Allentown zoners delay decision on planned medical respite rooms after another marathon meeting

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A second zoning hearing on proposed temporary recovery rooms at a planned Allentown apartment complex stretched late into the night Monday and ended much like the first — without a ruling.

Scores of people filled Allentown City Hall’s meeting room as the Zoning Hearing Board sought feedback from residents who had been waiting since Feb. 5 to voice their opposition to a local nonprofit’s plans.

Ripple Community Inc. is working to convert the former Emmanuel United Church of Christ at 1547 W. Chew St. into a dozen “deeply affordable” apartments.

It's now seeking zoning approval to add three medical respite rooms, where people with unstable housing could recover from injuries or illnesses.

Ripple Executive Director Sherri Binder and others detailed those plans for several hours last month, but no residents were allowed to speak before zoning officials continued the meeting as it approached 10:30 p.m.

Another late night

Monday’s hearing went more than an hour later — ending about 11:40 p.m. — after about 10 residents spoke out against the proposal.

Fifteen identified themselves as objectors to Ripple’s plans for medical respite rooms, which the city’s zoning ordinance deems as temporary shelters.

But they were outnumbered Monday by almost 40 people who showed up in support of the proposal.

Attorney Anthony Brichta launched his examination of Ripple’s plans by questioning former longtime Community Action leader Alan Jennings about how a temporary homeless shelter could impact the neighborhood.

But Jennings’ testimony got off to a rocky start.

Brichta and Ripple attorney Erich Schock spent more than 20 minutes arguing Jennings’ qualifications to testify as an expert witness on the nonprofit’s zoning application — which he said he did not read.

Schock objected when Brichta asked Jennings how Ripple would operate its planned facility, saying that was like asking Binder how to “operate [a] nuclear plant.”

Zoning Hearing Board Chairman Scott Unger called Brichta’s line of questioning “a little aimless” and urged him to move on.

Jennings eventually raised concerns that Ripple’s planned half-mile move from 1335 Linden St. would lead to public nuisances that could snowball into much larger issues.

“It takes one problem property to take a block down; it takes one block to take a neighborhood down; it takes one neighborhood to take a city down,” Jennings said.

“You can't have … a community that’s functioning without a functioning marketplace, and you can’t have a functioning marketplace where everybody’s poor.”

‘Extreme overuse’

After Jennings spoke for more than 45 minutes, Brichta led several residents of the neighborhood through their opposition to the latest proposal.

Many said they support Ripple’s plans to add apartments for low-income housing but no other aspects, including the medical respite rooms and a community center.

“It’s just such an extreme overuse,” resident Alan Younkin said, urging zoning officials to deny Ripple relief.

Resident Michael Schelp said he and Younkin recently toured Ripple’s facility on Linden Street and described it for zoning officials.

The facility is “not for the residents of Franklin Park or West Park, it is for homeless people,” Schelp said.

“It’s not a place that you want to spend much time, unless you want to volunteer, which is great,” he said.

Schelp told zoning officials he worries any type of drop-in center will attract the region’s transient population to the former church at 16th and Chew streets.

Binder “wants to create a kind of Mecca [of] a drop-in center in the Lehigh Valley,” he said.

Schock objected regularly throughout most objectors’ statements, making for a stuttering experience as officials weighed the testimony and issued rulings.

‘Do not want a temporary shelter’

The Zoning Hearing Board opened the floor to several supporters of the project after listening to about three hours of opposition.

A regular Ripple volunteer told zoning officials that “Allentown has a great opportunity to be a trailblazer by providing these respite rooms for people to recover.”

Several others countered what objectors said about the security of the facility and lauded its potential benefit to the community.

Binder refuted numerous residents’ suggestions — and the city’s interpretation — that the medical respite rooms amount to temporary shelters.

A medical respite room is “a thing that doesn’t fit neatly anywhere in the zoning code,” Binder said.

“We do not want [a] temporary shelter,” she said.

Binder suggested zoning officials attach strict conditions for the medical respite rooms' use, like requiring they only serve people without homes for short recovery periods.

Attorneys Erich Schock and Anthony Brichta must file final briefs summarizing their cases by March 21, with the Zoning Hearing Board to issue a ruling at its April 8 meeting.