The Franklin Municipal Planning Commission on Oct. 23 voted unanimously to recommend approval of Ordinance 2025-25, the city's annual zoning ordinance text update, to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, forwarding the ordinance with four commission amendments.

Staff presented the ordinance as an annual update covering signage, permitted uses, streetlight standards, performance agreements, floodplain provisions, State law changes and map amendments that include rezoning 171 Hill Haven Lane and 370 Franklin Road to the Civic Institutional district and adding 171 Hill Haven Lane to the Historic Preservation Overlay (HPO). The ordinance also contained language that BOMA had amended at first reading; the commission considered those changes and additional potential amendments.

The commission approved four amendments then voted to forward the ordinance to BOMA with those amendments. The amendments approved were: 1) a Columbia Avenue overlay change to permit buildings along a defined stretch of Columbia Avenue to reach three stories when the third story steps back at least 10 feet; 2) a definition of "vape shops" that captures establishments receiving at least 50% of gross sales from listed tobacco or cannabinoid products or that devote at least 25% of floor area to such products; 3) regulation of vape shops under Option 1, treating them like adult-oriented establishments by allowing them only in the Heavy Industrial District and prohibiting a vape shop on lots within 500 feet of listed sensitive uses (including civic/institutional uses, residential lots, recreation uses, day care centers, funeral homes and packaged liquor stores) while protecting lawful existing conforming vape shops from being rendered nonconforming by later nearby uses; and 4) a recommendation that the Board of Mayor and Aldermen reinstate a five-year cumulative timeframe for the floodplain "substantial damage/substantial improvement" provisions (the commission had previously recommended 5 years at an earlier meeting; BOMA had adopted 1 year at first reading).

Commissioner Franks moved the main motion to recommend the ordinance to BOMA; Commissioner Orr seconded. The Columbia Avenue height amendment and the vape-shop definition amendment were approved by roll call. The Option 1 vape-shop regulation motion passed on roll call with Commissioner McLemore recorded as voting no; all other members voted yes. A later motion by Commissioner Allen asking the commission to recommend that BOMA restore the five-year cumulative timeframe for the floodplain substantial-damage/substantial-improvement definition passed unanimously.

Staff told the commission the Columbia Avenue height amendment aligns a local overlay with an Envision Franklin plan amendment approved earlier for the HG Hill site and that the vape-shop amendments respond to concerns raised during a prior conceptual workshop. The commission's actions amend the ordinance text and forward the consolidated package to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen for final action.

Because the commission's recommendation includes both substantive text changes and a map amendment that had been before BOMA, the ordinance and amendments will be considered at BOMA's next meeting. The commission also requested that BOMA review the floodplain time-frame given recent State-level activity on standards and neighboring jurisdictions' longer cumulative timeframes.