The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
The township Planning Board on January 21 moved the township’s proposed affordable housing plan along through a series of technical votes.
The votes affirmed the Board’s finding that five projects were consistent with the Township’s Master Plan. The projects were delineated in five ordinances that were introduced by the Township Council at its January 13 meeting.
The Board’s actions were the latest steps in a process that will finalize Franklin’s so-called fourth round affordable housing obligation to provide for the construction of 659 affordable housing units between now and 2035.
The next step is the Council’s final adoption of the ordinances at its February 10 meeting.
The five ordinances delineate four sites that were arrived at through a study and negotiation with a builders’ industry group and the Fair Share Housing Center, and one site that was ordered to be included by a Superior Court Judge when the plan was in its mediation stage.
The ordinances voted on by the Planning Board were:
- 4489-26, which creates inclusionary zone MFIZ-4 and provides for the construction of a 260-unit apartment building at 315 Davidson Avenue, with 130 units set aside for affordable housing.
- 4490-26, which creates inclusionary zone MFIZ-2 and provides for the conversion of a 5-story office building into a 200-unit apartment building, 100 of which will be affordable housing.
- 4491-26, which creates inclusionary zone MFIZ-1 and provides for the conversion of an extended stay hotel at 260 Davidson Avenue into 142 1-, 2-, and 3-bedroom units, all of which will be affordable housing.
- 4492-26, which creates inclusionary zone MFIZ-5 and provides for the construction of 55 apartments where strip malls now exist on Route 27, 20% of which will be affordable housing. This was the project added by the judge.
- 4493-26, which designates 606-610 Franklin Boulevard as an “Area in Need of Redevelopment,” and provides for its redevelopment into 120 units of affordable senior housing.
Objectors to the plan, who were heard during the mediation stage, would have added more than 1,000 affordable housing units to the Township’s plan “that we were successful in demonstrating that we did not need to include to make our fair share obligation compliant,” Planning Board chairman Michael Orsini said.
The fifth development, he said, “gets rid of a couple of strip malls that are, I don’t know, underutilized, but you know, actually is a positive.”
The site is “basically surrounded by and adjoins another cluster residential zone,” said Mark Healey, the Township’s principal planner. “So, it’s really going to be kind of a continuation of an existing apartment complex at the same density.”
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