Cluster housing, as the term implies, places homes closer together than in a typical subdivision of single homes on single lots.

Think of cluster housing in terms of traditional row houses or twin homes. However, with cluster housing, open space is set aside for residents of a municipality and beyond.

Salisbury Township is considering adoption of an ordinance for cluster housing, which was one of the topics at the Aug. 10 township planning commission meeting.

Salisbury is mostly built-out, i.e., there are few large tracts of land suitable for development. A cluster house ordinance, if adopted, could potentially open smaller parcels for development such as the Salisbury Township School District vacant land in the vicinity of East Emmaus Avenue and Honeysuckle Road, on the township’s east side and a portion of Lehigh Country Club, on the township’s west side.

“Nothing is set in stone. We’re open to suggestions,” Salisbury Township Planning and Zoning Officer Kerry Rabold said to planners and those attending the Aug. 10 meeting.

“It allows more open space and less impervious surfaces,” Rabold said of the proposed cluster housing ordinance, noting, “We’ve added twin dwellings and duplexes.”

According to the American Planning Association website, “There are two features that distinguish what is thought of as a ‘true’ cluster subdivision.

“The first is a characteristic of design and site planning in which several houses are grouped together on a tract of land,” according to the APA website.

“Each cluster of houses serves as a module, which is set off from others like it by an intervening space that helps give visual definition to each individual group,” the APA website states.

“The second characteristic of the cluster subdivision, as it is often proposed, is the presence of undeveloped land that is held for the common enjoyment of the neighboring residents or the community at large,” states the APA website.

“We do want to encourage more conservation. The idea is to allow cluster development, but for more land in open space,” Rabold said.

Planning Commission Vice Chair Richard Schreiter asked what impact a cluster housing ordinance might have on South Mountain in the township.

“If acres are in conservation [zoning], that land can’t be developed,” Rabold replied.

During the public comment portion of the meeting, township resident Jane Benning, who chairs the township environmental advisory council, asked where in the township the cluster ordinance might apply and if the proposal has been reviewed by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.

Township resident Jackie Straley asked for an example of a cluster housing project and about the process for the ordinance to be enacted into law.

“The new proposed cluster housing development is available in the C-R and R-2 [township zoning areas],” Rabold said.

“This allows houses to be clustered closer together. It limits the amount of roadway and sidewalks,” Rabold said, adding, “It limits the amount of impervious services [roads, sidewalks].”

The ordinance, as of the Aug. 10 planners’ meeting, had not been reviewed by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.

The process for approval is the cluster housing ordinance would be reviewed by the township planning commission. Planners, if they approved the ordinance, would recommend it for approval to the township board of commissioners. Before the vote by commissioners, a public hearing would be held.

Also discussed at the Aug. 10 planners’ meeting were changes to the township grading ordinance, approved by commissioners at the Aug. 12 township meeting.

Said Jan Keim, a Salisbury Township resident, of the grading ordinance, “It is promoting more development on the mountain and going to ruin our more rural nature [of the township].”

“I think it gives more options,” Rabold responded.

“Are you going to restrict earth-moving from steep slopes?” Keim asked.

“Steep slopes was removed from the zoning ordinance,” Rabold answered.

“That is shocking,” Keim said.

“The portion of the steep slopes removed has to do with lot size,” Salisbury Township Consulting Engineer David J. Tettemer of Keystone Consulting Engineers, Inc. said.

“You still have restrictions as to what you can do on the steeper slopes,” Tettemer said, adding, “Most of it’s still there. It’s not in the zoning. It’s in SALDO [Subdivision And Land Development Ordinance].”

“The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission has a model cluster housing ordinance and I used that as a model and blended it,” Rabold said.

“Cluster housing only allows single-family dwellings and twins, only if it is an age-restricted community,” Rabold said.

“All lots must be served by public sewer system. If they can’t connect up to the sewer system, they can’t develop it,” Rabold said.

“It sounds good and it makes sense, but I don’t think so on the [South] Mountain,” Benning said.

Attorney Joseph A. Bubba, a Salisbury Township resident, founding member of Fitzpatrick Lentz & Bubba, PC, and attorney for Lehigh Country Club, said of the proposed Salisbury cluster housing ordinance, “I had looked at a lot of different ordinances. I thought the proposed [Salisbury] ordinance is remarkable in its simplicity.

“People like to use the term ‘open space,’ but in this ordinance, people can actually use it,” Bubba continued.

“Even in this age of anti-development, it’s why so many municipalities are moving to cluster development,” Bubba said.

“We want to do this right,” Schreiter said, adding, “I think we should table it [cluster housing ordinance] and look through it and have Dave [Tettemer] look at it.”

“Let me look at it and Kerry [Rabold] and I will discuss it,” Tettemer said of the cluster housing ordinance proposal.

The Salisbury Township Planning Commission is next scheduled to meet 7 p.m. Sept. 14 in the township municipal building, 2900 S. Pike Ave.