Shoppes at Wyndham Village occupies, at developer Mark Carstensen's explicit request, an area re-zoned as "Franklin City Civic Center." Simply put, he could not go forward with the development without the re-zoning, and he couldn't get the re-zoning unless he argued effectively that his site plan would conform to the City Civic Center requirements.
Why do I believe the Franklin Plan Staff is so sharp? Because they wrote these requirements for the Franklin City Civic Center District, which I simply copied-and-pasted from the City of Franklin Unified Development Ordinance, page 3-38:
SECTION 15-3.0307 CC CITY CIVIC CENTER DISTRICT
A. District Intent. The CC District is intended to:
1. Serve as the new "downtown" of the City of Franklin.
2. Be used in that area of the City designated on the City of Franklin Comprehensive Master Plan as the Civic Center Planning District.
3. Promote mixed-use development which may also include cultural and institutional facilities, indoor entertainment facilities, business uses, multi-family residential uses (to a lesser extent), and those other uses which would contribute to the CC District's role as the "heart" of the City of Franklin while also accommodating uses which are under public or public-related ownership, or which serve a quasi-public purpose.
4. Foster a pedestrian-oriented City of Franklin Civic Center even though the CC District has off-street parking requirements.
5. Foster a scale of development that is people-oriented rather than automobile-oriented. The spaces formed in this area, through careful site planning and urban design, are to cater to the pedestrian rather than the automobile.
6. Employ superior building, site, and landscape design standards than most other areas of the City since the uses in the CC District will convey the image of all of the City of Franklin to both residents and visitors. Building design within the CC District shall follow the City's design guidelines established especially for buildings located within the CC District.
7. Require a larger landscape surface ratio (LSR) and lesser floor area ratio (FAR) requirement than are typical of other business and institutional districts of the City since much of the area designated within the CC District has existing woodland and wetland cover.
While the character of the highly pedestrianized portions of the CC District would be URBAN in character, the various requirements of the CC District are established to increase its compatibility with a SUBURBAN character through the preservation of open space and natural resource features characteristic of the CC District as set forth in the City of Franklin Comprehensive Master Plan.
Sounds very nice, right? Unfortunately, the current site plan for "Shoppes" ignores a great many of the guidelines above. And if this project is allowed to skate, notice is given that the Franklin UDO - of which city officials are so proud - has no teeth.
If you're attending the meeting tonight, print out a copy of this list and see if it's addressed.
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