City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, good evening everyone.

I don't know if you can hear me or not. My green light is on. Okay, so good evening everyone. It's July the 6th, 2026 at 6 p.m. It's time to call the Franklin City Council meeting to order. Ms. Jones, roll call please.

Present.

Here.

Here.

Here. Here.

Here. Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Brian Reese, please.

All right. I invite you to join me in prayer. Our Father, we come before you this evening. We thank you for the privilege again of being here in City Hall and just for this council to do the work that's before them. Thank you for the privilege it is. Thank you for all of those first responders that were on duty this last week and just for all the safety and care you provided through them. Thank you for their work. Be with the items on the agenda tonight as the city looks at the plan for the years ahead. Proverbs 69 says, In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. So we pray your blessing upon the future of our city, and may you just direct with wisdom the right timing, the right decisions to make in the plan ahead. Thank you for this evening, and we ask your blessing on it. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Why don't you just stand with me for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, you may be seated.

Thank you, Brian. Okay, is there any announcements, public comment that does not pertain to the agenda? Joe, I know you said, Joe Abin, you said something that Board of Works, you might as well repeat while you're here at City Council, if you don't mind. So pass that down.

All right, Joe Abin. I wish we could do something more locally, but we can't. We're held at the state level on fireworks. What's passing around right now is some of the debris from the ordinance that was set up in the neighborhood. With that falling down like that, it could have hit somebody, could have cracked the windshield. I had some of it land on my vehicle. Notice I didn't say car, so vehicle come across. If we can get together, maybe get with the state reps and stuff like that and see if we can make the ordinance a little bit, or the law a little bit stronger, and that will help our ordinance and stuff like that for... These fireworks that are being set off are not the ones you buy in a tent or right in a store. These are like, they sound like 50 cals, Kenny. You know, you hear boom, boom, boom, steady. They're going off so loud, they're putting the street lights out, you know, and they're out for a few minutes, and then they finally reset. The smoke on the street is actually blinding for vehicles, and you got kids with razors, electric razors that are running up and down on that, so... I know in my neighborhood, the people that were setting them off were very, very respectful as far as cleaning everything up. There was nothing left behind the next day other than the residue that falls down into my yard, my pool, cleaning out all the paper and stuff from the filters and stuff like that from the skimmer to the pump. That's kind of like a pain in the butt right now. I'm more like... venting than I am. But if there's something else we could do, I don't know what we can do, to be honest with you, other than if the state steps in. But I really don't have a lot of faith in that with everything else going on with the state. But it's not a bad idea to make it known. We'd like to see some changes. So that's all I got. But those are like rocks right there that you see that were falling.

That's all I got. If anybody has any questions.

Any questions for Joe? Thank you, Joe. I think we all agree.

I just wanted to say maybe as a solution or maybe as a suggestion more than a solution, I know that we have went through and we've revised our city ordinance with the fireworks. And so we do have a new ordinance out for that. But I was maybe with the billing system, with us sitting out billing, maybe through the sewer or through the water, if we could maybe put a reminder out on their bills like a couple of weeks before. Yeah, that's one of the things, you know, me and you talked about right there, because I know it's put what the fines would be, what the hours are, you know, just as a lack of reminder. I mean, I know that we're on Facebook. I know that we have flyers out, you know, or, you know, we try to make every means possible to contact people to let people know what our ordinance are. But maybe if we just attached it to a billing.

Well, with that said, Irene, I can tell you that next year we can do that.

Okay.

Ahead of time, we'll go ahead and make that commitment now to put the ordinance out. It wouldn't be, Indiana American Water wouldn't do that in their water bill, but we can do that in our sewer bills. Okay. We can control that.

Okay. I think we should try that and see how that works and maybe if, I mean, maybe that would ease up a little bit with our police department and with some of the loud noise. I mean, just the loud. I know that people are going to set off fireworks, but there was some that were really, I mean, loud, really loud.

I think, Chief, did we not have the police last night was shutting people down?

Yeah.

I do know, though, I do want to say this. Down there where I'm from or where I live, it did calm down and it did quiet up around 11 o'clock. I didn't notice so much. I mean, I did hear a couple of bottle rockets here and there, but I didn't hear the big loud ones that, like, shook the house or the ground. You know, I didn't hear those after. And that was Fourth of July night. Now, last night, yeah, I did hear some, like, regular pop-offs and I think we probably will hear some tonight too. I agree with you just because everything's on discount and it's being sold.

Okay.

Thank you. Thank you, Joe.

All right. Thanks, guys.

Thanks, Joe. Joe.

All right. Is there any more announcements or public comments? Hearing none, we will close that and go to the consent agenda.

Move to approve the meeting minutes from June 15th City Council meeting as presented.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor by saying aye.

Aye.

If there isn't any old business, we'll go right into new business.

Move to read new business by title only.

Second. We have a motion and a second to read by title only. All those in favor by saying aye.

Aye.

Item number one, under new business approval of the City of Franklin 2026 Comprehensive Plan, HWC Engineering. Joanna, it says Rachel, but Rachel is not here. Rachel's right there. Oh, hi, Rachel.

So for introduction purposes, we do have the 2026 Comprehensive Plan before you this evening. This is a will be a public hearing and official action can be taken this evening. Plan Commission reviewed this and had their required public hearing on June 16th, and they have forwarded a favorable recommendation to adopt the comprehensive plan. And Rachel Christensen and Alec Poorman from HWC will provide the presentation and more information.

Rachel, can I cut in real quick?

Yeah, absolutely.

At the Planning Commission, you said something that was really nice to Ms. Gray.

I have an update on this, too.

Okay, good.

So for the rest of the council, first off, my name is Rachel Christensen. I'm a planning studio lead at HWC. In my past life, though, I worked as a planner for the town of Pendleton, which is where your attorney is formerly from. Her mother still lives in Pendleton. I still live in Pendleton. She was our grand marshal at our 4th of July parade. Yes, she was. Okay.

Oh, that's awesome. And your neighbor's kids held up the sign says we love Mrs. Gray. So thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate it.

She's wonderful. So now we're super excited. And I think it's, you know, when I was at Pendleton, we actually came and visited Franklin because we just thought you guys were doing such great things that we were hoping to learn from you and take some of those lessons back to Pendleton. And I was just tickled to be hired by Pendleton the city of Franklin to help with your comprehensive plan update and actually get to work for you. So that was something that was really kind of neat for me. And then of course now getting to meet the younger Mrs. Gray, which don't tell her I said that, but it's just been fantastic. So thanks for having us tonight. I'm excited to talk to you a little bit about the process that we went through to get here tonight. on your comprehensive plan. Like Joanna said, I have Alec Poorman here and also Craig Ludeman is in the back. He is a business development manager for HWC and was a former mayor of Seymour. We're gonna just do a brief project overview, what we did for community engagement. We're gonna talk to you a little bit about your future land use map, and then just briefly go over vision and goals. If there is anything that you want us to slow down and tell you more about, we are absolutely happy to do that. And just don't hesitate to interrupt me as we go. So just a project overview, just what is a comprehensive plan in general? Some of you probably know, but even just for the audience, just to update everyone, it's a long-range guide for development, redevelopment, and community investment. I like to say it's almost like your welcome mat for your community because people who live in Franklin It's good to know what the vision is, but even people who are outside of Franklin that are looking to invest in Franklin can often look at your comprehensive plan that would be available online to see if their values and vision kind of line up with your values and vision and if they want to locate here. So think businesses, think new families, things like that. Per Indiana law, there's three things that have to be included in a comprehensive plan. So objectives for future development, a statement of policy for land use development, and then a policy for the development of public ways, public lands, and public utilities. So thinking about your parks, your public facilities, things like that. This is the foundation for your city's zoning ordinance. So comprehensive plan kind of sets that vision and tone, and then your ordinances are kind of the law and how you build it as things progress and move forward. This is to be used by this body here, but also your plan commission, your board of zoning appeals, other appointed leaders, builders and developers, property owners, your staff when making land use, transportation, utility, and other decisions. So it's an important piece, an important tool in your toolkit. What we do when we start working through the comprehensive planning process is we do kind of an overview of your community. We do an analysis of your population, where you've been, where you're going. We look at your public. What is the public wanting out of the city of Franklin? What things do they think are missing in the city of Franklin? And then we kind of pull all that together in your vision and look at the vision for the future. And then we try to take that vision and we have goals and objectives that go along with it. But I think the most important piece in this is having an action plan and knowing how to implement that action plan. So all of that has been kind of pulled together in this comprehensive plan document for you. So why now? Why would we update a comprehensive plan today? Your current comprehensive plan is from 2013. So if you think back to all of the things that have happened in over a decade, there's a lot of changes. We've had COVID, we've had this housing market stuff that's made housing prices vastly different than they were in 2013. There's a lot of things that you've done as a community since 2013. Just the progress that you've made from your last comp plan, it's really just a good time to update it. I think just as a best practice with a community that's like Franklin, that's growing and changing and meeting goals, looking at this every five to 10 years for an update is really wise and kind of a best practice. Let's see what else. Why now? There's new challenges regarding development since the last comprehensive plan was adopted. You know, there's different growth areas in the city. You guys have a big project, a transportation project that's been happening. So how is that impacting the community? You guys have limited opportunities for expansion or annexation. You know, there might be this community to the north that is kind of keeping you from growing north. So, you know, where do you want to grow? Um, let's see what else communicate the communities expectations for future development and to ensure long term fiscal health. There's been lots of changes with Senate built or Senate enrolled act now one from a couple years ago that are impacting finances for lots of communities across the state of Indiana. So you know, we kind of talked about that as we updated this comp plan and then this is also a great way to engage the next group of community leaders. So you know, after this board, moves on or after your staff transitions, how do we build that next leadership, those next leadership opportunities? And I think this was a really good way. We had some young people that were part of some of the community engagement process that we had, and it was good to see them at the table. We had quite a few phases that we went through on this. Generally, we start out with doing kind of a kickoff with your staff and understanding what are those key things that are important. We then move into public engagement and stakeholder involvement, which Alec will tell you a little bit more in detail on what we did with that. And once we have kind of that baseline information, we start developing those goals and objectives. And we were able to sit down with your staff every month and kind of talk through these chapters that you'll see in the comprehensive plan. And we'll say, okay, this is what we learned. These are the key things that are influencing these areas. And we started working through those goals and objectives. We finally in our last meetings talked about that implementation plan. And now we're here in this phase nine doing plan adoption, which we started with the plan commission. And like Joanna said, we had a favorable recommendation from them for you to consider this for adoption. Tonight, yes, we're looking for if you were prepared tonight to adopt the plan, that would be fantastic. And if we have any other public comment, we'll, of course, include anything that we hear tonight in that comprehensive plan. I'm going to pass it over to Alec now, and he'll tell you a little bit about the community engagement that we did for this plan.

Thank you, Rachel. Like Richard said, my name is Alec Poorman. I'm a project manager at HWC Engineering who's been assisting Rachel and staff throughout this process. Like she mentioned, this was not just Rachel and I and Joanne and Alex sitting in a room by ourselves coming up with what you've seen here today. There was a very strong push for community engagement throughout this process. You know, some of the few highlights of that, you know, we had a public workshop, certainly a lot of focus group meetings where it was more of a, you know, invitations for people who are really plugged into, you know, certain themes or challenges or opportunities. for the city's future and online engagement, both a online survey and then interactive map that both allowed residents to go on, you know, kind of mark areas where maybe they saw for commercial use or where they thought, you know, a new trail or where they saw kind of an issue intersection or a safety or safety concern. But then it would also allow people to go on and see what other people put on there and then like or dislike that as well. So not only kind of seeing where people saw those challenges or opportunities, but also a general consensus on, hey, this has 200 likes on this one. intersection safety concern, then we know that that's probably going to be something that's big that everyone sees and deals with every day. Along with that, we have mobile display boards that were at the Franklin Library, the City Hall, the Active Learning Center that Joanne and her team kind of helped move around, just to provide a little more feedback so we could really extend the amount of time that we had these public-facing, as well as a pop-up event. at the Franklin farmers market early in this process, not only to get feedback from residents and business owners and things like that, but also just as kind of a marketing, right? You know, that's long range planning really is the most exciting thing to kind of get people behind it sometimes. But it's really a chance to let people know that, hey, like your voice is heard right now, right? You know, anything that you're telling us here, anything in the survey that is in one way or another going to make its way into this plan at the end of the day. So you can have a piece in kind of planning franklin's future uh one thing not up here but a i guess two months ago now there was the you know public presentation where probably 50 ish people or so were out for that uh kind of gave feedback looked at boards rachel had a presentation and even input and feedback and comments we got from that actually did go in to make changes to the plan before what you see today. So, you know, even in the late stretches, you know, that public feedback is extremely important because it just helps us refine and slowly, you know, take down on what's really important for the community members. You know, from those, you know, early on the survey and the farmers market and kind of the workshops, certain emerging themes really came out throughout the process. you know, future development, growth management, certainly on the south side of Indian Marion County, housing and affordability, you know, parks and rec, arts and culture, transportation, daycare, you know, really preserving what we have here in Franklin and the downtown historic neighborhoods. Then some of these, if you've read through the plan, kind of go into those topic chapters, right? You know, we have one dedicated to kind of historic preservation and, you know, sustainability or, you know, the land use specifically. So another way that, you know, what we heard throughout the process really went into making what the plan is. Now, while Rachel commented on how this document is going to be used by not only council members, but commission, BZA residents as well, right? This is a document that we want all of Franklin to really get behind and use in their day to day. While all of it should be used, goals and existing conditions, strategies, certainly the future land use map and accompanying future land use classifications are really the one-one of what the council and plan commission are going to be using whenever they have those zoning change requests or, you know, development comes before you or You know, when Joanne and Alex are filtering through everything that comes before them on a day-to-day, you know, this is that kind of first step in seeing if it aligns with what Franklin wants to be and what our vision for the future is. Much of the future land use map that is within this plan either comes from what the existing future land use map was in the 2013 plan, current zoning, or just what the existing land use is today. The downtown neighborhoods, the subdivisions on the west side, the new industrial that we're kind of seeing on the east side, that is what it is today. That's what it's projected to be into the future. There are certainly situations when we are looking forward, especially up northeast side, potential to do interchange there on Earlywood, where it is something that kind of differs from what we see today. These plans are meant to be forward-thinking. They are meant to give you all, staff, planning commission, kind of the tools to make those decisions when they come before you, so if a development does come before the city or, you know, if a large project, either infrastructure project, you know, is out there, this is giving that guidance for those future decisions. However, one thing that we want to be cognizant of and something that, you know, Lynn brought up in the plan commission meeting is if your property is on this map, and it is a different color from what it is today, this is not a zoning map. This is in no way, we all know up here, but for the people listening at home, it is certainly not the city trying to force your hand and make you change what you are today. It is not trying to bring people and annex them in. If you have farmland and we want it to be farmland for the next 200 years, that is your prerogative. That is certainly something you can do. However, if we want to change that, if you decide to sell, if we want to, you know, the landowner wants to develop themselves and they want to change that inherent use of what it is today, this is in that tool that we can fall back on to help influence those decisions. Not only with the map, there are, for all the categories that we saw up here, whether it be downtown, neighborhood activity center, traditional residential, they all have these accompanying tables to get into a little bit of description of what the land use is, maybe how it should relate to different land uses adjacent to it, hopefully. avoiding where we can extreme intensity with the rural estate or things like that. A little bit into infrastructure, some design features that we really need to be cognizant of when we're looking at these, and then some primary and secondary uses that would be intended for these different categories. Most of this comes from, like I said, the previous comprehensive plan, but also your current zoning ordinance as well. So this is not brand new from what you've been using or looking at over the past several years, just a more kind of refined, streamlined version within this document. Any questions on that before I move along? Nope. All right. For vision and goals, kind of like I said earlier, you know, these were really topics that were both identified by staff and by the city, but also that came up repeatedly in community engagement. You know, the land use, the infrastructure and things like that. have listed the vision and kind of goals up here. In the interest of time, I won't read them verbatim for everyone. We'll be here for a little bit. But I do want to hit on just kind of the main theme for each chapter and really the essence of what the plan tries to accomplish through the goals within each. So for land use, Really, this one was about identifying growth that strengthens Franklin's existing character, right? We don't want developing growth just for the sake of it. Really, we want to focus on when the developments do come before you or where zoning requests do come before you to make sure it fits what we have as a city, enhances that, but also leaves room for what's next in the future, especially when it comes to the corridor on 65 and the existing kind of industrial and business parks that we have within the community. Transportation and infrastructure. This one is really focused on making sure that we are being fiscally sustainable and then proactive with our roads, sidewalks, utilities, other infrastructure, making sure that we're not just building things to nowhere because there's the idea that once we build it, we have to maintain that after. So just being really smart and where land use are identified getting up before those or just ensuring that the level of service that we have today can be replicated when growth does occur in the future. For housing and neighborhoods, kind of the key thing here is that yes, we want Franklin to be kind of that new regional location I'll say, you know, diverse housing, whether it be for students looking to graduate from the college, you know, parents transitioning to, you know, an empty nest or, you know, grandparents and those are retirement age trying to downsize and move to a smaller home, but still stay within the community. But we also wanna make sure that we're strengthening and really supporting the established neighborhoods. Like Rachel and I will both say, a big part of what Franklin is is because of the excellent job we've done in maintaining the downtown, maintaining that historic core neighborhoods that surround it, because it is a big part of the character and what people wanna come here for.

economic development.

It is going to be kind of strengthening the unique business and employment districts that we see throughout the city. Now, these are not certainly coined or anything, but there were a few that came up repeatedly in conversation that we kind of gave name to, and they all have kind of their unique little sets of goals and strategies behind them. Certainly the US 31 corridor, Commerce Parkway, And drive is kind of one of those. The King St Gateway is kind of looking from where that the interchange is to the West of their downtown Franklin. Certainly the. East areas east of I-65. So you know with your. getting off and then traveling east from there. And then the general business resiliency and then supporting our workforce as a whole. The goal seven was something that kind of came in towards the end, and it's the idea that we can strengthen economic development and attraction through the presence of arts and culture in Franklin. You know, arts, it's certainly something that is a placemaking, you know, whether it be sculptures, whether it be crosswalks or things like that, murals on the sides of buildings. It's not only something that should be looked at as, well, this is pretty, you know, this is nice, you know, it's nice to look out for a walk, but a real idea on how we can kind of strengthen the economic base and workforce base in Franklin through these initiatives. The final, environmental sustainability and resilience, yes. couple floodplains in town. Certainly that's something that's going to repeatedly come up, either flood events or trying to preserve those areas where we can't really build in them. And then definitely the idea that we can preserve these areas but not have to necessarily build something on them, right? I know that throwing a park is easy at times for that area next to the river and a floodplain, but Like I said, kind of a thing heard about this process was, you know, once we build it, gotta start maintaining that after. So looking for the areas where we can kind of retain that natural environment, natural habitat, leave it open for public enjoyment, leave it open for, you know, the flood control that it provides, but also not put undue stress on the city in the future.

I have a question real quick. Do we have a map of what this looked like in 2013 to compare what you guys put together here?

Oh, like the future land use map you mean?

Well, no. You know, I'm looking at this map here. Future land, yeah. Yeah, future land.

We can pull up our existing comp plan. It's online.

Thank you. Just curious.

I said we, as if I could do it. I cannot. Someone in this room, either sitting back there or right there, can do that. I bet your mom could. I bet she could, too.

I do. Yeah, I was here, but I don't remember. But I believe it's probably changed. Probably. From what we're looking at for the future now.

Yes, and it has. And like I said, it's... The areas around downtown 3 to 1 corridor that's been the same, you know, for a decade or more at this point, those areas really have not changed as far as what their future land uses are looking like.

I mean, I can look at this one here, and it shows future growth on the east side, but I'm pretty sure in the past we talked about going west.

There we go. I thought it would change more honestly when I compared the two. But it hasn't really.

And what we did was we used it as a base. So we printed this version out, had it on a big map on a table. And with staff, we marked it up and made those revisions to it. And then, of course, presented it to the public to get feedback as well.

There is the proposed. And that was the previous. Now you're asking me to do a lot of.

Well, if on. No, not if you guys want to get out of here before the soccer match. 8.

No, the answer is no, I can't do that.

Yeah, but that one is the existing one on there. And if you look on our, what we have here is proposed. It's not all that.

Some other minor changes. There were a couple classifications, I think, in the 2013 that weren't used, were very minimal, or were kind of almost repetitive. I think it was more the east side compared to the west. I think the previous plan just because of the activity around 65 right now in that early, that potential for the early wood interchange. It can't be.

Thank you, Alex. That's impressive.

That was very impressive. Alex and the Alex.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

So I think we are.

We have a public hearing, yes.

So the one thing I did want to add on the updated land use map is if you can see on the east side, our proposed land use map stopped, which makes it very difficult if somebody comes in and requests annexation or rezoning that we don't actually have a proposed land use map for that area with our current plan. So that is one of the reasons why the proposed map expands a little bit further. That way we can actually have something to look at and use as a reference on where we're looking at going. And Indiana code says you have to have a comprehensive plan in order to have zoning specifically for those reasons. So it opens the door for us.

And that's, I think, a best practice that most communities are doing nowadays is they're looking beyond their jurisdiction a little bit to see. So in those instances where if there is an annexation, you do have some guidance on what that zoning should look like when it does get annexed into your jurisdiction.

So what I'd like to do, if there's any more questions from the council now, let's go ahead and ask and then we'll open it up for public comment and then the council can certainly ask more questions after that. But is there any more questions at the moment? Okay, let's go ahead and open it up for a public hearing at this point. Is there any comments or questions or certainly there's somebody with one.

I did want to note what Joanna pointed out at playing commission is there was a lot of public involvement in this one that there was not in the prior one because we lived through both of them. And there were a lot of people engaged in the front end. That was good. We enjoyed that, didn't we, Joanna? I mean, it was nice to have them. Yeah. No one showed. Yeah.

Yeah.

And we'd have public meetings and no one would be available, but they certainly were positively involved. It wasn't, they wanted to participate and it was a nice feature.

Someone asked one more time, does anybody want to get up and speak for public hearing? Okay, nobody's moving, so I will close public hearing at this time. Council, more questions or it's your night.

Sir, ma'am, is it possible that you could maybe give me one or two examples that is on this new proposal that it wasn't on the last proposal that is something you're proud of, something that stands out possibly that maybe someone wouldn't think of and it's something that you guys are proud of? Is there something that stands out? And if there's not, that's fine. It's not a trick question.

For me, I don't know if it's necessarily in the document itself, but I think my takeaway on Franklin, you guys have been one of the best clients to work for. And it's not just, you know, Joanna and staff. It is just the way that your community shows up is really refreshing. You know, we're kind of in this era of I go to a lot of public meetings and there's a lot of unhappy people that go to those meetings for various reasons. And to come to just like even your plan commission meeting, to have people come up and even you, sir, to come up, you know, you had an issue where there's all these fireworks and it was just done in such a pleasant way that, you know, there's a lot of collaboration, but I think you guys all have this goal of wanting what's best for Franklin and the way that you talk to each other and communicate to each other, that's, it's, I don't wanna say unique, but it's not common everywhere. And so I would just applaud all of you for, I mean, I think that's leadership. I think that's your staff and the way that your staff treat the public. There's a lot of things that go into it and it's not an easy thing to have. And that was kind of one of my takeaways. So even throughout the comprehensive planning process, we had like our stakeholder meetings, we invited people to the table not me in particular, but there was a list of people who were suggested for different topic areas and the people that showed up, you could just tell how much they care and love for Franklin and wanted to make sure that their voice was heard to make sure that this continues going in a positive direction. So that's kind of more super impressive and I wish I could just kind of duplicate you guys all over the state.

Alec, did that give you time to think of something?

No, I think the economic development, let's see which one, I'm on the left here, chapter is unique as far as comp plans go that certainly I've worked on. Just because, let me see, where's my buttons? Just because we don't often get a city that has very defined areas and not just an area on an interstate or your downtown, but five very distinct, very different districts, if you want to call them that, that have a whole slew of opportunities and challenges that are going to go with them. I think it was fun being able to set it up in this way where we weren't just broadly talking about Well, it'd be great if we could get more employers here in town. It'd be great if we could get more people working here, but really had a chance to kind of look at these places individually and say, okay, well, what makes, you know, the areas from King Street West different from what we see on Commerce Drive, right? What makes it different from the challenges besides the J-turns on 31 that we're dealing with right now? I think farther than that, it's one thing that we kept bringing up through this process is that Somewhere along the line someone had the foresight to really protect things in Franklin Whether it be the neighborhoods whether it be a downtown that is probably larger than I'd say, you know in any Historic downtown that I've been in in the state recently and also the foresight to say, you know what we have all these assets Let's really support staff and really support, you know, monetarily the different people that we can help get things done in town. So I know, you know, Dan and Kristen are here right now, but you don't have a lot of communities that have the foresight to think, well, if we just kind of invest a little bit in staffing for, you know, historic preservation or for community development, well, that really takes a load off what you do. That really takes a load off what, you know, Joanne and Alex can get done and really can stretch a dollar so you're, saving in the long run and not a lot of communities do that so that's really great to see because then it makes our job easier when we're sitting here thinking well who's actually going to implement these at the end of the day right i know you know council doesn't have the time and the energy to get every single one of these things done but when you put those steps in place and you have the staff and you have the capacity you can really start getting things done within these plans and that's extremely encouraging to see and i wish that a lot of other places mimic that

something that was really neat about this too we put a kind of a flyer together for the comp plan so that's another deliverable that we had it's it's almost we were calling it a cheat sheet or CliffsNotes version so that when you guys are all up here doing your job it's something that you can refer back to it has the the vision and the goals listed in it and then has your future land use map it might be something we start doing for other communities too because it was just such a neat

product so that was maybe another piece that i think we were excited about thank you you're welcome counselor if i might because i'd also forgot at plan commission we talked to alec touched on it the comp plan isn't just a document that we stick on a shelf somewhere we really need it and use it because i think we have i know i'm a little prejudiced but i think we have the most fantastic staff that are able to identify grants and money that is out there that bring it back. You all know, as council members, how many times we have matching funds that we've gotten from all the other places that are out there. And one of the things they want to know that you have to have is a vibrant comp plan. And we take it. we use it, and then when we go ask for those matches, those millions of dollars that we have received, this helps us tremendously get that. And a lot of communities don't either have one or haven't had one updated for 25 years. So it really does pay for itself in the long run by having it.

Any other questions, comments?

As I read through it, I was very impressed with the comp plan, but I was equally interested in the growth numbers because we always talk about, we always hear we don't want to grow too fast. Well, when you look at these numbers, I don't think we're growing too fast. I think we're growing at the right speed according to these numbers. You know, a 2050 would be at 31,000 plus, I believe. So the percent of increase is not, over too much for us to handle, I don't believe.

And it's in accordance with the school's reports on their cohorts in terms of, of course, it's a different demographic entirely. I mean, they're not all school-age children, but the two match.

We do get that question all the time or comment, we don't want to grow too fast.

So I don't see that with those numbers.

That's up to what the we close the public hearing, but that's up to the mayor I'll open it back up one more time.

You need to go to the mic Because we went through a spell like because I moved here in 97 January 97 so I've been it's my 29th summer and There was a lot of housing being built on the west side of 31 and the population was growing and Once that slowed down, then all of a sudden the city concentrated on bringing business. Our businesses were growing, but we weren't building a lot of housing at that point. And it seems like now we're building housing to catch up to some of the business. It's almost like a balance that we're doing. We're bringing housing in to support the business, all we're creating business, and now we need housing. The apartments that are going up in 31 right now next to NSK, One of the comments when I was sitting on the plan commission, they were talking about, great, because there's a lot of 49 on the license plates that are leaving there during the day. Some of the folks saying, oh, we heard there are going to be apartments up there. We're going to end up living there. So as our businesses grow, the current businesses that we have, people that live out of town are going to want to live here. So it's almost like we go through growth with business, Then we build housing. That stables a little bit, and then the east side is going to be building up again because we know Sunbeam owns, what, how many hundreds of acres of property out there. So it's a nice little balance, but I agree with you, Todd. Our growth is very much planned, and it's a way that we can absorb without all of a sudden being lopsided on one side of the house. Yeah. That's my comment. David, thank you for giving me the time.

As long as you don't bring more Patriots fans.

We did open it back up for public comment. I would give anybody else another opportunity if they chose before we close it again. Does anybody choose to speak again? If not, we're closing public comment for the last time.

Joe and I sat next to each other and argued about the Colts and Patriots for a long time.

Had to get that one in.

Yeah, you did.

So if there's no other comment from the council, I think we would need to approve or not approve.

I move to approve the 2026 comprehensive plan.

Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Jennifer has a question.

Sorry, not a question. I just wanted to, I think last meeting I said that the We are in part of the Johnson County Opioid Rights. So I just want to share that the meeting for presentations, if anyone wants to come and watch the people that are presenting, it is Monday, July 13th at 3.30 at the Johnson County Commissioner's Office. Okay. Thank you.

Okay, so we do have a motion to approve. We have a motion and a second to approve the comp plan.

And, sir, just a technicality, but technically you're approving the resolution adopting the comp plan as presented. I believe that's Ms. McGinnis' motion, wasn't it? It is. That's what I thought. Did you get that, Jan?

Thank you, Jan. So we have a motion and a second to approve the resolution for the comp plan. So I thank you this time. All those in favor by saying aye? Aye. Any opposed by saying aye? Okay. Thank you, HWC, for the good work you put into it. Thanks. A lot of people put a lot of good work in it. Thank you. Okay. There isn't any other business, so we'll go to council comments. Jennifer, do you want to? That was good. Sorry.

I'll just reiterate what I just said. Okay.

Sorry. Irene?

No, nothing for me tonight. Thank you.

No, sir. Thank you.

Sean?

Nothing tonight, sir.

Ken? I made a comment at the Board of Works meeting about how well the festivities were downtown. Thank you to Chip and his team, the police department, the fire department. I mean, every single department and every employee was working seamlessly together and it showed. So I want to thank each and every one of them. Yeah, nobody got hurt that I know of or nothing terrible happened. So that's a success in my opinion. So thank you.

Chair, do you have anything to add? Lynn? No, yes, sir.

Chan?

Okay, I just want to let the council know we are working on the budget. We will be planning meetings for the city council soon. And also, if anybody on the city council wants to reach out to any of the department heads and talk how their department's going or about the budget, please feel free to do that. So with that said, I think we need a motion to adjourn. So moved.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. All right, thank you.