Redevelopment for Francisville’s largest vacant property, a 1.5-acre site across from the Francisville Rec Center where a paint factory once stood, could move ahead after a years-long wait.

Last week the Philadelphia City Planning Commission voted to recommend a bill to change the zoning for this triangle of land to CMX-3, a very flexible designation that allows for the diverse mixture of housing types planned by the Hankin Group. The Exton-based developer subscribes to New Urbanist principles, like walkability and compact mixed-use neighborhoods, and mainly builds in the far-flung western suburbs of Philadelphia.

The Planning Commission’s recommendation of the zoning bill, introduced on behalf of Council President Darrell Clarke, is no guarantee that it will move forward. But if the project is completed it will represent the culmination of an almost ten-year effort by the Hankin Group to build on the wedge-shaped property at Wylie, Cameron and 19th streets.

In a 2009 story on PlanPhilly about the site, the Hankin Group’s interest in the property is already dated to “several years.” In spring of that year the Office of Housing and Community Development issued a Request for Proposals to redevelop the site. At the time Hankin planned a four-story condo building with 60 units that would front on Wylie, while 26 three-story rowhouses were to go up behind it.

In 2010, the city sold the lot to Hankin with a deed that requires all units built there to be earmarked for homeownership. The deed also requires at least seven of the units be affordable to households making no more than 150 percent of the area median income.

The parcel was zoned RMX-3 on Wylie to accommodate the dense multi-family building with a commercial use, while the rest of the parcel was zoned RM-1 for the rowhouses.

But housing prices plummeted in the years after the 2008 economic downturn and Hankin backed off the project. Contacted for comment on this story the company’s general counsel, Mike Malloy, declined to speak extensively about the Francisville project.

“After years of delay caused primarily by the Great Recession, we’re pleased to be working with the City on the rezoning for the new plan,” Malloy said in an emailed statement.

Hankin’s new proposal, requiring the rezoning from Clarke’s office, would offer 32 two- or three-bedroom condos and 34 one-bedroom units. Pedestrian passageways lead from the street to the interior courtyard and little balconies look out on the surrounding neighborhood.