LEADING THE WAY — Township Planner mark Healey steered the Planning Board through the changes to the Master Plan’s cluster ordinance at the Board’s October 7 meeting. The Franklin Township Planning Board voted unanimously October 7 to endorse proposed changes to the township’s cluster subdivision regulations, following a discussion about the potential drawbacks of clustering homes and the responsibilities associated with maintaining preserved open space. The changes, contained in Ordinance 4517-26, would give the Planning Board greater flexibility in approving cluster subdivisions, including allowing reductions in minimum tract sizes and preservation requirements under certain circumstances. The seven Board members present voted to find the ordinance consistent with the township’s Master Plan and recommend it to the Township Council. The discussion was part of the Board’s continuing Master Plan re-examination, which began in February. New Jersey municipalities are required to re-examine their Master Plans at least every 10 years. Franklin last completed its review in 2016. Cluster subdivision regulations were among several areas the Board identified for review in February. Cluster subdivisions allow developers to build homes on smaller lots than conventional zoning would otherwise permit while preserving other portions of the property as open space. The overall number of homes permitted on the property generally remains unchanged. Township Principal Planner Mark Healey told the Board that the proposed changes would eliminate contradictory provisions in the existing land development ordinance and encourage greater use of cluster subdivisions. “In certain ways we’ve provided more flexibility and more encouragement to encourage developers to use cluster subdivisions,” Healey said. He said clustering supports several goals of the township’s Master Plan, including reducing infrastructure, impervious surfaces, stormwater runoff, land disturbance and tree removal. Board Chairman Michael Orsini supported the changes, saying they would provide flexibility that has been lacking under the existing regulations. “Yeah, this is a good idea because it gives us some flexibility that we didn’t have before,” Orsini said. “We’ve had a recent application where we wanted to do that, and I had to twist arms just to get a concept out of them.” Orsini said the changes would provide an overall benefit to development patterns in Franklin by allowing land to be preserved while giving developers and the Board more options for arranging residential lots. The Board’s endorsement came before a discussion initiated by Vice Chairman Charles Brown, who questioned whether the benefits of cluster subdivisions might be accompanied by problems that had not been adequately considered. “You’ve expressed very clearly to me the benefits of cluster subdivisions,” Brown told Healey. “I haven’t heard anything about the potential downsides to cluster subdivisions and I just want us to be more aware of what those would be.” Brown raised concerns about potential conflicts among residents living closer together, as well as maintenance responsibilities for the undeveloped portions of cluster subdivisions. “Even though it doesn’t increase the density, there is closer social friction that could happen due to the clustering of the properties,” Brown said. Healey questioned whether smaller lots would necessarily lead to conflicts among neighbors. He noted that conventional zoning in some of Franklin’s rural districts requires lots of five or six acres, while clustering could reduce individual lots to two or three acres. In the R-40 zone, clustering can reduce lots from approximately one acre to one-third or one-half acre, he said. “Those are not very tight social environments, in my opinion,” Healey said. He also emphasized that cluster subdivisions do not permit developers to replace single-family homes with townhouses or apartments. “This is going from one acre lots to half acre lots,” Healey said. “In my opinion, that’s still a pretty large sized property.” Brown then turned to the question of maintaining the land preserved through clustering. Healey said approximately 30 parcels totaling more than 1,000 acres have been preserved through the township’s cluster subdivision regulations. Most of that property has been transferred to public ownership, primarily the township, although some has gone to Rutgers University, he said. More recently, some preserved property has remained under homeowners association ownership, subject to conservation easements restricting development. Healey said the public entities owning most of the preserved land are responsible for maintaining it. Orsini said much of the preserved property has been left in its natural condition rather than converted into recreational facilities. “What has happened is the 50 is just left alone to be nature,” Orsini said, describing a hypothetical subdivision in which half of a 100-acre tract is preserved. Healey agreed, identifying Middlebush Park as a notable exception. “The vast majority is passive open space with the extent of, the biggest improvement is trails,” he said. Orsini pointed to preserved frontage along Middlebush Road near Butler Road and Sedan Street as an example of land set aside through cluster development. The discussion also touched on problems homeowners associations can encounter when conservation restrictions prevent them from maintaining wooded areas. Township Councilman and Planning Board member Ram Anbarasan said residents of his age-restricted community have complained about restrictions on land owned by their homeowners association. He described a situation in which a fallen tree affected property near the community’s lodge, but the association was unable to remove it because of preservation restrictions. Orsini suggested that some conservation restrictions should be reconsidered to permit better forest management, including removal of invasive species. “They should be able to manage it as a forest,” Orsini said. “They should be able to improve the ecology.” Healey cautioned that some restrictions originate with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection rather than the township. He said properties containing wetlands, stream corridors and other environmentally sensitive areas sometimes are transferred to homeowners associations with conservation easements that the township has no authority to waive. “We can’t grant you permission to disturb that conservation easement,” Healey said. “So it can get tricky.” Board member Ted Chase also raised questions about language in the proposed ordinance, including a reference to “recently cultivated farm fields.” Chase asked whether the word “recently” should be defined to avoid disagreements over which properties qualify. Healey said the wording was carried over from the existing ordinance and questioned whether the distinction was necessary. “Farmland is farmland,” Healey said. Chase also questioned why references to the Agricultural Cluster Option would remain in the township’s zoning regulations when the proposed ordinance would eliminate that development option. Healey explained that the Agricultural Cluster Option had been used to approve Wildflower Ridge and that the existing development would remain subject to the standards under which it was approved. The option would no longer be available for future subdivisions, he said. “We’re not going to have that one as an option moving forward,” Healey said. “But we still need to have that reflected on the zoning map and in the tables because that one particular subdivision was subdivided using those.” Planning Board attorney Peter Vignolo agreed that retaining the applicable standards was necessary because property owners within the existing agricultural cluster zone could still seek approvals affecting their properties. The proposed ordinance would eliminate the Agricultural Cluster Option, which township officials describe as largely redundant with the Natural Resources Preservation Cluster Option. The agricultural option also contains a density-bonus provision that the ordinance summary describes as unusual. Other proposed changes would allow the Planning Board to approve cluster subdivisions on tracts smaller than the existing 10-acre minimum exception, reduce the percentage of land required to be preserved below 40% when a public benefit is demonstrated, and permit smaller preservation areas. The ordinance also would reduce the number of qualifying natural resource features required within a preservation area from two to one. In addition, the Board would gain explicit authority to modify or waive maintenance endowments that developers otherwise would provide for preserved open space. The amendments would make consultation with several township advisory committees discretionary as part of the Planning Board’s required findings, although other provisions would continue to require Environmental Commission involvement. At the same time, the ordinance would strengthen the method used to calculate the number of homes permitted in a cluster subdivision. Developers would have to submit yield maps accounting for stormwater regulations, easements, wetlands, floodplains and other restrictions affecting the property’s development potential. The number of lots accepted by the Planning Board would establish the maximum permitted. The changes also would extend lot size averaging to the Agricultural zone and update zoning designations for previously approved cluster developments. Following the discussion, the Board unanimously adopted a resolution endorsing the ordinance and recommending it to the Township Council.
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