About this meeting
- Government Body
- Boma
- Meeting Type
- Boma
- Location
- Franklin, TN
- Meeting Date
- April 23, 2026
Transcript
47 sections
conceptual meeting between board of mayor and alderman and Franklin planning commission and we'll begin with the roll call. Commissioner Harrison present. Commissioner Allen is absent. Commissioner Franks absent. Commissioner Lindsay is absent. Commissioner Ore is here. Commissioner Man here. Commissioner McLemore present. Commissioner Williamson present. Alderman Peterson here. Mayor Moore did not see absent. Alman Pototts present. Alman Burgerer absent. Alman Caesar absent. Artman Blandon absent. Artman Barnhill here. Nice. Ottoman Brown absent. And Alderman Bagot present. All right. So item number one, discussion of development plan revision requesting three additional modification of standards. Sidewalks connectivity on 25.64 acres located at 1190 Lewisburg Pike, Tuckaway PUD. Staff, yes, thank you. Um, this is for a revision to the Tuckaway PUB subdivision development plan. This will be revision number two. Um, originally this was approved to be a subdivision. The last revision approved it to become a uh church campus. Uh this revision does not propose any changes to entitlements or any significant expansion um to the campus or the building itself. Uh it's purely for modification of standards requests that all relate to access and um sidewalks. So um if you'll notice the uh sheet I handed out for the tuckway PUD
subdivision. Um the first one MOS number one is already approved. So we don't even have to discuss that. that was approved by the board of mayor alderman uh previously with revision one. Um with revision two um the first new MOS is MOS number two and that is a request to delay construction of the Northern Cross Action Cross Access Connection until future development occurs. Uh let me point that out on the screen just so you know exactly what we're talking about. It's this little road right here that connects to the north. that's currently a uh residential property. Um and that future connection to be installed by the developer of the northern property. Um staff is recommending disapproval of this modification of standards due to the uh lack of a uh date certain of the construction of that uh connection to the northern property as well as um putting financial hardship on a different property owner in the future. MOS number three is a request to remove the required pedestrian connection from Lewisburg Pike to the main building entrance. So again, if you'll just follow me on the uh laptop here or the screen here. So connection uh to the main building right here and thus the campus of the church gateway church. Um we are recommending disapproval of that as well just because that is a requirement of the zoning ordinance to um uh provide access from the uh front entrance of the main building uh to the public road. MOS number four is a request to delay construction of the sidewalk along Lewisburg Pike until development occurs to the north and south and sidewalks uh can be constructed from adjacent property owners. Um so again going back to the MOS number two request uh we are recommending a disapproval because there is not a date certain within that MOS and we just don't know when that development will happen in
the future and there's really just uh not a um mechanism in place currently uh to keep um that in check. Uh so we're recommending disapproval of all three new MOS requests. So happy to answer any questions when that time comes. All right. Thank you. Do I have an applicant? Hello, my name is Greg Gamble and um I have to selfishly plug that I'm now with Kimley Horn and we are the landscape architects for Fellowship Bible Church. Um we have been working with Fellowship Bible now through their development plan process, through their site plan process. Um site plans now approved. They are under construction. Uh foundations are are being poured for their church and uh the excitement is growing. Um we have are introducing um three additional modification of standards. This first modification of standards as pointed out by Joey was approved by the board mayor and alderman and eliminated the requirement to have a southbound connection. There is still a westbound connection um uh out to the uh adjacent um roadways that is an emergency connection only. The neighbors have approached Fellowship Bible and they have said, uh, we plan on living in this house. Um, we would prefer that this connection not be constructed until some point in time in the future when our property develops. I'd like to approach tonight as somewhat of a conversation. We're hearing things from neighbors. They're saying things to us, to the church, um, to Fellowship Bible. and Fellowship Bible is really working to try and accommodate what the neighbors have asked for. Um the um portion of the road that you're seeing here would be platted with an access easement, but the roadway and the sidewalks would not be constructed. That's our proposal with this modification of standards. When we first brought
you the development plan, there was an opportunity that the church be closer to Lewisburg Pike than what the church proposed. They said to our firm, um, please push the church back off of Lewisburg Pike. We want to protect our rural viewshed. We want to be behind the existing tree line. We want to we want to create as little disturbance in the front there as possible. We want that that rural uh character. As a result of that, this uh sidewalk that you're seeing here is over 1,500 linear feet. It would go from the uh the main church building, which is actually the building all the way to the the back of the site here. The building at the front of the site, that's the existing home that's going to be used for administrative offices. Uh the other buildings are future uh and would come in a in a future phase. So uh this sidewalk um is required to extend all the way 1500 ft to Lewisburg Pike. Uh the church is requesting that we eliminate that sidewalk again to protect that rural viewshed that's here. uh they would like to have the two uh lane road, the turn lanes that are required to be constructed as a part of the church and your consideration for the elimination of of this sidewalk as a result of really them doing the right thing which is pushing the church back, pushing it off of Lewisburg Pike to create that open space relief. Um following the city standards to construct a sidewalk along Lewisburg Pike. uh this sidewalk would ultimately one day probably be removed or destroyed when Lewisburg Pike is constructed in the future. Uh they're asking that uh this sidewalk be deferred until sometime in the future. Um when we wrote the modification of standards, we hadn't heard back from staff
uh about their um thoughts on not constructing the sidewalk on Lewisburg. And tonight, the church would like your consideration that uh they would construct this sidewalk when Lewisburg Pike is constructed or within 10 years, whichever is is sooner. Uh they would like to postpone that um to a point in time where we think that it's more reasonable that Lewisburg Pike would be constructed to uh to improve uh for greater traffic volumes. Um, with that, I'm here with Bill Wellins, uh, representing Fellowship Bible Church, and we're happy to answer any questions that you may have. All right. Thank you. Any comments on this applicant? Any thoughts? Anyone? Go ahead. Question, sir. Uh, by delaying this, how do we guarantee that the will be added less as far as court if they run into financial situation when they can no longer afford to install these mod these requirements code. What's what's the guarantee that they'll get installed specific to to all three? Your question specific. You're basically asking to I think on the um on the connector to the north, the driveway to the north, um the neighbor there is so strongly against it and that's what benefits. You know, it's one of those things where, you know, we want to do what we what we can to benefit the city to connect. We're not trying to get out of anything for us. It's more about that that their desire to do that. Provide the easement so a developer can come in and still do it. All those things, but not build it today. So, it's it's not really so much about how we're how we would fund it or not fund it. We we're there. We're at the table. Uh it's not huge dollars in that case with the with the connection to the north. And so we'd be willing and open to talk about any sort of thing that kind of binds that or
connects that or helps us, you know, set in place something if you guys got ideas or whatever to to make sure you feel comfortable with that happening in the future if and when they sell. They've been there forever. They're saying they'll they'll never sell it. They don't they don't want to be um they don't want this thing to happen, but we all know it could happen in the future, which is to your point. And so we'd be open to conversation about that. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Sure. Anyone? Are there any other sidewalks along that route? I um at 1500 ft. There are no other sidewalks. So, we're going to uh require constructing 1500 ft right now. Yeah. I can support the modification of standards. All three or specific one? Well, the sidewalk issue. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. Um the I have no problem with the connection to the north. Is that um there's also is this a scenic corridor? Is this in the scenic corridor overlay? I believe it is in a vision Franklin. If it's not, it should be. I believe it is. And I believe there's extra setbacks there. And this connection gets kind of close to it on the northern property as well. So that that is a concern of mine, which is one reason why I would say uh delay this um would be okay because and maybe it's right on it, but even still in the future if that northern partial developed, I don't know that that connection may maybe that's not the bet. I mean, you're going to set aside the right away, but I'm good to press pause on that one. The and the other two. Um the other the only thing um on Lewisburg you know we we want the sidewalk connectivity to to because one day there will be sidewalks
there I would guess or a multimodal path if T dot comes through and does this. Um so you know we had a media in the previous meeting we talked about you know payments in lie of for sidewalk Um, so there there are probably a couple ways to achieve some of the things, you know, that everybody wants, but um but I would be supportive of all of these. All right. Go ahead. Uh, Lewisburg Pike does not have a scenic corridor overlay. Yes, Commissioner Williams. Yeah, I would say for um yeah, for modification uh was it? Yeah, the the northern easement. I think I'm okay with that. Um especially if it's going to be easement, who knows? It's just kind of negot, you know, saying that in a legal way that you can connect. Um, as far as the other two, um, I do see kind of the the want for not putting that sidewalk on Lewisburg Pike, especially if they're going to widen it and it's just going to get blown out and then it'll have to just be redone at some point. So, I think, you know, the thought process on that makes a lot of sense. Let's just delay it. Not eliminate it, just delay it. Um, because I know a sidewalk to nowhere is a no, you know, a thing until it gets developed next to it. Um, and I think I have a little bit of the same attitude too on about the one that goes from Lewisburg Pike all the way um to the church is that it's not really needed until you have development adjacent. So and you know if that were something that were to happen later at the same time with the other one I think with both of these it would be just to make sure that you know that's structured in such a way that again if financial means happen and for some reason it can't be built to ensure that that is say you know
brought up to to standards and and that sidewalk. So, just for clarity on that, if I might make one comment, would that be okay? Sure. On that. Yeah. Thanks. Um, we do have sidewalks all around the building. We have handicap parking with sidewalls all ADA accessible all around the building. We're just asking for the modification for the 1500 ft because it's it's uh it's long, it's expensive, it's those sorts of things and and open to considering things for the future. But it's not like there's no sidewalks. We don't have an ADA requirement from the from the road to come up on a sidewalk all the way to our building because of the amount of parking and all the sidewalks around the building. I just want everybody to understand that it's not getting out of sidewalks. It's just the one that goes just I'm not sure this makes sense in terms of what we're after as a community when we've built so much landscape and green grass and all that stuff out front. Okay. Any barn? Yeah. the the connection to be installed by developer of northern property. Explain that a little bit better than what that what that is. So you're saying that the property that's north of that will be installing what I because I I think most of the time that you heard me say I think connectivity is extremely important and when you have that opportunity what generally happens on that is if you don't stub it out now while it's being developed there'll be something that will come up in a year two years 5 years or whatever that uh there'll be somebody there that won't they'll be truly opposed to that whether it's the church they don't want to tear up their grass they don't have any reason there's no real reason for the church to do that right after the development is already developed this is a request by the neighbor uh that we bring this forward and we're
trying to accommodate that request um they believe or in their mind that by building this um stub connection to the property line it invites others down that path closer to their property line. It's within their their viewshed um out toward Lewisburg Pike and we're looking to accommodate that. They've said that um they would prefer it's their preference that that connection not be constructed until such time as their property is developed which might not say again ever happen which is not going to happen. automate parts. Yep. Two two quick questions here. If we can pull up slide modification request three. Uh and I'm okay not putting in a sidewalk, which is actually modification number four. There are no other sidewalks. I've just Google mapped and verified and I drive that corridor on a regular basis. So, I'm fine with four on three. Would you explain uh where it goes from Lewisburg up to um it looks like uh where we're talking about taking off modification of standard number two. Mhm. Where it makes a little left bend and then it picks back up. Is that a removal of a sidewalk? Because I try to zoom in. what that pink dotted line that goes from the far left of the page up to where that those two 90° turns are. Let me zoom in. And this is on the uh I'm sorry, it's Yeah, it's request number three. I just want to zoom in close enough where people can see it map. Okay. This doesn't show what you're talking about, but I know what you're talking about where it goes up to that driveway
connector, then 90s over to the other side and then on around sidewalk, right? Oh, does it? Okay, great. Um, that's just pure uh related to um terrain and utility work that it needed to come up that way and then cross to continue on to the back of the property. There's no removal of sidewalk there. It's just the the way that the land sits and how to come back across and stay on sidewalk. It also brings you to the inside of the campus without encroaching Mrs. Cross's house who's still there. So, at that point, past her house or right out her house, it comes inside of the property and then people are protected from all traffic through the rest of the property into the quad and that sort of thing. There are future parking there. There'd be a sidewalk there, etc. Okay. I'd like to add to that, too. The phase one includes the main building that you see here that says connection and the uh administrative offices. The parking for those will be behind the building. It'll be here in the back. The parking that's shown here along the northern boundary, that's in a future site plan. It's not currently in the site plan today. And so that red dash line is intended to remove this sidewalk until such time as that parking is constructed. If that parking is constructed. So okay. And the the followup is if the the neighbor that's on the north that's requesting a modification of standard number two. Uh just since we're talking about delaying this and putting it out there, if you can maybe include that letter from that resident, I think that would be great to include in the future. And since I mentioned residents, chair, if I could ask one more question. Sure. I've actually received some complaints from some county residents that reside at uh 2534 St. James Drive and also 2530 St. James. And this is in regards to the
construction. And I know that Bill, I think you and I actually spoke on the phone and I know that the construction team is out there and they're trying to abide by all of the codes and ordinances that Franklin has in place. My only uh ask is because even though this is a county resident, we want to represent all that reach out to us is that you and your construction team and your project team make sure that we're still following all those guidelines and whenever possible to, you know, be the best neighbor possible as uh you move this forward. Yeah, glad to. Thank you. Anyone else? All right, I'll finish up with a few thoughts on the modification standard number four, the Lewisburg parallel sidewalk. I would not do that now. I think those dollars ought to be put in a bank for the city to use at a later date. Uh modification number three, that's the connection from Lewisburg all the way up to the building. That is the one I would I think needs to be done because you're going to have all the landscaping, everything done and nice along that road and then at sometime in the future tear it all back up to build a sidewalk. I think that one probably should be done now. And then modification number two, that northern cross connection. I don't, you know, we don't have a site plan for that northern property. May not ever get one, but there's no magic location to where that access needs to be. We just need access. I would move it down to somewhere where you're showing that proposed parking and that way the burden to you to build it is very small and then you've solved the problem. It's not a big burden on you to build it. We get access sometime in the future and you're using that area for parking until then. So that that's how it's solved number number two. Thank you. Anybody else? Sure. One more. Who on modification number four? Who would pay for the sidewalk if Lewisburg highways widen? Church.
Church would pay for it at that time. Church would pay for it at that time. It' be a T dot project. A T dot project. You know, we did the same thing on Hillsboro Road Franklin. It was renovated many years ago. Excuse me. We delayed the installation of the sidewalk because we made the road was going to have something coming down the pipeline eventually and that's when the sidewalks were installed. A lot of kids were miserable through those years because it took a lot longer to get installed than you know anticipated. There's nobody walking Lewisburg. No, but they are walking Frankly Hill Road frankly now. That's a little different. I understand. But I'm just saying we've done that before. Yep. Since that is a public sidewalk, we can investigate whether it qualifies for fees in lie of as well, which could then be used when the T dot project moves forward. All right. No one else. Good. Oh, one more. Then we need to move on. Thought about this, but yeah, kind of what you were saying for that sidewalk. I think um for the the long one from Lewisburg Pike to the building, what I don't want to happen is that they do the road improvements on Lewisburg Pike, maybe new development comes in, and then you have um you know, more people from that local area, going to church, going to kids activities where you have kids trying to, you know, go on their bike or walk down that thing in lane with traffic. So, I think from a safety standpoint, when you get to that point where you get people pedestrian, that you're going to really want it. Yeah. So that's helpful. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Item number two, discussion of development plan proposing 230 multif family units and two modification of standards, windows, and foundations on 7.03 acres located at the northwest corner of Interstate I65 and Goose Creek bypass at 2048 Goose Creek bypass. And this is the Goose Creek in PUD. Staff.
Um, yes, this um this PUD will most likely change names um the next by the next time that you see it. Um, but at present, staff are not supporting the two MOS requests um due to lack of information being provided at initial submittal here. Let me pull this up here. MOS number one is a request to allow windows and fiber cement to be recessed 3/4 34s in from the facade aso as opposed to the required 3 in. Staff requests that images of windows recessed at 3/4 in with the same material as proposed be provided so that staff can evaluate whether there's uh still a flat appearance along the facade or whether the proposed windows still provide depth and dimension along the facade plane. At this juncture, staff doesn't believe that a recessed window of only 3/4s in meets the intent of the zoning ordinance. MLS number two is a request to reduce the minimum finished floor elevation to zero as opposed to 18 in. Staff supports accessibility while meeting um the as much of the zoning ordinance as possible. So, we have to ask for more information. Um we have asked for more information on the location and the number of units where the MOS would apply. Staff also has some concerns when it comes to the elevations. While development plan elevations are conceptual in nature, the applicant did not address any of the architectural comments made by staff prior to initial submitt. The zoning ordinance requires facade facade variety and facade articulation for multifamily building types. The conceptual elevations do not differentiate facads so as to meet the requirements of the zoning ordinance. They do not appear to be comprised of two or more distinct adjacent buildings. As a result of the architecture not meeting the requirements of the zoning ordinance, the intent of Envision Franklin
is also not being met. Regional commerce areas have a high level of visibility along I65 and arterial streets, which are important gateways into Franklin. New development should have integrated designs and cohesive architecture that fits within the context of the corridor. and staff is concerned that the elevations that we've seen thus far do not rise to that level. Um while the applicant is did provide you with elevations, um staff has not had sufficient time to review and therefore I can't comment on the updates made. Um that's all for staff. Thank you. Applicant for this one. Hi again. My name is Greg Gamble and I'm representing Madison Capital. Unfortunately, my client had a situation tonight was not able to attend, but he's asked me uh since we're on the agenda to please proceed forward and um so I plan to do that tonight. Um this property was purchased by Madison Capital several years ago. This is not the first time you've seen or or discussed uh this property. They purchased it uh as a regional commerce 12 uh base zone district. They had an approved site plan for storage facility which their uh financing partner said they must proceed forward with. They knew that uh multif family was a byite use in the uh RC12. uh but by proceeding forward with the storage facility they lost that by right because then the storage facility was an existing development as opposed to proposed development and you can only utilize the multif family in the RC12 when you're proposing it along with other commercial uses. So, uh, they came to the plan commission, um, requesting special consideration
in Envision Franklin to allow for a standalone multif family development due to limited access, a restricted access from Goose Creek bypass, its proximity to the mixeduse development of Berry Farms Town Center, and that special consideration was approved. This is the circulation plan in this area. I know that the long lane flyover is not yet constructed, but it is um underway. Properties are being purchased. Uh there is a lot of residential or a lot of connectivity through the mixeduse development of Berry Farms. One unique thing about this property is that it does sit at the dead end of Old Paytonville Road. The access to Goose Creek bypass has been cut off. And to access this property, you don't have to drive through the residential portions of Berry Farms. Um, you come in through where the hotels are uh to access. So, the the other thing that is um special about this property is that it has really great pedestrian connectivity back to Berry Farms Town Center where people can walk to work, walk to the grocery store, ride their bike. It really is a part of the mixeduse community of of Berry Farms. This is the the property the aerial photograph as exists today. The area that you see here that's fully treed is a um waters of the state protected stream and has 60oot buffers on both sides of it. Those that tree canopy there will remain and that buffer adjacent to Berry Farms area will remain. The uh storage facility is under construction at the end of uh Old Paytonville Road and the proposed development will be where you're seeing some land disturbance. That's where they had a lay down yard when building the storage facility. This is the proposed site plan. You can see that
we have hidden the parking in the middle of the building and we've placed our amenities uh really at either end. On the north side of the building is a a swimming pool. um along with pool deck on the south end of the building adjacent to Goose Creek Bypass will be a pocket park uh tucked in between the the buildings in that location. Um after receiving some comments from staff, our architect said, "Let's take a look back at Berry Farm's precedence. Let's look at uh the mixture of um materials, uh the character of these buildings. We know that we want to have a flat roof on the building so it doesn't appear taller than it does as a a flat roof building. Um, this is the proposed architecture. You have uh additional photographs in front of you tonight. Sometimes the paper is a little bit easier to see than these screens, so I wanted to print them out for you on 8 and 1 half by 11 so you could see them. Uh, this is a corner angle taken from uh I65 and Goose Creek bypass. Looking back to the corner, you see the pocket park on the left side. Uh the next view is um uh kind of looking into that um pool area at the other end of the building. Um picking up on kind of where those amenities are. Uh some of the reasons why we want that uh finished floor elevation to be at the um ground level is 14 accessibility so we can have uh ADA accessibility in and out of the building. Um but also to kind of reduce the overall height by by that much as well. Um with that happy to answer any questions that you may have. Uh I guess first thing will you address the uh recess window concern of staff first? the recess window. Uh our architect um is working on providing some samples and some better photographs and some imagery on that.
I don't have that for you tonight at the joint conceptual workshop. Um and it may be that we um proposed an alternative, something different. So, okay. Anybody else comments on this one? Yeah, for the recess window, I know um a couple of developments through the city of Franklin uh especially on the board in Batten they'll have that a little more shallow like I know in uh North Mcuan those apartments there are certain areas um but I would say you know if if it is something you're requesting um kind of the images I see it's a lot of board bent and a lot of sighting so I'd say if you know it's going to be in areas there's areas that maybe it makes more sense but if you do the entire building like that it does kind of flatten it and you know with the current concern concern with staff and everything. So if they're looking at that, you know, there are certain areas, you know, the tower aspects, okay, but you know, the rest isn't necessarily brick where you naturally get that depth and the variety on the elevations. And I'm not an architect, but I understand there's some new code requirements that really require some additional insulation that kind of pushes that wall out a little bit further. There can be um not necessarily but sometimes they do put insulation outboard of the framing. Um and then that can give uh depending where you set your windows can give you a little bit more but not necessarily. I think we just need to sharpen our pencils and come back with a better answer one way or the other. So we'll do that. All right. Um, this is very highly visible on 65 and so I would just say um just I think you better get one of those those uh commercial pencil sharpeners and and pencil the uh the the it just doesn't I just is not really you know I think about that one that you're coming into Nashville it's the worst and it's the worst and everybody knows the worst and for the 30 years we're going to drive into Nashville. We're going to see that apartment complex and be like that's the worst.
And I don't and I don't want this is that kind of of location. Now that doesn't mean it can't be board and batten and it can't be three/4 of an inch recessed windows and whatnot. I just think there needs to be some attempt and effort put into by the architect to do something other than um what might be stood up in anywhere USA because this is just a prime corner and I think I think you understand that. I'm sure the applicant does as well. So that will have a big play in what um but scale I mean I don't have the units um readily available 230 230 you know this is not a bad spot for uh multif family in my opinion um right by the interstate uh I don't the use is not a problem I think it's the traffic's not a problem there either I don't believe um with the where it's where it's located I think it'll be work out fine but I think it's just a matter of making sure that this is right concept for the location. Okay, thanks sir. So this is uh right here in Ward 3 and I've met with several people and sat down with Madison Capital as well. Uh I've got big concerns for this corner. Uh so much so that when I sat down with them and saw the initial review that um I actually expressed my disappointment about how the storage facility looks on as you're approaching it driving southbound on the interstate and how it lights up and how it is a big box sitting right there. So I have expressed the challenge of uh I I don't like the MOS number one. I think it will look like a box if the windows aren't recessed. I've got concerns. I understand the need for MOS number two. Uh when you're looking at the backside where the pool is and things like that, but I've got concerns about
how if it's level with the floor, it's going to be very very boxy. And I've gone as far as after my meeting with Madison Capital, I actually reached out to staff and asked them to sit down and talk with staff about what can we do to make this building look more like the other buildings surrounding it. Barry Bole has invested a lot of time, energy, and effort on the design, theme, and look and feel of their buildings, and there's a great opportunity for this Madison Capital Group to have something very similar. But if it comes forward the way that it is, this is a gateway, and we're going to, as Alderman Bagot just referenced, for 30 years, I think it could be longer that we're sitting here looking at now two boxes with that have been poorly designed. So, um, with that, you know, we're also dealing with height concerns and ma and size concerns that massing. And I understand we're not talking about a 12-oot building. We're talking about a six-story building right here. But with what we've got right now, the concern when you exit going southbound and you look to your right, it's going to be two large structures and then it's going to open up. And I don't know if that's what we're looking for right now. So, I've challenged from the landscape architect side of it. How do we really get more more green, more life, more openness in that area right there? Maybe a little bit of a different design with some scaling, with some stacking and everything. Um, but these are things that are known that have been expressed to me and I want to make sure the planning commission hears it for me as the ward alderman for this gateway. Okay. Anyone else? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Item number three, discussion of a development plan proposing 184 dwelling units and 77,025 square ft of office commercial space and proposing four modification of standards signage building orientation on 20.33 acres located at 318 Franklin Road and extending to Harpath Industrial Court and
this is a Harbath Village PUD staff. Thank you. This loads really quick. There we go. Um so this uh project has been to one joint conceptual before but they are back um just to kind of uh review everything as well as some of the changes that have been made since the past presentation. Um as the vice uh chair mentioned this development does include 184 uh dwelling units for the multif family building style uh as well as over 77,000 square ft of commercial use. Um with that they are requesting four modification of standards. Three of them relating to signage uh one of them relating to uh building details. So the first MOS is for um to allow irregular shaped signage. Uh this one has been pretty common with past projects and we are recommending approval. Uh MOS number two is to is a request to allow one canopy sign per tenant and may be allowed to extend above or below the canopy. Currently, that's one uh canopy sign per uh per facade. Um so, this is one per tenant. MOS number three is a request to allow one vertical blade sign per commercial mixeduse building where residential is on upper floors over commercial and permitted if other hanging signage is present. Uh currently, that is one uh vertical blade sign per frontage uh located at an intersection and only when there is no other hanging signage uh located on that building. Uh MOS number four is a request to allow buildings to have frontage at an angle uh rather than parallel. And there is only one building uh on the uh development plan that has this specific request. Um it's just at an angle creates more of a green space in front of that building. So for the first MOS, we are recommending approval. For MOS numbers 2 through 4, we are recommending um
or we're not recommending anything at this point. We're requesting additional language or modifying language um for that modification of standards uh specifically for the signage to kind of um uh detail specific maximum number allowed and specific location uh for the vertical signs and for the MOS relating to uh building frontage and having that building at an angle. Uh just showing on the plan more details about how that space is going to be activated. Um, this did receive a preliminary recommendation uh of approval from the historic zoning commission. And just as a reminder, every signage um request still has to go through the uh historic zoning commission for a COA because this is in the overlay. Um so even with these MOS's, if they're approved, every individual sign has to go through our uh our historic zoning commission. Um let's see. There was a traffic study done uh with this plan and it does show failures in the surrounding areas. Uh there is a meeting scheduled with the developers and our engineering engineering department on Monday to discuss potential solutions. So specific questions uh to that I will direct you to Jimmy Weisman. Happy answering questions. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Applicant for this one. Hello. My name is Greg Gamble. I get three tonight. Um, and uh, I'm very excited about this one. Uh, our team has been working very hard and um, over the past uh, 9 to 10 months, we've had multiple meetings with the historic zoning commissioners uh, not only talking to the DRC but also the historic zoning commission. Uh, we've had multiple site visits and uh, really working to make sure we get this uh, dialed in correctly. the um uh portion of the property that you're seeing here in red, this northern part is within the historic uh overlay. There are three
additional properties that front on to Harpath Industrial Court that are not in that overlay. So, there's some distinction there as to what they have purview over. Um but we have been really uh listening and paying attention to uh their input and their conversation. Um at the uh beginning of 2025, the planning commission um adopted the factory district and included these properties as a part of the factory district. The green circle that you're seeing there in the middle is conservation policy to protect that hilltop. Shown here uh outlined in orange is the hilltop hillside overlay. The dashed orange line that's further out is the hilltop hillside buffer that 500 feet on top of this hill. Um during the Civil War was a what's called a Rodan. In the bottom two pictures, you can see those articulated on these uh Civil War maps. A Rodan is kind of a U-shaped fort. It had an opening uh on what you would consider the safe side and the defenses faced out. And so in this particular instance, they faced north. There were multiple roadans uh all throughout the city of Franklin around uh Fort Granger, around Roer's Knob, and this is one of the those locations. Um, my client hired an archaeologist to go out and metal detect the entire property. Um, they found square nails, they found uh, horseshoes. They did not identify with metal detector any Civil War related uh, artifacts. But they did discover on the church's property,
the church just to the north of us, not on this property, but just to the north, near the railroad tracks, a sistern that was constructed by soldiers uh for water during the Civil War. As a result, uh we are proposing to set aside 6.49 acres as park space. Uh we did approach the city of Franklin parks department asking them if they wanted us to consider this for a public park um owned and maintained by the city of Franklin and they at this time have said no. Uh so moving forward it would likely be privately owned uh maybe with public access uh over it. We do plan to have a trail head located closer to where there's convenient parking uh signage here that would kind of describe the history of the property and then uh walking paths up and around the hill. I imagine this would be a very attractive place for Fourth of July fireworks in the future. This proposal includes 77,025 ft of commercial. that commercial would include office, retail, restaurants, cafes, personal service uses, spas, day salon, salons, um, and also worker spaces. Um, my client owns one of the buildings, the commercial spaces at Jameson Station. They're smaller, uh, 3,000 ft² spaces. Those are very difficult to find in Franklin for small businesses. It's a lot easier to find a 25,000t office space to rent, but to find a 2500 foot, 3,000 foot, 3500t office space is very difficult. They're focused on uh those kind of users in these commercial spaces here and uh see that uh intentional relationship with the factory in the factory district. This does include 184 residential units, some for sale, some for rent. This is an elevation of uh one of the buildings.
Um there are a collection of three buildings that back up to the railroad track. These are sized um intentionally to resonate with Jameson Station's buildings. So here you have twotory town homes over commercial just like a Jameson station. The parking area for these buildings is located behind and alongside the railroad track. This drive here goes on the bottom floor of the parking deck. So, this deck extends all the way over. This goes uphill and then this drive accesses the top of the deck. So, uh the fire department has asked for an area of refuge that their trucks can pull into in the event that they need to fight a fire. And that's why the deck doesn't extend all the way over that area as well. It stops short. So, we have been working very closely with the city of Franklin's uh sewer, water, storm water, um fire department just to make sure that we've got something that they can endorse and support in the future. As we go down the block, oh, let me point out one thing real quick. Um, this building that you're looking at here sits on this corner and that is modification of standards number four where the building is not parallel to the street. Instead, we've pulled it back and we have an opportunity for public art for an open space. This could be um, you know, park space for residents to use as well. As we go then, um, this is a a view looking at the front elevation of these buildings. You see modification of standards number three over on the side of this building with that vertical blade sign that uh is really signage for the residential. Uh, you can see that vertical blade sign in this image as well. That's also that's that modification of standards number three.
So, this shows the attention to detail and the pedestrian level where we'll have uh the shops, the commercial uses. This is the middle building. Uh we've got an entrance drive to the parking deck on the left, an entrance drive to the parking deck on the right. Historic uh um zoning commission uh talked a lot about us breaking down the masses of the building, making this look like it's a collection of buildings built over time. And I think you can see that articulated uh in these images. Uh this building to the left is designed to be commercial on the ground floor with residential condo suites on the second floor above. In the middle of the image, you see a one-story kind of restaurant cafe building uh that might have um rooftop uh outdoor seating. On the other side of that then is uh some additional commercial space designed here with a little bit more of an industrial character. Envision Franklin uh factory district calls for uh industrial style architecture and so we're starting to see that to historic it was very important that we kind of transition from a more of a residential look and feel to that industrial. So, uh, as we start getting closer to Harpath Industrial, we start seeing buildings that really resonate more in the architectural character of the factory itself. Uh, pulling from the imagery of of Jameson Station in those elevations. So, you can start to see that the style of architecture moving from north to south is really kind of changes and evolves in this master plan. Uh, which is is very unique. Um, here we're maintaining three stories height. Um, we have garage access uh on the front elevation of this building. As we turn the corner then,
um, and now we're driving toward the hill. We're driving in toward uh the historic district. We have some pedestrian refuge area. This is a pocket park. It's a open space area. On the left side of this open space, we have access into the lower level of a parking deck. on the upper side. Then we have access to the upper level of the parking deck. There are no internal ramps in in this deck as well. The lower level of the deck is accessed from Harpath Industrial. The um uh upper level of the deck is then accessed from behind alongside the back here. So there's no internal ramps in there. We're using the land and the kind of the rolling hills of Tennessee to get that access to those parking areas. Um, with that, uh, I'm here with Evans Welburn, uh, with the ownership as well, and we're happy to answer any questions that you may have. All right. Thank you. Questions, comments? Anybody have anything on this one? Go ahead, Commissioner May. Um, walk me through how those parking decks operate. Again, you see there's no internal ramp. So if you if you enter the bottom then and there's no spots then you would need to pull back out and go around to the upper ramp then so you can't jerk it. That's right. But really the intent is that lower level of the deck is where we have parking for the commercial uses. Upper level of the deck really meant more for the residential. So I think you'd see some separation there. Okay. Just want to make sure I understood that. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh Mr. Mr. Scramble, just a quick question. You had said that you had offered uh the park to the parks department, but the parks department said no on that. We uh when we were going through the Envision Franklin, uh no, sorry, not that's not true. When we were going through the historic zoning commission and the DRC, the question came
up. So, we asked and they said initially, I don't think that we would want it, but I I mean, I'm sure anything's on the table if that conversation needs to proceed forward. Okay. Is that something from staff? Is that something that uh our parks department would be open to in the future or We can continue to have those conversations. Typically, it's regarding a size of the property and how much it c would cost to add maintenance costs and things like that. Um but we can continue to have that discussion with the parks department and see what their rationale is. Okay. And part of my question actually aligns with where the access drive is now onto Franklin Road. Um it leads directly across the street to uh Harllanddale. Um you know potential crosswalk right there uh access points. Um the other question that I have here is is there any consideration to redesigning the Franklin Road access the Franklin Road access road uh to run parallel to Morningside Drive. Uh that point on um Franklin Road is at the high point of the hill and has the best sight lines in either direction. Um I don't know when Morningside Drive was constructed. uh J may know, but it really doesn't have the accommodation for sightelines that uh would be appropriate to meet city standards. Yeah. The reason why I ask is I've seen uh in a couple of places around town, we have uh I think some signs that say maybe a blind driveway, you know, to slow down. Um, I I know I've looked at this before and actually made the recommendation that instead of putting the access road uh there and circling around or curving around the preserved park is to run it parallel to Morningside Drive. Uh, and then to have some type of signage that would have a
blind drive access as you approach as you come over that null area. But that's one thing that I would I would recommend as far as trying to preserve more of that park area so that the access road just doesn't go down the middle of it. And then the last question that I have is uh regarding the height of the buildings in the back. Will the three stories be the same height as the null height or will it be a little bit lower in the back? It's actually lower. Um and um we've produced a video that we can play that um uh actually shows a driveby going down Franklin Road. When we come to planning commission, if you'd like, we can play that video. If you'd like for us to play it at the Bulma work session, we can certainly do that as well. Okay. Thanks. Go ahead. Um tell us a little bit more about about the traffic. I mean, I I I think I see your point on the drive. I think if you went parallel with um Morningside, if somebody tries to get out on Morningside the same time, that that'd be difficult. Um so, I don't know if tying it into Morning Side's even an option or something to consider. Um but it's mentioned that the traffic study had a number of failures. Sounds like you're going to work through those, but could you give us maybe a highlight of of where those failures were identified at for right now? Matt Hatcher in Liberty Pike. Mac Hatcher and Liberty Pike and Liberty Pike. Oh yeah. Okay. Mac Hatcher and Liberty Pike. Mac Hatcher and Franklin Road. Okay. This is pretty far pretty far away from the project. Yeah. Are there other concerns, Jimmy? I don't want to overspeak or underse like we Sorry. There you are. There we go. Red means go. Um, red means go. Like u Joey mentioned,
we're meeting on Monday to to look at any and all solutions for for some of the impacts. A lot of it background simply just as more density around the city comes in, more people are coming to downtown, which is a good thing, but we want to get them here uh easily. So, um again, we'll we'll look at that Monday um and come back to planning commissioning board with with some solutions hopefully. And it would be helpful to know if if that traffic is is which component of this development. Is it the residential component? Is the commercial component driving more more of that traffic? That'd be really helpful to understand as well. Okay. We can break that out if you'd like. Go ahead. A few things. Uh thank you for saving the red. Appreciate that. It's a I don't think you had a choice because it's in the hilltop, but it's very gracious to do extended like you have done in areas where it was not necessarily required. And so that that's going to be nice. Uh whether it's public or private, it it's going to be a great asset to the community uh into this. The storm water location on the front side is a bit of a concern. I know when we start putting storm water in on the sides of hill slopes, it does change the the way of that the way that works. So, I don't know if that's if there's another location or staff guided you to that location or if there's a way, you know, you see what I'm talking about there. A Morning Side, the little triangle between Franklin Road, Morning Side, and then the new road. I do. As as planners, we don't um size all the storm water elements prior to submitting a development plan. It's conceptual, I'm sure. But I'm going to write that comment down. We'll have conversations with our civil engineer to see if there's there's a because you know what we have is we're coming in on Franklin Road and you know it's nice that nothing's developed there, but when you if you
come in you cut in and it's to have the whole and you have to build up to hold the storm water and it's a so there's pro if there's other locations on the site I think that would be ideal to keep that as as preserved as possible. The back of the building on Harpath Industrial There's a part of the deck where that seems to it might be exposed. I'd like to see make sure that the back of that building on the east side of the the deck there on Harpath Industrial that building that side needs to be you know aesthetically Yeah. Right there back one. So that deck is at the same one more back. I'm talking about a different this one right here. So if you look through those trees there Yep. Up up up up where the the Yeah, right there. So this actually shows you on the next slide here the top of the deck. And it is at the same elevation as the sidewalk and the same elevation as the three buildings that are around it, including the single family um one-story building that's on Morningside Drive. All of that is sits at the same elevation. where it changes is it it drops from that deck down to Harpath Industrial by a 10 or 11 ft. And that's why we're getting that other level of parking deck underneath the ground. Wonderful. I'm talking about the building on that deck and just making sure that doesn't look like like a back of house apartment complex back. I think that needs to look aesthetically congruent with the rest of the of the development cuz you're kind of coming in off Franklin Road. you're going to see that and I don't want it to look like a, you know, I think neither would the applicant. Um, the other thing was this traffic study. This is just a challenge because I I drive this road every day, multiple times a day, and there's Well, first of all, it doesn't look like there's any northern connectivity between uh I don't
staff could speak to that. There's no required northern connectivity here, but there is for uh for the church that was before us. So anyway, there's no northern connectivity on this one, but apparently it's required on Lewisburg. Anyway, we I I think that we've got a lot of lot of entry and access points that are coming onto Franklin Road. And then um Harper Industrial Morning Side, this new one, the church. Then you've got the factory which has uh well, you got the gas station. You got the factory uh where McCall's factory first entrance, factory second entrance, you know, you got seven entrances kind of in this or or places where people can come in and out of traffic or in and out of properties. And so northern north south connectivity is going to be really really important here. uh from Liberty Pike all the way up through for this thing to work in my opinion we we have to have north south uh connectivity is you can't have people however much this traffic study's saying is going to happen and I'm not worried it's the people coming in and out but the people who want to go from here down to the factory but they have to go out Harpath industrial and down to the first entrance and then back down to get to the deck like this is the kind of thing where for this factory district to work. There has to be northbound connectivity for something of this scale to be north. And um I actually like the direction all of this is is going. I think it actually works. But I don't know how we would be responsible if we didn't have north uh south connectivity all the way in planned for this in this entire area. This happens to be pretty big. um not it's not that many units as compared to other things we're looking at but it's it's a big shift and if we if we kind of have the factory north district and then you have factory south
district and the only way you can get to it is if you go out to Franklin Road and down and back I'm just seeing a headache and for for traffic um and now we need to encourage and and really require northbound and southbound uh connectivity and even up to the north to the church maybe Joey you can speak to that yeah if I could just clarify um a northern connection is required um and if it's up to the applicant if they wish to not have that connection that would be a modification of standards um there's a little confusion about that because that was previously an MOS and that has since been res removed from this complied with but it's just not on the plan understood um yeah so that that and then the last thing was the parking count standards I don't know. We haven't That's kind of the next level. This is just joint conceptual, but um I'm going to be really hesitant to like reduce any parking standards on something like this because of the real success of the factory district. And I think that that we've seen we've we've seen retrofitting of decks and at the factory. And I really hope that this uh is going to contemplate frankly if there is north and southbound connections and even if there's not the how popular this would be. So just making sure that we're we're it's it's going to be adequately parked. Thank you. Other than that, I think the architecture, everything looks great. Um came a long way. It did come a long way. All right. Anyone else? Okay. I have one final thought on this one. Uh, first question for staff. Morning sign drive public or private street? Private private. It is a private street. Okay. I'd be very careful making the two roads parallel because you'll have somebody taking a right turn and the next person taking a left turn at the same time. If
there was a an opportunity to improve Morningside Drive in in some manner and have that the primary ingress egress for both those developments, that would seem to be money well spent. All right, that's it. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Item number four, presentation of the Franklin Transit Master Plan Update. Staff All right. Good evening, Alderman and commissioners. This is my first time at the joint uh conceptual workshop. So, I will introduce myself once I can figure out how to get it into presentation mode. There we go. All right. Uh I'm Max Baker, multimotal coordinator with City of Franklin. Uh I am the staff liaison for the Franklin Transit Authority and also assist the city with bicycle and pedestrian concerns. Tonight I will be providing an update for you guys on the Franklin transit master plan. This is an effort that we've been undertaking since about July of last year. And um what is the transit master plan? It's a 10-year plan looking to address the mobility needs of the area and the growth related challenges that we experience. And we are ultimately trying to develop a 10-year concept of what capital investments we will need and what services we would hope to provide in regards to transit. So, like I said, uh kicked it off about July of 2025 and worked on existing conditions, really understanding how people were moving around the city of Franklin using transit, using their automobiles, how that might uh change as
a result of any policies that were in place or um growth that that might be occurring in the area. had initial outreach in fall and use that outreach to ultimately establish the vision and goals and objectives that we hope to accomplish with this study. We're about to embark on the second round of outreach uh that will be occurring really during the month of May and that will take uh flavor of a largecale public event that will be May 5th. Uh we're going to call it Taco Bell Transit and it will be hosted at the transit center in in uh downtown Franklin be having free tacos. So hopefully that will entice people to come out and talk to us about what what they hope to see Franklin Transit become in the future. Also going to be uh making an effort to get out and go where the people are. So uh going to a touch a truck event. We'll have the trolley out there and and have a booth. also have a booth at the state of the city. Try and try and engage folks there as well as radio and news outlets. Uh really really trying to to get out in in front of the people as much as possible as we develop the draft plan which we will bring back to this body and Bulma and planning commission over the course of the next several months and ultimate adoption. I believe I've got it later um in the slideshow, but I think it was August. So, what have we done to this point? Completed initial outreach. That was what I was talking about in the fall. Uh some of you participated in that. We did interview each of the aldermen that were wanting to participate, all of the uh Franklin Transit Authority board members. We had very targeted discussion groups.
These are with nonprofits and other uh you know very active users of the transit system. Uh we hosted community workshops three across the city and had public surveys, also surveyed the operators, the the staff of TMA who is the operator of of Franklin Transit as well as the writers of of the buses and on demand services themselves. And what we presented to them was just an understanding of what those existing conditions are, what that might look like in the future, and really what they hoped uh Franklin Transit to become over the course of the next 10 years. All of that distilled down to the vision and goal vision, goals, and objectives. These were approved by the Franklin Transit Authority and uh really really boil down to those core uh bubbles that you see, improve rider awareness and experience. These include um reducing barriers like uh the ability to pay for fairs using a mobile device or just increasing awareness of the different types of services that Franklin Transit offers. Providing accessible mobility for all residents and visitors. These are visitors from out of town, out of state, but these are also visitors that are coming to work that may just live in in the county nearby. Strengthen connectivity to local and regional destinations. This is working with our partners uh north of us we go and making sure that we have connections to Nashville or to Murphy'sboro or potentially in the future to even Spring Hill. Uh and then finally providing excellent management and oversight of public transportation system. This is really accountability and transparency. So investing in technology that not only lets us understand how our transit system is performing but holds us accountable to to the public dollar, right? Letting them understand where
we're performing well, where we're not performing well, we where we need to make more investment. So the adoption timeline this has been a very complicated process for me to understand but tonight is the joint conceptual workshop where we are letting you know that uh you know th this process is occurring encouraging you to participate or to uh let others know that they they really should uh participate in the May events that we are scheduling. We will bring back a draft of the master plan after we get those public comments incorporated into the master plan uh at next month's meeting and then we begin the adoption process of drafts and finals over June and July and ultimately bring it back to the Franklin Transit Authority for adoption in August. That was incorrect earlier. So, how do you stay informed? You can go to the Franklin Transit website or you can use the QR code here. Either we'll take you to a virtual room where we have all the technical memorandum and we'll ultimately have the draft plan and final plan for you to peruse. But with that, I will answer any questions you might have. All right. Any questions for staff here? No. Go ahead. The Bulma representative on the transit authority and this is the cliffnotes version of all of the wonderful information that has been uh assimilated um or assembled uh in in that process and I'm I'm excited about max and then the transit authority what we're doing some of the changes that will come from this but there's u do participate planning commission as well I mean this is a will have ripple effects for
this transit in our community and already some good information that has come out of it. So encourage everyone to participate. Thanks. Anyone else? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Item number five, discussion of a Mercerboro Road corridor planning study staff. Once this loads, get started. Too many pictures. Yeah. Hey. All right. Great. So, um I'm here to speak with you all a little bit tonight. At the last joint conceptual workshop, we as staff were tasked with investigating um going along, you know, down this road for a Murphy'sboro Road corridor planning study. So, I wanted to bring forward um some of the preliminary research that we've done just so you all can see uh everything that's happening in the corridor and put a lot of the information that we have in different maps and different layers within our online zoning uh information just here in one place so everybody can see we can have a kind of base knowledge um and then I'll bring forward some next steps for you all. Um so, let's go ahead and get started. So staff has brought forward a conceptual study boundary for this area um that we believe identifies an area of reasonable uh potential commercial redevelopment within the corridor. Um generally
it's from Matcher Parkway on the western side to the Clovercraftoft neighborhood um on the east. Now within this potential study area um the envision Franklin design concept is almost exclusively regional commerce. Um there is a small portion of civic and wreck which is fire station number two. Um however, as you can see, the vast majority is regional commerce. And within regional commerce, Envision Franklin supports uh obviously regional commercial uses, local commercial uses, um continuum of care, hotels, institutional uses, and mixeduse multifamily. Now, that's the Envision Franklin uh design concepts. However, the zoning districts are a little bit more diversified. Um there are four zoning districts. Civic institutional again the fire station. Um actually office residential is not on here. Uh that's my color blindness poking through. Uh that's just to the north um on North Chapel or North Royal Oaks here. Right near the residential um neighborhoods there is some office residential. Um the planned district here in the soft purple. Um, regional commerce 6 is the dark purple which consumes the vast majority of the study area as well as the general office here in blue. Um, the PUDs that do exist uh have some multifamily condos, some multif family apartments, there's some town homes and assisted living. So, the PUDs predominantly are uh residential of just a varying kind. Now, the land use is a wide patchwork. Um, we've broken it down a little bit for you as well. There is, uh, 28% of the study area is mixed non-residential. So, that could be anything
from retail to commercial um, just anything that's mixed together, as you would imagine with a lot of like strip centers. There's a mixture of uses. So, any type of development like that that does not have a residential component falls into mixed non-residential. um specifically retail uses uh takes second place with 26.4% of the study area. So that is in itself over 50% and then we drop down into office at 10. So the rest of the land use categories are significantly lower with over 50% being retail or some sort of combination of retail and commercial. Um, additionally, we wanted to bring forward just the height information uh that exists on the corridor. The vast majority there in the yellow has a six-story height limit. Um, and that coincides with the RC6 zoning districts. Um, the threetory area are the areas zoned uh general office CI and PD. Now, these height maximums have been consistent since at least 2008. Um, there was an additional stipulation in there um that they should not exceed 84 ft. Staff was able to identify six structures within the study uh area that are four stories um which are two hotels, two office buildings, a storage facility, and the senior living um at Somer. But there were no structures over four stories within the boundary. And um the hospital just outside the boundary area right over here um is seven stories. We also took a look exactly where the building footprints for the structures within this boundary are. There are 305 structures in the project area.
Um, and based on a lengthy drive around, staff was able to identify 10 uh either storefronts or structures that were available for rent um or for sale out of the 305. And if you'll take a look at exactly where these building footprints are located, you'll get an a little bit more information about how this corridor has developed or not developed. Um, since 2008, the 2008 zoning ordinance began restricting large parking lots with in frontages, so between the building and the road. So, as you can see, a large portion of the structures here within the study area have very large parking lots between them and the road, indicating that a lot of these were developed prior to those um ordinance and that that regulation being in place to limit the size of parking lots between a building frontage and the roadway. Pedestrian connectivity. Um, as we're all probably aware, I65 acts as a major, um, pedestrian disconnect for the east and west. Um, and you can see here with the dark lines, um, those are all where sidewalks exist today. So, you can see the inconsistency throughout the boundary area. Uh, so if we couple the lack of pedestrian infrastructure with the expansive parking lots that I just mentioned, um, it really does make non-vehicular travel both difficult and dangerous. Um, there is some continuous sidewalks here along Royal Oaks, both north and south. However, if you are walking to say Publix, um you can get near there, but then you need to walk along a non-sidewalk street
through an expansive parking lot that also does not have a sidewalk. Um so it really just makes pedestrian travel in the area very difficult. Um, additionally, the boundary does include five separate intersections within the city's high injury network from the city's safety action plan, which I'll be getting to in a little bit, which also identify not just lack of uh safety for pedestrians once they get onto a property, but the lack of safety for pedestrians along the roadway. So the safety action plan uh from 2025 does identify this area um as one of five high injury network corridors within the city. Now this corridor also does have um five high injury intersections within it. And of the five high injury corridors within the city, they cover only 7% of our roadway miles, but they also include 80% of all of our crashes. Um, and 76% of all of the fatal and serious injury crashes. Um, and this specific corridor does have our second highest annual average daily trips. So, there are a lot of cars moving. There are a lot of accidents in this area. Um, and if we want to encourage pedestrians to be out there, we need to make it safer. Um, the safety action plan does have a variety of different uh, recommendations and counter measures. Um, however, the vast majority are midterm and not exactly easy fixes. So, um, it really is a major component of this study is to look into how we can make this safer. We know that it is, you know, a T dot roadway. So that obviously complicates things but um it is a significant part of the research that needs to be done. So I do want to I just
highlight that this area has been a study priority for staff for many years. Um and if there's a majority interest from yourselves moving forward with a small area planning effort um we would like to just get started um because it has been on our radar for a while. So, in order for us to properly gauge um where we want to go with this and the direction from you all, as well as your fellow alderman and commissioners that are not here with us tonight, staff is going to put together a short survey for you just to gauge the priorities uh from yourselves as well as the direction that you would like us to take. So, um, our potential next steps again, obviously to send you out a survey to get some better direction, um, and further direction on how you want us to study this. We're looking to do that within the next handful of weeks. Um, and then begin public engagement. We will then come back uh with our findings and a draft Envision Franklin amendment this fall to uh be potentially put into Envision Franklin. um at the end of the year and then follow that up with however that uh amendment is crafted, potentially including any sort of um new ordinance or changes to the zoning ordinance for our annual zoning ordinance cleanup at the end of 2026. So, I will um leave these next steps up. I'm happy to answer any questions and just open it up. All right. Thank you. Okay. So, normally discussion is between the two bodies, but we had one resident show up and with a prepared statement on this topic and I'm going to show a little of grace and let him speak before we get into our discussion. So, Mr. Gra, if you come up,
state your name and address. Got a minute or so and then we need to get back to business. Hi. Uh, yes, my name is Clive Gro. Um, I live at 4240 Warren Road. I'm in the uh unincorporated county area near Cedar Cedarmont Farms. Um I'm a retired LA traffic engineer who has reviewed hundreds of traffic studies, but I feel obliged to inform you of a potential nightmare on Murphy'sboro Road. The biggest traffic problem Franklin has is a lack of east west road capacity across the I65 freeway. Mchuan Drive will be fully congested in 5 years when the Ovation Orium develop development opens. Liberty Pike and Mallerie Royal Oaks is slated for a massive widening from three lanes to five lane approaches in all directions. Murphy'sboro Road at the I65 overpass has desperately squeezed in more lanes and is still experiencing delays of 15 to 30 minutes during peak AM and P uh AM and PM hours with cues in the morning that extend all the way east to Cloverfield. Finally, we need to go three miles south to get to the next overpass at Goose Creek Bypass. So, what is in store for the future 2030 to 2035? Uh, there probably won't be any widening of the overpass. uh completed Ovation Orium and other developments will double the AM PM traffic and increase delays across the I65 overpass to 30 to 60 minutes. So, the city of Franklin thinks now
is a great time to consider reszoning this whole Murphy'sboro corridor and increase its density while not even considering the elephant in the room, the traffic. What happens if we approve the Murphy'sboro density corridor? 100% of the increased traffic generated by new developments stays on Murphy'sboro Road. And going from mostly onestory buildings to six stories, you're going to have a lot of increase. Delays on the overpass will at least triple. Picture a solid queue of cars from Arno Road all the way to public square resulting in thousands hour thousands of hours of miss family time for our residents and sadly the deaths of many heart attack and stroke victims who won't be able to make it to the adjacent hospital in time. Is this what you really want? If not, let's demand that any new development along this corridor cannot generate any additional traffic until the roads are widened and can accommodate it. Say no to any reasonzoning and no to increased density. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh, anybody have comments on staff's presentation? Somebody Nobody go. No, go ahead. Commissioner Williams, I think especially looking at this quarter from a pedestrian safety standpoint is excellent. Um because you do see quite a bit of people on foot, uh you know, walking on the grass in those areas that don't have it. Um and yeah, appreciation of the incredible I call it the gauntlet, you know, if you get get through the gauntlet. And so when you're on pedestrians, I think approaching it, you know, safety standpoint is huge. So back to the exception for public comment is it is that an exception but this isn't being reszoned to
six stories just so you know I think there there it now so what this is is a just so the public is is clear this is a a small area plan so that development is we have we have many other things other than density that we look at as you all know within a zoning ordinance or envision Franklin such as like is the parking in front of the building or behind the building? There are lots of things like that. And so this is not a reszoning lest anyone out there think that we're thinking about reszoning the entirety of of Highway 96 because of of various thoughts that have been expressed. So just very quick, we do small airplan. And it really is to make sure that our documents, our zoning ordinances, and our envision Franklin reflect the character of the area that we want to see um in the future if someone wants to do something. So already someone could build a six-story building anywhere in here. In fact, uh I would think just here's the first comment uh for the uh study is that six stories is is probably too high for for for a lot of this area out as you get away from from uh uh from Interstate 65. And so that probably is going to be addressed, I would think, and I think you'll hear that from the community. So I all my comments were because sometimes there's misinformation shared u uh widespread and so wanted to make that clear. Thank you. Very good. And for staff, this is a in-house uh study. Okay. Anyone else? Yeah. Uh I just want to say great job on the study. I think that what you've been able to break down. I really appreciate the number of overlays
and maps and everything that you've been able to put together. I think it's very telling when um when we look at the pedestrian connectivity, which is on slide eight, uh how how important having a plan and putting it together as we're looking at the future is. Uh, this immediately puts into scope the request that that I put in at the last Bulma meeting at South Royal Oaks and Macatcher was to add pedestrian connectivity right there at that intersection. Um, there is there's a lot of opportunity here. There's a lot of growth. I think that if we don't plan for the future, we're going we're setting ourselves up for failure. I think that uh also uh we had the recent installation of the median that goes along Highway 96 with restrictions of the U-turns at different intersections to make those improvements. We haven't even gotten the data yet on the improvements and decreases of what you have listed here on page nine. And it's going to take us a year or two for the police department, the traffic uh for that ranking to come back to us. And I think that's just a good example of how we're doing good improvements in these areas right now. And we're going to continue to do that. And I think that adding more sidewalks and widening some sidewalks and really creating multi-trail connectivity as we get closer to Machatcher is going to be extremely important. Uh this is a 10-year approach. I mean, we're in 2026 right now. We're looking at Machatcher improvements. It's going to put us out there at 2034. But we can't wait. We've got to have a plan now. We've got to start putting things into place. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks. When else staff, did you have anything else to add? All good. I would
just say be on the lookout um on your city emails, particularly for um a informal survey. We normally take forward a resolution to undertake a special study um that is ultimately either approved by the planning commissioner or the board. But because the board, the planning commission, and staff seem to be all aligned and moving this forward, we're just going to do an informal survey, make sure everybody's on the same page. We'll have some additional questions about priorities. And also, if you're interested in a stakeholder interview as we go into the process, um, but it'll be a very short survey, so we'd appreciate you getting on that soon as you can when you receive it. Thank you. All right. Thanks. Any other business? None. This meeting's adjourned.
This transcript was automatically generated from the official public meeting video and is presented unedited. It reflects remarks made on the public record by elected officials, staff, and public commenters. Transcript accuracy may vary; view the original recording for reference.