Most arguments about zoning amendments 4a and 5b focus on what residents can see. The height of the building. The cars on the street. The shadows on a neighbor’s yard. These matter, and we have written about some of them.

But there is a quieter cost that does not show up in a shadow study or a traffic count. It touches the resale value of every home in Narberth, not only the ones near the new development. The cost runs through Lower Merion School District, and the link from schools to home values is one of the best understood relationships in real estate economics.

This article walks through that link. It explains how economists have measured it, applies the math to Narberth, and what the numbers tell us.

The premium Narberth homeowners are already paying

Lower Merion School District is consistently ranked among the very top districts in Pennsylvania. The Pittsburgh Business Times 2025 School Guide placed LMSD third statewide, the same rank it earned in 2024.¹ U.S. News and World Report ranks Lower Merion High School and Harriton High School at numbers 11 and 12 among Pennsylvania’s high schools.² LMSD spends close to $29,884 per student each year, one of the highest per-student figures in the Philadelphia region.³

This standing is not abstract. Local real estate offices and listings mention the school district prominently. Brokers know what buyers are paying for. Median home values in Narberth run roughly $713,000 according to the Zillow Home Value Index for Q3 2025.⁴ The median home value in Montgomery County as a whole is about $345,000.⁵ The gap is not entirely about schools, but schools are a major part of it.

That premium is what is at stake. If the school district softens even slightly because of pressure on its budget, the premium softens with it.

How economists know schools matter for home values

The link between school quality and home values is intuitive. Parents pay more to live where their children will attend a better school. But intuition is not measurement, and the technical challenge of separating “school effect” from “nice neighborhood effect” is real. Better neighborhoods often have better schools, so a simple comparison of home prices does not tell you which factor is doing the work.

In 1999, the economist Sandra Black published a paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics that solved this problem cleanly.⁶ Her method is called a boundary discontinuity design, which sounds technical but is simple in concept. She compared homes that sat on opposite sides of a school attendance boundary. Two homes a few hundred feet apart, on the same street, in the same neighborhood, with the same proximity to parks and shops, but assigned to different elementary schools.

Whatever made one home worth more than the other could not be the neighborhood, because the neighborhood was the same. The only systematic difference was the school. Black found that a five percent improvement in test scores raised home values by about two and a half percent.

Many studies have followed in the 25 years since. A 2011 review by Phuong Nguyen-Hoang and John Yinger pulled together dozens of these studies and concluded that home values rise by up to about four percent for a one-standard-deviation increase in student test scores, with smaller estimates coming from studies that use stronger statistical controls.⁷ Some of the more carefully identified studies, like Bayer, Ferreira, and McMillan in 2007, find school-only effects that are meaningfully smaller than Black’s original estimate once neighborhood sorting is properly accounted for.⁸ The overall message of the literature is that the school capitalization effect is real and reproducible, but its size is on the smaller end of what early studies suggested.

A quick note on terms. Capitalization is the economic concept that future benefits, or future costs, get reflected in a current price. A buyer who expects to pay lower taxes, or to send their child to a better school, is willing to pay more for the home today. The future shows up in the present price. Standard deviation is a statistical measure of how spread out a set of numbers are. Moving school quality by one standard deviation roughly means moving from the middle of the pack to about the top 16 percent of districts, or the reverse.

The point is not the exact number from any one study. The point is that the basic finding has held up across dozens of studies, different cities, different decades, and different methods. Schools and home values are linked, and the link is measurable.

The mechanism

When school quality changes, home values change because future buyers price in the expected school experience for their family. Larger class sizes, fewer programs, deferred building maintenance, loss of experienced teachers, all of these are real changes that buyers notice and pay less to accept. The same works in the other direction when a district improves.

This is true even for homeowners without children. The home is the asset. The next buyer cares about the schools whether the current owner does or not. That is why the school quality premium shows up in resale prices across an entire district, not just in homes with school-age children inside them.

Where 4a and 5b enter the picture

We have written previously about the per-unit fiscal contribution of different housing types to LMSD.⁹ The short version: a new owned townhouse, at a site like 198 Elmwood Avenue, contributes roughly $9,221 per year toward LMSD through property taxes. A new apartment unit at the same site contributes roughly $2,854. The gap is about $6,367 per unit per year, and it scales with the number of units built.

The gap exists because apartments are assessed at lower per-unit values than owned housing, and because the renters who occupy them, while paying that tax indirectly through their rent, do so against a lower assessed base. This is a structural feature of how Pennsylvania assesses multifamily property, not a moral failing of renters.

If 4a and 5b enable, conservatively, 50 to 200 new apartment units across parcels that fit the new rules over the coming years, the annual revenue shortfall relative to what equivalent owned housing would have generated runs roughly $318,000 to $1.27 million per year. LMSD’s 2025-2026 General Fund budget is approximately $353 million,¹⁰ so this is not a budget-breaker by itself. But it is not zero either, and it compounds with other pressures the district faces, including teacher contract costs, facility maintenance, and special education obligations that have been rising statewide.

LMSD’s standing rests on its resources. The high per-student spending, the high average teacher salary, the small class sizes that the district routinely highlights in its publicity. Holding all of that steady requires revenue that keeps pace with costs. Each new unit that contributes less than its share of fiscal need creates a small tilt away from steady.

Applying the math to Narberth

If fiscal pressure causes even a small decline in measurable school quality, what does the literature say about the home value effect, and what would that mean for Narberth?

Two pieces of context first. The 1,953 housing units in Narberth include both owned and rented housing. Roughly 58 percent are owner-occupied, which works out to about 1,133 owner-occupied homes.¹¹ The median home value, drawing from the Zillow Home Value Index for Q3 2025, is about $713,000.⁴ Other sources put the figure between $620,000 (Census-based American Community Survey estimates)¹² and $939,000 (current asking prices on active listings).¹³ $713,000 is a reasonable middle anchor for the math below. If you prefer a different number, the percentages translate.

Suppose fiscal pressure produces a measurable softening of school quality on the order of one percent. The capitalization literature, drawing from Black’s original estimate and the range in Nguyen-Hoang and Yinger’s review, suggests this would translate to roughly a 0.5 percent to 2 percent decline in home values across the district.

Applied to Narberth:

• A 0.5 percent capitalization effect on a $713,000 home is about $3,565 per home.

• A 1 percent effect is about $7,130 per home.

• A 2 percent effect is about $14,260 per home.

Across the roughly 1,133 owner-occupied homes in Narberth, the aggregate household wealth at stake runs from about $4 million on the low end to about $16 million on the high end.

These are illustrative figures, not predictions. They depend on how much new construction actually occurs, how much fiscal pressure actually translates to service quality changes, and where in the capitalization literature you set the anchor. The point holds: if schools soften because of fiscal pressure, every homeowner in Narberth absorbs a fraction of the loss, regardless of where they live in the borough.

It is also worth noting that LMSD draws revenue from the entire township, not only Narberth. Pressure from 198 Elmwood and similar parcels is shared across all LMSD homeowners, which spreads the per-home impact but also extends it. The full at-risk wealth across the district is larger than the Narberth figure above. We focus on Narberth because that is the community whose zoning decisions are creating the pressure.

What can be said

These are the claims that hold up to scrutiny:

The school district is a major component of why Narberth homes command the prices they do. This is supported by the consistent ranking of LMSD, by realtor behavior, by the size of the price gap between Narberth and the county, and by decades of academic research on school capitalization.

The capitalization literature is well-established and reproduces across cities and decades. The exact coefficient varies by study, but the existence and direction of the effect is not seriously contested in the economics literature.

New apartment units do not pull their weight in school district revenue compared to owned housing. This is documented in our earlier piece and is a structural feature of assessment in Pennsylvania.

The risk created by this gap is borne by every homeowner in the district, not only those near a new development. This follows directly from the capitalization mechanism.

These are the claims we cannot make with confidence:

No one can predict exactly how much LMSD will deteriorate, if at all. The district may successfully absorb fiscal pressure through efficiency, other revenue sources, or reallocation. School quality is sticky in the short run.

No on can predict exactly how many units will be built under 4a and 5b. The range of 50 to 200 over a multi-year horizon is conservative but speculative.

Capitalization estimates vary. Some studies find smaller effects than others. The range matters, and we have tried to present a range rather than a point estimate.

The school quality channel is one of several through which zoning changes affect home values. Proximity effects, fiscal capitalization from infrastructure costs,¹⁴ and land value transfers to current owners of upzoned parcels are separate channels we will cover in future articles.

Why this matters for the zoning debate

The political dynamic of land-use decisions tends to focus on visible, immediate impacts. Whether the new building blocks light. Whether parking gets harder on a particular block. Whether traffic increases at a particular intersection. These are real, but they are also concentrated: they affect a small number of nearby residents most acutely, which is why nearby residents tend to be the loudest voices in zoning hearings.

The school capitalization channel works differently. It is invisible in the sense that no one walking down Forrest Avenue can see it. It is diffuse in the sense that every homeowner in the borough absorbs a small fraction of the cost. And it is delayed in the sense that it shows up in resale prices over years, not in immediate measurable impacts.

But invisible, diffuse, and delayed do not mean fictional. The mechanism is real, the academic evidence is strong, and the dollars at stake are not trivial.

When residents weigh the merits of 4a and 5b, they should know that a portion of the cost falls on them whether or not they live near a new development. The risk is borough-wide. The benefit, in the form of an immediate windfall to the current owners of parcels that become more valuable the moment the rules change, is concentrated.

That asymmetry is worth naming.

Thanks for reading.

1. Pittsburgh Business Times 2025 School Guide, as reported by Patch: “Lower Merion School District Ranked Among PA’s Best In New List”. See also montco.today’s coverage of the same ranking. ↩︎

2. U.S. News and World Report 2025-2026 Best High Schools Rankings for Lower Merion High School, showing Lower Merion HS ranked 11th in Pennsylvania and Harriton HS ranked 12th. See also Patch’s coverage of the rankings. ↩︎

3. LMSD per-student spending figures from SchoolDigger’s Lower Merion School District profile, which reports spending between $27,862 and $34,269 depending on school. U.S. News reports district-wide spending of $29,930 per student. ↩︎

4. Zillow Home Value Index for Narberth, PA. The Zillow Home Value Index is a smoothed measure of the typical home value in a given area, drawn from Zillow’s model of home prices across Q3 2025. ↩︎ ↩︎

5. Montgomery County median home value of approximately $345,000 as reported by Nestfully’s Narberth market data, which draws on Multiple Listing Service and public records data. ↩︎

6. Black, S. E. (1999). “Do Better Schools Matter? Parental Valuation of Elementary Education.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 114(2): 577 to 599. Available at Oxford Academic. DOI: 10.1162/003355399556070. ↩︎

7. Nguyen-Hoang, P., and Yinger, J. (2011). “The Capitalization of School Quality into House Values: A Review.” Journal of Housing Economics 20(1): 30 to 48. Available at ScienceDirect. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhe.2011.02.001. The paper’s summary finding is that house values rise by up to about 4 percent for a one-standard-deviation increase in student test scores, with smaller estimates from studies with stronger identification strategies. ↩︎

8. Bayer, P., Ferreira, F., and McMillan, R. (2007). “A Unified Framework for Measuring Preferences for Schools and Neighborhoods.” Journal of Political Economy 115(4): 588 to 638. Working paper version freely available at NBER. Journal version: DOI 10.1086/522381. BFM find that households pay less than 1 percent more in house prices when average local school performance increases by 5 percent, smaller than Black’s original estimate. The difference is attributed to residential sorting effects that earlier work did not fully control for. ↩︎

9. Our previous analysis of school district fiscal impact from proposed development is at “What Happens to the Schools? The Question Nobody Has Officially Asked” on Our Narberth. That article documents the underlying methodology, the per-unit tax calculations, and the data sources for the $2,854 apartment and $9,221 townhouse annual LMSD contribution figures used here. ↩︎

10. Lower Merion School District’s 2025-2026 General Fund budgeted expenditures are $352,596,744, per the district’s audited financial statement for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025. Additional budget documents are available at LMSD’s Annual Financial Reports page. ↩︎

11. Narberth housing stock figures from NeighborhoodScout’s Narberth real estate data, which reports 1,953 total housing units. Owner-occupancy rate of approximately 58 percent from Nestfully’s Narberth housing data, which draws on American Community Survey estimates. ↩︎

12. American Community Survey based estimates place Narberth’s median home value at approximately $620,300, per Kurby’s Narberth borough report. ↩︎

13. Median list price on active Narberth listings of $939,000 as of May 2026, per Movoto’s Narberth market trends page. ↩︎

14. The economic mechanism by which local taxes and public services get reflected in home values is developed in Oates, W. E. (1969). “The Effects of Property Taxes and Local Public Spending on Property Values: An Empirical Study of Tax Capitalization and the Tiebout Hypothesis.” Journal of Political Economy 77(6): 957 to 971. Available at the University of Chicago Press, DOI 10.1086/259584. An ungated PDF is hosted at gwern.net. ↩︎

WHAT IS HAPPENING

The Borough has engaged an engineering firm (Pennoni Associates) to design two stormwater bumpouts on Wynnedale Road at a projected cost of approximately $29,000 each.¹

This is part of a larger Capital Improvement Plan (CIP Item NARB_CIP_030) to construct 25+ more stormwater bumpouts on residential streets Borough-wide, budgeted at up to $730,000, at a rate of roughly five streets per year.²

The streets already identified in Borough planning documents include many of the roads on which you live or drive every day. Eight have already been constructed.³

STREETS IDENTIFIED IN THE BOROUGH’S OWN PLANNING DOCUMENTS

WHY RESIDENTS ARE RAISING CONCERNS

• The Borough’s own analysis identifies at least five alternative locations that deliver significantly greater environmental benefit than Wynnedale Road - yet those sites were passed over.⁴

• Weak rationale has been provided for why 2 bumpouts are necessary on Wynnedale Road and no analysis of the incremental benefit has been shared.

• There is no established process, plan or procedure to measure whether any installed bumpout actually achieves its stated purpose.

• When residents proposed alternative methods for the second bumpout, Borough Council declined to consider them - even those that are accepted by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection as viable.⁵

A PARKING-COMPATIBLE ALTERNATIVE EXISTS, IT WASN’T EVALUATED ON EQUAL TERMS

A conventional bumpout removes on-street parking permanently: the curb is extended into the parking lane, the extension is planted, and that stretch of curb is gone for good. That is not the only engineered way to capture stormwater at the curb line.

Permeable, or pervious, pavement is a mature, code-recognized alternative that keeps the parking lane intact. In this design, interlocking concrete pavers (or a similar porous surface) are set flush with the roadway grade, with open joints or a porous matrix that lets rainwater pass through the surface itself. Beneath the pavers sits a bed of uniformly graded, open-void crushed stone - functionally the same “capture trough” concept - which temporarily holds the water and lets it infiltrate into the soil below, exactly as a bumpout’s planted soil media is meant to do. The Federal Highway Administration’s own technical guidance describes this as a “stone reservoir” system and states plainly that it is designed to provide “a strong pavement surface for parking, walkways, trails, and roads” while managing and treating runoff at the same time - not a tradeoff between parking and stormwater capture, but both at once.⁶

This is not a theoretical product. The City of Chicago has installed permeable pavement of exactly this kind across its network of public alleys. These surfaces carry daily vehicle traffic and provide direct driveway and parking access to garages. Chicago’s own program materials describe permeable paving as reducing rainwater ever reaching the sewer system while functioning as ordinary vehicle-bearing pavement.⁷ Washington, D.C.’s Department of Energy and Environment funds permeable pavers, including in parking areas, as one of the standard green infrastructure practices under its RiverSmart program.⁸

Nor is this an American or big-city-only practice. The United Kingdom’s national technical body for sustainable drainage design (backed by the Construction Industry Research and Information Association, and widely used by UK local authorities and their engineers) formally recognizes permeable and porous paving. This includes car parks and other parking areas and is a standard component of an urban drainage system, on equal footing with swales, basins, and other more familiar green infrastructure.⁹ Germany has gone further still: Berlin’s public-private rainwater agency actively promotes “de-sealing” (removing impervious surface) and infiltration-capable pavement as core tools of the city’s “sponge city” (Schwammstadt) strategy for managing urban stormwater, applied at the scale of streets, courtyards, and parking surfaces across the city.¹⁰

Chicago Alley

In fairness, this option comes with real tradeoffs that deserve to be talked about. Permeable paver systems typically cost more per square foot to install than a simple planted curb bumpout, though the gap narrows once a comparable stone reservoir and underdrain are priced into a conventional bumpout design as well. They require the same kind of subgrade soil and infiltration testing that any Best Management Practice(BMP) sited to infiltrate stormwater should already require. Testing that ought to have been done for the any solution regardless of design. Permeable pavement needs periodic vacuum-sweeping or joint maintenance to keep the surface from clogging with sediment over time, an ongoing cost a planted bumpout does not carry in the same way. However, maintenance may be easier to mechanism with this kind of solution as simple road access is already there.

The rationale behind this

Narberth’s own Pollutant Reduction Plan (PRP) - the compliance document Pennoni Associates prepared for the Borough’s MS4 stormwater discharge permit - assigns different sediment removal credit to different types of stormwater practice under Pennsylvania DEP’s "Simplified Method." Stormwater curb bumpouts are credited at 80% sediment removal, the same value given to the Borough’s bioretention swales and facilities. Infiltration basins elsewhere in the Borough are credited at 95%. The one existing permeable pavement installation in Narberth, is a privately owned porous paving system at 100 Forrest Avenue, built by a developer as part of a mixed-use project, not a Borough capital project. This is credited at just 55%, the low end of the range DEP allows for bioretention and rain garden practices generally.¹¹ Judged strictly by that number, a bumpout looks like the more efficient way to hit the Borough’s mandatory 22,645 lb/yr sediment reduction target. That is a real, documented, and quantified reason to prefer bumpouts, and it deserves to be acknowledged as one.

It is also not the end of the analysis. The 55% figure comes from a single small (0.03-acre), privately built retrofit, credited years ago, and there is no evidence it was ever benchmarked against the broader engineering literature on how permeable pavement actually performs when it is properly designed. The U.S. EPA’s National Menu of Best Management Practices technical fact sheet for permeable pavements reports measured pollutant removal rates compiled from five separate peer-reviewed field studies, including a multi-site field survey of permeable pavement installations in eastern North Carolina:¹²

Every one of those ranges, including the low end of PICP performance, exceeds the 55% credit Narberth’s one local example received. Porous asphalt and pervious concrete perform on par with, or better than, the 95% credit the Borough already gives its own infiltration basins. Nothing in the national performance record suggests permeable pavement is an inherently weaker practice than a curb bumpout. It suggests the Borough’s only local data point for permeable pavement was a small, minimally engineered private retrofit that nobody appears to have re-tested against a design built and documented to the same standard as the bumpouts it is effectively being compared against.

A rationale exists, it is quantified, and it rests on one unrepresentative local example rather than on a genuine side-by-side comparison of properly engineered alternatives. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection BMP Manual that Pennoni’s own project documents cite already lists permeable and porous pavement as a recognized best management practice alongside bioretention and inlet retrofits.⁵ A parking-compatible design was available, in use elsewhere at exactly this scale and performing at least as well by the published numbers. But there is no record anyone modeled it against Wynnedale Road on equal terms before Council’s vote.

WHY THIS MATTERS GOING FORWARD

The bumpouts and those on Wynnedale Road were, in Our Narberth’s assessment, the wrong decision: the lowest-ranked location for environmental benefit among the sites the Borough’s own analysis considered, chosen without a strong rationale weighing it against a properly engineered parking-compatible alternative, without a plan to measure whether it works, and without a demonstrated evaluation of parking-preserving alternatives that other jurisdictions already use at scale and that the national performance data suggest could perform just as well or better. That decision just does not get better because it has momentum behind it.

Voting to proceed with two more bumpouts on Wynnedale Road, and doing so as the first installment of a 25-bumpout, up-to-$730,000 Borough-wide program, does not correct that error. It repeats it, street by street, at increasing cost and increasing loss of on-street parking, before anyone outside the Borough’s engineering contractor has had the chance to ask whether a parking-compatible design, built and documented to the same standard as the bumpouts themselves, could have delivered the same environmental result. Compounding a bad decision is not the same as validating it. It is doubling down on the error.

Thanks for reading.

All numbers and street names referenced above are drawn from Borough planning documents and engineering plans on file with Narberth Borough.

1. Engineers’ Estimate of Probable Construction Cost, Pennoni Associates Inc., Project NARBM15019, May 12, 2026. Estimate covers one bumpout location (Wynnedale Rd @ Shady Ln); two locations are proposed. ↩︎

2. Narberth Borough Five-Year Capital Improvement Plan, CIP Item NARB_CIP_030 (“Construct 19 roadway rain garden bumpouts (5/year)”), last updated May 29, 2026. Est. cost range: $600,000-$730,000; status: Proposed. ↩︎

3. Narberth Borough Stormwater Bumpout Analysis (undated). Eight completed bumpouts are listed: Conway Ave @ Windsor Ave, N Essex Ave @ Windsor Ave, Forrest Ave @ Windsor Ave, Hampden Ave @ Windsor Ave, Conway Ave @ Stuart Ave, Dudley Ave @ Stuart Ave, and Grayling Ave @ Windsor Ave (two locations). ↩︎

4. Narberth Borough Stormwater Bumpout Analysis. Of the three locations proposed for 2026, Wynnedale Rd ranks lowest in estimated annual sediment credit (1,285 lb/yr). Dudley Ave @ Price Ave ranks highest at 2,909 lb/yr-more than twice the Wynnedale Rd figure. Numerous other listed locations (e.g., Dudley Ave @ Windsor Ave: 2,909 lb/yr; Conway Ave @ Price Ave: 1,600 lb/yr; Price Ave @ N Essex Ave: 1,527 lb/yr; N Narberth Ave @ Windsor Ave: 2,109 lb/yr; Woodbine Ave @ N Essex Ave: 2,279 lb/yr) also exceed the Wynnedale Rd estimate. ↩︎

5. Pennsylvania DEP BMP Manual (referenced in Pennoni Associates project documents, Sheet CM6001). The Manual recognizes multiple stormwater best management practices beyond in-road bumpouts, including bioretention areas, rain gardens on private property, and inlet retrofits, among others. See also U.S. EPA, “Soak Up the Rain: Permeable Pavement”, which lists interlocking pavers, pervious concrete, and pervious asphalt as recognized permeable pavement types. ↩︎ ↩︎

6. Federal Highway Administration, “Tech Brief: Porous Asphalt Pavements with Stone Reservoirs”, April 2015. The brief describes porous pavement with an underlying stone reservoir as providing “a strong pavement surface for parking, walkways, trails, and roads” while managing and treating stormwater runoff. See also Wikipedia, “Permeable paving”, for an overview of permeable interlocking concrete pavement (PICP), pervious concrete, and porous asphalt as distinct product categories with different traffic-load ratings. ↩︎

7. City of Chicago Department of Transportation, “Green Alley Handbook”, 2010. Describes permeable pavement installed across Chicago’s approximately 1,900 miles of public alleys - surfaces that provide direct vehicle and parking access to abutting garages - as allowing “up to 80% of the rainwater falling on these surfaces” to infiltrate rather than enter the sewer system. See also City of Chicago, “Green Alleys”. ↩︎

8. D.C. Department of Energy and Environment, “Get RiverSmart”. Describes permeable pavers, alongside rain gardens, green roofs, and rain barrels, as green infrastructure practices incentivized under the District’s RiverSmart programs to reduce stormwater runoff into District waterways and the Chesapeake Bay. ↩︎

9. susdrain (The Sustainable Drainage community, supported by CIRIA - the Construction Industry Research and Information Association), “Permeable surfacing options”. Presents permeable and porous paving as a standard SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) component used in the UK, including in parking areas, on equal standing with swales, basins, and bioretention as recognized drainage infrastructure. ↩︎

10. Regenwasseragentur Berlin (Berlin Rainwater Agency, a joint initiative of the Berlin Senate Department for the Environment and Berlin’s water utility), regenwasseragentur.berlin. Promotes “Entsiegelung” (de-sealing of impervious surfaces) and “Versickerung” (infiltration-capable surfacing) as core components of Berlin’s “Schwammstadt” (sponge city) rainwater management strategy, applied to streets, courtyards, and parking areas across the city. ↩︎

11. Narberth Borough Pollutant Reduction Plan, East Branch of Indian Creek (Pennoni Associates Inc., Project NARB0702, September 2017, revised May 2020), pp. 6-8. DEP’s “Sediment Effectiveness Value” table lists generic removal credits by BMP category (Infiltration Practices: 95%; Bioretention/Rain Gardens: 55-90%; Storm Sewer Filters: 80% max, among others); permeable pavement is not listed as its own named category. In the Borough’s project-specific accounting, Stormwater Curb Bumpouts (approx. 23 locations) are credited at 80% sediment removal (11,770 lb/yr against 8 managed impervious acres); Porous Paving (100 Forrest Ave., a privately owned installation) is credited at 55% (30 lb/yr against 0.03 managed impervious acres); Infiltration Basins at four sites are credited at 95%. Document on file with Narberth Borough and linked from the Borough’s MS4 program page. ↩︎

12. U.S. EPA, Office of Water, “NPDES Stormwater Best Management Practice: Permeable Pavements”, National Menu of Best Management Practices for Stormwater. Table 1 reports measured total suspended solids removal of 94-99% for porous asphalt, 91% for pervious concrete, and 67-81% for permeable interlocking concrete pavers (PICP), compiled from Barrett, Kearfott & Malina (2006); Bean, Hunt & Bidelspach (2007b) - a field survey of permeable pavement sites in eastern North Carolina; Clausen & Gilbert (2006); Rushton (2001); UNH Stormwater Center (2007); and Van Seters (2007). The fact sheet also notes that 80% total suspended solids reduction is a standard benchmark permeable pavements can earn credit for under voluntary green building standards such as LEED. ↩︎

At the work session, Planning Commissioner Aaron Graves presented a slide deck titled CRE Development 101: Understanding Commercial Real Estate Development Economics. It was framed as general education, the kind of primer you’d give someone who has never seen a real estate pro forma before. In many respects it is a useful primer. It explains developer termsnet operating income¹, cap rates², yield on cost³, and the capital stack⁴ clearly and correctly.

But the deck is not only a glossary. It builds, step by step, toward a specific conclusion: that a taller, denser building is the version of a hypothetical Narberth project that "works", and that a modest workforce-housing set-aside is a small price for the borough to pay in exchange for that added height. That is a legitimate argument for a developer or a sympathetic planner to make. It is not, however, a neutral one, and several of the numbers used to support it do not hold up to a close read.

This presentation shows the Planning Commission as being very slanted to the interests of developers with disregard to those of us who actually live here in Narberth.

Here is what a closer look finds.

Everyone has their lights on

“10% workforce housing” means 10% of the units, not 10% of the building

This is worth stating plainly before anything else, because it is easy to read past it. When the presentation talks about a "10% workforce housing set-aside", it does not mean the project becomes 10% cheaper, or that the whole building is run as affordable housing, or that every resident gets a reduced rent. It means exactly one tenth of the apartments are reserved for income-qualified tenants, and the other nine tenths rent at full, uncapped market rate with no income test at all.

In the deck’s own 50-unit example, “10% at 80% AMI⁵” works out to five apartments, out of fifty, renting at $1,850 a month to households that qualify under that income limit. The remaining forty-five apartments rent at the full market rate shown elsewhere in the deck, upward of $2,650 a month for a one bedroom, with no income restriction whatsoever.

That distinction matters for two reasons. First, it is easy for a reader skimming a headline number like “10% workforce housing” to assume a much larger public benefit than what is actually on offer. Second, and more importantly for the numbers that follow, it is precisely because the set-aside touches so few units that the presentation is able to describe its cost to the project as small. A concession that only applies to one apartment in ten will almost always look modest on a project’s bottom line. That is not evidence the concession is generous. It is close to a mathematical certainty given how narrow the concession is. Keep that in mind heading into the next point, which looks at what happens when the income cutoff itself is examined more closely.

The deck breaks its own rule

Early in the presentation, on the slide covering yield on cost and feasibility, the presentation sets out a rule of thumb: a spread⁶ of 100 to 200 basis points⁷ between a project’s yield on cost and the market’s exit cap rate is enough to justify the risk of building.

Later, the deck runs the numbers for a hypothetical 40 unit, four story apartment building in Narberth. That building comes out to a 6.60 percent yield on cost against a 5.5 percent market cap rate, a spread of 110 basis points. That is squarely inside the range the deck itself just said was sufficient.

Two slides later, when the presentation wants to make the case for a fifth floor, that identical 110 basis point spread is relabeled "too thin right now".

This is not a matter of differing opinions or a subjective judgment call. It is the same number, produced by the same model, called sufficient on one slide and insufficient on the next, because the second label is the one that supports adding a story. Anyone reviewing this presentation, at Council, at the Planning Commission, or anywhere else, is entitled to ask directly: by the deck’s own stated rule of thumb, is the four story version feasible or not?

A national story used to justify a local zoning change

A large portion of the presentation (roughly a third of it) is devoted to explaining why development is harder nationally in 2026 than it was in 2021: interest rates roughly doubled, construction costs rose 15 to 25 percent, and cap rates expanded, meaning the same income stream is worth less when sold. All of that is accurate as a description of the national multifamily market.

But the presentation’s own comparable-rents slide tells a different story about Narberth specifically. It lists five nearby apartment buildings with average one bedroom rents of $2,503 per month and average two bedroom rents of $3,906 per month, both well above the national trend the "headwinds" section describes. A neighborhood with rents at that level, next to a regional rail station, is not obviously the kind of distressed submarket that needs special zoning accommodation to attract investment. If anything, it is evidence the opposite might be true: that a well-located project here should already work under existing rules.

There’s also a structural issue with using a national interest-rate and cap-rate cycle to argue for a permanent change to the borough’s zoning code. Interest rates and cap rates move in cycles. Zoning does not expire when the cycle turns. If the real obstacle is 2026 financing conditions, that argues for patience, or for interim tools like bridge financing, not for a permanent increase in by-right density.

The fifth floor may cost more than the model shows

This is the most technical point, but it matters because it is the one on which the whole "add a floor" argument rests.

The presentation treats the step from a four story to a five story building as a nearly free win: land and design costs are fixed regardless of story count, the argument goes, so spreading them over more units lowers the cost per unit. Under this framing, adding a fifth floor “only” costs about $2.7 million and returns $256,000 in extra NOI, a strong 9.4 percent return on that fifth floor alone.

There’s a missing piece here. Most modern mid-rise apartment buildings, the kind built with wood framing over a concrete ground floor (sometimes called “five over one” buildings), are governed by building code rules that set maximum story counts by construction type. Under the International Building Code, the more common and less expensive wood-frame construction type (Type V-A) is generally limited to four stories. Getting to five stories of wood framing typically requires stepping up to a different, more fire-resistant construction classification (Type III-A), which usually costs more per floor, not the same or less. The industry sometimes calls this the “five over one” or podium design, and the four-to-five-story line is a well-known cost threshold in the development world. Wikipedia has a good plain-language overview of how this works, and WoodWorks, an industry association, publishes a more technical explanation of the code path.

None of this appears in the presentation’s cost model. If the fifth floor actually requires a costlier construction type, the marginal cost of that floor is understated and the 9.4 percent return figure is quite optimistic. This is a fair, specific, question: does the fifth floor stay within the same construction type as the floors below it, and if not, what does that do to these numbers?

Separately, and more simply: there is no line item for parking anywhere in the cost model, on a project of 40 or 50 units. Either parking cost is bundled invisibly somewhere else in the budget, or the model is quietly assuming a parking reduction that has not actually been granted.

The affordability comparison quietly changes its own benchmark

As covered above, the workforce-housing section runs its numbers at 80% AMI⁵. At that level, reserving 10 percent of units for workforce housing is shown to cost the project only 24 basis points of yield, described as "a modest concession".

Two slides later, the presentation cites Philadelphia’s zoning code as the standard it is following. But Philadelphia’s mixed-income housing bonus, the actual program cited, sets its affordability requirement at 60% AMI, not 80%. You can read the Philadelphia zoning code provision directly here.

Sixty percent AMI means a lower income cutoff and a lower allowable rent than 80 percent AMI⁸, so it costs a developer more in foregone revenue to satisfy, on top of already being one tenth of the units as established above. The presentation uses the cheaper, easier 80 percent AMI case to demonstrate that affordability is a "modest concession", then separately cites a program that actually requires the deeper, costlier 60 percent AMI standard as its precedent. The two numbers never appear side by side. Rerun the sensitivity table at 60 percent AMI, since that is the actual standard being cited as justification, and does this "modest concession" still hold.

The return targets are a business choice, not a law of nature

The presentation opens by establishing that real estate investors "require" annual returns of 12 to 15 percent for value-add projects and 15 to 20 percent for ground-up development, framed as the return needed to compensate for the risk and illiquidity of the asset class. Everything that follows treats that hurdle as fixed, something the zoning code must accommodate if anything is going to get built.

That return requirement is real, but it belongs to one kind of investor: an institutional, private-equity-style developer raising capital from limited partners who expect that kind of return. It is not a universal law. A community land trust, a public housing authority, a mission-driven nonprofit developer, or a borough acquiring a parcel for public use are not bound by that same hurdle, and in some cases don’t need to clear any private return hurdle at all. The presentation never surfaces this as a choice. It presents one specific financing model’s target return as the ceiling that public policy must design around, rather than one option among several for how a parcel could be developed.

Real tools were listed but never actually run through the model

Near the end, the deck lists a wide range of tools that can support affordable and workforce housing: LIHTC (Low-Income Housing Tax Credits), PILOTs (payments in lieu of taxes), tax increment financing, housing trust funds, and others. This is a legitimate and useful list.

None of these tools are ever plugged into the actual financial model. If the real constraint, as the presentation states, is that a 20 percent workforce set-aside would drop the project’s yield below a feasible threshold, the natural next step would be to show whether one or two of these tools (a PILOT reducing the tax burden, for instance, or a partial LIHTC allocation) could close that gap and support a deeper affordability commitment without requiring more density. Because that step is missing, the list reads more like a demonstration of awareness than a genuine alternative that was tested and set aside.

Why this matters

None of this means the underlying economics in the presentation are fabricated. Interest rates have risen. Construction costs have risen. Cap rates have expanded. Those are real, national trends, and any project proposed for Narberth will have to contend with them.

What it does mean is that this particular presentation, delivered by a sitting Planning Commissioner at a Council work session, is not simply neutral education. It is built to arrive at a specific conclusion (more density, paired with a set-aside standard, applied to a tenth of the building, that is softer than the one it cites as precedent), and several of the assumptions that get it there do not survive close reading: an internal contradiction on what counts as a feasible return, a national narrative applied to a submarket with above-average rents, an optimistic assumption about what a fifth floor actually costs to build, and an affordability comparison that switches benchmarks between the slide that sets the standard and the slide that models the cost.

Before this kind of analysis becomes the technical basis for a zoning decision, it is reasonable to ask that the underlying model, including its construction-type assumptions, its parking assumptions, and the AMI level it is actually modeling, be shared for independent review.

Thanks for reading.

Our Narberth is a Pennsylvania nonprofit organization focused on evidence-based civic advocacy around zoning and development in Narberth Borough. If you have questions about the analysis in this piece, reach out through ournarberth.com.

1. Net Operating Income: a property’s income after covering operating costs like maintenance and management, but before any mortgage or loan payment comes out. It measures what the property itself earns, independent of how it was financed. ↩︎

2. Cap rate: a property’s annual net operating income divided by its value. It is the market’s shorthand for the return an all-cash, no-debt buyer expects to earn on the purchase. ↩︎

3. Yield on Cost: a project’s stabilized net operating income divided by its total cost to build. It is the return a developer earns on every dollar spent building the project, before any financing is layered on top. ↩︎

4. Capital stack: the layered mix of loans and investor money that finances a project, stacked in order of risk. Senior lenders sit at the bottom and get paid first; the developer’s own equity sits at the top and gets paid last, but keeps most of the upside. ↩︎

5. Area Median Income (AMI): an income benchmark set annually for the region, used to decide who qualifies to rent an income-restricted unit and what that unit’s rent is capped at. A household at 80% AMI earns less than a household at 100% AMI, and a household at 60% AMI earns less still. ↩︎ ↩︎

6. Development spread: the gap between a project’s yield on cost and the market’s exit cap rate. It functions as the developer’s cushion, the extra return built in to compensate for the risk of construction and lease-up. ↩︎

7. A basis point is one hundredth of a percent, so 100 to 200 basis points equals 1.0 to 2.0 percentage points. ↩︎

8. HUD doesn’t set Area Median Income at the city or borough level. It sets one AMI figure per year for each federally-defined metropolitan area (HUD calls these HMFAs, “HUD Metro FMR Areas,” which mostly track OMB’s Metropolitan Statistical Areas). Philadelphia County and Montgomery County (where Narberth sits) are both explicitly part of the same one: the “Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA.” HUD’s own documentation for this area lists its member counties by name: New Castle County DE; Cecil County MD; Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Salem Counties NJ; and Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties PA, all treated as one income-limit area. That means a household earning 60% of AMI in Narberth and a household earning 60% of AMI in Philadelphia are measured against the exact same dollar threshold, because it’s the same underlying AMI calculation. There’s no separate, wealthier “Main Line” AMI figure and a separate, lower “Philadelphia city” AMI figure. It’s one number for the whole 9-county, 4-state region. ↩︎

This should have a paper trail: if Narberth Borough Council adopts the proposed changes to the 4a and 5b zoning districts, and apartment buildings start going up across the South Side and the Montgomery Avenue corridor, what happens to Belmont Hills Elementary? Note: Belmont Hills currently serves North Narberth however LMSD can send kids anywhere.

We went looking for the answer. There isn’t one. No school capacity letter has been requested from Lower Merion School District as part of this proposal. The most recent comprehensive enrollment study the district has on file is from December 2018. That study is good work, and we relied on it heavily for this article, but it is seven years old, and it already lists 198 Elmwood Avenue as a project in the pipeline at 20 units. The Planning Commission is now proposing a framework that could put considerably more than 20 units on that single parcel, on top of every other qualifying lot in both districts, and nobody has gone back to the district that would actually have to seat these children and asked what that means today.

That is the actual issue here. Not a prediction of crowded classrooms next September. A missing document that should exist before a vote, not after one.

The math that the Borough has avoided

Belmont Hills, the elementary school that serves Narberth’s South North Side, is not currently full. District enrollment data and the 2018 projection model both show it with real room. Lower Merion School District’s own research, drawn from decades of actual student records across more than seventy multifamily buildings, also shows something that cuts against the simplest version of the worry: new, dense, transit-oriented apartment buildings, the kind this proposal is designed to produce, tend to generate fewer school-age children per unit than older garden apartments or townhomes do. The district’s own planning factor for new multifamily construction is 0.06 children per unit (See Pipeline Notesbelow). A reduced-parking building marketed to commuters and downsizing empty nesters is, on the data, not the same animal as a three-bedroom townhouse.

Run that average factor against a realistic build-out across 4a and 5b over the next decade or so, and you get a real number, but a modest one. Most plausible scenarios land somewhere in the range of a few dozen additional students district-wide, not hundreds, and not concentrated in any single September. Lower Merion has absorbed growth of that size before without difficulty. The district added more than 700 students in a single ten-year stretch through ordinary household turnover and existing development, long before anyone proposed rezoning a single parcel in Narberth.

The concern

Belmont Hills has slack today. That slack is not a permanent feature of the building. It is a snapshot, taken at a moment before 4a and 5b open up by-right apartment construction across the same blocks that feed that school. The 2018 district study shows exactly how fast a single elementary catchment area can absorb new units once a few sites turn over. Cynwyd Elementary’s attendance area took in 281 new housing units in just five years, 2013 to 2017, almost entirely from a handful of multifamily projects on Bala Avenue and Righters Ferry Road. A school with room one year can be a school managing real pressure a few years later, not because any one building broke it, but because several buildings arrived in the same catchment area inside the same decade.

That is the real risk with 4a and 5b. Not that any single proposed building overloads Belmont Hills by itself. It is that this rezoning does not get evaluated as one parcel at a time.

It opens the door, by right, across an entire district, at the same moment Narberth’s South Side is also absorbing whatever else moves through the pipeline over the same years. Slack that looks comfortable today can disappear the way it did in Cynwyd, and the Borough has produced no analysis of whether that is likely here, because nobody asked the district to produce one.

What should exist and does not

A responsible zoning amendment of this scope should be accompanied by a current capacity letter from Lower Merion School District, built on this proposal’s actual unit counts and density bonuses, not the 2018 study’s. It should account for the cumulative effect of 4a and 5b development landing on Belmont Hills at the same time as whatever else is already in motion elsewhere in the district’s pipeline. It should say plainly whether the building has room for that combined load, or whether it does not.

That letter does not exist. The Planning Commission’s recommendation has gone forward without it. We are asking, formally and on the record, that the Commission either produce this analysis before any vote or explain in writing why it considers an updated, cumulative school capacity assessment unnecessary for a proposal of this scale. Given that the original site at the center of this debate was already known to the district’s own planners back in 2018, that is not an unreasonable thing to ask for in 2026.

We would rather make this case with a real answer in hand than with a guess, ours or anyone else’s. Right now, nobody has the real answer. That is a problem, and it is one the Borough can still fix before this goes to a vote.

Pipeline Notes

There is a practice called “address-of-convenience” renting – leasing a small apartment within a desirable school district boundary to establish enrollment eligibility while maintaining a primary residence (or cheaper rental) elsewhere. WHYY’s reporting on the Philadelphia suburban districts found that hundreds, possibly thousands, of students are removed each year from suburban school districts for residency fraud, and the practice is documented enough that LMSD maintains a formal “Multiple Occupancy Registration” form for families sharing an address with a district resident, which explicitly states that LMSD may conduct surveillance and home visits to verify compliance, and that false claims can result in criminal prosecution and civil liability for full tuition reimbursement. The existence of that form is itself evidence that the district treats this as a real and recurring phenomenon.

Renter-occupied units account for 37.1% of Narberth’s housing stock (2015-2019 ACS), which is higher than both Montgomery County (28.4%) and Lower Merion Township (26.3%). The rental stock in Narberth is disproportionately large relative to every neighboring geography. Roughly 770 of Narberth’s ~2,077 housing units are renter-occupied. Even a small fraction of those being address-of-convenience rentals represents a meaningful enrollment change

The 0.6 children per unit figure, used above, is a district-wide average. It reflects all multifamily housing across Lower Merion’s 23+ square miles – including expensive Gladwyne condos, upscale Bryn Mawr rental buildings, and every other context in the district. If Narberth’s rental housing and that of the local area is attracting a specific subset of renter – families who chose to rent there specifically because of LMSD access rather than price or space – then Narberth’s actual yield per rental unit could be meaningfully higher than the district average. The standard yield rate would understate enrollment impact for the area specifically.

The economic incentive – and it’s large

The economic angle. The question: how much does a family pay in rent premium to be in Narberth vs. the nearest comparable geography outside LMSD? That premium is basically, what they’re paying for school access.

Narberth 1-bedroom apartments average approximately $2,200/month as of 2025, while Upper Darby 1-bedroom apartments average approximately $1,100/month over the same period. The differential is roughly $1,100/month – about $13,200/year for a comparable unit just across the district line. Zumper Narberth,Zumper Upper Darby

Now compare that to what’s being purchased. LMSD spends $29,930 per student per year. A family with two school-age children is effectively accessing approximately $60,000/year in educational services for a rent premium of $13,200. Even accounting for the smaller, less comfortable apartment they’re presumably occupying, the economics are highly favorable relative to any private school alternative. The implied “tuition” calculation is quantifiable and substantial.

I figured my neighbors in the group who have been enjoying the sudden appearance of aggressive and facially dubious code enforcement notices scolding them for not doing an adequate job in grooming their own properties would appreciate the backstory of how the demise of this beautiful specimen came to be.

Many residents, particularly our friends on Wynnedale, have been thrust to the forefront of local advocacy because they’ve been caught off guard by the revelation that their streets are due for the installation of the Borough’s (arbitrarily) chosen stormwater remediation method, bump-outs. The enormous, disruptive, on-street pits (beautified with perennial flower plantings) have those set to see one of them jammed in front of their homes deeply alarmed by the potentiality for lost parking, tripping hazards for playing children or passersby, and damage to the resale value of their homes. However, they are also a thread connecting each of these recent outrages and this reality bore its ugly head most nakedly in the case of the aforementioned tree.

The resident on whose property the Gingko was present was subjected to incredibly heavy handed, threatening behavior by the local body we all once thought to be a benevolent assortment of neighbors who stepped up to serve as stewards of our beloved community, rather than the mini-Kremlin we’re unfortunately coming to know today.

Following a Borough-wide evaluation of potential spots for bump-out installation, BC code enforcement decided the mature tree was a “problem”. The justifications for this determination shifted, but what remained the same was the aggression with which they terrorized our neighbor over it’s remaining presence. She was ordered to remove the tree several months ago, fully at her expense, and was then bombarded with threatening notices from code enforcement, telling her she was at risk of everything from $1,000 a day fines for as long as the tree remained, to jail time. After commiserating with neighbors who shared the perspective that the tree ought remain, she connected with Consulting Arborist John Hosbach, who’s expert opinion reinforced what was already obvious - that the tree was very old and fully grown and therefore posed no threat of further disruption to infrastructure - and attended a Borough Council meeting armed with a petition signed by 55 supportive neighbors. Following the utterly preposterous suggestion that the tree had to come down because it was a “danger to snow plows” being laughed into oblivion, there appeared to be some mutual understanding that the pursuit of the tree removal was over the top. And during the following days, several members of council and the mayor ventured over to the south side to examine the tree themselves. A general consensus was voiced that gave the impression that they had also come to the conclusion that the tree did not pose some sort of grievous threat to the community and the matter became dormant for a time.

Unfortunately, the old legal adage “always get it in writing” proved prescient once again. After a lull, the notices began anew. Jail time and excessive fines were on the table once again, as was a lawsuit from the Borough. Mr. Hosbach advised that he could take the case to advocate for the tree to remain and that he would likely win, but that it could be costly. With all these factors arrayed against her, and a genuine fear of just how far the terror campaign may go, our neighbor conceded, as the cost of removing the tree was burdensome but less so than a lawsuit from her local representatives.

So let us ask ourselves why? Why is our local government, which prides itself on its alleged eco-consciousness, conducting themselves this way? Why expend so much time and energy on initiatives like the Shade Tree Commission, encouraging residents to offer up their properties for new plantings only to turn around and arbitrarily cite them for not maintaining an 8 foot (seriously?) clearance? How can these supposed environmental champions expend an ungodly amount of energy terrorizing a resident into killing a fully grown, mature tree that has peacefully occupied its spot for decades before she even resided there?

This is not the behavior of a democratic body. This is not the behavior of elected representatives who feel any obligation to their constituents. It is the running roughshod of an entity that feels completely unaccountable after years of uncontested re-elections and a previously passive electorate comprised mostly of people who haven’t witnessed a competitive local contest in their entire time residing here. Even at the smallest scale, at the local level in Narberth or anywhere else, uncontested power is intoxicating. Narberth needs to remind those who hold it that it can be taken away.

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I am attaching a recent picture of the tree in full fall colors and a photograph I took today of the stump where it once stood. I am also including screenshots from Google Maps who’s time travel mechanism in street view came in incredibly handy in this instance, demonstrating that the tree has not grown in at least the last 20 years

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Fall Colors

Finished Product - Hope you’re proud of yourselves

Street View 2024

Street View 2014

Street View 2012

Street View 2007

Whenever the 4a and 5b zoning amendments come up, the conversation about density tends to stay in the abstract with “too much,” “out of character,” “exactly what transit-oriented development is supposed to look like.” Those are judgments. Underneath them is a narrower, answerable question: how dense is Narberth, right now, compared to the places around it?

Pulling the actual Census numbers gives a clearer, more nuanced, picture than anyone’s shorthand usually allows.

The numbers

A few things jump out:

• Narberth’s population density is 3.3 times Lower Merion Township’s and 4.9 times Montgomery County’s.

• The housing-unit gap is wider still: 3.9 times Lower Merion’s housing density and 5.7 times the county’s. Narberth already has far more dwellings packed onto each acre than the township that surrounds it, let alone the county as a whole.

• Among the Main Line’s other walkable town centers, Narberth is already denser than Ardmore and Penn Wynne, and trails only Norristown, the county seat, and the one place in Montgomery County built and zoned to function as a small city.

It’s not about bigger households

The easy assumption is that a denser place just has more people crammed into each house. That’s not what’s happening here. Narberth actually has fewer people per household (2.3) than Lower Merion Township (2.5) or the county as a whole (2.5).

The density comes from the built form, not from household size: smaller lots, more twins and attached housing, a tighter street grid, and a real walkable core — not from Narberth residents stacking more people into each unit than their neighbors do. That distinction matters for the zoning debates, because it means Narberth’s existing density is a product of how the town was built, not of crowding within the housing stock that’s already there.

Narberth vs. the county seat

The Norristown comparison is worth considering. Norristown is the county seat of Montgomery County — its largest borough, with a commercial downtown, county government offices, and a development pattern built around functioning as a small city. Its population density (10,211 per square mile) is the highest of any municipality in the county.

Narberth, a half-square-mile residential borough with no comparable commercial or institutional core, already sits at 8,971 thats within shouting distance of Norristown, and well clear of everywhere else on this list. That’s a half-square-mile town carrying density most of the region only sees in places built to be regional centers.

Narberth is already carrying a disproportionate share of the region’s housing and population density relative to its neighbors. Whether that means the borough has already done its part, or that it’s well-positioned to do more, is a judgment about values and tradeoffs. It’s not something the density numbers settle on their own. The 4a and 5b zoning amendments will move Narberth more closely to a city density like that of Norristown but without the city plan or regional support. Parking, sewage treatment, run off, water and utilities will all become pressure points. The borough has not shown the maturity of purpose and discipline to execute successfully under these constraints.

Methodology notes

Population, land area, and housing-unit figures for Narberth Borough, Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County, and Norristown are American Community Survey 2024 5-year estimates, via the U.S. Census Bureau and Census Reporter. Ardmore and Penn Wynne figures are from the 2020 Decennial Census, a different data vintage included for additional regional context rather than a strict apples-to-apples comparison. Housing-unit density figures are derived by dividing housing units by land area; they are not directly published by the Census Bureau and carry the same margins of error as the underlying ACS estimates. All figures reflect Census-defined municipal or place boundaries, not school district or zip code boundaries, which can differ.

Borough council’s proposed zoning amendments would, if adopted, allow by-right apartment construction on this parcel with a 45-foot height limit and parking requirements of just 0.7 spaces per unit. This prospect has prompted a reasonable question from many residents: could the borough simply acquire this land and hold it as green space, perhaps capturing some environmental benefit in the process?

That question deserves a careful, honest answer. Here is ours.

What the parcel is

The 198 Elmwood Avenue parcel is 0.42 acres — approximately 13,344 square feet — currently classified as commercial acreage for tax purposes and zoned R3 under Narberth’s form-based code. It sits within what the proposed amendments would reclassify as the 4a “General Urban Limited” district. Its flood zone designation is B/X, meaning moderate flood hazard. This is relevant to both development constraints and stormwater considerations.

The lot is, by any measure, exceptional real estate. It is steps from a SEPTA Paoli/Thorndale Regional Rail station with direct service to Center City in roughly 15 minutes. It is walkable to Narberth’s downtown commercial district. And it is currently vacant: a blank slate whose fate will shape the character of the station area for decades.

The stormwater argument: what’s real and what isn’t

Advocates for borough acquisition frequently invoke “stormwater credits” as a rationale. The concept deserves precision, because overstating it invites easy rebuttal.

Pennsylvania does not operate a mature stormwater credit trading market of the kind that exists, for example, within Philadelphia’s combined sewer system boundary. Narberth is outside that boundary. The borough cannot sell stormwater credits on an open market and expect meaningful revenue.

What is real and defensible is this: a developed parcel at this location would be nearly 100 percent impervious. A 3-to-4-story apartment building, underground parking, and hardscaped surfaces eliminate essentially all natural infiltration. Under Montgomery County’s Act 167 stormwater management requirements and Narberth’s MS4 (Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System) NPDES permit obligations, that new impervious cover creates downstream obligations, detention facilities, infrastructure upgrades, or green infrastructure mitigation that must be funded by someone.

Keeping this parcel pervious eliminates that obligation entirely. The correct framing is avoided infrastructure cost, not tradeable credits. That distinction matters both for accuracy and for credibility with anyone who knows how Pennsylvania’s environmental regulatory framework actually works.

How large is that avoided cost? It is site-specific and would require engineering analysis to quantify. But in a borough with aging combined infrastructure and documented CSO compliance challenges, it is not a trivial number. If development of this parcel would otherwise trigger, say, $200,000–$400,000 in downstream stormwater capital improvements over the next decade — improvements the borough would need to make regardless — that is a legitimate offset against the acquisition price.

What 198 Elmwood is actually worth

Under current R3 zoning, assuming the proposed 4a amendments do not pass, this is a constrained residential development parcel. Apartment construction is not permitted by right; a conditional use permit would be required. The height limit remains 35 feet. Parking requirements are more demanding than under the proposed amendments.

Those constraints matter to a developer’s pro forma. Working backwards from what the parcel can yield under current zoning:

• A developer could likely build 12 to 18 units in a modest multifamily structure, depending on setbacks, lot coverage, and parking.

• Finished units in Narberth rent at roughly $2,000–$3,000 per month for 1-to-2-bedroom apartments (consistent with comparable Elmwood Avenue properties that opened in 2023 nearby).

• Multifamily construction costs in Montgomery County run approximately $200–$250 per square foot of building area.

• The conditional use requirement adds entitlement risk and timeline uncertainty, which a developer prices into a lower land offer.

Against that backdrop, the rough fair market value of this parcel under current zoning is approximately $400,000 to $700,000, with a midpoint around $500,000–$550,000. The low end reflects a buyer pricing in entitlement risk; the high end assumes a developer who is confident of obtaining conditional use approval.

The Redfin automated estimate from when the building still stood placed it somewhat below comparable sale prices in the $1.18 million range — but that figure incorporated the building’s value and is no longer relevant. The parcel today is raw land.

For comparison: Narberth’s median single-family home sale price was approximately $595,000 in 2024 and $751,000 in 2023, with a market peak reflecting strong demand and constrained supply. Land pricing at a fraction of those figures reflects the entitlement risk and construction cost burden a developer must absorb.

What the proposed amendments would do to that value

If the 4a amendments pass and survive any legal challenge, the development yield on this parcel increases substantially. By-right construction rights, a 45-foot envelope, and 0.7-space parking minimums could support 20 to 30 units instead of 12 to 18 — with materially lower parking infrastructure costs. That increase in yield drives land value upward, potentially into a $700,000–$1,200,000 range.

The difference between those two numbers — roughly $200,000 to $500,000 — is the zoning premium that the proposed amendments would confer on whoever owns this parcel. That is not a moral argument against the amendments, but it is a material fact that informs the fiscal analysis of borough acquisition.

The fiscal case for acquisition: strengths and honest weaknesses

The case is strongest when framed as follows:

1. Under current zoning, acquisition cost is in the $400,000–$700,000 range — painful but plausibly achievable through a combination of state and county open space grants, developer exactions from other borough projects, and a capital budget allocation.

2. Montgomery County’s Open Space program, DCNR’s Community Conservation Partnerships Program, and PECO’s Green Region grants have collectively funded acquisitions in this range in inner-ring suburban communities. A well-structured application is not a fantasy.

3. A permanently vegetated, permeable parcel at this location avoids real stormwater infrastructure costs that the borough would otherwise face. That avoided cost is a legitimate offset.

4. What is built at the station-adjacent entrance to Narberth will define the character of that gateway for a generation. That is a legitimate community interest even when it is difficult to monetize.

The case is weakest on the following points, which advocates should acknowledge rather than omit:

Municipal acquisition removes this parcel from the tax rolls permanently. If developed under current zoning into 15 units, that building would generate ongoing real estate tax revenue for the borough, the school district, and the county — perhaps $40,000–$100,000 annually in aggregate across all taxing bodies, recurring indefinitely. Over 30 years, discounted to present value, that is a substantial sum.

There is also a legitimate regional housing supply argument to contend with. Transit-adjacent land of this quality is exactly where housing density is most defensible from a land use and transportation standpoint.

The strategic timing argument

This is perhaps the most practically important point.

The optimal moment for the borough to negotiate acquisition is now, under current zoning, before any council vote on the amendments. Here is why:

If the amendments pass and the parcel’s value rises to the $700,000–$1,200,000 range, the fiscal case for acquisition deteriorates and the grant funding gap widens. If the amendments are defeated or successfully challenged under the MPC, the parcel returns to its current valuation range. However the window for a negotiated acquisition at the most favorable price may already have passed if the owner has since received offers from developers pricing in speculative upside.

A borough council member who might vote against the zoning amendments might also, with appropriate framing, support exploring a negotiated purchase or at minimum authorizing an appraisal and a conversation with the current owner. Those are not the same vote, and they are not mutually exclusive with the zoning debate.

The bottom line

Borough acquisition of 198 Elmwood for green space and stormwater management is a defensible policy option — but only if it is pursued honestly, with clear-eyed acknowledgment of its costs and a realistic funding plan.

The strongest version of the argument rests on avoided infrastructure cost, station area character, and the availability of grant funding that could reduce the net municipal outlay significantly. The weakest version leans on monetizable stormwater revenue that does not exist in this regulatory context, or pretends that the tax base and regional housing supply implications are not real.

Narberth residents who want to see this parcel remain open space have a reasonable case to make. Making it credibly — with accurate numbers, honest tradeoffs, and a plausible path to funding — is the only way it will be taken seriously.

Our Narberth, Inc. is a Pennsylvania nonprofit civic organization engaged in research, public education, and community advocacy on land use and zoning issues in Narberth Borough. Nothing in this article constitutes legal or financial advice.

The Borough has engaged an engineering firm (Pennoni Associates) to design two stormwater bumpouts on Wynnedale Road at a projected cost of approximately $29,000 each.[1]

This is part of a larger Capital Improvement Plan (CIP Item NARB_CIP_030) to construct 25+ more stormwater bumpouts on residential streets Borough-wide, budgeted at up to $730,000, at a rate of roughly five streets per year.[2]

The streets already identified in Borough planning documents include many of the roads on which you live or drive every day. Eight have already been constructed.[3]

STREETS IDENTIFIED IN THE BOROUGH’S OWN PLANNING DOCUMENTS

Wynnedale Rd

Sabine Ave

Conway Ave

Dudley Ave

Price Ave

Foxhall Ln

Woodbine Ave

Narwyn Ln

N Narberth Ave

Grayling Ave

Hampden Ave

Iona Ave

Haverford Ave

Elmwood Ave

Maple Ave

Chestnut Ave

Merion Ave

Windsor Ave

WHY RESIDENTS ARE RAISING CONCERNS

— The Borough’s own analysis identifies at least five alternative locations that deliver significantly greater environmental benefit than Wynnedale Road — yet those sites were passed over.[4]

— No rationale has been provided for why 2 bumpouts are necessary on Wynnedale Road and no analysis of the incremental benefit has been shared.

— There is no established process, plan or procedure to measure whether any installed bumpout actually achieves its stated purpose.

— When residents proposed alternative methods for the second bumpout, Borough Council declined to consider them – even those that are accepted by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection as viable.[5]

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Borough Council will vote on the Wynnedale Road project on June 18th. Residents have the right to speak at public meetings. Whether you are for or against the construction of more bumpouts, this is your best opportunity to ensure your questions get answered before construction begins and before this program expands to your block.

PUBLIC MEETING — ALL RESIDENTS WELCOME

Narberth Borough Council Meeting

Thursday, June 18, 2026 · 7:00 pm

Borough Hall · 100 Conway Avenue, Narberth

You do not need to be a Wynnedale Road resident to attend or to speak. If your street is on the list, this decision affects you too. Come hear the discussion, ask questions, and let Council know where the community stands.

This notice was prepared by concerned residents of Wynnedale Road and distributed to neighboring streets. All figures and street names referenced above are drawn from Borough planning documents and engineering plans on file with Narberth Borough.

[1] Engineers’ Estimate of Probable Construction Cost, Pennoni Associates Inc., Project NARBM15019, May 12, 2026. Estimate covers one bumpout location (Wynnedale Rd @ Shady Ln); two locations are proposed.

[2] Narberth Borough Five-Year Capital Improvement Plan, CIP Item NARB_CIP_030 (“Construct 19 roadway rain garden bumpouts (5/year)”), last updated May 29, 2026. Est. cost range: $600,000–$730,000; status: Proposed.

[3] Narberth Borough Stormwater Bumpout Analysis (undated). Eight completed bumpouts are listed: Conway Ave @ Windsor Ave, N Essex Ave @ Windsor Ave, Forrest Ave @ Windsor Ave, Hampden Ave @ Windsor Ave, Conway Ave @ Stuart Ave, Dudley Ave @ Stuart Ave, and Grayling Ave @ Windsor Ave (two locations).

[4] Narberth Borough Stormwater Bumpout Analysis. Of the three locations proposed for 2026, Wynnedale Rd ranks lowest in estimated annual sediment credit (1,285 lb/yr). Dudley Ave @ Price Ave ranks highest at 2,909 lb/yr—more than twice the Wynnedale Rd figure. Numerous other listed locations (e.g., Dudley Ave @ Windsor Ave: 2,909 lb/yr; Conway Ave @ Price Ave: 1,600 lb/yr; Price Ave @ N Essex Ave: 1,527 lb/yr; N Narberth Ave @ Windsor Ave: 2,109 lb/yr; Woodbine Ave @ N Essex Ave: 2,279 lb/yr) also exceed the Wynnedale Rd estimate.

[5] Pennsylvania DEP BMP Manual (referenced in Pennoni Associates project documents, Sheet CM6001). The Manual recognizes multiple stormwater best management practices beyond in-road bumpouts, including bioretention areas, rain gardens on private property, and inlet retrofits, among others.

Narberth's own Pollutant Reduction Plan (PRP) already identified alternatives — specifically two bioretention facilities at the Library and Narberth Park, plus a manufactured inlet filter system at the Borough Hall parking lot — alongside the approximately 23 stormwater curb bumpouts. That means the borough itself acknowledged these other tools exist.

Stormwater Alternatives Narberth Could Have Explored

Narberth’s own Pollutant Reduction Plan (PRP) already identified alternatives — specifically two bioretention facilities at the Library and Narberth Park, plus a manufactured inlet filter system at the Borough Hall parking lot — alongside the approximately 23 stormwater curb bumpouts. That means the borough itself acknowledged these other tools exist.

Here are the main categories of alternatives, grounded in what PA DEP and comparable boroughs have actually done:

1. Bioretention Basins on Municipal Property

The most expensive part of BMP construction is often acquiring land — which is why parks and recreational space are ideal locations for BMPs, because it’s land the municipality already owns, with no land acquisition costs. Middletown Borough, PA, proposed to meet the majority of its MS4 pollutant reduction goals with a single bioretention basin at a park, created by excavating an existing stormwater pipe and backfilling with engineered media, topsoil, mulch, and native plantings. Narberth has Narberth Park and municipal grounds that could absorb significant load before the borough ever touches a residential street. Hrg-incHrg-inc

2. Rain Gardens at Municipal Buildings and Rights-of-Way

Philadelphia’s landmark green stormwater program includes rain gardens, tree trenches, green roofs, and urban wetlands integrated into city green spaces, streetscapes, and public buildings — from simple downspout planters to complex bioretention swales filled with native species. Redirecting downspouts from the borough library, borough hall, or other public buildings into rain gardens is low-disruption and low-cost. Yale e360

3. Tree Trenches / Expanded Tree Canopy

Natural stormwater solutions including tree plantings, bioswales, permeable pavement, rain gardens, riparian plantings, and other native plantings near roadways and parking lots collectively capture, store, absorb, filter, and slow stormwater runoff at the surface before it enters sewer systems. Tree trenches — subsurface soil cells beneath sidewalks that allow tree roots and engineered media to absorb runoff — can be installed along sidewalks without narrowing the travel lane at all. Western Pennsylvania Conservancy

4. Pervious/Permeable Pavement in Parking Areas

Carnegie Borough, PA, used a PennVEST loan to install permeable pavement in municipal parking lots combined with bioswales and native plantings, creating about 10,400 square feet of porous surfaces that capture stormwater and slowly release it into the storm drains. Narberth’s Borough Hall parking lot was flagged for a manufactured filter system — but converting parking stall surfaces to permeable pavement could achieve substantially greater volume reduction. Western Pennsylvania Conservancy

5. Streambank Restoration

In Narberth, stormwater discharges into the East Branch of Indian Creek at a culvert beneath the train tracks along Haverford Avenue. Restoration of streambanks to prevent stream erosion is a major source of sediment reduction statewide and a recognized BMP for MS4 compliance. Stabilizing and naturalizing the banks of Indian Creek — where the Borough’s stormwater actually ends up — could address the root pollution problem rather than managing runoff mid-block on residential streets. Narberthpapsu

6. Inlet Filter Systems (Already in the Borough’s Own Plan)

The Borough’s PRP already proposed a manufactured inlet filter system for the municipal parking lot at Borough Hall — a low-footprint, no-traffic-impact solution. The question worth asking is why this approach wasn’t scaled up to more inlets throughout the system before pursuing residential bumpouts. Revize

7. Detention Basin Retrofitting

Retrofitting existing detention ponds to reduce peak flows and prevent downstream erosion while removing trash, debris, and pollutants is another recognized compliance pathway. If any detention infrastructure exists in or adjacent to Narberth (including Lower Merion’s adjacent facilities), a cooperative regional approach might achieve more volume reduction than individual street-level installations. psu

The Core Question This Raises

Narberth’s PRP itself acknowledged a mix of approaches. The pointed question for the committee is: what is the relative pollutant-load reduction achieved per dollar by each BMP type, and was that comparison made before selecting residential bumpout sites? Pennsylvania’s DCNR explicitly notes that parks, trails, and other publicly owned places are seen as “a necessity for effectively and economically managing stormwater,” precisely because they avoid the complications of working in active road rights-of-way. If the borough hasn’t maximized what it can do on its own property first, that’s a legitimate gap to raise publicly. Pennsylvania Government

Thursday, June 4, 2026 - 7:00 PM

100 Conway Ave. Narberth, PA 19072

Zoom Access Information

Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88194274908?pwd=U0Y5ZWUwMTlhWDdlWENEbGE4MmtiUT09

Meeting ID: 881 9427 4908

Passcode: 402272

Phone-In: 929-205-6099

Bumpouts, Capital “Improvement” and Zoning are on the agenda

Adam Krom presented American Community Survey (ACS) data to support a proposed parking ordinance requiring only 0.7 parking spaces per unit, with zero-parking requirements for affordable housing and units under 750 sq ft. This analysis demonstrates that the data is statistically unreliable for policy use, misrepresents actual car ownership, and would create a significant parking deficit by the proposal’s own math.

Narberth Borough Parking: A Data-Driven Counter-Analysis

Last week, the agenda and meeting packet for Thursday’s council business meeting was published to the Borough website. It is 161 pages and features a lengthy report from the MCPC about their collaborations with the Borough and NPC in drafting the proposed changes to Narberth’s zoning code as well as an equally dense “Policy Analysis” authored by Council member Michael J. Gaudini, whom, it should be noted, is a professional land use consultant as well as a registered lobbyist for the development industry in Austin, Texas and holds degrees in journalism and public affairs and is therefore not an expert analyst, economist, or planner qualified to objectively evaluate the nuances of the proposed changes and their likely impacts on our town’s character, economy, and built environment. The items composing these two documents thoroughly validate community concerns about the potential for drastic impacts on the character of our town.

On the MCPC’s report – perhaps by design, the document contains an overwhelming amount of information impossible to adequately deconstruct in one sitting. However, there are a number of key details that all residents should be aware of, as they are highly indicative of the kind of preset agenda concerned members of the community feel is being pursued without regard for the will of the people. Indeed, this is not simply illustrated in the particulars of the proposals put forward for consideration in the immediate future, but also in the choice of case studies selected as benchmarks for reference, and the organizations and publications cited to reinforce the need for zoning reforms intended to usher in increased housing density.

Firstly – MCPC’s assertions and the proposals themselves. Much of the focus on the proposed changes revolves around the area designated as Zone 5b under the FBZ, which primarily constitutes the area of Narberth along Montgomery Avenue bordering Lower Merion Township, as well as portions of adjacent residential streets. This is because the commissions designated that commercial corridor as the site of their most ambitious zoning reforms. Responding to the overwhelming consensus that the Montgomery Avenue strip is a prime location with potential to be a thriving asset to the community which has long been and currently remains neglected and underutilized, the MCPC takes a surprising view. They posit that the lack of vibrance displayed along the 5b corridor is the result of too much focus on retail and commercial development. Whereas common sense would indicate that the blight and underutilization of this retail-oriented space is presumably the result of the ongoing neglect of commercial revitalization demonstrated by local officials in recent years in favor of a ceaseless pursuit of increased residential development, they conclude the opposite. They assert that the “existing vision for Montgomery Avenue as a mostly commercial corridor has not created a flourishing place”. They also bemoan that the major roadway is “car-centric” and state their intention to work with Lower Merion Township to “implement an alternative configuration that slows down cars, provides more traffic calming, and provides for an improved pedestrian experience when walking along the sidewalk and crossing the street”. Tidbits like these arguably provide more compelling insight into the questionable priorities of the county and local bodies that perhaps led to the deterioration Narberth finds itself reckoning with today, than any sort of misplaced focus on commercial revitalization (there has been virtually none). Working from the conclusion that there need be an increased focus on residential development over commercial, the MCPC lays out a series of proposals to act on that perceived mistake. These proposals entail some of the most controversial items among the changes the commissions deem it necessary to implement. Acting on the notion that there should be an increased focus on residential development on Montgomery Avenue, the commissions propose a larger spatial allowance in each building for residential units and a decreased spatial allowance for commercial uses. Whereas the current zoning in the 5b zone allows for mixed-use buildings with retail on the bottom floor and residences above, the commissions put forth a proposal to reduce the space reserved for commercial use to “the first 12 feet of depth facing Montgomery Avenue”. They explicitly declare that one intended impact of this change is to limit the potential business uses that structures in the 5b zone can accommodate, stating “this will maintain the retail corridor, but allow for smaller retail uses such as cafes to lease the commercial space in Mixed-use buildings”.

The next change broached in the MCPC/NPC collaboration is the one that has gained the most attention – density bonuses. A precious pet project of Council leadership and one delegated directly from the Borough to the commissions for implementation is the density bonus, put into motion in the changes assigned to the 5b zoning district. The controversy surrounding the density bonus proposal stems from its likelihood of being the most disruptive change to Narberth’s built environment as it is currently composed. At the Borough’s “Zoning Open House” in late February, representatives from the MCPC mingled with attending residents ostensibly to exchange viewpoints regarding the appropriateness of changing the FBZ, but in actuality it was a forum for the NPC and MCPC to market the necessity of the changes to a skeptical public. In fact, MCPC planner Adam Schantz, a key contributor to the drafting of the zoning proposals, emphatically insisted to attendees that the changes being considered for Montgomery Avenue were strictly limited to an increase in the allowance of floors each building can have from 3 to 4, while maintaining the current 45’ height limit. However, the proposed implementation of the density bonus in the report directly contradicts these assurances. Density bonuses are something resembling a bargain that localities engage in with developers, wherein the builder is permitted to build beyond the set height and/or other spatial limitations in exchange for reserving a particular number of units for affordable rent rates. In the commissions’ proposal, developers who are awarded the density bonus are allowed an additional floor and ten feet of building height – 5 stories and 55’. Also important to note is that what constitutes affordable housing in the context of Narberth is wildly different from what would constitute affordable housing in most other places. In Narberth and under these proposals, wherein the average income far exceeds that of most of the country, a unit is considered affordable if it can be sustainably inhabited by a median-income resident. Median income in this case is over $100,000 annually according to the chart labeled Figure 1 in the packet. In other words, Narberth would be allowing developers to build higher in exchange for units that are affordable for individuals and families who would be considered high income in most other localities and contexts.

While less remarked upon in the public discourse already ignited by the information previously released regarding the impending changes, other proposals applying to a larger swath of Narberth are equally jarring when their implications are examined. Perhaps due to its confusing nature, the commissions’ proposal for reductions in parking requirements for future residential developments has been the subject of debate but less fixated upon than the proposed height increases, as its actual impact is rendered harder to comprehend due to its opaque nature. The zoning code currently mandates a baseline 1 parking space per residential unit in developments in most sections of town as well as a 0.1 space per unit required for visitors. The commissions’ proposal would eliminate the requirement of any visitor parking as well as any parking whatsoever for “affordable units” and those 750 square feet or smaller and allow “applicants to reduce the parking mandate for other units to 0.7 spaces per unit if the applicant participates in the SEPTA Key Advantage Multifamily Residential Program”. Much of the attention garnered by this portion of the proposal has been motivated by the bizarre nature of its contents. How would this be theoretically acted upon by a builder? How would a builder actually provide one seventh of a parking space per unit? Why would renters of affordable units be less in need of a place to store a vehicle, especially when the standard for what constitutes affordability is the ability of an individual with an income of over $100,000 to pay the unit’s rent, when those individuals are likely to own an automobile? Why would an individual residing in a smaller unit be less in need of parking? Given that the budgetary crisis facing SEPTA has not been permanently resolved, but rather delayed by emergency relief granted by PennDOT, is it sound to implement these changes hinged upon the availability of public transit provided by SEPTA?

Another proposal, which may have stirred more controversy within the NPC itself than amongst the public, is the reduction of setbacks for new apartment developments. Coupled with a proposal to reclassify apartment development from a conditional use to by-right in the 4a district, a section of the borough heavily comprised of single family and duplex residential homes (which is a major change in and of itself), the commissions propose reducing required apartment building setbacks from the current 25 foot distance from the street to 10 feet, opening the door to the development of much more hulking and overwhelming structures, particularly on the south side. This change instigated debate between NPC Chair Adam Krom and Commission member Heidi Boise at the March 2^nd Planning Commission meeting, wherein Boise argued that the change was highly inappropriate for the Borough. This dissent was downplayed in the packet’s retelling, however.

Beyond what the specific proposals put forth in the meeting packet entail, the attitude and ambitions of the entities involved serve as a through line apparent in both the MCPC and NPC’s contributions and Mr. Gaudini’s “analysis”. What the commissions, Gaudini, and their partner organizations offer up as fact and the sources and case studies they cite to reinforce their advocacy for these changes illustrate vividly the agenda underlying the aggressive and unwavering push to further densify our already incredibly dense borough. Case-in-point under the section of the packet entitled “Input from Outside Partners”, the MCPC themselves express their enthusiasm for the proposed amendments to the FBZ by referencing examples from other localities wherein changes more radical than those currently under discussion have been undertaken. In praise of the proposed reductions in parking requirements, MCPC cites the example of Montgomery County, Maryland, a suburb of Washington DC which implemented the full elimination of parking requirements in new developments across the board “within 0.25 miles of D.C. metro stations” (presumably applicable to most of Narberth by comparison due to our proximity to a commuter rail station). The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) is given the next word. They similarly look to localities wherein far more radical land-use deregulation has been enacted, approvingly referencing “cities with major land use reforms, such as Minneapolis and Houston”. It is particularly notable that the DVRPC would cite Houston as an example to be emulated, given that Houston is known for being home to some of the most bizarre and alarming urban-planning oddities due to its status as the only city in the country with no zoning whatsoever. This has led to the allowance of everything from a crematorium blowing human smoke into the atmosphere amongst a row of residential homes, a roller coaster menacing a single family home, a massive parking deck built on top of a small cottage, twenty story office buildings and hundred story apartment towers hulking over a residential street, and homes built dangerously close to industrial grade electrical infrastructure. DVRPC also cites a “study” conducted by the organization Up for Growth which asserts that the nation (and therefore Narberth) suffers from an acute “housing shortage”, a bold claim to make in the context of the second densest locality in the state that also happens to inhabit all of one square mile. Despite their framing, Up for Growth is not an academic or objective entity studying the dynamics of housing in America. They are an unabashed real estate industry advocacy organization deeply intertwined with the pro-development YIMBY movement nationwide. The organization is chaired by the CEO of the National Multifamily Housing Council (a developer and corporate landlord lobbying group), co-chaired by the Executive Director of YIMBY Action (the YIMBY Movement’s primary national advocacy organization), and the Vice President of Policy Advocacy of the National Association of REALTORS. Similarly, Gaudini cites the libertarian Niskanen Center to reinforce his commitment to increasing density. These examples are among many that reinforce the widely held view that the push for further density in Narberth and surrounding areas is motivated by ideological commitment rather than objective analysis or a genuine belief that these changes will serve the best interests of our community. Elsewhere among the input from the commissions’ “partners” is the feedback provided by SEPTA, spoken on behalf of by the transit authority’s Manager of Joint Real Estate Development Ken Starr. SEPTA is a staunchly enthusiastic backer of the proposed zoning amendments and a key institutional backer of the proliferation of dubious “Transit-Oriented Development” or TOD proposals across the region. SEPTA cites the TOD Overlay implemented in Ambler, PA, another case wherein more radical changes were undertaken than those the public is being led to believe are the only ones under consideration in Narberth. SEPTA boasts of Ambler’s allowance of 6 story density bonuses and the adoption of a height limit of 65 feet for residential developments in the adoption of their TOD Overlay. This is highly illustrative of a noticeable pattern contributing to the uneasiness of residents concerned about what the future holds for Narberth on its current trajectory. Noticing that the ambitions of the entities involved are far more expansive than they explicitly state is unavoidable. Thinly veiled by reassurances that the changes under consideration are “gradual”, “mild”, “soft” or “incremental” is the insatiable drive for more and more development, further densification, and a dizzying reconfiguration of the very fabric of our town, summed up in the often heard refrain spoken at council meetings in response to contentious public comments: “We’re not considering anything like that…yet.”

It is of the utmost importance that as many residents as possible show up at Thursdays meeting and make their voices heard and maintain an overwhelming presence at every meeting and council session into the foreseeable future. The people making the ultimate decision about the future of Narberth are our elected representatives, and they were elected to serve the community that voted for them. It is well past time they that be reminded of that.

Protect Narberth’s Character – Oppose Overdevelopment Zoning Changes 

Narberth Planning Commission’s recommendations for zoning amendments to “support additional housing.” These changes risk permanently altering our small borough’s scale, charm, parking, and neighborhood feel.

Narberth Planning Commission’s February 19th Recommendations [HERE]

The Narberth Planning Commission proposes sweeping changes to the 5b (Montgomery Ave. Mixed-Use Corridor) and 4a (General Urban Limited District) zones. The stated goals are to encourage more affordable housing, lower building costs, and increase walkability to local businesses. However, the proposals go far beyond modest adjustments—they enable significantly taller, denser, and multi-unit development with reduced protections.

TOP CONCERNS:

5b District (Montgomery Ave. Corridor) – Turning Our Main Street into a 5-Story Apartment Zone

- Allow housing on the ground floor (with only the first 12 ft required as commercial).

- Permit four stories within the existing 45-ft limit (currently limited to “three stories” for mixed-use).

- Introduce a “density bonus” for a fifth story up to 55 ft if only 10% of units are affordable (at ≤80% AMI). Why oppose? This dramatically increases height and density along our historic commercial corridor. A 55-ft building with minimal affordable commitment will overshadow the streetscape, change the feel of downtown, and set a precedent for further escalation. Our current limits protect the walkable, small-town character—don’t dismantle them for marginal affordability gains.

Severe Parking Reductions in Both 5b and 4a Districts

- Reduce base parking requirement from 1 space/unit → 0.7 spaces/unit (with credits for SEPTA pass participation).

- Exempt affordable units and units ≤750 sq ft from any parking requirement.

- Eliminate visitor parking requirements.

- Allow off-site parking up to 900 ft away. Why oppose? Narberth already faces significant parking pressure. These changes will lead to massive spillover into residential streets, blocked driveways, unsafe conditions for pedestrians (especially children), and increased traffic. Exempting many units guarantees under-provisioned parking, burdening existing neighborhoods.

4a District – Rezoning Residential Transition Areas for Multi-Family & Reduced Setbacks

- Allow apartments, rowhouses, and cottages by right (no conditional use).

- Permit up to 5 units in multi-family houses; 3 units in three-story detached/twin houses.

- Reduce front setbacks (to 10–20 ft), increase building coverage to 50% and impervious cover to 70%.

- Slash minimum lot sizes (e.g., 1,400 sq ft for single-family types) and eliminate minimum lot widths in many cases. Why oppose? The 4a zone buffers downtown from our single-family neighborhoods. These changes open stable residential areas to intensive multi-family development on small lots with less open space and setbacks. This threatens neighborhood character, privacy, light, and property values while inviting over-development right next to existing homes.

Bottom Line 

These recommendations are not balanced gentle density solutions. They represent aggressive up-zoning that prioritizes quantity of units over quality of life, with weak safeguards (e.g., only 10% affordable in density bonuses). Narberth is already a desirable, walkable community—further density and reduced parking will erode what makes it special without meaningfully solving regional housing issues.

Attend the May 7, 2026

Borough Council Work Session Meeting

7:00 PM

Details on narberthpa.gov

100 Conway Ave. Narberth, PA 19072 

Development of Montgomery Ave. is to be discussed.

Narberth Borough Council

100 Conway Avenue, Narberth, PA 19072

Email: info@narberthpa.gov

Phone: (610) 664-2840

www.narberthpa.gov

Fred Bush, President: fbush@narberthpa.gov (Term expires: 12/31/2029) LinkedIn

Cyndi Rickards, V.P.: crickards@narberthpa.gov (Term expires: 12/31/2029) LinkedIn

Jean Burock, Council Member: jburock@narberthpa.gov (Term expires: 12/31/2027) LinkedIn

Michael Gaudini, Council Member: mgaudini@narberthpa.gov (Term expires: 12/31/2027)

Mike Salmanson, Council Member: msalmanson@narberthpa.gov (Term expires: 12/31/2029) LinkedIn

Jim Speer, Council Member: jspeer@narberthpa.gov (Term expires: 12/31/2027)

Joe Straton, Council Member: jstraton@narberthpa.gov (Term expires: 12/31/2029)

The Sabine Coalition Corporation

To learn more, please visit www.sabinecoalition.com 

or email sabinecoalition@gmail.com.

Narberth’s zoning map divides the borough into districts, each with its own character and rules. For the purposes of this guide, we’re focused on two: 5b and 4a. But it helps to understand where they sit in the overall hierarchy.

3a – Neighborhood Residential: The lowest-density areas. Bigger lots, bigger setbacks, single-family detached houses only. Think of the quieter streets with yards.

3b – Mixed Residential Limited: The largest district by area. Single-family homes plus twins (semi-detached houses that share a wall) and multifamily houses.

3c – Mixed Residential Open: A wider variety of housing types, including multifamily dwellings. Schools and civic buildings are found here too.

4a – General Urban Limited: A transition zone between downtown and the residential neighborhoods. Higher density than the 3-series districts. This is one of the two districts with proposed changes.

4b – General Urban Open: Dense residential with mixed-use buildings. Rowhouses dominate. Small front setbacks. Think of it as the densest residential district.

5a – Downtown: The small commercial core near the train station. Mixed-use structures with shops below and housing above.

5b – Montgomery Avenue: The commercial mixed-use corridor along Montgomery Ave. This is the other district with proposed changes.

There’s also a Historic District Overlay (H) that adds extra rules for properties containing historically significant structures, regardless of which underlying district they’re in.

What the Rules Say Now: District 5b (Montgomery Avenue)

The 5b district is the commercial spine of the borough — Montgomery Avenue, with its mix of shops, restaurants, and mixed-use buildings. Here’s what the current code allows:

What you can build: Mixed-use buildings (shops on the ground floor, apartments above) and commercial buildings are permitted by right. Apartment buildings are only allowed as a conditional use, and only on lots that contain a historically protected structure — a pretty narrow exception. Residential space in mixed-use buildings must be located above commercial space. The ground floor along Montgomery Ave must be commercial.

How tall: Buildings can be up to 45 feet, but are capped at 3 stories. This is worth pausing on: 45 feet is enough height for 4 stories. The code allows the physical envelope for 4 floors but only lets you use 3 of them.

How much of the lot you can cover: Up to 80% of the lot with buildings, and up to 90% with impervious surfaces (buildings, pavement, anything that isn’t soil or vegetation).

How close to the street: Buildings must be set back between 3.5 and 9.5 feet from the front lot line — quite close to the sidewalk, which is typical for a commercial corridor.

Parking: One parking space per residential unit, with some credits available for on-street parking depending on the block. Structured (multi-level) parking is allowed only by conditional use.

Lot sizes: Minimum 4,000 square feet for apartment, commercial, or mixed-use buildings. Minimum 40-foot lot width for those same building types.

What the Rules Say Now: District 4a (General Urban Limited)

The 4a district wraps around downtown and bridges the gap between the commercial core and the residential neighborhoods. It has a higher share of multi-unit dwellings than the 3-series districts but is still primarily residential in character.

What you can build: Detached houses, twin houses, and multifamily houses are all permitted by right. Apartment buildings are allowed only by conditional use — meaning a developer must go through a public hearing process with Borough Council. Rowhouses and cottages are not permitted at all in this district.

How tall: Maximum 35 feet and 3 stories. No exceptions, no bonuses — that’s the hard ceiling.

How much of the lot you can cover: About 50% of the first 6,000 square feet of lot area, plus 7% of any additional lot area, with buildings. Impervious coverage is capped at 60%. Both figures are notably lower than the 5a/5b commercial districts.

How close to the street: Buildings must sit at least 25 feet back from the front lot line — a substantial front yard. Compare this to 5b’s 3.5–9.5 feet.

Parking: One parking space per residential unit, with some reductions available. Apartment buildings must also provide visitor parking. Parking lot driveways must be one-way, which effectively means any parking lot needs two curb cuts (two driveways) — one for entering, one for exiting.

Lot sizes: 4,000 square feet minimum for detached houses, 3,000 for twin house halves, 3,000 per family for multifamily houses, and 8,000 for apartment buildings. Lot widths range from 25 feet (twins) to 80 feet (apartments). These minimums are larger than those in the denser 4b district.

What the Narberth Planning Commission Wants to Change: District 5b

The NPC has recommended several changes to the 5b district. These are policy changes — they alter what is actually permitted.

Allow housing on the ground floor (with a catch). Currently, the ground floor of mixed-use buildings along Montgomery Ave must be entirely commercial. The proposal would allow residential units on the ground floor, provided that the first 12 feet of building depth facing Montgomery Ave is still commercial space. Picture a shallow storefront or cafe space along the sidewalk, with a residential unit behind it. This responds to the reality that retail demand has shrunk — storefronts are smaller than they used to be, and mandating large commercial ground floors can leave space permanently vacant.

Allow 4 stories within the existing 45-foot height limit. The current code says buildings can be 45 feet tall but only 3 stories. The proposal removes the 3-story cap and allows 4 stories within the same 45-foot envelope. Nothing gets taller. The buildings would look the same from the outside. You’d simply fit an extra floor of housing inside the same box.

Create a 5th-story density bonus. Allow a 5th story (up to 55 feet) if the developer reserves 10% of all units in the building as affordable housing for households at 80% AMI or below. The 5th story would have to be set back an additional 10 feet from the front and rear facades — so it steps back from the street, reducing its visual impact.

Reduce parking minimums to 0.7 spaces per unit. The base parking requirement would drop from 1 space per unit to 0.7 spaces per unit, on the condition that the development participates in SEPTA’s residential pass program (which gives residents discounted transit passes). The maximum number of parking spaces a developer could build stays the same — this only changes the minimum. Affordable units would be exempt from parking requirements entirely. And required parking could be provided on other lots within 900 feet of the building, rather than on the building’s own lot.

What the Narberth Planning Commission Wants to Change: District 4a

The 4a proposals are more extensive, touching nearly every aspect of the district’s rules.

Allow new building types by right. Apartment buildings would be permitted by right on lots of sufficient size (currently they require conditional use). Rowhouses and cottages — currently not allowed at all in 4a — would both be allowed by right. All house types could contain at least two dwelling units plus an ADU. Multifamily houses could hold up to five units. A three-story detached house or twin could contain up to three units.

Reduce front setbacks. The front setback for houses would drop from 25 feet to 20 feet. Apartment buildings would need to be at least 10 feet from the sidewalk. Stories above the third floor would need to step back an additional 10 feet from any boundary with a less-dense zoning district.

Increase allowable lot coverage. Building coverage would go to 50% of lot area (up from the current sliding-scale formula). Impervious coverage would increase from 60% to 70%.

Create a 4th-story density bonus. Apartment buildings could add a 4th story (up to 45 feet — the current height limit is 35 feet) if 10% of units are reserved as affordable at 80% AMI, mirroring the 5b density bonus structure.

Reduce parking requirements. Same formula as 5b: 0.7 spaces per unit for apartments and multifamily houses, conditioned on SEPTA pass program participation. Affordable units and units under 750 square feet would be exempt from parking. The visitor parking requirement for apartments would be eliminated. Two-way driveways would be allowed (currently only one-way is permitted). Required parking could be provided on other lots within 900 feet.

Allow smaller lots. Minimum lot sizes and widths would be reduced to match the denser 4b district: 1,400 square feet for houses, 2,000 for multifamily. Minimum lot widths would be eliminated entirely for detached houses, cottages, rowhouses, and twins (side setback rules would still apply, effectively controlling how close buildings can be).

Why are the Changes Needed?

This is where we get a list of somewhat vague and weak arguments that are quite questionable to some of us. In a recent survey by the Borough, there is a clear setiment from participents that the changes are not that welcome. See an outline of the survey’s results here

So What Is the Recodification, Then?

Here’s where people get tripped up. The recodification is an entirely separate project from the 5b and 4a changes described above. They’re happening in parallel, they both involve Chapter 500 of the Borough Code, but they do fundamentally different things.

The recodification is a top-to-bottom reorganization of the entire zoning code. The borough’s own website describes it as a “policy-neutral amendment” — it doesn’t change any of the rules. What it does is clean up the document. Narberth’s form-based code was adopted in 2016 and has been amended more than 15 times since through individual ordinances. Each amendment was stitched into the existing text, creating cross-references that are hard to follow, tables with footnotes that modify their own values in non-obvious ways, and conditional use provisions scattered across multiple sections. If you’ve ever tried to read the current code and figure out what’s actually allowed on a given lot, you know the experience: you start in one section, get sent to a table, the table has a footnote, the footnote sends you to another section, and by the time you arrive you’ve forgotten what you were looking for.

The recodification reorganizes all of this into a structure that’s easier to navigate, read, and understand. Same rules, cleaner presentation. The Montgomery County Planning Commission has been helping prepare the rewrite.

The 5b and 4a zoning changes are substantive policy amendments. They change what can be built — new building types, different heights, new parking rules, density bonuses tied to affordability. These are the proposals that generated community debate at the February 2026 open house and the survey of over 300 residents.

To put it simply: the recodification is rewriting the instruction manual so you can actually follow it. The 5b/4a amendments are changing the instructions themselves.

Both projects modify the same document, which is why coordinating their timelines matters. Ideally, you’d integrate the new 5b/4a provisions into the reorganized code rather than bolting them onto the old structure and then reorganizing again. The Planning Commission discussed this sequencing challenge at its December 2025 meeting, with some commissioners noting that the borough solicitor’s drafting schedule could push the recodification’s advertisement into February 2026 or later.

A Quick Reference Card

This post draws on the Narberth Planning Commission’s February 2026 Recommendations for Zoning Changes, the Montgomery County Planning Commission’s April 2026 Summary of the Housing Affordability Open House and Survey, and the current Borough of Narberth Zoning Code (Chapter 500). The author is a Narberth resident, not a land-use attorney — this is a plain-language guide, not legal advice.

If you’ve lived in Narberth for any length of time, you’ve probably heard murmurs about “zoning changes” and “recodification” at borough meetings, on neighborhood corners, or over coffee. You may have nodded sagely while having absolutely no idea what anyone was talking about. That’s okay. Zoning is one of those topics that affects every single property in the borough and yet somehow never made it into anyone’s dinner party conversation, at least until now.

Two things are happening at roughly the same time in Narberth, and people are mixing them up. One is a set of proposed changes to what can actually be built in two specific zoning districts. The other is a recodification of the entire zoning code — a reorganization that doesn’t change the rules at all. Both involve the same document (Chapter 500 of the Borough Code), which is why it’s confusing. This guide is here to un-confuse you.

First, Some Terms You’ll Need

Before we get into the specifics, let’s define some words that zoning zealots throw around as if everyone learned them in school.

Zoning Code

The zoning code is the set of rules that governs what can be built on every piece of land in the borough. It tells you how tall a building can be, how far it has to sit from the street, how much of the lot it can cover, how many parking spaces it needs, and what it can be used for (housing, shops, offices, etc.). Every municipality has one. Narberth’s is Chapter 500 of the Borough Code.

Zoning Districts

The borough is divided into geographic zones — districts — each with its own set of rules. Think of them as neighborhoods with different rulebooks. Narberth has seven main districts plus a historic overlay. They range from 3a (the lowest-density residential areas with bigger lots and single-family homes) up through 5b (the Montgomery Avenue commercial corridor). The higher the number, generally, the more intense the permitted development.

Form-Based Code

This is the type of zoning code Narberth uses, and it’s somewhat unusual. Most municipalities in the region use what’s called Euclidean zoning (named after a court case involving the Village of Euclid, Ohio — not the Greek mathematician, disappointingly). Euclidean zoning works primarily by separating uses: houses go here, shops go there, factories go way over there. Its main concern is keeping incompatible uses apart.

A form-based code takes a different approach. Instead of focusing primarily on what happens inside a building, it focuses on what the building looks like and how it relates to the street. How tall is it? How close to the sidewalk? How wide? Does it have a front porch or a storefront? The idea is that if buildings have the right form and placement, a mix of uses can coexist comfortably — an apartment above a shop, an office next to a house — as long as the physical character of the street is maintained.

Narberth adopted its form-based code in April 2016, becoming the first municipality in all 62 of Montgomery County’s jurisdictions to do so. It’s been amended more than 15 times since then through various ordinances, which is part of why the recodification is needed (more on that below).

By-Right vs. Conditional Use

These terms describe how easy it is to get permission to build something.

By-right means you can build it as long as you meet the code’s requirements. Submit your plans, meet the rules, get your permit. No public hearings, no special approvals, no discretionary review by elected officials. It’s the zoning equivalent of an ATM — meet the requirements, get the result.

Conditional use means the use is allowed in principle, but you have to go through a public hearing process before Borough Council. Council evaluates your proposal against a set of criteria — is it compatible with the neighborhood? Does it have adequate parking? Will it harm adjacent properties? — and can approve it, deny it, or approve it with conditions. This process adds time, cost, and uncertainty. For a developer, conditional use is a significant hurdle; for neighbors, it’s an opportunity to weigh in.

When the proposed zoning changes talk about making something “by-right” that’s currently “conditional use,” they’re removing that extra layer of review. Whether that’s a good or bad thing depends entirely on your perspective and what’s being changed.

Density Bonus

A density bonus is a deal the zoning code offers to developers: we’ll let you build more (an extra floor, more units) if you do something the community wants in return. In Narberth’s proposed changes, the “something” is affordable housing. The developer gets an additional story of market-rate units they can sell or rent at full price. In exchange, they must reserve 10% of all the units in the building for households earning 80% or less of the Area Median Income (AMI) for Montgomery County. In 2024, 80% of AMI was about $91,000 for a family of four.

AMI (Area Median Income)

The Area Median Income is a number calculated by the federal government for each metropolitan area. It’s the income level at which half the households earn more and half earn less. Housing policy uses AMI as a yardstick for defining “affordable”: if you’re at 80% of AMI, you earn 80% of what the median household earns. Housing is considered “affordable” if it costs no more than 30% of a household’s gross income. If you’re paying more than that, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development considers you “cost-burdened.”

Recodification

Recodification is the process of reorganizing and rewriting a legal code to make it clearer and easier to use without changing what it actually says. If you’ve ever worked on a software project, think of it as refactoring: you restructure the code, rename confusing variables, consolidate redundant logic, and improve the documentation — but the program does the same thing it did before. Same inputs, same outputs, cleaner internals.

Missing Middle Housing

You’ll see this term in discussions about Narberth’s zoning. “Missing middle” refers to housing types that fall between single-family detached homes and large apartment buildings: things like duplexes, triplexes, townhouses, rowhouses, and small apartment buildings. These housing types were common in older neighborhoods (Narberth included) but have been effectively banned or made very difficult to build by many modern zoning codes. They’re called “missing” because there’s a gap in the housing stock where they should be.

ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit)

A small, self-contained housing unit on the same lot as a main house. Think of a converted garage apartment, a basement unit with its own entrance, or a small cottage in the backyard. ADUs are one of the gentlest ways to add housing — they’re typically invisible from the street and use existing infrastructure.

See the next post for details on the current zones 4a and 5b