College Heights Association

College Heights News and Announcements

name
Council Recap: Monday, September 15

NOTICE: This message is not an official correspondence from the Borough of State College. The Borough cannot confirm the accuracy of the content of this message.  


Hi all,

It's begun! Last Monday, among other things, Council met to begin reviewing the Residential parts of the draft zoning revision. As always, I am speaking in my individual capacity and not speaking on behalf of the full Council as an official report. This is a summary of where I believe the progress on the zoning revision is. Here's a recap of last Monday's meeting! There will be another Council meeting on 9/24, where the residential districts will be discussed in more detail and the downtown/transitional district proposals will be introduced.

Council first unanimously passed the consent agenda:

  • The Minimum Municipal Obligation for the Pension Plans
    • For the Police Pension Defined Benefit Plan, the amount is $537,778
    • For the General Government Pension Defined Benefit Plan, the contribution is $865,003
    • An earlier email explained a simplified method of calculation for this
  • A traffic change from October 20, 2025, to August 2028: making Sowers Street a one-way northbound lane from College Avenue to East Calder Way and other pedestrian walkway adjustments (pictured below)
  • An agreement with Centre Helps to deliver supportive services, housing/rental assistance and other goals associated with HOME grant funds
    • This does not involve Borough taxpayer dollars -- it is funded through the federal HOME-ARP program






diagram

Council then reviewed comments made by staff regarding the updated Intergovernmental Agreement for the Centre Region Parks & Recreation system. In the staff comment memo, it was proposed that the Borough recommend that the Parks Capital Committee be eliminated. I serve as the Vice-Chair of that Committee, and made a motion to edit the staff comment memo to remove that recommendation. The Parks Capital Committee is the stop-gap committee of elected officials that review/specify/approve/deny parks proposals. If the Committee were to be eliminated, parks proposals would originate from appointed (unelected) volunteers on the Parks & Rec. Authority, and they would be sent to the COG General Forum without any editing from elected officials. Council unanimously voted to approve my motion to remove the recommendation to eliminate the Parks Capital Committee. The rest of the staff comment memo mostly dealt with preserving State College Borough's ownership/maintenance of Sidney Friedman Park and other small criteria/standards edits. 

In one of the regional reports, Borough Manager Tom Fountaine related news regarding the Centre County Solar Power Purchasing Agreement. The development team has not yet obtained financing for the solar array, despite this project having been in the final approval stages for almost a year. No construction timeline has been set, despite the original SPPA contracts requiring construction to have been started already. According to Fountaine, because of the federal changes, the consultant/other parties believe that they are able to exercise an option in the contracts to propose changes to the contracts to move the schedule back even further. It should be noted that Council (via a 6-1 vote) approved the MOU for the SPPA on December 16, even after it was discovered that the legal fees had ballooned to more than $123,000 above what was originally budgeted ($288K+ spent vs. $165K approved). The next public meeting which would be the first one in months — for the SPPA Solar Group has been postponed to October 8.

Next up, the big topic of the night — zoning. After reviewing the schedule for review, goals and objectives for the revision, and other housekeeping items, Council dove right into the R-1/R-2 discussion. As with the PC recommendation, there was Council consensus on eliminating R-1 and reverting it to R-2, although there was a discussion about keeping it labeled R-2 for the purposes of the zoning revision deliberations. At the end, the refined final draft will renumber the zoning districts in accordance with what they really are.

Council agreed largely with the recommendation to eliminate the 10,000 square foot and some of the other general proposals with respect to R-2, R-3, and other residential districts. Council also agreed largely with the ADU proposal (the proposal is that they be deed restricted to prohibit university/college students or from rentals shorter than 30 consecutive days. Additionally, no more than one ADU would be permitted on a single lot, and the ADU cannot be sold apart from the main dwelling. As it stands, either the main dwelling or the ADU must be the permanent residence of the owner of the lot.).

Council, via a divided straw poll vote, indicated their support for an even more reduced minimum lot width to 36 feet in R-2. It was argued that, in theory, this would allow landowners who have a standard lot width of 75 feet to split their lot into two lots, which in turn would allow for more small-scale density. A united Council supported uniformly making the minimum lot widths 36 feet for R-3 & R-3H too.

Council also discussed the proposed housing option of a cottage courtyard — individual properties around a common courtyard area with parking in the back somewhere (minimum of 4 detached single-family dwellings, a 0.35 acre minimum size, and specific regulations regarding design). At the next meeting, Council will discuss in what districts this new zoning type will be allowed.

The consensus was that for R-4, the building height should be capped at five stories, with incentives for LEED Gold/Platinum building ratings and/or a potential additional floor dedicated for workforce/professional housing.

The zoning use table and the residential district "small-scale neighborhood services" will be discussed in more depth at the next meeting.

Thank you so much for your engagement and participation in this process! Please do not hesitate to contact the Borough to voice your views, concerns or ask questions. There are multiple ways to get involved. You can attend any or all of the upcoming Council review meetings and speak during the public comment section; email zonestatecollege@statecollegepa.us for any further questions or comments; or email the full Council at sccouncil@statecollegepa.us (or individual Councilmembers by using the first letter of their first name and their last name @statecollegepa.us — example: Josh Portney would be jportney@statecollegepa.us). 

C-NET's coverage of the regular meeting can be viewed here: 9/15/25 State College Borough Council and Work Session.

Thank you again for the opportunity to serve and represent you!

Best,

Josh

 

‌
A traffic change from October 20, 2025, to August 2028: making Sowers Street a one-way northbound lane from College Avenue to East Calder Way and other pedestrian walkway adjustments

name
Council Recap: Monday, September 8

NOTICE: This message is not an official correspondence from the Borough of State College. The Borough cannot confirm the accuracy of the content of this message.  


Hi All, 

The zoning revision draft has made its way to a Council agenda! The next two months of Council deliberation on this important subject is crucial, and you — my lovely neighbors and residents of State College — are heavily encouraged to participate. Council met on Monday to, among other things, review a summary of previous Planning Commission/ZRAC action on the zoning draft. Here's a recap. As always (and this reminder is sent with even more importance now), I am speaking in my individual capacity and not speaking on behalf of the full Council as an official report.

After Mayoral proclamations, Council unanimously passed the Consent Agenda:

  • Payroll for August 2025 (July 2025 was approved on 8/18)
  • ABC Resignations/Appointments
    • Accept Kerry Weisman's resignation from the LGBTQ+ Advisory Commission
    • Reassignment of Cat Cook as the Centre LGBT+ representative to the LGBTQ+ Advisory Commission
    • Appointment of Peter Aeschbacher to the Planning Commission
      • Peter is an Architecture/Landscape Architecture professor with extensive experience in community revitalization/affordable housing efforts outside of SC 
    • Appointment of Samuel Conway as the University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA)'s representative to Council
      • Samuel is a Senior Schreyer Honors student who has worked with the Lions Caucus, Penn State's student lobbying arm
    • Appointment of James Gashler as the Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA)'s representative to Council
      • James is a second-year law student and former school board member in Allegheny County, PA
  • Road Closures/Uses for Special Events
    • Sunday, Sept. 14 from 4pm to 8pm: closure of the 300 block of Ridge Avenue for the West College Heights Neighborhood Block Party
    • Friday, Sept. 26 from 3:15pm to 8:45pm: closure of Heister Street from College Avenue to Calder Way for the Apollo THON Food Truck Fiesta event
    • Monday, Oct. 6 from 8am to 10pm: closure of the 100 block of South Allen Street for the Penn State University Allen Street JAM
    • Friday 10/10 from 4pm to Saturday 10/11 at 1am: closure of College Avenue from Garner St. to Burrowes St. and various roads on campus for the Penn State University Homecoming Parade
    • Saturdays 10/18, 10/25, 11/1 & 11/15 from 10am to 4pm: approval for the use of Sidney Friedman Park for the Penn State Men's Rugby Games
    • Sunday, Oct. 19 from 1pm to 4:45pm: use of various sidewalks and streets (Easterly Pkwy, University Dr., Foster Av., more) for the CROP Hunger Walk
    • Saturday, June 13, 2026 from 10am to 4pm: use of various streets, sidewalks for the 2026 State College Pride Festival
  • Award of a contract for the rehabilitation project for Bellaire Court (Borough owned affordable housing for individuals requiring a wheelchair or those over 60) -- $422,900

Council then considered, but eventually tabled, a proposed amendment to the Community Oversight Board (COB) for the State College Police Department. After the second year of operation, the COB is statutorily required to review its operations and provide a report to Council that may include changes to the Board's structure. While there were some grammatical/flow changes, the meat of the proposed changes included removing the word "investigate" from the Board's charter. The COB was never meant to be an investigatory body — only one that would process and review complaints in an alternate setting than the regular Police complaint process. That change did not garner much disagreement from Council, but the main issue on the table was the proposal to remove the specific instructions for the required initial training process from the Ordinance. This would instead require that the training be dictated by the Board's Operating Guidelines. When the COB was first enacted, there was much debate around the inclusion of specific guidelines to be written into the Ordinance (including critical race theory, bias training, etc). On Monday, a majority of Councilmembers thought it best to table these proposed changes to re-evaluate the elimination of the specific instructions for the COB member onboarding training. 

Ed LeClear, the Borough's Planning Director, then presented a summary of the zoning revision draft ordinance and a summary of the actions taken to sculpt that draft. There is a new page on the Borough's website that contains the draft ordinance, broken into sections. As for Council action, there will be at least 5 meetings where Council will review the draft ordinance, section by section:

  • Next Monday, September 15: Regular Council meeting with a presentation and discussion to get to consensus on the Residential districts
  • Wednesday, September 24: Special Council meeting to wrap up consensus on Residential districts and introduce Downtown and Transitional neighborhoods (including the West End)
  • Monday, October 6: Regular Council meeting with further presentations and consensus-building on the Downtown and Transitional neighborhoods 
  • Tuesday, October 7: Special Council meeting to wrap up consensus on all feedback to date and to finalize Downtown and Transitional neighborhoods
  • Optional Wednesday, October 8 Special Council meeting to continue finalization discussion
  • Monday, October 20: Regular Council meeting to wrap up discussions about other zoning topics and request final revisions

For my part, I want to provide as much information as I can in a neutral way that cannot be construed as official correspondence. I will send another email later this week describing an overview of the draft ordinance's changes for the Residential districts. As Council moves forward to consideration of the Downtown and Transitional neighborhoods, I will send another email with an overview of those proposals.

As aforementioned, this process must be driven by the public — it is imperative. There are multiple ways to get involved. You can attend any or all of the above-mentioned Council review meetings and speak during the public comment section; email zonestatecollege@statecollegepa.us for any further questions or comments; or email Council at sccouncil@statecollegepa.us (or individual Councilmembers by using the first letter of their first name and their last name @statecollegepa.us — example: Josh Portney would be jportney@statecollegepa.us). 

C-NET's coverage of the regular meeting can be viewed here: 9/28/25 State College Borough Council.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve and represent you! 

Best,

Josh


View All