Slatington is looking at an ordinance to address the homeless camping at various places in the borough.

Council voted on Monday night to advertise an ordinance to prevent camping/residing/loitering in public spaces, parks and recreation areas.

Walnutport and Lehighton have also recently discussed the homeless problem.

The Slatington council also plans to pass an ordinance requiring residents with rear access to their houses to have their address displayed prominently for emergency response purposes.

Residents can purchase signs from the borough. The signs have to be placed 3 feet above the ground.

A recent fire was the catalyst for the ordinance.

The fire that broke out in early July in the 600 block of Main Street heavily damaged three garages and caused significant smoke damage to nearby apartment buildings.

The rear of 635 and 627 Main St., which housed four apartments, sustained damage.

Roadwork

Road projects for Hill Street, Willow Avenue and Cherry Street were approved.

The projects consist of milling, concrete curbing where needed, sidewalk sealer and maintenance and protection.

100 Steps

Acela Architects and Engineers, the borough engineers, is waiting for reply from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation regarding the 100 Steps project.

The project has been going on for a few years and involves refurbishing the concrete steps that connect Hill Street and Fairview Avenue.

In September 2024, PennDOT said that in addition to the railings and steps, the walls of the steps would need to be replaced. Acela said in June that it was going to rework the numbers for the cost of the project.

Water meters

Council approved an application for a PENNVEST low-interest loan of $993,340 for the installation of new water meters throughout the borough and a real-time data collection system.

The borough’s current water meters were installed in 1985 and are experiencing multiple reading failures each month.

They also have no leak detection technology.

To remedy the situation, the borough’s modernization project would consist of purchasing and installing 1,409 water meters accompanied by an enhanced data collection system to streamline the meter reading and billing operations and includes a smart point module transceiver, a base station and a meter reading tablet.

The existing system currently serves 1,373 households.

PENNVEST is a financing authority that provides low-cost financial assistance for water, wastewater, stormwater and nonpoint source pollution problems that impact public health, safety, the environment, regulatory compliance and economic development.

Zoning ordinances

There is a problem in zoning.

Council plans to review a municipal curative amendment to address what it calls the declared invalidity of zoning ordinance.

Council member Ryan Mayberry said, “This gives us 180 days to make corrections with the ordinances.”

Items were missed on the map and ordinances when the area was redone. This means that the map and ordinances need to be fixed.

The amendment puts a hold on the current map and ordinances.

There will be a special council meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday to work on the ordinances and map.

Other business

The council also discussed these topics:

• The Maple Spring Drive and Fifth Street community block grant project is going out for bids.

• The financing for a firetruck and quotes for two sirens was sent back to the council committee. The fire chief was not at the meeting to discuss the items.

• Approved a request from Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor for a bike ride on Sept. 13 from the Slatington Trailhead to Weissport.

• Approved St. John’s United Church of Christ to hold its peach festival from 3-7 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Park.

• There will be a special Sewer Authority meeting 6 p.m. Monday.

Marta Gouger and Kristine Porter contributed to this article.