Land use appeal filed against Lowhill Township
BY SUSAN BRYANT
The Lowhill Township supervisors meeting on Aug. 10 began with Supervisor Curtis Dietrich announcing a land use appeal has been filed against the township.
He said last month’s decision to deny the final plan on the proposed warehouse plans for 2766 Route 100 has already been appealed.
“The land use appeal has been entered by the equitable owner, Core5,” Dietrich stated. “Generally, when you have a land use appeal, everything gets submitted as a part of the written record.”
He said Township Secretary Jill Seymour did an enormous job of transcribing the meeting minutes from last month’s meeting to be submitted to the court as a part of the written record.
In other matters, the board discussed a zoning ordinance regarding building square footage.
Dietrich said this comes from the planning commission. He asked the board to look at the ordinance they are planning to change and whether they should put a square footage number in it.
“Presently, there is the height limitation of 35 feet,” Dietrich stated. “My sense is we should just proceed with what we have proposed, to go ahead and have a hearing on it at our September meeting and, after taking input on that, act on that, and then, if you want to revisit that, we certainly can.”
He said the Multi Municipal Planning Committee met earlier this month and they are proceeding with Environmental Planning and Design LLC., regarding the township ordinances in the Multi Municipal Comprehensive Plan.
“I did speak today with Carolyn Yagel, who is the lead person from Environmental Planning and Design,” Dietrich stated. “And they will be working with all six municipalities and updating their ordinances in concert with the 2022 Multi Municipal Plan.
“We are going to have their services and work through all of those changes that need to be made in our zoning ordinances.
“I would say we just go ahead and proceed with what we have proposed, that was developed by the solicitor, have the hearing on that. We already sent it to the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission for review.”
According to Seymour, the zoning ordinance amendment is advertised to be adopted at the September meeting.
The board also discussed adding audio recordings to the website, attachments to meeting agendas and equipment needed to record the meetings.
Dietrich began the discussion by asking Seymour where the township is with website updates from Bob Pysher with NA Studios.
“I just called him and left a message because the last time I talked to him it was during tax season and he does taxes, but it’s well past taxes,” she said. “I would like him to at least get it set up for me so I could put the meeting recordings on the website.”
Dietrich responded.
“It is important community members, taxpayers, residents understand what we’re doing as a township and that they can access the meetings because they can’t be here, but they would like to listen perhaps when they have some time,” Dietrich stated. “It’s important for somebody who has a question, doesn’t recall exactly what was said or what might be happening that they can just go back and fast forward to that point.”
He said the other question he had was regarding attachments, the type he is accustomed to having attached to meeting agendas and how complicated it would be to have attachments added to the agenda.
Dietrich said when he was a school superintendent and on the school board, they would have attachments that were electronically scanned to the agenda and then they had some type of document they could see and read.
Chairman Richard Hughes said he asked the man who does the speakers at Fogelsville Fire Company what the township would need for the meeting room.
“I know we need some things for the room here,” Hughes said. “I asked him to come up here and maybe just give us a little bit of an idea, so we can look at that for the budget.”
Before adjourning the meeting the board held an executive session to discuss employee performance matters.