A public hearing on zoning ordinance amendment 2025-03 was held before the Lowhill Township Board of Supervisors regular meeting Nov. 13.

Township Solicitor David Brooman with High Swartz LLC began the hearing by stating ordinance 2024 will be repealed in its entirety and replaced with this new zoning amendment before entering four exhibits onto the record.

“The first is the ordinance itself. We will call this Lowhill Township one. The second is the proof of publication in the Times News on Oct. 13 and 27. We will call that Lowhill exhibit number two. The third is the recommendation of the Lowhill Township Planning Commission. That is Lowhill Township exhibit number three and the final exhibit is an Aug. 29 letter from the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission regarding the zoning amendment that is being proposed tonight. We will call this exhibit four,” Brooman said.

The first to testify was township manager Mike Siegel, who was instrumental in making this zoning amendment happen.

“In April of 2024, the township passed a new subdivision and land development ordinance and in response to that ordinance many things in that ordinance conflicted or were major changes to the zoning ordinance,” Siegel said.

He said at the time he wrote that ordinance the major changes he had made could not be put into the subdivision and land development ordinance and he was instructed by the township solicitor they had to be put into the zoning ordinance.

“I also made [changes to] outdated definitions [with an] emphasis on permits and how they’re done in the township in order [for them] to make more sense because any references to the permits were very outdated,” Siegel said.

He said allowing one principal use on a commercial lot instead of multiple principal uses [allows] the township to keep track of them a lot easier and it kind of eliminates the issue for applicants to go before the zoning hearing board, making the home occupation much easier to secure.

Siegel said one of the major changes that were made was to the township’s architectural design standards for nonresidential buildings in the RV (rural village) zoning district.

He also said the township now has ordinances so billboards and other unsightly things cannot be put up to block scenic views.

“Those were the major changes to the Saldo,” Siegel said. “There were misspellings and other things that were never corrected in 2024 that I caught that were changed in there, minor editing. But for the major, no principle uses were changed in the zoning ordinance from 2024. That’s the one thing I want to stress to the board and to the public. That’s basically what I’ve done to comply with the new Saldo requirements so now they are messed, so when people go online they can see and make direct reference to our zoning ordinance.”

After Chairman Curtis Dietrich and Siegel discussed a question about the principal uses and the fact of having more architectural design standards as a part of the township’s ordinance resident, Terry Lenhart asked how stringent is the township going to be as far as the architectural standards.

“I know they’re not going to reflect something that’s currently in the works, but who would make that determination and how comprehensive is it going to be,” Lenhart asked.

Siegel said the architectural design standards are in place to meet certain basic requirements but the planning commission, as a whole, would be able to make those decisions.

Brooman added ultimately it will be the supervisors to make that decision.

After the regular meeting was resumed, Dietrich quickly summarized the zoning amendment and stated that the township is in the implementation-cooperation agreement with the other municipalities and multi-municipal plan.

“We have adopted the comprehensive plan and the planning commission has had an opportunity to review all of this and we are at a place now where we can make the revision,” Dietrich said.

The board unanimously voted to approve a motion to adopt zoning ordinance amendment 2025-03.

The board also approved the Sanctuary at Haafsville TNR release contract for 2026.

The cost will remain the same at $175 for each friendly stray cat that they accept with it being capped at $1,000.

During the solicitor comments, Brooman provided the board with a couple of brief updates on the township’s litigation.

He said the CRG land use of appeal which is the case in which the discovery has been going on, it’s sort of winding down. There may be two more depositions but that is about it.

“The waterline litigation we have scheduling orders, no discovery,” Brooman said.

He said the Core5 petition to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has not been decided yet.

“Lastly, the CRG litigation involving the septic field and the inadequacy of it is probably going to be settled because CRG filed a second private request because they have located a second field on the border of Mr. Jaindl’s property, and he’s not happy,“ Brooman said. “The Lehigh Valley Planning Commissioners have weighed in and they’re not in favor of this and the township is preparing a response due the first week of December and obviously we’re not in favor of it for a host of reasons.”

During public comment, resident Joe Howard asked the board if Core5 was ever granted an exemption for their building if it would burn.

Brooman respond, “Not by this board.”

Chairman Dietrich also commented.

“The issue, I think was that because the board subsequent to the initial approval at the preliminary stage for what was then the Trammel Crow property, later went back to saying it would be a 35-foot height limitation,” Dietrich said. “This would mean that [the] warehouse would be a nonconforming use.”

The board at that time was pretty adamant about not changing the height limitation, he said.

“If these warehouses do get built, they will be [considered] nonconforming uses and that’s when it comes into play in terms of insurance coverage. Insurance companies would have a hard time working with that developer,” Dietrich said. “They [Trammel Crow] had asked the supervisors to somehow take that into consideration and the board did not do that.”

Brooman added, “We also think they might have some water pressure problems in respect to the fire at those warehouses.”

Resident Vanessa Fenstermaker then asked Attorney Brooman, “In terms of the Core5 appeal to the Supreme Court, are there any discussions on what that looks like in terms of expenses to fight such a case, how long would that be and what does that look like from that type of perspective?”

Brooman responded.

“Actually it’s Lowhill Township that filed the petition. That is a sort of front end loaded cost because the petition itself is rather elaborate. If the Supreme Court accepts it, that would be great. It would be pretty much what was in the petition. If they don’t accept it, that would be the end of that case,” Brooman stated.