Lafayette College Community Meeting: September 25, 2024
Lafayette College will hold a community meeting for residents to express their questions and concerns at 6 pm, Wednesday, September 25 in the Wilson Room, Pfenning Alumni Center. I urge you to attend. And if you’re able to do so, please RSVP using the link included in the event post here: September 25 meeting. Note that you’ll have the opportunity to submit any questions you may have. If you’re not sure what you’d like to ask, please read on for a list of questions that I believe need to be answered. I will be out of town and unable to attend: I hope the concerns I address below will get a full airing.
When an institution is as valuable and provides as many benefits to its community as Lafayette does, it is sometimes hard to hold it accountable for its shortcomings. As an adjunct Lafayette faculty member for more than thirty years as well as someone who has joined my neighbors to take legal action against the College for some of its activities, I believe it is in everyone’s best interest, including the College itself, for it to be questioned at times, and encouraged to meet the highest standards of responsible and ethical behavior.
In that regard, there are a number of issues that I hope will be raised by local residents at the September 25 meeting, and over time, addressed by the College. Here are a few that have been previously brought to Lafayette’s attention, but so far have not been addressed:
Maintenance of Lafayette off-campus properties.
Lafayette settled a 2018 lawsuit by agreeing to “develop and implement a periodic maintenance program for the exterior of its College Hill properties. . .” It has not done so. Question: Why has the College not met this legal obligation, and what are its plans and schedule for doing so?
College Avenue.
Lafayette’s hillside ramp was built without proper environmental permits; it used extensive funds provided by taxpayers. Yet the ramp is not handicapped-accessible, has signs warning against its use in inclement weather, and cannot be safely traversed in either direction by most cyclists. Question: Is the college taking any steps to remediate any of these design issues, using its own funds?
The campus ‘edge.’
The center of the Lafayette campus is beautifully maintained. Well-trimmed trees, wonderful flowers and shrubs, neatly mown lawns. The edge of the campus, facing the community, is mostly a mess: broken curbs in front of the President’s House, minimal shrubbery along College Avenue where Lafayette demolished four historic homes, dead trees at the bottom of College Avenue. When the College submitted drawings for its new McCartney St. dorm, it showed a brick-clad building, but during construction, the façade facing the community was changed to a cheap-looking horizontal siding. The historic brick wall along McCartney St. has not been maintained for decades, and is a crumbling ruin. The massive on-grade parking lot on Bushkill Drive is an environmental disgrace and the entire Bushkill property seems not to have been considered in the College’s new Master Plan. Question: will the College make a commitment to landscaping and maintaining its ‘campus edge’ to the same level of quality as the center of the campus?
Off-campus properties.
The College has indicated its intention to move students living in Lafayette-owned off-campus properties back onto the campus, freeing up those properties for faculty and staff. Question: does this mean that the College will stop purchasing off-campus properties, and if not, will the College be providing a detailed public plan for its future acquisition and use of off-campus properties?
Master Plan.
For two years, residents were told to take their neighborhood concerns to Lafayette’s Master Plan consultant. They did: the planners were asked to consider the future of Lafayette’s off-campus properties with regard to acquisition, use and maintenance.
Residents also were led to believe that the Master Plan would consider such issues as parking, commercial uses in Lafayette’s new buildings, loss of affordable housing on College Hill, the development of Lafayette’s Bushkill properties, and more. Recently, the consultant acknowledged that NO off-campus issues would be addressed in the Master Plan. Question: Why were neighbors given the impression that their concerns would be addressed in the Master Plan, and why was the decision made not to address them?
Some final thoughts.
I remain guardedly optimistic that the current Lafayette administration, which has now been in office for three years, is working with its neighbors in good faith. To my regret, I’ll be out of town on September 25, but I hope you’ll attend the Community Meeting. More importantly, I hope that on that evening, and going forward, you’ll join me in paying attention to what is being said versus what is being done, and that you’ll give voice to your questions, suggestions and concerns.
Paul Felder is an architect and planner whose projects over many decades have focused on sustainable design, historic preservation and affordable housing. He has lectured widely on these subjects, and has also taught architecture and planning courses at Lafayette College for more than thirty years.
