{"id":33962,"date":"2025-11-14T09:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T09:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/33962\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T09:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T09:41:10","slug":"easton-warehouse-saga-lands-at-lafayette-the-lafayette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/33962\/","title":{"rendered":"Easton warehouse saga lands at Lafayette \u2013 The Lafayette"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a> <\/p>\n

Photo by Austin Carey<\/a> for The Lafayette <\/p>\n

The panel discussion lasted for nearly two hours on Monday.<\/p>\n

Over 100 Easton residents and Lafayette College community members filled Lafayette\u2019s Buck Hall on Monday to discuss the implications of a controversial one-million-square-foot warehouse proposed for Easton in a panel.<\/p>\n

Multiple Lafayette College professors and students have expressed<\/a> opposition to the warehouse proposal that currently awaits a vote<\/a> by the city of Easton; the final hurdle to its approval. The nearly two-hour-long panel was the first large-scale event to spotlight the warehouse to the Lafayette community directly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will literally chain myself to that fence before they start putting a shovel into the ground,\u201d\u00a0said Colleen O\u2019Neal, the leader of the Stop the Wood Avenue Warehouse Coalition.<\/p>\n

The five panelists included O\u2019Neal; David Brandes, chair of the integrative engineering program; Kyle Keeler, an environmental studies professor; Kendra Copper, a councilwoman-elect for Wilson; and Cody Harding, a lawyer representing the coalition.<\/p>\n

Hosted by Lafayette\u2019s Environmental Justice Working Group, the panel was moderated by Abby Cooley \u201827, a member of the coalition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s some factors in Easton that make it the wrong place,\u201d Harding said of mobilizing against the warehouse.<\/p>\n

\u201cLargely, I think it\u2019s Lafayette College because of the students,\u201d he continued. \u201cThis room is full of dozens of people who\u2019ve been involved and engaged and supporting us.\u201d<\/p>\n

A main portion of the panel allowed panelists to clarify the legal challenges associated with developing the property.<\/p>\n

Harding said that while vulnerabilities in Easton\u2019s zoning laws were what allowed the developers to obtain the property in the first place, these same laws have allowed him and the coalition to build a case against the proposed warehouse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were just throwing everything we can against the wall to see what sticks, and one of them stuck, which was, \u2018Hey, this is a flood zone,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Harding felt that the immense size of the warehouse enabled the coalition to get the attention of more residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this were a 500,000 square foot warehouse, I don\u2019t think we\u2019d be able to stop it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Harding told the audience to \u201churry up and change your zoning laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panelists also tied in the event\u2019s broader theme of environmental justice, touching on the coalition\u2019s mobilization against warehouse developer Scannell Properties.<\/p>\n

\u201cA developer like Scannell has money, has the time, has the power to put all of this forward, and usually there\u2019s very little pushback, because people don\u2019t understand what\u2019s happening,\u201d Keeler said.<\/p>\n

Keeler said the coalition \u201chas been mobilized so effectively and has been done so effectively that it can act as a blueprint for other communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panelists fielded questions from audience members for the last hour of the event; the questions ranged from legal action to environmental impacts to potential outcomes.<\/p>\n

Carol Inman, who said she lives along the Bushkill Creek, voiced concern over what she described as the \u201csystematic way in which the public voice gets silenced\u201d during public meetings. She asked panelists how community members can work with municipalities to make sure their voices are heard.<\/p>\n

The Lafayette previously reported that a warehouse vote may not take place until 2026 because of zoning jurisdiction delays, but the Easton Planning Commission is actively pushing for a final vote on Dec. 3.<\/p>\n

Though the Lafayette community is becoming more involved with the warehouse debate, the college as a whole is not; College President Nicole Hurd said the college administration \u201cis not engaged in the warehouse conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve engaged with some faculty and students and staff that are expressing themselves about this issue, and I\u2019m incredibly proud of how they use our voices,\u201d college President Nicole Hurd said. \u201cThe administration is always supportive of encouraging this community to use its voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s your community\u2019s health,\u201d O\u2019Neal said. \u201cIt\u2019s long-term economic and environmental health that you\u2019re fighting for. So it\u2019s not just you, it\u2019s the generations to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clara Witmer \u201827 contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by Austin Carey for The Lafayette The panel discussion lasted for nearly two hours on Monday. Over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-33962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33962","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=33962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}