I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
So to start off this evening we'll have a presentation and this is the Alpharetta Business
Association canine donation presentation.
If members of ABA would please come forward and members of the Alpharetta Public Safety
Foundation would like to join us.
Good
evening.
I mean, oftentimes when I get to speak in front of groups like this, I am a broken record
and then I talk about how well supported we are as a public safety organization in our
city.
It's amazing.
I was just at a conference last week with police chiefs all over the world and I'm
like, my city is better than yours.
It really is.
So, this is a perfect example of that.
The ABA, who's been a wonderful partner over the years in several different ways,
has really stepped it up tonight.
I'm gonna let her explain here just a second kind of what got us to this point
But we are unfortunately we're down to canines right now
And so we have been working toward filling those those two positions
And they became aware that we have a need and wanted to step up and help us with that
I'm gonna let you talk about that from this point
We're so thrilled my name is Tracy Morton. I'm with the Alfredo Business Association on behalf of the ABA
We would like to thank the city council for allowing us to be here today
to present this very, very special gift to the Public Safety Foundation.
The ABA has been an active presence and dedicated business professionals for over 25 years in Alpharetta.
We work together to improve and support our local business climate and serve the greater community.
The support of the city and our public safety department allows the ABA to hold such events
is the very popular Alpharetta Farmers Market and the Breemoon Festival, and it runs smoothly
and safely because of that.
We would like to show our appreciation to the City of Alpharetta and the Alpharetta Public
Safety Foundation for all you do to support our events and our community.
With this donation, the Foundation would like to present a check for $17,000 to acquire and
train a new canine police dog.
Thank you to the Alfreda Public Safety Officers and Department for your dedication in improving
and securing the quality of life for those who live, work, and play in Alfredo. Thank you.
Thank
you so much. Again, it's King of Generous and we're hoping early next year to be able to go
and purchase the dog and send an officer training and we'll certainly keep you in touch with
what's going on with that. I don't know if anybody else wants to.
On
behalf of the people of Alfredo, we thank you.
That's good. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you.
So next item up on our agenda this evening is Board and Commission appointments.
appointments, and commission appointments by myself, Mayor, and City Councilman Binder.
So perhaps we'll delay this until Councilman Binder's here.
We can do that, Mr. Mayor.
Yes.
Okay.
So we'll move on to the consent agenda.
Consent agenda consists of the council meeting minutes from the meeting of October
17th, 2022.
Bless you.
City of Alfred a home-by-dark memorandum of understanding and the service contract community agriculture volunteer and education
coordinator. Is there anyone who would like to remove anything from the consent agenda? Councilman Will.
Mr. Mayor, I'd like to remove the meeting minutes from the consent agenda since I wasn't here last week.
It's duly noted.
Any other removals?
So the consent agenda that we'll be voting on for the time being will be this city of
off-road home-by-dark memorandum of understanding in the service contract, community, agriculture,
volunteer, and education coordinator to have a motion from council.
Yes, sir.
Mr. Mayor, I'd offer a motion to approve the consent agenda this evening as presented
by the mayor.
Second.
I have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Merkel, a second by Councilman Hypes, in discussion.
All those in favor, please vote yes, otherwise vote no,
and does pass unanimously.
So now we'll go ahead and take up separately the Council meeting minutes for the meeting
of October 17th, 2022.
Mr. Mayor, I'd offer a motion tonight to approve the Council meeting minutes of 10,
17, 22.
Second.
We have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Merkle, second by Councilman Mitchell in discussion.
All those in favor of approving the minutes, please vote yes, otherwise vote accordingly.
And it does pass unanimously, but Councilman will abstain.
So that'll wrap up the consent agenda for this evening and we'll move right into
the public hearing.
The first item under public hearing this evening is CLUP-22-03-Z-22-11-V-22-20, mid-broadball
residential.
Mr. Woodman, you have the floor.
Good evening, Mayor and Council.
The first item before you is a comprehensive land use plan amendment of rezoning and variances
to allow for 17 for-sale single family detached homes
and 26 for-sale town homes on 10.77 acres.
The density is 3.99 dwelling units per acre.
Comprehensive land use plan amendment
is requested from commercial
and medium density residential
to medium density residential.
A rezoning is requested from C2 general commercial,
O&I office institutional and R10M
dwelling for rent or for sale residential to R4A slash D.
Variants is requested to reduce minimum townhome with,
reduce front and rear setbacks,
increase maximum building coverage,
and reduce undisturbed buffers.
And I do have the location map on the overhead.
This property is located at 510 Mid-Broadwell Road
and Zero Broadwell Road Rear
on the southwest side of Mid-Broadwell
and West of Wills Road.
It's undeveloped property.
It's heavily wooded property.
It does have an intermittent stream on the property as well.
The Lex apartments is located to the north
and west of the development.
Hunter's Oaks subdivision is located to the south
of the development as well as the Cronin Cabinet Shop.
And then we have Belvoir Manor
and Broadwell Oaks across Mid-Broadwell
from this property.
property.
As it relates to the variance request, this property does have an unusual shape. Its
triangular shape property does have pretty significant topography on the property. This
property is located just outside of the downtown. So the downtown limits are Wills Road south
of Milton Avenue or mid-Broadball. And then the limit north of Milton Avenue is the
east side of the Belvoir Manor subdivision. So this development is outside the downtown,
downtown, but just outside the downtown.
The applicant's request for zoning the R4A-D represents a transition from the lower densities
that you see out in the west side of the city as they transition to the downtown area,
which is where you have higher densities.
This is the applicant's site plan.
There are 18 townhomes oriented to Mid-Broadwell Road.
Those have a 35-foot setback from Mid-Broadwell Road.
These are two stories from Mid-Broadwell Road.
There are three-story townhomes.
There's eight right here that are positioned behind those townhomes that are along Mid-Broadwell.
And then the 17 detached homes represent the remaining portion of the property.
There is a 50-foot revegetated buffer depicted adjacent to the Lex development.
The first 30 feet of this buffer is shown to remain undisturbed except for where lots
D1 and D2 encroach on that buffer.
And then the outer 20 feet of that 50-foot buffer is where they would re-vegetate that
buffer where they would grade and replant.
And then they would have a re-vegetated buffer here adjacent to the Cronin cabinet
shop.
up.
The average lot side of the detached product is just under 7,000 square feet.
The townhomes are, most of the townhomes are reloaded, as I mentioned, the ones along
Mid-Broadwell with the townhomes here front-loaded.
Townhomes are 24 feet wide here and 26 foot wide along Mid-Broadwell.
Of course, access is from the new driveway.
This is just up the street from the intersection at Wills and mid-broad wall sits about here.
It's about a little over 300 feet away from that intersection, so it does meet the minimum
separation requirements.
Each of the townhomes as well as each of the detached homes will have the two required
parking spaces in a garage, and then there will be two additional parking spaces within
the driveway.
They do have code compliant driveways.
The UDC requires a total of 112 spaces for this development.
They are providing a total of 180 spaces, which includes eight guest parking spaces by the
mail kiosk.
There are 20 specimen trees that were listed on the applicant's arborist report.
They're depicting saving seven of those specimen trees.
Then, of course, the buffer area here, especially the underserved portions of that, as well
close to where the stream and the stream buffer, all the trees will be protected within that
first 30 feet, except for this encroachment here. The trees around the stream will be
protected. The applicant also, while not required by code to have a buffer between residential
and residential, the applicant is showing a 25-foot revegetated buffer along the common
property line with Hunter's Oaks subdivision. Hunter's Oaks sits to the south of this
development, so there'll be some tree saves there as well.
And then the two detention facilities are showing right near the stream.
The applicant studied traffic along the mid-broad wall and specifically looked at a westbound
left turn lane into the development as well as an eastbound right turn lane into the
development to see if either of those would be warranted.
The westbound left turn lane was warranted, however the eastbound right turn lane in was
not warranted for this development.
And they have accommodated that westbound left turn lane.
Of course, looking at this development, actually before we go into those details, wanted to
show the future land use map.
So, this is an area that is predominantly low-density residential on the west side of
the city.
But as you see, as you come down Mid-Broadway approaching the downtown overlay area, you
see areas of high density and medium density with future land use.
As I mentioned, the predominant future land use of this property is commercial.
This
is a rendering of the townhomes lining Mid-Broadville Road and
these are
surrenderings of detached product that the applicant provided.
Of course, looking
at the applicant's proposal against the established review criteria, the area,
surrounding areas developed with residential uses, not commercial, in a
portion of the property already carries a medium density residential feature lane
use designation.
We do acknowledge that the properties outside the downtown, however, it is in an area that
is transitioning from lower densities into higher densities, which is why we're supporting
the applicants can, uh,
Comprehensive land use plan amendment and rezoning request. The original application that the
applicant submitted to the city was for R8A slash D. The density on that plan, this has
a total of 43 units. That plan had a total of 83 units on the development, on the site
plan. And they reduced the density basically in half from where they originally proposed
that based on feedback they received at community zoning information meeting.
As I mentioned some
of the hardships to point to the unusual shape of the property as well as topographic
challenges on the property to support the variances. The applicant did submit a citizen
participation plan. They indicated that they met with Hunter's Oaks residents on June
21st of this year. Some of the concerns identified at that time was a desire for
a buffer adjacent to Hunter's Oaks, which the applicant did provide.
And then there was some discussion about some existing flooding problems near the western
boundary of the property.
City also received some correspondence from residents in this particular area.
Concerns that we heard were concerns over density, traffic, timing of the traffic study.
So the original traffic study was conducted before the school year started.
The applicant did go back, based on concerns from surrounding residents, they did go back
and update that traffic study during the school year.
The buffer variance was a concern.
The request for a buffer adjacent to Hunter's Oaks was identified, stormwater.
There was a desire to have a
one-to-one lot ratio within this development adjacent
to Hunter's Oaks.
At the time that comment was coming up, the detached lots were proposed on the site plan
adjacent to Hunter's Oaks.
The applicant actually flipped this.
So they moved the detached product north and moved the road south, and then they provided
a greater buffer.
The previous plan where the detached directly abutted Hunter's Oaks only provided a 10-foot
buffer, so they provided a greater buffer with that change.
And
then, of course, city staff met with Hunter's Oaks residents at their request on July 25th.
That's where we heard a lot of those concerns.
This applicant presented their request at two different community zoning information meetings.
The first meeting was on July 13th.
The plan that was submitted on that date was the R8A slash D plan.
That was the plan with over 80 units on this development.
It had a density of 7.75 dwelling units per acre.
And there were a lot of the similar concerns that I've already mentioned were voiced at
that meeting.
And then, of course, the applicant revised the site plan, reduced the density, basically
about reduced it from 7.75 to 3.99, and they changed the rezoning request to R4A
slash D.
They presented that plan at the August 10th Community Zoning Information Meeting.
There's still some concerns with proximity of the project entrance to the wills in mid
Broadwell intersection, storm water traffic, one-to-one lot ratio.
And it was after the August 10th CCIM that the applicant actually flipped the detached
in the road in order to address the one to one lot ratio concern.
This item was
taken to the Planning Commission on October 6. Staff recommended approval
subject to 22 conditions. There were several public comments have that
meeting some in favor and some in opposition to the request. Concerns
identified at that meeting were traffic. Doesn't match the character of the
area. There was a comment about removing lot D1 from the buffer, stormwater, and then the
location of the hammerhead turn around. The applicant has worked with Hunter's Oaks and
Hunter's Oaks has also tried to keep the city up to date with respect to whether they
support this request. Based on what we have heard from the affected, the directly affected
did lots in Hunter's Oaks that are adjacent to this development.
It appears that there is one property owner that was not in support of this plan based
on the location of the Hammerhead turnaround, but it sounded like most of the other residents
were on board with this current plan.
I'm not speaking for other residents within Hunter's Oaks, just talking about the
properties directly adjacent to this development.
Planning
Commission ultimately recommended approval
subject to staff's recommended conditions
and they did accept some changes requested by the applicant
and I will mention those as I go through the conditions.
That was a, the vote was five to one on that.
And so Planning Commission recommended approval
subject to 23 conditions and I'll go through those.
Condition one is a site plan specific condition
tying to the paradigm site plan dated 928-22 and with R4A slash D zoning.
Two, comprehensive land use plan designation of the property shall be medium density residential.
Three, home and town home architecture and materials shall be substantially similar to
the submitted renderings in elevations labeled exhibit A. Those are the elevations that
I show to you, and shall have three-sided architecture
and materials as approved by staff.
Four, minimum 20-foot decorative landscape strip
shall be provided along Mid-Broadwell Road,
consisting of trees and shrubs and ground cover
as approved by staff.
Existing tree groupings and trees of quality
shall be saved in the landscape strip as approved
by staff.
Condition five addresses the building setbacks
within the development.
Condition six, project frontage and entrance
and shall include a decorative wall, fencing and ornamental planning as approved by staff.
Condition 7 addresses the 50-foot revegetated buffer.
The applicant requested a sentence added in.
The second sentence reads, applicant shall be granted a variance for the encroachment
of lots D1 and D2 into the buffer as shown on the site plan.
That was added by Planning Commission at the request of the applicant.
And then the last sentence just addresses the 50-foot undisturbed buffer adjacent to
the cabinet shop.
Condition 8 addresses the 25-foot revegetated buffer that the developer offered adjacent
to Hunter's Oaks.
Condition 9, per applicants agreement, developer shall provide an 8-foot privacy fence.
Our code only allows a 6-foot privacy fence on residential properties.
The applicant at the request of Hunter's Oaks asks for that to be changed to an 8-foot
privacy fence, and that was changed by Planning Commission.
Condition 10 addresses the detention facilities.
trees, having those developed as with a natural appearance and improved as a neighborhood
amenity. Condition 11, developer shall plant street trees in the six-foot planter as approved
by staff. 12 addresses the open space throughout the development. 13 addresses the mid-broadway
road street frontage and how the developer shall improve that.
Condition 14 requires
requires the developer to remove exotic and invasive trees and shrubs within the stream
buffers and tree save areas and replant or sparse.
Condition 15 unfinished wood fences and decks shall not be visible from Broadwell Road.
Condition 16 trees shall be preserved as depicted on the plan prepared by Paradigm
dated 9, 28, 22.
17 requires additional tree groupings and trees of quality to be saved outside
of required buffers, 18 streets less than 24 foot wide shall be marked no parking, 19 developer
shall construct a westbound left turn lane on mid-broad wall at the project entrance to the site
as approved by staff, 20 project access shall be designed to comply with applicable design
standards including site distance and appropriate shift taper and storage length as approved by
staff. 21 requires that utility structures head walls be finished with decorative stone
if visible from offsite. 22 limits the number of residential units rented to no more than
10%. And then condition 23 was added by Planning Commission and references these conditions
agreed between the developer and the abutting properties and hunter's oaks. That
condition reads the agreed to seven conditions with hunter's oaks abutting
property owners are incorporated herein by reference and made part of the
conditions. And the condition those seven conditions are on the overhead. And
that concludes the presentation. If you have questions I'm happy to answer
those. Do we have any questions for staff on this item?
Thank you Mr.
wouldn't. The applicant would like to come forward now if there's a chance to do so.
Members of the City Council, I'm Don Rowlater. My address is 200 Foothills Parkway, Marble
Hill, Georgia. Yes, there is Marble Hill. It's full of marble. Glad to be here tonight
on behalf of the applicant and on behalf of Toll Brothers, Toll Brothers being the
chosen developer by the applicant to produce this project. I think Michael's done a magnificent
job of giving you a description of what the request is and where the property is. The only
note I'd like to add that that is is that two things. Number one, it's the most unusually
zoned piece of property I've ever seen in the city of Alpharetta. I think Jimmy Buffett
would say, how I got here, I don't have a clue. I don't have a clue, but it's
interesting. The majority of it is owned commercial. A good chunk of it is owned
office and the tailpiece is zoned for apartments. What a mess. So when you look
at what's going on there and then you look at the southwest side of Mid
Bravo Road, if you come from the fire station back into the city, past the
fire station you will find the saddle creek apartments to the rear. You will
find the habitat for humanity, community next coming along that side of Midbobble Road.
Then you'll find the condominiums that have been there for a long, long time.
And then you find the Lex apartments.
And then you find this piece of property.
So we hope that we have proposed and the staff and the Planning Commission support
a transitional use for this property that makes sense.
Nobody wants any commercial development in their backyard, and I don't blame them.
It's not a proper place for office.
I'm thrilled that it's Toll Brothers that will produce this product.
They have an excellent reputation in the city.
They have good reputation in the city.
They bought their position from Tom Sharp and Sharp Properties
and have come forward from there and have enriched and enhanced the product that was brought there.
So, that's what we get to at this point.
We've proposed 26 townhomes, and they're from $800,000 up, most of them up along the
frontage of Mid Bravo Road, and then we've proposed 17 single-family detached homes along
the boundary line of Hunter's Oaks, and those will run from a million one up.
I love the product that Toll Brothers produces. Michael went to, in detail, to explain to you
what we did to soften the impact for the people in Hudders Oak subdivision. Originally the
houses backed up to it. There was only a 20-foot setback, a five-foot landscape strip,
and a little old, we'd proposed a rod iron fence. That didn't make anyone very happy.
The bad news was not only where the house is close, but you got to look at the backyard,
which is where the grill is and where the hot tub is and where all those other amenities
that everyone enjoys, but they're right up next to your neighbor.
So we flipped the plan, and all only a five-foot landscape strip was required.
We put in a 25-foot landscape strip that would be revegetated to buffer standards
along there.
And whatever good trees are in there, we'll save, we'll plant new trees, and that will
become a very attractive area.
More importantly is that that fence in there with your approval will be eight feet.
That blocks the view of anyone on the lower or left-hand side of that subdivision who
would otherwise look into the front of this subdivision.
I personally don't see much wrong with looking at the front of a million-dollar
house, but just the same with the 8 foot fence. That left side of the property is the
only part that's close in topography to the new subdivision. The people up closer to Mid
Bravo Road are high above this area. Any water that originates comes down into the subdivision
so we don't flood other people. We're on the level with the last two or three
lots on the left-hand side, and so our land planner has gone to great trouble to make sure
we�
We divert all of the water from our development down in that bottom part into our detention
ponds so that we don't have any negative impact. They have some negative impact already. They've
had some interesting challenges down there, and I know how this city loves to hear about
stormwater drainage problems. So not only will we not make it worse, we will make it
better. So I think that's an important thing to consider with this development as well.
Now, the other important overall fact is that we asked for several of these variances which
Planning Commission and staff have recommended approval of to compress the development more
into the property.
The benefit there is, is that you get substantial green space.
In this instance, you get 48% of the property when we're done being green.
I have an example of that.
If you can turn it on, I'll put it on the overhead.
This is the green area when
we're done.
And again, that's 48% of the development.
So with those things in mind, we began to work with staff
and to work with Hunter's Oaks.
We've had multiple meetings with them.
And we tried to listen to every concern that we could hear about.
So we added those conditions that Michael showed you to make sure that we don't impact the lighting,
that we don't do other things that cause problems, that we tend to the stormwater development,
and do all of those things that make this a very plausible project.
So we are asking you tonight to approve this application subject to the Planning Commission version
of the conditions. There were only two minute changes from what staff had proposed to start
with, and then in addition it added the seven conditions that are important to the people
in Hunter's Oaks. We also heard some comments from people across the road and Broadville
Oaks and the other subdivision over there who were afraid they would be looking down
on to the housetops there. I went and looked on Google Earth and the Broadville Oak subdivision
has a substantial line of trees between it and the roadway. There's one house on the
other little subdivision right up on the corner that may get some view over the cabinet
shop and into the subdivision. But our wish is that when they look down there that
they find a very pleasing and plausible product that attracts people to the city.
We're still suffering a housing shortage in the city of Alpharetta.
We don't seem to be able to put enough good houses up quick enough to staunch the demand.
I'm fascinated.
I work in an office with a mortgage broker, and I listen to him cry and complain about
what's going on out in the northern suburbs and how the market has withered and died
somewhat, and we don't see that here.
Everything that's put up, there are people standing in line to buy it.
That's a credit to the city and what this city has created and what it's done.
With it being a tech center, with it having downtown, with it having Avalon,
with it having the park system that does, and with the trail system coming up,
I saw the additions to that that are to be approved.
I'm excited about it. $15 million, I think? Fantastic.
So this subdivision is designed to be a part and parcel of that product.
At this point in time, I would ask you, if you have any questions, we have representatives
and toll brothers here.
We have our land planner here.
I'll answer what I can if necessary.
Other than that, we'd like to close our presentation on the front side and reserve
time for rebuttal at the end.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you, sir. We have any questions for the applicant?
Seeing none. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Pirro, do we have any public comment cards on this item? Yes, Mr. Mayor. We have two that
have been submitted at this point. Our first speaker this evening is Karen Miller.
If you would like to come forward and just state your first and last name and your address
into the podium microphone here, and please address all of your comments to Mayor and Council.
Karen Miller, and it's five three four five hunters oaks drive
And I am just
Here I'm basically Michael and Dawn covered everything that I would want to say
We have worked throughout the process with the development team. They have been
Accessible and ready to meet with us and discuss any of our concerns all along so
So we, my husband and I are property boarders.
We'll share the property line with this development and we are pleased with this latest site plan.
I feel like we've made a lot of progress and this is something that I think we can live with.
And I am only speaking to the detached homes, the townhouses.
that's you know that's something that we don't border so and I sent an email this
morning so I think I covered everything thank you ma'am you said we had two
public comment cards our second speaker this evening is Pamela Clark if you would
also like to come forward just as a reminder state your first and last name
in your address and as she comes forward if there's anyone who hasn't
submitted a request. You can still come up. Just want to let you know.
Good evening, everyone. Pamela Clark, 53, 2500 Oaks Drive, Alpharetta. I am a neighbor in
the subdivision in question and my home sits at the hammerhead, opposite the hammerhead
and D1 house. My concern is I've lived in Alpharetta in that same house for over 30 years. Never
had a problem, no one ever. The wooded area, the nature, we enjoy that environment. My concern
is for, like was read off, the runoff of water, the loss of nature, the loss of the
trees and the lighting and the noise that would come from that road that is proposed.
Yes, it is the best plan that was developed with us and the developer. However, my concern
was that we don't have to use, agree to use the, allow the, I'm sorry, I don't remember,
the un, the buffered area. D1, the D1 house does not need to be there. We, there are
plenty of homes in that area. And to say that Alpharetta is in a hardship for homes,
I'm having a hard time with that, with all the development that's going on in Alpharetta.
However, the 50 foot on the buffer, if we remove that D1 home, we don't have to agree
to disturb that buffer.
And then the hammerhead road could be pushed further up in that area.
It is a small area of land, 10 point something acres, and as many, I don't understand why
So many homes are being squeezed into that small space.
If we did the one-to-one ratio of homes, single-family homes, that would be fine.
A lot of the neighbors that are affected by this did not come tonight.
And they are, to the point, frustrated because there are just too many homes that are opposite them.
When you have two and three homes in your line of sight where you didn't have it before,
you had trees and nature. It's just too many homes. So I'm opposed to that. If
there's another plan, and I said it at the planning committee, if there's another
plan that would allow for that D1 home to be removed, the hammerhead could be
pushed forward, that would allow less, I believe, runoff because we do have a
water problem, and we've always had a water problem, yes, but I believe that it would
be worse. The more land you try to take away to allow for the runoff of the stream or the
creek that's there. So I'm asking you to relook at what's being proposed and maybe
come up with another plan, particularly for the runoff of the lower portion, because
yes, it is on a gradient. It's higher and then our homes and the homes that are at that
very tip that was not being left alone because it is truly a problem with water would be
resolved if we did less, if we took less of the land to build homes that one home
home is not going to make a difference. And I just feel that there's so much of a financial
issue that's going on with this property that it does not take into consideration what homeowners
have lived and enjoyed for, as I said, I've been there 30 years and I know some of the
other neighbors who have not shown up tonight. But I've been there for 30 years. And I
know what the environment is like it's not we're not downtown if I wanted to
live downtown I would live one mile downtown I chose to have my house built
in an area where it was low density fewer people fewer neighbors not all of
this traffic up and down the road and I just don't understand why we are
taking on this venture, well, I do, from a financial perspective, that the city wins,
the developer wins, but the homeowners don't win.
So there's no win-win for the homeowners.
There may be a win-win for the city.
There may be a win-win for the developer.
So I would like you to think about that before you agree to have this development
go forward.
Thank you.
Thank you, ma'am. Is there anyone else that would like to come forward and speak on this
matter?
Good evening. My name is Shereen Hawk, and thank you so much, Mayor Gilvin, for supporting
so far our efforts with the Kimball Corridor Parents Coalition that are very surprised
and very frankly terrified at the current redistricting map that has come out from
the Fulton School Board. I see some of you frowning, so maybe.
No, I just wanted to check right quick. Are you talking about this zoning issue at hand?
No. So is this public comment only for that?
Right. This is an opportunity for people to speak on this item. The open public comment
doesn't come towards the end of the meeting.
Okay, all right.
So you have your young children, so I don't know whether you'll be able to stay here.
Okay.
I appreciate your comments. And if you want to stick around, you're more than welcome
Welcome to, but we're trying to make a decision based on this.
I'm so sorry.
Thank you very much.
It's quite all right.
Was there anyone else that wanted to come forward and speak on this particular item?
Seeing none, we'll close public comment.
Did the applicant want to rebut?
Just like to make a couple very brief comments and rebuttal.
Most importantly, we completely revamped and redesigned this subdivision
for the benefit of the people in Hunter's Oaks along its boundary.
There's 25 foot of what will be re-vegetated buffer to buffer standards.
There's a 26 foot road, there's a 26, there's a 20 foot front setback,
and then there's the front of a million dollar home.
Assisting that more is that within that 25 foot re-vegetated buffer,
we've constructed an eight-foot fence.
The sight line from the main floor of any of the homes
down along that level will not cause any view whatsoever
even into that kind of product.
It's a nice home, but you won't have to look at it.
You'll have an eight-foot fence to go with it there.
If you count the number of lots in Hunter's Oaks
and the number of lots budding the property,
there are 10 of each.
So we have not exceeded a one-to-one ratio.
we have done it as we propose to benefit the people that we're closest to.
So our statement is there that we've tried to be very sensitive.
We've tried to do a lot of things to benefit.
We originally had Home D1 all the way on the left side down there behind the turnabout.
And that was more offensive, so we moved it back up into the development, shortened
to turn around and save the substantial number of trees in this area.
The last point I'd like to make for you is that Barry Dunlop, our engineer, has designed
this development so that that buffer along Mid-Brawl and then the road catch all of
our water and turn it in up into our detention areas.
We don't leak any water onto the part of Hunter's Oaks that may be almost level with us. As I said,
a majority of it flows onto us. We don't have a choice. We get water here. It comes. But
down at the bottom there, we are lifting and changing our grading so that whatever hits
in that subdivision will be directed toward the detention pond and on toward the apartments
rather than toward our neighbors further to the left through Hunter's Oaks. So with
That said, we're prepared to close.
I'd be happy to answer any questions that any council member or the mayor might have before I sit down.
Any other questions for the applicant?
Councilman Derrida.
Thank you, Mayor.
Mr. O'Lata, thanks for your presentation.
I also want to thank you and tell brothers for addressing some of the neighbors' concerns.
I was part of the Community Information Zoning Meeting initially to listen in and, you know,
suffice to say it was the plans come a long way from the initial plan.
So I appreciate Tobler's listening and making some, you know, significant changes.
With that said, I still have some concerns.
I noticed the traffic study wasn't addressed.
I'd like that to be addressed in a minute.
but before we get to that, can you speak to Ms. Clarke's comment regarding D1 and why that needs
to be there versus encroaching upon the buffer and possibly removing that? Yes, we moved D1 from
where it was down in the corner, where it destroyed more trees and fit completely within the
buffers without any penetration there. And because of the concerns of the neighbors
of having homes that far into it. We relocated D1 back uphill into the property and shortened
the hammerhead. Now this hammerhead is not a turnaround, Mr. Dorito, where people would come
down there and make a loop and go back out into the street. It's for the purpose of emergency
vehicles, fire trucks, ambulances, and large delivery trucks that might have a problem
turnaround when they deliver the furniture there for the first time. So it's not an
obtrusive thing, but we feel like with all of the pluses we have put in with 25 feet
of buffer with an 8 foot fence with moving the homes up that we have done what we need
to do and we have to reach a certain yield there to make the project work.
These are wonderful homes.
People are standing in line to buy them, even today.
That's alpharetta.
So we would propose that what we have proposed here is an ample solution.
It was approved by the Planning Commission two weeks ago, and we think it's a reasonable solution.
I think there was a, I'll ask Mr. Chairman or Kathy that's created.
I think it was a four to two vote, the Planning Commission, but I may be wrong.
Six-one.
It was five-one.
I did watch the video.
It was five-one?
Okay.
Mr. Rowlett, I just, I did want you to address the traffic study.
There was a reference by Ms. Cook that the initial traffic study was done, I believe in
July during the summer months, and then I think I'm paraphrasing what Ms.
Let me find the right piece of paper.
What Mr. Woodman mentioned.
I anticipated your question.
And on August the 26th, I believe, a new traffic study was conducted.
on Thursday, August 25th, 2022, during schooltimes.
The result of that was there was an increase in total vehicles
in a day from 11,728 to 12,776.
So we did take the new sample, run the new numbers,
but it doesn't affect the traffic generated in the subdivision.
We had those figures run with 43 total homes.
That was filed with the city as well.
And that's table, which is table two,
shows total new trips in the AM peak hour
of six in and 19 out for a total of 25 trips.
On that same chart on the PM peak hour,
it shows a total of 21 trips in
and 12 out for a total of 33.
So you have 25 peak hour trips in and 33 out.
Based on what's going on in that area,
those are insignificant numbers
and they didn't justify a right turn in lane.
They certainly justified the left turn in.
It's important there with the amount of traffic
that's on Midbrawl Road.
But the numbers from the traffic specialist,
Mr. Arkampora said that there's no use losing all of that vegetation and sidewalks and bushes
on the front to bring a right turn lane in because so little of the traffic is coming
in from that side. It's 80% the other way and 20% that way. So those were the figures.
Those items should be in your report. If not, I'll be glad to lend you my copy.
Okay.
Thank you.
Councilman Biner.
Mr. Royder, I apologize.
I was running in late trying to get acclimated here.
The buffer for the D1 side, let's say, the height, I don't know the topography of that,
but the height of that between the new homes and the existing homes, is there going to
be any problems say if somebody is backing into their garage like I do and my wife makes
fun of me all the time for but of headlights going into the house or
the level and the garages there's those will be front entry garages and
and they're at like say a minimum of 71 feet from the property line so you'll
come down the road if you're coming down the road Hunter's Oaks is to your
left you got the buffer you got the road and then the house is on the
right. So you'll turn it into the garage there, the headlights, and I will be going into the
garage.
Not if it's me, but I say that in justice, just one example. I want to make sure, as a
property owner, they have a right to build, and so you can't always have a nature preserve
in your backyard, but it also means that you shouldn't have headlights hidden, a kitchen
or a second to the second floor or anything.
So I understand the buffer the width on there,
but as far as height to make sure that there's...
Well, there'll be an 8-foot fence abutting Hunter's Oaks.
And so the ones down low, the one homeowner
who expressed her dislike and complained
is just about on the level with the houses
that will be across the street.
And with an 8-foot fence within that buffer,
she shouldn't see anything on the bottom floor.
And on the lighting there, we will take the lighting and direct it down into the property
so that you don't get any bleed.
That's pretty good science now.
We've been doing that 20 years, but that will also be a consideration so that we don't
have any problems.
I'm not sure if I'm going to have a comment, but I do appreciate what you have done in
the applicant as far as working with the concerned homeowners.
owners, and you guys have done a good job of evolving this application as much as reasonably
possible.
So I've seen it go stonewall, and I've seen it where people work together, so thank you.
Mr. Woodman, I've got a question I meant to ask you earlier just to clarify.
Mentioned that the property is zoned commercial.
was that C1 or C2 and if you could elaborate on what the potential by right uses for that
parcel are?
Yes, Mayor. The property currently has zoning of C2, so general commercial. It's about
it's on this piece here. There's a diamond shaped piece right about here. It's about
an acre, a little less than an acre that's O&I. And then the tail end has the for-rent
zoning on at the R10M on this piece right back here but the bulk of this
property right here is C2 general commercial auto service type uses gas
station that's an allowable use within C2 so it is the heavy commercial zoning
district. Would that be conditional uses? So gas station is allowed by right
All right, auto repair is allowed by right in C2.
Anything else?
There's quite a few, anything that's allowed in C1 is allowed here so any retail use, restaurant
use is allowed by right, C2 you can have a restaurant with drive-through, a car wash
is conditional in C2, a variety of heavy commercial uses.
Yeah, I was just trying to frame in my mind the potential uses.
Okay, thank you.
Councilman Mitchell.
Thank you.
I have a question for you as well.
Are you all comfortable as a staff with the water runoff and the plan that's laid
out?
And so, our stormwater engineer did review this application.
She was also involved in the meeting that we had with Hunter's Oaks folks and, yeah,
she has signed off on this.
any conditions that she felt that were needed with this development would have been included
within the conditions. But, yes, she has signed off on this and she didn't find that there
were any particular problems.
Okay. And a follow-up on Jimmy's question. It's also allowed by right, the rental across
the front.
The rental zoning, so the R10M zoning, which is the same zoning that the Lex has,
is just on this tailpiece on the back.
There's a question of whether that zoning is even there.
I went through the history of this property.
This property is referred to as the Territude property.
It is associated with the Lex property,
goes back to the 60s the zoning does.
There was some dispute over the zoning,
whether it was C1 or C2 zoning
that was on this property.
and in fact, the state of Georgia's Supreme Court weighed in on this, and it was determined
that it was C2 zoning.
So there's a variety of zoning here.
Yes, we did identify R10M, which does allow for a run product back here, but there's
a question of whether that's really there.
That zoning is really there on this tail end piece here or not.
But there is definitely C2 zoning.
It's not that far-fetched considering the Lex is right there.
Correct.
In fact, we believe the R10 entitlement was probably covered by the LEX development and
not zoning is probably incorrect.
We went back through old zoning maps and I wasn't able to find a situation where that
R10M wasn't there, so I had to leave it.
So if this is approved tonight, it will convert to the new zoning in perpetuity.
So yes, so if it were approved, the recommendation is for R for A slash D, so the zoning
would apply to this entire property.
Thank you.
Councilman Byter.
Just to back up on the question I have with Mr. Rolater, as far as making sure there's
no intrusion of light or anything to the existing neighborhoods, is there something like when
we have new developments come up and we see that there is an issue, sometimes deciduous
trees where they're full leaves when you bite and almost some fall happens and you can see
through everything. Do we have anything protecting those existing neighbors that if there is
an issue that we can put some kind of screen buffer height-wise, not between the houses?
So our code says that buffers be replanted where sparse and the replantings would consist
of primarily evergreen, 80% evergreen, 20% deciduous.
So the buffer, the requirement to replant that we're sparse, of course, would apply to
this buffer adjacent to the LEX.
This buffer that the developer has agreed to provide here adjacent to Hunter's Oaks,
that will be planted to our buffer standards as well.
Perfect.
Thank you, sir.
Any other questions?
Councilman Dorito.
Thank you, Mayor.
Just a quick question on the eight-foot fencing, there doesn't seem to be any
conditions that require the aesthetics of the fence. When I hear eight-foot
fence it sounds like a wooden wall to me, which is not aesthetically pleasing
particularly over time. I don't think the neighbors would, you know, appreciate
over a period of time when it starts aging. Was there any thought given to
a decorative fencing with kind of what Councillor Bind alluded to with some evergreens of trees
that actually are 8 foot tall, that in the combination will maintain the aesthetics of
the green space back there versus a solid wall between the two developments.
I think that question would be best for the applicant.
The fencing requirement is in a city code requirement, so we only have it in the
conditions because the applicant has made that agreement with Hunter's Oaks, so we want
to capture it. But I do agree with you. The privacy fences, the wooden privacy fences,
they do gray out over time, but it might be a question for them.
Mr. Rito, I'd be happy to answer it. In one of the conditions, it was added for the
benefit of the Hunter's Oaks people. In the end of condition number one, it says
The fence shall be finished on both sides and be located interior to the development property line
The purpose of that is to provide an attractive item there. The city has buffer
Standards that are defined. I think Michael was talking about the 80 percent evergreen 20 percent deciduous
That kind of thing, so what we anticipate there is a fairly solid screen because it is as beneficial to our homeowners as it is to the people and hunters folks.
It will be controlled by the city. It's as approved by staff, I believe. If not, we're certainly happy to make it as approved by staff.
Would that be, that would be agreeable to the applicant?
Did you make it approved by staff?
Any other reasons I said, by the time this gets approved and told Brothers Moves forward with it,
I know if my home was there, I'd be looking for more of a decorative looking fence
that blends in with the natural environment behind my home,
versus a wooden, basically, fence.
We had originally proposed a fence like that
because we used one over on the east side in a recent zoning for Toe Brothers. We have
an aluminum decorative fence product that looks like wrought iron, and it's more durable.
And that was discussed early with this, but then when the need came for concerns about
lighting, for concerns about noise, for concerns about lots of other things, we offered
for the 8-foot wooden fence, and that was really the choice of the Hunter's Oaks people.
So we didn't think it up, but we're more than happy to build it, and if it's finished
on both sides and properly painted, it'll be fine.
But that was, that wasn't, we offered that as an additional solution, which they accept.
We, Ms. Related Member, we went through this discussion with the other toll brothers,
Bellino from Kimberlidge Road there, and they end up putting the what iron, decorative fence
that we talked about with the nice evergreens and all that.
I just throw it out to the hunters' oaks people that maybe they're not thinking about that,
they're just thinking of trying to protect their homes, and I fully understand that.
But I think there's a better way that would actually enhance the buffer, the so-called
wall between the two developments, but also give that kind of natural environment and actually
beautify it behind their homes, frankly.
So I would like actually some flexibilities, the Hunter Oaks people along with Tollbethers
could work with the city staff to make sure we put the right wall there, if I can call
it that.
We negotiated this with them in good faith, and it's what they asked for.
If they choose to change it down the road before we construct it, I'm sure we'd
be happy to re-address that with them. We're comfortable with building either fence. The
one will soon go up over on the other side, on the east side. So it was a concession
to meet their concerns. Thank you.
Any other questions from council at this time?
So we've
already had public comment. We'll have a motion from council. Yes, Mr. Mayor, tonight
I'd like to offer a motion for approval of public hearing on CLUP-22-03-Z-22-11-V-22-20-mid-Broadwell
residential with the 23 conditions presented tonight by staff and the additional seven
conditions presented tonight by staff in conjunction with the Hunter's Oak neighborhood.
I'm going to take time to repeat a lot of what was said, but if you pull it all together,
the common theme was that they work together. It's a very difficult piece of property. A
combination of things. One, folks that are already stakeholders in the area, they have
some rights. And I think that these guys showed great respect for those rights and
discussions and what y'all are able to put together considering the size of the neighborhood
and the amount of people that are still not happy.
I'll be looking to make sure, ma'am, that I forgot Ms. Clark.
If any of this goes the way it's not supposed to go, let us know.
If you don't get the fence you were told, if you don't get the greenage you were told,
our phone numbers are out there, so feel free to use us if you need to hold some
accountability as well as anybody else in this, in any project that we do in the city.
So I do want to commend both sides because, again, it's a very difficult piece of property
and that property owner has the right to try to do something with it and I think really
you're going to be happy that it was a medium density residential versus, you know, what
he may be forced to put there or, you know, his next generation may come in, you know,
if that property gets passed down in the family they're just looking to get paid.
So, I think it was a great idea and it's going to be an amazing addition to that part of the city.
Councilman Heights.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
I think this is a great looking project and I just wanted to say I'm historically very, very reluctant to make changes to the comprehensive land use plan and I'm always seeking for that elusive, compelling reason.
I'm proud to say, in my own subjective opinion, this is the compelling reason to change the
land use plan.
A commercial designation surrounded by R-15 and an apartment complex seems like a unicorn
sitting over there on that side of the city, and I can't speak to whether each individual
and Hunter's Oak and surrounding area will be happy with what gets built.
I hope and believe that they will be, but going through the list as the mayor had alluded
to what commercial uses could be built there as a matter of right with the owner of the
property never having come before council, the one that made me smile as you could
have a bowling alley right next to you over there as a commercial use, then there's
a long, long, long list.
So, you know, my comment tonight is I wish everybody well, I appreciate how the applicant
and a deeply rooted neighborhood in our city work together on this, and this is that compelling
reason for a land use plan change that I'm happy to support.
Yes, I echo Councilman Hype's comments as well, basically taking a piece of commercially
zoned property and making it medium density residential, which I think is a great change
to that piece of property.
Again going back to the initial application of vision for this project that told Brothers
brought forth my personal opinions that would have never been passed by our
planning mission of this council and a lot of those issues were addressed and
it's always nice when a developer works with the community to come up with a
you know an acceptable plan that meets everybody's needs and addresses their
concerns. We're up here to represent the folks from Hunter's Oaks and the
people reside around there. When I drive over there and I look around the
area when I was preparing for this. It's a beautiful part of the city as everybody knows.
And it is a transitional point from downtown area of Alpharetta. And so, you know, the
density itself was a concern from day one. I think Toll Brothers did a good job in addressing
that and bringing the density down to lessen the impact on the traffic issues we already
have in that area. And it's now going to be up to the city of this thing as realized,
and I'm sure it will be to make sure that we address any sort of traffic improvements
in that area, because we're going to set up here and approve projects like this.
We also need to be prepared to address any accompanying issues that are caused by things
that we approve.
So we do have some traffic over there today, and we will probably need to address it.
I know Pete Sukovitz and his team is always looking at that stuff, and we've talked
about it, Pete, as far as the current situation there and what could happen in the future.
So we're on top of that already.
But I wanted to thank the neighbors out there that we represent for working well with Toll
Brothers and bringing it to this point and prepared to support this this evening.
Thank you.
Any other comments from Council?
I'll just say one quick thing.
I appreciate both the homeowners that came forward and spoke.
I know that takes a lot of courage for most people to come down to a City Council
meeting and stand up and talk to us. Unfortunately, with only two people speaking and both of them
having different points of view it wasn't really decisive in my decision because both of you
are adjacent property owners and so I kind of have to go back to the fact that I've seen
Zoning Decisions where residents were happy when they left here and it wasn't zoned a
certain way behind their houses and then two years later something came back and they were
not happy.
And so especially with something with a commercial zoning back there, I think they could do
it and we wouldn't have any conditions.
We wouldn't be able to get them to plan anything.
We wouldn't be able to require anything because if it's owned by right
They don't there's nothing we can do about conditions because they don't need a rezoning and so that's why I support this application
That being said in the matter of cl up dash 22 dash o 3 slash z dash 2 2 dash 1 1
V dash 2 2 dash 2 oh
mid-broadball residential motion was to approve with conditions as outlined by
Mayor Pro Tem Merkel. All those in favor please vote yes otherwise vote accordingly.
And it does pass unanimously.
If I could I apologize on my my later arrival here.
I had to do I had a last-minute pickup for my daughter at soccer practice but on that note
this young lady here I would like to see if I can make a motion
and so that she can participate in the civic process
and she can get her kids to bed early in there.
So I'd like to make a motion to amend the agenda
for public comment and to move it up next
and hopefully get a second.
I was going to ask the public if they minded
if I allowed this young mother to come forward anyway.
We can do it formally if we'd like, but
please come forward.
We typically allow three minutes for a public comment.
I
want to apologize first of all
for causing a little bit of a problem.
It's okay, it's always good to see new faces.
Okay, well, councilmen and women,
we are so thankful that several of you have communicated
with us your support of the concern
over the Fulton County School Board redistricting process.
We, as parents, got involved back in August.
In September, we were apprised of how this would work.
work. We were told by the Fulton County School Board that their primary agenda would be to
offload or rebalance elementary school capacity and to look at the opening of Crabapple Middle
School. We have reached out to our school board member. We've been very engaged in
the process. We have attended all the meetings and we've had a very active level of community
engagement. On Tuesday, October 18th, our entire life turned upside down when all
of the maps that were presented at round two, they were not represented in map four.
So along Kimball Bridge, which is a 2.6 mile stretch of road, they have divided the community
in a very choppy way where one neighborhood on one side of the street will attend Haines
Bridge Middle School and Centennial High School. The neighbors across the street
will attend OC, Webbridge, and Alpharetta High School.
Currently, this plan is dividing friends
who have been together, you know,
I'm trying not to cry, but families.
I moved to Alpharetta for a lot of reasons.
I'm an anesthesiologist.
I practice medicine.
I have a very stressful life.
I tried to cohort my children's schools,
schools, their activities, my job. So if this plan goes through, we can't attend after school
activities because we don't have neighborhood carpal and there's no public bus to take the
children to any of the activities after school. Just a few weeks ago when my nanny was sick,
one of my daughter's friend's mother was able to pick her up and take her to school.
otherwise I wouldn't have had the means to take her to school. She's not really
willing to get on a school bus and there's a whole lot of reasons why. Later on
as she ages that'll change but right at this point she's not. There's a lot of
kids who have special needs who may not want to get on a school bus and get
on a school bus for 35 to 40 minutes. There are siblings that can't attend
the same school with their sibling. There are so many social problems that
will come. And we can't understand the benefit. We simply can't. We can't find how the math
justifies this kind of community disruption. When we look at the data for Webbridge, we
don't see a clear pattern of overcrowding. When we look at the enrollment numbers and
the birth rates, we see a declining enrollment. And we really are confused and we really
respect the Fulton County Board of Education. We respect their process. We are just
confused and we are scared because November 8th, we don't have the opportunity to give
any more input. This map came so late in the process. It came on a Tuesday morning and
feedback closed the following day at midnight. And there's no more community engagement.
They're going to present whatever attendance zone they come up with to the board. And
then it's a vote. So we as parents, I mean, we formed a coalition. It's called Keeping
Kimball Bridge kids together. We got 200 members and 48 hours. We have 800 signatures on a
petition that was started.
On Friday, we are panicked. We have members that have, you know, completely fallen apart.
And we think this is unfair and this is not the right thing to do. And this is not the
right time to do two years after the pandemic already disrupted these children in so many
ways. Why are we isolating these pocket of children? Why are we causing more problems
then we're solving. Is this really necessary? Can they show us the case? Can they explain
to us how they got there? Can they provide us a traffic study? Can they provide us, you
know, the promise that if they do this, then there will be public transportation for all
the elements of public education, not just the school day. So if you will write your
letters, we're going through the process, we're trying to stay positive, we are
are linking out neighbor to neighbor
and we're not saying anything negative about the process.
We don't want overcrowded schools.
We agree, Creekview is overcrowded.
Rebalance Creekview.
But please don't tear this community up.
I love Alpharetta.
It has been an amazing experience.
So help us to stay here.
Thank you.
So next item up on our public hearing agenda
is CU-22-08, Pavlova by Marion, 302 North Main Street.
Thank you, Mayor and Council.
The next item before you is the conditional use
to allow a bakery and restaurant
in a 1,648 square foot suite
in an existing two-story building in the downtown overlay.
The conditional use is for Pavlova by Marion.
The business will serve as a coffee shop and bakery.
Coffee shop in our zoning is categorized as a restaurant.
Property owner intends to utilize the second floor of the building, a two-story building
for their professional office, which is a permitted use on this property.
Do you have the location map on the overhead?
The property is located at 302 North Main Street.
This is on the west side of North Main Street and north of Mayfield Road.
Property is about .38 acres, so an O&I office institutional.
It was developed in 1955 as a two-story, just under 3,000 square foot duplex.
So it was being rented as basically apartment, two apartment units.
And the building on the property was developed at the rear of the property.
So here is the site plan.
This is North Main Street frontage here.
And the building is all the way on the back side of the property, this existing building.
Pavlova by Marion is a new concept serving baked goods, coffee, and other prepared foods.
The applicant is proposing to utilize the first floor of this building.
There will be a service area.
The applicant did provide some floor plans as well as a new elevation.
They're going to spruce up the front elevation of the building.
And this is the proposed first floor plan here.
There will be about a service area that's about 400 square feet.
so we have minimal tables and chairs.
Hours of operation are Sunday through Wednesday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and then Thursday through
Saturday 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
And the applicant anticipate approximately three employees for the business.
Going back to the site plan, there are 16 parking spaces on this plan.
the use for the bakery and restaurant as well as for the office space up above
would in the downtown the requirement is seven parking spaces so they do comply
with parking. They do have the applicant property owners not the
applicant but the property owners do have some future plans they're not
ready to bring that forward yet but they would like to develop a building
at the front of this property sometime in the future and they would have to
come back through the process to do that.
Of course, we looked at the conditional use against the established review criteria.
We believe the proposed use would be compatible with surrounding uses, which are similarly
situated along commercial areas and in downtowns.
We believe the applicant's business will add to the variety of bakeries and restaurant
offerings in the downtown.
We did show this applicant's request to the public at the September 9th Community Zoning Information Meeting.
There was one public comment in support of the request.
And then this item went to the Planning Commission on October 6th.
Staff recommended approval subject to six conditions.
There were no public comments at Planning Commission.
And Planning Commission recommended unanimous approval subject to staff's recommended conditions.
and they did make a change to the hours of operation at the applicant's
request. Staff Planning Commission recommendation is to approve CU 22-08
Pavlova-Bimerian slash 302 North Main Street subject to the following
conditions. One restaurant and bakery shall be added as conditional use at
302 North Main Street and limited to no more than 1,648 square feet. Two
Two conditional use approval shall be limited to Pavlova by Marion.
No additional restaurant or bakery uses or sub-leasing shall be permitted within the
approved space.
Three hours of operation shall be limited to Sunday through Wednesday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Thursday through Saturday 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Four developers shall provide the required 10-foot landscape strip along the property
frontage, parking lot landscaping and 5-foot landscape strips along the north and
and south property lines as approved by DRB.
Five is the site plan specific condition,
tying it to the grade engineering site plan dated 921, 2022.
And six is the change to the front building facade,
tying it to the elevation prepared
by HRIM Design LLC dated 411, 2022
with final approval by DRB.
This is on Main Street, so it would go to design review board
As well as being in the downtown and that concludes the presentation. If you have questions, I'm happy to answer those
Councilman Hubs
Mr. Woodman, it's an it's an interesting
Piece of property when you do a street view from Highway 9 how far back it sits almost all to the rear setback
Which my question is are you aware of any comments pro or con from the?
property owner that's behind them on Canton Street. It looks to me like 319
Canton Street. So I have not received any comments from the public sent to me by
email. We did receive one comment in support at the community zoning
information meeting. I'm not sure if that who that came from that particular
comment but I'm not aware that we have received any comments for against from
that property owner but to your knowledge it was properly noticed for the
community yes yes it was appreciate it thanks any other questions from
council did the applicant bring any samples tonight for the audience no any
other questions from council see none this is shock tank now thank you mr.
women welcome with the applicant like to come forward at this time my
name is
Mary and and I'm used here to answer any questions that you have and I didn't bring
nothing but you can go and visit me when I open yeah you can visit the place any
questions for the applicant thank you Mary public
comment cards we do not Mr.
Mayor however if anyone would like to come forward and speak on this item now
is your chance to do so. Seeing none, we'll close public comment. Do I have a motion from
Council? Yes, Mr. Mayor, I'd offer a motion tonight to approve CU-22-08, Pav Lava by Marion
slash 302 North Main Street as presented tonight with the six conditions. Second? I'll second.
Have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Merkle, a second by Councilman Dorito by a noes.
Any discussion?
All
those in favor of the motion to approve CU-22-08,
Pavlova, Bimmerian, 302 North Main Street,
with the conditions as outlined by Mayor Pro Tem Merkle,
please vote yes, otherwise vote accordingly.
And it does pass unanimously.
Congratulations.
Final public hearing item this evening will be CU-22-07
media care slash 0 North Main Street.
Director and
housekeeping note.
I believe we will go ahead now that we have some of the appointees after the public hearing
before we get to the new business if that's okay.
Please proceed.
Thank you, Mayor.
The next item, the applicant.
Peachtree Immediate Care is requesting a conditional use to operate a clinic in a 4058 square foot building, which was previously developed and used for an IHOP.
The Fulton Greens master plan requires a conditional use in order to allow the change to a clinic from the restaurant.
Properties located at 870 North Main Street near the northwest corner of North Main Street and Oneward Parkway.
If approved, it would allow Peach Tree immediate care to operate the clinic.
The building, again, previously used for the IHOP, and that was part of one of the allowed uses within the Fulton Greens Master Plan.
The building was built in 2003, and it's only operated as a restaurant since that time.
And it's subject to the Fulton Greens Master Plan, Pod A, and let me put the site plan here.
Of course, to the north and the east is the Lowe's.
The Burger King is located to the east of the property, and then you have the retail
that's located across the street to the south.
Site plan of the existing site.
There are several parking spaces.
They actually have more parking spaces than are needed.
There are 54 parking spaces, although the code only requires 20 parking spaces.
And Peachtree Immediate Care operates 53 different urgent care clinics throughout Georgia.
And they're the exclusive urgent care partner of Emory Health Care.
They have another location you may be familiar with, which is on Haines Bridge Road.
That's at 10905 Haines Bridge Road.
It's across the entrance to North Point Drive, North Point Mall.
Their hours that they're proposing are Monday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
And they did submit changes to the renderings, changes to the elevation which would of course have to go through the design review board process.
They are proposing removal of the blue awnings and painting of the brick which will require the design review board review and approval.
They also submitted their traffic numbers and there is a reduction in the number of trips moving from a restaurant to a clinic use.
With the restaurant, there's 39 a.m. peak hour trips and 37 p.m. peak hour trips
that would be reduced to 11 for the a.m. And then 15 for the peak hour trips in
the evening. This item was also presented at the citizen's owning
information meeting. We didn't have any comments at that meeting that was held
on September the 14th. And it was also presented to the planning
Commission on October 6.
Staff recommended approval subject to six conditions.
And there was no public comments at that meeting.
And after discussion, the Planning Commission did recommend unanimously to recommend approval
to the City Council with six conditions.
Number one, clinics shall be added as a conditional use at 870 North Main Street and limited
to no more than 4,058 square feet.
Two, conditional use approval shall be limited
to Peachtree immediate care.
No additional clinic use or sub-leasing shall be permitted
within the approved space.
Three, clinic shall be limited to an urgent care clinic.
Four, exterior changes to the building shall require final
approval by the Design Review Board.
Existing blue awnings shall be replaced
with awnings approved by DRB.
5 hours of operation shall be limited to Monday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
And 6, property owners shall assess site landscaping or replace missing, dead,
or dying landscape material as approved by staff.
And that should actually say as approved by Design Review Board.
Apologies, since they have to go through Design Review Board for the elevation change.
This assessment shall include monument-signed landscape material as well as trees, shrubs removed by the GDOT construction.
And that is the Planning Commission recommendation. If you have any questions, I'll be glad to try to answer those.
Councilor Mitchell
miss cook the number six condition
I've noticed when it lows, that site has some, it's the landscape material on the backside is
so overgrown and so old, it's just taken over, and it does not have the offer to look at all.
Is there any way this could be worded so that they can reassess the existing landscaping
So that we can send that the DRB with the confidence that...
And I think number six, it does.
And we even went so far to make sure that we pointed out that you have to include the
Monuments on Landscaping because exactly what you've seen, we see some of those shrubs
are so large and it's kind of an outdated look.
So I think that the applicant can talk more about what they plan to do.
but we even included as well as tree shrubs that are removed by GDOT.
So that will be something that's required for the design review board.
So you're comfortable that number six addresses that fully.
Okay, thank you.
And on six it does need to say as approved by DRB instead of staff.
Any other questions for staff?
Thank you, Director Cook.
Would the applicant likely come forward at this time?
Good
evening. My name is John Richmond. I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys have.
And with your approval, we are very excited about the opportunity to open a new medical
clinic to serve Alpharetta. We provide high quality, convenient and affordable healthcare.
Regarding the question on landscaping, we have not engaged a landscape architect yet.
we I was thinking that we were going to have to be approved by staff and if we
need to include that as part of the DRB submission and we'll get on that but we
agree it has overgrown and we certainly plan to thin it out and we'll do what
makes sense for the community so I don't foresee any obstacles there. Any
other questions for the applicant?
Thanks sir. Thank you. Mr. Pirro, do we have any
public comment cards on this item? We do not Mr. Mayor. However, anyone would
I'd like to come forward and speak on this matter now is your chance.
Seeing no one will close public comment.
Do I have a motion from council?
Yes, sir.
Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion this evening to approve CU-22-07 slash Peachtree
immediate care slash 870 North Main Street with the six conditions and noting that in
condition number six where it says of dying landscape materials as approved by staff,
I would strike the word staff and replace with designer view board
Have a motion by mayor pro temp Merkel a second by councilman binder, and that was to approve
CU dash 2 2 dash 0 7 p3 immediate care slash 8 7 oh North Main Street with conditions as
Outline by mayor pro temp Merkel
any discussion
All those in favor of the motion, please vote yes otherwise vote accordingly and
it does pass unanimously
Thanks, sir.
Congratulations.
All right.
And so now that we have our distinguished guest here, we'll go ahead and pull forward
the item that we had put off at the beginning, which was the appointments and swearing in.
Ms. Shapiro, do you want to handle that?
Yes, Mr. Mayor.
Our first Boards and Commission appointment, I think, was by Council Member Binder.
You'd have someone that you'd like to appoint to Boards and Commission.
And Mr. Mayor, I believe you had two appointments that you'd like to make to our Board of Ethics this evening.
Yes, just a second.
Councilman Beiner, feel free.
Yes, sir. I have Art Leach as my new appointment to the Ethics Commission, and he is not here today.
So we will swear him in on a future meeting.
There we go.
Yes, sir.
And my appointments to the Ethics Commission will be Heather Wagner and Dale Sizemore.
Wonderful. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you and our next item under this portion of tonight's agenda is this wearing in of our
Code enforcement board member mr. Dick Freeman if you'd like to come on up, please sir
Well, good evening, but a while since I've been here
I just want
to make sure we have the same writing on ours.
I typically did not do the swearing in, so this is a new exercise for me as well.
So if you would, Mr. Freeman, if you'll raise your right hand, I, state your name.
I, Richard Freeman.
Hereby accept the honor of serving as a board member of the Code Enforcement Board.
Hereby accept the honor of serving on the Code Enforcement Board.
Or Board of Ethics of the City of Alfredo, Georgia.
Or Board of Ethics of the City of Alfredo.
That was when we were supposed to have two people sworn in, Mr. Mayor.
Yeah, I told you this was my first time.
Yeah.
I do solemnly swear or affirm that I am not the holder of an unaccounted
unaccounted for public money due of this state or any political subdivision or authority thereof.
I am not the holder of any unaccounted for public money.
Okay.
Let me start that again.
Yeah, let's go ahead.
I am not the holder of any unaccounted for public money due to this state or any political
subdivision or authority thereof.
I am qualified to hold set office according to the Constitution and Laws of Georgia.
And I shall support the Constitution.
And I shall support the Constitution and Laws of the State of Georgia and the Constitution and Laws of the United States of America.
Further, I do solemnly swear or affirm that I shall.
further I do solemnly swear or affirm that I shall faithfully perform the duties
of a board member regularly attend meetings uphold the ideals of community
and service act and conduct business in accordance with the city code of ethics
conduct and support the charter and laws of the city of El Verde so sworn this
24th day of October 2022 congratulations sir thank you for
your service. Thank you,
Dick. Thank you, Mr. Freeman.
We
lost
someone.
We lost our mayor
pro 10.
So next item up on our agenda this evening is new business. First item under
new business is the Milton Avenue and Canton Street pedestrian scramble director Robson.
Mr.
Mayor, if I could just real quickly as the Chief is walking up here, I do want to
highlight that we did have a couple of Council members request the item on the agenda tonight.
We're certainly happy to lead with the staff presentation, but I also wanted to defer not
get in front of the Council if either of the two members who indicated their desire
to speak on this tonight had a comment that they wanted to lead with before the
Chief made his presentation.
I'll just offer that out there.
Okay.
Okay, so then I'll turn it over to the Chief and he can talk about some of the study that
they have done in the area.
Thanks, Chief.
Yes, sir.
Good evening, Mayor and Council.
I think with this, I'll just go ahead and start with the background of kind of what
got us here tonight and then talk about our recommendation based on the study.
So back in August, when school went back in session, we all, including you, immediately
started getting flowed with phone calls about traffic issues downtown.
And sure enough, we were having some major traffic congestion issues, which of course
is always a concern for public safety, particularly around the Innovation Academy from there up
until nine in an intersection of Milton and Canton as well.
So with that, I was directed to please send our team down there to do a study to see
what was maybe causing the congestion and the issues, and if we could determine that
and maybe make a recommendation on that.
So we sent our team down, our traffic teams specifically down there for several
days, actually a couple of weeks to observe the traffic. As you can imagine, the major
traffic issues were in the mornings and afternoons when school was being let out, when students
were being picked up or dropped off, as we assumed. And so after a couple of weeks of
observation and studying the situation, our traffic unit came back and made a report,
gave me a report stating that they felt that the all-cross or the scramble was
was certainly the major reason for the traffic congestion that we were seeing in that area.
So with that, we decided to test our hypothesis and we had it turned off.
Had Pete worked to get it turned off for several days and again our traffic team was
down there observing and observed that when the all-cross, the scramble was turned off
and back to the way it was before the scramble was installed, we basically had
very little, if any, traffic issues at all.
So after the study that was done, the work that was put in, my staff recommended to me
that the scramble be removed, and that would basically take care of the traffic problems
we've been having downtown. I agree with your recommendation on that, and therefore I'm bringing
this recommendation to you tonight. One caveat I was asked also about turning off the no turn
on red, or getting rid of the no-turn on red signs in that area, and I did disagree with
that. We do believe that does provide an extra layer of safety for our pedestrians walking
in that area, and we think that should stay. So part of my recommendation is to have that
continue to be in place moving forward. And then, of course, Pete has done his work
with Public Works regarding the cost with the ongoing project downtown, which would
be 27 to 47 and 50 cents and that is how we arrived at this moment. That's how I arrived
at this recommendation that I'm presenting to you tonight.
Thank you, George Robinson. Any questions from Council? Councilman Binder?
You said who directed you? Councilman Will asked me to come visit. Check it out.
And
then the another another was I think I must have gone past that eight times today going back and forth.
The hotel have we have we worked on that too? I know that was a big cause.
We have we've we've had several meetings and I guess James is probably about a month and a half ago we met and things have been much better.
I won't tell you they're perfect, but we definitely have seen great improvements in that area regarding the plan and working with the hotel to
come up with a better way to handle valet parking and
Making sure that we keep whole can clear it out. And and so we have made progress that I wouldn't say it's it's a hundred percent
It's definitely been much better. Okay, and then I noticed that the crosswalks getting built right now
I think it's right in front of
They're building it right in front of the vet.
When is that going to be online?
I didn't know since the chief's doing traffic counts now
if he was also doing the construction for the crosswalk.
We used all the help we could get.
There's supposed to be doing the resurfacing the week of the 24th.
Okay.
So the 24th and the week of the 31st they'll be doing the resurfacing.
So beginning of November it'll be done.
Beginning of November.
And then there's a crosswalk going by our Baptist church.
That is shown on the Downtown Pedestrian Safety Plan study.
It's a concept that has not been 100% determined yet.
So we're just starting that process now.
That was just awarded a couple of weeks ago.
Okay.
Is there a way for that scramble to be shut off during peak?
When was the traffic happening?
Is there a time of day that we just turn it off maybe for peak?
The traffic was obviously worse during morning, schools on hours, and after new schools on hours.
Obviously we had a lot of traffic going back and forth to Innovation Academy.
Okay,
that works for me. Thanks, Mayor.
Councilmember Mitchell. Director Robinson. Are you familiar with, have we done any studies
in the last ten years on how our pedestrian traffic has increased in our downtown? I believe,
I hate to throw this on Pete, but I believe we've had a study done. We had a study back
done in 2019. And what were the results of that? There was recommendations on how to
improve the pedestrian safety in different areas of different intersections. And that
It included this intersection, did it not?
It included this intersection, yes.
It included the recommendation was a no-turn-on-right signage.
They had some other grandiose plans as well as a roundabout and some other things, but
the low-hanging fruit was a no-turn-on-right.
And how many pedestrian accidents or near-accidents are you familiar with that have happened
in our city in the last year?
Can you give me a stat on that?
In our city, no, within the last year, I know we had one hit-and-run incident, not at that
intersection.
I'm off the top of my head, not familiar with any others, but I can't say that for sure.
I'd have to go back and check, but it's very few, if any.
It feels to me that this is more autocentric and our comprehensive land use plan for
downtown and every plan and study that we've done.
When we issued a $100,000 study for pedestrian improvements, it all is to mix not only vehicular
conveniences but also save pedestrian accidents.
The best pedestrian accident is the one that never occurred.
And I do believe the scramble has helped.
I was there the other weekend on a, it was, no, it was a Thursday night.
Every corner was filled with people trying to cross and you couldn't cross.
It delayed the action because you had to go you had to wait and then there were some people who were crossing
darting across the the road
When traffic wasn't coming and this occurs a lot it hasn't occurred with the scramble as much
So I'm I'm curious as to why we're only looking at the vehicular and not really judging it based on
pedestrian safety as well
My only response to that is we were directed to specifically look at the vehicular traffic
to your point regarding the issues we're having here in the day and that's what our department
did.
Okay.
What are we doing as a public safety department to improve pedestrian safety?
Is it through education?
What are we doing right now as a city?
Education enforcement.
enforcement. I mean, we do at times, especially when we have issues with people improperly
crossing, creating dangerous situations. Also, people speeding through downtown, we will go
down and utilize enforcement, right citations. So, I think education, I think long-term,
any, you know, enforcement is always one of our number one options. But we, like any
other area of the city, we always try to make sure that we are addressing any areas
of concern regarding vehicular or pedestrian safety.
Okay.
I looked online, I didn't see anything that was addressing vehicular traffic to watch
out for pedestrians and things like that and how they could be a safer driver.
There may not be right at this moment, but I mean, you know, like other educational
presentations we make online, we do different ones, so I mean, it may be time for us
to do that again.
We have done it in the past, but I can't say we have one right at this moment,
no.
Okay, I've looked up some statistics and I'd like to share them. Perhaps that's better during discussion
Okay, thank you
Any other questions for staff on this item, I
have a few it
Mr. Robison have you
have any evidence that
Safety has improved in that quarter since
The scramble was in place. Yes. There's no evidence of that at all
That's it.
Pete, are you aware of any?
Nothing I could put my hands on.
Okay.
And, Pete, while you're here, I remember us going through this whole process before.
Did you recommend the scramble as a solution to pedestrian safety or moving traffic faster?
It's a component.
I think it was not the volume of counts at the time that we were working forward,
forward, that it would be the perfect solution for that intersection. It would not be the
best solution, the perfect solution for that intersection due to the not being the traffic,
the pedestrian warrants. I mean, downtown Atlanta has a scramble, a Georgia attack, and it's
a much larger volume going forward more frequently. And it's the, I mean, as we watch on the
video, we'll see kids come by and push the yellow button and cross perpendicular.
So that 46 seconds, 40 plus second delay does increase traffic and it's also just not working
functionally for us in the whole corridor, but the no turn on reds have helped.
I mean, we've had it off for a while and the no turn on reds, people are following
it, thanks to the enforcement that people are following it, and that is, that's working
very well.
You know, we've gotten several e-mails about, you know, claims of higher safety and you know,
so I just, I remember going through all this before and so I went back through my e-mails
and I specifically saw where you had recommended a study before we invested $100,000 in putting
in a scramble.
Do you recall that?
I recall it would determine the warrants for it.
Everything we do in our world of engineering is warrants, stop sign warrants, traffic signal
warrants, even doing traffic calming itself. We would like to have a warrant so we could
put our hands on something that says it's valid for us to move forward.
And as I recall, because I went back and pulled the email today,
you specifically asked for
that study to be done for the warrants. And then a former council member told you
there was no need. He already had the support for installing a scramble. Is that correct?
I have a vague reminder, but yes, something similar to that.
One other thing I wanted to ask you about, because as we were getting these complaints
about the backup on Milton Avenue and the traffic in that quarter, one of my concerns
was, and I've known you've spoken about this in the past, that stretch of road
between Canton Street and Highway 9 is problematic, correct?
It's got challenges.
Especially since the hotel's opened up.
But I've heard you say in the past that if we don't provide a good flow of traffic through that corridor
that the State Road Highway 9 is impacted,
Then G dot Georgia Department of Transportation has the ability to take control of our lights. Is that correct?
They had the control to take control of the single timing of state route night
So what we try to do is we try and blend it all together and try to balance it out
With doing additional traffic counts to modify our single timing in that area
What we don't want is to keep the flow going so well on East West and the North South backs up so much
That's adversely impacting the flow on a state route
So we can't let it flow so well east-west and then hinder state route 9 and vice versa
We don't want it to flow so well on 9 that it backs up on
Molton Avenue and Mid-Broadwell
So it's a challenging balancing act the
Okay, thank you
Any other questions from council council like to follow up on
You say that you don't know what the pedestrian safety has been.
I don't have a study to put my hands on it to say that yes, there has been an improvement
of X scale out there.
I do know that the no turn on reds have benefited downtown tremendously.
I do know that the rapid flashing beacons on Canton Street have helped out tremendously,
especially at night with people walking across.
the hawk signal with the lights and with the refuge island has helped out
tremendously. So elements that we have put in and even moving forward with have
helped out very well. I had not done a study and determined there was an accident
here or not a pedestrian accident here. Okay so you the truth is you don't know
either way. I can't qualify and say yes there's been yes or no sir. Okay when
And you put in the crosswalk at Old Roswell Street with the flashing lights.
I remember I had citizens complain about that as we've had citizens complain about being
able to cross as a pedestrian at Milton and Highway 9 and also Roswell and Canton.
So back up when we go to where Pure is crossing over at Roswell, the Old Roswell Street,
you put in the crosswalk, did you do a study to determine if it was needed pedestrian-wise
or has it just benefited?
We put, we did a study in the fact that we actually wanted to put a roundabout in that location
and we did a study where we could not engineer-wise get the grade to work for us
and in return we did a rapid flashing beacon crosswalk to be a temporary measure
until if we come up with a more permanent solution for that area.
So yes, studies were done in that area and the number one reason why we needed one out there
was for visibility because there is a topography challenge in that area
So we had to make sure that our poles were the right height. So yes, and we raised the as I recall we raised the
the crossing area
somewhat and I got calls from pedestrians who were walking
Throughout the morning and stuff like that that that they they feel much safer with those improvements as I have from the scramble
So but either way we haven't done a study to see how much safer pedestrians are from those
have we? I have not, sir. Okay, thank you.
Councilman Dorito. Hey Pete, can I want to
address the walkability and pedestrian safety study done in 2018-19? I went through it today
and I didn't see any reference to one of the potential solutions for creating more
walkable downtown area that a scramble would be one of those options. Is that somewhere
where in the report that I missed or?
It's not in the report.
Okay.
Second, I gotta be real honest.
I'm just gonna be very honest with everybody
on the council and the public.
I'm really disgusted with some of the inferences
made by some council members up here
against yourself and our chief.
You are here to answer questions on an issue
that former elected officials voted on and implemented
it without a safety study, a pedestrian safety study, and without a traffic study. But now
the same two of those people who still are on council.
Councillor Mendrita, is there a question in here somewhere?
Well, I'll wait to let discussion in. I just want to keep things moving in the
right direction. Any other questions for staff?
Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you. So there better be one line.
Mr. Pirro, do we have any public comment cards on this item?
We do not, Mr. Mayor.
However, if anyone would like to come forward,
now's your opportunity to do so.
If you will, please state your name and address
for the public record.
And you've got three minutes to speak your piece.
Good evening.
My name is Karen Quinn.
I live at 169 Ladder and Ridge Court.
We moved here in 1987.
My daughter called this Alphatator.
there was one traffic light.
Getting through downtown was nothing. It was just very easy.
My kids went to the old Milton that's gone.
Alpharetta Elementary, Haynes Bridge. So we've
been here a long time. Milton Avenue East West is a quarter for people from Cobb County,
from people from other counties to get through, to get to 400 now to get to all the different
places they go. That has always been, at Canton and Milton, has always been a dangerous area.
In these intervening years, to the wisdom of someone that I cannot feature, has decided
to put tall buildings, many tall buildings, with people who live in these buildings, and
you're creating tunnels. Psychologically, it's frightening. And in my driving, I traveled
in that area as little as possible. I will go out of my way to miss the downtown area
because it's scary. Yes, I'm an old lady but I've been driving for a long long
time and I know how to drive. I like the scramble. I know it really angers people
and a lot of these people don't live here and a lot of the people who do live
here haven't lived here very long. Every time the city decides that they want
to do something for the betterment of the people who don't drive, the people who don't
live in the fancy houses in the fancy neighborhoods, they're screaming. It's fussing. And there's
no patience. We put this thing in. I like it, obviously. I've seen it happen in other
cities, larger cities, where it's a lifesaver. And I believe that this is a lifesaver.
I was through that area the other day because I simply could not avoid it.
And there's a lady with a stroller, and she's watching, watching, watching, watching for the light.
She gets the light and has to run across the street because somebody who's not watching
the light was in a hurry.
Now, I've made my views known to you. Some of you have responded
to my email, and I appreciate that. I appreciate your comments. But I am asking for patience.
If you want to turn it off like Mr. Binder says during the very busy times, maybe, but
And of course that's a very busy time when you have a lot of pedestrians.
So you have people trying to get to and from school and they're very important.
You can tell by the cars they drive.
But the people on the street are important, too.
And I've not seen anybody get killed.
I'm very fortunate, but I've seen people have really close calls.
calls, and I've had close calls myself. And I really would appreciate you tabling this,
doing some more study, being patient, letting people get used to it,
and seeing if maybe
it isn't a help, because I believe it is. Thank you for your time.
Thank you very much.
Anyone else that wants to come forward from the public now is your
chance.
Good
evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Daniel MacLennan. 1995, Will Shariglin, Alfreda
3-3-0-0-9. I think you might have met me or talked to me at least once before, and
if so, you know that I'm a pretty big proponent of pedestrian safety in the downtown district.
That's a guaranteed way to get me to come to these meetings every time. I love it
when you put this on the agenda.
to. I'm a little concerned about this item tonight though. I've like some of what I've
heard tonight from various council members concerned by some other commons. I'll tell
you what I think about it and I'll do my best to keep it under three minutes too. I was
excited last year when the city decided to implement this great piece of safety for pedestrians.
That is a busy corner. That corner has a number of restaurants. You've got the animal
traffic. I walk it all the time. I walk it with my dog. I walk it with my wife. I walk
it with my parents. I see people using it all the time. And if I recall, I'm not an
expert on traffic engineering or anything, but if I recall when it was implemented a
year ago, the scramble was only going to be activated when someone pressed the button
to scramble diagonally across the intersection. I don't know if that's still the case,
but that's how it was originally talked about. So if it is causing delays, that
That means it's getting use, which is good.
It's protecting pedestrians in the right of way.
The city spent 100,000 on this last year, a little bit over that, and there were some
concerns on council at the time that it was just too much to spend in an uncertain economic
environment.
That's a fair position to have.
To spend even more money tonight, just one year later after spending that money,
to me. It seems to be quite frank, a bit ridiculous to me. As was mentioned a few times, studies
were the studies. I love words, Mr. Mayor, you asked, is there any evidence to show that
safety has been improved as a result of this? The answer was no, there's no evidence. But
there's no evidence to say anything. There's no traffic numbers. There is no times. There
is just this objective opinion that traffic is worse. I guarantee you I could pick
a number of intersections around Afaretta, sit there and say, oh, this traffic is very
much a problem here. If you guys ever go to the farmers' market, on a Saturday morning
I do, that hawk is active more often than not. You can't drive down Main Street while
that hawk is active. That's not a concern for traffic backup. Granted, I'm G-DOT and
other things I don't understand. But I think we need more data. I think something
First thing can be done before spending $27,000 to just remove it.
If you're going to fault the previous counsel for not having data and deciding to implement
this, then you guys are also at fault for not having data and deciding to remove it.
Don't repeat the mistakes of your previous counsel.
Show them better.
Try disabling it during the school rush hours.
Maybe shorten the time from 30 seconds scramble to 20.
That saves 33% time.
time. There are a lot of things you could do. At least try it first. Come back with the
data and then I think I would be convinced and members of the public would be convinced
if the data showed that it wasn't a good idea to have this here. But until that happens,
you're spending money and you don't know why. That's the way I see it and I hope you
guys will choose to at least keep the intersection long enough until you have more data
to make a choice. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Is there anyone else that would like to come forward and speak on this
item? Seeing none, we'll close public comment. Do I have a motion from Council?
Yes, sir. I move to approve the disable and remove the pedestrian scramble at Milton
Avenue and Canton Street to award a contract change order to complete all necessary work
and to authorize the merit to execute necessary documents only after the completion
of the crosswalk directly to the west of said scramble we
have a motion do we
have a second
motion fails for no second do
we have any other motions yes
sir mr. mayor I make a motion to approve to disable and remove the pest
pedestrian scramble at Milton Avenue and Canton Street toward a contract
change order to complete all necessary work and to authorize a merit to
execute necessary documents we have a motion do we have a second I'll
second
We have a motion by councilman will second by councilman to read out.
Any discussion? Yes, sir.
Councilman binder.
Um, no, I want to add a little bit more of a backstory to keep hearing about a former council member. I was one of those that
sponsored the idea as one of only two at the time that lived west of highway nine.
Taking my family and having to go and meander and having to do two crosswalks was pretty
scary and things were not happening and we moved at a fast pace to have that north-south
connection between Milton Avenue and Academy.
Also on the other end, there was multiple discussions by council members to add scramble
studies into the discussion.
mostly where it began was Highway 9 and Milton Avenue Academy because that's such a dangerous
area of having to cross twice in such a busy intersection, whereas to Pete to his credit
said that would be pretty difficult to prove to GDOT.
So we used it as an opportunity as a proof of concept.
I do believe that scrambled works.
I know a lot of families really enjoy it.
To say that it causes traffic, I think it's pretty silly when we have a study that says
that we want to slow down traffic to improve pedestrian friendly.
But I have to disassociate how I feel that I sponsored it to saying, where are we today?
Those crosswalks that we are implementing are improving.
However, why are we rushing to close that off now?
Why not just do it when we have that crosswalk for our West Side residents to use and then
you can shut off the scramble.
That's what the majority of council wants.
For small things like this, I'm a big fan of just hitting the vote and let's move on
because we got bigger fish to fry.
We got North Point, Web Bridge, fixing up in there, so whatever happens there.
But I would ask that we consider keeping the scramble until that crosswalk's finished,
which Pete's doing a good job with that.
But additionally on my bigger concerns, and I think where I was mostly frustrated on is
the word from the Chief saying I was directed.
And the liaisons, which have been our job as liaisons per our code, is to serve for
information from those departments to City Council, but shall not direct the activities
these are the department directors.
And I think we need to work on that as a council.
I mean, it's not an official there,
but our liaison ships really need some help
where we're supposed to be conduits and not directing.
And there is, and since I guess it was an inferno,
I was really trying to say, you know,
I'll just stay quiet and be there.
But when one of the sponsors writes to me and says,
I thought it was sponsored by a past council member
and he is not on my good list,
the political gamesmanship's got to stop.
So let's move on and make this vote on there,
but I would hope maybe cooler heads can prevail to say,
let's hold this off for 30 days
and then we can disamble the scramble
until the crosswalk.
And that was my only intent to throw in all of brands,
to say, I hear what y'all are saying,
but please wait there.
So I just hope, I know we can do better
on liaison ships.
That needs to get improved.
And but we can we can get there and work together as a team
Councilman hypes
Thank You mr. Mayor, and I
Wholeheartedly agree about you know looking forward looking backwards doesn't accomplish anything and you know what I wanted to say
Is there's been a lot of discussion about pedestrian safety, and I look around the room and other than
My fellow resident Daniel over here. I suspect I do more walking around downtown than anybody in this room
Let's take my reputation on that.
And I'm through that intersection quite a bit and occasionally on that rear instance
while I'm in my car.
And I do believe since pedestrian safety has come up, it's been presented as a false
choice because we do provide to get our pedestrians across those intersections in a safe manner
going with traffic like a traditional intersection.
As a council member, trying to determine what's best for Alpharetta, I have to take into account
what our staff says, and I put a lot of credence into anything that addresses safety from our
staff and the chief.
I have to take into account what I hear from the public, and I've heard from the public
like prior to the issue coming up on the agenda, mostly negative comments is what I had heard
about the scramble. And even now when it's been put out there on social media by some
people, it's about, you know, 50-50 or maybe a little bit more negative toward the scramble
than positive from what I have seen, but that's anecdotal. But lastly, I would be
remiss if I did not rely upon what I see and experience.
And what I see and experience is sitting in the left-hand turn lane at Canton, Turn Left
on Roswell, and the cars behind me are backed up through the Highway 9 intersection.
Now that's not somebody telling me that.
That's something that I've experienced.
And it was happening fairly regularly in August and into September.
And meanwhile, while I'm sitting there waiting to turn left, one person is using the diagonal
and four lanes of traffic trying to get someplace in the morning, you know, are stopped in all
four directions while one person was using the diagonal.
Now, I'm all about pedestrian safety, but I think the choice between safety or not
safety is the false choice.
I think it's a choice between safety and convenience.
And the convenience of that one person using the diagonal, it was far greater in favor
of that person than it was all the myriad of other people in all four directions trying
to get some place at that moment in time.
I will also tell you that when I have been stopped at Highway 9 to turn left on Academy
Highway 9 from Academy Street, I was seeing the box, the intersection, blocked on a regular
basis in morning traffic around 8 o'clock in the morning.
And most of those cars blocking the traffic, we're trying to go northbound on Highway 9
and turn left onto Milton Avenue like they're heading toward Innovation Academy.
And I would submit to anybody who is getting ready to vote on this, their pedestrian
safety is now becoming an issue.
issue.
We created convenience down there at Canton where the scramble was.
We created convenience, I don't believe we enhanced safety, but we created a safety issue
at Milton and Highway 9 with cars blocking the box.
And once again, I would be remiss when this item is brought forward if I didn't take
into account those things that I experience and can bring to the table as a council
person being a downtown resident.
So,
you know, it's, I think we need to look forward and I think we just need to do and
make the best decision we can for our residents.
And so to that I want to echo Councilman Binder's statement.
Councilman Mitchell.
I would agree with Councilmember Hype's assertion that Highway 9 and people blocking
the box.
I know there's a way we can put up signs that say do not block the box and start ticketing
those vehicles.
But pedestrian deaths are up 51.5 percent since hitting a low of 4,109 in 2009.
That's 51.5 percent according to GHSA.
They now make up about 16% of all road deaths, up 12% in 2009, death on foot.
More than 7,000 pedestrians were killed in our nation's roads and crashes and
Involving a motor vehicle in 2020. That's about one death every 75 minutes. And there were also
an estimated 104,000 emergency department visits and pedestrians treated for non-fatal crash-related
injuries in 2020. So my whole thing is, if we want to change it and adjust the scramble
so that perhaps like you had suggested one person was walking across where it has to
be pressed twice before the scrambles activated, I'm good with that. But I'm not good with
going backwards as a city and going backwards when we say our long range comprehensive land
use plan for our downtown is to create a pedestrian friendly and the vehicular
friendly downtown. And we've done that. We've gotten more density in the last
10 years. Consequently, as you just so eloquently said, ma'am, we've increased our pedestrian
traffic exponentially. And thereby, there are misses and near misses of people on who almost
had an accident or who have darted across our street. So pedestrian safety is a main
factor for why I will not vote to remove this scramble, because scramble's whether
whether you choose to admit it or not, they're suggested by national pedestrian experts who
major in these areas. They are suggested as means to get traffic across busy intersections.
So it's not just something that the previous council dreamed up. It's something that's
real and it was something we did look at. Now, I think we need to do some pedestrian
studies in our downtown. I think we really need to know whether or not how many people
there versus how many people were there 10 years ago or even a year ago. It's
increased even a year. Our bicycle traffic has increased in our downtown
area and we really don't know those studies and quite frankly to me a
public safety department, our main concern should not only be automobiles
but it should be pedestrian safety as well because that's what our city is
all about now. It's what every mixed use development area of our city is
about is about making people, allowing them to walk around without being hit or injured
or killed. And so I can't support this tonight. I think it's a ridiculous thing to go back
and spend $30,000 after we spent $100,000 implementing it just a year ago. It's a bad
use of funds and it's a retaliatory political thing, if you ask me. Thank you.
Any other comments?
Councilman Dorito?
Let me start out apologizing publicly to Councilman Mitchell and Binder.
I wasn't intended on, you know, attacking you on my comments.
It wasn't intended.
I was just emotionally concerned about our directors, at least my perception.
I won't suggest what you were attempting to do.
but, you know, being the so-called punching bag to the issue that we're discussing tonight.
Let's all be honest and be very transparent.
This issue happened before Councilman Will and I got on the City Council, and it was
very political.
In fact, all the time I spent researching public discussions on before the scramble
was approved and the money was appropriated, that by the way, from at least what I've
read from minutes and things that there was no appropriation in the budget for a scramble
that the money was allocated at the time. And there's very little discussion on it by those
who sponsored it. I'm not suggesting that their intentions are bad. I think we're all
here to improve pedestrian safety and traffic safety whenever we can. And Councilman Mitchell
right, I mean, we've seen a dramatic increase in the activities of downtown
Alpharetta, and on top of that, while we talk about traffic safety and pedestrian
safety, this council and our retreat of your call and subsequent to that, which
Chief Roberson has discussed, just public safety in the city center areas
as far as beefing up our police presence and making sure that we
maintain a very safe environment all around. With that said, I got to be
To be honest with you, I struggle with this.
I struggle with this because first of all, I wasn't here to create the political football in the last council that led us to this discussion tonight.
I don't think, by the way, Chief Oberson was directed.
He was probably requested to take a look at it.
I've had multiple discussions with our public works director on it.
You know, they're here answering our questions and it would have been nice if a traffic study
was done as part of the consideration for implementing a scramble anywhere in the city
or a pedestrian study to support the investment of a little over $103,000 of taxpayer funding.
I even asked Pete today, you know, for the $27,000 and change whatever the exact
amount is in the agenda tonight. To remove the scramble, you know, it seems to me if
you remove the striping and you turn off the switches, it could be a lot cheaper, but he
provided a full explanation of why it would cost that much, which made a lot of sense
from an aesthetically pleasing standpoint. To remove those stripes from the street,
it's a lot bigger project than it looks. You can't just cover up the yellow walkways
in that sort of thing. So I've done a lot of, I spent a lot of time on this issue. I knew
it was going to become political tonight. Not because I wanted it to be or anybody wanted
it to be. It's just there's a lot of heat on this discussion even when it happened
in the last council.
I, you know, looked at the walkability study from 2018. Yeah,
a lot of things have changed. And maybe the good thing that will come out of this
discussion tonight is as Councilor Mitchell already suggests is maybe we do do a current
study of pedestrian safety and traffic safety in the downtown area or other parts of the
city where we see a high growth level and an impact on current safety standards that
we have around the city.
I just think that and my personal experience and I'm going
to take it down to that because I do go down the city center on weekends with my wife and
sometimes my kids when they're in town and friends and family.
Every time we go through
that scramble there's a lot of confusion by people. And to me that's a pedestrian safety
concern because people are not used to a scramble. And typically scramble is from at least
my research and I think the only one in the region is Georgia Tech. I have thousands
thousands of students crossing it on that intersection.
And I think it's a timed intersection.
I don't think you hit buttons and turn on the scramble to turn off the scramble.
And so there's a little bit better safety precautions given to how that scramble operates for,
you might have 30 students on each corner trying to cross it between classes or what have you.
We have a different situation down here where you don't have that type of value unless you have the blue moon or
some big event going on in city center,
where you have 30 people in each corner trying to cross.
And I think the confusion of hitting the buttons
and which button and which way to go,
I've seen a lot of people confused.
And that itself is a pedestrian safety issue in my mind.
And so I wanna leave with this thought.
Removing the scramble does not remove pedestrian safety
at that intersection.
In fact, I think it will enhance it
and by bringing it back to a what I'll call normal intersection where the lights will change
and people will cross with the right signage and all that stuff.
And we eliminate the turns that Pete spoke about earlier to kind of just provide some
consistent traffic though there but also safely for the people who are trying to cross that
intersection.
And for that reason that's why I believe it's the right thing to move forward and
and change this intersection to, you know,
basically bring it back to an intersection
that people can understand.
And the low value that we have of what typically hits
a scramble around the country in Alpharetta,
it actually will enhance the safety of that intersection.
And that's the conclusion I'm coming to.
Any other discussion?
Councilman Buyer, do you have a question?
Question, I asked and it kind of floated,
but after making my comments,
Is there any interest to executing this today, but holding it until Pete's crosswalk is completed in November at the end of November?
Can I comment on the question?
Yeah, I mean, if you want to make comments, there's your opportunity.
My understanding is it's not even operating right now, correct? It hasn't been operating.
Yes, no, I understood that. I was asking to put it back on until it got back on November. Sorry, sir.
All cars on the table, it is not operating now.
However, we did notice that the light went in flash
about two weeks ago when we checked our records
and when we reset the signal, unfortunately,
yes, the scramble was not working.
However, when someone did push the yellow call button,
the two perpendicular pellet tracks,
the white lines were actually holding still.
So in other words, it was working as a scramble,
unfortunately, there was no countdowns for diagonal.
So all the traffic was stopped for a little bit.
So we caught the air, reprogrammed everything.
What happened is we went back to factory setting.
So we had to reset everything again.
So it is not operational now, that is for sure.
The one thing I had to air on caution,
Councilman Binder, is they're gonna be doing
milling resurfacing.
So when we fin, I can't finish this,
the mid-block crosswalk and keep the scramble open because milling or sourcing operations
are going to remove the scramble crosswalk. At the same time, we're finalizing the mid-block
crosswalk.
Thank you, sir.
Any other comments? I'll
just make a couple. One is to Councilman Dorito's point, you know, several years
ago I was in Nashville and I actually remember saying, well, maybe a scramble could work.
But there's ways we typically go about making investments with the public's money. And typically
we know that if we're spending $100,000, we've got some data or some experience or
recommendation from staff to rely on and none of that took place. I share
Councilman Mitchell's frustration. It annoys me to no end that we're sitting here
talking about spending more money to fix something that we never ever studied to
see if it was going to have the wanted impact. And I'm disappointed on that. I
trust Pete, I trust John Robinson, despite what anybody thinks, we have
have the best safety record of pedestrian safety of any of the cities around us. And yes, do
we need to improve? Yes, we do. And have we? Yes, we have. We spent millions of dollars
on pedestrian safety downtown. And to the nice woman who was talking about downtown,
it is a shame sometimes that when zoning decisions were made, that pedestrian safety
he wasn't taken into consideration and traffic, quite frankly, at those times.
And I share your frustration with some of that as the only person who voted against that
hotel, not because it wasn't great and it wasn't good for the economy and it's been
great for downtown economically, but the traffic patterns it created has been tremendously
problematic.
And that was foreseeable, but it's there now and it's going to remain there.
So we have to do the best we can to keep people safe in that built environment now.
So I do support it.
That being said, the motion was to approve the Milton Avenue County Street pedestrian scramble approval to disable.
All those in favor, please vote yes, otherwise vote accordingly.
And it does pass, 5-2.
that wrap up that part of the new business and we'll move on to the
Intergovernmental Agreement Alfredo jail facility and operations director
Robinson you have the floor okay that's fine he's taking enough air I'm sure
y'all will have questions for him but so as you all know we have the Alfredo
jail facility which Fulton County had been or the Fulton County Sheriff had
been operating I think until 2019 and it's been out of commission since then this
IGA with Fulton County is intended to get it back up and running and so I think
that Fulton County is already working on the jail itself but this agreement
provides our city with basically relief for our officers so that when they
find someone and they need to book them it's more convenient it's located
here it's quicker turnaround because the sheriff's office is handling it in
city so our officers can get back out on the street. It gives the city a minimum of or at
all times 20 spaces for alpharetta inmates specifically. So the jail is going to be operated
fully by the Fulton County Sheriff. We would pay booking fees for our individual alpharetta
inmates, be responsible for utilities which was I think the same as it was with the
prior agreement, though we do not currently have any other agreements in place.
We are going to be, and I think you'll have actually already approved a conflict resolution.
We have a motion for our office to work on agreements with other North Fulton municipalities
so that they can also utilize the jail. So that might actually offset some of those costs.
So I think there was, let me see what the actual cost is. It's, yeah, it's $60 a day for a
booking fee after they've spent their four hours in the jail facility and then the
costs for utilities, but the cost for utilities could be offset with additional agreements depending on if you know Milton or
John's Creek or anybody else wants to use it
And those separate agreements which would come to you at a different date would provide for them to have
Allocated spaces as well
But ultimately this is intended to provide some relief to to our public safety department and have the jail operational again
Any questions from my last line on this?
Councilman will have
we implemented the additional fees on tickets in court cases yet so that
we can cover costs so
that will be the next step that yes apparently that will be the
next step apparently was not the answer I'm looking I can go ahead take a shot of that
yes yes we will but the precursor to doing that is to have this idea in place until
you all vote on this idea there was nothing for us to do to start that process but if
If you approve this tonight, then the answer to your questions, yes.
Thank you.
Any other questions for staff on this item?
Thank you, gentlemen.
Mr. Shapiro, do we have any public comment cards?
We do not, Mr. Mayor.
However, if anyone would like to come forward and speak on the JLIGA, how's your chance
to do so?
Seeing no one, we'll close the public comment to have a motion by Council.
Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to approve an intergovernmental agreement by and between
the City of Alpharetta, Georgia and Fulton County Sheriff's Office and Fulton County,
Georgia to board and provide for the housing of inmates at the Alpharetta County jail, Alpharetta
jail, sorry.
I'll second that.
The longer version.
That would be third.
So we do have a motion by Councilman Will, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Merkle, and that
was to approve the Intergovernmental Agreement, Alpharetta Jail Facility and Operations
as outlined by Councilman Will.
All those in favor please vote yes otherwise vote accordingly councilman
will and it does pass unanimously
So that wrap up new business portion of tonight's meeting
Now there's an opportunity for public comment if anyone might come forward at this time
Seeing none will close public comment
any reports
Councilman Mitchell. I'd like to wish all of our South Asian residents, which
comprise about 13 percent of our population, our largest minority group,
happy Diwali that is today and wish them the best and bringing light into the
world.
Any other reports? Mr. Mayor, if I may, I'd like to give a report on our
election season. Thank you for asking. I would love to hear that. Wonderful. So
So as you all may know, it is election season.
Early voting began earlier this month and will go until November 4th.
So our local early voting location is the Alfreda Library just right next door.
As a friendly reminder, early voting is on the upper floor of the library, so the lower
floors are locked when the library is not typically open.
But earlier this spring, we did start some poll worker training within the City of
Alpharetta hosted right here in City Hall and our turnout was okay it could
have been better so we had about two days of poll worker training but I'm
happy to report that we have had an incredible turnout for this season's
poll worker training so that's where we coordinate four days on our schedule
this year to offer classes two classes a day to our poll workers in our city
also in residence in North Fulton.
So each class allows about 25 citizens to participate in the poll worker training sessions.
And we had several days that the poll worker classes were completely full.
So we had never experienced that in town before.
So just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone in our community that's participating
in our local election for this season.
And we're also going to be coordinating additional days.
It's one of the greater turnouts that they've had in Fulton County for pole worker training.
So we look forward to getting to hosting next time we have it.
Great job Lauren.
She was telling me about that the other day and I thought I would like for you to share
that with the public and with the rest of council because you've done a tremendous
job and an issue that was very pointed a couple of years ago and while it's still
as critical, Alpharetta has been the most proactive community I've seen in North
and so I appreciate it. Well thank you Mr. Mayor. You're welcome.
We have no
executive session necessary tonight.
Have a motion to adjourn?
We have a motion by
Councilman Binder, a second by Councilman Mitchell, all those in favor of
adjourning please vote yes. Thank you ladies and gentlemen.