The Borough intends to preserve, maintain, and enhance the early
twentieth-century urban form present and mostly intact in the Borough
while providing reasonable standards for redevelopment and change
in the foreseeable future.
The Borough shall regulate new construction to achieve a rational
organization of buildings, streetscapes, and public areas as connected
districts defined by varying common community character along a gradient
of more intense areas of high-density housing, mixed-use, and commercial
areas to less dense residential areas.
The Borough will regulate the fronts of buildings and their relationship
to public streets to promote and maintain Narberth's walkable and
inviting streetscape.
The Borough will regulate the expansion of residential, mixed-use,
and nonresidential buildings to accommodate changing economic and
community conditions while preserving the standards of urban design
relating to new structures found in the Code.
The Borough will discourage the demolition of existing buildings
of historic, civic, or cultural importance by accommodating various
options for reuse and rehabilitation conditioned, among other things,
on the preservation of important architectural features.
The Borough will regulate uses in appropriate districts and acknowledges
that some uses, such as heavy industry and manufacturing, are not
compatible with high-density residential areas.
The Borough will regulate off-street parking requirements and the
design and placement of parking spaces to maintain Narberth's walkable
neighborhoods, buffer large lots adjacent to residences, provide convenient
areas to park, and accommodate needs of the business community.
The Borough will regulate the location, size, number, and design
of signs to preserve a pedestrian-scaled environment in commercial
areas and avoid aesthetic and light pollution issues with nearby residential
areas while providing reasonable standards for the advertising of
businesses.
The Borough will regulate the planting, maintenance, and replacement
of shade trees in or adjacent to the public right-of-way to maintain
and enhance urban forest cover and its aesthetic, public health, and
financial benefits including shading, reduced heat island effect,
and stormwater management.
The Borough will regulate a variety of supplemental elements, such
as lighting, trash and loading areas, fences, and accessory buildings
to further the goals of preservation and enhancement of Narberth's
walkable urban design.
This chapter is enacted in accordance with the provisions of
the Municipalities Planning Code, Act 247, and the Pennsylvania Borough
Code.[1]
All structures and uses lawfully nonconforming with the standards
of this chapter may continue to be lawfully used, maintained, and
altered according to applicable standards of this chapter.
The routine maintenance of the exterior of existing structures,
such as repainting, repair, roof replacement, restoration, or the
replacement of doors and windows with those of like dimensions.