Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Parking topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Board hears competing parking calculations for proposed prayer room at 1320 Hamilton St.
Summary
Traffic, engineering and planning testimony produced competing parking tallies (proposed 42 spaces; TRC/planner cited 47 requirement under one method). The board reserved final determination pending revised plans, ADA confirmation and possible building‑code input.
During testimony on Aug. 6, the Franklin Zoning Board and applicant experts debated how to calculate required parking for a proposed conversion of office area to a prayer room at 1320 Hamilton Street.
Traffic engineer Gary Dean testified that applying the zoning rules to the operation as described yields an aggregate requirement of 40 spaces and that the applicant's proposed 42 spaces would meet that calculation; he cited field observations that on‑site parked vehicles rarely exceeded 13 when the team visited. "The most that we ever saw parked on-site were 13 spaces," Dean said. Dean also noted that if the additional restriped spaces push the total over a statutory threshold, state guidance could require one EV space.
By contrast, the township planner and the TRC report used a different set of area and occupancy assumptions that produced a 47‑space comparison figure — leaving a shortfall of five spaces under that method. Planner testimony emphasized that code occupancy (49) for an assembly area without fixed seating must be considered when calculating zoning parking and that deviations between that number and the applicant's intended layout (42) are material to the variance analysis. The board asked the applicant to return with plan revisions, ADA compliance evidence for accessible spaces and any determinations from the building subcode official that bear on the parking count.
