READING, Pa. \u2013 Reading City Council voted Monday night to adopt an ordinance to accept the dedication of Kings Way and Queens Court in the Castlewood Development.<\/p>\n
The Castlewood Development was approved as a subdivision in 1989 when the intent was to have the two roads remain private and be maintained by the Castlewood Homeowner\u2019s Association.<\/p>\n
The association filed a petition with the city in 2020 asking that the roads be dedicated and maintained as a part of the city\u2019s system of streets and roads.<\/p>\n
The matter was reviewed on numerous occasions by the City Planning Commission because it did require a revision to the actual subdivision plan to remove the streets from the private section and move them into the public section of the city road system.<\/p>\n
The Planning Commission approved a revised plan which removed the condition that the streets would be privately owned. One of the conditions of approval was the execution of a stormwater management agreement by the property owners within the subdivision to accept responsibility for maintenance of the stormwater facilities. That was completed on May 26th, 2026, when the planning commission authorized execution of the stormwater management agreements with the property owners.<\/p>\n
Castlewood is located off Glen Road, which council accepted for dedication in 2024 as part of the overall process of the process.<\/p>\n
Glen Road connects Hill Road with Mineral Spring Road.<\/p>\n
Philip Rabena, a resident of the development and a member of the zoning hearing board, said the vote on Monday was the final step of a long process to add the streets onto Reading\u2019s topographical map.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith your favorable vote tonight, it will bring us to the end of a long, complex and somewhat costly journey for both of us, both the city and for the residents,\u201d Rabena said. \u201cAnd we will finally be fully part of the City of Reading.\u201d<\/p>\n
In another matter, council voted 6-1 to amend the boundary of the Centre Park Historical District by removing a portion of 730 North 3rd\u00a0Street, which is a parking lot.<\/p>\n
Council President Donna Reed cast the dissenting vote saying she had concerns about the precedent of allowing a property to be divided to eliminate a portion of it from an historical district.<\/p>\n
Reed said she wanted to see the parking lot portion be on a separate deed and given a Thorn Street address, but council solicitor Michael Gombar said he believed the county already identifies two separate properties.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m still not comfortable with it, and I think we’re opening a can of worms by doing this,\u201d Reed said. \u201cEspecially that one property could have a portion of it taken away. I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen anything like this regarding an historic district, and I’m really concerned about the precedent it presents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilman Chris Miller expressed similar concerns.<\/p>\n
The matter has a long history that started in 2023 with Centre Park residents objecting to the parking lot for the benefit of a bar establishment.<\/p>\n
Councilman Jaime Baez criticized the objections saying the matter was approved by the planning commission.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we just need to be informed as council members before attempting to find a reason to maybe not support a project,\u201d Baez said. \u201cIt\u2019s not only supporting our small businesses but supporting the residents around by making sure there’s parking so that parking isn’t being taken up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also Monday, council voted to reconfirm the appointment of Joseph Famiglietti as finance director at a salary of $120,000.<\/p>\n
Famiglietti has been serving as the interim finance director.<\/p>\n
Council members voiced praise for Famiglietti and the work he has done as interim director.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. \u2013 Reading City Council voted Monday night to adopt an ordinance to accept the dedication of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[100138,100141,45479,1089,2716,1091,104096,100140,1093,100139,22638,128,1095,130,129],"class_list":["post-242756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-castlewood","tag-castlewood-homeowners-association","tag-centre-park","tag-chris-miller","tag-donna-reed","tag-jaime-baez","tag-joseph-famiglietti","tag-kings-way-and-queens-court","tag-michael-gombar","tag-philip-rabena","tag-planning-commission","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-council","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}