Salisbury Township Planning Commission members were not only splitting hairs, they were splitting proverbial logs as they discussed tree-cutting verbiage in the township's proposed zoning ordinance.

"We're now really down to the minutia," Stephen J. McKitish, Jr., planning commission vice chair said, who chaired the Sept. 9 meeting in the absence of Charles Beck, commission chair.

McKitish urged fellow planners to review the latest draft of the zoning ordinance so it might be voted on at the next meeting.

The agenda for the Oct. 14 meeting includes consideration of a recommendation by the planners to the township board of commissioners to approve the zoning ordinance update.

Planners may or may not bring the ordinance up for a vote at their next meeting, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 14, in the meeting room of the Township Municipal Building, 2900 S. Pike Avenue.

Township officials are optimistic the township zoning ordinance update can be completed by year's end, as well as implemented at the start of the 2015 calendar year.

However, several reviews and approvals are pending. Also, a public hearing on the zoning ordinance is required.

The planning commission is a recommending-only panel. Township commissioners have the final say on planners' recommendations. Salisbury commissioners generally approve planners' recommendations.

"We're shooting to have that done and in place for the next calendar year," McKitish said of the zoning ordinance.

Planners were hoping to receive a review letter from Urban Research and Development Corporation, the latter a township consultant on the zoning ordinance.

"Notify URDC that if they have any comments, we need them for the next meeting," McKitish requested of Salisbury Township Director of Planning and Zoning Cynthia Sopka.

"We plan to have our comments by the end of the month [September], so they [URDC] should, too," Planner Dr. William R. Licht said.

According to a copy of the Oct. 14 agenda received by Salisbury Press, correspondence from URDC dated Sept. 23 "that addresses the Final Review of Zoning revisions" was received by the township.

Concerning the tree-cutting portion of the ordinance, Atty. John W. Ashley, planning commission and township solicitor, noted utility companies can cut trees when the utility has a plan to do so.

Other topics discussed Sept. 9 included parking islands and landscaping for parking lots for health-care facilities .

Planners were to send the zoning ordinance draft to the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.

If the region's planners approve the proposed zoning ordinance, a public hearing on it must be held.

Planners hope one meeting, rather than two meetings, for public review of the proposed zoning ordinance can be held.

In order to speed up its review of the ordinance, planners held additional meetings earlier this year to discuss it

One of the major topics of planners' and the public's discussion has been the ordinance's new Health Care Overlay District, which supersedes previous R-2 and R-3 Zoning in the vicinity of Lehigh Valley Hospital - Cedar Crest.

Salisbury adopted a new comprehensive plan, which lays out the philosophy of township land use.

The township also updated it's Subdivision and Land Development Ordinance, which is also on the Oct. 14 planning commission agenda.

The Zoning Ordinance is seen as the law to carry out and enforce the SALDO.

Salisbury's new zoning ordinance has been some three years in the making.