a project review letter from the city<\/a>, Assistant Director Planning and Zoning Craig Pfeiffer said officials notified the applicant to submit proper plans for the site ahead of the meeting on Thursday, Jan. 8.<\/p>\nThe front of the building should be built \u201cto be in-keeping with neighborhood context in terms of massing, fa\u00e7ade materials and a visual and physical break between the second and third floors,\u201d Pfeiffer said in the letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would need to see a clearer rendering of what this is going to look like to feel confident. I can\u2019t just base it off of a different project.”<\/p>\n
Bethlehem City Planning Commission member Richard Pongracz<\/p>\n
Planning officials, nervous of setting a precedent for future developments, said they did not want to provide an approval on Thursday without the proper plans in hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly it seems like there was adequate time from December 31st to today to submit the architectural plans and elevations as it pertains to the project on West Union,\u201d planning Chairman Robert Melosky said.<\/p>\n
Planner Richard Pongracz said, \u201cI would need to see a clearer rendering of what this is going to look like to feel confident. <\/p>\n
“I can\u2019t just base it off of a different project,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
‘Out of no disrespect’<\/p>\n
Joy Cohen, another member of the Planning Commission, said it was her understanding the project documents were submitted without the architect\u2019s knowledge.<\/p>\n
Bozakis said that wasn\u2019t the case, and he actually planned to meet with the architect again that evening.<\/p>\n
Horvath said it was all a misunderstanding on his part, adding that the city\u2019s development procedures were \u201cunique.\u201d Potential revisions of plans along the way can get costly, he said.<\/p>\n
Bozakis \u201chas had every intention of developing these plans further with the architect of record,\u201d Horvath said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I really didn\u2019t think it was that big of a stretch in terms of what we\u2019re proposing and to provide an adequate representation of that using this drawing.”<\/p>\n
Kevin Horvath, project design engineer with Keystone Consulting Engineers<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I really didn\u2019t think it was that big of a stretch in terms of what we\u2019re proposing and to provide an adequate representation of that using this drawing,\u201d Horvath said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was out of no disrespect whatsoever that we didn\u2019t do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horvath said they would submit the proper renderings to the panel for review and allow the 30-day extension.<\/p>\n
As land development plans were submitted on Oct. 31, and project applicants are entitled to a decision from planners within 90 days, the planning commission would have had to vote Thursday unless given an extension by the developers, according to planning commission solicitor Matthew Deschler.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll see you in a month,\u201d Melsoky said to Horvath and Bozakis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2014 City planners are taking a 30-day extension to further review land development plans for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[42836,153,628,155,154,21220,3488,42837,42838,42839,42840,42841,41426],"class_list":{"0":"post-85632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-62-68-west-union-boulevard","9":"tag-bethlehem","10":"tag-bethlehem-city-planning-commission","11":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","12":"tag-bethlehem-news","13":"tag-joy-cohen","14":"tag-main-street-bethlehem","15":"tag-main-street-townhomes","16":"tag-new-development-in-bethlehem","17":"tag-nicholas-bozakis","18":"tag-nicks-on-main","19":"tag-nicks-on-main-italian","20":"tag-robert-melosky"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85632","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=85632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}