Community Development Committee reviews 2025 FAIR report, flags expiring affordable-housing designation and underused loan programs

Sean Ziller, deputy director of economic development, presented Bethlehem’s 2025 Financial Accountability Incentive Reporting (FAIR) to the Community Development Committee on the single-item agenda and fielded questions about expiring affordable-housing designations and legacy loan programs.

Ziller said the FAIR packet includes an incentive inventory, program summaries and evaluations, recipient impact statements and tax-expenditure spreadsheets. "As stated, I'm here to present the 2025 FAIR report," he told the committee, and introduced new department staff including economic development coordinator Chastity Haxton and Miss Collins, the department director.

The presentation summarized how the city uses Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance (LERTA) zones and related incentives. Ziller reported that in 2025 the city "relinquished a little over $1,046,000" in real-estate tax relief under LERTA abatements and described the program’s graduated 10-year abatement schedule. For affordable-housing projects of 10 or more units, he said developers must either keep at least 10% of units affordable under the LERTA schedule or pay a per-unit fee (the report lists $25,000 for one district and $52,320 for another) as an alternative.

Councilwoman Daniels asked whether the report could break out which Southside LERTA generated each payment-in-lieu amount; Ziller said staff can provide that breakdown. Daniels also asked how many of the 33 projects listed in the report resulted in housing units; Ziller said most of the 33 active abatements are from the original Southside LERTA and that three projects paid into the affordable-housing fund in the last year, one of them new in 2025.

Ziller next reviewed the city revitalization evaluation (referred to in the packet as "CRIS") and the authority that manages it (the report names a Bethlehem Revitalization and Improvement Zone authority, referenced as BRIA/Bria in the packet). He said the CRIS evaluation covers taxes paid to the city and Commonwealth in 2024 that were returned to the authority as increment in 2025. Ziller listed six projects counted in 2024 — Greenway 3rd and New, 510 Flats, 610 Flats, Wilbur Mansion, Wind Creek expansion and two medical office buildings tied to Lehigh Valley Health Network — and reported that beneficiaries received a little over $1,780,000 in tax increment in 2024, with roughly $107,000 applied to administration and public projects. He said the private investment supported by CRIS debt totaled about $40,000,000 and that the projects supported approximately 839 employees in 2024 (the report states about 708 are full-time).

Committee members asked why project names are not shown; Miss Collins said that Commonwealth reporting requirements require identification by parcel ID and address but that the city can include project names and then listed the six projects Ziller named to clarify the record.

The presentation also covered the enterprise zone loan program. Ziller described that program as a legacy initiative funded with legacy dollars and said the enterprise zone designation expired on 09/30/2024, though many benefits persist for two years beyond that date. He said loan dollars remain tied to prior projects (limiting current available funds) and that the city recently issued an RFP to help prepare a renewal application to the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.

On smaller loan programs, Ziller said the Bethlehem Small Business Loan Fund (administered by Rising Tide Community Loan Fund) had one city-funded recipient in 2025 (about $24,412) and six active loan projects continuing from prior years. The Business Infrastructure Development (BID) revolving loan fund, funded by legacy Commonwealth dollars, made no new loans in 2025.

Members asked whether limited CDBG and other funding is constraining loan activity; staff said the programs are under review and that Rising Tide maintains an active small-business program using other funding sources. No motions, amendments or votes were recorded at the meeting.

What happens next: staff agreed to provide more granular breakdowns on which LERTA designation produced payment-in-lieu revenue and to clarify project naming in the FAIR packet. The meeting adjourned with the committee taking no formal action.