Who's at fault here? Who's to blame?
The Zesters? or the City?
The city official threw herself on her sword. She appreciated suggestions by CW Van Wirt and CM Colon that there was shared blame. But she did not duck. She accepted accountability. The "mistake is on us." She felt a "sense of responsibility." It was a "highly unusual situation." A half-dozen people missed it. The closest she came to an excuse was the quantity of work — 2500 or so such files to go through. Seems no doubt the city did mess up.
The city official pledged to review the process with the goal of improving it. I think Council is owed a detailed report on her evaluation and changes that have been instituted to prevent such a thing from happening again. And a public report – public perception of city fairness was wounded here and needs to be repaired. We need to be assured that concrete steps have been taken to avoid this kind of thing happening again.
At the very beginning of the meeting, the HCC chair, quoting minutes from the Nov. 19 HCC meeting, says that the approval of the 6th floor was "predicated" on the set-back. Predicated. No weak word. Meaning the foundation, the basis. The developer will go on to make light of the HCC stipulation, when, in fact, it is the essence of the HCC decision.
The developer makes it sound as if this is the first time he's hearing of the HCC stipulation and that he must depend on the HCC chair's explanation to understand it. He talks of reading the correspondence from HCC to whomever. As if he/his company were never directly notified of the HCC ruling and got a copy of it. And when he understands the stipulation through the HCC chair's explanation, he doesn't understand it. He questions HCC thinking. But could he not have been aware of this from the beginning? I was barely paying attention to city matters in 2015 and 2016, but even I knew the height of the building was a problem just from the newspaper coverage.
There were 4-5 meetings with the HCC apparently prior to approval in which the compromises and negotiations for final approval were worked out. Was the developer there at those meetings? Who was at those meetings? I won't know unless minutes can be obtained. But even if he wasn't, he's the boss, and it's hard to believe he didn't receive a detailed report of everything, especially since changes had to be made to gain approval. So it's very, very hard to accept his feigning ignorance, and it is not his place at this moment to question that original judgment of the HCC.
And the developer passes the buck to his leasing/management agent. Why weren't all relevant details transmitted to his agent? Does Council have something like subpoena power? I'd like to have served one on the agent and heard his "sworn" story. Why wasn't he at the meeting with Council to answer questions? But, in any event, the boss can't pass the buck. If your "agent" made a mistake, you made a mistake.
It's also hard to believe that somewhere, sometime the restaurateur didn't talk to the developer about what would be a highlight of his business – that dining area with a fabulous view. It may just be "the" special place in the room. It had to come up.
So it seemed to me that the developer was playing Council. And I would like him to pay a price of some sort. To be held accountable. If only it is a kind of public reprimand that he should have known better, which, actually, Prez Waldron came close to giving him when answering his "we didn't know" about the stipulation with HCC's belief that he should have known. He should have known.
Gadfly: I attended the November 2019 HCC meeting. Neither the owner of the building or restaurant owner attended. It was the contractor who was sent, who knew nothing about anything, other than that the work had started. Nobody representing the City attended either to speak to the City's error in issuing a building permit. At least two HCC members commented to me prior to the meeting that they were not pleased at all with work advancing prior to HCC review.
Needless to say, members of the HCC were not happy about this at all, given the Certificate of Appropriateness conditions issued for the structure to be built, which included the terrace setback to minimize the impact of the approved 6 story height. In fact one member called for a "stop work" order to be issued by the City immediately, although that was not part of the motion to deny.
In my opinion, the building owner and possibly the restaurant owner had to know about the earlier conditions placed in the COA. The City certainly had to know as well. Oops, is not an acceptable response.
Council's action made a travesty of the South Bethlehem Conservation District Ordinance, violated said ordinance, and undermined the citizen-filled Historic Conservation Commission, especially given the terrace setback condition of the original COA that had been worked out between the HCC and developer and that had been approved by City Council.
Even worse is the message that was sent, that of if you ignore City ordinances and processes to gain approval for a project, a majority of City Council has your back. That speaks to an aura of corruption at work when it comes to development projects in Bethlehem.
Historic District Ordinances in Bethlehem need to be applied equally to a homeowner, a small business, and a large developer, but they aren't. If that isn't corrupt, nothing is!
So the process of building 306 S. New in the Southside Historical District, bumpy to begin with, ended in a wreck.
Check out Deja-vu: 306 S. New St. (1) again.
In short, the Historical Conservation Commission approved 306 S. New St with a 12' terrace on the top floor (6th) to achieve a tapering effect, softening the feeling of height. That message never seemed to get to the tenant of the 6th floor, who designed a restaurant with a portion of the terrace covered, the plans for which were then mistakenly approved by the city. It was not until the work was about ½ done and the planned restaurant opening hovering on the near horizon that the mistake was discovered. The HCC stood by its ruling. And the imbroglio landed in City Council's lap. What would you do? What should they do? What's fair in a situation like this?
April 2015: newspaper story says the developer submitted plans for a 7-story building. The submission would probably have been to the Historical Conservation Commission (HCC), but no details have been found yet. The developer has said that original plans were for the building to be even taller, with apartments on the top, but they decided that was not a good idea and scaled it back themselves. The HCC was concerned about height in this historical district.
Jan. 19, 2016: City Council approved the Certificate of Appropriateness. There is nothing of significance relating to this issue in the minutes, but Prez Waldron specifically remembers the height issue as an issue at that time. Again, height was no hidden concern among all concerned.
2016? 2017? into 2018: construction on the building begins and is completed per the HCC stipulation. The completed building looked like this. Except for the left-hand corner, the 6th floor is set back 12 feet per the stipulation by HCC.
Dec. 2017-Jan. 2018: the restaurant "Zest" enters into a lease agreement for a restaurant on the 6th floor. The developer/owner is not involved in lease negotiations, and, in any event, seems not to be aware of the set-back stipulation. The negotiation is handled by the owner/developer's leasing agent/marketing company. According to those involved, the HCC stipulation is not mentioned at all in this negotiation. It is not clear if the leasing agent/marketing company knew about the stipulation. The restaurateur claimed to have no knowledge of the set-back stipulation at that time. There was no design for the restaurant at the time the lease was signed.
Early 2018, exact date uncertain: The restaurateur proceeds to engage his architect, tells him he wants a dining area on the terrace, the architect draws up the plans, the final design includes a dining area 45' long on the east end of the terrace. Including the already constructed bump-out on the plan as shown in the picture above, the enclosed area would now be a little less than half of the terrace.
Later 2018, date uncertain: the restaurateur submits plans to the city for an "interior fit-out" including the covered area on the terrace. The city runs it through a half-dozen hands in its normal interior fit-out routine, approves the plan, issues permits. Nobody in the city process notices exterior component. Nobody notices the violation of the HCC stipulation.
Later still in 2018. date uncertain: construction begins to enclose that outside area. Construction proceeds till it is more than ½ done, when the HCC chair observes the violation. Since the area is open to weather, he asks that construction be stopped, the area weather-proofed, and an appeal be filed with HCC. This is the first time the restaurateur has heard of the setback stipulation. The owner/developer does not seem to have been aware either. They are caught by surprise at this late hour problem.
Nov. 19, 2018: HCC hears the appeal and denies it 8-0 based on the original set-back stipulation. No minutes are yet available. Apparently, no negotiation occurs during or after the hearing. No remedy for the problem is offered.
Dec. 4, 2018: City Council is presented with the case. The city accepts responsibility. The owner/developer/restaurateur deny responsibility. Time is short. A soft opening for the restaurant is planned for Dec. 20 and then a major opening at New Year's. As one Councilman put it, there seemed but two options: scuttle the work done or approve it.
Are we feeling some momentum building?
"Meet the Press" devoted its full Sunday show yesterday to climate change.
If you missed it, watch "The Climate Crisis" here.
If journalist keep the heat on . . .
If the new Congress . . .
If the new presidential candidates . . .
But, in the meantime, as CM Reynolds and others have said, let's do what we can in our own backyards.
It's Monday, December 31, do you know where your local Climate Action Plan is?
A tip o' the hat and a wave o' the wings to Julia Maserjian for contacting Karen Pooley after Gadfly's December 29 post Reminding myself about a neighborhood map.
Read on — doesn't this sound exciting!
Just read your comments on Gadfly and think your idea of a neighborhood map(s) is a good one. When the Still Looking for You project was developed it was with the goal of residents being able to contribute "memories" about their city. With the exception of "The Lost Neighborhood," this did not happen. People want something about place to latch onto, and the issue of urban renewal in a particular neighborhood was the thing. Let's talk more about how we can engage in a map-making project.
What we've found in city after city is that people are most connected to their neighborhood and their block — and the bigger the geography you're talking about (whether the "west side" or the city as a whole), the more likely people are to have negative impressions of it even when they love their immediate surroundings (because you're talking about somewhere else that they don't associate with their immediate surroundings). Geneva (NY) was a case in point of this — people were uniformly down on the city of Geneva but loved the block they lived on and the adjacent blocks. We actually helped them define 11 different neighborhoods (Geneva has roughly 13,500 residents — roughly the same as the South Side), and it completely transformed how people thought of their hometown.
Happy to work on a mapping project! The market value analysis TRF recently completed for the city is likely a good place to start.