Planning Board

LEADING THE DISCUSSION – Mark Healey, the Township’s Principal Planner, at the March 26 Planning Board meeting,where a proposed Master Plan reexamination and BI Zone ordinance amendments were discussed. The Township cannot legally outright ban future warehouse development in Franklin, but officials hope actions that are planned for the next few months will give planners more control over where they …

TRAFFIC TALK – Matthew Seckler, the traffic engineer for a two-warehouse project on Veronica Avenue, testifies to the Planning Board at the March 5 hearing. Two warehouses measuring 75,000 square feet each were approved by the Planning Board for a tract of land on Veronica Avenue on March 5. The two warehouses will be located on a 17-acre site next …

NOT PERSUADED – Planning Board Chairman Michael Orsini was not convinced that the Board should vote on final site plan approval for a proposed three-story mixed use building on Hamilton Street. A three-story mixed-used building targeted for Hamilton Street was given preliminary approval by the Planning Board at its February 19 meeting. The building, planned for a half-acre parcel between …

MAKING HIS CASE – Keith Cahill, the project engineer for Onyx 789, makes a point during the January 15 Planning Board hearing. A revised plan to build a 91,000-square-foot warehouse on a tract of land between New Brunswick and Old New Brunswick roads received a chilly reception January 15 from the Planning Board. The new plan represents an attempt by …

PROJECT ARCHITECT RETURNS – Lawrence C. Johnson, the architect for the Macedonia Church, describes changes to the plan at the November 6 Planning Board meeting. It took a couple of years, but congregants at Macedonia Church of God in Christ International finally received Planning Board approval to build a new church. The unanimous decision at the Board’s November 6 meeting …

PARKING TESTIMONY – Jay Troutman, the church’s traffic engineer, makes a point during his testimony at the October 16 Planning Board hearing. After being told twice in the past two years to return to the drawing board, representatives of a Booker Street church on October 16 seemed to present a plan for a new building with which Planning Board members …

CONSIDERING HIS OPTIONS – Planning Board member Ted Chase said he could not see the advantage of a conforming piece of land being divided into two non-conforming parcels. Two applicants before the Township Planning Board were turned away at the Board’s August 7 meeting. One applicant who wanted to split a large lot in two to build a single-family home …

ARTIST’S RENDERING – This 18-unit apartment building is planned for several lots located across Hamilton Street from Sophie’s Bistro. Autumn leaves will bring yet another applications for a Hamilton Street-based apartment building to the Planning Board. The Board on October 6 is scheduled to hear the application of Hamilton Street Management, which wants to build a three-story mixed-use building at …

TRUSTEE TESTIFIES – Severina Edward, a church Trustee, told the Planning Board the Church felt it needed the larger building to accommodate future growth. A Booker Street congregation that has been trying to get a new church approved for more than seven years will have to wait a little bit longer. The Planning Board on July 10 made it clear …

STUDY DESCRIBED – Dave Roberts, a planner with Bright View Engineering, discusses the results of the company’s traffic study at the Master Plan Community Meeting on June 27. Traffic conditions at eleven of 14 key intersections in the township’s Business and Industry Zone are bad and will get worse when all currently approved warehouse projects are operational, an engineering consultant …