ALLENTOWN., Pa. – The Allentown Zoning Hearing Board voted Monday night to grant a special exception to allow RCI (Ripple Community Inc.) Village Properties to use a portion of the building at 1539-1551 Chew Street for a community center.
The decision came following a two-hour hearing where both supporters and objectors to the project voiced opinions.
In April 2024, the zoning panel approved several variances for RCI to operate at the location, which is the former Emmanuel United Church of Christ, for a multipurpose facility with 12 housing units.
At that time the board approved zoning relief for offices, residential units and spaces for street medicine, but denied the use of a community center.
RCI appealed the decisions to the Court of Common Pleas, which upheld the board’s denial.
The nonprofit current operates out of a facility at 1335 West Linden Street about two blocks away from the former church.
Sheri Brokopp Binder, the executive director RCI, explained the mission for RCI is for community and connection.
“We have two main programs that we run to that end,” she said. One is a community center, and the other is a housing program that provides permanent housing for folks who have been either a homeless or housing unstable.”
Binder said the community center on West Linden Street attracts about 70 people each day.
RCI wants to continue with its original place to do an adaptive reuse of the church, which was donated by the congregation to RCI.
The reason it reapplied for a special exception for a community center is that since the time of the original decision and court decision, the city council approved a revised zoning ordinance which would allow the center to operate by means of a special exception.
But not all the neighbors of the church building are in favor of the use.
Ibolya Balog, said she objects to Ripple’s plan to open a homeless drop-in and feeding center.
“We’ve shown with evidence that this would destabilize Allentown’s last majority homeowner occupied downtown area. Changing the rules does not change the facts,” she said. “Placing this facility here, we’ll turn our historic neighborhood into a regional magnet for homeless. Ask yourselves, would you live or buy a home next to such a facility? Ripple has other options. Why choose the location where doing good causes harm risks?”
Daniel Armstrong said he and his neighbors have been fighting the facility for three years.
“My wife and I have owned our home on Turner Street for 32 years,” Armstrong said. “We love the house, the park and the community. We never thought we would be forced to leave. We thought we had seen it all, but we never saw a homeless drop-in center as a possibility.”
“We are not an underserved neighborhood,” Armstrong added. “We are a cohesive, diverse, stable, historic and homeowner-dominated neighborhood. Despite all this, Rival Community has for the past three years persisted in pounding a square peg into a round hole. Ripple could easily have moved to any number of nearby underserved communities. It’s been clear for some time that the refusal to do so seems more driven by stubbornness than the desire to achieve the greater good of the city at large.”
The property is in an R-HMH medium high density residential and the TNDO traditional neighborhood development overlay district.
Susan Highet, Macungie Twp., said she has been a volunteer with several outreach programs in Allentown for over 30 years.
“I have met some folks that are really down on their luck, and I have met people that have had three jobs, but I have never seen anyone who has been cruel or inhumane within that community,” Highet said. “I think it’s in the best interest of all of us that we help those that we can, and I think RCI is doing that, and I hope that we can support them in this endeavor.”
North 3rd Street resident Darian Colbert called the neighborhood a beautiful community based on the work RCI is doing.
“And they’re using a model that is a national model in reference to housing,” Colbert said. “It is a national model that’s working where 86% of the people that navigate through a housing program are still stable. And you know, Allentown has a house situation, so we’re asking for this support.”
The members of the zoning hearing board said they agreed that RCI had met all the conditions needed for a special exception based on the city’s revised zoning ordinance.