Lehigh University’s solar project not a bad neighbor
As faculty and students at Lehigh University, we read the guest editorial “How Lehigh University’s solar project went wrong” (The Morning Call, April 23) with interest. The writer seems to believe the solar project sited on Lehigh University’s institutionally zoned land that borders the Saucon Fields condominium homes was driven by a profit-seeking developer imposing an unwanted landuse on a relatively defenseless community.
While the author admires Lehigh University’s effort to install a solar project to make additional but modest reductions in climate emissions, he suggests the university should either move the location of its planned solar energy project or pay for his preferred approach to offsetting the impact of the project on the neighbors. He bemoans the inadequacy of developer-friendly zoning regulations and approval processes because they only allow the public to briefly comment before approval.
As observers from inside the university, we have a different point of view.
First, we commend the writer for noticing problems with the local zoning processes. Many community members have been complaining about this for years as uninvited developers impose luxury student housing complexes in the areas surrounding Lehigh University. The residents of Saucon Fields might have found many sympathetic allies if they had bothered to participate in efforts to stop unwanted development before it came to their own backyard. Given the wide range of things that Lehigh University can legally do on the land where the solar project will be located, we think the impacts on residents of Saucon Fields
are minor, especially in comparison to the many low-income community members who are being priced out of their homes by expensive student housing in South Bethlehem. Surely the residents of Saucon Fields didn’t think buying property that borders land zoned “institutional” meant the neighboring land would be kept in agricultural use in perpetuity. Other perfectly legal uses of the land, such as a parking lot, might be less appealing to the neighbors and offer fewer multiple-use opportunities for neighbors to enjoy.
Second, we take issue with how the editorial characterizes the goals and impact of Lehigh University’s effort to achieve carbon neutrality. Academic institutions should be leaders in taking actions in the present that will be of benefit to people living
in the future. This is because academic institutions can expect to be around for the next 50 to 100 years. Even the federal government seems increasingly unlikely to ensure its own viability over that same time period. We believe the university’s goals should be ambitious in charting a path toward carbon neutrality. Many other institutions squander earth’s atmospheric resources, and treat small actions as meaningless simply because the impact of small reductions in climate emissions is meaningless to those who run these institutions or the people they serve.
This leads us to our third point. Climate change is a threat to the future of the planet and is already wreaking havoc on people throughout the world. Life might be perfectly fine in the Saucon Fields condominium homes, but
we believe the people suffering from wildfires in California, from severe drought in Africa, and from flooding in Alaska, appreciate every 5% reduction in institutionally produced carbon emissions. We think they wish they had not lost their homes and would probably accept a slight drop in their property’s value if it meant they could stay in their communities.
We hope Lehigh University’s effort to reduce carbon emissions will help set a path toward a future in which the grandchildren of people living in Saucon Field condominium homes have a planet to leave their own grandchildren around the year of 2100. At that time, we can expect that the world will be at least 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than it is right now. To help put this in perspective, the difference between the temperature of the last Ice Age and the present geologic era is only about 5 degrees Celsius. We commend Lehigh University for taking the climate problem seriously. We invite residents of Saucon Field condominium homes to join ongoing efforts to give residents who live in South Bethlehem more control over land-use decisions that benefit uninvited developers who are profiting from development that is pushing lower-income residents out of their communities.