The Allentown Zoning Hearing Board unanimously voted Monday to approve a special exception greenlighting the construction of a community center that will replace a century-old Allentown church.<\/p>\n
The decision came after two hours of discussion and public comments opposing the project from residents who believed the community center \u2014 offering affordable housing units and a homeless drop-in center \u2014 would harm the city\u2019s West Park neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think, based on what I\u2019ve heard this evening, that there\u2019s any legal basis for us to deny the application,\u201d said zoning board member Scott Unger. The community center required an exemption to be built in the residential neighborhood.<\/p>\n
The board supported a plan proposed by Ripples Community Co., or RCI, an Allentown-based nonprofit that was granted the land formerly owned by Emmanuel United Church in 2023. The church closed in 2022.<\/p>\n
Some residents opposing the community center represented the West Park Civic Association, which has been vocal against the project since it was first proposed. Over a dozen board members of West Park Civic Association penned a letter to the zoning board ahead of Monday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cChanging the rules does not change the facts,\u201d said Ibolya Balog, vice president of the West Park Civic Association. \u201cPlacing this facility here will turn our historic neighborhood into a regional magnet for the homeless. The homes most affected belong to first-time minority homeowners, who are my neighbors, whose property values, safety and quality of life will suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s vote occurred after Allentown City Council, in June, changed a zoning amendment allowing a community center to serve meals for individuals regardless of age, rather than only senior citizens. The previous amendment was one of the main reasons RCI\u2019s application was denied by the zoning board in 2024.<\/p>\n
Allentown Zoning Board member Robert Knauer, just before the vote, said those opposing the project could appeal the board\u2019s ruling. \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Most of the attendees, a number as high as over 50 at the start of the meeting, left right after the meeting was adjourned, while a few remained to talk to zoning board members.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the short term, we will be forced to put up a security fence,\u201d said Daniel Scott, an objector to the project and a resident of Allentown for over 30 years. Scott said he and his wife are considering leaving the city altogether.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe never saw a homeless drop-in center as a possibility,\u201d Scott said. \u201cWe are not an underserved neighborhood. We are cohesive, diverse, stable, historic, homeowner-dominated neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blake Henry, who represented RCI, said the nonprofit \u201chas been fighting this fight for three years as well,\u201d believing that RCI attempted to have conversations with West Park Civic Association, and that meetings were \u201croutinely neglected.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would encourage some people to do some better research,\u201d he said, highlighting that the issue of homelessness is not new to Allentown and the surrounding area.<\/p>\n
Susan Highet, a Lower Macungie resident who volunteers at RCI, said \u201cthere are neighbors everywhere that we don\u2019t necessarily like sometimes,\u201d in response to unsheltered people using the community center. She added it is \u201cin the best interest of all of us that we help those that we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
RCI spearheaded the project to help reduce region-wide concerns of homelessness and a lack of affordable housing in the Lehigh Valley. The final decision of the community center lies in the hands of Allentown City Council.<\/p>\n
Andreas Pelekis is a freelance writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Allentown Zoning Hearing Board unanimously voted Monday to approve a special exception greenlighting the construction of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[119,153,155,154,433,182,139,28,432],"class_list":["post-37910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-allentown","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-lehigh-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37910","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=37910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}