The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
The Parker at Somerset rehabilitation center won Zoning Board of Adjustment approval for its plan to re-stripe its parking lot and create an outpatient rehabilitation facility at the September 7 Board meeting.
Meanwhile, a township couple wishing to build a home for themselves was told to return to the Board in October with more detailed plans.
Parker’s experts told the Board that more than enough parking – including an excess of handicapped parking – would be provided in its lot.
The out-patient facility will replace the center’s in-patient tactility, the Board was told.
“There will be no changes to the outside, only internal renovation,” Josh Hanrahan, the company’s engineer, told the Board.
Tanvi Desai, Parker’s director of rehabilitation, told the Board that the center services about 100 Franklin Township residents, and that outpatient rehabilitation services are also provided in patients’ homes.
The couple wishing to build a home on Battle Place, Venkateswar and Padmaja Vakkalagadda, was told that they needed to return to the Board to show new architectural drawings, and to show some proof that they had contacted neighboring property owners to see if they wanted to sell their land, or buy the couple’s.
The new drawings are needed because the project was slightly redesigned after the plans had been submitted to the Township.
The project needs variances from Township codes on sideyard setback and total lot coverage; the proof of the couple looking to buy neighbors’ land or sell theirs is a necessary component of getting those variance applications approved.
The couple wish to build a two-story, four bedroom home with a one-car garage at Battle Place and Davis Avenue. The land is currently vacant.
The house was redesigned to give it a smaller footprint and give the couple more of a backyard, the Board was told.
“It won’t be the largest house in the neighborhood, but that’s OK,” said Marc Leber, the project’s engineer.
