Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

So, I'm just saying this is this is more just a procedural good housekeeping reszone request. Um, what could be built it could be built in the zoning that it has today. The government hold will hold title to this and no matter what we do here, there will be no taxes paid on that. That's correct. Property. That's great. That that was something. Yeah, there will be lease arrangements. So, it it will be generating revenue in other ways. Um but yeah, property tax. It will be Atheis clar county that holds title to the piece. Yeah.

Would that be the primary parking for the development or is that general parking? That's just general parking. It's it's intended to serve um there is a design aspect to this where the um accessible parking the ADA compliant parking there will be spaces put in it that will be put at the grade of lay park.

Um there's been a lot of discussion about the distance from those spaces to the lay park facilities. But that has been absolutely one of the the aspects of this that we will be providing ADA compliant parking in the deck for the park. Um that parking will also be available for other events downtown. I think it's it's hoped that it will help offset some of the challenges with the classic center um at times being underparked. Um and then there will be lease agreements in there or just similar to our other downtown parking decks, but the parking that is in the hub 2 apartment complex is sufficient for the spaces in the development. That's that's part of the agreement. Okay. All right.

Question about this one. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Um, you all point out in the staff staff report that a discussion about adherance to design areas and if the boundaries should be adjusted would be appropriate with this application. Are you saying that we should have that discussion or that that's something that the applicant needs to be having? Yeah. So that that was a discussion that that was some language that we had in the previous reszone request because we were trying to make a decision between design areas. Okay. Because you could have made an argument. So I think it's less relevant on this one, but we were trying to be consistent with the analysis between the two asks, but that wasn't saying what you all were not trying to communicate with that was that you think that the boundaries still need to be discussed. That's not an issue. I think it's less of an issue. Okay.

Yeah. Okay.

That's missed. Um, last item on our agenda is the text amendment for data or data centers. I keep saying it differently every time I say it. Um, we'll have a staff presentation on it. We've had good and and I I'll say this now, but I'm going to say it later in the meeting as well. We've had really excellent education campaigns going on that have been hosted beyond staff. And we're super thankful for that effort. Um, because it's I think it's done a very even-handed job of getting people comfortable with the topic and focused on a topic. Um, and so you were provided with comment from a lot of those folks. Um, bulleted points that I thought were really well organized. Um, I think a lot of those people have been either organizers of or participants in those education opportunities. Um, and I'm I anticipate those folks to be here tonight. I I hope that they will speak. Um, but we're looking forward to making the presentation. You'll notice and and we'll touch on this. Uh, there have been some changes from what was presented in December. Um, because we gave a very quick sort of here's where we think we're going. Um, we had some adjustments that we made and and u a lot of those were to the power usage levels and some of the specific wording. Um and we'll we'll give you some context for why we ended up where we ended up. Um the one procedural thing that I'll I'll point out is the moratorum that the Maring Convention passed for data center development times out March 6th. So that's the Friday after their March 3rd voting session. Um having this here tonight puts it on track to make it for mayor and commission consideration at their March 3rd vote. um should you feel like it's not ready to move on or you're looking for you know you've certainly

passed text amendments forward with conditions of approval so changes in thresholds or changes in specific wording we could accommodate that no problem. Um if your action is to hold for a cycle then it will still need to be taken up by the mayor and commission at their voting session because of the wording of the moratorum. So, I don't want there to be any misunderstanding about, hey, we held it. Why are they talking about it? They'd have to talk about the moratorum. They have to vote on it. They would have to Well, they're going to have to make a decision as to whether or not they want to extend the moratorum or let the moratorum time out without a text amendment being completed. Got the issue.

Would they need a a recommendation from us to do something with the moratorum or No. Okay. They would be talking about it either way,

right? So, if the text moves forward, we're clicking along. If it gets held here for cause, then we'll be conveying that to the mayor and you know, they'll they'll have to make a decision about what they want to do at that March 3rd meeting. Okay. Any questions about any of the items? I just had a question about the sequencing. um based on last time when we heard the data center thing if uh strikes me it's possible that we'll have a large you know audience participation talking about that um so have have you thought about moving it to the top of the agenda just

um I mean honestly given that we have two items that were comment only and and the other items were weren't really tilling up new ground sort From a policy standpoint, I we didn't discuss with the chair talking the order. I I still feel sort of optimistic we can get to item six in a timely way. I just wonder did you take the clock away so we don't know how tiny I just looked at it and I was like wait wait a minute it's like a casino in here. No box windows. How many people know what casinos look like? Get stuck in them. So I hear

if that's if that's something Matt you're asking to be considered then ask away. I mean I guess I I'm I'm willing to defer to the chair and the planning director but I I just wanted to raise the topic. Um seemed like maybe not a bad idea. I mean, we have I think item number two might have a decent number of people, too. So, um, that's true. Yeah, I think either way we've got It just depends on how deep everyone wants to go on discussion of everything else, right? So, I think at this point if someone saw the center and then it was the last item, they might be having dinner downtown or coming later.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I think back later but pushing it forward by I'll even actually never do like it when we change it because of that very reason because mayor commission meetings the same thing what item is it when you think it'll if I'm talking to people to come talk you might have somebody shockingly a lot of people don't have five hours to sit through yeah entire time shedding it's kind of like a You only come to your computer.

Yeah. Sit outside and watch it on their phone and then come inside. Or watch paint drying. They're awesome. another question.

I didn't even plan to wear this working and then like I just like You want to come here? I didn't actually in your life for a

day. Wow. I didn't

That's kind of That seems We're going to restart

accepted after each item is not a general item by item. It doesn't affect. Absolutely. I don't want to like start and then you're not like ready. I mean it's not going to happen.

Snow weekend is okay. That's good. Me neither. Oh, I'm lucky. All the power lines in my neighborhood are buried. Oh yeah, if the power goes out, it's usually a real big area. I didn't go on that. It's permitted. That was two weekends at home. Not doing anything this weekend.

It's like the area in front of my front door. I'm gone. It's just I'm the last time anyone but yeah

if it goes down I'll have

and if they can't do it or also working on the bottom outside if they bust on traffic.

I tried to go through that way and there people just tell me live stream

I had a friend who my friend You'll find the meeting agenda at accccclgov.com/planning. For those of you here in person, there is a sign-in sheet and copies of tonight's agenda outside the door. Here's uh here's the process for the items on the agenda. First, staff will make a presentation for each. Then, we move to public comment in support of the application. We allow 10 minutes for the applicant to address the commission, followed by members of the public speaking in favor, who receive three minutes each. After comments in support of the application, we move to comments in opposition. All speakers receive three minutes. If you are here representing a specific interest group such as association, please let us know

so we may allocate the appropriate amount of time. I did receive a request for item number three I think it is for homeowners association. So we have that request. So when addressing the commission please provide your name, address and nature of your interest in the project. After public comment the applicant or their representative may request a two-minute response. Please note the timer. It will display a yellow light when you have 30 seconds left and a red light when your time has expired. Once we've heard from members of the public, the planning commission will discuss the item. We will not receive additional public comments unless there is a specific question to the interest. Exhibits may be displayed by the applicants or public at the podium. Written correspondence received by noon yesterday has been forwarded to the commission and is part of public record. Any additional written materials to be placed into the record must be read during public comment period. Please direct your comments to the planning commission and not to the applicants. Please refrain from applauding or cheering any of the speakers. And finally, please note that this meeting is being broadcast live and our microphones are very sensitive. Please silence yourself. Um, anybody like to um make a motion to introduce these staff reports? I'll make that motion.

Okay. Have a second. Second. All right. Um, second. Who made the second? All right. All those in favor say I. Um, January 8th, 2026, planning commission meeting minutes. We have approval. Any comments? Second. Second. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. All right. May courts. Any reports from May court? No reports for this one.

Okay. All right. So with that, we will start with item number one under new business, 166 West Clayton Street, 166 West Clayton to SUP2026-01-1. Um, Ether Rabbido is the applicant to agent for property owner Eric Brown. The request um before you was a special use in a CD in a commercial downtown. They are requesting approval to allow a private event space to also operate as a bar um with an occupancy over a 100 persons um and an associated food truck court. There's no changes proposed for the interior or exterior of the space with this request. This um is an aerial view of the property. Uh this was taken in early 2025 before the um parking lot at the Washington Street side was modified for the food court, food truck court. The um current future land use is downtown and that would remain. There's no change proposed. The commercial downtown zoning would become commercial downtown with a special use.

This is the front or Clayton Street facade of the property. And this is the Washington Street uh side of the property um where the food truck is located. And in the top photo, you can see the uh exterior bar that was added to that surface lot. This is the site plan that was uh has already been through plan review allowing for the food truck court and the private event space. Um nothing would be changing for the proposed uh use of the property as a bar when noted. Staff's recommending approval, finding that the project is compatible with the 2023 comprehensive plan, encouraging more business downtown, encouraging preservation and adaptive reuse of historic structures, prioritizing infill and redevelopment, and creating publicly accessible gathering space. It's compatible with the future land use map, zoning map, and the ordinance and the special use criteria have been satisfied. This completes the staff.

Year from the applicant.

Good evening. Uh Keith Rabido uh reside at 2024 Maple Street, Carolton, Georgia. Um just a little background on this uh project. Uh it was two years into planning between uh survey uh back and forth with uh zoning and planning staff uh to get everything uh permittable. Um it was permitted uh and then basically about two years after that, I got brought in to build it. So, as the contractor, I came in, went through the buildout on it. That's why this thing kind of seems like it's for the horse because it's already been built. Um, we put in for uh final approvals. Uh, we had all building inspections signed off on it, fire signed off on it, everybody signed off on it, and it was uh put into zoning and planning. Uh at that point, Bruce and I had a conversation and uh he felt that the operations uh were not quite in line with what it was characterized in its initial application. Again, I didn't have anything to do with that initial application. Was merely trying to get uh this over the finish line. And uh after multiple conversations, we felt that the best way to approach this was to allow for what was currently happening as its intended use. uh was going to take a while to develop that we should go ahead and expand it by quantifying it as a bar, not just an event space. Um, anybody that's been in the events business realizes that as soon as you light up a space, you get an initial pop of interest, but the wedding schedule comes around a year later. Um, the parties for kinetas, bar mitzvah, whatever it is that are going to be events take a while to develop. And in that meantime, uh the owner felt that it was instrumental to create some cash flow. So he did begin to start to serve. Um and so that's where we found that there was kind of an anomaly between what was initially characterized by the

architect of record and what was currently going on. So that brings us here tonight to hopefully clean up uh what is going on, what was proposed and what can you know by code occur there. Thank you very much. Thank you. Is there anybody here to speak in support of the application? Here to speak in opposition to the application. Okay. Hearing none, we'll take it behind the row. Who wants to start?

Start. Okay. Start with a motion. I'd like to move that we approve the approve the request. I'll second. Okay. Any further discussion on the motion? Second was John there with like three different mean. I've been hoping something like this for a long time. So I've had people I haven't been there but people friends have gone and love it and I think it's a great addition to Downtown. I walked by during the Christmas popup and there was people walking around. There's more traffic over that way. It's great. Yeah, seems like a good um we'll do a vote.

Is for approval of the special use permit. Uh yes. Lee, yes. Harrisburg, yes. Paul, yes. Yes. Pass. Yes. hands. Yes. And yes. Motion passes unanimously. All right. Item number two, 458 East Plate.

All right, y'all. 458 East Clayton Street, SUP2610020. Brett Thurman with AMT is the applicant for owner Dupree Company. The request is for special use permit in the commercial downtown zoned area. Applicant is requesting approval to allow for multif family residential units on the ground floor of a commercially zoned structure. per code multif family residential uses arranged in any other manner than on the second story above or above or in the basement level of structure require special use permit. So that's why they're bringing this before you. They are also requesting a variance from code section 9-10-2 limitation one to decrease the minimum allowed commercial space round four from 50% to 11%. Uh, no changes are proposed at this time for the exterior of the building. Interior changes will need to be reviewed under the plan review process prior to permitting. Um, and just note this is just outside of our local downtown historic district. Um, literally the right next door parcel. So, any exterior changes that might come in the future would not necessarily have to be seen by our historic. Uh this is the 2025 aerial view of the property. You can see it's that skinny parcel in the middle. It is a full building that reaches both uh both East Clayton Street and East Broad Street and is located between North Thomas Street and Wall Street. The partial address is 458 East Clayton Street, but there are three more address points on the building. 450 East Clayton, 450 East Broad, and 459 East Broad.

The current future land use uh is is downtown and that would that would continue with this special use permit. The property is currently zoned commercial downtown and is located in the east downtown design area. The change would just be to commercial downtown in the east downtown design area with a special use permit. This is a photo of the facade that we are looking at this evening. The entrance to the commercial space is this uh dwarf here. Then the entrance to the ground floor residential space would be here. And then this door over here is the current entrance to the second floor residential space. got some views for you of the buildings that are next door to the building we're looking at today. We've got um the building here in question. And then next door we've got a building that is a bit taller and just gets taller as you go down down um Clayton Street. This is views of the other sides of the elevation. So, we've got Eth Broad Street View here, more recognized porter house um that is not being touched by this this project at all. And then the side view here of the building from North Thomas Street. This is showing the floor plan of the building. So, I've got on top here, that's the current residential spaces on the very top floor of the building. This is the floor that we're looking at today. Uh, this shows here the side that

is closest to East Broad Street. And then these are the proposed um new apartments, these three here. And this is the new proposed commercial area. This is the elevation that only faces these broad streets. This is a zoomed in on that floor plan. So, we've got um just a breakdown of of what the floor plan actually is and the square footage of everything. So, you can see this is that new commercial space that would be smaller going from 50% per code to that 11%. It is 1,04 square feet. So still a sizable enough I think according to the applicant for a store maybe that sort of space. Um then the residential spaces are here. They are requesting one variance as we said variance from section 9-10-2 limited limitation one to decrease the minimum allowed commercial space on the ground floor as a point of overall staff supports this request for variance from that code section as it would be in keeping with the ACC comprehensive plan by bringing more housing units to an important nodal area would not greatly impact the surrounding areas there is already residential nearby, not a lot and would not change too much. Um, you have some on the ground floor. So, for the special use permit, staff is recommending approval. Staff sees that the allowance of residential units in the ground floor of this building would support infill development, bring in more housing units to a busy nodal area as noted, and would be compatible with future land use as it's not a change with the zoning map.

That's also not really a change. And with the ordinance, the special use criteria seem to be satisfied. And staff also notes that the owner has arranged for an off-site parking agreement that would be signed and recorded prior to CO that um that would provide the code required six parking spaces for the new residences. This is not included as an exhibit, but um or is included as an exhibit, but is not a binding part of this permit. This completes the staff report. Thank you. Now we'll hear from the applicant.

Good evening. I'm Brad Thurman, 330 Research Drive. I'm the engineer for this project and um my company is Armiti Thurman here in Athens, Georgia. Um gosh, we wholeheartedly agree with staff's recommendation for approval on that. Um I think they see the benefit. We certainly see the benefit of it. Um it provides my client with some provides some leaseable space that he not been able to get so far. He's worked hard trying to put a commercial group in there. He had one roof that was in there for a year, but they he knew it was temporary because they were there solely to sell student apartments, leases. So, uh, and they built some stuff in there to show what the apartments would look like. So, they wanted some place to come, they could people, the students could see what was going on or what it would look like, and then they could go uh and sign a lease. So, that was the intent. And so when that when they left, he continued to um attempt to get someone to come in there. He had a number of people. We paid he paid us do a noise study. He has six apartments upstairs and he did not want anything downstairs to interrupt his his tenants upstairs. And so he spent some money for actual real noise study inside that building to see how sound would go and come up with some some some engineering works that had to be done in order to sort of insulate the upper bu part of the building this space if something like a bar went in. Um he's had some bars look at it. Everybody is is uh like love the location. They hate the size of the structure in terms of its height. it's been a constant constant critique

of why they have not jumped on this space. Um, so for that reason, we decided that, you know, it might make better sense to to turn this into residential and while maintaining a front space that could be leased out and would give the building the appearance of a storefront. Um, so that's why we brought this to you today. Um, Bruce went over before the meeting and during the during the agenda setting session regarding the parking, we we're going to fully meet the code with that. We have the parking. It's already been penciled in if you if I can say that in terms of that. Um, my client's gone out and found that parking who's going to do the parking for the lease. So, we are we're all set for that and I would hope that you would recommend approving. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody here to speak in support of the application? Anybody here to speak in opposition? Okay, hearing none. Bring it on the side of the room. Thoughts?

I just have a question, I guess, for you, Bruce. Um the case for why they can't do commercial on the ground floor is that the ceilings are too low. Um what relevance is it that they made the ceilings low? Because when it was a commercial space back when it was the junk man's daughter, it was like a single floor with 20 foot ceilings and then they built a they built a Yeah. They built the residential on the you know

Yeah. second floor creating this nine and a half foot ceiling ground floor space and thus making perhaps inevitable the obligation that we see before us and they did that for themselves. So how does that play into this? Well, I I would guess that timing and I don't have the exact year, but it wasn't last year that they made that mod. Um, that modification was made a while ago. And, uh, I think I think that's why it was important for the applicant to talk about the owner's intentions and effort to try to keep a commercial. Um, I think more could be said about the economics also of commercial square footage, rentals, leases versus what they're thinking. Um I'm not sure which one is to their advantage, but I'm assuming the commercial would be still an advantageous thing to do. Um because this effort will also require another kind of investment to satisfy fire marshall for habitation on this floor. So it's not an inexpensive thing that they're about to set off if this is approved um to do. Uh the other thing to point out is the ceiling height where they finished once they did that mezzanine level still met commercial code. So it wasn't something that they did that that um produced something that could only accommodate residential occupants by code in terms of a dimension. Um so I think what they've discovered is just through marketing the space that it doesn't translate at that ceiling height. So yes, was it their action when they modified the building? I believe so. But I don't think that was something um necessarily with the intention of automatically shifting this towards some future residential use or else I I bet we would have seen it sooner

and it's not a relevant consideration under the special use process like there's something in the variance part of the code that says if the applicant created the problem then they don't get a variance and that's not the case here I think right that's a good Um, two things with this kind of procedurally, we don't need to worry about a particular agreement in our vote. And then is the variance just if we approve the special use, the variance just goes with it or do we have to separately approve the variance? You could have two separate votes. You could you could approve the special use without the variance. You could have a single motion, okay,

that says that you're recommending approval. I'm I'm just throwing this out there. Um without the variance and um that kind of breaks this apart in a weird kind of way because then they've got to find a way to meet the 50% and have residential uses on the main um with a binding plan that doesn't demonstrate it. So I would say to break them apart would would create a difficult situation to have to navigate and have other conditions of approval and have to figure those things out, right? Yeah. So to that end, would a motion include the approval of the special use and the variance and and the associated request for a variance? Yes,

I would like to make that motion to approve both the special use and the variance. Second. Any further discussion on the motion? I think it makes sense. I like that they still have the appearance of commercial up front. You know, I thought that was a nice touch. walking by, you're not going to notice any difference. And it has been empty for a long time. So, I'm in support for I will say I remember touring the building when it was first turned into apartments. That was always the intention was for there to be commercial in that space. So, I totally understand how it Yeah. Yeah. I didn't realize it was going to be a problem until it was a problem. Pretty easy one.

We do a vote here. Yes. Police. Yes. Yes. Paul, yes. Mcloin, yes. Pass. Yes. Yes. Motion passes. Unanim.

All right. Item number three. 4190. This is 4190 Lexington Road, 150 Pine Code Place, 120 and 140 Merks Lane with the resone number 20261-000018. Uh oh, the applicant is Carter Engineering for um Sapphire. Uh so this is a type one request requiring a a change in the future land use map from general business and excuse me single family residential to mixed density residential uh and also a zoning map change from uh CG RS8 and RM1 to RM2 in order to create 45 single and multif family lots with 272 new residential units being proposed. Um the subject property uh shown here on the 2025 aerial is 11.39 acres in total and it's comprised of three undeveloped parcels and one parcel in the middle with a um an unoccupied house currently. The surrounding area is a mix of multif family to the west, single family and duplex, uh uses to the east, single family to the south, and um some more multif family and commercial in the surrounding areas. So currently the future land use shows um general business along the Lexington Road corridor, single family residential for the rest of the properties. The uh

proposed change to mixed density residential is compatible with the surrounding area and it is compatible with the description. The project uh offers higher density residential development with buildings oriented toward the street. Sidewalks are provided and that would allow for good pedestrian connections and access to public transportation. Current zoning of CG again along the Lexington Road corridor, some RS8 in the middle and RM1 at the back of the property. The change to RN2 as proposed would allow for a maximum of 273 units on the entire property. This density is significantly greater than what's currently allowed and the zoning change will create an isolated RM2 uh zoning district. Um ACC PUB has concerns uh that the sewer capacity is not available to support this density and a solution would need to be proposed before staff support can be given for the project. Um Creek and the associated 75 ft riparian buffer uh runs along the eastern edge of the the site and cuts across uh they're at the middle of the property. Most of the buffered areas will be incorporated into open space, but some encroachment for parking as well as on the single family lots uh will need to be addressed. So, here's the plan. It shows the property divided into those 45 um single family lots towards Lexington Road and multif family lots at the at the back of the property. Um the applicant has proposed both attached and or attached quadruplex or quadplex

u structures as well as single family detached structures. Um again with 272 proposed units. It's unclear from what has been submitted how they'll achieve that number. So I think staff would need more information to fully assess the feasibility of this density. Um if I always forget which button. Sorry. So, um, a variance might be required for, um, this section of the deadend road where it exceeds the 500 foot maximum and it will serve more than 19 units. Uh, as well as street cuts by code are required to uh, cut across the environmental areas at a right angle. So, this part of the street meets code, but at the front where it runs parallel um as there's also some on street parking that might require a variance uh to address that issue. And these lots at the front that have the environmental areas will uh need to demonstrate that there's enough buildable area to accommodate a single family structure. But this is for presence only tonight. Um so staff finds that this project is partially compatible with the comprehensive plan. The proposed development will increase the supply of affordable housing and also introduce variety with both single family and multif family uh residential structures. It does not however provide interconnection and access to infrastructure. Pine Cone Place. Um there is a proposed connection to Pine Cone Place. It will require upgrades to bring it to public standards and allow that in interconnectivity. And the project requires a solution that

addresses the sewer capacity constraints. Um find that the project is compatible with the future land use map but not compatible with the zoning map and the ordinance. And in addition to the previously mentioned corrective actions and variances, the applicant needs to provide details regarding location and number of single family structures to determine parking requirements and if uh more variants are needed for the front yard parking. That concludes the staff report. Thank you. Now we'll hear from the applicant. Good evening. I'm Jeff Carter with Carter Engineering. I'm the civil engineer on the project. Um, and this this project is about um um different types of of housing. We're going to have detached um predominantly and some will be attached and some uh will be quads at the at the most. And so there's there's 45 lots here. Um, one of the the biggest issues uh that you see in the staff report is regarding the sanitary sewer. Uh, I did meet with the utility department on Friday. Uh, we had a good meeting and I fully believe they'll support what we're doing here. Uh, we have a remedy and a path forward and they agree with with with the plan and so there'll be more to come on that. Uh, but I did want to point that out. So, I'll be happy to try to answer any questions that you may have or certainly listen to your your comments and your thoughts. So, thank you.

Is there anybody here to speak in? Wait, we do a 10 minute request for this item, I believe. Right. I was going to do the support and then the other Oh, I see what you're saying. Fair enough. Okay. Yes. I got you. Anybody here to speak in support of the application? Now, we'll go to those speaking in opposition. And we do have a neighborhood representative. Not sure if they want first or all can go in whatever order you want, but he's going to get 10 minutes.

He's a comment. I brought copies. If you put a Yeah. Leave the site map up. That's going to help with the conversation. Are these into the record? Uh, yes. It would be best if if you want these to be with the record. Yeah. I'm going to read my comments in. So, these are This is what you're going to say. Comments. This is what I'm going to say. Okay. That's probably fine. Okay. Oh, read this.

Oh, yeah. That's fine. Uh, thank you for this opportunity to talk. My name is Kenneth Porier. I live at 160 Spruce Valley Road, Cedar Creek subdivision, and I'm the current president of the Cedar Creek Civic Association, reviewing the six documents that make up the application packet for the proposed development at 4190 Lexington Road. and speaking to residents of Cedar Creek subdivision who may potentially be impacted by this development as currently proposed. We've identified nine issues that we think need to be addressed before this can move forward. The first one is mentioned is the inadequate sewer plan. The original sewer and water application identifies 213 units. If you look at that plan, you look at this plan, you have 272 units, a 28% increase from when staff first looked at it to the final plan. The request is for 25,950 GPD water and sewer handling, about 122 gallons per day per unit. At this rate, the 272 units would need at least 33,194 GPD per day of sewage capacity. To be fair, 122 gallons per day is a high estimate. The county's estimates usually around 50 for an average house. So, this is a this is an excess capacity. ACC reports do not have sewer capacity to handle the needs of this development. ACC is requiring the installation of a sewer flow storage facility. Just to give you an idea of what kind of facility would handle 27,000 gallons. That's a 10 foot high by 20 foot wide by 18t long concrete box. And if you want to handle the 33,000, the box has to be 22 feet long. So it's a a big facility.

One of the questions we have um is where is this going to go on the property? You can see a 40% of this property is in tree reserved cover and then that dark part of the middle is riparian zone. So those are kind of in a sense untouchable. Everything else is a property. So where are you going to put this 1,200 square foot concrete box underground under someone's house? Um the lowest point in this area is the riparian zone which is the creek bottom. Uh will the is that where the sewage facility is going to be placed? Will the ownership of the sewage flow storage facility revert to the county or to the or to an HOA? Once the fee simple properties are sold if to an HOA, will potential buyers be appraised of the financial risk associated with this facility? Will the facility have emergency power to ensure pumping in the event of lost uh power? That's the first issue. The second issue is the in inadequate storm water management. When you look at the site plan, it implies that Cedar Creek doesn't cross the property, but but the site plan shows a 710 foot contour line completely crosses the property while ri where riparian and water buffer zones are identified. We have concerns that without extensive land contouring, overland water flow during a storm event will flow into the creek with only a small fraction being captured by the one retention pond identified on the plan, which by the way doesn't seem to be part of this development. This is somebody else's land. Okay. Consider a 1 inch rain for one hour and 121,400

square feet or 24% of the total project area converted to non-permeable surfaces such as roofs, roads, driveways, we'd see 75,600 gallons of water an hour flowing into the creek that currently gets sucked into the ground at the forest. Um, what is the impact on that increased flow through the coverts under Rlingwood Drive in our subdivision? We have two places where the creek flows under the road. Uh, we don't know if it would be able to handle that much additional flow. I don't see these considerations in the storm water management plan. The site plan makes no allowance for storm water accumulated north of the subdivision road. That's the bottom of the plan. Um I didn't see any culverts under that road which means in a heavy rain the water would back up or flow over the road. Does this part of the riparian zone then become a retention pond? The third item is removal of tree cover from the tree management plan. 41% of existing vegetative cover or about 4.6 acres of the 11.1 acres will be conserved. Half of this is the creek riparian zone. Why is only a 10-ft buffer conserved along the Seedar Creek subdivision property line which is all the way on the left here whereas 20 foot plus buffers seem to be conserved at the other property lines and the remaining 59% of the area or about 6.6 acres. A total of 3.9 acres will be covered with rope roads, roofs, and driveway surfaces, leaving about 2.7 acres of open land or lawn if you like on which only 50 trees and 42 shrubs will be planted. Sure, in 20 to 30 years, these trees will provide an approximation of

the current cover. But if more of the many existing mature trees were retra retained on the home lot, the 45 lot um more of the existing cover would be retained and the neighborhood the neighborhood would have a more friendly feel. I have uh five more issues and I'll go through these very quickly. On street parking direct directly placed over Cedar Creek in the riparian zone in the middle. only have 15 parking on street parking spaces indicated. We have concerns that parking spaces are where people put their old cars when they don't need them, which means they're leaking oil, which means they'll be leaking into the creek. Um missing sidewalks around designated on street parking slots. So again, on that on the road across the riparian zone, the sidewalk stops where there's parking spaces. So the question is why install sidewalks if one has to walk on the street to get by a vehicle parked in the designated on street parking space. Right in right out entrance onto Lexington Road. Exiting the exiting this neighborhood to go downtown requires the U-turn on Lexington Road and Lexington Road handled the additional 3 plus U-turns during early morning commute. No accommodation for those wishing to ride the bus to Athens. Going downtown by bus requires a dangerous sprint across the four lanes of Lexington Road. This this slot, by the way, is exactly between the light at Gain School Road and the light at with Davis Road, which is where car traffic is at its maximum speed. So, we we're worried that there's a a safety issue here and we wonder if the assumption is that nobody's going to ride the bus,

which is against the county's designated trying to get people more on public um transport, the proposed connection to Pine Cone Place. Drivers in this new neighborhood will see exiting via Pine Cone Place to Midway Road as an easier exit to Lexington Road West and to downtown. Can these roads handle those cars? I went on that road this afternoon. I don't think you want to see 30 more cars on that little bitty. It's a lane. It's about a lane and a half. It's not really a two-lane road. Is crossing two lanes of eastbound traffic to go downtown easier than doing the zoom in and U-turn? I don't know, but I think that should be discussed in the traffic assessment. And then the final one is is kind of one of my pet peeves. I'm sorry. And that's the neighborhood design. Having a straight street ending in a culde-sac screams 1960s to me and it doesn't scream 2026. I'm worried that incoming planes are going to use this as a runway because it's going to be better lighted than EPS airport and it's lined up exactly with the al the alternate runway. So I, you know, it's just is having all the units lined up exactly the same distance from the street likely painted all in the same color and using the same brick facade. Is that all East Side Athens can expect? And I think no, we we kind of expect a little better. We expect some design. You know, even if the houses were, you know, slightly offcentered, it would be a much nicer looking neighborhood. I don't think this is going to look particularly good. I don't think it would be acceptable in downtown Athens

and I don't think it's acceptable for East Side Athens either. I think that's my comment. So I I have one comment. I lived 25 years on a road like this and it was boring. I'm glad I don't live there anymore. But I watched it was a it was a uh a watermelon field when my home was planted there. And it looked nice 25 years later because everybody planted trees, but it was pretty bleak for about 15 of those 25 years. And this is going to look bleak for 15 of the 50 years that it's going to survive. Any questions?

Thank you. Anybody else here to in opposition? Yeah, y'all can can come right up to come up. Um, just to place into record, I have almost 400 petition signatures, online, and neighborhood signatures. Yeah.

Uh, good evening, members of commission. My name is Monica Rididgeway. I live at 215 Rollingwood. Part of this uh is planned to back up directly to my house. Um I'm here tonight and joined by my neighbors who share these concerns to ask the commission to recommend denial of the resoning to RM2. My opposition is based on three specific concerns. First, the environmental impact on our waterways. Um, the creek that winds through our neighborhood is not just a beautiful feature. It's a critical part of our local drainage system. Under the ACC code section 8-6, this stream requires a 75- ft protected riperian buffer. By requesting RM2 density, which allows for 24 units per acre, the developer is pushing the impervious surf surface ratio to its absolute limit. I'm deeply concerned that the loss of trees and the addition of massive amounts of pavement will lead to high velocity runoff, destroying the creek bank and causing flooding on neighboring properties. Second, traffic safety on the Lexington corridor. We all know that Lexington Road is already overtaxed, which is why it's a focus of the current Tesla safety projects. adding the trips associated with 272 units onto small residential streets or using midway road or the existing plan of the uh right in and right out which is will be creating immediate U-turns if needing to go west. It's a recipe for gridlock and accidents. Without a rigorous traffic impact analysis that accounts for these specific neighborhood entry points, this resoning is premature and dangerous. The county is already working on project 2, Lexon Road corridor improvements, which focuses on safety and pedestrian connectivity because Lexington road is

already so heavily traveled. Third, incompatibility of scale. The jump from CG RM1 to RM2 is too aggressive for this site. It is a triple increase in density that doesn't respect the existing nearby single family homes. There isn't another highdensity development around us that backs directly to other single family home neighborhoods. My neighbors and I are not against growth. We understand that this is the path of Athens Clark County. The need for housing does not justify the inappropriate density on a site with significant environmental constraints. We support housing, but it must be at a scale that the land and the existing road infrastructure can support without degrading the quality of life for everyone around. Please protect our creek and our neighborhood's character and I urge you to recommend denial for this highdensity RMT request. Thanks.

Thank you.

Anyone else to speak in opposition? My name's in Mahoney and I live uh at 265 Rollingwood, which is four doors downstream from from the lot that is shown on that map. Um I live right on the creek. It shows there that it's inside that development, but then it comes down and it comes right up our properties just back up to it. And I'm worried about this being a real hazard to the creek. Um, I've lived there for 20 years and periodically have smelled the stench of sewage in the creek without all these extra houses needed, you know, needing more capacity. Um, I don't know why it happened, but it seems like it has to relate to city that's for them. Um, also when I walk from my house, which is up higher above the creek and the opposite side, which is downstream from these guys, is lower. And if it's been really wet, that ground is very mushy. It doesn't per moisture away. It just sits there. And I can't imagine what would happen with all that much more imperous surface and those trees taken out and how much worse that would be for the other side of the creek. So, um I I know that when the

creek is in good shape, it hasn't had one of those backup things happen um for a while. There's a lot of wildlife actually in the creek using it. you know, otter and turtles and all that kind of stuff. So, it's got a wildlife aspect to it, too. But I know that's not what drives these decisions, but um anyway, I can only speak from my own experience. I don't have a lot of information about how many gallons hour or anything, but I just wanted to put that in the record. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else to speak in opposition?

This you guys got um Jay Reynolds 180 rolling wood drive. I'm speaking on behalf of myself and other um concerns about the current privacy and barrier provided by the space. The trees in the undergrowth currently provide a privacy and noise barrier. How much noise pollution will be added to the houses next to and adjacent to this project with an independent study been conducted by the Athens Clark County government or any other local state or government entity? Not a study funded by the developer which would be a conflict of interest. What privacy mitigation strategies will be implemented? There's a large it would be like a large unattractive solid wall which would be very expensive like the kind they have around Atlanta. you know an acceptable height vegetation wall barrier or other natural infrastructure for example tree planting high bushes you know would take years to regrow and be effective possibly Cedar Creek the creek itself what will be the environmental impact again has an independent study been conducted by Athens clar county government or any other local or state government entity and what are the mitigation strategies to prevent the flooding. Some of these houses have a low margin of of error for additional runoff and watershed problems. For example, at 180 Rollingwood after the crease crosses the road at Peak Crest, there's only a few feet to spare before the flood stage. And of note, in the last 50 years, it's not flooded in the backyard or the finished basement. I think we'd agree if we begin to experience repeated floods, there would be a case for strong causal effect attributable to this proposed development. And one additional note, large sewer pipes run across the creek at 180 really drive. And within the last

two years, Athens clar county government has removed three large trees and rebuilt the side of the creek with rock barriers to prevent a possible disaster. So obviously there's a potential environmental concern with increased water levels, potential flooding and large debris moving down the creek. Will localized property level protection be offered or provided at the creek site of the individual houses by at the Clark County government or the developer of the apartment complex? And this would include flood barriers, elevating utilities, elevating AC unit, and improving drainage, drainage maintenance behind our house at 180. Will other strategies be implemented that include sustainable urban drainage and flood plan management for Rollingwood and surrounding neighborhood as a whole? Will they be comprehensive and extensive? Will they be using guidance and strategies from government organizations like FEMA or the EPA? Traffic on Gain School Road. This likely will cause more traffic, increasing the potential for accidents, injuries to pedestrians, bikes, and those vehicles. We don't want any more traffic. I don't think you do either. And then common sense considerations there. There's a potential for the apartment development to decrease sorry the value of the house and land a little. And then population dynamics, you know, additional people, concentrated area.

Thank you, Mr. But finally speaking, as an Athenian, a neighbor, and a member of the community. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. Anyone else?

Hi. Uh, my name's Janet Frick. I live at 210 Rollingwood. So continued part of the Rollingwood cond uh can uh group whatever that word is. Uh and which is just the the street that that backs up to it there. Um we have had some really good conversations in our neighborhood. Um we are not as uh Nicole said earlier, we're not anti-development. We have there's a lot of diverse housing all around the Cedar Creek neighborhood. Um along Gaines School and along Lexington. um our concerns. I would just really reiterate uh concerns about the creek. The creek, as you can see, and you all are probably aware, travels, uh all the way through our neighborhood. It goes over to Cedar Scholes Drive and beyond there. So, uh the the environmental concerns really could impact a relatively large area. Um and the traffic concerns on Lexington. There have been a ton of wrecks at the intersection of um of Lexington and Whit Davis. Uh and there are already a lot of U-turns that happen there and um I think traffic concerns from this are uh are quite significant. So, um you know, if there is a development that takes place there or that that is that goes into that spot, uh I just think it needs to take uh space and environmental concerns much more seriously than this proposal currently seems to. Thank you all for your work.

Thank you. Hello, my name is Rudy Chimo and I live uh on 245 Milstone Circle in Athens. That's out uh off of Morton Road, which is further south in this fiasco here. Um and as I I'm a casual observer. I but just being a casual observer, a sewage system problem, 272 units, that's 600 cars there. So, you have to also, you know, be cognizant of that. And as you drive down Lexington, it's just getting worse and worse. Uh we've got developments south of u of Walmart and that just doesn't look pretty. It just looks like we're putting people on top of people on top of people. My biggest concern is environmental and what are we going to do about the quality of life for the people and the people that are living there already. Have we thought about that? I think that's something that needs to be done before you go any further in this. But that's that's a fiasco, folks. Thank you.

One else to speak in opposition. Um, my name is Aquilla. I live on 290 Midway Road uh on the map. And um so I'd be part of the neighborhood that has it's basically a U-turn that um like a little loop that comes off Lexington and they're proposing that it connects and the road itself is barely two cars wide. I pull off to let my neighbors pass when um we're driving in opposite directions. So it could not accommodate any kind of traffic um without being stretched into people's yards. Um, I also want to, um, piggyback off of everyone else saying that the repairarian buffer zone is there for a reason. Um, we are in a flood plane and, um, it would definitely impact all of the neighboring areas, not just the environment, but like our houses and everything. Thank you guys.

Thank you.

Anyone else in opposition? Hi, my name is Abby Vote and I'm at uh 219 Rollingwood Drive. I think that's number five on the map there. So, I have two points. First thing is is we need to zoom out and look at this vacant property. So, this is really just half of the wooded area back there. So if we move forward with this, we have to consider what's going to happen to the other half, right? Um does that mean that if we approve this, does that mean that that other half will also be approved as high density? And what does that look like? Um I also want to point out the fact that we have quite a diverse wildlife population back there. Here we have um owls, birds of all sorts, um deer, um a white deer, which is very special. Um foxes, coyotes, I could keep listing all of them. So, what happens to those animals? Do they end up dead in the road, right? And then the city has to come up and pick come out and pick them up. Um what happens to them? Um, so those are just my two points. Um, so I'm petitioning that we reject this, please.

Thank you. Anyone else to speak in opposition?

Um, I will invite the applicant for two minutes if there's any response. Yes. I'll just briefly say I would look forward to your comments. Certainly appreciate the comments that we've heard so far. Uh a lot of it uh would be worked out in plan review in terms of there's a lot of obviously codes that we need to work through storm water management plans and all that that's not shown on a on a zoning plan. But um but we are trying to bring some affordable housing here um you know to Athens and we'd love to hear your feedback and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have as well. So thank you.

All right, we'll take it on the side of the room. Um, so just to reiterate, so we're not voting on this and I I think it would be helpful to focus on like the land use that's in question and if this is an appropriate change for the future land map. Um, so with that context, what comments have I've got a question for Bruce. So, I heard a lot of environmental concern. That's that's taken care of by staff. Correct. If if this if this were approved by all the uh means and commissions and all, y'all get it. the handling the sewer, handling the storm water, all of that. If it if it can't if the project can't handle that, it won't get it won't go forward at that point, even if the reasonzoning was approved.

Correct. Correct. If um any any parcel that has a development proposal with the attributes like this site demonstrates is going to be going through meeting levels of review, storm water, environmental area impacts. um the sanitary sewer issue is going to be dealt with at that level and um the applicant's engineer is asked to create a solution that meets code and then the engineering staff on the county side puts it through its paces to make sure it actually does meet code. Um and we do that routinely through an administrative process. So you're right, staff will work through those things.

Okay. So it really is not that it's not our concern but it's not our concern on the voting end of things whether there are mechanisms for looking into those issues. Yes. But it's not inappropriate for this body to talk through those concerns as they're demonstrated on that site. Right. Yeah.

And then one last little thing and I'll probably be done. Um sewer is inadequate or possibly inadequate. We we hear that a lot. Can you explain or can anybody I guess fill us in on what exactly is the issue with the sewer? I would defer to public utility staff if there's any comment that is specific to this site or anything. Um, it is a fill up the public utilities.

Um, the Cedar Creek uh major interceptor trunk line um is part of our service delivery plan to upgrade that that um major interceptor line. Um all of our studies that we've done up till now show that that is where the issue lies is within the uh the trunk line. Um of course there may be um smaller uh projects or upgrades that we could that we are looking into if there's a a quicker solution to you know a smoking gun so to speak to uh to fix the uh the issues that we're having. But it looks like it's going to be a you know a major project for us. It's on our uh service delivery plan. Um so any development um you know the burden uh falls on the developer to to provide a solution um that's not going to uh add to the current constraints that we have. Is the So is the sewer faulty or is the sewer just not big enough?

It's a lot of it is uh the age of the pipe. Um you know it over time, you know, just a lot of the a lot of the the line is clay. So it it is degraded over time. So it's both material and the plan is to upsize as well to you know accommodate expected future growth. Yes, sir. Any other questions?

Yeah, since you're here. Um, so the idea, and I know this plan is not binding, so this might not even happen, but like the idea that there would be some sort of storage area, I guess. Okay, let me back up a minute. The service delivery plan, is this like a 10year plan? Is this like a 30-year plan? Like, what is this time frame? It gets updated every five years. As far as a a major project like this, we're looking, you know, several years out before implementation. You know, would be a a multi-phaseed plan starting at the treatment plant. So,

so this isn't something that's going to happen in the next year or two, but by the next decade, this could be right. I guess where I'm going with this is if to be able to have that capacity, if something like this included a large box on the property and then the sewer upgrade happened, is then there just a large box on the property? Like what happens to the maintenance of that thing over time? Sure. Um the goal with with these is for them to be decommissioned and a direct tie in to be made to the uh the line to sewer flows normally. Okay. It would become part of the system. Correct. Ask for clarification.

Absolutely. Does it become part of the system or it's decommissioned? I apologize. It's vacant under the ground. It's not being used. It would be abandoned in place. Yes. Decommission. Thanks for clarifying. Yeah. Can I follow up? So, is it accurate to say that um significant development on this site could not happen until sewer improvements that are part of Clark County's plan were implemented. That's correct. I mean other than a you know alternative solution by the developer no no direct tiein could happen.

Okay. Thank you questions. Are we good? Yeah. Thank you Joel. Yeah.

Okay. Um, I guess for starters, I just wanted to clarify something about um the number of units. There were some public comments uh about somebody said something about 600 cars and and um it's a common source of confusion that when we count units in Clark County on multif family zone land, meaning RM1 or two, which is what um some of this is now and what the developers asking for it to be, we count bedrooms. So what they're asking for is RM2 zoning which allows 24 bedrooms per acre. So on this 11 acre site that would 11 something it would allow up to 270 uh bedrooms 2 273 bedrooms I think it was and that's not 273 apartments. You know three-bedroom single family home on that is three of those 273 bedrooms. So, um I did want to ask the um applicant to just clarify because looking at the site plan, there's 45 numbered lots um and uh approximately 35 of them. I take it the ones to the right of that of the creek, the smaller lots, those are I I understand to be actually applicant, could you come up because it's this long question, but is for you. Uh, I take it that those that the intention is that there would be single family homes on those smaller lots and that on the 10 lots to the left of the creek back by the culde-sac it would be that's where the uh idea is to have quadplexes. Is that

correct? Yeah, that's that's generally speaking correct. um if and and we haven't uh determined exactly which lots would be quads and but obviously the ones on the right side of the creek would be lend itself to more of just detached homes. There may be some of those that we combine two lots that are shown there and maybe have a duplex. So we want to mix them up so they're not all just, you know, the same the same unit. But generally speaking, you're exactly right.

Okay. And so, so with that in mind, um, my question for you was, why are you asking for RM2 instead of RM1? Because I don't see how you get anywhere near 200 and something bedrooms with this lot mix. You know, if those single family homes are not sixbedroom homes, um, I don't see why you would need RM1 zoning at 16 bedrooms for eight, which most of this lot already is, would allow you, um, 182, I think, bedrooms. Um, And I don't see how you exceed that with the riparian buffer and everything else. And I realize the site plan is not binding and it may change, but but I'm just wondering why you're asking for RM2 when I would bet you'd have a real hard time exceeding the RM1 density once you start dealing with riparian buffers and all of the uh staff compliance with the code issues that were flagged in their report.

Yes, that's a that's a good question. Um, so that possibly could be true. We do feel like we could exceed the RM1 density level, but I can't tell you, you know, based on what we know today that that, you know, RM1 wouldn't be a possibility. I mean, it's it's a it's a fair point and I certainly can, you know, give you a better answer next time we get together and I certainly can take that and take a closer look at it.

Yeah, I would ask you to do that. I mean, since you're here for comments, that's my comment. I think that that RM1 you the other side of the property um to the top of the picture here, that's an RM1 zone department complex. So, I think it's a smaller ask and an easier ask for the neighbors to understand and for the county commission to maybe go along with um if that's what you were asking for. And so, anyway, that's just a sort of practical question that I wanted to flag for you. Thank you.

Well, and then just a couple of other comments. I I um I appreciate the applicants, you know, the uh effort to provide smaller houses, 1,200 foot houses. This is not a question for you. So, okay. Okay.

But, you know, aiming at a $300,000 price point, that's a price point that's hard to reach in Athens for new construction. And so, I think that's that's good for Athens. Um, among the concerns that were expressed and that I had reading the application and that I heard from some of the neighbors, I think storm water and sewer are very serious concerns, right? Um, we don't want flooding. Um, and um the sewer concerns are obviously significant. We don't want overflows into the creek. Um I'm less sympathetic to um you know when people come and say like oh there's trees there now and I don't want to have houses over the back fence of my house. You know Athens needs housing. And so to me for the county u the right thing to do is to on residential zone land which is to allow a reasonable amount of residential development. Um and new neighbors may be your friends. that might have you over for dinner and and uh they're nothing to be hear of. So when you know we hear oftentimes there's a residential neighbor complaining about a proposed gas station behind their house or proposed industrial facility and that's a noise and privacy and glare concern that I I think is very reasonable. a house behind your house is not something that I would object to or that I think that um it's reasonable for us to um you know development to prevent people from having neighbors

just for what it's if I could offer a gentle counterpoint to you

because I actually what I'm hearing and I completely agree with the concerns over development of this particular property based on the environmental conditions. Um, I personally would not buy a piece of property that had water on it in this day and age. I feel like it's just a matter of time before it floods. And so to put this much development on this property with that much environmental area sensitivity to it, that to me is what I'm hearing. And and I I agree with that. I I I don't I don't disagree with there this being like the future land use changing to multif family, but I think an RM1 would be way more appropriate given not I mean the sewer concerns but also the environmental concerns and the amount that you could build on here. I just think this is way too intensive. I would like to echo that. I mean, I think that that's a fair point and I don't think I could support an RN2 under any iteration because of the concerns of the traffic, the environmental, the the creek, the sewer capacity. It just seems like too much and we need housing, but we need to be careful about where we put it and how we decide.

How do you feel about the change to the future land use? I don't think it should exceed RM1, right? But that would be zoning. So, oh, uh, so is it right now the chain the current future land use is

I'm okay with mixed density as long as it is respectful of the environmental challenges, the sewer and the traffic. Um yeah, I uh it seems like everything that we're discussing now is usually something that I look for input on uh input of in the staff reports when we get to the second level when we have our reports from public works uh transportation about traffic impacts, about storm water considerations, about sewer capacity, which we're kind of like talking around, but I've tend to prefer to have that report. Um, and I have not heard a reason yet why I should why those those recommendations should not be trusted. Uh and yet every time we come to these the same, you know, we hear the same thing, concerned about storm water, concerned about traffic, and we have our county departments usually, I mean, by the time they get through all these processes at a place where they can say this should be fine under our review. Um so without those um uh that that is what I will be looking for. I'll be looking to see what is our what does our public works department say about the storm water considerations here. Um if anyone has any reason why

we get that with a non-binding plan that kind of input. Yeah. The there will be a level of analysis that can be done off the concept. Yes. Um but no if it's if it's not going to be binding that's as far as it goes. It's just that the concept following concerns.

What's the level of analysis? So it it responds to the level of detail that we receive. So unless we receive something from the applicant following this meeting that's more detailed than this information, um the engineering departments are going to ask the questions that they ask. Um I think Joel represented that discussion that's already going on and what they know about the basin. Um the same would be true about storm water and what's known about the basin. And then there's some basic assumptions that would be made off of the yield and off of the paving associated with proposed roadway. And I think that's as far as it would go. Yeah. Uh but it would go further at the point of time that anyone wanted to actually build something in plan review.

You would have to have engineer detailing at that point. Yeah. And B so basically like the level of analysis that you get on on the straight reason is like well could someone do something that made plans review uh or is does the or we see any problems in what you've submitted but so so when we don't get it in this report it h it still happens as things are or are not getting built right yeah I trust our public utilities department generally speaking at public works Yeah,

I was going to say it may be helpful for discussion. Um, the mixed density residential future land use category has three residential zoning categories that are considered to be compatible. So, single family residential RS5, which is six units, not bedrooms, but six units to the acre. um RM1 and RM2, those three would be considered compatible with what the future land use change that's been requested. So that's helpful. Okay,

thank I don't have a lot of extra comments to make. I think a lot of good things were said already. I think Matt did a great job of kind of synthesizing my concerns and the question about RM1 versus RM2. You know, I kind of think that my main concern was that RM2, you know, I don't like creating unique little pockets of zoning. So, RM1, I think I would probably be more in favor of as well. And so, to get to the question about the future land use map, I think that, you know, I would be in favor of that, but maybe not in favor of the RM2. And I take environmental concerns very seriously, too. I live on the river and I'm a big fan of riparian buffers, so definitely a consideration. else.

So, just a couple of quick comments. The we bring up affordable housing all the time and the the the market determines affordable housing more than anything does. It's bigger, stronger than the government. It's going to make the move. It is what it is what has put us here with a big boost from low interest rates and a few other things. So the way to counter that is one way to counter that is to build. The more units that are out there, the more competitive it gets, the more choices buyers and renters have. And when you have choices and I sell real estate, my job or what I do a strong thing to do is get my buyer choices. Then they are thinking when they make their offer, they well, if this doesn't work, I've got this. There's no panic in that. So, more units brings more choices to Athens. Having said that, uh I did the same math that Matt did earlier and it it just wasn't computing. But on things like this also, I tend to not even I pay less attention to the drawings because we're just giving it an RM1 or an RM2. They come back and do anything. So, do I want the specifics? And that's where I was getting lost in the math or not following or agreeing with is that there is there's RM1 around this. Uh it's it's appropriate. It's certainly not inappropriate to have more family housing or not family housing, but residential housing. And so, I don't have an issue with residential housing. Therefore, I don't have an issue uh with future land use of that. It's the number and I think that

is when when you stack and stack and stack, that's where the problems of traffic can be. I actually did a U-turn at about 8 10 after 8 this morning and it was super easy and right there. And so the traffic comes and goes and traffic's going to be there. The biggest problem around that area and most of Athens is the number of traffic lights that causes a lot of backup. But as far as cars driving around, it's not always as terrible as it sounds. But so I'm not worried. But back to the the idea, the I I tend and I get you again the um applicants are here to hear us say this that I I I do throwing an RM2 out there just there it is. And I didn't mean it to sound like that song, but um it I I would be hesitant to go RMT and as y'all know I have been in the past uh on things, but not so much because of the neighborhood uh that backs up to it, but because of just everything it brings in that little narrow space.

I mean, I think I generally agree with what what most people have said. I I think this is another example in Athens where when a property hasn't been developed at this point, there are reasons it wasn't developed and in this case probably has to do with the environmental sensitivity. Um I guess a couple things to point out. I agree with the public commenter who pointed out the right in right out it, you know, when you're building something the east end of town where everyone going in town is needs to take a left, right? if you're working in town, you're getting to the loop, whatever you're doing. Um, so that's just setting setting something up where everyone who lives in there is got to do a U-turn. That seems kind of um counterintuitive to me. Um, I was having a hard time when I first started looking at this plan. I was like, 272 units, that's crazy. It is just 272 bedrooms, which is a little less scary, but it it still feels dense when you've got such a um such a sensitive area. And I I've this kind of thing before, which is that when we get to these sort of last remaining larger tracks of land around Athens, I think we have to be really careful. And so, for example, I don't think I would ever just approve a straight reszone to RM2 on a piece of land like this. It's 11 acres. Um, and unless the site plan was binding or it was a PD or something, we would just have no assurance other than the what we have in place. Like I do really trust that our departmental staff is going to every all these a lot of these concerns about the creeks etc. those will be taken care of kind of down the road from

from our what we do. But um it just seems like yeah RM2 is is entirely too dense for here. And and thinking about you know when you're proposing four bedroomedroom homes what that can mean in Athens is you're probably building a fourbedroom fourb home or something like that. Um, so that immediately makes me think of toilets and sewer and we're back to the sewer problem, which I think is probably the biggest showstopper for this project. So, um, I think that's all I've got for now. Have one last thing to add.

A concern that I have pig backing off of what Sarah just said is I also don't think that I could support anything that didn't have a binding site plan. I don't know what the land basis is here, but with all of the challenges and the goal to be to provide something affordable, I think there's there's a a tricky balance that there's so much money that would have to go into acquiring the land to overcoming these challenges to get the amount of life on here they want to try to achieve that some quarters end up getting cut for the price that these things ultimately end up selling. or renting at. And so I would be very concerned with the quality with how they would look, how they would present, how they'd hold up over time. And I would want to have some assurance and some guard rails of what happened there. All right. Well, next um Item four.

All right. Good evening. Uh the following is the staff report for the zoning action zone 20261001930 new Jimmy Daniel Road and the applicant is Carter Engineering. Uh the request is for a type one reszone for change from the future land use uh from employment center to mixed density residential uh and a zoning map change from employment industrial to RM2. This is a aerial photograph uh from earlier this from earlier last year um showing the property in question. Um, as you can see here, it is there's a large storm water retention pond that is partially on this property and partially on the neighboring uh parcels as well. Um, this is just south of Sam's Club. We'll have a zoomed out aerial here in just a minute. That'll give a little bit more context to the location. Uh, this is the proposed the current and proposed future land use map. uh the one you got in your packets had a unfortunate typographical error on it that said that the change would just be to employment which is not correct. It's to mix density residential indicated by the lovely yellow color. Um as you can see there is a little bit of leading when it comes to future land use into the property to the north. That's just that is accurate. It's just kind of funky and I just wanted to point that out. but it does not impact the parcel in question. Here would be the change from EI to RM2. Uh this is a environmental areas map. You can see there's a little bit of 75 foot riparian buffer down here on the southern part of the property. And as mentioned earlier, the storm water retention.

This is that zoomed out photograph I was uh referencing earlier. As you can see, this parcel is kind of in a somewhat unique location. Uh, Ridge Point is to the west. That's this neighborhood here. Um, there's been other residential developments on Jennings Mill Parkway for to the east and again it's to the south of the corridor highway. Uh, this is the uh development plan that the applicant submitted along with this proposal. It's for town home units. Again, this would not be binding as it's a straight reszone, but this is the general concept plan um for what they would be targeting for this parcel. In general, um staff finds that this um request is partially compatible with the comprehensive plan uh granting some nodal development. Um and also staff also cited a lack of walkability to some of the adjacent commercial uses to the north. Um, in general, it's compatible with the future land use map, zoning map, and ordinance. Um, when it comes to the future land use change, this would represent creating and zoning map change, it would represent creating an isolated district. Um, though staff does recognize that this area has been zoned for industrial uses for quite some time and no development has taken place. so is somewhat open to a a change to a more residential focused um more residential focused in this area. Um there are concerns regarding the sanitary sewer at this location. Um there have been some discussions with public utilities and the applicant that I'll I'll let them speak to later on. Um but again there are concerns with sanitary sewer that at the time of us writing the report public utilities did not feel they could support uh this plan uh where it coming through that currently constituted. Um there are some other zoning related corrective actions um that the applicants been made aware of that um will will come back up ahead

of voting session. But in general staff is somewhat supportive of the the future land use change and zoning map change with a heavy uh butt regarding the sanitary sewer. Um, and again, this is type one, so it's just comments only. No vote for this one this evening. That concludes the staff report. All right. Thank you very much. Now we'll hear from the applicant.

I'm Jeff Carter with Carter Engineering, the civil engineer on this project as well. And we feel like this is a good very good location for this this type of use. Uh, I did want to spend a few minutes talking about Sant Sewer. you know, something that that we heard in the last case. I just want to clear a few things up hopefully. Um, so I think um, as Joel mentioned, it is up to the developer to provide them with a solution um, that will work. Um, we had a meeting last Friday. I believe we have a clear path forward on that. Um, it is not going to be a a huge concrete vault that's going to be there forever. that's not part of the we wouldn't do that because it just doesn't make make sense to do that. So, um obviously the details have to be worked out. You know, we have to go through the permitting process. Um they have to approve it and all that. And so that's um at least the way I'm looking at it, you know, that's down the road, but we feel comfortable enough in proceeding that um we have a you know, a clear a clear path forward for for that. So, um, I, you know, as much as I can, I'll be glad to, you know, try to address the concerns there, but, um, long way to go on that, but again, I feel like we've got a good a good solution that's not going to, you know, be a be a burden on the public infrastructure for, you know, for years to come. So, um, yeah, this is another one I'd be really interested. I want to hear your feedback and um we certainly want to make this a a viable project and and you know again I think this is a affordable housing here in Athens that to me is a good spot uh for it. You've got commercial close by. You've got other uh similar developments, you know, around in this area. So I appreciate your comments. Appreciate your time.

Thank you. Um is there anyone here to speak in support of the You want to hear to speak in opposition? Yeah. Hearing not. Um, who wants to start with some comments?

I have much less problem with this than the one. And I think this area is right for some residential growth. There's a lot of um access points and and 78 29 that makes it area make a lot of sense for more residential. I don't think it has quite the same challenges from a traffic standpoint or or environmental. It just seems like it makes a lot more sense. I think we I think um staff there's a lot more um more detailed information from staff and their suggested corrections corrected actions corrective actions and I generally speaking just want to underscore those and I did have a question about and this is more out of curiosity really than anything about staff's item number three relating to the town home lot size. Um, so in RM2 when we have town homes currently we have a required minimum square foot lot size of 5,000. Is that right? Okay. I don't think I realized that. Um, and then a town home community does a lot. Um I think that I should have

So I will say this the the lot size um can flex when you have a site that's over two acres. Okay. So this is six I believe that's right. Yeah. Yes.

Um so the lot size has the ability. So what you're getting is a lot yield that's that's calculated using that 5,000 and then it can be arranged in any number of ways as long as we meet the other standards for setbacks and and coverage and some other things that we need to work through. Um, the other way to achieve something like this, you know, is in in in opposition of a fee simple split of the land is something that offers like a condominium style ownership product where you still have a single parcel and we see that I mean it the financing on that is right and it doesn't always work. Um, but there are different ways to achieve this kind of layout. Um, and flex those lot sizes or ownership lines.

Okay. Yeah. So, they just need to kind of out or if they wanted to stay with what they're doing now, there'd have to be a variance request or something. I mean, we'll we'll see how this play. Okay. Um, and then the other question I have since you're um, you would know this is is are are we allowed to have that many as drawn on this plan? Are we allowed to have that many town homes in a row without a break? And do we have a limit on that? There is a well there's a limit for the amount of building frontage before it has to break in the multif family. Uhu.

And this there are offsets throughout. So just looking at the figure ground depiction of this, we don't have the architecturals to go along with it, but what's being shown meets code as far as those offsets. That's right. Because

Okay. And I mean, if this were a PD, I'd have different comments, but it's not. It I I think it needs more green or playground. I think maybe this application is where staff mentioned Yeah. Like not a concrete playground. It just needs a little but we're also not looking at a tree plan. So, um that's more kind of for the for the applicant to thinking about livability and what it would be like to live there. I think that's it for me. I'd say generally I think I'm feeling in favor of this one. You know, I think the change is uh it makes sense. Seems like a good spot for some town houses like this. So, I like it.

Yeah, I think I think it's a good location. I I also want to see some clarification on the corrective action. It's hard to to make a final decision or true decision. I have a question and maybe Alex could answer it or or she could answer it, but and I know I know we don't have a new future land use map, but I also know that this particular area has always been kind of weird because it's all zoned employment, but it didn't pan out that way. Okay. So then we get these housing developments that pop up and we're always kind of like h what was the discussion around here to to shift it more toward residential in general?

It I'll actually let Bruce say it because I want to be careful because it is not. I will say yes and then I'll let and I just want to speak in really general terms without trying to act as like this particular parcel or anything.

Okay. If you want something in general terms, I I will say this that there were a lot of areas in town that were recognized by the future land use steering committee as shifting their orientation away from say an industrial use or an employment expectation for the next 20 years um to something that could accommodate residential in combination with maybe some lighter or smaller footprint commercial or some other nodal type things that would promote walkability and some other density. Um there were parts of town where we had had employment future land use on the map for many many years um 25 plus years of future land use and it wasn't manifesting wasn't coming forward in those locations. This is one of those areas that has crept away from the initial vision of Jenningsville Parkway being an alternate industrial route to Atlanta Highway having passenger vehicles. And we've seen some iterations of decisions made that have introduced residential along Jenningsville Parkway and that mostly to the east. Um and then we saw Ridge Point kind of bookending it to the west. So the committee did spend some time on the side of the map looking at that transition and trying to paint a path for the next 20 years. And I think the discussion as I recall was favorable to that transition. Yeah, because it feels like this area, regardless of what the future land use graph says, it's very much feels like it's it this particular way area could just go kind of go either way toward like industrial versus residential, but I don't know if I have an opinion either way,

right? And so the infrastructure conversation was a very big topic in talking about all of those areas and this side of the community, McNuts Creek Basin. Um and and Joel, you you you could give us more color if if it's needed, but um we've got aging lines, lines that have been built in iterations um that that function fine for low intensity uses. And believe it or not, like Sam's Club would be a lower intensity sanitary sewer type use even though it's such a big facility. Um, housing is a high intensity producer of of sanitary sewer demand. And so the McNuts Creek Basin is is tough. It's one of those that's been under constant analysis. I know it's going to be a part of the service delivery disc discussion. And it is one of those that is so considerably long that it's not going to be a 5year fix by any stretch. It would probably be probably 10 to 20 years to completely get that in a position where it could handle medium and certainly not high density, but maybe high density residential um depending on how far the fix goes. But um yeah, McDuts Creek is not it's not a basin that can handle a lot of additional capacity. And I'll add to that, this is why I'm being careful because the mayor and commission had the future land use uh ready to vote on this past Tuesday. They decided to hold it for two months. Uh some changes came in, which is fine. Uh doesn't bother me a bit commission change things. So, they're going to do that. Um but we proposed it as mixed density residential but the mayor and commission is not finished with math. So

exactly but but we saw it the way you're kind of leaning and I've got another comment. Oh gohead. Okay. Um, so I this is an this is an RM12 um zoning that I don't mind based on where it is and how traffic flows and all that. Um, but also as a born and raised Athenian, I cannot leave this meeting without making sure everyone knows that the lot just below it is the lot of the very historic um, Athens Speedway Air Track.

And if you look if you look at this at the satellite map, you can actually you can actually see where it was even though it's very much overgrown. But just throwing that in. This was way out in the boond docks when I was a kid. Like the mall was way out in the boonddocks when I was a kid and this was even. So I'm just making sure everybody knows that little piece of nostalgia.

I'll just add, you know, I I agree with what everyone said about that multif family here seems like a perfectly reasonable use. It doesn't have as much sensitive environmental areas. So I'm less concerned about the RM2 density. did I just want to make sure that I understood you right uh Bruce that um regarding staff's comment number three um because this is a site over two acres there's no minimum lot size for those town homes it's just that there's a six lots per acre cap on yield on their yield

so they they're showing 32 they could do 32 they could do up to 36 on a sixacre site on as small a lot as they want basically or other metrics have to be met, right? Lot size comes off the table. Okay. And and one other metric if I remember right um is it the case that each town home has to be 20t wide um in RM2 unless they get like a a waiver which they'd have to do as a ED oring site plan or something. So, so there is that if you're going to subdivide there's a minimum lot width that way with the town homes for for shared wall construction. Okay. Yeah. But

if they're doing them on individual parcels as opposed to Yeah. town home style units all on a single parcel. Yeah. They don't they can be 16 ft wide or whatever architecture they come up with. Okay. Thank you. comments. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um, okay. Where were we at? Five 295 Dherty Street.

So, the request for 295 Dherty Street is a reszone record jumper zone 20261034. The request is to reszone from commercial downtown to G government. Future land use is already downtown. It would not be changed with this request. Um the downtown design area overlay that's on this parcel is currently Doherty Street. There is no request to change that designation. Um and it is consistent with what's on either side. Um there is no concept plan that was submitted with this. This is a straight reszone, but it is associated with the development agreement for a public parking deck associated with the redevelopment of the Hotel Abacus or Foundry Park in property. Uh looking at some mapping for the property. This shows you the future land use. The the site that we're talking about is this odd shape here um that has frontage almost onto North Avenue. This would stay downtown. Zoning would go from downtown G as shown in that pale blue. And this shows the environmental areas which aren't there. They're kind of close by, but I will note there's considerable topographical change on this site. Um the also the this figure ground view also shows the build condition has these three staggered footprints. Um they've been a number of things over the years. Uh at one point it was a spa that was associated with the hotel use. Um they've been apartments. Um but those would be removed as part of uh the future development of the public parking structure. There's a a better view of those footprints and and the pool. Um this view also shows you proximity to lay park and that's important. Um so here's here you see the active

programmed areas of lay park. Um nothing in this area would be disturbed as part of the development. Um other than to accommodate interconnection of the parking deck to the park. Um in all likelihood at an upper level that brings people at the grade of the park itself. Um and that is likely to be where the handicap accessible parking will be uh in the deck is a significant number of spaces there to put you at grade for the park. Staff's recommendation is for a recommendation of approval for the requested reszone. Uh it is compatible with the 2023 comprehensive plan. It's compatible with the surrounding zoning. Uh the downtown we've recognized in previous consideration for this development. Central hub of the county and the community supports a variety of businesses, jobs, and we have transportation options. The notion here is to provide some shared parking in a structure that would help support the park this side of downtown and some of the uses that are on Thomas and Foundry that are in easy walking distance. Um so that concludes the staff report. Happy to answer any questions. Um, so even though it's ACC property, we have a separate petitioner presenting for it. Is that the case?

We're for it, I guess. Okay. All right. There we go. All right. You're up.

Awesome. Uh, good evening. Uh, my name is Buck Bacon. I'm with WA Engineering. Our office is located at 355 Bonita Street here in Athens, Georgia. Um I'm here to represent the current owner Mallerie and Evans. Uh ultimately this property will be uh transferred to Athens County owners. Um uh the reszone uh request uh is uh related to as as Bruce referenced related to the core project and development agreement that was recently approved by mayor and commission and was reszone as necessary to accommodate the agreements made between my client Mallerie and Evans four spaces the Athens downtown development authority and the unified government. No change to the future land use plan is is being requested. Proposed zoning and use is consistent with uh the goals and objectives of the comprehensive uh plan and obviously the intended use is for a public parking garage to be owned and operated by uh the Athens downtown development or if I should say owned by Athens Clark County government operated by Athens downtown. So, with that, I don't have anything else to add, but I'm happy to answer any questions if you have any.

Thank you. Is there anybody here to speak in support of the application? Anybody care to speak in opposition to the application? Okay, hearing none. Who wants to start a discussion or that? I move to approve the request. Okay, I'll second that. Okay, any further discussion on the motion

with parking? Um, so the parking would be used for the hotel and lake park. So the parking would be available um for general public use. Um there is some information about the fee structure, but the idea is that it would be available for the general public. There would be also spaces in there that could be much like our other downtown parking decks. There can be longerterm leases through that are administered by the downtown development authority, but the levels available for the park would be available for the park. Yeah. Does the DVA run the the other downtown decks?

So, if you're parking at this deck and you're there for laid park, would you pay? So, there's and there's been discussions about how to manage Yeah. that um whether you have a a pass system or you have some sort of validation process. Um, but I can tell you staff is is very keen to make sure that that arrangement is clearly understood and that the lay park public parking is available to people that want to use lay park. This would be replacing the parking that's currently like around by the playground. That's right. The surface lot. Yeah.

Right. Bruce, did I understand you? You say it's under discussion with staff, but the intention is to find a way to make it so that park users um don't pay to park there. I Yes, I mean that that is that that is the conversation that we're having. Um and it will how to how to accomplish it, how to manage that when you have other users in that same tech. Um so it's a little tricky. Um there there'll be some mechanics to it. Um but yeah, this is this will be our deck to manage. So we'll we can do it.

Is at lay park. Is there a staff member there like 95 or the front counter is staffed? Yeah.

Okay. Because I do find it handy when I go to mayor commission meetings and you can get the little validation thing. just grab it and when you go out you put your ticket in it tells you $4 and you scan that and it opens up. So there's that. I don't know if that's the way to do this because you've got to be able to have those otherwise people like me just grab time development. And you mentioned Bruce that the the other planned development in the over the hotel property all that has its parking taken care of on its

correct. So so all of that proposed multif family housing is wrapping an internal deck that is for the tenants of that housing. Y

questions. Anything else? All right, I guess we'll do a vote. All righty. The motion is approve the reszoning request. Garrick, yes. Fleece, yes. Baris, yes. Paul, yes. Mclofflin, yes. Pass, yes. Sams, yes. And Lord, yes. Passes unanimously. All right. Next amendment, item number six. data center. I'm not gonna be able to get this out of my head now.

Love your data center. Um, if it's acceptable to everybody, I'm going to do this seated because I I would like discussion on this and I also don't want to block anybody's view.

Um, all right. Well, thank you for this. This is something staff's been working on. We brought this to you in December. um staff had kind of initiated looking at this issue uh earlier in the fall as something that we wanted to get ahead of and um lo and behold we had u a lot of support for that kind of movement and we had the merit commission pass a resolution to put a moratorum in place um to allow time for this to move forward without us entertaining any any proposals for any data centers data centers um that moratorum is in place until March 6th. And so having this in front of you tonight puts it on a cycle that would get it to them for their March 3rd vote. Um, which is absolutely appropriate and and kind of what was anticipated and we could talk procedurally as as the discussion goes on about what that may or may not mean um for y'all's recommendation. So, couple things I wanted. We're staff's also using this as an opportunity to talk about a chapter of code that we don't often get to talk about publicly and that's our chapter 9-11 that is about industrial uses and we in Athens have had a section of code this code has large the structure of this chapter has largely been the same even prior to us resoning the entire county in 2000. Um we we have had a pretty comprehensive view of what heavy industry is and how we want to measure it and um certain thresholds that we think are important for having good analysis to make sure we make smart decisions about heavy industry. Um this chapter of code has our employment office zone which is meant to be almost like an office park zoning category. It has EI which is our light industrial and

it has straight eye which is heavy industry. Um so what we've proposed is to work within that chapter but we also needed some definitions to help us do some things in our use tables. And if you've ever looked at our zoning chapters you'll know we have the same table that repeats in every single chapter of code for each zoning designation. And within that table, we let you know if it's permitted with a P, not permitted with an N, a special use with an S, or sometimes we'll have a designation that also has an L, which was referenced earlier in an earlier presentation by staff, with a limitation. And that limitation will be something unique about that use in that zone that we think needs to be thought about. Um so the background on this um really came down to the fact that data centers are something that um had only been nominally talked about in over the years that I've worked here until the last four three four years or so. data centers are now very much a topic for us to be working through and communities all over the country um are revisiting their code and trying to put tools in that ordinance or ordinances to help manage these proposals. So we needed definitions. Um we have proposed a definition that we think covers all kinds of data centers. Um, some other jurisdictions dig a little deeper and they'll they'll try to get into a typology of data centers in their definition. We felt it was important just to say what a data center is generally speaking. And what we wanted to do is then build in some thresholds for how they function and and when they are of a certain scale or a certain type, we want to work with them a certain way. So, we'll walk through what that is. Um,

some of the challenges that we've come across in doing this research, and we ran through these in December with you when we first started talking about this, is that we have this broad sense of what a data center can be. A data center in some respects is just a slightly larger um server room. And you think of any school or any large office building certainly a hospital or um large or not even large industry smaller industries have server rooms of some kind. A lot of times those server rooms as we've come to know them are just storing going on. Data centers take it to another level where they're actually processing some things and they're serving a different kind of function rather than just holding. they're actually working on new information and that front edge kind of analysis is what we all rely on with our phones and so many other things in our life now. Um, but they're also used for research. So, it's not just to be able to query something here, but it's also sometimes to do proprietary work for a pharmaceutical company or for an engineering firm that's trying to figure out how to make a better part for the things that they create in their production facility. So, in trying to write a definition, we didn't want to overreach um we wanted to give it boundaries for what we're talking about when we say data centers. And we wanted to recognize we probably have some of these in our community right now. And those data centers um need to have room in which to exist and anything that goes beyond a certain scale needs to be given special attention. So timeline represented here really quickly. Um you know we've been working on this fairly fairly quickly as it as compared to some of the other things that we do text amendment wise. Um, we

did take a little extra time rather than bringing this to you in January for consideration. Um, we had additional research that we were doing that actually was super helpful. Um, and I want to also recognize we've had a lot of residents, volunteers organizing some really well done informational sessions for folks that are concerned about this issue. Um, Laura Ayer has been an excellent resource and a a leader in that effort. Uh, Dr. dramatics to automatics has been also on the front edge of those organizing efforts and communication and then all kinds of people that they've worked with and they've had this routine presence of talking about these issues. Staff's attended as many of those as we could. Um in fact I think we've attended every single one in some form or fashion. Um and what we've been trying to do is listen in those meetings. Um, we have not been presenters, we have not been active participants, but we have been listening to the concerns that people have had and you all have received, I think, an excellent synopsis from several people that has come through that educational effort. Um, there are nine points in some of them. There are eight points in others. They're very consistent. All of those lists are are remarkably consistent. Um, and what I'm going to try to do in this presentation is address those points that they've raised as areas of concern. Um so some things to know about data centers. Um they do house those servers. Those servers are either storing or processing as I mentioned. Um there is an industry to this that is tried to organize how to talk about what data centers do and they've recognized the uptime institute has tried to recognize there's tiers of these. Um we used that taring system to help us begin to appreciate the breadth of what data centers are.

Um energy usage is a primary topic when talking about data centers. Uh there are there are high demands for energy for the cooling systems. There are high demands for energy to keep the redundancy of these facilities constantly in place and intact because if there's any interruption in service, there's an interruption in their primary function. And we as consumers find that super inconvenient. When we can't do the things that we want to do here, um we lose our minds, right? And when industry is also investing into these things to actually advance their research, it's a big deal to them as well. So these data centers are are are underpinning many many things that are making our normal way of life function these days. So having them constantly able to run. So if there's a power outage, they have things on site to make sure that you never know. Um and that's the redundancy in the power supply. But the cooling is a big user of power and um those cooling systems can have multiple designs and we'll we'll talk about that in a minute as well. But when we look at data centers, some of them are small in footprint and they're small in power draw, but they can also be small in footprint and still pretty high in power draw just because of the type of functions that are going on in there. Um and the fact that they're running 24/7 and not running in this sort of peak and low, peak and low. Um so the size of the facility is not always an indicator of the power draw necessary. Um there's an example, there's a comparison on the screen. Megawwatts are one of those sort of measurements that

are sort of hard to conceptualize. So 50 megawws is what a couple years ago you might have said was an average data center. We're starting to see megawws that are going up into into the fourdigit draw of energy usage. Um but 50 megawws is an approximation of about 32,000 homes, 32,500 homes. Um, when I presented to you in December, we talked about the residences in Winterville, not the businesses and the schools, but just the homes in Winterville is about one megawatt. Um, so scale when you think of homes, that's that's kind of shocking, but what we're really talking about is industry. So, we want to make sure we're comparing apples to apples. Um, and we'll have some information that'll help us do that. So in the text amendment that staff has developed, one of the thresholds that started to come to light as we did our research since December, we had originally talked about 2 and a half megawws being perhaps a way to indicate this type of data center should be allowed by right. Anything less than 2 and a half megawatts is what we talked about in December. And anything north of that would have to come through a process where it wasn't automatic that they could be approved. um there would need to be mayor and commission action to re to to look at the pro proposal and make sure that it's going to work. Um as we started looking at data center facilities, we started to notice that 5 megawws was on par with some of our existing industries in town. One of the things that we want to make sure that we do to keep us legally safe, but it's also just how to administer zoning appropriately, is to make sure that we're not singling out one industrial use that might function and have the same impacts as another industrial use. Um, that apples to apples comparison is really important for how we're going to write these

standards. So, there's two examples on the screen that are five megawatt users of power. One's in Reno, Nevada from this past year. The other is in El Paso, Texas from this past year. So to think about footprint of this particular design of a 5 megawatt data center. In Reno it's a 7 acre site. In El Paso it's slightly over 10 acres. In Reno it's a 61,000 and a half square foot facility. It's very similar in El Paso, Texas. to compare that to something that y'all might be familiar with. Um, the new Eastside Kroger is 120,000 square feet. So, these 5 megawatt data centers are half the footprint of the East Side Kroger. But in terms of power draw, the five megawws represented in that 60,000 plus square feet is appreciably higher than the power draw of the Kroger. Um, we've heard a variety of numbers described about what the draw is on a Kroger of that size. Um, the refrigeration that's in there is what creates that high draw. And we've heard something slightly north of that's where the two and a half megawws came from when we talked in December. Two and a half to potentially three at peak times um middle of the summer where they're trying to keep all of our groceries cold. water and cooling. Um, where a lot of the concerns about data centers have originated is power draw, but it's also the environmental issues associated with cooling these systems. Um, if it's a water-based evaporative system, it uses a tremendous amount of water. Um, water unlike most industries that I think we're used to seeing. And what we have proposed in our text amendment is that evaporative systems would not be

allowed. A data center if it's going to be reviewed by right or if it's something that goes through the special use process doesn't matter. It will always be a closed loop system according to our ordinance. So closed loop cooling, let's talk about that. We have a definition for it that we've proposed. Um, we've added the word true closed loop because our research found that you might still have a closed loop system that has an outer loop to it that still has some evaporative action which would require recharging the system with water. Um, when we say true closed loop, we mean there is no evaporative component anywhere in that system. So what that means is perhaps there's a water glycol mix, perhaps it's an entirely a chemical and it doesn't involve a water mix at all. Um but that is a big concern also. So now you're not using public water, but you are using chemicals and those chemicals, these systems have to be designed very carefully to contain those to make sure that if there is any opportunity for some of that to escape or leave, it's got to be contained. and that's all part of that design protocol for those chemicals. Um, but the water issue is largely regulated through the closed loop system requirement. So, we just want to make sure everybody understands that's part of what we're talking about in this text amendment. Um, one of the other things that we heard in discussions was how to link these with a renewable energy opportunity to try to require those things um as part of these developments and we are trying to even the playing field. So, if we're going to ask for renewable energy for a data center, we're also going to ask for it for all of our industry. Um,

as we try to roll out those types of regulations, we've got more work to do. So in lie of a requirement in this text amendment what we've tried to do is provide it as an incentive. And so for data centers as suggested in our text a five under five megawatts could be allowed by right assuming it doesn't break these other thresholds and we'll go through those in a minute. Um, if a data center operator developer wanted to go above the five megawatts, the only way that they could do that is to provide on-site renewable energy to achieve that amount of energy draw that's north of five megawws. Um, what we're also learning is what does it take to do on-site renewable energy? What what can you really get? And so, we've got some information on the screen. Um, we talked a lot with officials in Lowden County. Um, we went saw an excellent training session and we followed up with some phone calls. But talking with them, solar panels, five acres of solar panels creates one megawatt. Um, that's dedicating five acres to those solar panels. Um, a lot of people will quickly say, "We'll just put them on the roof." Well, the challenge with a lot of data centers is when you go to do the cooling, you need that rooftop for the piping and the systems to achieve the cooling. So, the roof is not really always going to be available for your solar panel. It's almost got to be ground mounted. So, you need additional acreage to achieve whatever amount of energy you're going to get on site. That starts to diminish how much you can actually realistically produce. Um so and we'll talk in a little bit about the acreage in Athens Park County that's available for this type of development. Um so a 100 megawatt data center would require 2,000 acres of solar panels. Um

that's no small thing and in Athens Clark County we don't really have that kind of acreage available to achieve that level of energy um generation. The other uh source of information that's been super helpful for looking at renewable energy and for data center guidelines has been the University of Michigan and they've put out some circulars and done some research um for the state of Michigan that was super helpful. We looked at wind turbines and this was very educational that you know around 85 acres to produce a megawatt using those turbines that when you picture those large bladed um very tall turbine that's what you need to produce a megawatt. Um we were also seeing some things that was kind of putting it north of 10 acres per turbine. um sometimes more than that depending on proximity and design you could need up to 40 acres. And so when you think of renewable energy with these, if we get some, that's good. And if they need to go north of of the five megawatts, we thought, well, let's make it an incentive and see what where that takes us. So, we had definitions. Um, we had data centers as a use in all of our use tables and all of our zones, but they are only permitted or even open for consideration in our industrial zone. Industrial zone singular and our institutional zone. Um, I will note and you'll see a map here in a second. Um the institutional zone is really not on the map. In fact, it's absolutely not on the map. It's exists in our code book, but it has not yet been applied to any property in Athens Park County. Um the institutional zone almost functions entirely like a plan development. Um it

is meant to allow for campuses of institutions to develop a master plan for their campus and build it out over time. Um it was originally written for one of our hospitals. um they opted not to use it because they weren't quite there with the master planning effort. Um but in those institutional zones, we thought it was appropriate to keep it as a with a limitation that it has to go through that PD level approval process. So it would go to the mayor and commission. It's not by right. And two, it would have to be associated with that institutional use. In other words, in zoning doesn't mean you can build a a data center. It means you could have a data center function as part of your medical training facility or as part of your higher education institute that institutional use. Okay. Um a data center that is over five megawatts in our proposed text is categorized as a level three use. A level three use we have one, two and three levels of industrial uses. Level three uses go immediately for marin commission consideration through the special use process. There is no buy ride opportunity for anything that works as a level three use. Um we did update our criteria for levels one, two, and three. We added reporting requirements to both level two and level three. Um the reporting requirement for level two, level two uses are those things and we'll go through the criteria here in a second. But if if somebody comes in with an industrial proposal and they are proposing to use more water than the thresholds that are in code or if they're proposing to generate more traffic than the threshold that's in code or more vibration or more sound then they are automatically being considered as a level two at least. A

level two means that staff, particularly our engineering staff, are going to sit down and see, is there any way to provide for this proposal? Is there any way that we can have an upgrade of a signal to deal with the traffic or road widening or deselling? And then we figure out who's going to pay for it. Same with water or sewer. Is there a reasonable way to connect what they want to do with what is also a public priority? Something that we may have already programmed, but we haven't funded yet. how can we put that together and if it needs funding it's going to go before the mayor and commission for consideration and then level three are those things that's that's the highest level um there is no analysis against those thresholds do not pass go you go straight to the special use process which is public review public opportunity for comment and in front of the mayor and commission for decision before you can do anything um we also added some design requirements uh as part of these uh we set some buffering standards of 400 ft. When a proposed industrial use data center is within 400 ft of a residential or agricultural zone, there are certain things they can and cannot do. Um there's a requirement for for example for a burm and a buffer. So you have to provide something that would provide line of sight but also sound attenuation. Um, we talked about the true closed loop system requirement and as I mentioned before the renewable opportunity. Um, if you're otherwise by right and you want to go above 5 megawws, you have to do it through on-site renewable energy. And if you can't achieve it in that way, you're a special use. So, we could read through these. I I I want um I think most people who have seen it have read through these definitions. I'm happy to respond to any question specifically to this wording.

Um, but I did want to note the data center definition that we've got is very broad. Um, it is not meant to be something that is it's only these things. It's meant to grow and adapt as technology changes with these because what we're already seeing is data center technologies responding to these regulatory um changes like what we're proposing. We wanted our definition to continue to live past what we currently understand data centers to be. So it is intentionally broad. Um the closed loop system and openloop system for uh for cooling. We needed to make that plain. What we were talking about on-site power generation and renewable energy also needed definitions. And I will note the renewable energy definition is something that um we have reached out to our our folks that are working on education, community education. Um particularly as it relates to biomass. We have biomass listed in the renewable energy definition that we're proposing. I think there's an argument to be made that that biomass is probably something that might introduce other environmental concerns. The unintended consequences of biomass energy production. We're not trying to create those unintended consequences. So that might be an edit that we would consider to be appropriate is to take biomass out of this definition. Um let's look at the mapping. So we are saying data centers would only be considered in industrial zones. This map shows you where those zoned lands are today. So we have 1816 acres that are zoned industrial right now and no no land that is zoned institutional. Um the areas in that darker color are the areas there's a small amount right here that is industrial off of Will Hunter Road that is um actually a a inert material recycling facility. Um

but largely what you're talking about is here in North Athens and here just outside the loop on the east side of the loop. Um,

so we also thought it was important to note that 510 acres are undeveloped of that 1,800. So 1,800 what's shown on the map is what's undeveloped. Um, with the exception of the interest in 900 Athena's property, most data centers are not looking to retrofit existing buildings. They're looking to build their own proprietary structure. And so vacant land tends to be where a data center developer is first going to look. So we only have 510 acres that are undeveloped um that are owned privately. 90 undeveloped acres that are owned by Athens Clark County and 80 of those 90 are in one parcel. Um it's the parcel that we recently acquired to um move transit facilities to.

So not a data center. Um and the average acreage of these undeveloped parcels is about eight. So you think back of the examples I showed you in Nevada and Texas was seven almost 10 about 8 acres. So that yield of of undeveloped industrially zoned property and what it could do and produce about a five megawatt facility is kind of showing you right that sort of pocket that we were thinking was potentially possible as a by right and if they needed to do more again you're going to the mayor and the commission. Um here are those criteria and and these are the things that are have been in our code for a long long time. We're working with those. They've served us well. So water usage um these are all level one criteria. If these are exceeded, you go to that level two level of consideration where we're going to figure out with staff's help, can this be done reasonably? And if it can't be done reasonably, you're going to move on to a level three, which requires the commission to get involved. Water usage, we are asking to add in addition to the 250,000 gallons per day threshold, a 250,000galon holding tank. We thought that was appropriate given the recharge aspects of not just data centers but other industrial uses. Um waste water we didn't have to make a change at all. In fact was pretty good compared to the other communities that are introducing these for the very first time. Our standard is very consistent with what they're proposing in their codes because they didn't have these thresholds. Um C got a a measurement for vibration and we have language in here about when we're going to measure that when it's adjacent to residential properties. Um this is something all of these criteria

that I'm walking walking through when somebody comes forward to develop one of these by right even if they're just coming through plane review they have to produce a report that shows how their proposed project is going to respond to these thresholds. and we verify that information at the staff level to make sure it's reasonable given what we're seeing in the plan set. So we take these very seriously and you don't get to move forward to government if you don't have an adequate response to these hazardous materials use and storage that wording is new the category is not it was previously called I believe fire uh let's see fire and explosion we decided that hazardous materials used in storage was inclusive of those fire things and went beyond um to pick up those chemical storage concerns that we would have um with all kinds of industry. So we have a variety of local, state, federal regulations that invol that are involved with hazardous materials use and storage. Those would have to be satisfied as part of a submitt um traffic. We're not really changing our standards here. We moved the language from the bottom of the page to the top of the page. Um but what we're looking here is 100 peak hour trip ends or truck traffic that's 50% or more of what's generated on site. solid waste generation. 2,000 pounds per day of solid waste transported transported to the landfill. That's a big deal. Our landfill capacity is something that we manage very very closely. Um and so we can't have that used frivolously. That's why the standards in place. We also have a standard for odor. We have a standard for noise. The decibel measures for noise are again extremely consistent with what we're seeing across the country. We're looking at data centers. Glare is a standard that we have. We

also have an entire chapter 9/19 uh that deals with lighting. We are proposing to make not just the glare standard that we've had in this section of code for many years, but we're also saying all requirements of 919 shall also apply. Um that's already happening, but it wasn't explicit in the code. So that's the addition we have here for glare. um storm water. We were updating our wording to make sure that we had the correct reference to our other section of code that deals with storm water. So that's what you see on the screen. And then we added the recognition that phasing could be one of those things that creates a loophole for data center development. And we wanted to make it plain that if you are going to phase your project, you must demonstrate the impacts of each phase of that project against these thresholds. We're going to look at them individually but also in a cumulative way over each phase so that we can identify maybe phase one stays under all the thresholds but the minute you do phase two you may go over and we're going to talk about that on the front end of your development proposal not just let it happen and then have to play catchup when you've already made this investment in this facility. So level two requirements are anything that went above above level one. Um, and as I mentioned before, this is where we're talking about local government funded infrastructure or when we have to go to the mayor and commission to get funding to make something happen. If it's if it's consistent with um what we're seeing on the ground, it's a reasonable thing to do. We've already programmed for the sewer. Maybe we're going to move that up a couple years to make this work out. Who's going to pay for it? That's what this what's in this section. What's also new in here, and it's something that was mentioned in um what our emails uh were asking for is reporting. Now, they're asking about energy reporting. Um the challenge we have is that we as a local government,

we're not a utility when it comes to energy. Um if we were if we were managing our own power utility like some communities do, we would have the opportunity to have standards for how we're doing that out. But we are not. We are a utility in other ways but not for energy. And so what we can do is use energy measurements as a way to do a typology for how to talk to and how how to understand these facilities, but we can't deny anybody based on energy and their draw. So the reporting that we're asking for here is a pre-report and a post construction report that would tell us how you're performing against these thresholds that I just walked through. For level two uses, we're saying we figured it out. We've got a funding program and within 12 months after you started operating, we want to see are you doing it the way that you said the design was going to function. That's a one-time report for level two uses. So one time 12 months after CO with level three uses which is in this list. These are the things that are level three uses. So we've in we've inserted data centers of 5 megawatts or more. Um we've also added munitions. We took this opportunity to say explosives, fireworks or munitions manufacturer. We felt that was a gap in our code. Um but these things are listed in the level three list. See if it can No. Um they would have annual reporting. So these are those higher intensity industrial uses and this is all new language that's proposed as part of this text amendment to say that we would have an annual reporting mechanism of that performance measurement data. And we've built into here a reg a routine for that reporting to occur with expectations for

how staff is going to receive it and review it. And then if there is something that exceeds those allowable thresholds, um that owner of that project is now asked to come up with a way that you're going to fix it. Either you're going to walk it back to the thresholds that were there originally at the time that you got a permit or you're going to show why why you're doing right now meets acceptable use of public infrastructure and is not creating any harm. Um, there's also a time of performance for fixing anything that needs to be fixed. So, this is something that would be submitted to staff. This is something that would live with the record. And failure to be able to make a fix that's been identified puts you back in front of the merit commission and with a fresh look at your special use. And so, that's the very last sentence. There shall be a renewed review of the special use permit through the special use procedure in chapter 9-20. They are not that that owner that applicant would not have the presumption that that special use shall remain. The entire thing is revisited and it may be denied. So we felt like this is pretty strong language and this reporting is not just for data centers. This reporting is for any level three industrial use. And as I mentioned before, we had some EI and I design standards. These apply to both light industrial and heavy industrial. Um, we did kind of shore up our language on front yard landscaping. Um, some things to note and I want to spend a minute on this. We have riparian buffers that are unique to our industrial zone. Not the EI but the I. So we have 150 foot buffers off of every

state identified perennial stream or intermittent stream on either side of the stream bank 150 ft. That is exceptionally greater than what the state requires and it is far greater than any of our peer communities require. Um we learned the value of that. Some of you might remember with the fire that took place out on Transc Drive. Um that facility was built prior to those buffers being in place. Um if those buffers hadn't been had been in place, Trail Creek would not have suffered the way that it did um from the flushing of those chemicals in response to the fire. All of these sections are new. So section F is talking about when we have something within 400 ft of a property line that's residential or agriculturally zoned neighboring property. All the mechanical equipment needs to be buffered and have an acoustical barrier. So this is us responding to what we heard in discussion about concerns about noise but also about vibration. Um and so that's a requirement and that would be at the design level that we would want to see these things. This isn't something after they've built we'll follow up with you and get your soundproofing. although we could if we find that it's not functioning to this um standard G also within 400 feet of a property line. Um there is that buffalo wall requirement that I mentioned and this would involve not just the buffering plantings but also the installation of a burm uh if there is existing tree canopy there that can be founded. Um we're also have standards introduced here about generator testing. This is something that we saw in Lowden County and some of the other communities that are writing data center text amendments that would be limited essentially to daytime hours. Um and you know unless there is I think

the wording we have except for generator testing or commissioning activities generator use is limited to backup or emergency use only. Um and then we had those unique things that we were going to say about data centers, the cooling system, cooling system being truly closed loop and then that other um provision that would allow for renewable energy um in an incentive basis uh for the buy right uh data centers. And last but not least, parking. Everybody wants to make sure that we get the parking, right?

All right. So we lifted and kind of pieced together from other industrial uses, but where we landed was one space per employee during largest shift plus one space per company vehicle. What we meant was on-site company company vehicle. Um, in our research on this, what we found was from a staffing standpoint, these facilities tend to have um some amount of on-site staff that is responsible for operations. that may be one or two or three staff people. Um security which also may be two to four staff people. And then you have maintenance staff. And a lot of these maintenance staff what we're seeing operationally, they aren't dedicated to one site. They are specialized maintenance staff that do certain types of work inside these facilities. Maybe working on switches, maybe working on the cooling system, maybe working on the mounts for the racks. um and they're working multiple sites in a region or some geographic area. They are not dedicated to the single site. So, it didn't make sense for us to dedicate parking for somebody who's essentially going to be sharing spaces on a maybe weekly, could be once a month basis for this routine for their management. Um, the last thing I'll say is we were looking at these data centers and how they function and we were prepared to see could a data center function outside of the industrial zone and be something that we could build into the code. Um, what we were starting to recognize was that scale was the issue that that scale question and how to address the scale. So that's where that five megawatts comes into play. Um what makes these clearly an industrial use in staff's estimation and and in talking with engineers that develop these facilities is that the larger they get and that need for redundancy the more they store

for example a very large amount of fuel on site the more that they have an impact in their chemicals and chemical stores that is atypical for a light industrial use. they just tend to walk and talk and function in the same category or above what other heavy industries may actually um need or have on site. Fuel storage in particular. So for these generators, the storage of the diesel necessary um to provide for the generators that are needed to keep that redundancy in place, especially as you get to a tier three and tier four type data center. um it's on the order of the tank farm here we have that we have in town for holding refined um fuel that's very much an industrial use and so we felt like we were on solid ground by slotting this into this you into this zone into this use category um and um we feel pretty confident with this but we also acknowledge there's room for adjustments and um I am going to stop talking believe it or not and uh we spent so much time on this. This is my opportunity to kind of do a data dump. Uh, and so, uh, I appreciate your patience, but happy to answer questions. Love to hear the comments. And, um, I'll stop right there.

Well, thank you. Thank you to staff for doing all this work. It's been a lot of work. Um, I guess we take public comments now. So, yeah. Um, let's do it. Good evening. My name is Daryl McMast. Where are you from? Where you from? All over the place. Where are you from? Uh, I was born in Virginia. Where do you live? I I live in uh Watkinsville. Do you live in Watkinsville? Yes, sir. I live 337 Old Pitter Road. Okay.

Why you want to put something in my area that is that dangerous in my area? I need I need to ask you that question. Why would you want to put something that's going to do something like this where we live? Who who what makes y'all think y'all have rights to just continue this to do what you want to do in our in our neighborhoods? Is that going there where you live? Is that taking up all your water? Do you know I pay only pay $37 for water? Come on. You're taking you rather destroy stuff to build something. That's stupid. What are you gaining from giving somebody putting a data center here that they ONLY GOING TO EMPLOY THREE PEOPLE? Are you actually listening to the residents around here? or you just decide that you want to make your own decided decision that you want to do. You tell me you're the planning commission. You You tell me. Why are you making these decisions on on our our our areas where we live? It's always in the north side of the area. You want to put something there. You don't want to put no homes there. You want to put apartments there, but you want TO PUT A BIG OLD DATA CENTER THERE THAT'S GOING TO TAKE UP ALL THIS ELECTRICITY AND WATER for who? Who gains this? NOT THE PEOPLE OF ATHENS GOING TO GAIN THEIR DROP OF IT. BUT YOU STEADY WANT TO BRING SOMETHING IN HERE TO US. We're tired of it. We are sick and tired of this city, county commission, mayor, and everybody ELSE TRYING TO DO EVERYTHING THEY FEEL

AS THOUGH THEY want to do to us as a people. We're not playing with you. And I'm letting you know, we're not playing with you. We'll fight you literally. That's not a threat. That's a promise. We're tired of you. You don't respect nobody, but all you want to do is spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, and you're disrespecting every dag on citizen in here because they're y'all want. We're tired. The citizens are tired. We can't even GET DAG ON INFRASTRUCTURE HERE WITHOUT the mayor taking half the money. WE'RE TIRED. HE served with me. He understands my plot. WE HAD TO FIGHT TO GET A BRIDGE BUILT. But you WOULD RATHER PUT MONEY IN A DATA CENTER. The psychopath.

Thank you. Anybody else for public comments on the proposed change? I'll do a public comments. Hi everyone, I'm Olivia. Um, I live at 105 College Safe Road. And before I start a comment, can I ask a quick question of viewers to just make sure I understand? Sure. Are all of the data centers level three or only ones that are above 5 megawatt? That's a good question. Yeah. So, anything that is five megawatts or greater is automatically level three. Okay. Yes. But because we have the other thresholds

and we and power usage is not one of those thresholds, you could have a data center that draws three megawws that might go over on one of those other thresholds for vibration or trip generation or some of those other metrics that would go through the level two or level three process. Okay, that answers my question mostly which is actually one more question. The other one is if it was a level one or level two, let's just say hypothetically, it's very small. What would the opportunity for public comment look like in those cases?

Excellent question. Okay. So, if it's a level two review, is it okay if I don't start the timer and answer the question? Okay. Um, if it is a level one or level two, essentially an administrative review of that data center, the public notification process that we have is the same we have for all of our plans review. So, we post things that have come through review. Our public our plans review meetings are open to the public. Okay.

Um, they are technical review. So there's not public comment, but there is the chance to see and kind of audit and learn from that process and see what was said. Um, there's also a chance to see the plans and understand the responses to those thresholds or anything really related to the proposed data center. Um, but if it is by right, like any use in the zoning code that's by right, there isn't public input per se. It's more just awareness of what's coming and what's being proposed. um and a chance to see how technical review staff and um applicants work together. Okay, sounds good. Now I'm ready for my comment. I'll say your name and address again.

Yes. Okay. Hi everyone. I'm Olivia Asher and I live at 105 College Station Road. I've been here before. Maybe you remember me. And I've been working on looking at data centers over the past year with Science for Georgia. Um, as you might be aware, there's not a lot of trust in the community around data centers. People are very concerned about this. We already have one data center in Athens that popped up overnight near Pitted Road, which already had a lot of environmental issues with their water. So I think it's really important for us as a community to consider what can we do in this situation to make sure we rebuilding we are rebuilding public trust around data centers and for community members to feel like they do have input and a say in this process. So with that said I really do think I would love to see all data centers be considered as level three so there is that opportunity for public input. Um because I think as everyone's aware this is a issue that the community really needs to understand and be on the same page with the mayor commission with the planning department and everybody. Um then I wanted to address a little bit of the energy issues. So for energy reporting I totally understand that Athens Clark County cannot do any type of enforcement on energy use. However, some other counties in Georgia like Lumpin County, they require an annual independent review of energy usage. And I think this is important because currently we don't have any state laws that are protecting consumers from energy rate increases due to the power draw data centers in their community. So, this information is not for Athens, Clark County to be regulating the power use because I know we can't do that. But having that information available will

make us better advocates for state level regulations and better understanding again of what's happening in our area. So this is all about transparency, not about asking Athens, Clark County to regulate something that's out of their power to do so. Also, um, in terms, we kind of did a bit of a comparison here of megawatt usage of like a Kroger and a data center and how, okay, we have Kroger's that are using a lot of energy, but I just want to point out that a Kroger provides so much value to the community. We buy groceries there and one Kroger can can provide hundreds of jobs where even a very large data center that is unlikely to ever come to Athens. there's just not enough space. Those only get like a handful of jobs, less than a McDonald's. So, this is those are kind of even though it's it's I would say that's not really an apples to apples comparison in that sense, which is another reason why I would like to see all data centers be subject to public comment, especially at this time. So, I think I'll end it there. Thanks so much.

Anybody else for public comment? Hello, Swana Mattis. I represent pillro AS Georgia. I share the sentiments of Daryl who came up before me although not as lively but um he is correct. We are tired. I mean you know presented it the way he presented it. He said what he said, you know, on Pitro, you know, we had just gone through um this issue that's still very traumatic for us. You know, my sister, I'm lifting her name up tonight, Stacy Smith, she fought for many years to try to get answers to what was going on without a lot of people getting sick out there. And you know, and she succumbed to lung cancer. And you know, and I know that it would break our heart to see that a data center would be placed right behind us after all of that after 20 years. And finally, you know, people who are not on whales getting on wells, I mean, getting off of wells into city water. So, it's very real for us. It's very serious for us. I did have some comments, but I guess Olivia said a lot of things that um that need to be said. So, ditto to her. Um, I would like to state that, um, something I haven't heard yet is, you know, um, we want more transparency. At this point, there's a trust issue. Um, because of the way that last data center came up. Um, I'm still not settled in my soul, but just trying to keep up with the data center stuff and learn all this and learn public service commission stuff. U, I just haven't gotten back to it yet. But we do not believe that that data center came up without somebody approving it. And so we'll, you know, we'll put a, you

know, a thumb pin into that for a later date. I do also want to state that we want to make sure that all data centers um actually um are are special use or whatever they need to be listed to be brought to the public's attention until we are sure that we know enough about data centers. Right now, nobody in the whole state, nobody knows about what really about data centers. This sounded real good what that Bruce said. I respect his technical, you know, opinion. But right now in the legislative body, they got several data center um proposals on the table. They have several for transparency. They have one that's um has to do with making sure that we don't get the bill for these data centers that are coming out. They have one um a young lady um who has a bill up for um putting a um a mor mon mortorium on data centers until 2027. Why? Because nobody knows what the freak we're doing with these data centers. So I'm asking one just like we have that er the bike in motion and all that that controls the bike lanes and all that. We need a data center committee because we are a group of just community people who have put in a lot of time and really I don't believe that we would have gotten to this place if we would not have pushed forward. I was at a meeting heard somebody and it clicked on me called Laura if we've been doing you know we've been fighting this ever since. So please do the right thing by us and let's do hold this um this until there's better community engagement. Thank you. Good evening.

My name is Willie Thomas and I'm affiliated with the Asen Landing Trust. I personally do not want to see any more data centers, but since you are setting the standards, I ask that data centers tell tell the public how much electricity they use. So the local residents and you as a government uh will understand the strain on the electric system. Plan responsibly for growth. Avoid future power shortage or higher cost. This is about information not control. We are not asking the county to regulate electricity. We are asking the developer de developers to report its own energy use as part of development approval and accountability. This is no different from traffic studies, water usage reporting, and environmental impact closure. All are standard land use tools, not utility regulation. We recognize vertification may be challenging, but lack of perfect vertification is not a reason for not reporting at all. Thank you.

Good evening again. It's so good to be with you all again. I'm Derek Moffet. I'm also a member of the uh Athens Land Trust and wanted to come and just share yet yet again. Um as I said before I I talked for a number of you and taught college for a number of years and one thing I learned sometimes brilliance is not a great idea that you come up with. Sometimes brilliance is taking somebody else's idea and running with it. The last time we were here, Sister Sarah um asked the the question, why do we need more data centers? And I don't know if you all have gotten an answer to that, but I know we as constituents have yet to get and I say why because and and I'm going to give brother Bruce a pat on the back because he done a lot of work and and been addressing a lot of things. But I think the question has to be why do we need more? You know, you say, well, you know, eventually, you know, they got to come back before the the the commission or the board of the city. Well, maybe let's just wait before we do that and let's just see what's going to happen with this one. You know, it's kind of like going to the doctor. You know, you go to and he's not going to give you 500 medicine. He's going to give you one. And if that one doesn't quite seem to work, then we going to try to try something else. That doesn't seem to work and we're going to try something else. That's just common sense. You know, I used to teach all the time, common sense, government is about taking common sense to high places and it doesn't make sense. Well, we're going to build 50 and then, you know, all of a sudden then we're going to try to regulate and do all these. Let's just see what this one's going to do. My second point is again the transparency thing. Um, knowing more about it, we still don't know, like Dr. T said, how the other one got here. And you know, I know in the Freedom of Information Act passed in

1966 allows for a lot of things, but I don't think this is national security. Somebody somewhere knows who signed off, who voted, and how this came about. I mean, it just didn't pop up overnight.

And it seems to me that that people ought to be alerted to where uh in our last meeting, you know, one of our great complaints of people that know anything about it. Again, brother Bruce said that we we put it on the internet. Well, that's nice. But my mama going to be 81 years old tomorrow and she could not get on the internet if she could save her life. Uh she hates she she does not own a cell phone. U we have kind of weaned her off of of checks. She still gets in those newspapers. We can see who's dead and who's losing their property. But I mean, but but there is a you have to sometimes deal with the community that you have. And I would dare say that those beautiful people that are out there on off Pitt Road with with one of our our our churches, our historic black churches, you know, they would have loved if you, you know, had come and just shared with them. And I ended saying I was outside and they were talking about the the thing and I know my time is short. I was outside and I think I heard somebody were talking about the thing on u um the Alexon Highway and I and I heard what I thought somebody over here say that you know we should not be that involved or or concerned about if you know you're living here and we put more people next to you. Well, dang on it. Yes, we should. You know, I I quote John Don. You know, John Don said many years ago that no man's an island until itself all the piece of the continent or piece of the main. Any man's death affects me because what affects one directly affects another indirectly.

That's right. And one of the part problems we have with government today is we just don't give a dang on what happens on the other side of time. Amen. And I appreciate it. God bless you all and thank y'all for your service and what you do because I know it's not easy listening to people like myself and Daryl. Y'all y'all y'all be blessed. Good evening. My name is Riley Robinson and I represent the communities that live next to the industrial zone. We are asking for one simple thing. Don't allow data centers to cluster in the same neighborhood.

That's important. Not enough people know about them. And where's the research to say that they're safe enough to even be in a neighborhood?

Just one. Where is that research? Is that research available? We don't know enough about them. Even if one data center might seem acceptable, several in the same place can overwhelm a community with mystery, with uncertainty, with doubt, with fear. When projects are approved one at a time, the cumulative impact is ignored and the impact is very real. for everyone in that community. Multiple data centers together constrain our water supply, stress the power grid, and push already overburdened neighborhoods past their limit. Are the neighborhoods even being considered about how much they are already spending on their water bill, on their power bill? Are they even being considered? Does it matter? This is not about opposing data centers. I want to make that clear. It's just about fairness. That's it. Fairness. Humans being fair to each other. Without protections, the same communities become sacrifice zones. the places where everything high impact goes because they're already zoned industrial. It's already zoned industrial. No neighborhood should carry more than its fair share simply because it's convenient. In add county, this matters deeply.

We're a city that's growing. There are communities that are needed based on the earlier project that so many members took the time to come out and express their concerns about. It's a city that's growing. It's a city that is a great city. It's a wonderful place to live. That's why so many people want to live here. We're seeing the growth, aren't we? We are. We have limited industrial land homes close to these areas and we just live through a water emergency allowing clustering multiplicities.

You s where people already feel it through most. Oh, sorry about that.

Well, you get my point. Thank you. Hello planning commission. My name is Gail Chimo and I live at 245 Millstone Circle here in Athens and my special interest is that I'm the United Methodist Climate Justice Ambassador. And I do have one question. I'm sorry. Um in your uh presentation you said that you were having a revision as far as the definition of uh clean energy of energy um renewable energy and I was wondering because of the um biomass that is mentioned in yours

could you replace that with what you have what is in the Athens Clark County clean and renewable energy definition. If you'd like, I can read it to you. I've got a copy. Go ahead and read it.

Page 27. Yeah. I mean, everybody might be interested. The resolution states that clean sources of energy do not create greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energy sources are those which can be replenished in human time scale. These clean and renewable sources include increased energy efficiency, solar power, wind power, hydro power, energy storage, and renewable energy credits, RECC's, but explicitly do not include nuclear power, biomass, natural gas, or coal. So that if you could make that revision that would align with our Athens, Clark County clean and renewable energy plan.

Okay. Thank you. Yes. Thank you.

You're welcome. So, good evening again and I want to thank you all for the amount of work that you have done with pulling all this information together. Um, it really was a lot of work I can see and I am pleased with the special land use permit for level three data centers. So with that um special land use permit that will discourage the big hyperscale data centers that you're seeing in other areas like Augusta, but I would like to see level one and two also be included with the special land use permit just be as everybody has said for complete transparency. um you know with a let's see the threshold of five megawws for level one and two if that could be brought down to like a level a uh level three megawatt and maybe an additional one or two megawws of solar power that would be more in line with our renewable energy plan. we will see a large increase in CO2 emissions and negative progress in our Athens Clark County plan and their s sustainability goals. So if you could consider just bringing it down to three megawws with additional two megawws for clean energy that would be helpful. A five megawatt data center can consume up to two megawatt hours of power, equivalent to the power used by 2,000 homes. That's a lot of power. Data data cent's massive energy demands are

prolonging the operation of fossil fuels and that is undermining our Athens clar county plan by using these fossil fuels. So, how can we allow data centers to come into Athens, Clark County, and keep sustainability in mind? By using clean and renewable energy like solar powers, as I said, we can preserve the earth's natural resources and protect God's creation. I am asking that before we move forward with this ordinance, we can revisit ways to mitigate the CO2 emissions by using less fossil fuel. There's new technology out there. So, the energy demands of data centers will only grow. My faith calls me to care for our natural world with justice and compassion. I believe having high voltage transmission lines running through Athens neighborhoods is an injustice. And that's what's going to happen if we allow a high amount of megawatt uh data centers here. Yes.

Thank you very much for listening.

Hi everyone. I'm Summer Blanco. I'm a resident at 135 Garden here in Athens. Um first off, I just wanted to express my gratitude to everyone who has been involved in drafting this ordinance. I think this is a step in the right direction for Athens and it's clear that a great deal of care and attention has been has gone into addressing this complex and important issue. like really I feel like we've all become data center experts in like the span of a couple months. So I I really do think it's an impressive amount of work. Um I wanted to share a little bit about an experience I've had here in Athens. I recently participated in the Southern Sustainability Institute's clean and renewable energy study group. It was a great experience led by Laura Ayer who's in the room today. Um and I learned a lot about Athens's ambitious plan to transition to 100% clean and renewable energy by 2050. Now thinking about that plan, I'm I'm seeing the demand for data data centers continue to grow rapidly and it's it's kind of scary thinking about that plan that we have and that vision we have for Athens. Just to put into context like not not just in Athens but in the nation broadly like OpenAI is investing billions into nuclear energy and that's just to provide the the demands for their data centers. So I this is even a couple data centers in Athens is contributing to thousands in the nation. So I guess thinking about that reality I I'm I'm really struggling to reconcile how allowing data centers by right even at this 5 megawatt threshold which I think is a is a good call like I think it's a good decision to make. I'm just really struggling to see how this supports our countyy's goal for achieving 100% clean and renewable energy by 2015. So I'd really like to just respectfully ask that this commissioner reflect on how that long-term vision can be reconciled with data center development in Athens. Um, I do have a couple other asks for in regards to transparency, too. Like a lot of the residents have also shared, I'd like to see that data center development at any size be open for public comment. I really do trust our officials and the people on this commission and our city employees, but I think there's

inevitably going to be some blind spots here. Um, so for that reason, I think it would be really important to remain open to feedback from residents and particularly those who might be directly impacted by these developments. Um, and then finally, I think that like I don't think it's just one person's job to be an expert on data centers. And I think that a lot of people in our community have become kind of experts on data center. So, I think it would be really great to have something like an advisory group that can track this growing industry. Like these technologies are progressing so fast. It's it's not something that like one person or even a group of people alone can do. So, you know, I think this commission, I trust you all. I think you do great work. But um I think this extra support from the community could make sure it's an engaged process um that is responsive and proactive and not reactive. So yeah, thanks for the time y'all. Thanks for your consideration of my comments. I appreciate y'all.

You can I ask a question? Yes. You had a reference to the Boils Road data center, but then there's the address 320 Old Hole Road was up there at the same time. Is that also a data center? There was a request. So that that accounting was when have we had discussion about a data center development after Yeah. That wasn't the the Winterville Winterville school, right? No. No. Okay.

Right. Good. Um, hi, I'm Denise Foron. I live at 815 Boulevard. Um mostly I want to just second what others have said. Um I know that there are property owners who want to sell their property for data centers because uh they will probably get a lot of money for that property. Um, I know that there are communities that view data centers as a way of getting a lot in property taxes, which may end if some in the general assembly have their way and we no longer have property taxes. Um I also know that the data centers have lots of lawyers and engineers and marketing um professionals whose full-time jobs are figuring out ways of working around the plannings and the zoning and all of that. Uh so those are the reasons that I would also like to second the idea that we have a very transparent a very public sort of thing even with these smaller data centers um or that we reduce that that level to more of a the three megawatt level rather than the five. um and that so that so that we can review that um might not be necessary forever but as we're still starting on this I think it is important that we um be very clear that you know this is something that that we will have in our community more reluctantly than we will um um welcome fully. just again because there are so many questions and there is so much negative out there you know I mean now we're reading about property sinking as the you know water is pulled out of the

ground or the energy issues uh the power issues and expenses so anyway I just wanted to kind of again second what what others have said who have worked so hard on this I think the work that we do here in Clark County is going to be work that's going to roll out to our other surrounding counties Um, and I think we need to set the example for them. Thank you. job way you've presented. Uh I I'm Rudy Chimo again. Um I'm following my wife. I've been following her for 48 years. I'm learning the picture. Um I retired in Athens, Georgia, and I was living in Florida before I came here and retired. Now I've lived everywhere from New Hampshire to La Hoya, California, and everything in between. I chose this community because of proximity to some relatives. None of my children are grandchildren. I got 10 of those and they live all everywhere but here. What I'm seeing is I'm seeing some people that are hurting and I'm seeing some people that maybe want to jump on the bandwagon. What is a data community or a data or data center? depends on where I went to school, I guess. Um, what is that gonna do for this community, for the people in this community? It's not going to do anything. Uh, it's going to give uh Zuckerberg a third yacht to follow around his other yachts when he goes around. And all of these people, that's what they that's what they want. and they're getting everything they want because they're the billionaires.

They're the oligarchs. They're the ones with all the money. We have to be very careful with what we have here and what we want for the future. For the future of our children that are going to be here, the future of uh the environment. This is a pretty neat place. I'm pretty I'm pretty impressed with the water system here and I pay a lot attention a lot of attention to water systems and you all got that right now. You have an opportunity to get the data centers right. You don't need them. They don't do anything longterm for our communities. They do a lot of things long term for social media, for research, and you could have level one, level one uh data centers for research. There you have the University of Georgia. There's a lot that we can do, but we can't we can't sell out our future for I hear plans for 10 years, for 20 years, for 30 years. And if you want to do some homework, take a look at the uh data center that is south of Memphis. What that has done to the communities there, it's just devastated it. And they don't care.

They're going to build a data center in Augusta, Georgia, and it's going to be the size of two Augusta malls. They started that. They bought the property in 2022. Now it's 2025. They're going to go ahead with it. And in between that time, they built communities. They built nice nice communities, uh, subdivisions. Well, they said that they are still going to build there, but they will give those subdivisions a 50 foot buffer. Think about that. So, be careful with what we do and let's get it right. Thank you for all the hard work you've done.

Yeah. I'm Cliff Hodes. I live at 199 Woodstone Drive. And um I wasn't planning on on talking, but um uh I I just noticed that for every other presentation, um I started with the the benefit to the community and then we moved on to the burdens, whether it's the water table or something else. And then this presentation about the data center was all about managing burdens and as other people said didn't talk about the benefits. So um I know a lot of people have done a lot of more work than I have on this but just an idea I thought of that I think should be considered was I I really like the proposal for um the institutional use how it has to be how if there's a data center there has to be related to the activities of the institution. I think that should be expanded for the industrial use. So that way if there is a data center it's it's benefiting industry in Athens. You talk about there being server rooms there's already many many data centers but those are server rooms for that school if if they exist or you talk about you know them benefiting pharmaceutical or engineering companies but like other people mentioned those those industries aren't aren't in Athens. So I think making the requirement for the um institutional data centers um apply to the industrial data centers would would be favorable to the community. Thank you.

Anybody else? Okay, we got one more.

Hey, I I wasn't supposed to be here, but I just I just want to make um I'm Laura Ayer. I live at 1031 Hollyberry Lane and I'm with Southern Sustainability Institute and um great everybody said great stuff. I just want to make one point on it seems like we're getting oh we want transparencies for those little bitty data centers you know why are you getting your yourself in a wad about that and and the reason is this um that it's apples and oranges again like Olivia said um the data centers can grow so even though if they say they're three megawws they can add power to it and we would never know you know so that's why the reporting somehow we need to find a way for reporting on the energy and maybe That's the we can't regulate it or anything, but maybe that's asking them to provide their energy bills or provide their energy bills to somebody who can provide them to us or something like that just to ensure that they stay at the size that they were um were zoned for. And so I just wanted to make that one little little point for your discussion. But everything else great y'all. Thanks. Are we are we good? I want make sure I get everybody. Everybody's cooking. Okay. All right.

Okay. I have u few points. One, with all text amendments, you guys have probably noticed it with yours. As a lawyer, um I naturally look for loopholes, and there's a couple here that I'm concerned about. Um, and I should preface this by saying that um, by commending staff for a ton of excellent work on this. Um, they've considered a lot of stuff here and done great work. Um, covered most of the issues that I had um, in when we talked about it in December, but I do still have some questions. Um, one of them is about the um, phasing. You know, like if I wanted to build a 50 megawatt data center and I saw that the law said I can build a 5 megawatt data center as of right, what's to stop me from building 10 of them right next door to each other. Um, and then I've built a 50 megawatt data center, right? And so the staff approach, there's a a whole slide about phasing. if if you're building phase one and it's five and then you go beyond that with phase two, you're subject to the special use permit. And so I appreciate staff's attempting to close that loophole. Um but I think you know u the companies behind these data centers um have a lot of lawyers and they're going to find ways to do it. um including using separate legal entities, taking a piece of buying adjacent pieces of land or taking a piece of land and parceling it out into subdividing it into, you know, and having a whole different company with a whole different name build phase two. And it's we could,

you know, it's essentially phase 1, two, three, four, five, but they're pretending it's five different independent entities. Um and so I think we need to figure out the phasing approach is a great start toward that but it I don't think fully closes that loophole. Um so to the extent that we're going to allow data centers and attempt to impose energy based limits the f three or five or whatever um we need to make sure that um you know uh that that uh developers of data centers are not able to circumvent that by just sequentially iterating and building identical data centers one after the other after the other in the same you know in the same area. Um similarly um and the last speaker kind of spoke to this that the the thresholds uh you know if the threshold were five megawatts or if it were three megawatts you know they build a 60,000 square foot building and they put a bunch of equipment in there and and computers get smaller um every year and uh you know maybe that in a few years they're able to fit um computers that use three times as much energy in the same square footage. Right. And so they build a 5 megawatt data center, but then in three years it's a 15 megawatt data center. Um and so that's another loophole that I think um at the moment I'm not sure that this uh I think that the tools are there to to close these loopholes and and staff's done a great job of moving in that direction, but I think there's maybe more to do on that. I think that the county has a very legitimate interest in if we ultimately choose to allow data centers at all and if we impose thresholds um ensuring that people do not circumvent them. Um and so you know I just a couple of thoughts on on how to address you know if somebody gets a

special use permit maybe it needs to be renewed every two years. it's it's it's not continuous, you know, it's it's it um every two years they have to reapply or three year, whatever. And if their power needs have grown then um and they're in a new category, then they're treated as such um as being a level three now, even if they weren't at the start. Um, also the the um the stuff in the text amendment about annual reporting of power usage, I think is a is a good effort to address that. But it appeared to me looking at it that that only applies to level three um facilities. And so if I open a level one facility because I use 4.99 megawws and then I double the megawatt usage next year, there's no annual reporting for a level one facility that started as a level one facility. So again, that's just a a potentially enormous loophole that I think people will 100% take advantage of if we do not close it. And so you know u the annual reporting maybe independent auditing as one of the speakers suggested um I think has to apply to level one two and three you know assuming that that's the framework u it has to apply to every data center because otherwise they're going to become they're all going to become level three data centers um in fairly short order. Um, another, um, thing that gives me significant pause is the environmental justice point that, um, you know, staff's rationale for why these have to be limited to heavy industry zoned land makes absolute sense to me. Um, but we have a problem here, which is that all of our I mean, you could bring the map up again. This isn't it's not all most of our heavy industrial zone land is in kind of the northeast quadrant a little bit outside the loop there and then in the

on the east side there out outside the loop. Um and so uh there are great reasons for not letting it be done anywhere that's not industrial zoned. But as it happens, because of where our industrial zoned land is, that concentrates the impact um on certain areas and on the people that live in those areas. Um and it places kind of a disproportionate burden on those residents. Um and that concerns me and I don't know that there's a easy solution um to that problem. But again, that's just something that u that concerns me. Um and then uh couple other points. Um I come back to what Sarah said last time like why allow these at all or why make anything as of right um other than institutional ancillary data centers like the hospital wants a data center great let them do it you know on site for their own use that's not going to be something that imposes an enormous burden on residents or on the power grid or anything else like that it's just you know um the university schools the any employer any large company is going to have an IT department and server rooms and stuff that are within our definition of data centers and and so ancillary toa primary use um of the you know of a commercial or institutional nature um I'm fine with with that but I'm I'm not convinced that we ought to allow um any other data centers as of right um and um I guess the just sort of the last point is is um I am persuaded by the idea that um once a data center is built, it's going to be harder to regulate it than it is to carefully regulate it at the front end. And so um I think going slow and proceeding with caution is definitely the way to go here. I don't

want to open the door and then see, you know, 25 megawatt data centers go up that next year are 50 megawatt data centers because they found a way to cram more computers into the building that they built. Um, you know, and and ultimately our industrial land, like some of the older folks that were on the planning commission when I got in on here seven, eight years ago used to say, you know, you got to watch out, protect your industrial land. It's for job creation. It's for economic development and stuff like that. and data centers don't really offer that. Um they're uh you know uh the industrial land can be developed in uh in ways that provide a lot of jobs to the community. Um and data centers are not an example of that. They provide you know a very small number of jobs. Um and so you know that just brings me back to to why do we want to allow these in Athens Clark County at all? and and if we do um you know why do we you know we can't let them um circumvent the thresholds and the um requirements that were that we're trying to impose here

Mike I just had a question that I thought of while Matt was talking I was in here for the first part of this discussion on the comments part so I'm I'm curious like when we talk about not allowing any at all what are some examples of like other industries that we just don't allow. I mean, there's really nothing that is flat out not permitted anywhere ever. There's and there are legal reasons for constructing your zone.

That was my second part. Is there is there can we do that? So what you do is you you create standards if you that use is okay if you do it this way and um on those things that are particularly draining on public resources or create environmental concerns or negatively impact livability. You set the bar really high on those standards and you make those uses hit those bars to be able to say you can do it. Um the effect of that is that you really narrow that window of opportunity and you may effectuate the fact that nobody really can hit that bar or they'll find the place where the bar is lower. Um so there are many standards in our code, many standards in every community's code that are sort of structured to achieve that and they reflect community goals and values when you when you do that. But there are some legal edges to how far you can go um before you might create a problem for yourself by being unduly restricted without cause or without justification or without that opportunity for relief or at least consideration by the elected body. And so that's that's what this set of text amendments is trying to create is that kind of narrow window of opportunity. Um so you know as we said before I I mean that answers your question. I don't want to.

No, that Yeah. Uhuh. Okay. All right. I'll stop. Can I No, you can keep going, too. I thought you were just checking in. I have more to say. Go right ahead. I'll start rolling. I'm listening. Um continue please.

So, uh to Matt your your points, um you know, one of the things that staff did look at was that ancillary only option. Um because we are keenly aware that we have things that would meet the definition of data center that are among us already. Um and they serve a purpose. They serve a purpose for an institutional partner or a corporate you know um neighbor that that we value and has existed here. So how do you do that? And honestly, that's where we were struggling with yet another loophole that we didn't want to create is a definition of ancillary and how do we enforce that? Um and and so you you know it's it's it's not a challenge that we couldn't meet. We thought it was creating something that would have um something we constantly be chasing after. So is is ancillary something that is just less than 50% of the primary? Is primary just north of 50%? that makes it primary by a simple majority of land use or use of a particular site. So what would stop a savvy developer from coming in with 50.2% of their land uses or whatever metric we put together. um that is just open span warehousing or something else that's a very low investment that creates that 50 whatever percentage and that what they really want was the thing that constitutes met by by our metric 49.9%. And that's what they really wanted the whole time. Um that's what we were struggling with is we didn't want to create that sort of opportunity. Um and you know I I hear the other comment about energy reporting. The challenge we have is

and and I think Laura's been super helpful with this and I think I think her efforts and efforts of other groups in our state I think are going to go a long way in in achieving some change with this. But um we really struggled to get actual numbers for day for energy usage from for just things that are in our community. Um our utility does not have to report those things. The utilities that we pay bills to do not have to report those things and it's even questionable as to what kind of open records requests can be served to a utility to get those numbers. So there is the issue of us being able to regulate which we know has a hard edge. We can't regulate by somebody's power usage and deny somebody because they use a lot of power. We can't do that bluntly like that. But we also can't even really get the numbers reliably. And um there are ways that I think some communities are trying to create proxies for doing that. But the challenge is if you're going to enforce something based on a proxy, you're walking on thin ice legally. Um, you need to be really sure that that proxy is as good as the real data. And um, I'll admit we're taking a conservative approach on that. Um, we don't we don't have that opportunity to require reporting and and have it be meaningful. Now, we could ask for it and if they don't provide it, well, then we tried, you know, but that seems like weak codew writing. I'd rather put something on paper that we can actually have a chance to actually get and have it mean something. So, what we have realized with other code enforcement is sometimes, you know, the main problem by the symptoms that it creates. So, you can tell what the impact was by the crater that it that it's generating.

And these thresholds provide an indicator. You know, if if you're if you're doing something that's creating more need for power, you're probably going to be changing something operationally. Now, to Laura's point and to many of the speakers point, those early increments probably wouldn't be recognized, and that's a problem because we would put us out of compliance with somebody at some point. But in theory, if you're ramping up that level of use, you're going to have other things that are going on. Your cooling is going to become much more important. Your additional fuel storage is going to become much more important. Your redundancy is going to be harder to keep. And so, you're going to be making changes to your facility. So, as you make those changes of additional draw, you're going to have physical changes that I think are thresholds are going to capture. Now, will they do that the very first day that it goes over 5 megawatts? No, they won't. Um, and there's no good way for us to do that because we don't get to pop a meter that's Athens clar county's meter on top of that utilities meter. We don't have that ability to to do that kind of reporting and modeling. Um, so that's this is what we wrestled with since December is we were hearing this from these educational opportunities and I think it's spot on, but I think that's a state level discussion. I think that's uh uh we need to crack the code for everybody to do that kind of reporting and it's not just about data centers but why not let the conversation start with data centers. Um I think staff totally agrees with that but we have some hard edges on what we can put into local law. Um and that's one of those things that I think we're struggling. We really just don't have a good avenue. Voluntary reporting fine. But you know who's going to volunteer for to show that they're out of compliance?

You can't require a report even if you believe their report would be meaningful because they're creating it themselves. We we as a county can't No, we can't require that from the utility. And but can we from the developer?

So the developer from the operator is contracting with that utility for that power. You see where I'm going with this? So, so if if if they kind of slip behind that protection that's there on the recording, well, we have we have no way to get past that and that and that was eye opening because I think I think we didn't really fully realize that when we started writing the code, but we did come to realize that.

So, oh, I was just going to say follow up on my initial question about energy. It sounds like we, you know, my background, my master's degree was in renewable energy policy and uh climate change and all that stuff. So, I cared about this stuff a long time ago. And I'm really disappointed to see that, you know, as a species, we've kind of decided that we'd rather have, you know, fake videos of bunnies jumping on trampolines and, you know, we don't care about climate change anymore. I remember when, you know, Google and Meta had had climate goals and now we don't. But um that being said, it sounds like you know we can't regulate energy and electricity and that's the worst part about these data centers I think and um but what we can regulate are the things that we do control like water and noise and odor and vibration and that kind of stuff. So focusing on this focusing on energy usage just seems like it's not going to be the right approach for us creating a local ordinance. It sounds like, you know, focusing on the things we can control like water and setbacks and, you know, noise and all that kind of stuff is important. So, why, you know, I totally agree with, you know, what we've been saying these concerns of like how are we going to prove they're using more electricity, really electricity isn't a local problem. It's like it's a utility. It's not the local government. It's, you know, it's an issue between I care about it from an environmental perspective hugely, but from like a local ordinance perspective, it doesn't seem like it, you know, this is a an agreement between two private entities that we don't really have anything to do with, but we do supply water and we do control setbacks and all these things. So, you know, so after hearing that, I am encouraged that, you know, we're currently in a in a in an area where there's just no rules about data science. And so by at least doing this seems to be like we're doing what we can and I'm a big believer in you know don't make the perfect the enemy of the good and we're not g like the perfect solution is sure regulate energy but we can't do that so let's focus on the

things we can do and this seems to be a good you know it's at least a step in the right direction and we can do text amendments and there's going to be more issues and we can fix that but I like the idea of having some regulation instead of no regulation and we shouldn't just throw out the same regulation because we can't have the thing that we want most because that doesn't sound possible. So that's my thought.

Yeah. Um a bunch of commenters have mentioned um things going on at the state house, right? Potential something happening at the state house. Obviously it's not guaranteed. Uh, is there any concern of legal ramification with extending the moratorum if we think that something might come out of the state house this year? I mean, I can't from a staff standpoint, we don't have a concern. I, you know, I not Yeah, it's like not currently flagged for. I mean, the elected officials are the ones that set that outer edge of, you know, there may be some issues that they are trying to navigate.

Um, but no, I I'm not aware of anything about that March 6th date that is linked to some other effort somewhere else if that's what you're getting. It's linked to like a a date beyond pass which is the mortorium goes on too long and someone could challenge the mortorium. Okay, fair. So, um and and this is where if John is still on the call, bless him if he is. Um oh, sorry.

Hey, John. I I know you've done a lot of reach and spoken around the state about moratoria and and good practice. Do you want to answer Sarah's question?

Sure. Well, I I mean I I can't give like a definitive like x months or x years of a moratorum is too long. I I can tell you that that generally when when a local government enacts a moratorum it is for a purpose and the local government usually says we are enacting a moratorum for this purpose and there is some case law out there around the country and there there's not a ton of case law in Georgia about moratory although there is some but just kind of generally around the country there is some case law about you know if if if you're enacting a moratorium for a purpose. You need to you need to set it so you have an opportunity to reasonably achieve that purpose, but you shouldn't just continue it indefinitely. There there does come a point where it gets unreasonable to continue a mortorium and it's a little obviously, you know, as you can probably tell from the way I'm describing it can be sometimes a little squishy depending on what the goal is you're trying to achieve and those sorts of things. So I I can't give a definitive answer, but that's kind of the consideration that goes into a moratorum and how long a moratorum is.

Thank you. Um I'm just going to say real quick just kind of piggybacking on what Matt said. Um like I I think this is like 95% there. The only thing that I feel really strongly about is having that public comment on every level. Uh I mean it occurred to me we are willing to have public comment on every single short-term rental but we can't do it on every single data center but that's not true. We were there now. Yes. Believe me we don't get public comment on every single short term. Well but I mean no right like we would we would see them or bars over 100 people. We get to comment on all the bars over 100 people.

The fact that we're even seeing public comment on short-term rentals but we wouldn't see it at every level of the data center. So I think that that needs to happen. But we So I'm using your analogy. I the short-term rental getting comment on every single short-term rental would be hundreds of that we that we see that we process permit. So I think some that are allowed. But if we're going to use the analogy, I think it's a good analogy that there may be some data center installations per this definition that's on on the table that don't necessarily rise to that level that is hitting those concerns. Am I going to rephrase? Yes. Rewinding.

Okay. Okay. If we were willing to see a good number of short-term rentals through a public comment process, I think we should see every single data center through a public comment process.

That's what I'm going to say. So that's um my other question was the independent audit. Um I get the the rabbit hole that that brings us. So I'm willing to scale that back. Um, I also would say like I would cap the energy at the four megawatt option with the option to go to five with renewables. You could go up to a level two and level three would not be allowed. That's where I would be comfortable with. I don't see why we need level three period. So that's question that's my

can you restate that for me and maybe others. So four four with the option to go up to five. Yes. With energy as a buy, right? Or as a well with a public comment. We'll talk about what that means in a minute, but okay. That would be the equivalent of the level one. Okay, there we go.

Ask a clarifying question about the levels point that you're making. As I read it, level three uses It said on page nine, it includes like airports, data centers of five megawatts or more, stockyards, explosive, you know, fireworks factories and stuff like so it level three is a thing that exists and and I think there's and it imposes a bunch of additional requirements including annual reporting and stuff like that, right? And so I think um maybe I misunderstood you, but when you were saying were you saying no data centers would be in level three or that you would lower the threshold so that more data centers were subject to those level three restrictions?

No, no, no. I'm saying that so the the level three it's it's not just the megawatts, you've got the water usage, you've got the vibration, all of that stuff. So if something reaches the threshold of level three, so so the the beauty of level three is no thresholds are considered at all.

So this level three list, like if somebody comes in and proposes um a munitions manufacturing facility, doesn't matter how much they use, they're automatically level three. Doesn't matter how many trips they generate, they're automatically level three. There's no analysis against these thresholds except for in the annual reporting to make sure that whatever it should it be approved and there's no guarantee that it will. But if the mayor and the commission with y'all's recommendation do approve a level three industrial use, it's going to come with special use criteria, meaning there's a binding report, binding performance, and binding site plan. And then moving forward annually they will be reporting against that binding special use permit. So they will required every year to say how are you performing against what was binding.

So two questions from that. So for level one level two we will have thresholds for the water usage the waste water the vibrations those one and two. Yes. So we don't have those only for the reporting going forward. Will we talk about them in the review? Yes, because that's what we'll have to show to the commission and to you guys. Well, what are they what are they talking about?

So, we'll have we'll have they will have to provide answers to this. But if all their answers are for some fairy tale reason zeros, it's still a level three. And what we're going to do is every year we're going to make sure you're a zero every single year. I guess I guess I'm just not understanding why we have these abilities to monitor these other things for these lower uses. And I and I guess if there's like an additional reporting and sort of like a plan development type process, not that it is, but but a a more stringent process.

But it just seems like we I would like to see those things spelled out more for level three. Um and and on top of that, if we can have a reporting mechanism for level three, why can't we have for one two? Okay, so going back to what we were saying earlier, what we were trying to do was not write code for data centers. We're writing code for heavy industry. So which falls into the category of amunitions. So we would well so what if if something's level one industrial use and you want them to have annual reporting every single heavy every single industrial use is going to do annual reporting. I see. So that suddenly becomes it for every single industry every single thing.

Yep. I see. What is the percentage of heavy industry we have in Athens? We have a healthy amount. Um uh so if you drive through Winthea Industrial Park, if you go up Newton Bridge Road, if you go on the west side and see Koggins Park out there and we have industrial uses in those areas, um but that would fall into the category of heavy industrial.

Well, so if we started this, and this is kind of to Matt's point about implementation of this code, we would have a whole bandwidth of legal non-conforming heavy industry, right? And I guess that's how we deal with it. We wouldn't play catchup with Boring or Engleheim or you know or the C while the Corey is going to be decommissioned at some point but you know what I'm saying out out on those sides of town carrier transport cold and and some of our other industries that we have in town. Um so it' be every new industry I guess would be required. It's one way to look.

So could is that I mean I'm trying to figure out the legal implications. We don't want to upset the industry, some of the big industry players we have by burdens that feel excessive, but it and I get that if you put it in for one category, it's got to be for all so that it's fair across the board. But that kind of reporting for heavy indust industry with all of the environmental factors that it could affect doesn't seem like a terrible idea. It's just order of magnitude issue. And and from an economic development standpoint,

you know, you a lot of these industries are already responding to other regulatory agencies and they're producing those reports to satisfy whatever the federal government needs or whatever the state level of that office needs. Um, and they're not a problem. Now, I guess there there's there's two ways to look at it. Well, if they're already reporting to those other agencies, just CC us on that stuff, right? but they would have to write it to match our local ordinance and this may may be additional additional reporting. So just that just throwing it out there maybe it's understanding that this is more than just data centers.

But if we are talking about data centers and thinking about them being stacked I mean and to Matt's point that there's a lot of clever ways that one entity could restructure and grow. But even if we had five different entities that place them by right beside each other that impact is then compounded. That's the same that that's so burdensome to the people who are living that area in such a concentrated place. I don't know how you get around that. So maybe a response to that question is I was if the five megawatts was revisited, right? And if that threshold were reduced to a number,

um I think what you're starting to do is you're minimizing the desiraability of developing those types of facilities that would be piggy back, piggyback, piggyback, piggy back. Isn't that the only thing we have in our disposal basically?

I mean, no, there's a bunch of things that could be done, but I mean, I think that's that's one first step is to say, well, maybe five megawatts is not what we're talking about. Staff landed on that based on those comps that we found from other communities and what's being developed right now. And although we understand that these facilities don't have staffing the same way that other other industries do, we don't have anything in the code and we have nothing to lean on to say you're approved if you have a staff of 100 people or more. Like there's nothing in here that talks about employment because we really don't have a regulation that says you're approved if you employ this many people at this much per year. It's just not a metric that we have.

Is there a legal reason for that? Because getting back to the institutional and I understand what you're saying about how you tie those thresholds, but if there's any job creation beyond the building of the facility, at least it's speaking to a net benefit for the community. Without that tie, I don't know. It just seems like we're trying to wrangle ourselves legally to not get in trouble.

Yeah. I sorry for zoning to look at employment is a is pretty atypical. I will just say that you know zoning as a tool is is not really set up to measure somebody's staffing as a as a reason for approval or denial. Um there are other things that that communities can do. There's other regulations that may look at that and it's typically in the form of incentives. Um but not zoning. Zoning doesn't really look at employment levels. Sarah,

can I I kill you in more robust setbacks or bumper zones enforced on data centers to push them, you know, further out from these communities that we're talking about that they we can show there's environmental impact. So pushing them away from residential zones, pushing them away from, you know, environmentally potentially protected or or endangered areas. Can that be implemented at all? And that's that is it can and we have standards in the code that already but can that be increased? Can that be I suppose it can be. Yeah. I mean, so we talked about the 150 ft. Yeah. Which is, you know, the state asked for 25, right?

That's for the riparian buffers. Yeah. Okay. All right. We dig into that and right and expand that as a way to you know for setbacks and and the 400 400 ft sort of development standard that we had that was worded not just for heavy industry but also for light industrial you know that 400 foot measurement and the the additional buffering that you have to do. Um would it but then would it have to we couldn't single out the data said this is for data centers specifically within that that category. You know

it's not that we can't it it does bring into question well why did what is it about that that you're saying is is warrants that additional buffer and and why doesn't that tire recapping plant warrant that buffer as well? It's getting an illegal potential legal probably. Yeah. I mean, the vibration's the same, the noise is the same, the odor may be greater for the other one, right? And you're not asking for the buffer there. Why not? So, what we were trying to say was, well, if if this buffer is a good idea, it's good idea for all heavy industry

when it's these areas of concern and and the environmental justice issues are legitimate with with our regulation of heavy industry. And it's a it's a shame that we're having to retrofit and sort of backfill for prior bad decisions. And that's all I can say is it's it's it's a horrible place to be.

Um when we are looking at environmental justice and people's property rights and people's quality of life, striking that balance after bad decisions have been made is really tough. Um and it's super frustrating for everybody who's negatively impacted. So I I have nothing but for respect and and concern for those folks that have generationally sort of been hardone by bad decision- making. We're not trying to repeat that with these text components at all. I'm just wondering what you Yeah, just push those in general for that entire category which then affects the data centers. Just one thought

just a a suggestion um to this point and and that sort of answers Mike's question. You said, you know, is is there any use that we just flat out forbid? And and you said, um, no, but there are certainly uses that we allow only by special use permit. Several, right? We do that all the time. Yep.

Fraternities and sororities, every time we see one, it's because that's the only way to do it is to get an SCP here. Um, so, um, you know, there's often not an easy answer to to things, but, um, an answer here that I think would address my two big circumvention concerns that I talked about is if a data center was permitted only by special use permit, regardless of size, then if somebody tried to build 10 in a row next door to each other, they were each 5 megawatts because they're really building a 50 megawatt one. We'd see 10 special use permit applications and and we could say no, right? It's by allowing it by right that you enable circumvention. Um and the threshold thing if you're going to build a 5 megawatt data center and then next year it's a 10 megawatt data center. Um with a with an SUP, we can impose conditions including I brought up the SCP section here 9-20-6. we can impose um conditions including but not limited to the following and then subp part L of this 9-20-6 subp part L duration of use. So we could say your SUP for a data center is has a three-year term and you need to give us annual reporting of your energy use and your water use and whatever else um as part of your application for a renewal every three years. So we can address both the threshold and the iterating copycat data centers thing by just having a discretionary process which also addresses to a substantial extent uh the environmental justice point. Although I take your point that the zoning happened a long time ago and it has environmental justice consequences. Um that uh no one in in the current city government, you know, put all the made the decision to put all the uh

industrial zoning where they put it, but it is where it is. And and so if that's if we think data centers are not appropriate anywhere else for sure, but may be appropriate there, maybe the answer is at least for now to proceed slowly to make sure we don't get 20 of them in three years. Um to to do it by special use permit, which buys time to see how the state house deals with it, too. And and you know, they may come through with something that um that helps address some of these concerns as well. But at least we won't then be stuck with 20 that got built in in a couple of years because we made it too easy. and eliminating by right. Eliminating the by right.

Yeah. And you know I like that just in the you know kind of going back to you know the I kind of like the idea of having them all be special use you know because kind of like we did if we find that that's too burdensome like with the short-term rentals like yeah this we shouldn't we don't need these to all be special use we can always go back and change it a year from now. Yeah, you can always make it easier

because like we did that with the short-term rentals and we were like, "Oh man, this is crazy. Why are we special using all these and then we could maybe come up with a threshold that we like but maybe, you know, I mean that is a good point. Maybe to start with we take the conservative approach, they're all special use because if there are other industries that we require as special use because my concern is always that we treat, you know, I think zoning should be fair like you shouldn't just pick people out and you know, you want it to apply to everybody. So, but as long as we do have other people that we can be like we make these people always like you said fraternities always has to be special use then yeah maybe Dennis said at least for now always has to be special use because we can't and like you said I like the idea it's already pressed the board

yeah and you could get them to voluntarily give you the energy records that we can't make them give us otherwise. Yeah. And that's a good point. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Sarah, um I had a well kind of on that I have a few questions and comments, but one thing I wanted to ask was is a scenario that matches that you described actually possible with a special use permit? Which scenario? Well, the idea of like sort of a renewable every three years. Isn't that kind of what we got into when we're talking about short-term rentals? That gets into like business license. Okay. It goes forever sometimes. um especially but I still think the general idea is in the right direction. I just don't know if we could do it with the SUP process

if it can be this like renewable it it would that would kill it because no one's going to put in that kind of investment if they're going to lose it. Yeah. That alone we won't get any and if that's what we're looking to do is not have any that's a secret.

So I just want to ask that question but just think about it as we're we're moving forward. Um and then one thing I wanted to clarify is that level three until now or or currently level three the only distinction between levels one and two and three besides the the the criteria that qualify you qualify an industry into each level. that up till now level three the primary difference was it put it into special use permit um proceeding or process or procedure and um and nothing right there's no reporting this reporting thing is new okay so that's what you meant earlier when you said that there would be sort of the current level three industries would be sort of legal non-conforming like you

because this is the the determination of levels is kind of a a unique thing in the zoning code. Um, in the sense that would it technically would you not would you really actually not be able to ask those those currently operating level 3es to report yearly on things that are important? I would say for us to retroactively start requiring those people to report, we'd have to tie it to something else and and it would need to be voluntary. Yeah. Just because they they could invite a bunch of lawsuits. They were Yeah, because they were developed under a set of laws that did not include that. Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah. And do we want that for everybody? Because we don't necessarily want to scare off all heavy industry in the future because it is good to have some, you know, like Caterpillar brings a lot of jobs. I'm sure that's heavy industry, right? And so I think um a couple of thoughts. So yeah, I think really glad you all put a set of text amendments together for us because it just enables us to take our more sort of um 30,000 foot conversation we're having in December into something we can react to. Sure.

And so I generally think this is on the right track. I I just want to quibble with some of the details. Um, I think that to me right now this feels like a recipe for a bunch of 4.9 megawatt data centers. Um, that quietly become 10 megawatt data centers over the course of the decade. Like I still think we're we could Yeah. So that's kind of similar to what Matt was saying. I think it would be when you think about sort of the principles of computing and there's some formula like how much smaller processing gets over time and so you could just quietly add and so I want to understand something I I have always had a hard time understanding electricity so megawatt if you're just if you're just regulating by megawatt the analogy is like a megawatt is the size of the pipe It's sort of the ability of that. It's how much it could use. But like a facility that's running at 5 megawws for 24 hours is running at whatever five is missing right now 130ish. Um that's how many mega hours they're using

hours is. But we're just focusing on this capacity.

That's right. Design capacity. Okay. And so, okay, that's interesting. And then do you um when you say that the city that the ACC can't regulate energy, what do you mean exactly? Like we can't require them to report on their energy use. So that's a little more nuanced question, but the first part of your question, we can't require, we can't approve or deny based off of energy use in the same way that we can approve or deny based off of water use. Water is a resource that we are charged with managing that public water.

So we can't do that because we don't manage it as a county. We don't exactly have no hand in that. So the way this has been worded where we're referencing megawws, it's a way to understand the facility. It's not a way to say yes or no. It's a way for us to understand what the thing is. Now we know how to slot it.

And so so we're we're going as far as we can go with that. So how would a a proponent an applicant of a data center prove to you prove their capacity upon application? How are they doing that? So when they come through review any any industry when they come through will have um their electrical service has to be designed and we have plans for that electrical service and so we have electrical inspectors and reviewers who know what they're looking at and they they check it against the utility providers. Actually, we talk daily with utility providers on this type of panel design and installation and use and all that sort of stuff. Um, we will see that design. Now, they don't have to tell us the proprietary stuff. They don't have to tell us what that machine is that's being run, but they they have to tell us what is the design load for your building.

And the fire marshall needs to know, right? Because there's a cause and effect for them as well. So, we get that at the plans review stage for sure. Now, I I think maybe part of your question is how do we know we're getting the real story, right? Okay. So, at the time of construction, when those systems are put in, we do have that opportunity to enter the facility and lay eyes on it to make sure it matches the plans. And and those inspectors and reviewers, they're the same people. So they've seen the plan, now they're going out in the field to look for the thing they look for on paper. And they see it before things are sealed up. So there's a rough in period of time and in these, you know, industrial developments, it could be months and months and months that they're constantly seeing what's going in. So they they see it before it's hidden behind the drywall and, you know, tucked behind something where you can't get to it. So, do you think that um so the Kroger example that keeps coming up, what that is saying that a Kroger uses the same amount of energy as a one megawatt?

No. So, so here's the thing. We really wanted to have the Kroger number. Yeah. But we don't have they don't have to report it. So, so what what we got was sort of a a um helpful suggestion of what a new Kroger uses and it's it's in the neighborhood of two and a half with peaks that could get to three megawws for certain larger footprint Kroger's which we happen to have some of the larger footprint Kroger's built here. So, we were connecting some of those stories to come up with that 2 and a half to 3 megawatt for the 120,000 square foot east side Kroger. Okay.

But I haven't seen a utility bill. I haven't seen a meter reading. I can't I can't tell you that that's exactly what it is. Could you like make a guess? I think it's what I have a hard time with this sort of getting my like when we were do talking about this in December. I think at the time you were talking about the idea of more like 1.5 to two by right and then 2.5 starts to become conditional and then maybe something then then I don't remember it was like I remember there was sort of 1.5 2.5 and five and there was sort of you all talking about kind of different ways to do that. I'm wondering, you know, you you've done all this research, all of you, and and come up with it that five is the correct threshold and I know you were saying earlier that it was from looking at some comps

sort of to get a sense for that, but like are there any industries in Athens that you believe use five or more megawatts? Yes. Per day? Yes. And that would be industries that are currently level three. No. No.

No. So that's interesting. So, I just don't I can't get my like head around what uh what that looks like. And I I can't figure out if my general desire to push that threshold down to like two and a half or three just sort of this arbitrary like let's chill out on this for a little bit or like if I'm by by thinking that am I am I am I proposing something that's actually completely unrealistic like somebody wouldn't really want to build a 2 megawatt data center that's not that valuable of a of a

Bruce what would be an example of a five megawatt usage because I'm thinking to your point a lot of our issue is net benefit to the community right so if it's a five megawatt usage it's probably got heavy amount of jobs attached to it well I would think hospital has high energy use I know but I and so you know well so I also want to be careful too because I think

a I don't have facts to tell you so so it really starts ends there but I'll go a little bit further also don't want to guess and kind of throw out and impugn somebody who may not actually be using that. You know what I mean? So, it's just it's not fair. But if you think about the things that use a lot of energy, cooling systems right at the top of the list, especially in a southern climate. And so think about some of our industries that rely very very heavily on keeping things at set temperatures where there can be no variation or else you're ruining the product or you have to keep it at a certain level because of um not just the product but the process that creates it and that kind of thing. We have those industries in town. Now how much space are they cooling? Well, they're trying to minimize the amount of space that they have to keep cold because it's not in their interest to do more than that. So, they have very specialized systems that may just cool that section of the product assembly line, you know. So, it's just really hard to know exactly without somebody saying, "Well, here here you go. Here was our bill last month."

Yeah. Nobody

here's this. Um it doesn't work like that. Well, I guess I would just want to echo um what a couple of folks have said is that I I think until I I think we have to have all data centers be something that goes through special use because to me right now that's the only way we can deal with the clustering problem. I don't know how else to deal with that because the zoning already promotes clustering. It's already kind of built in that that could happen. And so there's not another way I can think of right now for us to impact or sort of make sure that doesn't happen. That always it always makes me nervous to put something into a discretionary process because um I you know like we're not always going to have you as our planning director, right? We could have some dude become our planning director after a year that made me dude,

right? I mean, that's my hate to be so cynical, but I've seen some really weird stuff lately and not in our government, but some other local governments. I mean, I sat through I told you the story already, but I sat through a a planning commission or a city council meeting in a different municipality in December and watched three, four hours of public comment against data centers and the the mayor and council just approved a million square foot data center without even a blink of an eye. Unanimous vote, no problem. Like, it was insane. And so, I I don't mean to be so skeptical of politicians, but I am skeptical of politicians. And I I sort of trust this process, but I worry so you know

there's no politicians. None of us are politicians. I do guess. Let me bring this back though because the point that we have this text I do want to and what what what Mike what what not just about this whole energy thing before we move on. It's just that um well here's what I was gonna say against

no like going going forward we want to build some sort of ordinance that's going to like last in the future at least somewhat right and you know these data centers like the things that they their biggest cost is electricity and water and cooling right so I got to think that they're trying as hard as they can to bring down their electricity costs right so something that might be a 5 megawatt now might only be a one megawatt in the future and have the exact same capacity it could be a year from now could be 10 years from now who Who knows? We might invent some sort of cold fusion that fits in a briefcase and 20 years from now we could have nothing.

But what I'm saying is like maybe electricity isn't even a good measure to be judging these by because electricity is not going to be relevant in the future. These numbers that we think are going to be important now aren't going to be important. So I'm saying that like maybe we just don't even think about electricity usage because it's not something that we control and it's also not what the people that live near it really care about. Like sure I care about electricity usage as the macro effect of like on humanity and that but we in Athens County are not going to have any effect on how much AI water bill not yeah what we care about what we care about is how it affects the neighbors and how much electricity you use

has no impact on who lives next door to you. They care about things like setbacks, vibrations, noise, that kind of stuff. And so I think what we really need to be thinking about is how are we protecting the people that live next door and that's not through energy usage. It's through accident ordinances. Do we have something in front of us that we want to send to the mayor commission or do we have suggestions for staff? Like what is what is the next?

I have a question on that very topic. Okay, if I may. Um, if we are of a mind to um send something to the American Commission, it seems to me that page six of the handout, which is the permitted use table for data centers in the industrial zone, right now it says P for permitted with a footnote L9. we would change that to S and that would make it so that any um data center in an industrial zone required a special use permit, right? I'm not sure that we need how much more we need to change in what's in front of us if we like the rest of it. And I think I heard a lot of positive things about a lot of the the great stuff that's in here that staff did to try to address buffers and sound buffers and, you know, all of that stuff. Uh

that's something we can control. Yeah. Right. Right. But I mean like I don't think that a great deal of um futing with the tax amendment that's in front of us is required to um just say everything has to be special use uh permit. Um and and we could send it on essentially, you know, approve the text amendment with that one recommendation and recommend to the mayor and commission that they adopt it with that change.

But do we want a special use permit that like has to be renewed? Because that would be something different than just a special use permit because typically a special use permit just a special use permit goes with the property forever. So if we wanted to build in like a mechanism to renewal, we might want to recommend

that would be different than just a special use permit. Well, it it would be a special use permit that would contain a condition under 9-20-6L on duration of use that just says a special use permit um you know. So, so I guess that would be part of the recommendation of the mayor commission too that they adopt it with the S in the place I mentioned and also with our recommendation being that um special use permits for data centers should presumptively be of limited duration with a required annual application at least you know to ensure I'm not convinced you know I heard Alex's point that nobody's going to want to build a data center if they have to get a renewal and they don't know if they will but the idea is just you know they have to reapply and show that they still meet the standards that they met when they got it.

Yeah. It would only be if they went over those initial standards that they wouldn't be able. So, it's kind of double their electricity use, you know, if they no longer are in compliance then um they won't get it. You know, it's like a liquor license. Stay in compliance and you get to keep it, right? Sell to miners and you don't. Yeah. So, it would be the same for the data center. So compiance,

it would just I think be a recommendation that um that data center special use permits ought to have limited duration of use under 9- six subl um and requirements for disclosure of the type, you know, described in level three in in this text amendment, disclosure of their electricity use and so on, just to ensure that they remain in compliance with the initial conditions. Is that something that So maybe so so I I I'm tracking what you're saying. Um there would be some other text that we would have to rework

um in response to the fact that data centers any data center is no longer period. So obviously we're walking back language about um you know less than five and the renewable energy stuff and all that. Those things would then be taken up as part of the special use consideration. Yeah. In that criteria. Yeah. And those requirements could be taken up as a way to mitigate or offset um anticipated negative impacts as part of the special use. Special special use criteria that were just for a data center consideration.

Well, I so that's thank you. That's where I'm headed is with the duration of use to then pinpoint data centers and but then almost not pinpoint them with any sort of specific you know duration of use and you shall have a duration of use for data center of some sort. Can we have a licensing for data centers? Oh god come on. No we extend that immediately you know it seems the only way to reassess people. What going back to that duration I it's either we get specific for data centers which I'm a little nervous about because we don't get specific for other folks.

I I'm I'm just right now real time trying to think how to make it where you absolutely have to consider duration of use as a condition for data centers. Maybe there's a way to do that. Um certainly it could be addressed as you say the first time we get a special use application for a data center. Yeah. You know and and so to the extent that any of this stuff about renewable and and sound you know to the extent you think that it could just be part of the special use conditions um I suppose you could um what about this pull the text and use it that way.

Well maybe something we've got in here hits that scratches that itch. um where we are saying that we have reporting requirements. It's the middle requirements. This is on page 10. Mhm. And all that yellow.

Yeah. Um, what's baked into here is a really prescriptive but timelines for the fact that your special use will be reconsidered for failure to follow those thresholds that were approved as part of your original special use. So, it's almost like without saying duration of use is a trigger. This is opening it up not just for data centers, but for any level three, you're going to you're going to go back in front of the mayor and commission and have to be reconsidered and you may not be approved. And that's a whole new a whole new angle. We we haven't opened the door on anything quite like that in the code. And I think this is done with good reason and with cause and measurables and performance opportunities. Is that enough? Is this enough to do what you're talking about? Duration could still be talked about if it's necessary for the circumstances of that particular special use. But if it if they don't end up with one, we still have this language they have to meet that will involve revisiting that special use for failure to meet expectations. What would trigger that that report?

That's what triggers a condition a condition of the special use permit could be compliance with these annual reporting requirements. It already is. Yeah. It doesn't have to be a condition of the special use. Well, if it's a level three, you know, but but I would say even data center would have to any data center with us. Yes. and a demonstrated but but the the annual report that if if there is a demonstrated failure to comply that would come from public outcry or some some like right every special use goes through public input. Yeah. There's at least three opportunities for the public to weigh in

at least. And if it's continued for an issue then you're adding additional opportunities for input. Yeah. Yeah, we don't need to write all the conditions today, right? It's a special use uh process. Then when we get an application for a special use permit for data center, um the conditions can be uh that the mayor we would talk about and that the Marin Commission would approve if they approved it would be, you know, whatever they decided, which would probably be heavily based on this, but there'd be an opportunity for community input and it would prevent the clustering problem. Um and the the other circumvention it's a good first step.

What what would it have to be in the reporting like on page 10 I was looking for sort of the details of what has to be it refers back to the level one criteria. Okay. And so and the level one criteria specifically doesn't include power it because it can't. So, is there a way um to I don't even know if it's realistic to think that we're going to start to be able to do that like that something happens at a state level that enables us to is that kind of what you all are referring to is that there might be something happening at the state legislature that could enable us to I I think I think there are some jurisdictional things above local government that have to be sorted out.

Yes. For that reporting to be possible and and so so that mean if somebody got a special use permit for a data center between now and then they just kind of don't have to report on their energy and then two years down the road um what needs to happen at a level higher than county enable kind of enables the counties to do this then that could apply from that point forward because that's sort of how that would I don't think that's true. I There's no reason we couldn't condition a special use permit next year on reporting power usage. Yeah. Just because we don't run a utility doesn't mean we can't say show us your utility bill. Right. It's a condition of your special use permit.

Yeah, that makes sense. And if they're not in compliance, a possible motion. Yeah. We want to add bio. We want to add biome to be restricted from I wanted to use the definition that we had in it was red. Yes. Yeah, we can do that. Yes. Countyy's renewable energy definition. That is enough directive. Yes. For us to do that.

I have one other really nitpicky point, but it does seem like a critical one. You could speak for the animals that cannot speak. a lot of our heavy ind uh industrial area backs up to agricultural area. I know that we've got the buffer zones in for a and for residential, but the noise 247 is still at 80 dB for anything that's non-residential. If it's up against other industrial in area, that doesn't matter. But if it's going up against an agricultural zone, it kind of seems like it would be better to not have 247 80 dB allowable. So,

okay. Um, do we allow other people to have 80 dB? Is that like a step set noise ordinance level? So, so, so one of the things that could be done is to add a singular word adjacent to residential or agricultural property line that would satisfy it for me. That's a and that's consistent with how we have the development standard for the 400 ft, right? That because the buffer zone does address both but the noise level doesn't. Yeah. Yes. I think noise level is one of the most important things to control from what I've seen about data setters you know so the setbacks the noise I think that's yeah

I think it's where we can make the most impact is the concern about like farmers who live in no it's more the impact on the animals that constant noise is going to have an impact on wildlife and the vibration on the glarewood too but the noise I think is easier to measure it would be good just to protect because that that you know it preserve the opportunity to maybe have that agricultural land transition to residence someday too, you know, and that data center is going to be there forever. So, I would just like it to see have the noise ordinance be for any type of neighbor regardless of use. I mean, I agree, but you know, like it just can't it can't exceed that limit. Industry to industry is quite Yeah.

So, we've got the biomass issue. We have one word we can add or agricultural to that on page eight. we have the special use permit and and yeah putting an S in that box on the industrial and then I guess deleting footnoted online that goes with it. Um, and so then does that mean what was the answer to the question about whether and the special use criteria for data centers are there just usual special use or whether specific special special use special

I mean we we attempted to drop special special use criteria for short-term rentals because the general ones were not particularly useful. I don't think it would be unprecedented to have ones that are focused on these um things that the county's concerned about about data like criteria about noise, power usage, etcommend approval of the text amendment with the three changes that Kristen just ran through. definition of renewable and the agricultural thing that Jennifer mentioned and the special use permit for all data centers. Um, and Bruce, do you think that anything else is required of the, you know, in the annual performance reporting stuff? Is there any amendment that's required there based on making them all special use and not use of rights? Well, so so the other the other text amendment here would just be level three uses data center.

There would be no five megawatt. We'd be striking what's five megawatts or more. It would just be data center. Data center. Data center is automatically a level three. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I can be in board and that already does the reporting and it does everything else. Yep. Yeah. We put Yeah. I was just thinking about the noise thing and how we could tie that to the special. That's my motion. Do I have a second? Love it. Second. Okay. You got comments. Alex makes a comment on the motion.

I just want to understand Jennifer's forum animals. What are we saying about that? I wasn't clear on how that's written. So, I'm just suggesting adding in agricultural to adjacent to non-residential property line for specifically the 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. 80 dB to make it consistent with adjacent to residential property lines. Okay. All right. and residential agricultural

the I I'm just stating it. I have concern about all of these going through a special use and actually coming out the other end. Uh as I I think that's going to very much weaken the potential of us getting any of these. Um, we haven't said I'm not necessarily any more for or against than anybody here. I'm learning to and I've called a lot of people. I've read a lot of articles. I'm trying to find all of the negative in it. And uh the positive that we haven't talked about is the enormous amount of money that comes. And when anybody says money, they're the bad guys. But this town continues to complain that we don't have enough money. And this

like tax money. the the amount of property tax that these produce. That's why that town did a million square foot. I'm not saying that was a good decision. I'm just saying there are benefits to this and it brings a lot of tax money in with a low hit of traffic and other things. And that's that's just what it does. I'm not cheering for it. I'm not saying let's get them all in here because if they didn't make noise and didn't use water, they probably wouldn't be a problem.

Exactly. But all industry uses a lot of water and does this. So, it's a we got a balance. So, I'm just saying I'm not against all of them going through this, but we know what happened with um short-term rental. I don't think they let one of those RMs through to the point that we finally just said, "What are we doing?" and we just took that off the table and now they just we don't do RM anymore. So, I do have concerns because if we are a community that shows that we're making it basically intentionally impossible, that's the caution, intentionally impossible for new technology that's headed our way. And no one should dare use their phone if they're having problems because the the data does come back to our community. The information does come back to you. Everybody in Athens uses data whether we know it or not.

It could be anything. So I'm just I'm cautioning of that. I I am likely going to vote in favor of this, but I'm just saying we're we're lighting a match that could be damaging and the opposite of lighting a match. I think we're preserving the option of possibly agree with your general statements though. I just think Yeah. So, okay, lighting a match. Lighting a match is possibly the wrong way,

but at the same time, it it is that type. Well, I'm just talking. So, let me and I've been quiet for an hour and a half on this. And so, and I will stop real quickly, but point is when you when you are doing this and and it looks like, well, they're just not interested in industry. It's back to okay, what do we do? because I'd rather have one of these next to my farm than a tire uh or a tire company or um asphalt shingles, which we have uh with smoke stacks and all of that. This this is not the worst industry that anybody can prove yet. And it's not a lot of proof how bad it is. So, that's my caution uh on on having every one of them go through when Kroger's already doing, you know, in Walmart. I mean there Kroger and Publix are so close together. They're probably producing four and five uh together uh on that same side of town. Yeah, that seems to be okay. And that's where I'm just having a consistency issue. So

Sarah, I had a question. Well, kind of back to the motion. So do the special use criteria that would apply to data centers have to be part of this X amendment? No. Okay. So we but that is sort of a discussion that needs to happen.

There is no criteria that is special to data centers as part of a special use with the text with the changes you're proposing. There are none. Is there any um way to um document or memorialize like because I think there's some intent that that it was used to write this text that is very meaningful that I would like to see show up in the review process. For example, the the concept of nothing above and any power usage above five megawws needs to be green energy, renewable energy. That's a great idea, but I think this current thing we're doing right now maybe doesn't capture that anymore, right?

It doesn't make it a requirement now. And it could it's almost like what I'm asking for is like guiding principles, right? sort of but something that is that we use for the special use process. Yeah. Could we include in our recommendation to the Mary Commission that they task us with identifying um appropriate special use criteria to guide these decisions in the future? For a future text amendment, right? Yeah. No. Yeah. Reasonable voice to you or do we just I know we have this morator I guess we have a pending motion. So, do I have to amend my motion and get a second on that to do what I just said? Yes. Okay. I amend my motion

to include the recommendation to include that they recommend that they we recommended that they tell us to develop. Yes. And that we're also talking about um one of the things that the many public comments we received before the meeting recommended was a um a citizen

temporary community oversight or citizen advisory committee. And I guess I I don't know if this would need to go into into this, but I I think one of the things we're learning today, and we've known this, is that no one from where Toronto lives sitting on this commission, right? And so until that happens, I'm looking at you. You got to apply. Anybody can apply to be on the commission. Yeah, that's right. People lined up. We're going to change this commission

until we have better representation of that side of town, this commission. Maybe that would be a way to um get that input and and formalize it a little bit. So, I'm wondering about the notion of or what you all think of the idea of sort of adding the recommendation that the mayor and commission consider forming some sort of citizen oversight, citizen advisory. I don't know what that would look like. Let me think citizen group. Well, I was what was I was just going to say it's

there's I think the proper wording might be that the suggestion of an advisory group for a citizen advisory group regarding data centers is something that the planning commission discussed and had general support for. Okay. I think that's probably as far like we can add that into what we transmit on the pink. It's not a land use thing. It's not a land use thing and it's but it is some if if you are saying that then that's something that we can include in part of the summary. I mean, I think a lot of times it's best handled by citizens forming their own groups, too. You know, I mean, I was talking about the Sorry, I'm keeping Yes. Sorry. Feeling it in Matt.

I was just gonna Everybody monologues acknowledge Alex's point, which is a good one, but and my only response is we can always make it easier later, right? It's it's hard to fix something once it's happened. And so proceeding with caution to me entails um special use permits for now and then if later on maybe you know if it seems like that was not a great idea we can always make it easier but nothing will have been built you know that devastates a neighborhood in the but I also just wanted to note one um thing that may pertain to a further amendment to motion on page 11 of the handout there's some language in subp part I about some being as of right and some being special use. And so, um, I think we need to either

and that or just I think, um, you know, that would make the motion include that staff will make some ministerial changes to subpart I um to consistent make it consistent. Agreed. So, I amend my motion. You accept the amendment. Yeah. All right. Let's vote. All righty. The motion is for approval with let's call it four conditions. Is that would you agree with that? Yeah, it's rounding. We I've got a list but it's I I do recent list of conditions stated condition there. There we go.

Wonderful. Um so that is the motion and we have a second please. Yes. Sorry. Would you mind just clarifying conditions one more time for us just to make sure we all know exactly what we're voting on?

Gladly. Um the motion was for approval um to amend the use chart as shown uh for the I zone to remove the PL parenthetically 9 and replace it with an S for special use. We are going to amend on page eight the chart to add or agricultural for the adjacent to residential property lines. Uh for the 10 p.m. 7 a.m. we are going to strike on the checker 9-11. For the level three, we are going to strike a the second part of A2 which from the point of just leaving it saying data center and removing the five megawatts. Um and there's also a rec a recommendation that the how would how do definition of renewable

definition of renewable to align with the um Athens renewable energy with the clean and renewable energy plan definition. you're saying to request that the mayor and commission direct the planning commission to to develop data center specific special use criteria.

Perfect. and general support. General support that will be reflected in the pink sheets of citizen advisory committee and that staff will amend subp part I on page 11 to make it consistent. Thank you. Okay. Uh I'll start over with the vote. Um yes, yes. Yes. Yes. And Sams, yes.

All right. Um, I have no report. Um, okay. Thank you all for all of that. You guys, everybody still present and everybody who had to leave. Thank you.

Say that out loud. Um, real quick update on the future land use map. Just to let you know, this was taken up Tuesday night by the mayor commission. There was discussion. Um, the future land use map has been tabled until their April voting session um to allow for a process to um give the commissioners additional time to revisit the designations, not just within their district, but just countywide. Um, how we got to that point I I think was interesting and productive. Uh, there was there was a lot of back and forth and discussion. Alex was a part of it. The manager's office sponsored it. Um, we had very good productive discussions with with almost every commissioner. Um, some weren't a part of those discussions because they opted out or or um felt comfortable with it. We weren't really sure, but um we did have some changes suggested and we had a list of changes that came forward and I think when that list materialized and the map started to change, I think those other commissioners said, oh, like that can happen. And and we were saying all along, well, this is something that not only could happen, but we kind of anticipated it would honestly. And that's a good thing because those commissioners speaking on behalf of their constituents and just from their own experience need to put fingerprints on this policy document. We we want that. They this needs to be their map as much as it's anybody's. So that's where we are. So um I am anticipating hearing the mayor in that proceeding said manager's office to put together that process and to articulate it um as soon as possible. So that hasn't been today, but hopefully very soon we'll know more about that and

we'll let you guys know just from anformational standpoint how that's looking. So at the March meeting we can give you an update on where we stand and how we're moving forward. If changes are made to this map, we also have been very true to a very public and transparent process in the development of this map. That will not change. So there will be other moments for public o input and opportunity for for weighing in. It does not and has not been remanded back to the planning commission. So

for yeah so so really I think the sense is that there there may be some adjustments made but the general direction of what's on this map that as you forwarded it to them is is is still not in question. Let's just put it that way. There. I'm done. Okay.

So, yeah, one commissioner made she's like, well, this part should be neighborhood, this part should be that. But I think what had what kind of hit the other commissioners is it was a list of every property that she had to make it clear. and there's 80 properties or so and everybody's like, "Oh my gosh." Where I can look at that and it took about 17 seconds to go, I got exactly what she's doing, but I've been doing this for two years. Y'all would have done it quickly, too. Um they they just it knocked them back. And then I do think um it to Bruce's u it it gave the others ideas. So I think we're going to start seeing more. And again, I'm always just one of those, as long as they're reading and doing the proper thing and they want to make an adjustment here and there, it's the people's map, as I called it. It's not our map. It's not the committee's map. Um, so I'm good with that. But the but those changes did come at right at the weekend prior to Tuesday's vote and that was the other thing. And so, and there was I don't know why it came at the last second, but um that I I'll I'll um thank Commissioner Davenport for sort of saying let's not wait till the weekend before the vote at this time. Uh get over to staff with your changes and um so that's it was disappointing to see it kind of hit that way because this thing needs to get going and to us. Um, but I do I do hope that the other commissioners keep it as appropriate as possible.

Motion. Actually, before we do a motion to I just had a question, Bruce, in your uh planning director's report. Do you have anything to report yet about this GI package of zoning changes that I understand is going to be coming to us with instructions? There has been nothing forwarded back from that presentation through the mayor back to the manager back to staff. Okay. It's still working their way. Correct. And I and I think they understand the linkage between that package of proposals and the future land use matter. So they want to do future land use first

and that's always been the discussion. Um, but we'll see. Like I mean I those things that were suggested at that presentation are easier to address with this in place. Without this in place, they can be done. It's just harder to do. Fair enough. I'll get it that way. Right. I move to adjourn. Right. Second.