Office overlay district approved

Under the overlay district, professional offices of the types listed in the ordinance are allowed.

FRANCONIA >> Rules attached to a zoning overlay district adding the possibility of professional offices being built on a part of County Line Road previously zoned for only residential use were designed to create as little impact as possible on the existing homes, neighboring property owners who came to the Franconia Township Board of Supervisors Aug. 16 hearing were told.

“The regulations were tailored to protect the adjacent residential properties,” Joe Zadlo, the township’s land planner, said.

“There is a requirement for a 35-foot opaque buffer between any existing residential property and any new development,” he said. “That means there will not be cars parking up against an existing residence, there will not be headlights shining into the houses. In addition, the building is 75 feet away, and so everything was done to protect the existing residences.”

Under the overlay district, professional offices of the types listed in the ordinance are allowed following a conditional use hearing in which the township can set conditions, township officials said.

“They have to come in and they need to talk to us and it’s an open meeting. You get to come in and you get to hear what everybody’s saying,” board Chairman Grey Godshall said.

“This whole thing that we’re trying to do here is a tool for us to control the mechanics with what happens around your homes,” he said, “so you know what can be there, what can’t be there.”

The allowed professional office uses include physician, psychiatrist or dental offices; bookkeepers and accountants; architects; attorneys; financial advisors; consulting engineers; veterinarians; real estate brokers; artists, musicians or writers; and insurance agents, township solicitor Eric Wert said. Retail sales, schools, banks, personal services shops, clinics and facilities for substance abuse are prohibited, he said.

“We’ve narrowed I think the world of possible uses to ones which are relatively low impact,” Wert said.

Allowing professional offices adds to what can be done on the property, but doesn’t mean the use has to change, he said.

“Nobody’s going to force anybody to sell. Nobody’s going to force anybody to develop the property in a way that it’s not currently used,” Wert said. “You still retain all of your rights as a residential property based on the underlying zoning district. The overlay just is an additional option.”

A minimum of two acres of land is needed for a professional office under the ordinance, the township officials said. There is only one property in the overlay district that is that large, so in order to put offices on any of the others, tracts would have to be combined, Zadlo said.

The professional office overlay ordinance, which is for properties with frontage along County Line Road in the Township Line Road area, was approved unanimously by the board.