Franklin planning board to study Hamilton Street area for redevelopment as part of state affordable-housing obligation; subcommittee formed

The Planning Board of the Township of Franklin discussed options to meet the township’s state-assigned affordable-housing obligation and said it will consider a redevelopment study of properties around Hamilton Street and Franklin Boulevard that the council has asked the board to review.

The board was told the state initially assigned Franklin a numeric obligation of 714 units; staff said that number was based on rapid statewide mapping and will likely be reduced after local review. The council plans to adopt a resolution likely accepting a lower number, and the township must adopt a plan showing how it will address the obligation by June 30, town staff said.

Mark Dancy, sworn in as the township’s planning professional during the meeting, told the board a consultant from CME will prepare a redevelopment-study report for a council-requested area along Hamilton Street/Franklin Boulevard. He said the study would determine whether the area qualifies as an “area in need of redevelopment” and, if so, would allow the township to set site-specific redevelopment standards for properties in that area. “There’s really nothing for the board to do at this point until the study is prepared and presented,” Dancy said.

Board members discussed the trade-offs of concentrating affordable housing in one corridor, with Charles Brown asking about the risk of concentrating affordable units near the Hamilton Street business corridor as it revitalizes. Dancy and Chairman Mike Orsini said distribution of units across the township and bonuses available for redevelopment areas would be considered in the planning process. The board discussed nondevelopment options the township may pursue, including negotiating to extend existing affordability controls on privately owned units as one way to meet parts of the obligation without building new units.

Orsini said the council and planning-board leadership will form matching affordable-housing subcommittees to coordinate work; volunteers from the planning board named in the meeting were Chairman Mike Orsini, Mahir Rafiq, Theodore Chase and Robert (Bob) LaCourte. The board said the subcommittees will meet jointly as needed and that the early work will include checking the state’s parcel and vacant-land mapping and identifying sites and bonus-credit opportunities.

Dancy noted that the redevelopment designation process is advisory to the council: the planning board will hold a hearing on any redevelopment-study report, make a recommendation, and the council will take any final designation action. He said the redevelopment process takes time, and the planning board should expect reports and hearings in the months before the June 30 plan deadline.

The board also agreed to keep discussions about specific property negotiations limited until the formal study and hearings are publicly noticed so property owners are not prematurely alerted to redevelopment actions.

The township’s consultant work and the subcommittee meetings will feed into the planning board’s recommendations to the council; no council rezoning or redevelopment standards were adopted at the meeting.

For now, the board’s role is fact-finding and recommendation: the council made the initial referral, CME will prepare the study, the planning board will hold hearings and make a recommendation, and the council will act on any designation and on the final affordable-housing plan.