garages, if they don't, then, yes, you have to have more parking, more surface parking. But the idea here would be you'd have two cars for yourself and you don't have to move out of the way to let your partner out to go to work or something. So that's why I think it's plenty because you'll have plenty of parking on the premises and then enough for visitors. I'm not saying this is like, you do have parking if you had to on Tremont. That whole frontage is, Not that it would be needed, but it's available.

Council, any other comments or questions? Councilwoman Griffin?

Kind of going off of Councilman Queenan's concern with that, because you said it's three bedrooms? It's a three bedroom townhome? Yes. OK, so I get what you're saying. I think my concern is, as a child that still lives at home, because it's hard to afford everything out here, I have my own car, which means I have a car, my mother has a car. So usually it's three cars, because most kids even into their 30s are living with their parents and possibility parents would be purchasing these homes. Is there any way to add in any way additional parking just because of that issue? I just know that that's something that's coming up more and more now as it's harder and harder to afford even an apartment. So I don't know. I think that would be my biggest concern just because That is a reality, unfortunately, for a lot of people.

Yeah. Well, we're pretty strict about not allowing three cars. So that person would probably not choose to purchase here. That's the reality. Now, could they eventually down the road have somebody come along?

So, Councilwoman Griffin, if I can interject here for a second, because this kind of happened when I went to the Planning Commission meeting where there was also an ordinance being discussed by a developer that would be helpful for the development, but I had to, I reminded the Planning Commission, just like tonight, you're technically not considering the plan that Ms. Peck would like to develop. what you're considering tonight is whether or not you want to authorize staff to go ahead and prepare an ordinance that would make a text amendment that would allow miss peck to then subsequently submit a land development application for consideration of this plan so i think your your comment and question is perfectly valid um for miss peck to answer but i just want to make sure council understands that any action tonight would not be related to this specific plan and that's actually one of the reasons why the staff always wants your direction because you also are thinking about it, should be thinking about it beyond just the singular plan as well. Meaning Ms. Peck might be able to address issues related to it, but you have to also be thinking, well, these are changes to the entire R2 district. It's not just changes for Ms. Peck's possible plan. And as Ms. Peck knows, because we've worked a lot on our prior plans, we don't want to create an issue of a spot zoning, which is where essentially we create zoning just for this one property. That would be problematic.

she's in front of us currently. So I just, she's already talking about it. So I figured this is a perfect time to ask that question. No, no.

And it makes perfect sense because it goes directly to, if you do authorize us to draft something, nothing binds you to having to adopt that. And so then that means Ms. Peck knows that one of the concerns might be, hey, we're not comfortable with reducing the parking to the proposed number that Ms. Peck is suggesting in the ordinance. I think that's really the type of direction that Ms. Peck is looking for from you guys, and also from a legal standpoint, I want you to be thinking not just about her plan, though, but about the entire district as well. Sorry for interrupting so much, Ms. Peck.

No, thank you, appreciate that. No, and that's what I'm thinking of, because you're asking specifically for a larger scale. So in my mind, yeah, I'm thinking of the larger scale, but I'm thinking of this too, because this is what's prompting this large scale change. So I have to look at the overall picture and all the facts and components and pieces that are coming into it like a board game.

I mean, I can look at, when it comes time to land development, a way to squeeze out a parking spot or two extra, you know, and we can try, but we want to make sure we don't kill the goose that lays the golden lamb. You know, the whole idea here is affordably priced homes that are in, like, just specifically I'm trying to be, where I found Arbor Place to have the most velocity was in the mid to upper 300,000s. That may sound like a lot of money, but in today's development world, that's actually pretty good. It's very hard to build new construction in that price point. And many, if you'll notice, if you go out on Zillow and look around, a lot of new construction is much higher than that. And if I can stay in that price zone, this'll be a success and will attract, this is what I heard over and over again from people who decided to buy in Norristown. You know, I want to keep it in that realm, in that price point. But, you know, it's a good point and I'll definitely look at that. Thank you.

Council, any other questions or comments? Seeing none, go ahead.

So I would move to direct the solicitor and staff to prepare an ordinance for council consideration as prepared by the applicant.

Is that moved? Madam Secretary?

Natalie Colson? Aye. Jasmine Griffin? Aye. William McCoy? Aye. David McMahon? Aye. Madeira Robinson? Aye. Justin Queenan? Aye. Rashad Bates? Aye. Christian Capses?

Thank you, and we'll see you again in the future. Thanks, Vince.

Oh, still planning, yes. Resolution number 26-70, bid award for 129 East Main Street Historic Facade Project.

I'm sure you're tired of hearing me at this point. Before I introduce these items, I want to apologize to council. Items E and F address the same issue and should have been introduced together. So I will speak to both so we don't have to come up here and then I have to go for the next item. So this is for the historic facade program project at 129 East Main. The project was publicly bid and the final bid notice ran in Times Herald on June 29th and July 2nd. We had a mandatory pre-bid meeting which were offered on June 10th and July 8th and bids were due at a deadline of July 22nd. Three bids were received for this project, and Watts Restoration Company submitted the lowest responsible base bid at $32,700. The base bid covers the south facade facing Main Street, where the garage door is at. Under the program 7 to 1 match, the base bid amount consists of $28,612.50. in grant funds and a $4,087.50 match by the owner of the property. Along with the base bid, we are requesting that alternate number one of the submitted bid be included in this. This covers masonry work on the east elevation facing Green Street and also includes the tower. Watts Restoration bid for the alternate number one is also $32,700. And together the total work would be $65,400. As you know, these funds must be spent by the end of the year. These are ARPA funds, which therefore we are requesting authorization to use $32,700 in unobligated funds for alternate one at 129. These program funds are funds that are not committed to another property. or for any other expense. We have funding that is left over because as projects have moved through, they're not all hitting that 40,000 threshold, which is the highest that we allow for under our current budget. program. So anything that's left underneath that is now getting put back into the pool. And we have not received any further facade projects to use these funds fast enough. And we're also running out of time at this point to do the bidding, the mandatory meetings. So we're trying to use this pool that we have around roughly $50,000 of obligated funding. So with those two matched, they will be able to cover that $65,400. So in summary, we're asking council to award the contract for 129 East Main Street to watch restoration for a total of $65,400. Any questions?

Council, any questions or comments? Councilwoman Robinson.

Thank you so much, Vincent, to the entire team for bringing this forward. I know there's been considerable amount of work and support that's gone towards Five Saints as just an organization within the community, some of which I think is really great, some of which I'm interested to know more about in general. But more so to that point, I think that there are great attribute to this community and the work that they're doing. I guess what I'm interested in today is just to understand with this bid and these unobligated funds, just to make sure that the matching protocols are still the same. There's still a match required of the business owners, is that correct? Yes. And the value out of the 64,000 plus, what is the amount of their match?

So the match right now is for just that initial base bid of $32,700. There is no match for that second, but it's something we can, if council considers, we can add.

And I'd just be interested to understand what's the difference between the two? I'm not advocating that the match is required on the second one, but I'd like to understand the conditions for which one is required and one is currently not required.

It's purely timing. And it's better we use the money than return it. That's what we're trying to do. We're still not sure. And you'll be given an update by NOC after this of the whole status of the project. What we are afraid of is that some of the property, I'll say, the ones that were approved, some might drop off. And if they drop off, then we're left with money again. So we're trying to utilize money as fast as possible. One good example is 104 West Main Street. We had obligated funds. And the owner went and did the work without going through the proper process. So when we went to look at it, it means we couldn't use the funds because we can't retroactively give them the funds. Now that got back into the pool. So the danger of us having money left over is real. So we're proposing to council that rather than us sending it back for the unobligated funds that come back, let's utilize them as much as possible. First come, first serve. That's simply the reason.

I completely understand that and the timing and the urgency. I think it's still important to have skin in the game. I'd be interested to hear from the owner, or at least from the perspective of the owner, what a subsequent match could look like if the timing is also something that's important around their time frame. And I don't know if there is a version of this that looks like some type of other offset, but I'm just interested to understand that. And I want to just be fair in that I know that there's been quite a bit of support that has gone into these businesses and I just want to make sure that when we're doing that we're still being equitable as much as possible even under strict time constraints.

Absolutely. I totally understand. So is it your suggestion that we ask for additional match? Is that what I'm hearing?

Has that been asked at all in this process?

No, we're just making recommendations to council. If that's not something council is interested in, we'll be glad to look at it again.

I'm open to it. I'll put it out to council as the floor as the work session. I'm open to that being a conversation that happens. My question was just to gain clarity from my understanding a match was required for this.

For that first piece.

And then...

So maybe I'll explain a little further. What we're running into again is that with... We are bidding these projects. They're coming in much higher than we anticipated. Yet we had already put out a program saying, hey, the cap is 40, but this is all you'll be required to match. So folks applied with that understanding. And when we went out to bid, actually, we've had to re-bid almost four. We've had to re-bid because they're coming in too high. So we tried to chop as much as we can to try and see if the project will work. So we're running into those type of issues. And the danger of what we're running into is that we'll be left with a whole lot of money that we'll be able to give back, actually we'll have to give back by December. So our thinking is how do we make these projects work and we ensure that something is delivered, at least a project is delivered. That's our thinking. And if council is uncomfortable with that, that's fine, you can let us know. But just understand the possibility of us having to return the money is higher because of these obstacles we are running against that we have no control over. That is the problem. So this is the only control we believe we have. And that's why we're recommending council to do that.

I appreciate the recommendation and I think in that second version of explaining it is much clearer. As it stands as put, it looks like two separate applications that require then two separate entry fees or two separate matches. What you're saying is that ultimately this is one project split into two phases or two supplemental spaces and you're capping owner match at $5,000 around the original agreed upon $40,000 cap. And so now that they succeed in that, you're not going back to the property owner, but you are assuming those costs within this ARPA funding. Absolutely correct. Thank you.

Also, any other comments or questions?

If I may, I'm sorry to add a little more. You'll get more clarity when now gives the picture of what we're grappling with right now. Remember, we only had, we had proposed 270,000 or something to that effect in the first place, and then a whole lot of money was dumped in the program. Now we're at a race right now trying to get that money spent, but the conditions had already been set in terms of the program. So now he's going to be able to give you a little more information, and you'll see what we've been grappling with just to try and spend the money.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Seeing none, do I have a motion to pass resolution 26-70, the bid award for 129 East Main Street Historic Facade Project? So moved. Madam Secretary.

Natalie Colson.

Aye.

Jasmine Griffin. Aye. William McCoy. Aye. David McMahon. Aye. Nadira Robinson. Aye. Justin Queenan. Aye. Rashad Bates. Aye. Motion passes.

Thank you, council. And we're going to move on to request council to approve the use of the 32. Oh, wait, we did that both at the same time.

Yeah, I would consider there to be approval of both. That's why he had said it was combined.

Police. Motion, or excuse me, request for approval All-Stars Program MOU.

Good evening, Council, Mr. President. Before you tonight is a resolution to approve an MOU to work in partnership with the District Attorney's Office for a youth violence prevention program called All Stars. As your solicitor will tell you in my previous life, any time I try to partner with any other organization, I always like to have an MOU in place so we know what our expectations are and they know what their obligations are. This is a program that the District Attorney's Office applied for a grant. They got grant funding. I don't know the total amount of grant funding they got, but the portion that we would be interested in is the program is administered by the DA's office, but they need police officers from Norristown to assist with the instruction. And so what we would be receiving is about $24,000 in reimbursement of overtime for the police officers who teach in the All-Star program. A little overview of the program is a youth engagement program to help reduce early onset of bullying, drug use, introduction to crimes of violence, inappropriate sexual activity, stuff like that. And it's administered in our programs in our schools through our youth and it is taking place in cohorts of 20 students over two school years. So this would be the 2026 school year, 2027, 2027, 2028, for I believe a total of 40 students in the program. There would be an additional cost approximately over the course of the program, about $5,000 has been identified. The DA's office is working with another grant funding agency through the Attorney General's office to try and get grant funding to cover that. This program and programs like this support our strategic plan, again, my crime plan that we presented to council back in 2026, called for strategic geographical-based enforcement where we're identifying where crime occurs, and taking action against individuals who engage in crime, so we're going after the people, but we need to have a preventative measure. And we've talked about this, many council folks, what are we doing to prevent our youth from engaging in criminal activity? Not just solely worrying about how do we arrest them when they get involved in crime, what are we doing to deter them from crime? And I would submit to you that this is one of the programs and one of many that I will pitch to this council over the next couple years where we should focus our efforts in preventing individuals and our youth, especially from engaging in criminal activity. So it'd be my recommendation that you approve this MOU to partner with the DA's office to participate in this program.

Council, any questions or comments?

Yes.

Councilman McCoy.

I'm just curious, what is the age demographic of the youth?

I had that in here. It is fifth and sixth graders that would be coming from our middle schools.

Do you know if there's any possibility to go even lower, like to fourth grade?

Again, we didn't write the program. We're just being asked to help administer it. So that would go back to the DA's office. And again, this is just one of many programs that we want to bring to you. And I think we can all agree, it's been a while. My kids are all grown now. I don't know what that age group is. but between 10 and 13, we haven't seen three years, but it could be a lifetime in developmental growth, right? So I suspect that this is tiered to that as the area where they feel that the target is best as far as getting action and engaging our youth, but I would also agree with you, we need to have a program that goes much younger to our younger students.

Definitely. I like the idea of the program. I know our efforts have recently shifted to fourth grade, because it's something called the fourth grade syndrome, where grades start dropping significantly after the fourth grade. In addition to that, I definitely want to start seeing more programs on identity and self-esteem. We can't just jump straight to bullying and violence prevention if we're not building the young men and women up. I have no oppose.

And if I may, just to seize on your point, you'll recall that we had our Girls in Blue mentoring program, which was the program that is self-esteem building, image building. That program's been going on. And here again, that was our program. This is the DA's program. And what I would submit to you is that we need to find that youth engagement that helps our young men develop self-worth and pride and helps develop them in those areas also.

A final question, do you know if there's any involvement with the community being a part of this type of program as well?

Only in so much as that we're identifying kids from our schools who are within our community as individuals who participate in the program.

I have a question. Do you get to pick which officers we put in our program, or does that come from the DA that picks off?

No, no, we would pick. We would definitely use our SROs who are already in the schools with the kids, and then we would identify the other officers who we find, who I find appropriate to engage in such programming. It matters. We have to have people who truly want to do this type of work with our youth.

Council Member McMahon? So in addition to, it looks like a couple of schools would be the focus of this, but what would be, you know, how would candidates or kids be selected for, what is the engagement process for reaching out look like?

Again, I'd have to defer that to the DA's office because we didn't model the program. I have looked through, I would think that they would look, to individuals who, vis-a-vis our SROs and the school district who are at risk. I mean, that would be my high order view of it, individuals who are at risk. Sure, yep.

And I guess they send reports back to you.

The SRO send reports back to you in the DA? Yep.

Yeah, we would definitely take it from me.

So you have input as well, correct? Like if you wanted something to shift within the parameters.

Yeah, we have input. We have the ability to tweak it. I work with DA's office and the folks there very often. There is a train-the-trainer program that our men and women are able to go to. And it knows types of train-the-trainer. So we'll learn the level of instruction that we need to be. And then we can tweak it to how we feel it best fits our community.

Oh, I'm sorry, Councilwoman Robinson.

Thank you. I just have some questions. I know that this is currently slated to be a reimbursement for overtime and two payments equaling $24,000. Can you talk us through a little bit how that overtime looks? I saw that there are scheduled timelines for when this program would take place. Is the assumption that this would be in addition to a regular SRO schedule and that's automatically their overtime? Or is this just going into a general pot of overtime funding?

So in the SROs, again, I didn't develop the budget for this. That is a budget. That's where we expect it. But for example, our SROs, depending upon what time this takes place, I think this is going to take place in the afternoon, they may still be on duty. So they may flex their time.

It's currently slated at a 3 to 6 and then approximately a 4 to 6 PM. Is that after a shift?

Yeah, there would be some overtime there. But part of that would probably be during the regular shift. And there would be some overtime. Gotcha.

And then looking at how this is breaking down, I know that there's some additional costs that you're proposing in your budgeting, that there's an additional cost just to incentivize the program through some modest incentives. But I'm just wondering, have you already identified a grant? From the language here, you're looking to identify some funding to offset that?

Well, it's funny you should say that, Mr. Robinson, because today I was handed another document from my lieutenant, who's good for giving me documents at the 11th hour. But the DA's office has identified grant funding through the Pennsylvania District Attorney's Office. They are filing for that grant, and that grant would cover the $5,000. They've actually asked us if we'd provide them with a letter of support. So one of the things that I'm gonna kind of parse into this is that we would support the DA's grant request to the Attorney General's office to get the $5,000 to cover those unmet costs.

Awesome. And then my last question was just in particular to the schools. Actually, a clarifying question. When Councilman McCoy had asked about the age, you had mentioned fifth and sixth graders. As proposed in this current MOU, it's fifth through eighth grade with an emphasis on the initial phase being in fifth grade. I just wanted to confirm if that's still correct.

So in my submission here, I have first paragraph. The program represents evidence-based prevention programs serving Norristown middle school students primarily in grades five and six. That necessarily doesn't mean it won't go outside, but primarily will be in those grades. Okay.

That's not what I have in my summary, but if that's what you have in the full MOU, then that's fine. I'm just looking at the agenda summary.

Okay, my apologies.

No problem. I could have read that wrong, so please forgive me. And then, so my last question was about the selected schools. Obviously, Norristown Area School District, but Norristown-focused schools, so I imagine that's kind of where Eisenhower or Bloxen come into play.

Bloxen, Eisenhower-Bloxen is where we'll be looking.

Just so that I'm clear, Norristown provide, Norristown Area PD provides the SRO for Bloxen and not West Norton, at least?

Correct, Bloxton, obviously it's in the large town. We have an SRO at Bloxton. We have an SRO at Eisenhower.

Yeah. Okay, great. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you.

Steve, one more thing. For some reason, I'm just stuck on the correlation between bullying, violence prevention being provided through the DA's office. I just do not see the correlation in regards to children. I just don't understand that. when there's other organizations in the community that can provide that service even more efficiently and effectively. And I just don't see why, even though they apply for the grant, why do they have to be the organization that administer these services? That's not clear to me.

Obviously, the DA's office has an interest, an invested interest in reducing crime, right? And the most significant way to reduce crime is through prevention. We'd rather prevent crime from occurring. So they have employed a grant writer to write a lot of programming around prevention. So this is just one lane of that prevention mindset that the DA's office has undertaken.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Any more questions or comments, Council? Seeing none, do I have a motion to request approval for the All-Stars Program MOU?

So moved. Second.

Madam Secretary.

Natalie Folsom. Aye. Jasmine Griffin. Aye. William McCoy.

No.

Madeira Robinson. Aye. Justin Queenan. Aye. Rashad Bates. Aye. Christian Kassidy.

David McMahon.

Oh, I'm sorry. I apologize. David McMahon. Aye. Sorry.

Thank you.

Moving on to departmental reports, we have code, well, code first.

Sitting too long. Evening, council. Just wanted to provide you with a brief report. I know it's been a long night. From June 1st till August 17th. The first page you'll see here, we issued 228 building permits. Next one, Kev. And during that time, we issued 606 proactive violations and 1,222 other quick ticket violations. Actually, one of the subjects that came up tonight from the public was concerned about trash. We do see there's a trash problem. In our town and if you look at the numbers, you'll see that we've issued almost those 1200 400 trash related violations so you can see trash is clearly a big issue in our town, which we are working with and Public Works has been working with us to help correct some of those issues We issued a 2270 contractor registrations All right, we had 479 permanent inspections, 240 rental inspections. And we did 133 property transfers during that time period. As you know, the C-Click Fix system is a public system people can use to report their concerns. And I just wanted to show you that we responded to 378 complaints. Now, out of all the complaints that were sent in on the C-Click Fix for the municipality for every department, 72% of them are actually handled by the code department. So as we talked earlier, we have a trash issue. These are just two of the remediations that we did. And we did 17 of them during this time period. Now those 17 were done by our private contractor, where then we clean up these properties. Property owners are issued citations, and they are invoiced for the work that we do. Now, we work with Public Works daily. So this average here alone is almost two a week. But Public Works is helping us with that project. And I will tell you, we're probably doing at least four remediations weekly, picking up trash and other items with the help of the Public Works department. Our staff completed 24 hours of training over this time period. And we attended three community outreach events. One of them was with Miss Holly and her friends from Montgomery Park. We spent like two hours, had a really good meeting with them. And we have a big list. We're going to work with them to correct some of their issues. Next page, Cam. Just to highlight our staff, our full-time staff is fully staffed. And I think it's great to know six of our employees are actually from Norristown. We've increased our bilingual employees from three to four. And we continue to have women strongly in our department. We have five out of the 10 members. So we're proud of that. So the Kev the Box. The next thing I want to go on, some of you know about this. We have a little project. When our employees do something well, we give them a little duck, right? Or we use them for constituents. When they come into the office, they're not happy. We give them a duck. Or our kids come in with them to get a permit. You know, kids are itchy, right? You know, these guys have kids. You know, they can't stand still. So there you go. We give them a duck, right? So we're going to give them to you guys tonight, everybody up front, to thank you for all the hard work you do, because sometimes it doesn't get recognized. And the good thing is, they're ducks. You can keep them. They're not chicken. OK? So you're allowed to have them. But it's really a good program. During a national night out, we gave out over 600 of them. So the kids really love them, and they're really a good thing. So anybody have any questions?

Council, any questions or comments?

Excuse me, Councilman McMahon. Maybe not the question for tonight, but overall we're considering twice-weekly trash collection. Is there a way to get a cost analysis of what extra work has to be done to pick up trash? What's the cost? Is any of that recouped? What's the percentage that's recouped when citations are issued or not recovered and maybe down the road we get some sense of like a cost benefit between those two different scenarios. Is part of the excess trash on the streets based on like once weekly pickup?

I think that some council would have to look into. But the trash that we get involved in, a lot of that is illegal dumping. That's a big problem in town that we have to deal with. And I think it's a discussion that could be had because the way it works now, Unless they put it in the alley or block in the alley, we're asking the residents to take the responsibility because it's on their property to clean it up. So they got to pay the cost of getting rid of it. So I think we might want to think about some kind of program with that.

before we picked this new contract, and I think we didn't go with that, too. They kept it open for the rest of the year. I know, but it wasn't proposed. We could have accepted that the first time. And I think we were looking at the cost, and I guess the feedback from the community is what helped us determine to go to one, because they were like, I don't want to pay more if I'm having all these problems. So I guess we can rediscuss that, but I just remember that's what it was prior. This ain't new. We already discussed it, but we can discuss it again if you guys like.

Yeah, I didn't know if there would be a savings, you know, by going with the twice a week. Oh, no, it costs more money. No, no, no, I know, but it would reduce the expense of public works and everything.

Oh, yeah, like he said, he deals with more of a dumping.

But if it's illegal dumping, then it's kind of a moot point, but I was just curious.

It's not a lot of regular trash pickup. It's a lot of illegal dumping is most of it.

I just have a quick question. For violations, when you issue a violation, would you say most people comply on the first violation or do you have to go back multiple times? Would it be more than half or?

Yeah, it's about half.

About half, okay.

About half. So, one of the good things that I just learned recently that I'm gonna be working with Patrick about, he doesn't even know it yet. Apparently, the Commonwealth filed a new law that if these properties, we had a discussion recently about all these landlords coming in and want to convert properties and too much trash, too much parking, right? One of the things is if they're found guilty of code violations, we can go through the court to prevent them from buying more properties. So that may be a bonus for us, something that we can look into coming down the line that would help with some of these issues.

That's great. That's great. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. It really is. Thank you. Any other questions?

That's good. Thank you. Thank you, Keith. And next up is planning.

Good evening, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, and members of Council. I hope everyone's doing well. I'm just going to introduce myself again. I'm Nout Geiser. I'm the Senior Planner and Grants Coordinator in the Planning Department. And tonight, I'm here to present the Planning Department updates. So for land development, the preserve at Stony Creek, also known as the State Hospital, as you may have heard, received Design View Board approval. We do have a few grant-funded programs. So for the owner-occupied housing rehab program, which is funded with Department of Community and Economic Development funds, home funds, year-to-date six projects have been completed, and four projects are in the pre-construction phase. For the Norristown Small Business Assistance Center, they have hosted seven workshops as part of its small business series. Workshops, the business planning and goal setting was held in January, legal essentials for small businesses in February, financial management and budgeting in March, scaling your business in April, government contracting and procurement 101 in May, hiring, HR, and team building in June, and just last week, networking and relationship building as I mentioned last week. The next workshop is on September 10th, and that will focus on tech tools for growth, AI automation, and digital systems. Through the COVID-19 Business Assistance Fund Loan Program, which was funded with American Rescue Plan Act funds, or ARPA, as you may have heard them referred to as, and Community Development Block Grant 2020 CARES Act Supplement Funding, CDBG-CV funds, for a total of $148,049 in forgivable loans, which were issued to five small businesses, Mendoza Market, New Pauline's Deli, Recycle, Read, Repeat, Sweezy Properties, and Small Wonders in Home Child Care. The historic facade improvements program is moving along the program has 16 approved projects a Pre-construction meeting was held for one project three are in the pre-construction phase Six projects are currently out to bid with bids due September 14 And then just last week we received bids for six projects The bids are currently being reviewed And then a pre-construction meeting was held for the sidewalk repairs and infill work at 109 East Mean Street. So with that, I'll open the floor for questions or comments.

Council, any comments or questions?

We got a lot going on, though.

We do. We stay busy.

Yeah. Well, thank you for your presentation. Thank you, Council. Council, do I have a motion to adjourn?

So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. We adjourn.