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Elements for a list of topics related to the township’s Master Plan were discussed at the February 4 Planning Board meeting.
Mark Healey, the Township’s Principal Planner, will collate those comments and bring them to the February 18 Planning Board meeting for a public hearing and further refinement.
Towns in New Jersey are required to review their Master Plans and zoning regulations at least every 10 years. The last time Franklin’s Master Plan was reexamined was 2016.
Among the topics discussed by the Board were:
- Addressing the Township’s sidewalk fund, specifically transparency in how it is managed, and the use of it to fill “sidewalk gaps” in areas of Franklin.
- Adding trails in certain parts of the township.
- Exploring whether public safety can be added as an element of the Master Plan.
- The use of drones in the township.
- Traffic calming measures.
- An assessment of Franklin’s cultural assets and identity.
- Tightening cluster zone regulations. Cluster zones allow for higher-density residential development on certain parcel sizes.
“When we come back in two weeks, Mark will have his list, and then we’ll discuss priorities,” Board Chairman Michael Orsini said.
“And then we’ll have time to have work sessions,” he said. “I think then at a subsequent meeting, so we can give it the right amount of time, maybe some meetings in March. I’ll have a draft priority list, and we’ll start, that should be first priority, that should be third priority, and we’ll move it around, and then we’ll have a to-do list for the next year or so.”
“At the February 18th meeting, we’re going to have two hearings,” Healey said. “One’s going to be this master plan reexamination. The other is going to be adopting the amendments to the fair share plan.”
“We could easily get into the weeds of how to solve some of these problems,” Healey said. “What I would suggest generally is, the purpose of this document is to basically identify those issues and say, well, we should look at this and that and this.”
“You know, this is first priority stuff, this is second priority stuff,” he said. “And over the course of however long it takes – it’ll probably, you know, take the better part of a year or more – we’ll go through and draft different draft ordinances and send them along to council for their consideration. And again, you can decide which ones are more important, which ones are less important.”
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