Downtown Franklin zoning to be updated to protect historic character

To protect Franklin’s historic character and control demolition, city officials are now starting the process to update downtown zoning.

The city council approved an amendment process on Aug. 5 for changing the area’s zoning requirements. Possible changes include implementing enforceable policies for design standards and best practices from other communities.

Developers have flocked to Franklin’s downtown district with residential projects like 150 South Main and Newkirk Square and businesses continue to open. With those new investments, an amendment to downtown’s zoning ordinance has become necessary.

Now that the process has been initiated by the council, city officials and other members of the community will begin looking at existing regulations and other examples of ordinances to see what makes sense for Franklin. A draft ordinance amendment will come to the plan commission and city council at a later date with public hearings.

The conversation on updating downtown zoning came up when stakeholders from Franklin Heritage and Discover Downtown Franklin spoke with city leaders about changes to downtown. In June, members of both groups and city officials including Senior Planner Joanna Tennell gathered to talk about how they could protect downtown Franklin, and it was determined that changing zoning regulations for the downtown overlay district would be the fastest and easiest change.

Glenn Faris, the history and preservation coordinator for Franklin Heritage and member of Discover Downtown Franklin’s design committee, said the groups want to protect against things like developers tearing down buildings unnecessarily and building construction projects that are out of place with the downtown district’s historic character, he said.

“We’ve seen a lot of change and a lot of investment in our downtown in the last 20 years so now it’s feasible that a developer … could tear down a whole block of buildings and put whatever he wants to within zoning regulations in and the city couldn’t do anything about that,” Faris said. “We’ve seen that in other communities, where they’ve leveled parts of their downtown for no great reason. So, (making amendments to the zoning is) more protectionary than being reactionary.”

He said taking this step can ensure “smart growth” while protecting the city’s history.

“Growth happens and Franklin’s been a great example of growth happening around the city, and we know like everything’s gonna keep changing, things are gonna grow, so we just want to be in charge of some smart growth and get some guidelines for what we want to see … ” Faris said, “and say you know Franklin’s really known for our historic downtown, so what can we do to make sure that that stays part of who we are as we grow and incorporate all these other parts of business into our downtown?”

Council member Todd Shuck brought the issue up to the city council after Discover Downtown Franklin and Franklin Heritage approached him with their concerns about downtown zoning.

“Their main concern, which also triggered my emotions, was we have a beautiful downtown and we’d like to keep it beautiful and flowing in the same manner that we’re used to. It seems to be that Franklin now is a destination as opposed to years ago it was a place where people just came, visited and left or go through, they didn’t stop,” Shuck said. “So our concern or their concern was as we continue to grow in the downtown area and also new buildings or renovations of buildings and so forth, we want to make sure all of those flow with the same type of design we currently enjoy and apparently that wasn’t the case.”

Tennell gave an example at an Aug. 5 city council meeting of two downtown projects, one of which was more consistent with other downtown buildings than the other. Through amending the zoning ordinance, city officials could make sure future developments maintain downtown’s character, she said.

“There’s been a lot of investment in downtown when getting structures that were dilapidated brought up to not only code but also the historic character that Franklin is known for,” Tennell said at the Aug. 5 council meeting. “And in addition … we have a couple of projects that are brand new, projects that should this have been in place, they could still build their projects, they would just have standards of what sort of features they would have to provide, which is also beneficial to go into a project knowing that you need to provide cornices or extra features, that they aren’t going in blind.”

Amending the zoning would also help city officials enforce regulations. Although the city does have a section in the zoning ordinance that deals with the historic district, Faris and Tennell said the regulatory language was removed and more suggestive language was added instead. Faris said the amended ordinance would be more strongly worded and comprehensive.

“So a lot of what we’re doing is just going back through that ordinance and updating the language so that it’s enforceable so it’s you must do this, not you could or should do this,” Faris said.

Another goal of the amendment is looking at other communities with similar zoning ordinances and seeing what best practices are among those communities, he said, alongside what is different about Franklin that should be updated or protected.

Although members of Franklin Heritage and Discover Downtown Franklin originally wanted to create a historic preservation commission, or HPC, city officials said it would be easier to use existing legislation and government bodies to update zoning laws than to add another layer of government.

Despite the city not having an HPC currently, Faris said he still hopes for one in the future.

“Franklin Heritage and Discover Downtown Franklin are 100% on board for pushing for an HPC eventually for Franklin, we’re not letting that dream go,” he said, “But this (amending the zoning) is something that we know we can accomplish now with our partnerships with the city, so it’s like the next best thing for us in this moment.”