Allentown, PA Zoning Overlays & Bonuses: Downtown Design Guide (2026)

Section 660-67 of the Zoning Ordinance (Ord. No. 16166, effective January 1, 2026) applies to any building in a Downtown Zone (-D) that uses the additional height allowed by floor-area-ratio bonuses. The section organizes design review around three building segments defined by intent: the base is meant to establish an active ground story along the street and provide a public building face, the middle, or high-rise stories, is meant to be oriented to maximize light reaching the front street and avoid walling off the front street, and the cap, covering the top stories and roof, must be designed consciously to contribute to the City skyline.

Numeric and procedural requirements back up that intent. The building base must be a minimum of three stories, with its height benchmarked against the average base height of existing buildings on the same block and adjacent blocks across the street. The middle section must step back from any A or B street above the minimum base height; where a step-back is not practicable, the massing must instead be configured to let sky views and light reach the street. Every high-rise application must submit a skyline illustration incorporating the proposed building with its permit application, and when a project includes more than one high-rise section, their heights above the base must be varied rather than uniform. The cap is exempt from the building type's normal roof-type requirement, but its massing or materials must be visibly distinct from the middle section, using devices like angled forms, larger openings, stepping, or distinctive windows scaled to read from a distance.