GOAL 1 Facilitate the acquisition, rehabilitation, and affordable resale of older and historic homes. RECOMMENDATIONS: Establish a preservation and affordability-focused revolving loan fund. A revolving loan fund could help acquire, rehabilitate, and resell older and historic homes affordably. Establishing such a fund would begin with a working group to study feasibility, including scope, need, funding models, and lending policies, with potential support from grants such as the 1772 Foundation. Next steps include securing capital for the fund and selecting an organization—whether a housing nonprofit or a community development finance institution—to manage it, while also learning from successful programs like Knoxville and Chattanooga. Establish a Community Land Trust to preserve long-term affordability in older and historic neighborhoods. Community Land Trusts can help preserve attainable housing in neighborhoods facing rising property values and speculative teardowns. The benefits, challenges, and lessons from existing models should be evaluated for viability in Franklin. This process should identify neighborhoods where a Trust could be most effective— such as Hard Bargain, Natchez Street, and areas near the HPOs—and determine the level of funding needed to acquire and rehabilitate homes, including potential subsidies in fast appreciating areas. GOAL 2 Encourage a contextdriven approach to infill development that protects community character. RECOMMENDATIONS: Refine Franklin’s Zoning Ordinance requirements for infill development in Central Franklin. Amending the Zoning Ordinance can strengthen standards for historic residential areas, infill, and transition between new development and existing development, resulting in better outcomes that are more compatible with the surrounding context. The process should begin with an assessment of recent and ongoing development in the areas in Central Franklin to identify potential compatibility issues in terms of height, massing, and scale relative to existing historic structures and the established context. Refining the standards works towards ensuring that new development complements, rather than detracts from, the established development patterns. Use zoning and conservation easements to better protect the established character of historic estates. Historic estates face significant pressure for subdivision, higher density infill, and larger infill structures that can erode the estate’s historic scale and visual continuity. Downzoning ensures that the original spatial relationships—between the house, yard, outbuildings, and surrounding landscape—are retained, safeguarding THEME: PROTECTING COMMUNITY CHARACTER 118 FRANKLIN, TN | PRESERVATION PLAN
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