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Committee delays final adoption of policy-neutral zoning recodification, sets May—/June review schedule
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Summary
The Finance & Administration Committee voted to table formal adoption and set an iterative review schedule after the borough's planning consultant outlined clarifications and flagged inconsistencies in uses and definitions; council asked for more time to submit comments and reduce repetitive sections.
The Narberth Borough Finance & Administration Committee voted to postpone final action on a policy-neutral zoning recodification and laid out a revised review schedule to give council members and staff more time to submit and incorporate comments.
Chair Jim Spear opened the discussion by introducing Adam Shantz of the Montgomery County Planning Commission, who described the draft as intended to reorganize and clarify the borough's zoning code without making substantive policy changes. "We didn't want to drastically change anything. We just wanted to clarify anything that might be unclear," Shantz said.
Council members raised multiple technical concerns. One repeated example involved inconsistent definitions for housing: the existing code defines "multiple-family" as three or more units while a separate building-type definition described a "multifamily house" as two-to-five units, producing situations where the regulation tables effectively forbade the two-family use that the definition implied. Shantz acknowledged the inconsistency and said the consultant team used regulatory tables to resolve conflicts and documented the changes.
The planner also removed obsolete cross-references that no longer applied to the borough's conditions, noting, for example, an outdated provision tied to a now-nonexistent church referenced in a provision about properties near "Narber Station." "We cleaned up that part of the code to eliminate that provision because it didn't apply any longer," he said.
Council members and staff discussed structural improvements to reduce repetition and increase usability, including the creation of a centralized "mega table" or an appendix listing uses and whether they require conditional use, performance standards or distance standards. Several members said repeating use rules across multiple sections increases the risk that future amendments will diverge.
After extended questions, the committee recommended postponing formal adoption to allow a structured comment process. The agreed schedule calls for comments to be submitted to staff and the consultant by April 24; a revised draft from the planning consultant by May 8; review comments due May 15; a next revised draft by May 29; solicitor formatting on June 1; packet publication by June 12; advertisement June 18; and a public hearing set for July 16. The committee voted to table consideration and proceed with the schedule.
The decision is procedural: the committee emphasized the recodification is meant to be policy-neutral and that any substantive policy changes will be flagged for separate, public discussion. The committee also asked staff to act as a single conduit for comments to the consultant so that changes remain coordinated.
