EASTON, Pa. – Leaders of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission appeared before Northampton County Council on Thursday to present their annual report recapping their work in 2024 and so far in 2025.
In part, the presentation serves to justify the organization’s use of county funding in the eyes of appropriators. Much of LVPC’s operating budget comes from Lehigh and Northampton counties.
In all, the commission completed 973 plan reviews in 2024, including 521 in Northampton County. So far in 2025, the commission has reviewed nearly 200 total plans for new projects, 94 of which fall in Northampton County.
The commission reviewed most of those plans as part of the subdivision and land development process. LVPC examined 63 solid waste and sewage projects in 2024, an unusually high number driven by recent growth, Executive Director Becky Bradley said.
LVPC also reviewed 39 ordinances considered by Northampton County municipalities last year.
“That was a record year,” Bradley said. “That really does mean that the local governments are talking very seriously the need to update their codes to better manage growth.”
Housing, industrial space
Developers submitted plans for more units of housing in 2024 than in 2023, bringing it in line with 2022 levels of construction. Most of the proposed units are apartments.
So far in 2025, the commission has reviewed proposals for more than 1,000 units of housing; roughly two-thirds of those would be built in Lehigh County.
“We're really watching this pretty closely obviously,” said Bradley. “We need some more housing growth where it makes sense.”
By contrast, plans for major industrial buildings have declined in recent months, said Bradley. Most of the industrial space is used for warehousing.
“The market for industrial is starting to change,” she said. “We don't expect to see those huge numbers in industrial that we've seen.”
Studies
In Thursday’s presentation, representatives from LVPC also touted a handful of major studies the organization is working on now or has wrapped up in the past year.
The commission recently completed the first part of a strategy to boost housing supply. Part One identified the region’s housing needs; later this summer, LVPC will release a draft plan to fill those gaps and boost housing supply.
Several projects took on transportation decarbonization, including a greenhouse gas inventory released in September, which measures the region’s carbon output.
The LVPC is working with Carbon County and Warren County, New Jersey, to develop a regional climate action plan based on the greenhouse gas inventory and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Priority Climate Action Plans.
The commission is working now on population and employment projections that will guide future research and decision making, a process required every four years. LVPC recently purchased new technology to create the projections in-house with greater accuracy than prior versions, Bradley said.
Also in the works is a study of gaps in major trails in the Lehigh Valley, which will make future projects to connect those gaps more attractive to grantmakers.
The commission will soon begin work to select a contractor for a project Bradley called “What to do with 22,” a study examining traffic Route 22 and looking for ways to reduce delays.
