And we have quite a few things to cover. There's some amendments to the agenda that we need to make publicly.
We're going to move item four and number one, we're going to move four ahead of number one.
Make sure everybody is clear on that. Item six will be struck.
That should not have been on the agenda. Okay?
It's wondering why we're going here.
Alright, having said that, let's move to roll call. Let the record show all the president accounted for.
And we'll move down to item B, which is citizen input.
If there are some citizens here that would like to address the board relative to an issue that is on the agenda,
you can come to podium, you can name and address, and before we'll be yours.
Having seen a motion, we'll go to board updates, and we have one board update.
We'll have our chairman, our DDA, Jim McGarr, come up and give us an update.
Thank you, Mayor.
Well, thanks and good evening.
Thanks for the opportunity for us to give you an overview of the DDA.
I understand that this is a new practice, and that we're the first.
So, second. Okay, we're the second. We're the first today.
We're the first today.
So I wanted to give you a little bit of overview about some of the things we've got going on.
First, let's talk about what is a DDA.
It was actually established by Georgia legislation, and it was established for every municipality in the state of Georgia.
But the municipality had to actually activate its DDA before it became approaching the body.
Norcross has activated its DDA, and it's been in operation for several years.
This is the purpose. It's basically focused pretty much on the downtown business district.
In our case, there's a map that actually shows the area that we updated last year
in conjunction with another project for which we were the conduit for tax-exempt bonds.
But our focus is on revitalization and redevelopment of the central business district
to derive value for the municipality and the state of Georgia.
There are some things that we can do, develop and promote downtowns that's sort of implicit in the mission,
make long-range plans or proposals for downtowns, financing.
We have the ability to do a variety of financing structures depending on the nature of the deal.
Loans, grants, leases, bonds.
We can execute contracts and agreements as a board.
And we can purchase, lease and sell property.
Finally, we can issue, and I mentioned this before, we can issue bonds and notes,
so tax-full and tax-exempt.
And in the case of the Brookhaven Innovation Academy, this past year,
we became the conduit for the issuance of those taxes and bonds.
Our objective is to partner with mayor and council, with the city staff,
with other organizations within the city as possible or as appropriate
so that we can work together toward a common end.
You can see from this description that we're not like the other boards and committees in town
because we've got these separate partners, or these separate powers.
We're not an independent entity, but we're a quasi-government entity with these additional powers.
So I want to let you know who's currently on your DDA.
John Bemis is the deputy chair, the vice chair of the DDA.
He's on travel.
He's an executive vice president with JLL with 36 years of commercial real estate experience.
Norwood Davis, who's here with us, is the CFO of 12 Stone Church.
You see some pretty big numbers up there.
He's got a big operation.
Over 100 million dollars in commercial real estate projects
manages a half million square feet of property across the multiple campuses
with a $35 million annual budget.
Jim Meyer, who's also here.
I thought I saw you sneak in.
He's currently a consultant, but he's also got over 40 years of commercial real estate experience
in evaluation, acquisition, and construction management.
Our millennial representative is Brendan Frazier.
He's a mechanical engineer with Pond & Company.
Nine years focused on building design and construction.
Primarily in high performance buildings and sustainability.
He's been a great add to the board because he's been able to go out to some of the properties that we have
and actually do the mechanical assessments.
Tim Morisco, who's also here.
Senior vice president for Cresa Global.
34 years of commercial real estate experience and he's a Norcross business owner.
We thought it was important to have one of the business owners as a member of the board.
And then finally Rob Gerard, who's also here.
44 years in the electrical industry in a whole variety of roles
ranging from engineering to sales and marketing to project management and contracts.
In addition, we have an operations manager, Will Stipley, who lives locally.
He is focused on the nitty gritty details of tenant and property management.
For instance, he's our primary interface with the cotton gen
and with the tenants at the cotton gen.
Anywhere from collecting the rental payments to fixing toilets to a whole variety of things.
Will has been a great addition to our board.
By the way, he was hired by the DDA and we pay him from the DDA.
We're totally separately funded as their organization
and we're funded through lease revenues and those kinds of things.
And we're volunteers. We don't pay ourselves anything.
We pay Will since he's an operations manager and he works 20 hours a week.
But the rest of us, unlike the other boards and committees, are volunteers.
We don't get any compensation for being members of the DDA.
Got a couple of slides just to go through real quick
some of the projects that are under our preview right now.
Cotton Gen, I mentioned that. We manage that on behalf of the city.
We do tenant management, operations maintenance and repair.
Again, Will Stipley is our primary conduit there.
Whoops.
There he is.
Britt Avenue, that's the little house on Britt Road,
right across from the library site.
It's probably leased to Purple Poppy.
And it's a month-to-month lease to give us flexibility
while it's under consideration for possible redevelopment.
The 128 Lawrenceville Street,
that's the former Hispanic Association building
off Lawrenceville just right down the street here.
It's being used now by Lionheart Theater, excuse me,
but it's also a month-to-month lease
while we're considering redevelopment options.
89 Jones Street is the historic church.
We purchased this last year
through a loan that the city has backed for us.
Our intent is to repurpose this as a restaurant.
We want to preserve that historic structure
even if it becomes a restaurant.
We have had a lot of expressions of interest.
It's a unique site in a strategic location
in downtown Norcross.
In fact, in at least two cases,
it might have been more than two.
We've gotten to the draft letter of intent stage,
but we didn't execute
because we get consistently feedback
from the people who approached us
about their concern over parking,
especially in that area.
And we've talked to them about the emergence
of the new parking deck that's associated
with the Brunswick Project,
and the parking deck that will be associated
with the new library,
and the parking that's back over in this area.
But that has been enough
to keep them from signing an LOI with us.
Finally, we've got the Brunswick Project
down on the upper highway.
Phase one is 194 units,
mixed-use multi-family.
They're on schedule.
We expect the early units to be ready
for occupancy around July
with completion of the units
in terms of occupancy readiness
in the August time frame.
The developers take a look
at their pro forma estimates
in terms of lease rate,
and they could potentially fill this
by next summer, assuming that we
start to occupy this summer.
The parking deck is now owned
by the DEA.
We had a deal where
they bought the property from us.
They built the parking lot.
They built the parking lot
so that we would have access to that
for use by the city,
and we'll also get rental income
from the apartments for the portion
of the parking deck that will be used
by the occupants.
Phase two, which was part of the original deal,
and includes the property up in the vicinity
of the community center.
The developer is exploring options.
In fact, I was on the phone with him again today
as I was coming up here.
The current UDO that was just
put in place last year
does restrict the use
of that particular property.
So they're being challenged
in terms of options.
We'll see what they come up with.
They're exploring options now.
They're going to come back to us
probably in the March meeting
with some thoughts that they've got.
And then pad nine is
the piece of property right across
from 89 Jones Street.
If you're standing there looking at the fountain
down into the Lillling Web Park,
it's the property on the left.
That also is under the purview
of the developer
who's doing Brunswick,
and they're close to final negotiations
with the restaurant.
So more to follow on that
as we get closer to
the time when we can make that public.
So pad nine.
Pad nine is that corner lot.
It's grass right there.
So our strategy is obviously
focused on the downtown area.
We actually had our own planning retreat
in parallel with the council planning retreat
this last couple weeks ago.
And we've got a couple of projects
that we're in the middle
of investigating and research right now.
So more to follow as those
start to take shape.
Butteford Highway.
I know there's a strong interest in a master plan
for Butteford Highway.
We are participating with staff on that
as that starts to play out.
We're hoping that the Brunswick
coupled with the new library
becomes a catalyst
for some of that redevelopment
along Butteford Highway.
The Web property over here
just down
the street beyond Dominix.
We're standing by to partner
and assist with that as that develops.
That's currently in progress
as we speak.
And then we're exploring options
for redevelopment financing.
We had Ed Wall, who's the finance
advisor for you all and for us
spend some time, a good bit of time
during our planning retreat
going through with us some of the
different financing options
and what's allowable under the law.
And it gave us a lot of stuff
to think about because we have not
been thinking as broadly as Ed
does to think.
So we're exploring options for
redevelopment financing
if we identify a project that we need
funding for
and we need resources to
proceed.
And that's it.
DDA in 10 minutes or less.
Any questions?
I have a couple questions.
Can you back up to that
slide we have all the projects
I can throw?
So
as I was reading this over
questions occurred to me
first of all
let me see
the
limited or no parking
you said that you've
discussed with them that
available parking coming online
sometime later this year
or next.
Well we talked about existing parking
parking out here
between here on the Compton Jett
is existing so we've got to go up the steps
and get to the location
or down the street to get to the location.
Exactly so those are
and not only have added
the parking that we expect to come online
here within the next year.
The Brunswick and the library.
And those being
not a really long
ways away but certainly
not up front
but
if you go into
Cater for example you're going to
you're going to want a couple of blocks from where
if you find the location.
So
so
the parking
either one of those parkings would be at least
no further away than
I'm just
that's how I was going to ask you
how
how do you see that
getting resolved
can you
anticipate somebody saying well
it's really not that far
or do you think we really have to do something
we've had variants of those
very discussions with each of these folks
especially the ones that we got to the point
where we were exchanging edits
on LOI grounds
and they just
and I can't say from what they told us
that that was the sole
showstopper but it was one of the things
when it fell apart
and we were talking to them
why did you back away
that was one of the factors that's been mentioned
in the system
Any suggestions to what we could do to make that better, because it doesn't really seem like it's that far away, but when I get it, it's not right out front.
I don't know if you've had a chance to look at the parking studies.
Yes, I have.
Because there have been a number of those down there for several years.
Well, one of them proposed a parking garage right where that parking lot between the cotton jib and the city hall.
Yeah, yeah, I've heard that mentioned.
There's a potential for a parking deck over around a community center, which is part of the phase two property.
But that doesn't seem like it would be a, you know, it would still be at the same place.
There might be more parking there.
Several years ago, there was discussion about the pad on the other side of the fountain.
You know, you've got pad 9 on one side, then the fountain in the pad on the other side.
About making that a graveled or a grass, grass squares, grass papers.
So you could still use it to host a farmer's market or something that you could also use it for parking.
I mean, there have been a number of options and discussed about parking much closer.
I think, sir, I think what we're hopeful that once those original parking lots come along,
that once they see it, and it's real, I mean, if you're trying to put in a restaurant,
you got to pay a monthly night every month.
You're not going to be able to wait.
And the solution isn't visible.
It may not be there for six months. You're not going to sign up for that.
Well, and now that the city is on the verge of getting a shuttle,
that could positively affect this.
But that's not been in the mix when we had these prior discussions.
Yeah, this is all kind of evolving as I can't talk.
And that was my next question, is would that shuttle make the job easier?
I think that would have a positive contribution to those discussions.
I have three quick questions.
It's kind of thinking about Bruce.
How many spots are they saying, are there any kind of, we just need more parking?
Just telling me that you need more parking doesn't solve me anything.
Where do you want parking? How many more do you need?
Because we've had discussions about closing Brit or making Brit one way and adding 12 spaces there.
I think a little bit is kind of what you're talking about.
Once they see it, it'll be there.
But if they have unrealistic expectations, I need 100 spaces.
We're not going to be able to cobble together 100 spaces.
Well, I don't know. In the discussions I've had, I've not gotten into a specific number.
Jim, do you have some insight?
The retail has been parked at 10 per thousand.
So for a 32-hundred square foot building, you're looking for 30 to 40 spaces.
What they're really looking for is also some convenience spaces
so that they can have LA parking and other extra things.
I'm sure it would be perfect for that.
We just have to put...
Yeah, so it's not necessarily, you know, we have some folks who are working
that are used as sort of a small, urban downtown area where people find a parking place.
But the higher-end restaurants want to be able to offer some type of ballet
and where you're going to park those cars.
So a ballet, once there's 50 spaces opened up at Brunswick, that's perfect ballet.
It's a little park. You know, they probably would park here better than down there.
It's not the customer that's going back and forth.
But if you think about a runner, that's pretty good.
That's a pretty good slow period.
That'd be a good check. You'd have to tip them well.
Okay.
Well, I still think...
So my first year as chair, I got with Dan Watch when he was on the bus there.
And we looked at the county design standards for parking.
And we looked at possible options.
One of the things we looked at was basically a deck and a half behind the community center.
There'd have to be some phase two adjustment if we were to go that way.
And that yielded, I think, 154 spaces total.
But, you know, we've explored options.
Yeah. I mean, we've had this discussion for years.
For me, and not even before you yet, paying for a parking deck
when autonomous vehicles and other mode stretch patients are coming on board,
paying for a parking deck for 30 years is a hard thing to do.
But...
You could turn them into heel porn for your own.
Or we could...
There's a lot of discussions around turning those into
building a parking deck that can convert into a home.
So I like 30,000 foot things.
And I know that you're the...
I'd really like to look at 30,000 foot things.
So the economic disadvantages that you're facing here.
We're dealing with some PDR stuff tonight.
Is it strictly that because we do not allow apartments at that location,
that's why it's not economically viable?
Or is it they just can't make it work with the current EDM?
The current zoning allows 35 units?
It's a density.
Yeah. It's a density thing.
You know, with three acres, it's got $800 million an acre.
35 units is tough to make in.
But they're over $100,000 a door.
Yeah. That's what Matt said.
It's just the dirt costs too much.
Yeah. So, you know, it's...
But, yeah, it's a density thing.
All right. This may not be used, Jim.
So I apologize in advance.
And it's not a 30,000 foot thing.
It's about as detailed as Josh used to get.
So I apologize.
There's a power box right there at the front of the Brunswick.
And it's too late for us to do anything.
But this massive gateway to our city,
there is a bus of a power box just sitting there.
How did that come into play?
Was there anywhere else we could have put it?
It's too late now.
But the real question is,
would Brunswick or whoever,
would the city allow us to have some sort of artwork on that
instead of just a big brown box at the gateway to our city?
Do you?
I suspect we could find some way to treat it
or to disguise it or to hide it.
Okay.
We somewhat would have between the library
and Brunswick there would be another box,
a junction box.
It could possibly be what Steve...
Steve.
That box between the Brunswick and Brunswick
could possibly be 4P, right?
The junction box is not 3P, though.
3P.
We might have to do some type of deck or two,
like landscape and artwork.
But we control those.
Okay.
I would love for us to have some sort of local artists come out.
We've had people ask about that before.
Okay.
At the city artwork,
we've done research on it.
It's all a fend itself for cooling.
And it's, you know, it's whatever you got.
Yeah, I suspect even if we had to put a temperament
around it or something like that.
Okay.
Thank you, Jeff.
Thanks for coming today.
I have a working question.
Okay.
The parking deck, the structure itself
is folded by the...
Is that right?
What was that deal?
When was it, John?
About two weeks ago?
About two weeks ago, yes.
Yeah.
It's part of the overall purchase and sale agreement
for the entire 3.6, whatever it was, 3.3 acres.
The deal was the developer purchased the entire acreage.
They began immediately after they purchased it,
they sold back to the DEA,
the portion where the apartment buildings are going to be
in the remaining portion,
which is the parking garage.
They constructed the parking garage
and then the DEA purchased the parking garage
back for the developer.
So it is owned by the DEA right now.
Right.
And so the lease,
tenant lease of the parking spaces
is what eventually gets you...
That will generate revenues back to us.
Is it like a lease to own
or is it a perpetuity owned by the DEA
and get any lease to own?
They have a perpetual right
to, I think, 258 spaces.
As long as they keep paying the rental form.
The amount that they're paying in red
is designed to pay off the $7 million,
I think the $7 or $8 million revenue bond.
And then at the end of that,
the amount of the lease payment goes down.
But they have a perpetual...
The apartments are worthless
if you don't have parking.
Sure, I understand that.
So they have a perpetual right
to have the use of those license agreement
if you want to use those 258 spaces.
So the parking deck,
there's a lease amount that the DEA gets.
And once the deck is paid off,
the lease is reduced,
then the lease amount is reduced.
Do you have an idea how long that is?
Gosh, 30 years.
30 years.
So at 30 years now,
then that low-release payment is revenue.
Yes.
And that's a permit.
And where is the 50 units
that are part of the city's use?
50 spaces.
No, is it in that 258 number
or is there actually...
There's actually close to 300 spaces in there.
So not all of those spaces
are allocated for apartment-right residents.
Yes.
Only a portion.
And the 50-ish that are reserved for city use
are over and above that,
that we're talking about
for whatever parking we need
for emergency services.
Okay.
The higher-lease rate goes to 2045.
And then that...
Okay, so just say that everything gets paid back
by 2045.
No, unless we'll see it.
Medical advantage?
One more question.
I know I will see it.
There's some of us that will see it.
Morality of us will see it.
One more question.
Without going into something that's really long,
what does the DDA need
for mayor and council for us
to be able to effectively park?
I think the best thing is communication
early in the process.
So as we explore these options,
I would say,
we just identified these two weeks ago
in our planning retreat.
So we've got a little bit more research to do.
But as we get a little further along
with a little better definition,
we're going to be coming back to talk.
We would ask for the same thing.
If you've got thoughts
about things that ought to be
considered for downtown,
let us know early.
Not after you've
into deal, but early.
So we can coordinate our efforts
and collaborate.
Anybody else with thoughts
about what you need from mayor and council?
Does that take you a bit?
I think it does.
Any other council questions?
Jim, thank you so much. We appreciate it.
I'd like to just express thanks
for what the guys do.
It's a lot of work.
No pay, it's all volunteer
to get it.
There are some folks like Jim
that's been the point person
for some of the discussions
on the restaurant and church options.
And that takes,
fortunately, he's got a lot of flexible
calendar space.
I can imagine.
So thank you very much.
Thank you Jim.
Okay, smart meter up there.
Okay.
I've got this wealth of knowledge
over here from our smart meters
that we're going to give a Q&A on.
We're going to hear smart meters
which are also going to hear AM models.
Automated meter and infrastructure.
We've put out an RFP.
What we're trying to do is replace
our existing AMI system
with a TANLIS system.
And Marybeth thought it would be a good idea
for us to do a Q&A session.
So I've got
Brian James
from Electric Seas at Georgia
who's the director of
engineering.
And then Jonathan Leek
who is the
project manager
of TANLIS, Mr.
Dermot O'Leary.
So
I'm not sure really how we need to
start this, but just
we're not here to answer questions that you may have
regarding AMI
and TANLIS
because obviously we're not going to be asking
about the next
council meeting. Steve, tell us
what a smart meter is.
So a smart meter is communication between
the meter back to
the billing system.
Every meter on the house communicates
and gives us a lot of good data.
It gives us solid reads.
It gives us a lot of ideas where our
just can be.
It's been a very useful tool
for the years that we've had it already
and we just need to kind of
upgrade our system right now
to TANLIS.
It eliminates the old
manual readers
that we used to have.
Meter to meter.
Taking notes.
Caused a lot of problems in the past.
Yes, a lot of problems.
So that smart meter technology is something
that we adopted years ago.
Some time ago and now we're having to update it.
Is that
the basis of mostly 5G and that?
Yes, that's correct.
Steve, that's...
I got to be able to vote on the last time we did
smart meters.
I may be the only one at the table
concerned that
I know technology moves fast
but our partner is ECG
with the table that time.
I don't want to be doing this again.
Of course I probably won't be doing this again,
but I don't want another council
to be doing this again in 10 years.
What kind of lifespan do we expect on this?
I know it's much more
upgradable but how do we kind of
not end up here in the same place
where we're kind of against the back
of the wall?
I don't know about that.
Sure.
Yeah, so
the newer technology
is the technology.
If this isn't distracting, well, you're just going to make that couple of year out.
Yeah, we've got like a season. Yeah, it's all okay.
So you don't just signal me.
Handless technology utilizes kind of a, if you want to call it an overlay communication infrastructure,
and that overlay communication structure is a limited number of what we'll call VersaCollector
or VersaCons collectors that have some type of backhaul communication to your head end.
So right now what we've been planning is a cellular backhaul communication,
because that's what suits the topology here in your network today.
But ultimately, that's migratable to fiber.
As fiber grows out of your network, you'll be able to connect those collectors to fiber.
So that's somewhat future-proofing, if you want to call it,
and eliminating the potential for being obsolete by a network, a telecom network provider, for example.
But besides that, or you could potentially change that, he'll show us in a minute,
that those collectors have a slot in there that you just pull out whatever the previous technology was,
and you put in the newest technology.
So even if we go to 10G five years from now, you'll be able to pull out that 5G cellular card
if you don't have fiber, and you'll put in the 10G card.
So instead of replacing a population of 4,300 meters like you're in this situation today,
you'll only really be replacing five or six cellular cards in those collectors.
The rest of the communication is being done on an unlicensed 900 megahertz,
what we call local area network communication,
and that ultimately will be a, that's a proprietary, if you want to call it, technology
that the city will own, and that we've deployed at 175 other utilities similar to yourself,
and that's what TANLIS does. We're focused primarily on public power entities.
All 175 customers of ours are small, smaller municipal and or rural cooperatives,
and ultimately that technology has been around for decades.
We expect it to be around for decades again.
Obviously not this individual devices may fail from time to time,
but that overarching technology will be the same.
In addition to that, we've got, on our endpoints, we've got, I think, the most powerful microprocessor-based endpoint in the industry today.
We've got a Linux-based operating system with five co-processors, a lot of RAM memory,
and we actually have a pretty significant capability of configuring our devices for different protocols.
So let's say for example, it's five years from now,
you decide that there's a different protocol that may be more appropriate for whatever reason,
because you can maybe support additional features that we can't even imagine today.
Well, there's enough processing power in that that we can, over the air, program those devices to different configurations
or different protocols, and multiple protocols for that matter.
So today, for example, these devices can be, and are being read in the rest of some of the other ECG members,
for example, are reading not just electric meters, but they're reading water and or gas meters from other technology vendors
that we support, because we've configured those radios with other protocols.
So I think, ultimately, we've architected the system so that it's pretty future-proof,
and you have control over most of the elements of that, other than, like I said, the back call you make,
we still have control over that to the extent that if you do develop Fiverr, Fiverr's going to be around for a while,
if we go to 5G, 10G, 20G, you'll be able to place those cards pretty easily,
and at limited cost to you to be able to support your back call.
That's a good question about cost, and I didn't want to jump to that immediately,
but how will this ultimately impact our consumers?
Well, our consumers, last time we had these discussions, there were discussions around,
our consumers will be able to download an app, and they'll be able to find out when it's most efficient for them
to use their high-power devices, and they'll have some sort of feedback.
I don't know if that ever came out. Will this technology allow that?
Or will that be on us at ECG, or?
It will allow it. They don't necessarily have a customer portable.
We did it in our last system, but it wasn't really good.
I was going to say that, and it wasn't used very often either.
There's very few people that did use it, kind of like we did FreePay that just didn't take off here.
So there's some things that are offered that just don't work in Norcross for whatever reason.
All of it, though, is powered by data.
You have to have the data, good data, reliable data.
You have to have it in a timely manner.
And then you can build it evenly.
There's different platforms on top of that.
They have to get set.
There's a lot of third-party companies that we integrate with,
partners of ours that can run those analytical engines.
We have a lot of features that are baked in Norcross.
Well, Brian, you're probably going to say that we do.
And what we're providing is near real-time two-way communication between your head end and those meters.
So the applications that we bolt onto that will take advantage of that,
whether it's a customer portal, whether it's FreePay.
What I was going to suggest, you mentioned different costs for consumers to run different appliances, et cetera.
The billing structure in Norcross does not actually have any dependence on time of use at this point.
So there's really no benefit to knowing that.
However, there is a lot of benefit to knowing what you use.
So, for example, if you've got a customer that says,
wow, my bill is $300, how did I get here?
Having incremental data either on an hourly or 15-minute basis is very useful to have a discussion with a customer service agent.
That's more what we're focused on here.
Would this allow us to roll out the tiered pricing?
Such as that?
Absolutely, yeah.
We have a lot of customers that once they deploy, they'll change around the billing cycles
that were historically based on routes that a meter man could walk.
Okay, this is going to be one cycle because that's how long you take us to walk.
You know, you can change around your bill schedules to help catch flow,
do different rates like what I'm talking about based on actual consumer usage consumption.
And we are trying to do still like a time of use rate,
especially for top-down a lot of requests for the EV cars.
Charger, right?
Yeah, that's probably the first step for us will be doing that.
So, is this thing made here?
You've got about, what, how many, you've got about 3,000 meters in the city?
How many?
I'm going to have to, we're going to have to ensure that the council has answered any questions.
So, it's actually close to the public at this time.
Can you walk me through the communication structure?
You've got an individual reader at every house,
which is, I think you said, it's a 900 megahertz communication to...
To a collector.
To a collector of which there are a half a dozen or so.
Or a repeater.
Depending on their, we also have in, we've done a network design here.
And based on that network design, we've identified where to best place those collectors
and where we can economically, but what we call repeaters more economically.
And that's basically just, you know, bridging that, that, that jump from the meter to the collector.
And the reason why you do that is because megahertz has a certain distance.
It'll have some restrictions based on, you know, topography or buildings and that sort of thing, correct?
And then those half a dozen repeaters or collectors, that's where the fiber comes in, right?
Yeah, which is this box right here.
This is a, is an IP cable.
So this merges the 900 megahertz, which is a 900 megahertz radio down here on the bottom.
Yeah.
And then the side here is where you'll have your IP connection, which could be cell modem, fiber, right?
Could be what?
Yeah, they'll sit, sit right, they'll basically sit in that little, in that little rack there.
Right, I just wanted to clarify, when you were talking about, ultimately someday maybe you want to go to fiber,
you're not talking about at each house.
No, you're talking about at the five.
So that's right.
I just wanted to clarify that.
Now we have, the customers are not the confusings.
Our platform is very flexible.
Customers already have, say, fiber at the house.
We have a collector version that goes on the side of a house, can utilize that fiber.
If it's something that you all are interested in in the future, that can be tied in with this type system.
My assumption is that, I think it's a good assumption or not, those single individual readers at each house are, just like a meter today.
Yep.
You know, if a single point fails, it's fairly easy to fix it.
It's not very expensive.
You're not having to do a whole neighborhood all at once.
In technology, 900 megahertz, it's not really, it's not dependent on changes in technology.
You're correct.
Correct.
Can I add something to, just to kind of take a step back, to kind of clarify why the existing system is hit a wall, so to speak.
I'm sure somebody is familiar with this, but just to reiterate.
Unlike the system we're talking about today, your current system has a cell mode or a cell phone embedded in each individual meter.
So every single one of those 4,500 meters on every single house has a card that basically contains the guts of a cell phone.
And unfortunately, those cards are all situated to work on 3G, which you might remember from a phone you may have had 10 years ago.
Yeah.
Well, the equipment to talk to that 3G occupies a lot of valuable space on the cell towers around the area.
So the providers are seeking to reduce or eliminate that band if possible, create a bandwidth.
That's what we're up against right now.
Horizon basically has called that band.
And unfortunately, the hardware has all locked that.
So again, the key take home is 4G won't last forever, 5G won't last forever.
But you're changing 6 devices rather than an entire C.
Following with what you said, we put a system up that's dependent on a third party provider for the communication at every single house.
That's what you've got now.
This puts a system up that we own that.
It's not dependent on any third party.
It's not across powers.
Right.
Owns that connection.
So there's no longer a possibility where Verizon says, oops, I'm going in a different direction.
Sorry.
Right.
You're taking the communications in-house and using a tried and true system that's already deployed many different places to build that network.
So, you know, 20, 30 years later, those same meters could very well still be talking about some cells on 900.
Probably we have fiber to each collector by that point as my guess.
The most economic in the long run, but you can do whatever you choose.
But again, that's fiber-six connections.
Right.
And it's hosted, so RIT departments.
I get bogged down with a lot of these series.
Okay, maybe you had a question.
I have lots of questions, but I want to ask them all.
So, just from a 5G standpoint, the technology you're about to upgrade to where 900 megahertz, but it's not 5G.
That's talking from house to this node here.
It's 900 megahertz.
And you're saying, what is that talking to get to out on IP?
What is this talking to?
Right, from IP.
This is where you would put a cell mode in.
So it would be a 4G cell mode today?
Whatever you buy.
Whatever you buy, yeah.
Right.
And that's why I say at some point, if whatever, if the 5G or 4G gets discontinued, at some point in the future, you'd replace that with whatever the current.
So what are we buying?
4G, I believe.
And a quick side note, the 4G LCD machine is supposed to be guaranteed to 2030 on Verizon's network.
That's a machine that means modems to not hand-held devices.
Right.
So at least you've got 10 years before you have to entertain the 5G or 5G or some other type of backhaul.
Or they'll recall it back because they want it.
Yeah, you hope not.
But okay, so we would own that particular box.
We would own everything about it.
So let's say the city decided if we wanted 5G or 6G, we would be able to just change those out.
And then we could deploy that to the community.
So what you would do is you take your modem out.
You disconnect it.
It's an ethernet cable just from here to your modem.
You disconnect that cable, take your modem out, put your 5G modem in or whatever technology.
That's just the reason.
It's not to provide 5G for anybody else at that point.
It's just for the meters.
This is the backhaul communication.
That's the backhaul communication, which is a proprietary backhaul.
Right.
No, the backhaul will be, for example, if you use 4G, it will be a 4G backhaul.
Okay, and then it would be yours.
But you wouldn't walk up to them next to them with your cell phone.
Oh, no, no, no.
Correct.
Right.
You reside only on a server for you guys.
And as Steve mentioned, right now we would propose to you to host that server.
We would take care of that server.
So we host that on DS Enterprise.
I wanted to change that in the future.
That can also be changed 10 years from now.
You have a big IT staff, and they say you don't need to host anymore.
You can transition that back over to you guys.
It's your data.
Right.
So as far as the meters themselves in the house, what technology do those have in terms of communication?
I know there's smart meters out there that allow the consumer themselves to be able to get the information directly without having to go back out.
They're actually reading their meters.
Does it have ZigBee or Z-Wave?
It does not.
Well, it's less...
Most of the current systems tend to go through to a server and back down rather than directly.
A lot of the earlier ones would have been ZigBee directly, but they never really took hold.
There's a few systems out there that are very rare.
So this particular...
It doesn't have it.
It's not.
But you can still access that data through them.
You can access the data.
If a consumer will access the data through a portal that you would then integrate to your
head end that would then pull the data from that device and then cut the consumer to see
his data, history as well as on demand or on request read.
Is that part of the contractor? The ability for consumers to look at their own data or
the consumer portal, they support it but we would have to go out there.
That's not part of this contract so what you're doing is that's a capability grant
but not an improvement. Some basic access to the city level of course to this data.
So for example if you had a customer that wanted to know more it's very easy for
city personnel to open that portal and transfer the data but to the point of
having an app on your phone, no that's not part of what this proposal includes.
Well in fact Brian you mentioned in talking to customers one of the most
powerful things that these systems allow is when customer service people get
calls for high bill complaints often times the customer service rep can go in
and look at the metering data and say well I do notice that you happen to have a
spike on July 3rd. Did you have something happen then? And then they go oh yeah we
did have the kids were over the grandkids were over they turn on the
pool heaters and oh yeah that's probably why I had a higher than normal consumption rate so that's...
Yeah I think that's a reactionary way to look at it that people got to call you to figure that out
instead of providing them empowering them to go look at themselves.
The technology exists it's not very difficult so a little little disappointed that we
don't we weren't thinking about how to give our consumers the ability to get
this information we're not having to make a phone call or go see something they
can go retain themselves if they could that would be be better so so just a
because it's a very great point a lot of consumer portals that I really like to
see other ones that are proactive notify customer say when they're trending to that
high bill instead of hey you had a high bill because at that point you already owe it
so we have a lot of our customers integrate a consumer portal that does
just that one of the great things about our platform is we're not going to
back you into using a specific consumer portal that you're stuck with. A lot of
consumer portals come with what's called a meter data management system which
you want me to tell a meter data management system as opposed to a consumer
portal is MDF is over a hundred K? Yeah that's just standard off the shelf
MDFs are very expensive and it comes with so much analytical data that you
will probably would not find beneficial it's not something that you would you know
get a payback on your investment but it's going to have that consumer portal
that you want. Some of our customers will get kind of a MDM lineup if you will
it's a trend down it has a consumer portal with all those bells and whistles
like you're talking about with the notification email text phone call the
bill thresholds or consumption threshold for those a little more savvy
thumb trending towards 50 K of the age you know can be notified and all of those
are option and we can quote those for you as well we just prefer for our customers
provide feedback on what is the best fit for that. So these software packages are
available as complete packages that are just integrated. Is it something you
developed or is it a third party that you've proved to work within your system?
We will do the interface to integrate into their application we provide the data
that powers their application. But there will be an expense and we'll have to first
discover what the ROA is. We can make some recommendations. Go ahead. Go ahead. What I want to clarify also is that not having this option presented as part of the metering package is not exclusive to panelists that all of the RFP was written as such to
carve out an apples to apples comparison so that you didn't have you know oh well we're gonna package this with this and you know sign a multiple deal. You know should we want to go down this path we can be more than more than happy to go down that path and go through the RFP process for that portion. I really think it's best to be identified and implemented separately.
That's why that was done that way. So again all the providers were bidding on the same thing. And after a few years we'll be saving more money than we're paying right now so yeah that's not really a big deal.
How do we how does this interact or I mean we only have five or six customers outside of our outside of you know the coming right right how do we read their they would do cellular for that particular application.
How many of those white boxes are we going to have to have throughout the city to provide coverage. You'd have to provide not only the two of them in front of your house.
You can decorate. That's for coverage and for the best. You can handle forty five hundred meters where I can have redundancy you know one of them go down.
So you said redundancy so now you're answering one other question. Which are uptime percentages currently in other cities that you're working in terms of uptown downtown percentages.
Well we typically in this and aren't we measure in meter rates. So meter rates and typically we're over 99 percent.
That's again being part of ECG have been on the other side of seeing a lot of systems installed and also requested and consumed data from them.
And you've been consistently both surprised and happy with consistency that you can get through this system. A lot of the bottom actually might have on some of it or other vendors are there.
So for example if you want to go out and actually get to a meter you've got a few meters on each collector. So you're able to get to them quicker you can get your data quicker.
You don't have mysterious outages where's where was the data for three days that kind of stuff this doesn't happen. Definitely been more pleased with that performance.
We've got it in snake eight deployed already.
Yeah out of 52.
So you remember our panelists.
So for panelists in terms of manufacturing and availability let's say five years from now I think that was concerned that I had heard previously that the our competitor the the other GE I'll just say I used to work there.
Is what's what's the outlook in terms of I mean it looks like it sounds like you're growing where you're manufacturing where you know what guarantees as the city of Norcross have as we continue to expand as a city that we can get the hardware to run along with what you have in terms of software in in our network.
We use a contract manufacturer to build our devices and that contract manufacturer has facilities basically across the world.
So in theory we can move the production to any number of different facilities depending on the of the geopolitical situations in some cases.
So for example three or four years ago we were building a lot of our electronic components in China.
But as a result of some of the political things that changed in China that was transferred to that same CMS facility in the Philippines.
So that's where it's being made today.
Most of the product the right and as you said right now we've been growing at approximately about 20% per year growth rate.
So we're planning from for that of course in anticipation doing that or better going forward with our supply chain.
We also are a little bit unique in that we have the ability to fit onto multiple meter vendors platform.
So then that's another benefit that we have whereas in some of our other competitors will force you to single to their own meter.
And just like you I used to work at Schlumberger which is now Eitron which is one of the meter managers.
But we can we can put our meter our communication module on either an Eitron, Landis gear or a Clara slash GE meter platform.
So if there is supply chain issues from a mirroring perspective we do have options for for integrating our comms module into those other options.
And it's been around for 30 years?
We've been 30 years yeah and some 20 years and specifically in the AMI industry and some of our in fact our original some of our original AMI deployments that we did in the early 2000s are still in operation today.
In terms of power walls and you know feeding energy back to the grid.
Can you tell me a little bit more how will this work to do that and give the consumer that information or we're talking out of scope here?
No I can.
I can a little bit of that for you.
Between the X from here.
Yeah so that would kind of fall back into your standard bi-directional meter.
This hardware can easily accommodate that.
It's just a matter of configuring it properly when it's being deployed or if you have something that wants to add that in going back and reconfiguring a meter such that you capture your up and down flow separately rather than just loving it together like you might do now.
It's different meter.
Nope it's the same meter.
This is basically like a computer on the center now because there are six processors in here we use two so it's upgradable and it's over the air upgradable as well so new firmware, new technology, new things like that.
We can tell this meter to do more things.
They're configured for delivered energy only out of the box.
If I know that this one's going bi-directional I can program it before I send it out and just say you're going to be bi-directional.
Let's say it's already on the side of somebody's house and I say I want to add solar.
Okay let me make sure that you're set up for bi-directional so I can see what you're putting on.
You just enter the meter number under the UI go down and edit and you select bi-directional and you're done.
Okay.
So it sends that message to the meter over the air and that completes it.
And then in terms of businesses as we grow as a city in terms of businesses you know if we want to do solar panels on parking decks and so on and so forth as we continue to grow and expand our green footprint per se.
Okay.
Tell us how from an industrial station so we're talking not just the house meter, we're talking multiple meters.
Can you give us some explanation of how that's going to work?
Very similar.
The industrial CNI type meter minus class typically can be configured just about any way you possibly want.
So for example if you wanted to capture time of use information in hourly incremental data, up-flow down-flow or receive and deliver data, any of that can be programmed and then pulled back down off of the system.
And then this is being done in other cities already.
So this is not a it could be a it is being done.
And just for reference the probably oldest one will be Thomasville.
I think that one was started in 2007 or 2006.
And whenever I go to meet an industrial customer there I use data off that system all the time and it's fantastic.
If I can pinpoint down there something that happened to the display.
I don't usually have that flexibility so I'd love to have that.
Can this be rolled out pretty quickly to our customers without interruption?
I mean just quick interruption.
So just pull and push.
Just pull and push.
Okay.
But there's no supply chain issues now.
No.
Good to go.
One of the bigger ones that came out said we can do this in a timely manner because a lot of people roll the layers out right now and the meters are sometimes hard to come by.
Yes.
So that was one of the things that was great.
And so we can iterate the RFP process.
So it's accessible kind of line over the question of the supply.
Thank you.
Is it part of the plan to have 4500 meters do you have a certain number of?
Speakers.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
He was just talking about my direction all the time.
Can I just go ahead and order a dozen?
Just in case.
You know.
Yeah.
We would have typically two to three percent on the show.
Right.
And the same thing with the like a lot of new bad ideas.
Yeah.
Be nice to maybe have one.
Yeah.
Even if they're overlapping it's us that has to replace it right.
Not the supplier.
So if you didn't have one on the shelf you'd have to wait until whatever the build time is.
We can do it.
We just set it up.
Yeah.
I want to get a pop out of lightning.
Yeah.
You know it's good to have at least a spare chassis.
The car hits the pole pole.
Yeah.
Rightfully.
But they did one piece.
That's nice to have one complete unit.
Yeah.
We can rock.
Power supply.
You know.
Power to murder.
They're going to sell.
They're going to do whatever.
Take that out.
We can take all these cards out.
Or if you have a box in the car.
Just pull or something.
Yeah.
Okay.
As we close out the discussion.
Counselor if you have any other questions you can see Steve.
He'll be more than happy to either answer your questions or get those questions answered
for you.
So.
I'm local as well.
I'm over Marietta.
If you all ever want to have some additional questions something comes up.
I'd like to be more local.
I belong to the Atlanta athletic club and I don't get flavoring off.
I don't.
But thank you all so much.
We certainly appreciate the effort.
Thank you.
Okay.
We'll move now to council general discussion.
I have a brief CID update.
CID we had in a meeting on Wednesday.
Our Wednesday business meeting will be February the 19th.
1145 is the CID off.
One of the big things we voted on Emory updated us on the lighting district.
So we voted on a lighting district.
Just some other stuff.
But please join us.
CID is doing great work.
Also a little bit about the lighting district what it is.
Yes.
So.
Yes.
So.
Consider a lighting distance if we work with Georgia Power. This particular one I think is outside the city of North Cross, but we have one coming down Jimmy Carter Boulevard.
It is basically we're going to be replacing and paying for new street lamps. So it really adds a really unique look to the area, the nice street lamps.
And we'll put them on a member's property and then we'll pay the power bill in perpetuity. So it's really a great benefit and we're hoping to get that up on some of our major corridors.
Also, there is a political debate, so it's the candidate forum, I should say. That will be on the 22nd at the Global Forum right off Jimmy Carter Boulevard, April 2nd at 5.30.
So I had a question on that. Candidates for what?
State and county districts.
State and county?
Yeah, it'll be one of the biggest candidate districts or candidate forums in the county.
All of the people that have declared full county commissioner will be there.
Forty total candidates.
Is it hopeful doing one as well?
What is that?
That's this Friday night.
Friday night is our second.
Okay, thank you for that update. Anything else, council?
I'm just, I really appreciate everyone's, I thought our retreat went really well. Rudolph, staff, thank you very much. I thought it was very, it was engaging.
I thought all of us had, I thought we made great progress as a group and I really appreciate everyone coming with some new ideas and new ways to look at things.
So just thanks to my colleagues and to staff, I thought it was really well handled and the mayor ran great, we did a great job.
I think all of us benefited from the open and candid conversations that we had during the course of the retreat. We're going to have to do more of that.
Okay, anything else from council before we move to the next agenda item?
Okay, let's go to board appointments.
We have three appointments that we will discuss today.
Okay, we'll discuss those in a second.
All right, let's move down to item G.
Did I skip something?
No, I was just seeing if you were asking.
Oh, okay, all right.
I can always count on the agenda straight.
Josh always does that.
Okay, we're going to move up to move item four up to item number one.
Josh, you have the con in a second.
Good evening. I'm John Underwood.
I'm an attorney. I work with Pat O'Brien, the city attorney.
This involves the Brunswick Project.
We heard a long discussion today about the complexity of this arrangement.
So we had an additional complexity come into place.
One of the things that the city did, North Cross Power, was that they, as part of the overall plan,
they were going to take all the utilities off the poles along Viewford Highway
and put them underground.
This was a challenge for North Cross Power in that the utility corridor that was left was very, very small.
There are a lot of Viewford Highway.
There are a number of utilities and underground instructions there that nobody knew about.
And they were completely unperceivable when North Cross Power had a subcontract to place these underground conduits
and to get the utilities off the poles.
These utilities were North Cross Power, Comcast, AT&T unregulated.
They ran into a number of obstacles.
I have a handout that anyone's interested in seeing that Steve Gaines put together,
describing some of the underground obstacles that he ran into.
The subcontractor wound up putting these conduits in the footprint of the $2,000 billion.
This is not what I can use this.
The conduits, this is the parking lot.
The conduits were located underneath the building here.
And this created a problem, of course, for the developer because they were in the way of these foundations.
They originally planned to spread fitting-type foundations in that area
because the conduits were down there underneath the building
and presented a number of engineering problems.
The developer did not know those conduits were there until they dug down for the foundations.
The solution to this is that we have to have an easement slash license agreement
to have the conduits perpetually underneath this building.
It is not the most desirable situation to have,
but there is simply no other economically reasonable alternative to do this.
This necessitates us entering into an easement.
It also necessitates us entering into a mutual release and agreement with the developer and the DDA.
Norcross is not a party to the purchase and sale agreement between the DDA and the developer regarding this property.
In fact, Norcross will perpetually own the parking garage,
but the apartment complex they will only own for, I believe, 40 years,
and at the end of that 40-year term, the developer will have the right to purchase
the apartment complex back for $1.
So there is a need for a perpetual easement in this.
The developer did incur additional costs and resolved the engineering difficulty
with leaving the conduits underneath.
They had to install auger piles and a pile cap to bridge over the conduits
to avoid having any pressure on the conduits,
the conduits, of course, are brittle,
and if you have a high soil loading on top of them,
they will break, so you have to avoid that.
The developer and Norcross worked hand in glove to resolve this.
This problem originally came up at this past fall
when we started working on an engineering solution first.
To this, everybody cooperated, although there was certainly the potential for litigation or disagreement,
but everybody pulled together and pulled in the same direction,
and the developer, his attorney, and I have come up with this proposed resolution.
There are basically three components to this.
The first is the agreement and mutual release,
which is the second item in this package.
The terms of the mutual agreement and release
provide that they will give us a perpetual, licensed easement agreement
to have the conduits underneath the apartment buildings.
The second portion of the easement is for the installation of the permanent power
to the building along Popembridge Road and Buford Highway.
They're going to grant us a similar utility easement
for all of the conduits that are located in there
because they will cross over the property line.
All of this work has now been completed.
The developer's attorney and I determined early on
in this process that it was almost impossible to craft an agreement
that would be satisfactory to both sides until the construction was complete.
The utilities were off the poles and the poles were removed.
That has now occurred.
We're now ready to go forward with the agreement.
The mutual release and agreement that is before you today
is substantially what you will see in the policy,
in the, excuse me, irregular meeting in March the 1st.
The developer's attorney agreed to all of my changes
as a matter of putting all of the attachments together
for it and finalizing the easement.
The language of the easement, we have gone back and forth
and we only have one issue that's left
and I think it's an easily resolvable issue.
There are no problems so difficult that a minimum good faith
or persons of good faith acting with good intent cannot resolve.
And the DDA must vote on it as well.
Yes, and the DDA must vote on it as well
because the DDA owns the property.
The terms of this release, just so you know who's releasing,
who the developer is releasing norcross from any and all liability
associated with the installation of these conduits
up through the date of the execution of this agreement.
The DDA is releasing the developer from anything that occurred
up to the date of this agreement.
Provided, however, that they're not going to release them
from any contractual obligations that they have to the DDA.
Similarly, the C is releasing the developer perpetually
for anything associated with the installation of the piles,
the pile caps, so on and so forth from now and for the future.
In other words, if the pile caps were improperly installed,
we inspected the pile caps while they were being installed.
I have assurance through the cross-power that they are confident
that nothing is going to happen to the conduits,
but the developer does not want to be responsible for our conduits
after this agreement is executed
since they didn't want the conduits there in the first place.
So we're releasing them perpetually
for anything associated with the installation of the overpowers.
The DDA is also releasing them from that,
provided, however, that they are not going to be released
from any contractual obligation they have from the DDA
or they're going to be released from any obligations
they have to comply with North Cross City codes
to obtain permits, comply with state law,
laws, so on and so forth.
Having settled that, that's pretty much it,
we will have the final agreement with all attachments
prepared and will be on the agenda
for the first meeting in March.
Do I have any questions?
Yeah.
First question for me is the obligations
outside of the foundation piles.
So the city would be responsible
for the conduit damage to the conduit
outside of the piles work
or only at the areas where they had to do the piles at?
All right, let me tell you what the agreement is
regarding maintenance.
The conduits themselves, we can maintain them
from the two junction boxes.
In other words, they can run lines through it,
they can pull a table out, they can replace tables,
so on and so forth.
They cannot do anything.
If the conduit, for whatever reason,
becomes blocked or inoperable
for whatever reason underneath the building,
that's it, we're done.
And they are not going to have the opportunity
to go underneath there and replace
the conduit underneath the building.
We're not going to be able to go underneath the building
to go through the building, through the pile cap,
anything like that.
And up to the building,
if it's, the building is actually
on the property line,
I believe, so, you know,
the access that we have outside of that
is simply going to be
from junction boxes to junction boxes.
I hope that answers your question.
Right. Not entirely,
but I was just wondering about the obligations.
So the city is essentially
giving up our
ability to recoup any cost
if that developer,
gradually in the future,
damages anything in between junction boxes,
junction boxes.
Well, that's just it.
They have, right now,
the pile cap is there,
everything is with the buildings up,
that matter.
So whatever damage would have been done,
would have been done by now.
They're, you know,
the possibility of an abnormal settlement
over this,
the city's engineers
have satisfied themselves that
the likelihood of that happening
is infinitesimally small.
There is going to be, in other words,
they have assured themselves that the pile cap
is the, and the auger piles
are the best solution in this
will not allow for any differential
settling of the foundation
that would cause a problem
with the conduit in the future.
And can you go over,
section five, the insurance
that the city must maintain,
just give me some clarification about
the city's maintaining of this insurance
versus the DDA's maintaining of this insurance.
Well, the GERMA,
the Georgia Analogal Risk Management Association,
covers both the city
and the DDA.
It is not insurance.
It's a risk management
association
that's set up by the state of Georgia.
I have confirmed with GERMA
that they will cover
the liability insurance portion of this.
However, in the future,
if the city retains a contractor,
which they likely would,
they would probably not do this
with GERMA forces to do work underneath.
The building, through the conduits, we have to ensure that that subcontractor contracted the
city to the same liability limits in their insurance that we have specified in the easement.
What's the cost associated with this? The cost associated with this is the city will
pay $80,000 to the developer upon the execution of the agreement for the release and agreement
and the easement, which the developer contends that is far, far less than the cost of the
actually installing the auger piles and the pile caps and the construction delay that they
have incurred. There's, you know, reasonable amounts can differ on that, but it was the
best we could negotiate. We've kept the cost current since it started. Remember, their
estimates were greater and we were lesser. Right, and we got it more or less resolved
on 80 in a state of the same. Of course, it's not a final resolution until they sign it.
They sign it, you sign it, the city council. And if, for some reason, we have this conduit
that's failed, we can't, from junction to junction, it fails. In terms of rerunning, we
as the city or DDA would be responsible for rerunning this route or putting poles back
up. Right, but the possibility of putting poles back up is unlikely. The likely solution
and one solution that the engineers explored was actually to run the power underneath
the Buford Highway and across and then back around. That was, you know, a $300,000, $400,000
solution as opposed to an $80,000 solution. So, you know, abandoning conduits after they
were already installed just became and trying to reroute it at this time just became prohibitively
expensive. What if any cost recoup do we have with the contractor we selected to do this
this work that obviously violated property line agreements and so on and so forth? That's
a very astute question and unfortunately the answer is none. We don't have any because
they notified that this goes into a situation nor cross power supervise the installation
of this. They were put on notice about where the conduit was going. This happened early
on in the project. Nobody had gone out and surveyed the corners of the buildings although
we had some drawings and stuff like that. The best I can say is that it was an oversight
that nor cross power did not notice that they were over the line. Had we known that
at the time, we could have put the developer on notice before they entered into the
sale agreement then this would not be a fact that they would have adjusted the price or whatever
but we are not in that situation. We are in a situation where the transaction went ahead
and occurred and they discovered and you know, nor cross power was just as surprised as
anybody else did. The conduits were actually located underneath the corner where the
building was going to be located. I might add, you know, in the sense of our utility
department here. They were under a tremendous amount of pressure to get the utilities off
the poles and underground, not only here but also alongside the library which presented a
number of logistical problems. They made an human's effort to get all of this done.
Unfortunately, you know, when you go down there along Beaverton Highway, there are gas
lines, water mains, sewers. They are even fiber optic cables that were not even on the
utility registry. You know, you go and dial 1-800 utilities or underground or whatever
if they are supposed to come out and mark all the utilities. Well, that doesn't mark all of them
as we learned. In addition, some of the obstructions that were located down there were retaining
walls, there were old construction that you just could not penetrate without risking
destabilizing the soil structure that was already there. So it was a very difficult
situation. This is one of those situations that when we have another development that
comes up, we can learn from it and we will take proper steps to ensure this does not
happen again. Or that if it does, it will pass the cost on to the couple.
Do you have any other questions?
Thank you, John. Appreciate it.
Thank you very much. No one has any more questions for me.
We're good.
May I be excused?
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
If any of you ever didn't, if you think of any questions or anything later, don't
hesitate to call me. That's what I'm here for.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
So we're moving to the next item. I have a procedural question?
Yes.
It's actually probably just out of my own endurance, but it was brought up Saturday.
Our agenda item number one here is a resounding request.
Is this a public hearing?
This is not the one in two weeks.
Okay.
They will be listed on our agenda as a public hearing in two weeks.
Okay.
I was just wondering, because I just, after all these years, I just remember
always seeing we have public hearings.
All right. Good deal. Thank you.
That was a good observation.
Can I follow up with that question?
Do the BZ and the ARB meetings consider public hearing as well?
They are.
So the two meetings prior to this were public hearings?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
And newly advertised.
Sorry.
Okay.
Zero Pinnacle Way.
You have your first request for a planned residential development.
This is a 2.61 acre, trying to shape this property.
It's a remnant in the Pinnacle Industrial Subdivision.
It's currently zoned M1.
It's adjacent to another general panel community.
And I think that it's down there.
It's putting higher up than some of the industrial that's there.
It's got a unique shape.
It's pie shaped.
And it's got some rock outcroppings.
So it doesn't really make it conducive to any quality
industrial development.
The phone calls we've had for it have been for truck parking
rods.
We really would not want to mess it up against some of those
residents up there.
So we have a request to do a 2.16 unit townhouse development.
That's in keeping with the higher residential density requirements
of this particular I-85 character area.
And so we've taken it for the architectural review board.
They approved it.
They recommended approval of 24 conditions.
And there was a hearing for recommendations for the
planning and zoning for the first of January.
And they recommended approval with, I think, 16 zoning
conditions.
There are 16 zoning conditions that actually also
incorporate the ARB's conditions.
So they're inextricably tied together.
Should you approve it in two weeks?
So staff is recommending approving the approval of
this particular application when there's a public hearing
in two weeks.
We're also learning a little bit what PRD is and how it works.
I appreciate this.
What's the difference in doing this under PRD versus our
RTH?
This one gives the developer a little more flexibility
to go around persons that may be particularly challenging
or have some site feature that's particularly good-saving
like full-growth trees that gives them the flexibility
in designing lot sizes and placing them under flexibility
setbacks.
So they're actually zoning their particular plan,
which is very unique for the development.
It's also a unique approval process in where it goes to
the ARB first and sort of replaces the old DCB.
So there's no question of sort of a bait and switch
should the market fail in the future.
Your sort of guarantee of what it's planned to be
unless they come back to the architectural review board
and mayor councils that give change.
So it really locks in what's going on with the
development system.
Is that what they're doing this 11 years now?
You've never seen a rezoning of that size
with so many conditions.
Is that kind of maybe what we should expect
with the PRD process?
Yes, you'll always have lots of conditions
because it's very flexible.
There's not really much that goes with the PRD.
All the setbacks are entitled through the site plan.
And so it just wraps it up kind of nicely.
It is an arduous process for staff
because we turn this around in six weeks
where we might have had probably close to 120 days
if we were doing it traditionally.
So it's big on the front end for the staff
but it's seeming like it's well worth it.
I may have missed it in the conditions
but we've been talking a lot about noise issues
with properties that are adjacent to industrial properties.
What is the sound barrier protection
so we don't have to address this?
We're going to handle that with landscaping.
There's a topographical difference
where the residential piece is going to sit way up here
and the industrial is way down here
so we're actually going to handle that
with faster landscape
and kind of our landscape professional review that
because if you put up walls,
the residences are so far up here
that a wall down there isn't really going to help.
So we're thinking landscaping would be a better offer.
That's a great question.
The biggest complaint I have from...
I don't know over there is the truck parking
which is allowed by Wright and M1.
So that's a...
Thank you.
We'll have to make sure the developer does that.
That's part of the conditions for CEO.
Right, it is an actual condition
that they have to have the independent landscape person
review it.
It's somebody we contracted with
to make sure that we get the right kind of plantings
in there that will produce an effective sound.
And they're supposed to take care of that
so that it stays alive?
Correct.
No, they only have the HOA.
The HOA.
Any other questions for Council?
Tracy, what's in place to ensure that the conditions
are met?
The perpetuity...
Right, this will be an actual zoning ordinance
that's actually specifically attached to that parcel
so anybody violates any one of the conditions.
That's an automatic trip to court
for violating a zoning condition that it runs
with the property and perpetuity
until such time as Mayor and Council
deem it to be resettlement or giving conditions.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
Thank you so much, Tracy, for that presentation.
And we will move to number two,
quantification to the adopted building codes
under the UVF.
This is another little error that we're taking here
of fixing up.
And we noticed that when we went through chapter 300
the International Sustainable Building Code
was not adopted as item number 10.
But it was adopted as item number 10
back in September of last year.
It was adopted as item number 100
set for the purposes of continuity
and contiguity.
We're saying add items in International
and Sustainable Building Code
back in to chapter 300.
There's a building official there
that I have to do that.
That one's just a minor change.
A minor change but it can have major consequences.
Major consequences.
The consequence means if we don't do it.
Yeah, I know what you're referring to.
Come plan, use, table, amendment.
This is our first proposed minor amendment
to our compliance plan that we adopted last year.
It entails our PRD,
applying those amendment development.
PRDs allow in certain character areas
I think it's 1, 3, 5, 12, and 13
in its comp plan.
Like I said, that PRD is a very flexible
designing district.
It gets around sort of the
traditional R100, R25 and R60
lotsage requirements.
And in setbacks,
somebody could develop a
particularly challenging piece of property
or something that has some features
that we want to preserve.
It does not allow anybody to gain
any more density or any residential type
that's not allowed in the character area.
So it doesn't give anybody the ability
to sort of garner any type of housing use
or the type of density that's not allowed.
But it is called out in the descriptions
of Town Center character area
and Summer Hour character area
as something to aspire to.
But we have table 2.4 in the comp plan
and it's not listed in the table.
So it's not listed in the table.
It doesn't really exist.
So I'm asking you to add it back
to character areas 7 and 9
Town Center and Summer Hour
as something somebody could aspire to
in those particular character areas.
Tracy, in terms of those
two particular areas,
do we feel like there is some
interest in those areas that would...
That would, you know, if we did this, would, you know, help expedite that, that interest or give that interest.
And as these continue to grow, obviously we're adding two additional areas. We've just talked about a potential, another area of pinnacle.
Obviously gives the city a lot of latitude and, you know, assurances via ordinances that we approve.
But it is a significant amount of extra work for the city staff or a PRD.
Do we see this as a continued trend in your opinion, industry in your opinion? Do you see this as a trend that we have more and more re-classifications for PRD to allow for our unique situation as a suburban, urban area that's very heavily built?
Or do you see this as more of the exceptions to the rule than seeing this as potentially more and more we see this as we continue to develop?
I think we'll probably see it more and more, other than the traditional zoning districts.
But I think that's something that's just unique in the fact that, you know, these built-outs, there's not a lot of people out there that's just sitting around vacant.
So that people are going to feel a little more crafty in how they place their subdivisions.
And, you know, we want to be able to keep our historic items not necessarily out in what history ever is, because we don't have a well PRD for the building.
We have very strict levels on lot sizes.
But as you get over here, closer to the people of highway and on the opposite side of the people of highway, you know, we have power line easements everywhere.
So there'll be some features that folks have to work around.
And it's just a little more unique tool in our toolkit.
But I'm beginning to think we need to charge more money for this application.
$1,500 is, you know, we've got to keep Robert Patrick going.
He usually pulls his hair out when he's doing the zoning, please.
One last question.
You know, as this goes into modification of our COMP plan and if the COMP plan was developed by the community and approved by mayor and council,
I can see this as we continue to do this potentially be, hey, we've set on a COMP plan and then we're modifying it until we do the next COMP plan.
So it's all completely different than the one that the citizens approved.
I think we just need to be cognizant of the fact that, you know, we have a COMP plan that we've approved as we deviate to it how we do that and how we explain how we do that and why the reasons behind it.
I know we added PRD, we added some other zoning things to allow for this because we saw this in the future.
But we just need to be aware that if we continue to change our COMP plan, it's not longer our COMP plan we are already approved.
Right, and one of the things I want to point out, if Shayla could slow up a little bit so you get the sections of the COMP plan,
let's see.
Because it actually mentions planned residential developments in both of them.
Planned residential communities offer a variety of housing types, so that's a town center.
Maybe scroll up a little bit more.
That's pretty vague, Tracy. All residential communities are planned in some way.
But it says it in both of those.
That's actually kind of my question, Matt. I'm glad you teed it up that way.
A lot of thought process went into getting to where we were with our COMP plan.
My first question is, are we in our window? We designated a window to make COMP plan updates.
Right, we're in the window. We're following our own rules, right?
Are there any other, is this the time for this year?
Correct, unless somebody comes with something beautiful that we just can't resist,
doesn't have to get through a different process to ask you, could they go out of the season to do this?
Seasonist march. Right, we're the actual application with the in-march.
Yeah, and then, I hate the word oversight, but it does seem natural in these areas.
How did we not originally include it in? We're just doing so much, and maybe it just...
We were doing a kind of thing, so that's no excuse.
I'm not placing blame.
It's just that I went back and had Table 2.4 created and added in,
and I thought it would be beneficial, and lo and behold, we wrote it up in the text,
and when we went back and developed Table 2.4, it just didn't make it in there.
Because we really labored over when we did this, and then when we developed the actual PRD language that was in the VDO,
we really labored over that.
So, in my opinion, after looking at this, it just wasn't an oversight.
I wanted a table as well as the description to match.
I think the citizens need to hear that, because what some citizens have said to me is,
oh, a developer wants something, and Norcross is back to it's old ways.
And that's just not true.
But it does look, some citizens that you just passed your confland,
there's one developer who has a history of Norcross who wants something.
Oh, and now Norcross.
And that's just, that could be part of the truth.
Right, and it doesn't give anybody any greater densities than they still have to wind up with the density.
They have 2,000 square foot lot, but they're not going to yield any more than $8 million per acre.
So it's just one of those things.
And actually what they have to go through to get the PRD, they have to commit to the architectures
before they even really dug through the engineering on it.
So they're actually putting a heck of a lot more money in the front end than they are.
And I think it's important from a city optics, citizens optics, that they understand PRD has a lot more teeth to it
than any of our standard zoning.
And it allows the mayor and council to have a lot more control.
And to the point of the first one, the ordinances we can attach based on the control where we don't have that today,
there's no bait and switch with our standard way.
So I think even though we're deviating from the confland, I wanted to make sure I mentioned that
this PRD is something special that was developed to give back the control when we did decide to make a change
back to the citizens because it goes through P&Z and ARB, which are citizen led before it even comes to mayor and council.
Exactly. I mean, how many places are there 40 in there with conditions of zoning attached to this piece of property?
And my understanding is anything, any of the changes that, you know, anything deviates from the agreement
that's got force of ordinance behind it.
Correct.
And there's penalties, so it kind of goes to the holding developers accountable, you know,
mantra here is trying to make that work.
And it's not an easy process. I mean, the one we just talked about, they're not identical.
They had their first hearing in December.
That's right.
And this is definitely not as painful as the PRD process.
Right.
That's the first one that we've been talking about.
I have a question about PRD just real quick.
On our zoning map, right next to the summer hour house, the Buchanan House.
On Buchanan, the summer hour house.
Did that zone PRD on our zoning map?
Right. We got a lot of actual PRDs.
We had some neighborhoods that didn't conform to anything.
Okay.
And we would have future issues and somebody would have a devastating loss.
We couldn't rebuild that because just for whatever they weren't built to the correct lot
with or anything like that.
So make those lots still viable in the case of catastrophic loss.
We made them a PRD in zoning of the actual plat.
So they have something to stand on in case they already had a fire or something.
So yeah, there's an actual language in there.
Thank you.
Okay.
Any other questions before we move to the next agenda item?
Thank you so much, Tracy.
Okay.
Let's move to item five, the proposal concerning communications and media presence.
It hasn't changed a bit since we looked at it to retreat.
If everybody wants to look at it again, I don't think there's anything to add to it
or any changes that have happened with that draft.
So it is as it was.
Okay.
We need to talk in an exec about how to populate it in terms of the proposal itself
unless there are questions.
We do.
I certainly appreciate you getting in a written form so that we're all looking at the same thing.
And we all have the same understanding.
I think that's important.
Okay.
And you're right.
We need to have further discussions on this issue in an exact session.
Okay.
Unless someone has some questions that you want to ask me, I don't want to stifle any conversation.
Having heard that, that was our last agenda item.
Do we have a motion to go into exec?
Some of the four personnel.
Real estate, legal.
Only if you're going to cover all three.
You're only going to cover one.
We're going to another event in a second on what you're actually going to cover.