Meeting Minutes State College Borough Council Regular Meeting Monday, April 2, 2018

Transcription

1 Meeting Minutes State College Borough Council Regular Meeting Monday, April 2, 2018 The State College Borough met on Monday, April 2, 2018, in the State College Municipal Building, 243 South Allen Street, State College, PA in a regular meeting. Mayor Hahn called the meeting to order at 7:01 p.m. Present: Donald M. Hahn, Mayor Evan Myers, Council President Jesse L. Barlow David. J. Brown Catherine G. Dauler Janet P. Engeman Theresa D. Lafer Dan Murphy Also present: Terry J. Williams, Borough Solicitor; Thomas J. Fountaine, Borough Manager; Edward LeClear, Planning Director; Dwight Miller, Finance Director; Roger Dunlap, Assistant Borough Manager; Douglas Shontz, Communications Specialist; Thomas R. King, Assistant Borough Manager; P. Rick Ward, Parking Manager; Sharon K. Ergler, Assistant Borough Secretary; Deborah A. S. Hoag, Director Public Works; Amy J. Kerner, Borough Engineer; Anne Messner, Planner/Zoning Officer; John Gardner, Chief of Police; Thomas Dougherty, III, Student Representative; Borough residents and members of the media. Special Business/ABC Report Board of Health (BOH) - Dr. William Taylor, Chairman of the BOH, reviewed the Board s 2017 activities, including restaurant inspections, West Nile Virus, housing complaints and LION Bash. Watershed Cleanup Day Mayor Hahn presented a proclamation to Andrea Morell, from Clearwater Conservancy, declaring April 21, 2018 as Watershed Cleanup Day in the municipality. He encouraged all staff and citizens to participate. Ms. Morell said more than 600 volunteers helped last year to remove 38 tons of trash. She also urged everyone to participate in helping to clean up the local watershed. Wyland Mayor s Challenge for Water Conservation. Mayor Hahn said he had issued a proclamation to inspire residents and neighboring communities to take the Wayland Mayor s Challenge for Water Conservation. He encouraged the community to take the pledge at Public Hour Hearing of Citizens There was no one in the audience who wished to speak about items not on the agenda. Consent Items Ms. Dauler made a motion to approve the following consent items. Mr. Barlow seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. Approved the use of various Borough sidewalks with conditions, on Sunday, October 21, 2018, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., for the annual CROP Walk to raise funds to alleviate hunger both locally and worldwide. Approved with conditions the closure of the 100 blocks of South Allen Street and West Calder Way (between South Allen and South Fraser Streets), as well as the use of the Martin Luther King, Jr.

2 Plaza, on Saturday, May 12, 2018, from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., for the Jana Marie Foundation J.A.M. Fest. Approved with conditions the use of street parking at 214 East College Avenue on Wednesday, April 25, 2018, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. for the Citizens Bank grand opening. Approved the use of various Borough sidewalks, on Saturday, April 7, 2018, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., for the State College Area School District s National Honor Society s Bunny Hop 5k. Approved the use of Sidney Friedman Park, on Saturday, April 21, 2018, from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., for the annual Renaissance Faire, which is sponsored by the Penn State Renaissance Club. Approved with conditions the use of the Theatre Zone (100 block of West College) on Tuesday, April 17, 2018, from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m., for The State Theatre s BBQ fundraiser. Approved the use of various streets (normal Penn State campus 5k route) on Saturday, April 7, 2018, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., for the annual Coaches vs. Cancer 5k Run/Walk. Awarded the Base Bid and Alternate A for Project # (Easterly Parkway Reconstruction Project to Stickler Construction, LLC, the lowest responsive bidder, for a total amount of $1,283, Appointed Adam Gripton as the alternate on the Rental Housing Revocation Appeal Board with a term ending on December 31, Approved the following appointments or reappointments to the Centre Region Building and Housing Board of Appeals for a term beginning on March 26, 2018 and ending with the first General Forum meeting in January 2022: Core Board Plumbing Board Electrical Board Mechanical Board Paul S. Lehr, R.A. Douglas Henry, R.A. Chad Maholtz Jim Jones, P.E. Paul Thomas, P.E. (Alternate) Scott Good, P.E. Brian Walker, P.E. (Alternate) Kirk Lauer, P.E. (Alternate, already on the Electrical Board Scott Good, P.E. Brian Walker, P.E. (Alternate) Scott Good, P.E. Brian Walker, P.E. (Alternate) General Policy & Administration Update on Parking Study (Overnight Parking Restrictions Request from Highlands Civic Association) Mr. Fountaine explained that the Highlands Civic Association (HCA) had presented a proposal in April 2017 regarding changes to the practice of enforcement of the 2 a.m. 6 a.m. parking restrictions and lawn parking on Penn State Football weekends. In response to that request, staff had developed five options to address the HCA s proposal. Mr. Murphy made a motion for Council to approve Option 2 as stated in the agenda. Ms. Lafer seconded the motion. Ms. Dauler said she wanted to hear from Rob DeMayo, Penn State s Director of Transportation Services, about the parking available on campus.

3 Mr. Brown said he was not in favor of Option 2. Ms. Lafer said she had problems with Options 1, 3 and 4. She liked Option 5 because that option covered two important things, street cleaning and leaf/brush pick up. She said without the parking areas being available overnight, the street sweeper could only clean the middle of the road and not the parking areas. Enforcement from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. makes it much easier for the Public Works Department to get their jobs done more efficiently. Mr. Fountaine noted that Option 5 was the Transportation Commission s recommendation, which was to enforce the ordinance at all times with no exceptions and enforced 365 days of the year. Jake Griggs, South Sparks Street, said he was speaking on behalf of the UPUA and was against the HCA s request. He noted the UPUA passed a resolution in opposition of the request. He said the UPUA was sympathetic to the problems that occur during the busiest times to the year. He added that the Highlands neighborhood is made up of long-terms residents, students and graduate students with families. He said the UPUA also understood the safety concerns and encouraged people to make smart life decisions. He urged Council to follow staff s recommendation and to lift the 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. parking restrictions on special event weekends. He also asked Council to explore alternatives to alleviate the strain on neighborhoods because he believed this was a community-wide issue. Mark Huncik, 505 East McCormick Avenue and President of the HCA, said their request was for a pilot and HCA had never requested the parking restrictions be enforced at all times going forward. He commented that he was there as an advocate for their neighbors. One of the main reasons the HCA requested the pilot was for the residential quality of the neighborhood and the increased parking volume during the 2017 Blue/White football game. He said the HCA felt more people were using the on-street parking in the neighborhood instead of parking downtown or on campus and paying. He asked when does the public have a say on the use of the parking in front of their homes. He noted that the special event weekends included 10 for university functions, 4 holiday weekends and 2 for other planned special events, which account for approximately 1/3 of a year. He said if Council chooses to adopt Option 2, there would be no relief for the neighborhood nor any opportunity to adjust for future conditions. Ms. Engeman said Option 3 did not permit on-street parking for guests. Mr. Fountaine said that was correct because there were no exemptions. Mr. Huncik said none of the options listed in the agenda were the HCA s options. The HCA s option was only for a pilot program. Mr. Fountaine said the proposal for a pilot included seven elements. Visitors would not be able to register for on-street parking permission. The proposal included a complete restriction with no permissions during the pilot period. Mr. Barlow asked how and why did the Transportation Commission (TC) come to such a hardline recommendation. Ms. Dauler said there had been some discussion that people who park in the neighborhoods should be required to pay for parking. Mr. Huncik said there had been some discussion about a parking permit, which was one of the options staff brought forward for Council s consideration. Mr. Brown said one of the things he liked about the proposal was that it was just a trial or an experiment, which he would support. He said until he knew more, he was not in favor of locking anything in forever. Mr. Myers asked what problem the HCA was trying to solve. Mr. Huncik said the on-street parking and the high traffic volumes created an unsafe condition. He said there were people sleeping in their cars overnight. He commented that often residents were parked in and that created pedestrian safety concerns. Mr. Myers said what problems does people sleeping in cars create and what kind of pedestrian difficulty is experienced between 2 a.m. 6 a.m. If cars were blocking residents driveways, the residents should be calling the Police to have them removed. Mr. Huncik said the reason people are parked there was because they are generally in town for an event or are visiting someone nearby and stay overnight

4 leaving their car on the street. Mr. Myers said the same problem could occur during the day. He said if someone was having a special occasion, there had been some flexibility for temporary parking. Mr. Huncik said parking restrictions were lifted for THON and the HCA did not see any type of warehousing of vehicles for that weekend. That event did not cause any problem. The people who come to town for football games tailgate and leave their trash behind. He added that the trash stayed there until it was cleaned up by the residents. Rick Garis, Vice Chairman of the TC, said the Commission s vote was unanimous to recommend the enforcement of the 2 a.m. 6 a.m. parking and to restrict lawn parking at all times with no exceptions. He added that once the Commission received and reviewed the reports from the Borough and Penn State University and determined there was ample parking available, the TC felt it was important to protect the neighborhoods. He stated that people coming into town for special events did not want to pay to park even when it was available. Mr. Barlow said we should encourage visitors and guests to use the parking available in the Borough s garages and then take a CATA bus or encourage people to walk up to the game. Ms. Lafer said she agreed with Mr. Barlow because the municipality has decent parking structures; however, residents should be allowed to have friends and family over to visit. She stated she thought there needed to be an overnight exception. Mr. DeMayo said Penn State made field parking available from 8 a.m. on Saturday mornings until 12 p.m. on Sundays. He commented that when looking at game-day sales for parking permits and receipts from the Penn State s Parking Decks, ample parking was available on campus for most games. He said with a greater number of people coming into town they had planned for 700 recreational vehicles to park at Grange Fair in Centre Hall and that practice would continue. In addition, he said Penn State could store up to 800 vehicles in Lot 83 on campus. He said there was one exception last year where Penn State could not accommodate all the parking needs and that was the Michigan game. He said as the team does better, the crowds and parking needs increased. Mr. Barlow asked what alternative arrangements Penn State made for overflows, like the Michigan game. Mr. DeMayo said one option was to park vehicles at Innovation Park and offer a shuttle bus. Mr. Myers said when football games were being held, Penn State was conducting a business and when conducting a business, they cannot ignore the impact nor not fully participate in mitigating the impact. By doing so, they are not being a good neighbor. He added that Penn State had the responsibility to help provide some relief for all the Borough. The economic benefit goes beyond Penn State and everyone needs to work together to come up with a better solution. Ms. Dauler said she agreed with Mr. Myers and added that these problems mostly occur because of football weekends. She said when looking at the various options provided, she was leaning towards Option 4. She commented that people who want to park along the Borough streets to attend football games, should be paying to do so. She said not everyone who parked there was staying with people in the neighborhoods. Hugh Mose, 621 East McCormick Avenue, said he was a member of the TC; however, he was speaking on behalf of himself and not the Commission. He commented that he had a life-long interest in all types of transportation and he wanted to bring to light his concern that cars were being warehoused in the neighborhoods. Most visitors were coming to town for an event and were looking for a place to store their vehicle, especially because it was convenient and free. He added that as the municipality continued to grow, there would be an increased impact on the adjacent neighborhoods. Eric White, 500 East Fairmount Avenue, said he was speaking as someone who lived in the Highlands neighborhood. He said the special events greatly impacted the residents of the neighborhood. He added that he lived within a half a mile walk to a seat in Beaver Stadium, which was a desirous location for people to park and walk to the game. He said he remembered back in the 1990 s when vehicles could park all day long. That ordinance was changed to permit two-hour parking limits. He thanked Mr. DeMayo for Penn State s helpful, interesting and accurate data. He stated it was nice to know there was parking available, not just on campus, but at the Grange Fairgrounds, Innovation Park and in the

5 Borough s parking structures. He said he would hope that the Borough and University worked together to fill up every one of those parking spaces before the Highlands neighborhood became a parking lot from Friday afternoon until Sunday night or into Monday morning on event weekends. By lifting the no parking bands, the Borough had essentially created parking lots in the Highlands neighborhood. He commented he had no issue with parking permits. Thomas Cooke, 826 Bayberry Drive, said he supported the permitting or enforcement action to bring the parking problem under control. He said it had not been a problem in the Greentree neighborhood. He added that he was fortunate to live on one of the few streets that was not signed and people park on his street year-round. He stated he was not in favor of a blanketed band and noted he was in favor of Council narrowing the permit system just to the Highlands neighborhood. Brent Rice, 224 South Burrowes Street, said staff s recommendation to ban overnight parking, including special event parking, was anti-student and anti-community. He said he had planned to stay in State College after graduation and was looking forward to having family and friends visit on special event weekends. By implementing the recommended changes, it would be much harder for anyone to visit the community. Andrew, 204 Easterly Parkway, said as a young professional living in the Borough, the parking permit process would create a significant challenge and have a large impact on his day-to-day life. Ms. Lafer said she knew there was a motion on the floor, but she would be in favor of a one-year pilot, if that was what Council wished to do. She said she was not sure if Council was talking about a total ban or exceptions that would be done for evenings and/or weekends if someone had company staying. Mr. Fountaine said if Council adopted the ordinance to implement Option 2, it would include the approval to authorize staff to allow parking between 2 a.m. 6 a.m. for special events or on a case-by-case basis. In addition, the ordinance would codify the current practice. Mr. Myers pointed out that the current practice of allowing overnight parking was not in the ordinance. He commented that he had lived in the Holmes-Foster neighborhood for over 40 years and that practice had not changed. He said the proposed changes would have some profound impacts. He said Mr. Mose brought up an excellent point about significant changes that were going to occur in the downtown in the future with additional student apartment buildings under construction. He said he thought Council needed to discuss the matter more than it had and to look at the impacts on the community. He said he was still in favor of codifying what we have been doing and what we should be doing. He added that he was in support of Option 2. Mr. Brown said the HCA had come to Council for some relief from a real burning problem and he was motivated to give them some relief. He stated there was an overwhelming congestion that occurred on the special event weekends. Some people park in the Highlands neighborhood because they are visiting family and friends. He said Council needs to allow special exceptions for residents who are holding weddings, birthday parties, or those residents that needed a temporary surgical provision. He asked why there was not a solution that included restrictions on overnight parking. He said logistically the Borough could hire people who drive out enforcing the parking regulations. He added that he was impressed with what Mr. Mose said. With nearly 3,500 additional new residents living downtown, where were they going to park. He said he would be in favor of a pilot basis with parking restrictions applied to everyone except Borough residents. Mr. Fountaine said Pennsylvania Law does not allow restrictions from homeowners versus residents and any resident must have the same benefit. Ms. Dauler said she was not comfortable with the ordinance the way it was proposed. She noted that Mr. Brown made some important points and she felt the ordinance needed more discussion. Ms. Dauler moved to postpone the vote on the proposed and to discuss it at Council s April 9 work session. Mr. Brown seconded the motion. The motion passed 5-2 with Mr. Murphy and Mr. Barlow voting against the motion.

6 Ordinance to Authorize the President of Council to Sign an Agreement with Harris Township for Dog Law Enforcement Services Ms. Dauler made a motion to enact Ordinance 2109 and authorize the Borough Manager to sign the agreement with Harris Township for Dog Law Enforcement Services. Mr. Brown seconded the motion, which passed unanimously in a roll call vote. Planning and Zoning Minor Subdivision Plan for 326 and 334 Hillcrest Avenue Mr. Myers made a motion to approve the minor subdivision plan for 326 and 334 Hillcrest Avenue. Ms. Engeman seconded the motion. Mr. Brown asked why the property owners had requested the subdivision. Ms. Messner said one of the lots had an expansive garden. The motion passed unanimously. Zoning Map Amendment for 401 South Pugh Street from ROA to C Mr. Fountaine said HFL Corporation, the owner of the convenience store known as Fresh n Fill, located at 406 South Pugh Street, was requesting a proposed change to the zoning map. Specifically, the applicant s request was for their parcel only, which was currently zoned ROA (Residential Office A). The owner was requesting the parcel be changed to Commercial. He added that Council was asked to receive the proposal as presented by the owner s consultant and representatives and refer it to the Planning Commission for review and discussion. Herman Slaybaugh, the applicant s consultant, explained that the property owner had built a gas station on the site in the early 1970 s when the property was zoned Commercial. In 1975, the property was rezoned to Commercial Residential Office. Since that time the gas station had turn into a convenience store, which had become rundown. He explained that the property owner was desirous to have the site rezoned allowing for a new four-story building if the land was rezoned. Mr. Haluga, the developer s architect, explained that the developer would like to tear down the existing convenience store and to construct a new four-story building, including 1,500 s.f. of commercial space on the first floor, three floors of residential above along with 18 parking spaces. Ms. Lafer questioned why the developer wanted the site rezoned commercial versus some other zoning designation. She said she was concerned about spot zoning and if this parcel was rezoned commercial, it could open the door for other property owners to request the same. She added she would hate to see properties further down South Pugh Street zoned commercial. Ms. Lafer asked how many apartments and what type was being considered. Mr. Haluga said he had designed 12 four-bedroom units for undergrads, graduate students and young professionals. Mr. Brown asked if the developer would be required to include affordable housing. Mr. Slaybaugh said the developer would be required to have one affordable housing apartment. Mr. Myers asked if office space was considered commercial. Mr. Slaybaugh said the first floor could be occupied as an office or marketed as a commercial space. He added that a four-bedroom apartment, used for affordable housing, seemed to be too large of a unit. Mr. LeClear said he had housing studies in support of The Rise project and other residences and the development team determined there was minimal demand for any four-bedroom units. The most preferred or needed were the two-bedroom units. Mr. Myers asked if the Borough could require two twobedroom units instead of one four-bedroom unit. Mr. LeClear answered yes. Ms. Engeman asked if the larger apartment buildings were rented by the apartment or the bed. Mr. Haluga said the units were rented by the apartment and not by the number of bedrooms or beds.

7 Mr. Murphy made a motion to refer the requested Zoning Map Amendment for 401 South Pugh Street to the Planning Commission for their review and discussion. Ms. Dauler seconded the motion, which passed unanimously in favor with no additional discussion. Official Reports and Correspondence Mayor s Report Mayor Hahn congratulated the Penn State Men s Basketball Team on its recent NIT championship. President s Report Mr. Myers announced that prior to tonight s Council meeting, Council held an Executive Session to discuss real estate matters. Manager s Report Mr. Fountaine said attached to Council s agenda was the annual Enforcement Report from the Division of Health and Neighborhood Services and Tom King was present to answer any questions Council had. Mr. Fountaine provided Council with an update that the one lane of High Street and East College Avenue would be closed from April 9 until the tower cranes at the Rise had been dismantled. Mr. Fountaine said he received a letter from PennDOT about the requested Speed Study on Atherton Street. The results of the speed study have resulted in a speed reduction from 35 to 25 mph from West Mitchell Avenue to West Prospect Avenue. The change would go into effect on June 1. The speed reduction signage will be installed shortly with PennDOT s approval. Mr. King wanted to make certain the public was aware that the municipality had launched the National Citizen s Survey (NCS) again this year. He said postcards had been mailed to homes letting them know a survey would arrive shortly. The NCS provided an opportunity for Borough residents to assess the services provided by the Borough government. Student Representative Report Mr. Griggs thanked Council for their part in the You Are Welcome banners all over town. He said he would not be running for the Student Representative position; however, he was going to stay involved in the Government Affairs Committee. Mayor Hahn thanked Mr. Griggs for his service and for the UPUA s sponsorship of the banners. He said the banners created an appropriate message for State College and they added to the festivity of the downtown. The meeting adjourned at 8:55 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Sharon K. Ergler Assistant Borough Secretary