ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Plans to convert a former church along Chew Street into housing and a community center drew a crowd Monday to a city Zoning Hearing Board meeting that came to an end more than four hours later with little public comment and no rulings.
More than two dozen Allentown residents identified themselves as objectors to Ripple Community Incorporated’s plans to convert a former church at 1547 W. Chew St.
Nine others showed up to speak against a proposal to build 31 housing units at an industrial building at 1010 Walnut St.
But they never got a chance to speak Monday.
The Zoning Hearing Board’s practice of letting the most experienced attorney present his case first, a third case — with just one objector — led off the meeting.
Attorney John VanLuvanee asked the board to delay the case to a later date before guiding a real estate broker and an architect through more than an hour of testimony, as dozens waited.
‘Extraordinary gift’
Ripple launched into its proposal shortly after zoning officials granted that continuance.
The nonprofit acquired the former Emmanuel United Church of Christ last summer through “an extraordinary gift” from the parish, Executive Director Sherri Binder said.
Ripple plans to build several floors inside the church’s sanctuary and divide that space into 12 apartments.
Those units are meant to house families with “very low” and “extremely low” incomes, Binder has said. Rents at Ripple’s other properties average about $875 per month for a two-bedroom apartment, she said.
The main floor is expected to have a community space for social services, with apartments on the second and third floors.
The top floor would be used for offices, according to plans presented Monday.
Those who would use the medical respite rooms "are not sick enough to be in or stay in the hospital, but they’re not healthy enough to recover on the streets."Seth Campbell, director of Valley Health Partners' Street Medicine program
Ripple now also is proposing to use part of the first floor for three “medical respite rooms” where Valley Health Partners’ Street Medicine team would help people with unstable housing recover from injuries or illnesses, according to director Seth Campbell.
The Street Medicine Program was launched years ago after a veteran was unable to get the surgery he needed because he was homeless, Campbell said.
He said surgeons won’t operate on a person “unless [they] have a safe place to go” to recover.
The respite rooms at Ripple would help fill a gap in the region’s healthcare landscape, Campbell said.
“It would be for folks that have a physical illness or injury that is unlikely to heal when they’re unsheltered, outside,” he said.
“They’re not sick enough to be in or stay in the hospital, but they’re not healthy enough to recover on the streets."
Respite rooms or temporary shelters?
What Campbell and others called medical respite rooms the city considers temporary shelters, according to the advertisement for Monday’s zoning meeting.
“If they open that center where we are in West Park, we are going to become a magnet for the city’s transient population."Scott Armstrong, resident
That’s a key piece of neighbors’ opposition to the project, according to resident Scott Armstrong.
Many residents in the West Park neighborhood were “fine with” Ripple’s proposal before its addition of the medical respite rooms, he told LehighValleyNews.com after the meeting.
Armstrong called for Ripple to put the respite rooms "where the homeless are.”
“If they open that center where we are in West Park, we are going to become a magnet for the city’s transient population,” he said.
