Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Village Franklin Planning Commission for June 17th. Can we go ahead and start off with a roll call, starting from my left?

Pete Hallick, present.

Sarah Greslick, present.

Stuart Wooders, present. Paul Bregman, present.

Linda Novak, present.

Awesome. Before we adopt the agenda, I'd like to consider changing the agenda slightly to move the new business ahead of the public hearing. I think that that will be, in case we have a longer public hearing, that will help accommodate the new business quickly. I don't think you have much to say on that. We'll see when we get there. We'll see how much you have to say, but we'll move it forward, if that's okay.

I second that.

All in favor? Aye. OK. All right. So with the adoption of the agenda with the change, we'll discuss the minutes and review the minutes from the last meeting from May 20th. Any questions or concerns from the minutes? No, sir.

Not for me.

I didn't see anything particularly You know, I know you're doing a summary. You're doing a good job capturing the gist of what we're talking about. So I think anything that I would want to change is just more detail, but that also kind of defeats the purpose of the minute. So, it being a minute. But thank you for doing that. Okay, so can I get a motion to accept the minutes as written?

Motion to accept the minutes as written. I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, all right, move from there. So then we'll do our official reports. Trustee Sally, would you mind providing a council liaison report for us?

Yeah, no major reports. I think one of the things that would be helpful, Stuart, whether that's as a group or just I can tie out with you and then we can start to formulate it, is we're doing groupings around the nuisance abatement. And so figuring out what the future groups are going to be and then starting to assign ETAs for when we can anticipate that they'll come. So outside of that, no major report. Thank you.

No, that's a good point. Thank you. So after passing this, then the next agenda item would be to introduce the next grouping. So I appreciate you asking for that. Great. As far as council meeting went, it seemed to go well for moving forward with regards to Planning Commission's report. They accepted that we're at a public hearing. I pleaded how many times? Maybe three or four times for people to show up at the public hearing. Hopefully someone's here for the public hearing. That'd be great. For the nuisance abatement. I really want people to be involved in this because I don't want people to feel like they're surprised by anything that we're talking about for nuisance abatement. um but unfortunately no one's here they'll they'll find out about more i guess at the first reading if we move forward in that direction um so that's my report um any other commissioners do you have anything to report on

We did talk about at the council meeting. We obviously have some openings. I did submit my application. I know that there's other applications that are being considered, but I believe it was that they didn't have everyone that they, I guess, to fill all of the seats. So they were holding off on doing that. So I guess we're just carrying over the term until we have enough applications to be able to do that.

So I think the direction is if council is, if there's any, actually, do you mind clarifying the final statement on that? Thanks.

Yeah, Sarah, thank you for raising that. So we were supposed to, in the last month's meeting, make the appointments. However, the way that it lined up is we didn't have enough applications based off of the number of openings. And so trying to make an appointment kind of arbitrarily to assign whose seat they were taking over compared to who would continue to fill that position was WE DECIDED TO MOVE THAT TO NEXT MONTH'S MEETING IN JULY. HOWEVER, MUCH APPRECIATION TO SARAH AS SHE PROVIDED HER PERSPECTIVE AS SOMEBODY WHO HAS SUBMITTED HER APPLICATION ON WAYS THAT WE CAN IMPROVE THE PROCESS TO, ONE, PROVIDE NOTICE TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION AND TWO, AND MORE SPECIFICALLY THE APPLICANTS. AND SO THAT'S SOMETHING THAT I'M TAKING FEEDBACK ON AS WELL AS BRINGING A PROPOSAL FOR FUTURE PROCESS FOR APPOINTMENTS. Roughly three to four years ago, I drafted the appointment process for the village. However, we haven't revisited that, so we are already planning to go back and look at it. This additional practical impact of how it impacts the people who are applying provides us with opportunity. And so at the next council meeting, we'll be looking at some revisions to that appointment process and bringing it forward. So thank you, everybody.

Thank you. All right. Okay, so any other commissioner? Thank you, by the way, Trustee Salley, for that.

There was no zoning meeting last night. It was delayed because I believe that the applicant couldn't get back in town in time, so we're doing it tomorrow night.

OK, hopefully we'll hear back more next month then. All right, cool. We have a time for public comments. If you have a comment that is not already on the agenda, we will encourage you to come forward. If it's on the agenda, we'll give you time also in that agenda time point to speak as well. So if there's a new one in the audience who would like to make a public comment, you're welcome. All right. Otherwise, I'm assuming everyone here is here for something that's on the agenda. And unfortunately, listeners at home won't be able to make comment because I think it's recorded. But anyway, yeah. All right, well, we'll move on now for new business, which is to consider alteration of purpose to property address 32750 Polly's Cafe. Chris, do you mind giving a little bit of a background? Sure.

In late 2025, Time and Place Hospitality filed an application and site plan that called for renovation of the building located immediately south of the Franklin Oyster Bar and Eatery, to house various food preparation functions and storage for the restaurant. The Planning Commission considered the plan on October 15th, 2025, and after a bit of discussion, approved a motion to recommend approval to the Village Council. Subsequently, the Village Council approved the food preparation and storage plan on November 10th, 2025. The applicant has now submitted a revised plan calling for relatively minor modifications to allow a small neighborhood cafe with two walk-up windows to operate out of the building, and the business would be known as Polly's Cafe. And I believe the first order of business would be to sell ice cream. Now, for the purposes of zoning, the cafe would be considered a carryout restaurant, which is a permitted use in the C1 commercial district, which is the district in which this building is located. So this evening, the applicant is seeking your approval to add the cafe as an approved use within the building located at 32750 Franklin Road. And with respect to the signs, they will be reviewed administratively at a later time.

I'll open this up to discussion. I don't know if our village administrator would like to say anything in addition, because you've been managing a lot of the interaction and feedback, if you have any opinions or thoughts on this.

No, I think that was a great. Never know what the proposal is. I don't have anything to add to it. I'm here to answer questions in case anything comes up and Jay's here also.

Great. So Chris, could you clarify a little bit about the approved use criteria? You know what? What are we considering? I assume the approved use is outlined in the ordinance already, what qualifies as an approved use? Right.

Well, there are a list of permitted uses in the C1 district, and the carryout restaurant is listed as one of those uses. Right. So that's basically what you're looking at.

Mm-hmm. It's pretty straightforward.

And you said you're here for questions for Peli's Cafe? Yes. Yes. Okay. So my question is, so this is for an addition for a walk-up window for ice cream servings. Is it these first two windows that are the opposite sides of the ice cream sign? Or is it just the one window? Okay Okay, are there any plans to extend that deck for that? Okay That was my that was my question because we last time we brought this up for Polly's cafe was we did not do any changes the exterior And they have to maintain the historical look now For operational standpoint, I can see how that makes things difficult if you're trying to order from the first window and pick up at the second window.

Could you mind coming to the microphone? It'll be easier. I'm sorry. For the recording, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Because if you're ordering at the first window and then you've got to walk around and wait for somebody to hand something down to you,

Yeah, that's pretty common of how these shops work. And we just left, to not disturb the windows, we just left them in place and we built a small kind of screen behind the window so we wouldn't be affecting anything. The only thing we had to add are those two trays and literally four screws, take them on and take them off. So we wouldn't be changing anything about the cafe. If we... Full transparency, if we get some traction and it works, then the building was in collapse, basically. When I got in there, there were literally coat hangers holding the structure together, unfortunately. So we spent a fortune just stabilizing it, putting new HVAC, air conditioning, just all the things that it needed. which is why we're trying to do something creative with it to try to generate some revenue because we're buried here hopefully in the back um if this works we might then offer just like come in a sandwich shop you'd walk in the back where the patio is order a sandwich you could eat out there in the summertime and just try to you know build something that people around the town could just walk to and enjoy themselves absolutely no i was only asking because i want to make sure that like we're sticking with what our previous judgment was which was maintain the exterior yeah it is historical and i did we don't i don't want to hear a surprise in five months being like hey we want to extend the patio no i would say we we are to a point where we cannot put one more dollar into the building so don't worry about that we'll probably start with a sandwich a little sandwich board sign to you know get things rolling and then you know we'll figure out if and when a sign could be approved but

I just want to point something out. When Jason's first window, he used this window. Correct. And that's the pickup window.

So you don't actually have to walk around the door.

That is how I saw it. I do agree. No, I understand completely, because that makes the most sense. Yeah. Great.

Personally, I'm thrilled and delighted. I mean, this is something that we had been hoping for and asking for from the start. I really appreciate that you're stepping up as quickly as you are to do that.

We're trying to do things.

We were concerned it was going to be a while. So it's exactly what we need in Franklin.

When are you guys looking at, in terms, I'm assuming, after approval, how long are you guys going to look at starting to do that?

Well, my chief ice cream officer is my son, who's back from Notre Dame on break. And so he has secured the ice cream machine and his college and high school friends to work. So the minute, if this is, we'll do a dry run in a week or so. And then after the 4th of July, we will be open for business. And we'll be asking for a lot of patience, too, as we figure out how to serve ice cream. Okay.

That was good. It was a good timeline.

All right.

Is there any opportunity for seating? A little table or something out front?

Yeah. We would hopefully put maybe just two or three small tables in the area there. I mean, they can pick up, move, nothing that is bolted down or anything like that, but just to give people somewhere to sit. And there's also an idea of... uh polly's for pups where when you when you buy an ice cream cone we don't we donate a dollar to the to a dog rescue so you know uh we're trying to have some fun with this thing absolutely okay well well thank you thank you yeah i might have some other questions for if you don't mind hanging out sorry

Sarah, do you have anything?

Oh, no, I echo Linda's sentiment. I think it's, my family will love it. As well as just, I think it continues, I think, keeping the downtown open at that time and giving different options, I think, is a great use of that space. So thank you so much for all the hard work and thought you put into it.

Yeah, thanks.

So just a few questions I have. Because you had originally received approval for using it as a cafe and then approval for it as a prep kitchen, and then now potentially a cafe coming out of there, I'm guessing you're going to seek for approval to have an interior cafe for that or no? OK.

No, so all the prep kitchen is still there, and we're still using it. So it will always be kind of a...

Okay, so it will be a walk-up cafe. That's it. Okay, when you said sitting down, I wasn't sure if you were talking about interior space or not.

No, we have a patio in the back. But yeah, there's no room for seated.

That's clarity that I was looking for. Okay, that's great. All right, yeah, those are the main questions I had, because I understand... in this case it's almost like a choose your own adventure um because you had those two different options and we and you change pivoted um but i think from from the perspective of our master plan um and improving um the downtown area and commerce in downtown um this is in direct alignment of what we're trying to do and facilitate in this village so i'm looking forward to having something you know last time i took my son to an ice cream shop in franklin he was playing t-ball

ME TOO. I'M HOPING WE'RE TRYING TO MOVE QUICK TO DEMONSTRATE TO OTHER PEOPLE THAT THINGS CAN WORK TO GET SOME MORE MOMENTUM BECAUSE IT'S JUST STRAIGHT UP, IT'S REAL HARD WHEN YOU'RE THE ONLY PLACE, YOU KNOW, WE WOULD ALL BE DOING BETTER IF THERE WERE A FEW MORE OPEN PLACES. SO I'M WITH YOU. I THINK IT'S LIKE, YOU KNOW, move, try, learn, pivot, and keep going here.

And I would really encourage you to put some little tables out front. There were tables before when the clothing store was there, and people would just come and sit there just to see people outside is a good thing.

Not even just sitting tables, like a standing table like you see at a regular bar. Actually, you can probably put more standing tables there than sitting tables.

Yeah, okay. We've got some stuff left over from the back, and we're going to, yeah, it's going to, believe me, I'm not in charge of the cute, charming part of it, but I'm sure they'll get it right. They'll get it right. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much.

I appreciate it. Do you have a minute, a question?

Yeah, just a procedural question based off of the action. Does this have to go to council? Will this end up going to council or no? No. Okay, great. The reason why is I was going to like July 4th. Yeah, no, I was looking at our schedule and it's not till July 13th. So it's an unfortunate, it'll almost be a month from today. So I was going to propose doing a special meeting if needed. So if that is the case, let's go ahead and do it otherwise.

And that's because of the previous, that's because of the prior approvals that already gone through council or But we didn't feel, we felt like it was important to be on our agenda because to clarify to the public that... Yeah, that it fits within the scope.

Yes.

No, but I appreciate everybody checking in on that and making sure that it was a good process. So good job, everybody, on that one.

Do we need a motion to approve it? We do. Okay. I'll make a motion. i will second uh motion oh yeah let me let me say what it is calm down um motion to approve the alterations to 32750 franklin road polly's cafe to accommodate walk up ice cream and dessert Do we need to include possible carryout and sandwich in the back at a future date?

I think you can just say a walk-up window for purchasing of goods and services.

Yeah, I think that if they do do sandwiches, it's going to be at the back, he said.

No, no. Sorry, please.

That's okay. It would be best to... APPROVE POLY'S CAFE AS A WALK-UP, CARRY-OUT RETAIL ESTABLISHMENT. THEN WE DON'T HAVE TO COME BACK AND DO IT AGAIN. RIGHT. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. SO IS THAT YOUR MOTION? WHAT SHE SAID. OKAY. WE HAVE A MOTION ON THE TABLE. CAN I GET A SECOND?

I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay.

That's great news. Yeah, that's great. Thank you.

Should we have our next meeting?

Yeah, let's have it there.

Right, right. That'd be great. Okay, so now we've finished new business. We will move on now to the public hearing. We'll open, it is 7-18 is what I have on my watch. I'll open the public hearing for the consideration of the village code of ordinances, chapters 648, 647, and 1268 regarding issue of blight and useless abatement. Chris, for the record, do you mind reading in the memo for...

Sure. Well, Chapter 648 deals with littering, rubbish, and garbage removal. And in that particular chapter, we updated the regulations concerning littering on public and private property, rubbish and garbage removal, and we updated the enforcement procedures as well. In section 678.01, storage of building materials in residential areas, the proposal is new regulations to specify when building materials for a construction project on a residential parcel may be stored outside and for how long they may be stored outside. And then finally, in section 1268.14, this section deals with parking and storage of vehicles, equipment, and storage containers in residential areas. And in this section, this section presents updated and new regulations to address the parking and storage of commercial and non-commercial vehicles, inoperable vehicles, recreational vehicles, and portable moving and storage containers often called pods in residential districts. Now, with respect to that particular section, 1268.14, that was the only section that the Planning Commission requested amendments at the last meeting. And I've made those amendments. And they involve, first of all, in the definition of commercial vehicle. We eliminated the three types of commercial vehicles. Those included, and they're shown in your, with crossouts in your handout, vehicles that have permanently mounted outside brackets or holders for ladders, tools, pipes, and other equipment. any vehicle that bears external advertising signage, and vehicles that are similar in appearance to private passenger vehicles but are used for or are intended to be used for commercial purposes and that are owned or leased for use in commercial enterprise such as fleet vehicles. The second change that was requested involved the paragraph at the bottom of page two of the revisions. And the change makes it acceptable to park a car in a residential district, even if the car is used for a business and has signage on it, if the car is also used for ordinary transportation purposes. And then the third revision is on page five of the text. And we added item D5, which allows an owner or occupant to park a box or step van that is used for commercial purposes on his or her own property. So those are the only amendments compared to what was presented at last month's meeting. And that completes my report.

Thank you. So those that are in the public that are here, which I believe I don't see anyone, unfortunately, here.

We did not lock the doors. They were more than welcome. Any second now.

Yeah. Well, even if we could have caught some from the ice cream shop to hang out for, that would be great. All right. Well, we'll go ahead and close.

We're going to do in the future, if they buy ice cream, they have to come to the planning committee.

There you go. All right. Well, then I'll close the public hearing. It is 7-24. Sorry. Yeah, 7-24. And we'll move on to the discussion of the ordinances and the changes that Chris had read to us. Any comments about, one, about the modifications? Do you have any concerns about those modifications that were made between last meeting and this? And then secondary, if there's something that we're overlooking that they would, that you would like to bring up, so open up to the commission.

So I went through all of our examples that we had sort of starting as our working original look at it and i think what we have done and the changes that we have made over time have made this significantly stronger in terms of enforcement as well as working for our village and how we operate um i appreciate all the time that you put into it chris i went back to all those meetings and made sure all those edits were captured and they were done very thoughtfully and well done I think that comparatively to the starting point, this has so much more teeth to it, which is what the whole point of it was. So I think that we've gotten to a good spot, at least on my end.

Thank you, Sarah. All right. And Chris, I appreciate the effort you put into this, especially running by and making sure that the sentiment between meetings was carried forward. And it seems like from the other commissioners they feel the same, that the crux of what we're trying to do is achieved by this ordinance. And we'll start working on the next ones if necessary. If this one gets approved, we can make a recommendation to council. So at this point, if there are no changes or concerns about this draft, then we can have a motion to recommend this to council and then take it to them for consideration.

Then I'll go ahead and make the motion for us to provide this information to council as presented to us today.

I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None opposed. Okay. So we'll make a recommendation for these Ordinances of the Council. And then if you wouldn't mind, Planning Commissioners, that please review the spreadsheet we have of the groupings of ordinances and priorities. Start looking at them because that will be what we're going to be discussing next month. So all right. And I'll let you know. Through Evan, we'll let you know after I have a chance to meet with Trustee Selle.

I'm going to go through my email again to look for it. But in the event, would you have a copy of that list?

It's in the packets that we had. The packets we had, yeah.

I haven't got the email. Which list, Paul?

I'm sorry?

Which list?

The list of all the ordinance we were going to review.

Yeah, I thought we had already done that.

Yeah, but look to see what the next ones are.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we made a list. I just want to make sure I have it because I don't know if I have the physical copy.

I'll follow up with you and make sure that's consistent with what you're also thinking as well. All right. And if what we've talked about in our previous list from a memo from McKenna with the groupings changes through Evan, we'll let you know what to start looking at so that you're prepared. And we'll have Chris draft a memo so that you know what to look at and focus on. All right. Thank you. Okay. That is the last point of business for tonight.

I have one thing. Oh, great.

Please.

This is tangentially, is that the right word, related to something that was on the agenda tonight. something i mentioned in the past that i feel uh... strongly about i think the ordinance needs to be men uh... to uh... in particular section twelve sixty point three oh which deals with site plan review a new uh... subsection k is needed to allow the planning commission uh... to approve site plans without having to approve amendments to site plans without having to go through the entire site plan review process. Currently, if you have an approved site plan, there's nothing in the ordinance that addresses the situation where somebody comes in and wants to do an amendment of any size And so the ordinance currently says you have to go through the entire process, which means go to the planning commission, have a public hearing, and go to the city council. And most communities have provisions in their ordinance that allow either the planning commission or even administrative approval of amended site plans.

And I think it's... Do you have a scope question? Is there a scope or a bound that is usually allotted for an amendment like that?

Yeah, usually there's... Yeah, you have... yes yeah you have to have uh you know they can't be redoing the whole site plan it's it's usually minor amendments that are allowed to go through the accelerated process

So is it based on square footage? Is it based on usage? Is it based on what would be the criteria for that?

If you'd like, I can come back with some parameters.

That would be good.

Yeah. You really want to get bold.

Yeah, because you're right.

I talked to Rachel about this afternoon. A lot of communities don't even involve, and Trustee Solle may have some comments about this, and I welcome them. The Planning Commission is the only one that does the site plan review. And the Village Council is, it ends at the Planning Commission level. And there's some benefit today up because they it keeps the politics of the site plan review you know i'm comparing its ordinances rather than unit in its streamlines the site plan review process because right now when you uh... submit a site plan and uh... in franklin require public hearing at the at the uh... planning commission level and actually the ordinances that the City Council can have a public hearing as well.

Yeah.

So you're looking at a minimum of three to four months once they submit the site plan, assuming there's no revisions that the Planning Commission or the City Council asked for. And that's, you know, time is money and you've heard that phrase before.

Well, and we've had, we've had, non-normal sessions. We've had emergency sessions on planning to help push things through before council meetings so that that way people don't lose the season of which they would operate. And that costs money to the taxpayers as well because you have to also do public hearing in addition for that. And then public hearings, as you look at our budget, are not cheap considering the way we have to do it.

That's right.

If we were able to do it with a planned normal month out, we can actually potentially use cheaper venues for public hearings.

So I think that's something to consider. I don't know if... Franklin's ready for that bold of a step, but I think it's absolutely necessary to have a step in there that allows for administrative or plan commission review of amended site plans.

Chris, would you mind... If you're OK with this, would you mind drafting something that would explain to us what other adjacent communities do in this regard, a similar size? Because you said that other communities like ours do that. But if there is a way we could give to council some sort of confidence where we can at least share with them if this is a reasonable approach that other communities are doing, then this is something we could look at amending. But I want to make sure, because it In this case, we do need to be careful with council because they're essentially signing over basically a veto on what planning is able to do.

I should make the distinction with special land use. I'm not saying that would not go to council. That still should go to council. I'm just talking about site plan review and of course amendments, that's a legislative decision so that has to go to council.

Right, right.

It would be helpful if you included in there what other communities have made that change.

And would allow.

And what the triggering events or parameters are. under which it would fall under planning as opposed to a lot that would have to go to a larger review.

Sure.

And it isn't an unprecedented ask for council to streamline certain processes like we did with solar panels on roofs where it became an administrative task more than a full site plan review that had to go to council people were able to go to the building official check the check to see if the building plant codes are are in order and then be approved for solar panels and rather than having because we were having month after month of site plan reviews for solar panels on roof and we were able to give them guidelines to then allow it to happen so this isn't an unprecedented ask but we do need to have some clarity to share with council

yeah the one thing that would be helpful is whether or not any communities of if you were to remove council from it put it into the authority of the planning commission whether or not there's any appeal process so if there was a denial if there's an appeal process so we understand what the recourse for the resident is for okay thank you

I appreciate you bringing that up. I know when I was doing some of the communication committee stuff, I did talk to business owners and one of the things that I kept hearing back was like, in order to make any changes, it does take so long, just like the process and just the way our meetings are structured. So I do think it would actually help break down some of those barriers and streamline the process for everyone. So I just appreciate you bringing it up.

Good. Thank you. Any other points or comments or questions? Okay, well, thank you all for being here. Can I get a motion to, well, I guess our next meeting is going to be in July. I locked my page. 15, thank you. Oh, so it's the same week as council. Okay, do we want to move it out a week so we have time if there's any feedback or recommendation from council if they want to give us something new to consider?

No, I can do the 15th.

No, I think we should leave it where it is. Leave it there? Yeah.

Okay. All right. Well, then we'll keep it at the 15th of July, 7 p.m. Can I get a motion to adjourn?

I'll make a motion to adjourn the June Planning Commission meeting.

I will second. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you.