Council approves staff memo to advance comprehensive zoning ordinance draft to consultant

The borough council voted to approve a staff recommendations memo intended to move the comprehensive zoning ordinance draft to the consultant for revision. The memo reflects staff's reading of prior council direction and is intended to produce a 'clean' second draft for council review in early summer.

Councilmembers debated the item before the vote. Councilmember Herndon said delays can have unintended consequences and urged prompt progress: "Delay can cause unintended negative consequences," he said, arguing the borough needs to move to implementation so zoning can help address housing supply. Councilmember Vanagoni (new to the council) said she is not opposing for unfamiliarity but raised substantive disagreements with items in the memo and announced she would vote no, citing deferred items and infrastructure questions. Staff and the manager said deferred items will be handled in parallel with consultant revisions and that infrastructure analyses (water and sewer capacity) will follow once densities are better defined.

Context and next steps: after the consultant incorporates council-directed revisions into a second draft, staff will present the revised draft to council and then to the county and Center Region Planning Commission for statutory review; a public hearing is tentatively scheduled for October 2026 with adoption thereafter. Council approved the recommendations memo to proceed with consultant revisions; staff said they will attempt to provide preliminary infrastructure estimates where possible before the ordinance is finalized.