BETHLEHEM, Pa. — After months of deliberation regarding the potential rezoning of 119 Technology Drive for an apartment complex, Bethlehem City Council voted Tuesday evening in unanimous denial of the proposal.
- The applicant proposed a six-story, 240-unit apartment building for the property at 119 Technology Drive
- Bethlehem City Council voted 7-0 to deny the rezoning request
- Council members reinforced their visions to bolster the currently allowed uses on site
If approved, the vote would've changed the zoning classification of the site from Industrial Redevelopment to Central Business District.
"My concern is the lack of balance that we have in housing options. Over the past five years to six years, across approximately 85-percent of development in this city has been in rental apartments. I ask: is this really a balance?"Grace Crampsie Smith, Bethlehem City Council vice president
Council members emphasized their visions to make Bethlehem a technology hub, allowing other companies the chance to revamp the site and provide good jobs for the area.
That meant not allowing it to become a residential use. If given the green light, it would have been one of the biggest South Bethlehem residential developments in years.
Plans called for a new, six-story, 240-unit apartment complex.
But council member Kiera Wilhem said at least one company has shown recent interest to maintain the site as a workplace. It sits on land that used to be part of the old Bethlehem Steel plant.
Council Vice President Grace Crampsie Smith said the city needs more variety in housing for newcomers and lifelong residents.
"My concern is the lack of balance that we have in housing options," she said. "Over the past five years to six years, across approximately 85-percent of development in this city has been in rental apartments.
"I ask: is this really a balance?"
Council President Michael Colón said that although he sees the area housing deficit and wants to make moves forward in that, this proposal just didn't make the cut in his opinion.
"From my perspective, it hasn't met the threshold to change the IR uses to CB uses," Colón said.
Applicant representatives with Serfass Development & Acquisitions, of Allentown, along with its counsel left the meeting right after the proposal was denied.
Some council previously had signaled support for the project.
The four-acre property now is occupied by IQE, a U.K.-based semiconductor supplier that is moving its operations to North Carolina.
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission and Bethlehem Planning Commission had said the proposed apartment building would align with area needs.
But in April, Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. CEO Don Cunningham — a former Bethlehem mayor — said concerns over covenants placed on the property because it was a brownfield should give pause to plans to make it a living space for hundreds.
He said the original sales agreement from 1993 as well as a subsequent sale in 2007 limit reuses for residential purposes, schools, day care centers “and many other people-intensive purposes."
Cunningham warned council about giving up on the property for business purposes. He said LVEDC is in the midst of a national marketing campaign to grow the life sciences and technology sector in the region.
“It will send an economic development message if the region's second-largest municipality moves this quickly to repurpose away from its life sciences-technology hub at a time when other states, regions, and the federal government are investing money and creating consortiums to build capacity,” Cunningham wrote in a letter to city council and the administration.
