About this meeting
- Government Body
- Planning Commission
- Meeting Type
- Planning Commission
- Location
- Franklin, TN
- Meeting Date
- March 26, 2026
Transcript
10 sections
Welcome to the March 26, 2026 Franklin Municipal Planning Commission meeting. We'll begin with roll call. Commissioner Harrison is absent. Commissioner Allen present. Commissioner Franks present. Commissioner Lindseay is absent. Commissioner Ore is here. Commissioner Man here. Commissioner McLemore present. Commissioner Williamson present. Alderman Peterson here. All right. This time is open for citizens to be heard on any issue or concern. If you would like to speak or on a specific topic that's on our agenda, please wait until the citizen comment period for that item occurs. For all citizen comments, please fill out a speaker card and hand it to staff. Come up to the microphone and state your name and address and limit your comments to two minutes. Is there anyone here that would like to speak on an item not on the agenda? Okay. Yes. Come on up to the podium. State your name and address. Yes. And the item you're speaking on is not on our agenda tonight. Correct. Correct. It's not. Okay. Um, but I'm here to make public comment about um, so, um, my name is Benjamin Liskkey. Um, and my home address or the address I want to talk about or not home address. Home address 5616 Oaks um, Brentwood 37027. Yeah. Mhm. Okay. Okay. So, I work here in Franklin as a teacher and I'm here to present a concern for the safety of my students and the local community as a whole um as pertains to Meridian Boulevard in Cool Springs. The area that area there, as you may be aware, of course, uh construction is currently in progress. Yes, on the right turn lane from Kurther's Parkway southbound onto this street, presumably to relieve traffic congestion on Kurthers. By all means, we should strive for efficiency. However, this development does underscore a crucial issue on
Meridian Boulevard itself. So, I and the people I work with have personally witnessed several incidents of reckless speeding and perhaps worse wrongway driving on Meridian. So, my worry is that the addition of the turn lane will exacerbate the former problem and make the latter even more of an issue when that happens. Right. These troubles present concerns of course for the safety of the streets considerably multimodal users as you know that development uh is very pedestrian friendly especially for our our kids. So given this I have a list of potential considerations to bring to the department as I have some possible solutions here um to confront these problems. One signage indicating wrong way for cars going east and westbound lanes. Two yellow paint around the median to signal direction change. Three adding guidelines for left turning vehicles onto meridian. Four, removing parking spaces too close to the intersections, particularly a couple of visitor spots on the north side of the stretch by the parking lot between 2000 and 2550 meridian. Five, raising the crosswalks. And finally, six, adding transverse rumble strips on the westbound lanes closer to K others. So those are my considerations. Um, I hope that you're willing to hear these considerations and bring them forward. So, all right. Thank you. Could you leave your contact information with Katie up there and we'll have someone from our engineering department get that list from you? Okay. Thank you. All right. Our next item would be the approval of the minutes and this is the consideration of the February 26, 2026 commission minutes. Second. All right. Have a proper motion and a second. Any discussion? Any items need to be pulled or edited? None. All right, let's vote. Uh,
Commissioner Harrison is absent. Commissioner Allen, I. Commissioner Franks, I. Commissioner Lindseay is absent. Commissioner Ore votes I. Commissioner Man, yes. Commissioner McLemore, I. Commissioner Williamson, I. Alderman Peterson, yes. All right, the eyes have it. The minutes are approved. Announcements. Staff. Good evening, commissioners. Um, I have a couple of announcements tonight. I just wanted to give you another reminder about the April 1st um, officials training that our law department is conducting. That'll be April 1st from 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Might wrap up a little earlier. We'll see. um in the police uh community room at the police department. Um we'd love for you all to attend. Please make sure you've accepted the invite on your city emails or at least notified uh Katie and our department if you plan to come and are having issues with your city emails. Um and then make sure you've ordered your lunch. Um and then also on April 28th at the Bulma work session, uh we will have a presentation of the Williamson County Association of Realtors housing study that was conducted. Um so we're inviting all the commissions if you're able to come out and attend that and hear that presentation. I think it would be really worthwhile to a lot of the things that we consider here during this commission meeting. So, I'd encourage you to come to that if you're a available. And then just one last reminder from our communications department is to when you do speak, just speak into the mic, even if you have to lean up a little. And I will do my best um to make sure I turn them on, but give me a second sometimes to get them turned on for you. If you notice it's not red,
just speak up and say, "Hey, my mic's not on." Thank you. All right. Thank you. Our next item is the consent agenda. This is the consideration of items 3- 16 and 19 through 23. Uh, do I have a motion? Move for approval. Second. All right. Have a proper motion and second. Anybody would like to pull an item from the consent tonight? No. All right, we'll vote. Uh, Commissioner Harrison is absent. Commissioner Allen I. Commissioner Franks I. Commissioner Lindseay is absent. Commissioner O votes I. Commissioner man yes. Commissioner McLemore I. Commissioner Williamson I. Alderman Peterson yes. All right. The eyes have it. Consent agenda passes. The next item will be number 17. Consideration of a resolution 2026-12. Resolution amending the middle eight pud subdivision to extend the vested rights for the property located at uh east of Franklin Road and south of Liberty Pike located at 209 Old Liberty Pike. Staff, thank you. The request is to extend the vesting period for the middle 8 PUB subdivision for three years uh till August 8th of 2029 to allow the part the applicant to secure any necessary permits and commence site preparation. The development plan for the middle 8 PUD was approved by the board mayor alderman on August 8th 2023. The plan includes 38.191 units per acre and 3,000 square ft of non-res non-residential space for a site that is composed of 7.2 2 acres. Staff recommended approval with conditions of the overall development plan. Bulma approved the development plan by a vote of 8 to zero. One modification of standards was
approved with the development plan to modify minimum parking standards with the following. 1.02 spaces per studio unit, 1.02 spaces per one-bedroom unit, 1.89 spaces per two-bedroom unit, 2.76 spaces per three-bedroom unit. The current status of the plan. A site plan for the development was approved by city staff in October of 2024, but the developers have yet to pull any permits or or for the site or commence site prep. If the vesting period is not extended, the project entitlements would cease to exist. Stop work orders would be issued. A new development would need to be approved and would be reviewed against the current local development standards. In reviewing the plan against current city regulations, the plan generally complies. Difference in today's zoning ordinance versus their vested ordinance are minor and could be incorporated into the design without major changes to the plan. A new parkland agreement and new certificates of appropriateness from the historic zoning commission would need to be approved for any new plan. A new and updated traffic study would also be required should the project lose its vesting. Staff recommends that the planning commission recommend to the board man alderman to approve resolution 2026-12 should they determine that the continuation of vested rights is in the best interest of the interest of the community. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Anyone from the public like to comment on this item? All right. Seeing none, do we have an applicant? Hi there. My name is Yates Baitman. I'm the applicant for the project representing Truland, the developer. Uh I'm the civil engineer for the project as well. Um happy to answer any questions, but just wanted to be clear that the project is still um proceeding. teams are just working through the um the difficulty in the financial markets right now and are asking for more time
um to execute the vision uh that was previously approved. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Have a motion. Motion to approve. Second. All right. Have a proper motion in a second. Any discussion? No. Everybody agrees? All right. We'll vote. Uh, Commissioner Harrison is absent. Commissioner Allen, I. Commissioner Franks, I. Commissioner Lindseay is absent. Commissioner Ore votes I. Commissioner Man, yes. Commissioner McLemore, I. Commissioner Williamson, I. Alderman Peterson, yes. All right, the eyes have it. Uh, resolution 2026-12 passes. Our next item is 18. Consideration of ordinance 2025-54 an orders to reszone 202.6 acres to revise the hillside Hillrest Overlay HHO district boundaries for the property located south of Match Memorial Parkway and east of Franklin Road at 354 Franklin Road. Staff, thank you. Uh you all may remember this came to our uh was on the agenda for last month and was deferred to this month. Um between this last p the past meeting and this meeting um the applicant has revised their uh proposed HHO line to match the um uh recently updated conservation design concept line uh fully for the property. So staff is now supportive of the uh recommendation and we are recommending approval of ordinance 2025-54. And just as a reminder, um this does give additional buffer to the residents um or the residential lots along um Ash ash drive. So happy to answer any questions. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Is there anyone
from the public like to comment on this item? Please come forward. State your name and address. Good evening. My name is Elaine Harrison. I live at 322 Ash Drive and I have been opposed against this project from 6 years ago, ever since it started. I have been there since 1972. When we moved there, the land was not buildable. They said we couldn't build on it. So, I don't understand why you all are giving them the chance to do it now. And to me, I still against whatever you all are trying to do back there that's going to affect my property. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Uh staff, would you mind addressing her one comment about whether that land is buildable or not? Sorry. Yes. Um to address the concerns of whether or not the property as a whole is buildable or not. Um on this map you can see in the dark green area that is the area that is in the HH. So in that large area not the complete property but in that large area there's not anything that's allowed to be built. But beyond that closer to the railroad and closer to Macatcher that property is outside of that HHO area it's within the buffer. So if there's still steep slopes in that buffer zone, they can't build. But if there is not steep slopes, they have the potential to build in that area. What they can build today is a state residential lots. So that is all that's allowed today by zoning. So that what you are considering today is that area of nonbuildability. Is that a word? It is ma'am. Where that line is shifting.
Okay. Does that help? Yes. Thank you. Uh any additional comments from the public? None. Do we have an applicant? Hi, my name is Greg Gamble and I'm representing the applicant. Um I provided to you an aerial photograph that shows you the existing tree canopy lines. the purple line that is now the hilltop hillside overlay line addressing uh the requests that um the conditions I think that staff had on our resubmitt. So we've made that change u resubmitted. Happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Do I have a motion on this topic? Motion to approve. All right. Second. Have a proper motion and second discussion. Just to say one thing. If if we're if we're looking at the thing that was handed out, the uh I want to say the purple line there really kind of does not does not touch the um parts of uh that come up off of Ash Drive. This has been a problem that Amy and I have been working with over the past um several months. The Williamson County GIS has shown incorrectly. The map in your hand shows the actual survey and those property lines go all the way to the historic stone wall which is at the line of the trees. It's just this little GIS map is incorrect. Um Ash Drive has a 100 foot rightway. If you look on the map that's on the screen here, it shows a 50ft ride ofway. So the lines are just off. It just is a GIS error. And I could let you know that when Greg brought this to my attention, I tried to reach out to the county and ask for clarification, but I have yet to talk to them. So, I'm trying to solve it.
But what staff is confident of is that the line where it hits to the north. The goal was that it captures the tree canopy, captures the stone wall, and that's what their survey points do say. So, staff's confident with where they're showing the line to be. That's right. All right. The just to be even more specific, the line is on the north side of the historic stone wall, not the south side of the historic stone wall. So, the historic stone wall is in the area of the HHO conservation line. Okay. Go ahead. Um, I just want to say I had the opportunity since our last meeting to go out and drive the property and and it provides a very different perspective than what you can see on a map. Um, and I I think that is what allowed me to be get comfortable with approving the new HHO. Um, interesting. I I know we extended it being extended down the the stone wall. Um, I I actually think that um that might not be the proper use of an HHO because I don't don't think the stone wall qualifies, but I'm going to support it because it still meets the desired outcome here. Um, but I would note that I think this the property where the stone wall is is located in the central Franklin overlay which requires stone walls, historic stone walls to be preserved. So, this is kind of an extra protection. Um, but I did want to call that out. But, um, that's why I'll be supporting this. All right. Any additional discussion? Anyone? No. All right. Other than I'm happy. No. Well, we have a a proper motion in a second. Discussion's over. Let's vote on this this item. Uh, Commissioner Harrison is absent. Commissioner Allen, I. Commissioner Franks, I. Commissioner Lindseay is absent. Commissioner Ore votes I. Commissioner Mann,
yes. Commissioner McLemore, I. Commissioner Williamson, I. Alderman Peterson, yes. All right, the eyes have it. Uh, ordinance 2025-54 is approved. Any new business? Any other business? All right. Would anybody like to pose an adjournment? So move. I got a proper motion in a second. Uh all in favor say I. I. I. I. We're done.
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.