Middletown Council Approves First Step For Franklin Mint Property Developers

The first of many hurdles for development of the former Franklin Mint property was cleared on Monday night, when Council twice voted 5-1 to approve the two zoning ordinance amendments developers need to move forward on the project. The vote came near the end of a more than three-hour council meeting during which developers, township planners and engineers, council and the public presented their thoughts on the project.

Council's vote authorized the creation of a new zoning district, called the SU-1-A Mixed Use District, and rezoned the Franklin Mint's 13 tax parcels as SU-1-A. The SU-1-A zoning district contains subzones that place limits on what can be built in specific coded sections.

The Franklin Mint property developers have been working for six years on plans for the property, said Frank McKee of the Franklin Mint development team.

When the public , an entirely new plan was developed in an attempt to address resident concerns, particularly those about the density and scale of the project, McKee said. The new plan includes a roughly 2 million square feet reduction in size, placing the new plan at about 1.2 million square feet.

The new plan for the former Franklin Mint property, includes a 150-room hotel, a 200-unit residential area for the 55+ community, office space in the previous Franklin Mint building, retail space, and one or more sit-down family restaurants. The plan also includes public space for a fire station or other governmental use, retention of the state police barracks and preservation of the Pennell House.

McKee said the development team had addressed concerns from township officials and counsel, and received recommendations from the Planning Commission and from the Delaware County Planning Commission for approval, subject to the developers responding to comments in each of the review letters.

"'We really love this plan'—that's the comment we've kept hearing as we've gone through this new process," McKee said. "People have accepted this and are in favor of this plan. The comment we kept getting though, was, 'How do we know that what we see, is what we're going to get?'—and that's the concern that's been addressed I think over the past two or three months."

The SU-1-A zoning district creates a variety of density controls, McKee said, including:

• The hotel is limited to 150 units
• The residential area is limited to 200 units
• There are mixed-use requirements that ensure that the land use will include a mix of retail and office purposes. Retail space will be at minimum, 30 percent, and at maximum, 70 percent, of the total non-residential area. Office space will also be at minimum, 30 percent, and at maximum, 70 percent, of the total non-residential area.
• Restaurants are limited to 15 percent of the total non-residential area

There are also dimensional requirements that effectively limit the total amount of square footage that can be built, the height of the building, the total building coverage, and the total impervious coverage, McKee said.

The land use plan that is a part of the proposed ordinance effectively limits the total amount of square footage that can be built by designating specific areas for retail and office uses within the tract, limiting the area within the tract where buildings can be located, and providing for open space where no building can occur, among other restrictions, McKee said.

"This is significantly less than what could be developed under the existing ordinance today," McKee said.

Officials provided three calculations of the approximate maximum square footage that could be developed based on the ordinance requirements. Township planner Joseph Committa estimated the maximum amount of coverage, excluding residential areas, would be approximately 965,000 square feet, the highest of the three estimates.

Several residents at the meeting told council that they didn't believe the proposed ordinance controls the possible square footage to the extent council thinks. Three residents spoke up in the meeting to encourage the use of a floor aspect ratio.

"It's bulletproof," resident John Laskas said. "You know what you're going to get. … If you build parking structures, all that [yield] analysis is out the window."

After hearing from residents on square footage and traffic concerns, council went into a 20-minute executive session.

After returning from the executive session, council voted 5-1 to approve the text amendment creating the SU-1-A district, the dissenting vote from Vice Chairwoman Lorraine Bradshaw. Council then voted 5-1 to designate the Franklin Mint property's 13 tax parcels as SU-1-A, with Bradshaw again casting the dissenting vote.

"There were some issues that I think were not covered in the zoning ordinance that I was not comfortable with," Bradshaw said after the meeting. Specifically, Bradshaw said she didn't like the signage ordinance, which was not discussed at the meeting.

"Compared to where we started, I think we're in a significantly better spot," Council Member Mark Kirchgasser said after the meeting. "… I would say 95 percent of what we have today, the residents were in favor of. Not everyone was comfortable with how the zoning piece worked, but … I think at the end of the day, you're going to get exactly what you asked for … and it's going to get some jobs back in Middletown."