Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

this group. Um, yeah, these were commissioners from Appling County, uh, making bib. Um, uh, I mean, I watch all their meetings. You don't watch their meetings. That's right. That I haven't I haven't got that app on. Okay. Commission meetings.com. That's right. That's right. Chattam County. Uh, let's see. Henry County, Newton. Uh, the person who I would almost label a groupy was from Rockdale. So, there you go. I don't know. I mean, you should be

you should feel like people are are counting doing good work. Wait, you got to say that again when when the I know, right? That's interesting because Yeah, because I've watched the meeting sometimes on, you know, the YouTube commercial before. Yeah. And I'm always like, why are there ads in the middle of the night? It ain't been Yeah. I'd be curious to know how many people watch it live compared to how many recorded, you know? I I bet I bet our communications department could tell us. Yeah. I mean, the views on ours are always more than one, so might not be a hundred, but a lot of it like six. Yeah. See if it's uploaded.

See if it's up. go back and refer and I agree. Andor I thought I thought that was some of our best work.

I know. I told you this, Bruce, that now that I've attended planning commission meetings elsewhere for work, I I really appreciate our group because I've seen some serious dysfunction and uh I think even in our most frustrating moments, we are still functioning and trying to be civil and thoughtful. All right. So you made me appreciate this planning commission. All right. So we are live. Um would anybody like to introduce uh the staff reports into the record?

I will. Okay. To introduce the staff reports into the record and all materials into a second. Second. All right. All those in favor say I. I. Um, meeting minutes from February 5th, 2026. Would anybody like those? Okay. Any comments, changes, anything? Right. All those in favor say I. I. Um, courts. Yes. Yes. We have a May courts presentation. Very exciting.

We have a report. L Warren. Nell Warren is going to join us. She is our planner three for transportation planning and she's going to walk us through

um well Mark might or might not get the visuals up. Um, I just wanted to come and let y'all know that, um, I did I've done a complete overhaul of our Makeourt's website, um, in the effort to make our transportation, um, projects more visible to the public. Um, get us up to ADA standards. Um, it's the first time we have, um, done a redesign since the website was put up originally, so it looks vastly different, better. When was the last update? No, it's never been updated. When was it put online? Since it was put online. That's a good question. I'm gonna say that it looks early 2000s. Wow.

Um I mean it's been updated in the sense that documents have been added in the same way. Um but it's still the same layout and design. So it's been completely um redesigned.

So this is what it's going to look like um with our new map. And you can see across the top there's a banner with the different um topics. Um and the first one is the committee

just come up. You missed. Sure. That sorry we on that way I can trip over all the collect everything. Hello.

Um so, um it has all the information about our committees that meet. Um all of our agenda items and each of the items that um the documents that go with the agenda and our minutes are on there. Um they're organized um chronologically so that they're easy to find. Um uh we have a uh GIS map that you can uh zoom in and find specific projects split out by bridges, intersections and different road projects. Um then we have our projects both the ones that are going to be com construction will start within five years and then the ones where construction um will be happening sometime in the future more than five years. Um, no promises on when construction will finish. Um, and then also just to sort of round it out, I've also made a page of the G dot projects that are happening in Madison, Clark, and Okone counties. And then also locally funded projects, for example, our new college square, which I'm very excited about, is the first project. and then our Tesla projects um with a link that goes back to um the T+ page so that you can get more details um from their site. Um and then this is G Dots made an amazing website about what they're doing on 316 um even though it's not well three of the intersections are in our area um but just I thought this is something that people would want to know. Um we all we all use 360. Um and then uh we've got a series of documents that we're required to post. So all of those are on there including the archives um for what we've done in the past. Um and then uh moving into uh this

is part will be continuously updated. Um we have our traffic counts. Um TPW is putting together a vision zero map that's going to be amazing. um and links to our transit system. So this will be a series of resources of just various transportation um well not projects but resources that are available in the Madison, Clark and Okone counties. And then uh I've got section about us because everybody's always asking me what makees. So now you'll have the opportunity to go read about it and see all of the work that we do. So, um, but I'm really excited to get it up and running. And so, there you go.

Awesome. This is really great. Yeah. Now, would you mind spending like 60 seconds just quick like what an MO is and like I know everyone can go to it, but I every time we have this make for item on our agenda, I always think like, oh, I don't think most of these people know what this is, but what an NPO is.

Ano? Um the federal government requires every urbanized area that's over 50,000 people to have a metropolitan planning organization um which uh looks at transportation issues in that region. Um and so Maid works is the Madison, Athens, Clark pony regional transportation study area. And so um so we do the planning for transportation um while y'all do the planning for the land use. So that's kind of the division that. So yeah, so we work really closely with both JOT and with Federal Department of Transportation

and we've been really lucky. You know, Nell's got a fresh set of eyes on this. We've we've always done well with meeting the requirements of G do um we're trying to go a step beyond. So to the extent that we can hit the mark all the time so they don't have to worry about us, that's great. But if we can start collaborating and adding some additional things and actually making it something that somebody wants to visit and is easier to understand and and showing uh the cross-pollination that happens across multiple jurisdictions, multiple departments, multiple planning efforts all circling around the transportation issue. That's what I hope and I think this website's going to do for us as a starting point. Does it get linked from I guess the planning department page as well as being its own standing stand.

Okay. Okay. So, um why not Jackson and Oth County or is Jackson part of Gainesville? Jackson is part of Gainesville. Both was invited. Um they we do have a a little piece of Okal Forb that's in um Mayports because it's done by where the population lives. Um it's done off of census data. Um but they have declined to be part of the decision-m process even though we do have a little piece of their county in our jurisdiction.

Do we keep up with Jackson County because they're they flood people in a so it's Well, love their money. So, keep them coming, but they have chosen to be with Gangsville. I mean, most of their population is in the northern part of the county and that's where I goes through. Do you all kind of check in with each other? You know what I'm saying? Just we do talk. Yes. Transportation crosses those lines. Okay. You kind of know what they're doing and they know what we're doing. I was going to say there's a really heavy G dot presence on the committees. I I think there's this sort of bigger state view of everything as well.

Thank you'all for giving me the time. Thank you. Um we haven't had a Mayor presentation for a while, but if there's any public comment related to Mayors, now would be the time. And if not, then we will go to our first item under new business, 330 Old Hall Road.

Good evening everybody. Uh the following is the staff presentation for 330 Old Hole Road. These are the first two action items on the agenda. Uh the associated plan numbers are zone 202620293 and SCP 202620294. The request is for um there are two requests. The first request is a resoning request to remove existing zoning conditions on the property. Um to take it from I asterisk industrial with conditions to straight industrial. Um and then the second request is for a special use permit for a level three industrial use concrete batch plant. Um the level three was triggered as a result of truck traffic. Um the code stipulates that over a certain amount of truck traffic uh over the amount of regular trips to the site uh requires level three use. Um given that pretty much the entirety of the traffic going into the site is going to be truck use by sort of definition. Uh the level three was triggered. This is the aerial view of the site. You can see it is undeveloped, largely wooded. Uh to the north there is a George Power Station and just a little bit further up Old Hole Road is uh the G dot office. Uh this is the zoning map that uh proposed change. The triangle would go in onto the property to indicate the special use permit if granted. This is the future land use which is employment and that would remain This is the proposed site plan from the applicant. Um, it's maybe a little bit difficult to determine the details, but essentially a driveway off of Old Road

would enter the site here and on either side here are the um the units that manufacture the concrete. Trucks would pull in uh these areas here uh to fill up. staff's recommendation um is for approval of move the zoning conditions that are existing on the site um and for approval with uh two conditions of the special use permit. Uh staff's found that is compatible with the comprehensive plan as well as the future land use map uh the zoning map and the ordinances and that special use criteria have been satisfied. Um the two conditions the staff is recommending to be associated with the special use permit um is that the second condition of the 2004 rezone uh will be retained uh stating that site site design standards that are applicable to the EI zone will remain um after reszoning to I given that the surrounding parcels are zoned EI staff feels that this would be most appropriate. Um, and the second condition is that the property shall be limited to the uses permitted in EI except for the specific use associated with the special use permit request. Again, to just to kind of keep the property in line with those surrounding it and to ensure outside of the very specific use um applied for with the special use permit that uh sort of constrains so that no other more heavy industrial would come in in the future. And that concludes the staff report.

Thanks you. Now we'll hear from the applicant.

Good evening. Bryce, WNA Engineering, 355 Onita Street. Uh, I'd like to thank you all for your time and consideration tonight. Uh, this is a request basically to remove the binding site plan and zoning conditions that were established years ago for a waste transfer station that was ultimately never constructed. Our client wishes to use this property to house up to two mobile concrete batch plants and a special use, as Robert said, is requested due to the truck traffic comprising over half of all of the trips that are generated. Uh, I understand the phrase concrete batch plant implies a use far larger and more impactful than what is actually in front of you here. These plants are the size of semi-truck trailers and exceed one of the industrial use thresholds only due to the small numbers of personnel that are required to operate them. They would exceed that threshold even if they had just three or four loads a day. You know, it just takes a couple of folks to run this thing. The proposed use is going to have negative uh negligible negative impacts on any surrounding properties, many of which are are vacant and all of which are zoned for industrial and employment uses as well. And as staff pointed out in the report, the property is close to the loop and highways 29 and 72, which will lessen any impacts on local roads. I should add that the short-term intent is to place only one batch plant on this site. And if business is good and uh demand is sufficient, a second batch will follow, a batch plant will follow in the years to come. The trip numbers that are cited in the report are a theoretical maximum that are unlikely to be approached at any time in the near future. Also, we have no problem with staff's proposed conditions of approval and I look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anybody here to speak in support of the application? There anyone here to speak in opposition to the application? Okay, hearing none, we'll take it for the session. Who wants to start?

I just have a question. Can you clarify a little more about why what the truck traffic impact is that triggers the need for this special use? So the that level three use um if if you exceed um that percentage that and I think it is 50%. Um then it it has that opportunity for us to have this kind of discussion to make sure it's appropriate. Um I will say in staff's evaluation and I think the applicant did a good job presenting this in the packet. This location is kind of perfect because you it really minimizes the amount of local road use for these trucks. And this section of a local road, that's section of old hole road doesn't have that much passenger vehicle traffic. And that's the primary concern for having that tipping point for truck traffic is the mixing of large heavy trucks that can't slow down very well with heavy loads mixing with passenger vehicles. That's why we have this um special use requirement to bring those before and through this kind of process.

Okay. So when I read the the ordinance that it's discussed there, my understanding it right that um like it says truck traffic comprising 50% or more of the site generated trips. So it's not a the absolute number of truck trips. It's the percentage of trips that are truck rather than car. So something that you had 100 car trips and 50 truck trips would not trigger this, but something that has 10 car trips and six. Yeah. 10 were trucks. Yeah. So So it might be singledigit or low double digit numbers and it's not an absolute number. It's just because they don't require a lot of car trips because there's not a lot of employee.

Okay. Interesting.

Um yeah. B I mean based on that understanding I guess I'll just say this seems like a a great location for a use like this and um it doesn't sound like the number is all that high. It's just rather that the number of of personal vehicle trips is pretty low that even puts this in front of us but it doesn't seem like a um high intensity use that would concern me in this location. So that's my thought. I do agree. I don't know that there's really many other places where this could go. And as the applicant said, Bruce reiterated, it's near major highways on the loop. So, it does seem uniquely suited. I'm make a motion to approve with staff conditions.

Okay. We have two we have two votes. So, the first motion needs to be in consideration of the reszone to remove the condition. Okay. So that I would make a motion to fur the reszone with the removing of the condition and then we have to vote on that before another motion could be made. Correct. Special use be a second motion. Oh, and the special use will contain the conditions. The special use would have the conditions come forward. So two motions, two votes. Yes. Okay. So we got to remove the Yes. Yeah. Wait, I have a question about that procedurally. So the staff conditions do really relate to uses under the zoning. So I guess I'm cur second vote that because it's associated with the special use.

Yeah. So how does that then get reflected in like the zoning map after the second vote? Okay. That that special use field puts those on. That's right. Yep. Okay. I'll second the motion. I'll second it. Okay. All right. Ready? Uh, Fleece, yes. Barisford, yes. Paul, yes. Pass, yes. Sams, yes. Sanders, yes. Lord, yes. Garrett, yes. Motion passes unanimously. All right. Can I make a motion for the second part?

Sure. So, make a motion to approve the special use permit permit with conditions with the staff recommended conditions. Second your comments otherwise. Uh Gary, yes. Glee, yes. Paris, yes. Yes. Uh pass, yes. Fans, yes. Sanders, yes. Yes. Motion passes unanimously. All right. So item three, 345 West Hancock Avenue.

All righty. Uh the following is the staff presentation for 345 West Hancock Avenue, Alternative Compliance, 2026 03135. be quick.

Uh so the request is for alternative design compliance for the lo for an addition to the existing surface parking lot on site as well as associated evergreen screening of the lot. Uh this is the location. Um in the southwest corner of the lot is the old YWCA building um which was built in 1913 and the existing service parking lot with trees going down Palaski. This is the current uh zoning of the property which would be unchanged. This is the current future land use which is downtown which would be unchanged. Uh this is the proposed site plan that the applicant has provided uh showing that extended parking uh which goes down further to the bottom of the lot here. Um and as well as some additional trees that would be planted along Palaski Street here. Um alternative compliance evaluate the following um elements that the request would result in public benefits greater than any negative impacts. that the request is consistent with goals, objectives, and policies in the comp plan, that the request is consistent with the attributes of downtown, and that the request conforms to the alternative compliance guidelines. uh staff is re uh it is incompatible with the comprehensive plan um as well as the overall plan for downtown generally um which is uh generally quite restrictive on any additional surface parking um throughout downtown and staff takes the view of parking in downtown uh as a whole as opposed on an individual basis just because area is very limited. Um so staff has found that there is larger negative impact than positive in this case um and overall is recommended to

that concludes the staff report you hear from the applicant.

All right. Thank you guys. Um, by way of introduction, my name is Jason Hajj and um, I along with Sam McKelith behind me, we own the LLC that owns this property. Um, we were actually tenants in the in that building. Um, going back to 2015 or 16. Um, and the previous owner asked us one day if we'd be interested in purchasing the building, which we ended up doing for 2018. Um, uh, neither of us is a landlord by trade. Um, we certainly didn't know all the codes and zoning variances and whatnot, but um, have learned a lot since 2018. Um, uh, friends, engineers, qual has helped a bunch. Um, but here we are. Um, we inherited all the existing conditions of this historic property. Um, which includes the parking on the front um, and the sides. Uh we now know that if we were building this today, we would do the exact opposite of this. Um we actually uh occupi occupy this building for uh for our businesses which have grown. Sam's company occupies the entire basement floor. Mine occupies the entire top floor and then in the middle level we have other professionals renting office space. Um we've made significant investment in this historic property um since we've uh purchased it and um we did this to accommodate the businesses and they as they've been steadily growing. Um the parking lot is in severe disrepair. Um and that's our next major investment. Um, so with our businesses growing, our preferences to remain downtown, um, we wanted to see if we could potentially expand the parking lot while undertaking um, the required maintenance that's require that's needed right now. Um, having parking on site is

one of the main reasons we wanted to buy the property. Um we like having our staff in office and have had to adjust to some hybrid um type remote setups um to just we're really close to having the amount of parking required but um if we're having busy days at the office, we'll have to make other plans. Um we investigated options for shared parking um in our area through Prestige Parking who's actually a tenant of ours on the main level. Um, we know they manage a lot of the lots downtown, but understand options are extremely limited due to all the requests for parking by the multif family development. So, in consideration of our submittal, we acknowledge planning staff's recommendation to deny this request given the strict application of the code. Um, but we would like the commission to consider our following responses to the staff's issues. Um, first with regard to the parking count requested, our building is actually 11,327 square feet. Um, as a as a result of the renovations we've undertaken. Um, we believe the planning may have used the key public uh square footage as the basis for their evaluation. Um, and that's not correct. Um, our request for 37 spaces actually meets code for the maximum allowed based on one space per 450 square ft, which requires 25 minimum. However, the maximum allowed is 50% more, which would get us to the 37. Um, it appears that the building square footage wasn't listed on the site plan submitt. Um, so that was our fault or or the engineers. um which has led to this confusion, but we're happy to confirm this number. Um to clarify, we're not asking for more parking than code allows. Um we're simply seeking the amount of parking our square foot is allowed per code.

Second, we understand the impact of removing the existing water oaks, but unfortunately there are no canopy requirements for downtown. Um, we acknowledge staff's concern for the narrow landscape strip that we are incorporating between the back of the sidewalk right ofway line and the proposed wall for the expanded parking. Um, while this would 10 ft wide, our waiver request would reduce this to a little over 4 feet. Um, staff notes this is not code compliant for the proposed trees. However, these trees are not required by code. There is no street tree requirement in the downtown zone, only parking lot trees which can be planted to meet code in other areas of the site. We are planting these trees voluntarily to offset the impact of the canopy loss at Molaski and enhance the streetscape, soften it up some. Um, but it's not required where staff has noted concerns. Um, these are non-required trees on private property outside of the rightway. We feel like we should have the option to plant these trees if they are not specifically required by the code. We did argue this with our arborist Chris Hughes of Brookwood Tree Consulting and he believes that it represents not only enough space for shrubs and ground covers to soften the wall, but also the trees we have proposed, provided the correct species is chosen. As it turns out, Chris just completed the tree survey of downtown for the ADDA and noted that many of the older trees in downtown have been there for decades um are planted in less open soil area than what code requires and what we are proposing. Third, staff noted the difference in the number of trees shown in the elevations versus the plan. Um, and there is a discrepancy there. Admittedly, uh, the intent was to mix an appropriate medium tree for mass and canopy with a smaller understory tree, which would assist in filtering the view to the parking area. We're more than willing to plant uh the seven total trees as shown in the rendered uh elevations and adjust the

plan submitted for plans review accordingly. We would have our arborist work with ACC's arborist to collectively agree on appropriate appropriate species in this area. Lastly, staff noted that the sketches did not contain a scale and therefore couldn't evaluate wall height in the images. These perspectives were intended to illustrate the more visual nature of the wall and planning along the street. The wall height noted was intended to confirm that the wall would meet the maximum allowable height to meet the code requirements relative to offset. We have shot points and field measured for this condition and can meet the requirements of section 9-10-6 C.8. We are not seeking a waiver from this section for wall height or setback. I can pro provide a scaled version of this section for your review which would be included in a plans review submittal for confirmation. Equally important is the traffic engineer's concern over the location of the existing driveway also that we inherited. Um as you know uh it's been there uh for some time. Uh we do not anticipate that the additional seven spaces would have a significant impact on this condition. However, we would be willing to consider moving the driveway as part of this project if the commission believes this is necessary. We have the room along our frontage to meet a 50 or 100 foot offset from the intersection uh pending further evaluation by ACC transportation engineering. In closing, we respectfully request your consideration of our proposed improvements where local business owners who have been investing in downtown Athens and the additional parking would definitely help us operations. Our request is to approve the expansion of the parking lot along Pilaski Street and the resultant landscape strip as shown or as modified tonight by commission. We understand the plans are intended to be binding binding, but also acknowledged that some changes per your comments may need to be required.

Think we can work through these and plans review if they are minor. However, if we need to revise and return the commission to address your comments, we're happy. That is all. Thank you.

Is there anyone here to speak in support of the application? Hey everyone, Sam Mcworth. Um 725 Bob and Mill Road here in Athens. Uh like Jason said, um you know, we've grown our businesses. Um we love the uh being downtown part of this community. Um we've made a lot of significant investments in the building and um if you've I don't know if anybody checked out the parking lot, but it's you know the concrete's coming up and it's in bad bad shape. So, initially we were just like, well, we just do some maintenance, go back and then we thought, um, you know, in our minds, we want to make the property more beautiful, more attractive, um, more enjoyable for our staff and just, uh, everybody, our neighbors, too. So, just, you know, landscape, hardcape, um, uh, and increase the parking by just a few spaces. So, we feel like it's a a good ask and willing to work with ACC to, um, work through these next steps. So, Yeah. Uh, feedback.

Thank you. Anyone else to speak in support of the application? Anyone to speak in opposition?

Okay. Who wants to start us off? Um I uh I always really try to default to starting with that staff is right and I and that I'll agree with it and I just don't agree with staff on this particular staff reform. Um, for some reason this one I I think we do have to kind of sort out a couple of these technical questions. It just came up like whether that it the request does actually need to have a request for additional parking because depending on the square footage calculation, I think that kind of get needs to get resolved. So, but I'm also okay with it if they I just I don't I kind of understand that the various members of staff and department need to say things like we can't expand the non-conforming driveway use. The last thing I'm interested in is is moving that driveway because five more parking spaces or whatever that's going to be is in that driveway. And so it seems to me like and yeah, there's a lot of technical questions. I'm okay with more parking. This is a unique property. It's not necessarily right in the middle of the downtown. They inherited this weird corner front yard parking and I don't think it's going to make that big a difference. I just want to note things that I that I thought about and I think that the applicants brought up is um these water oaks can get demolished or taken out tomorrow. I believe I don't think there's any requirement that they stay. Um, a lot of water oaks in this area are at the end of their lifespan, unfortunately. So, water oaks are kind of a ticking time bomb of that size. Um, and I'm sort of I'm a little curious about whether this would actually be a binding

site plan because one of the things that I noted is like um they're proposing more trees in the parking lot and that's nice. like there's some things that are proposed that are nicer than what's there now. And um having just gone this afternoon is like drove driven on the parking lot. It's it is like crumbly. And um I guess the last thing I want to say is that when I was reading through staff's concerns about this not meeting the goals of the comp plan, I felt like they're kind of choosing which ones like part of our comp plan is also like viable downtown businesses and historic preservation and things that promote that. And to me, both of these do that. I want people I think we need to encourage uses downtown that are not student housing. And if it helps somebody make their property more viable and more beautiful because a parking lot with like new trees in it can actually be a lot more attractive um I'll take it. And I think there is this question about um his buffering requirement and I think that even if we accepted that they don't need to ask for more parking there might be something in there about needing to reduce the width of the buffer. So I think we probably need to talk about that. But that's my general feeling about this one. Um, say my my general feeling is that that no more surface parking downtown is the line that needs to be held. Um, even though this is small and even though uh it it is a completely reasonable thing to ask for, but I also uh agree with Sarah that the technical questions, I'd really like to hear staff's response to what was brought up.

With regards to the uh what the applicant stated, I would like to see hear that resolved before getting much further into it. I mean we can address that now if yeah like so so one of the things to keep in mind in the commercial downtown zone required parking is only required for residential uses and hotel uses. So commercial uses there is no requirement. You are allowed to have zero in function. Now

it is property owners right to also look at the ratios that are in chapter 930 and apply those and if they are going to do parking use those ratios to determine a number. Um but I just want to make that really clear is there's the ability to have zero. So technically as long as we're talking technical standards zero is legal. any increase, we would we would work through using a ratio. Now, if the square footage if there's some deviation in square footage between that that was reported and that that's actual, especially if there's been ren renovation work that maybe freed up some space, we can certainly run a number off of the most accurate amount. That's that's fine. um the ratio that was used sets the minimum for that particular use. But again, understanding the minimum is actually zero. But for that use, you would come up with a number and then you have the ability for a maximum to go 50% above that. So is that I'm not sure if

so the square footage the parking space per square footage calculation is not the relevant one. like it's a maximum, right, that we're dealing with here and the maximum is set by the square footage of the building. So what yeah the m the square footage of the building for that use. So an office use would have the ratio of one per 300. Okay. Right. And so what I that's how you're getting to 450 is if it's one per 300 square feet and you go 50% above that that's how you get to correct. Right. Okay. So

what I heard the applicant say was 11,327 square feet divided by 300 that would be 37 spaces round it up to 38 to meet that minimum if if they were using that ratio. But I just want to be clear minimum or a maximum. That's the that would be the minimum using the ratio one for 300 is what I did. So that gets you at 38 and then times 1.5 the max that they could have is 56.

So they don't need to request this first request. Is that the key here is the placement between the building and the street. Is the reason why alternative placement it's not the number. So, you know, between the building and the street and the cause and effect of that with the with the overlay is why this is in front of you for alternative compliance. And if I'm missing some detail on that, gentlemen, please help me out. Yeah, there's no no allowed parking between a street and a building commercial downtown.

We also had the question about retaining walls because that is an aspect of the overlay that has to be regulated as well. the height of the retaining wall. There's there is a a setback for height. Um what I heard the applicant say tonight was they'll meet that in looking at just kind of the grading on the site it in order to meet that in this placement maybe challenge and and if it's going to be addressed in plans review then so be it. But it may end up with that parking lot doing this to hit to the retaining wall that's capped at a certain height in this location. If this retaining wall starts to move any further inward to the site, the parking doesn't work because they have to have 24 feet of backup space.

Bruce, can I am I allowed to hand out credit or if there's a question from the planning commission, they can call you up. So I the question was about technical issues. Yeah. Does that help? Yeah. Uh I I would like to see what what you got. We did um Josh Puns, he's our civil everybody, but she does the imagery. Um Oh, something. Okay. Yeah, this is the concern is like from the sidewalk. It gives just kind of a visual of the height of the wall.

Yeah. Yeah. So before you hand that out, we need to vote to accept it into the I make a motion that we accept it into the record. Second. All in favor? All right. Can we get copies made real fast so everybody gets to see it at the same time? I don't like looking at something everybody. Um, following up to Sarah's question regarding the screening,

Bruce, like so, so is the like right now there's the trees there. Um, so it really doesn't even matter what is along the street. It's the fact that there's just park between the the street and the building is is the issue. That's

Yeah. And you know any tree that's in the right ofway is an Athens clar county tree. So a project that removes or impacts those trees. A street tree requirement in the downtown. But any Athens clar county tree is a protected tree. And so that tree would have to be wholly contained on their site for it to be their perview to remove. But I'm not 100% certain that we know exactly where the existing trees fall if they're completely on their property or if they are straddling a property line. So that's that's an issue that is involved with this. They're certainly showing replanting on this plan. Um if this plan were approved, I think Sarah your question was is it binding or is it not? This is what you are voting on is a proposed remedy as an alternative to comply with the guideline. That's the alternative design compliance. So what's depicted is their their suggested remedy and it would become the expectation moving forward. Um if the driveway alignment and I don't know if you want to refer to chief transportation or public works staff on a comment on that, but if that driveway alignment were to move, you could do one of two things. You could want to see what that would look like on a new plan and that would be part of an action either to table um or to deny if that was something that you needed more information about. Or you could have a condition of approval that the maximum amount of spaces between the building and the street between the building and the street is to not exceed what was depicted and all plantings would be allowed to occur with the opportunity for tree placement to shift in response to driveway placement. That's that is another option, a condition of approval that you can put on it if you were headed in that direction.

There is a landscape buffer requirement of 10 feet down and that the alternative proposed in the design is the tree plantings the upper and lower story in the wall. Yeah. Just just to let everyone know where where they're where the applicant is trying to get to from that point. Um,

so my I think I'm inclined to agree with u what Sarah Barersford said that you know u although I'm very sympathetic to Sarah Herring's point about no more surface parking downtown being important you know we don't generally it's not allowed as a primary use um downtown but as an accessory to an other use downtown it is allowed um and I think the no prime primary use is very important. You know, a dedicated parking lot is not what we need downtown. Accessory to a different use, um, it's okay. And and I understood uh from the applicant and from looking at the report and everything that if the building was up at the street, like most downtown buildings are, and the parking was behind, they'd be allowed to do what they want to do here. It's just that this particular historic building is not situated in that way on the lot. That's not their fault. and they're trying to um continue a positive use downtown. You know, the diversity of uses downtown, not all for students and for tourists. Having offices downtown, supporting local businesses at lunchtime, etc., I think is a a very good thing um for maintaining the fabric of downtown. So, um my inclination would be to uh ultimately disagree with the staff report. and see where that's coming from and and to u support um allowing them to to do what they're trying to do here so that they can continue investing in the building and having their businesses downtown. And that's that's just good for the balance of uses in the downtown area. I tend to agree with Sarah Gary on this 100%. Because in driving in here tonight, I was looking at an empty parking lot that was

right across the street from here within line sight of this building and it had one car in it. And I know that downtown parking agreements are difficult, but I also don't think it's on us to make the conditions of that property whole for them. And I think that 10-ft buffer and the trees as mature as they are are really important to the landscape of downtown and serve a function and beautify the street. And I'm it's going to take a long time for those trees to get back to the place to replace what's there. So I I'm not I'm inclined to support staff on this.

Sarah, um also I I haven't heard anything. Um, and if I miss something, please let me know. I haven't heard anything to suggest that uh and and like like y'all have said, it is a very small number of parking spaces um which is a very large amount of the street frontage relative to the um the parcel. It's a very small number of parking spaces and I haven't heard anything suggest that the existence these parking spaces is make or break for the the viability of these businesses. Uh, what I heard was when it's a really busy day at the office, it can get a little tricky. Um, I just I didn't hear anything for the like absolute necessity of this change to our downtown streetscape.

Um, you go ahead. Um, okay. Oh, I was just going to say that I tend to agree this seems to be more of a convenience for the applicant than provide any sort of public good. So, I think personally I don't like the change aesthetic. So, I think without more of a benefit I would have a hard time supporting the change.

So, at first I was when I was just glancing I was not in favor. I like this is not what we want. More parking like this. I looked into it, drove by it, heard the applicant, and all of that has molded me back into well, first of all, warps. Those things are going to be gone in 10 years. They they were all the rage a 100 years ago because they grew fast and grow fast, die fast. And we're seeing it all up and down Mill Avenue. and and it is it is I've been on a committee um that looked into what do we do about Mil Avenue because it's going to lose those big trees. It's losing them fast and so these trees are going to be gone. I don't I don't care. I love the shade. I love oaks. They're great. But um and then as far as them being able and again it's not necessarily everything we're dealing with here, but extra parking there. uh they they with the uh the building itself. I've driven by there plenty of times and it's pretty dagone full. So I mean it just depends on when you go by there. I just that goes with every every business in town and I'll be honest, Pilaski and 61 years old, born and raised here and otherwise they had every meeting somewhere in it. Um but in my mind downtown stops at Pasi. Um the the idea that it goes on past it in that direction. I actually have some issues with some of the building that has taken that and and done it. So this this having you know adding parking it the downtown rules just feel a little odd in a sense. But back to the thing on the trees, the trees aren't going to last very long

anyway. Um, I will miss the shade if this if this goes forward and they do cut them down and they plant these others. I I will probably not like that. But as they grow up and begin to shade, it'll it'll be something that in 10 years it's going to look fine about the time that the trees that are there are going to be down. And so at least there's something in it place. Yeah.

Um whether or not there are trees there, the comprehensive plan policies of decrease single occupancy car ride by incentivizing alternative transportation, decrease the number of vehicles in downtown while increasing the amount of clean, walkable, attractive park-like open space. Decreasing the number of vehicles, decreasing single occupancy car rides has a much broader impact than just one parking lot. That's uh just want to draw attention back to that. I also wanted to um ask the applicant if they if he had anything to say. I saw him raise his hand after I said something and I'd just be curious to if if you wanted to cope and share whatever was on your mind.

Thank you so much. Um, hearing a couple mentions about the water oaks reminded me of something I should have put in the story from earlier is we unfortunately lost one recently a few years back. I don't know if any of you guys were aware. Um, a gust of wind blew it over on top of six of our employees cars and caused them great hardship in the way of deductibles and all the other inconveniences that caused. So, there's a little bit of concern around the remaining water oaks. We didn't want to just I think we can go cut them down tomorrow if we wanted to like Mr. Bears first said. Um but we we like them too, you know. Um but and to replace those we were like let's let's replace them with trees that we're seeing in other parts of downtown. So we're very passionate about having our place, you know, fit in with downtown suiting the needs of our our local businesses. So thank you.

That's interesting. I know I may not get a vote in this, but like yeah, I not a lot. I'm like totally on the fence about this because on the one hand, I agree with Sarah, like we make so many concessions to cars. Like we spend so much infrastructure on cars that it just it's starting to boggle my mind. And um and so many like just accommodations that we make for these vehicles. I it's I don't I'm not a fan, especially downtown, where you shouldn't be driving your car downtown and parking it there all day if you work if you're lucky enough to work downtown. Um at the same time, I do understand about Water Oaks, this part of the parking lot. I mean, it it is a rustic looking parking lot. No offense. And um yeah, any of those trees could fall down. So if if they're gone now, we just have this sort of whole of space. What I think is interesting about it is the one place I have pause in is that it's almost like when we see something from the hearings board where it was like this the weird topography of a space forced a thing. In this case it's just a building for a hundred years or more has been situated on that site in a certain way over all of this would be different. So, it's a weird situation with the history of the lot. Um Sarah, um if this is denied and the water oaks had to go down or should go down for whatever reason, they could plant more trees. Like if they if that's if that's I mean it does sound like, you know, having a beautiful space, having trees is important to them, there could be more trees in that space. And I think I was just going to say kind of the same thing that like uh yeah the trees it's the loss of that whole kind of buffer area that would be more impactful than the trees themselves. I think

Alex

so I will say and I get what you're saying where we're trying to people drive less walk uh whatever um but not drive. I live on Timothy. If if I'm asked to come to a meeting, how am I going to get there? Because the bus doesn't come out there and I'm not ebiking all the way over there with my sport coat on. It's it's the world isn't going to stop doing what we do and a lot of us in business have unpredictable schedules. So, I'm kind of just throwing it out. I'm staring at you and I don't mean that. But, um so I mean problems not resolved. It's and and and again just a general statement about parking. It's there not everybody has the opportunity to ride the bus or ride a bike or skateboard.

But to that point though, I mean, we perpetuate the problem by you're able to just get in your car and think you can just park right in front of the building where you come here. But why? What else? Because there's other parking downtown. I mean, we have two public decks that we paid for that are a couple blocks. Exactly. And it's pouring down rain and I just got a knee replacement. I mean, I'm just telling you, there's there's there's situations where my mother at 89 years old is not parking there. And if she has to go do business with him, she is driving very well. She's not walking seven blocks. And so, I guess what I'm saying, this is not going to I want to back off of this because it really is a whole different discussion, but That's right.

Yeah. And so, but I I think taking it out on this where at least, you know, the result of the trees coming down could be mean there's a parking lot going in which is a little higher and not down below where it's more in our face. So, I'm just throwing that out there. Is there any historic protection on this building? I understand say historically importantly, but if like uh if the businesses have to move because they don't have the parking that their customers need then and they sell it um there there's no protection on the building, right?

There's no local designation and it's not part of the Western Downtown Historic District. Okay. Oh, sorry. I was just who's talking are we saying that there's a if we don't if we don't make this this concession that we could lose the building saying that

I haven't heard anyone say that but I'm just wondering you know if if um if we think that office uses in downtown are a valuable contribution to downtown than facilitating their ability to keep operating there uh seems like a public benefit to just really kind of want to move away from that subject, but I just want to point out that if we were really committed to not having more vehicular traffic in downtown, we wouldn't allow all the like structure parking that goes underneath with the student housing developments. Like I just think we're I think that we as a commission I've brought this up before that that we have a tendency to get really like focused in on these small things and then we'll see an application that's for a 10acre parcel and we we kind of don't beat it to death like we're beating this one to death. Like I think we sometimes these smaller applications invite like heavy scrutiny and I know downtown Parcel is is different and it is important but I I just I don't really think I'm sort of piggybacking on what Alex was saying that we're I also would like to build less of our cities around cars, but we I also don't think that like three or five or two or whatever extra parking space is going to matter to them. I don't think that's going to Why balance of of the problem one with the other. It's a very small number of spaces.

Yeah. Which I think is an argument for and against in a way. Yeah. But to me that kind of feels like a small benefit for something that would be a bigger loss. Yeah. Because there's I mean I think in all there's I think there to your point about why do we spend a lot of time talking about these little ones? I think you know downtown and parking are trigger words for lots of discussion. And uh yeah, I mean overall I kind of think there's a lot of parking downtown already. And if you're a business downtown and somebody has to walk a couple blocks to get to you, I don't think that's unreasonable. There are offices downtown that don't have any parking. I'd like to make a motion uh to recommend denial.

Any other discussion? Is it um what is procedurally? What is the type three procedure? Right. So, what does that mean? We're recommending an action. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I have two. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Motion to to deny Houston. Jen, are you still okay? Any other discussion? Otherwise, we'll do a voice. Roll call. Sorry. All right. The motion is for denial. Garren, yes. Police, yes. Barrisford, no.

Paul, no. Pass, no. Sams, no. Sanders, no. Andlord, yes. Motion fails. Three to five. We need another time to make we have to try this again.

Yeah, I can make a motion. I wanted to before I did that just ask staff if there's any kind of are all of the the concerns that you all have techn or tech um technical standpoint dealt with in plans review like the retaining wall issue and yeah

um okay and so other than that we're just totally going against recommendation is there any um is there. Uh I guess any Well, I just make a motion. We approve. That's all. I think that's I was trying to just see if there's any like condition around that that would be important for us to make. But I I think I'll just go ahead and make that motion.

I'm about to second it, but I did have the same question about conditions. Is there any condition from the staff standpoint that would make an approval um you know more manageable or or does the plans review process u enable staff to satisfy whatever other concerns may I think plans review is going to iron out the remaining specifics of how this actually gets built. Um, so no, I I can't think of a condition, um, especially, you know, hearing the discourse here, I can't think of a condition that would be helpful for staff to help navigate a motion for approval. No. Second.

Okay. Any discussion? Otherwise, approval. Motion is for approval. Uh, Gary, no. Police, no. Harris Street, yes. Yes. Pass. Yes. Sams, yes. Sanders, yeah. Handlord, no. Motion passes five to three.

All right. Great. Number four, 145 Allen Parkway for comments. Click on Thank you. I'm done. Presentation screen. Thank you, Max. Okay, we have a concept review for you at 145 Hayward Allen Parkway. This is not that SUP. Okay, sir. I apologize. is in the agenda in your notes. I apologize for that. Um the applicant is looking to do a mixeduse development that would allow groundf flooror residential that would require a special use permit. Um the applicant is uh before you all this evening to get some feedback before they actually submit that. So this is just a concept review for that. The property is 7.51 acres and is currently undeveloped. The proposal that they are looking at is uh 179 bedrooms. They have three different residential types that they would like to incorporate. They have an apartment structure. They have a secondary grouping that I would also call apartments as well. Um the first apartment structure would be that mixeduse component that would have some uh sort of neighborhood scale commercial. And then to the rear, they are looking to do some attached single family dwellings as well as some detached single family dwellings. Here is the site. So, we're just a

little bit off of Atlanta Highway on Hayward Allen Parkway. Uh we've got Hayward Allen Toyota right here. And if you guys have driven by the loop or by um Atlanta Highway, you can see a residential complex that is going in back here to the rear. I mentioned that because uh that residential complex will connect this roadway around. This is Hayward Allen Parkway. This is the preserve drive up here that is accessed off of Mitchell Bridge Road and serves uh I think three maybe four apartment complexes now at this point. Um here is the future land use. It is general business as is the majority of the parcels going towards Atlanta highway. And then to the rear, the majority of the parcels are the mixed density residential. Very fairly similar looking zoning map here to the future land use map. We have commercial general on the property and commercial general towards Atlanta Highway. Then we have RM2 mixed density residential to the rear. You can see some environmental areas there off to the side. So again, Hayward Allen Parkway here. We've got uh existing apartment complexes. We have the apartment complexes being constructed. We have the Tmont neighborhood and the assisted living care here. Um the Okone River is right up here, which is where you see some of this floodway and some of the streams um that go into the Okone. Uh in addition to that, there are long-term plans for connection of the greenway up this side of the river. And this residential complex right here is um providing a future opportunity to that if you all remember that reszone from last year. So um we did just get a narrative of the concept here. Um the applicant has since put together a site plan. I will allow them to present and speak to that. Um but in terms of consideration for this project, there is a need for housing and

a variety of housing. So, we've got at least a couple different unit types here proposed in this development. Um, and a need for additional housing. This is a pretty good location with good access. Uh, has the multif family projects around there to the rear. Um, the potential of some smallcale neighborhood commercial in here. Uh, could serve some of those projects as well if that's a small convenience store, grocery store, coffee shop, that type operation. Um, right there we've got Atlanta Highway out at a signalized intersection. So, good access onto one of our major thoroughares. If you go around to the rear, you can connect to Mitchell Bridge Road. Um, from Atlanta Highway and Mitchell Bridge Road, you can get to the loop and Epsbridge Parkway rather quickly from this area. Uh, this is redevelopment around some existing infrastructure. I spoke with our public facilities department. They have recently upgraded the sewer in this area. So there is um there is no capacity evaluation given for this project, but they gave me the thumbs up that we're in pretty good shape in this area. Um also good connection to water. Um and as additional infrastructure, we also have the two ACC transit lines that run down Atlanta Highway to this portion that would be fairly easy to access from the site. Um and as I mentioned, there is that potential connection to the ACC future green mine. That will conclude the staff reports and I will go ahead and leave this up here for the

right. Now we hear from the applicant.

Hey Logan Waters, 840 Cleveland Road. Um I just want to briefly go over some of this. We uh went in for the conceptual review because we were hoping this could be a more collaborative uh effort with y'all before everyone spends a lot of time, you know, going a total raw direction and it could be tabled. So, that being said, the client I'm working for, they think this would be an area that would be well suited for uh some full-time residents of Athens, Clark County. You know, the unit mix type that we're aiming for would be attractive to people looking to downsize or possibly empty nesters. We are looking at adding in some active amenity prospects into this layout. This is very conceptual. Um we have a couple design challenges we're still trying to work through, but every concept plan we've done so far does have that central green space that we really like as well as a small commercial component that's really designed just to support the residential side. Um as Mark mentioned, there is a greenway opportunity connection here. We think that would fit in well with the target demographics that we're going for. And you know, everything on Epsbridge, the close proximity of shopping, stores, restaurants, we think that would fit very well with uh who we're really targeting. Um so, as shown, we do have a few multi-story buildings in adjacent to some or adjacent to some town home styles as well as a few detached. We're hoping to keep all three types, but obviously we're also focused on the amenity package we can offer here, making it suitable for our target demographic. So, this just want to reiterate conceptual, but we were hoping to get some feedback from y'all as to do you feel it's appropriate for this area or maybe some things that you would like to see differently so we can work together as we move forward. Um,

I think that's really about it. I did want to mention a few waiverss that we might end up pursuing once we get further along. Uh conserved canopy might be an issue. Right now, the site is pad graded when they originally built the car fac or car dealership. The northern corner on the screen is the only portion that's currently wooded and that was a uh top soil stockpile. So, it's just scrub pines and everything. Unfortunately, I think for us to get the density and have the active amenity, we're probably going to take out a lot of the or clear a lot of the site. So, we are anticipating that waiver as well as uh only having a single entrance for we exceed the traffic threshold. So, looking forward to it. If you have any questions, be happy to answer them. you um see a comment comments not

sure like um yeah we would yeah okay all right so is there anybody here to speak in favor of the proposal or anyone here to speak at opposition all right comments Who wants to start?

Um, seems like a great site for some housing. I was looking at the zoning map and everything to the north of it is zoned RM2. Um, so it's kind of the transition point between the commercial zone stuff and the RM2 stuff behind it. um and um it's surrounded on two sides by a bunch of RM2 land. So having a bunch of town homes and apartments there seems very sensible and consistent with the adjacent existing zoning. Um, so yeah, I mean I think it seems uh like a fine idea and and I have no problem with with the ground level uh it's not like a corridor ground level residential there seems perfectly sensible as well and and I take it um that the reason um the applicant is not just saying like can we resone to RM2 is because you want to do some commercial. Is that correct? Yes, we'd like to try and honor the uh existing zoning if we can and it fit uh fits with our overall goal as well. So, we thought a special use was appropriate.

Yeah, just in terms of the general concept, it seems um like a very good use and an appropriate level of density um for residential there. Medium density residential makes a lot of sense. um to neighborhood serving commercial seems like an enhancement. So yeah, I'm strongly pro the general concept

there. Yeah. Um, with regards to the the ground floor commercial specifically, um, it definitely makes sense in that location to not have the full requirement of uh of the of the zoning. Um, and the fact that that they wanted that that they want to try to do some ground floor commercial there seems like a great opportunity for something more small scale, more neighborhood centered. Um, very very much in support of that.

I love it. I mean, in concept for those reasons, I like the variety of housing types. I really like that they've got some multif family added in with the town homes. Uh, I hope that they'll have some architectural variety within the town homes and they don't see the same. But I really appreciate them going for the special use permit over the RM2 so that they keep the little bit of commercial there to get back to the car centric. This allows the people who live there to have some amenities, some commercial amenities on site and it doesn't seem appropriate to have a full lone commercial first there because it's kind of tucked back. So I think in concept I really like where they're headed. Can I ask the applicant? You mentioned there were some challenges with the site. Could you come up and talk a little bit about Sure. some of the things you're grappling with.

Yeah. So, I don't want to sit here and be like, well, move this and move this. Um, so the shape of the parcel is slightly odd on the frontage. Um, we have that section. This Yeah, the green button. Green button. Yeah.

Oh, man. Shake. Shake a little bit. So, this pond area right here. um that and maybe an amenity is really the only thing we can fit there. Um we also have some easements along the frontage. There's a 60-in pipe that's coming from Hayward Island right there. And on the back here where we have the planning shown, that is existing canopy now, but it's within the Georgia Power Transmission easement. So, I'm not sure the wires should be able to count that. Um right in this area, there's actually like a 30foot stockpile of top soil that's got pine trees on it and it dips off pretty severely in the back corner. So, we'll have some challenges as far as getting to sewer on the front and also getting storm water in for this back area, but things that we're, you know, working towards. No, no sight's easy anymore.

No, because I didn't I didn't want to I don't want to like re-engineer your site because clearly, you know, but like I did notice that sort of gaping hole in the front where it was like that should be like if you ask me that's the commercial, you know.

Yeah. So right right now the commercial is this area and we've actually toyed with the idea of having some commercial more centrally located because it is going to be supportive neighborhood. You know we don't anticipate a ton of traffic coming off of bridge just for a coffee shop. So we have thought about maybe incorporating it into that central piece and including as a mini package there that's geared almost exclusively for that area but people can still come you know from the neighboring developments as well. Um but yeah, this is the low side for the majority of our basin from a storm water perspective. We do have to have storm water down there.

And we also have existing utilities such as sewer and storm pipes there as well. Yeah. I mean, not going to lie, like I would discourage you from putting the commercial in the middle of the development only because there are so many other interesting developments around there. I could see it being a spot for other people to Yeah. Yeah. For dogs too and stuff like that. So it could be some if it's if it's closer to the outside like that, it becomes a little bit more accessible to everybody.

Right. Right. And you know this is our parking would be right here and then also down here. So when I say in the center of the uh development, I think more along the frontage still, but maybe it would just be a small, you know, we have to have angled parking if we were to do a public or private street, which I also would like to discuss. You know, we are going for more of a community alley type approach and right now we have to do 50% running on a public or private street and it makes it really hard to fit with some of the concepts that we're doing from a housing type. These a lot of these flats you see, they're either one or one and a half stories and they're ant we're anticipating having a garage. So it just it makes it a little bit more difficult if we have to do a full streetscape for that and it really detracts from the central opening space that we want to highlight. Yeah. I mean I'm just speaking from me personally when we've seen has come before us that with like tons of alleyways that are trying to get you know like that to me is a bit of a red flag. like I don't mind a little bit of alleyways here and there to serve a purpose, but if the whole purpose is to just kind of like maximize the square footage around it, that to me is is a bit of a problem. Um, and yeah, as far as the actual buildings, um, I just know just aesthetically when you just start seeing driveways and garages rather than like entryways, you know, like when the garages are like the focal point of everything, that is a little bit of like a red flag for me, but that's more aesthetic, not necessarily like I don't mind in general the first floor residential and having the commercial pushed out to the the much like that in general. I think it's great.

Yes. Okay. Anybody have another question? I wanted to ask about your target target audience. I think I read in here it's 55 plus active adult. Is that Yeah. And so they're not actually ready to commit to a 55 plus because that does come with some other restraints that we can't it's hard to say at this point if we can meet that. But just with the unit style and unit mix we're offering. We're not intending on students being here. It's intended for full-time residents and the perfect full-time residence would be an empty neester or someone who's act aging wants to live in Athens and still be have a sense of community but be close to town. Uh, any clerk?

Couple of questions then. Will these be units for sale? Uh, some for sale, some for rent, or what's the yall anticip? Uh, I can't commit to anything, but preliminary discussions have been this is going to be a for rent community, which we found is apparently is attractive to a lot of our target demographic because it's less responsibility for them. You know, common maintenance of all grounds. All they're responsible for is what's inside their home. Okay. And then um so when you when you said alley, I did just like you did. I went whoa and it looked like you were saying what we see as a street. Y'all are thinking that could be done as an alley. So is that what you did say?

Well, so we have a requirement that we have to have 50% fronting on a public or private street. And what I'm saying is once we incorporate a public or private street, especially with these garages here, it shrinks down our central space. And we've already got some clever ideas. You know, these buildings actually have parking under the first floor. Again, this is all conceptual, but you know, ways that we could maximize our efficiency while maintaining a smaller footprint. Um, and then also give them the green space that they, you know, so attractive for so many people these days. So, I I tend to agree. Uh we we did have a a project that came through that was I I think we all kind of felt it was kind of cheating the system. Um putting in all these alleys and you drive into these neighborhoods and all you see is I'm just going to say at the butt end of a house and that is not attractive and in the long run that is going to deplete the value of a neighborhood like that whether it's rental or or purchasing. It's just going to get ugly and it's just going to get and those and you don't have to do the I understand with the alleys you don't have to do the walkway there are sidewalks and the trees and things you don't have to add when you do that. Um but I think it harms the neighborhood in the long run some I mean alleys where alleys should be fine and alleys are the main street and main way to get places. Uh that tends to run negative I feel like uh here. Yeah. Well, I just want to clarify. I don't want to get too deep into design specifics, but you know, in the instance I'm speaking of right now, we have houses fronting uh or garages front runninging on this road that's going to be public or private. You know, maybe an alternative would be we're allowed less a smaller percentage on that road, but we can do rear served alley. So that way maybe some of these units can actually front and have their

entryways opening up screen space. So when you see the butt end in the building, it's really on people going to park their cars and then the main focus is actually towards a communal side of the development in the center. Yeah. It's still a it's a slippery slope in a sense that um I I see what you're saying, but with the with the green space and all, but it it it's still just kind of you're just driving down a road to your house and you're just seeing this and it's when it's unattractive, curb appeal, curb appeal is a very real thing

and so keep it in mind. I mean, this is just catching here. So, yeah. And we're hoping to get a binding plant. I think April is our intent, but it may be the following month. Um, just depending on that. And staff's been awesome helping us along so far. Did you have a question? I did. Um, it looks like there's one entryway into the entire property. Is that what I said? Yes, that's correct. Okay. And then the other question is that bottom right section, is that a retention pond?

Uh, down here? Yes, that is a retention pond. There's going to there's a sewer easement right here along this property line. Um so it'll cheat in a little bit, but again that's we know it has to be there. The exact layout we haven't done yet. Okay. And then and is this a gated property? Uh there's been no mention of gating the property and since we're having that neighborhood commercial component, I don't I don't think that's a Okay. a goal. All right. Thanks. Mike,

uh, yeah, I just kind of want to go on the record as saying that I'm I kind of generally support it and, uh, you know, I think it's good location for something like this and I also don't have a problem with doing away with the ground floor. Okay. I just had a question um either for staff or the applicant. Just to the north of this property, there's it looked like it was 66 acres of RM2 on one parcel. Um, did I understand you right that that's being developed? We we have a design that that came before planning commission and it continues Hayward Allen Parkway and it connects to the preserve drive. Okay. Under construction.

So, yeah. Yeah, that rings a bell. Uh so so there's a proposal in the works in the development pipeline but not nobody's moving dirt anything or is it vertical already? Yeah. Oh really? I I didn't have it. Wow. How about that? 2025 aerial shows it as a forest right now. Yeah. So, so do you anticipate like the commercial being designed to be supported by that other residents, not just yours?

Uh, I mean that would be the hope, but the commercial space is also going to be controlled by whatever rental company takes over. It would just be ground floor spaces for lease. Um, you know, in a perfect world, yeah, they would utilize a coffee shop or a neighborhood convenience store, but I think that's part of the reason we're not showing a full level commercial or a large scale footprint is because we just don't think there's going to be the population base to support that consistently at least. And the you mentioned that um the majority of your site, I'm looking again at the 2025 aerial. Looks like it's 70% or more is just a flat pad. Now there is no existing tree cover. It's only in that north corner. In that north corner. Yeah. Okay.

There's maybe I'm sorry. There's one pine tree next to the dealership. Okay. Well, so just to comment on the waiverss you mentioned like canopy like you don't have any trees so it seems fine to I would support a waiver on on conserved canopy. Um the single entry is only a problem because of the mixed use. Is that right? like if it was all residential, a single entry would be allowed or is that not all? So that trip generation standard that we've talked about um may come into play with this now that we're seeing sort of the concept. But with the extension of the roadway, you know, I'm seeing what you've designed as a turnaround at the northern tip.

Uh that's the existing turnaround. So once we actually have it surveyed, we'll show a connection to the proposed road. So there would be two points of access at that. Uh, no. We would have a single entrance to our side, but at the top of your design where there's a turnaround at the end that that could connect to the roadway alignment, could it not? I'm not sure I follow. You're saying I think he's talking about the hammerhead at the top. The northern point that

Oh, up here. No. So, I don't think the grades will actually work in this area. And there's also uh some environmental areas on this side as well. Okay. I wondered a little bit about when you had fire marshall looked at this, they didn't have a site plan. Is that right? No, absolutely not. Yeah. So,

I think that I think that would probably be a really important part of this is like um curb rad the turn radi and making sure buyers happy. And it might be that I know there was one um application we saw years ago where they did have to add a second access point that was gated like in the sense that only emergency would have access that gate code if they needed it. But I think that' probably be a pretty um with fire. But I do have a question kind of procedurally. So the request that's probably going to come to us Remind me this is already zoned CG, correct?

So the request is really the special use permit and and and we think it might come with a binding site plan. I believe it has to is that what and so can that can that come with the request the concern canopy rate waiver and the variances can be considered request. Yeah.

The native BPD or anything like that. Okay. Um, and I'm trying to remember, I know this the alley thing has come up with staff a lot, but in past projects, but the would the um approval of the site plan kind of take care of some of the other like the issues of frontage and does that just not apply when you're putting these residential units on CG own and like

that so variances can be requested. So if the applicant was seeking relief from that standard for how many have to front on a roadway or or internal roadway design of public standards that could be a request with special Got it. Yeah, we I like we we always want to see diversity of housing typology. So that's great. Like that's definitely what I want to see. I think it's a fantastic place for a coffee shop or something because there's so much residential background around there being developed. So that would be cool to have that yoga studio, something like that would be good.

That'd be very cool. Yeah. So you could see that a small amount of commercial could be supported there. I could see how you wouldn't want to risk too much of it. Um, and I I don't have a proposed solution um to the sort of butt ends of houses versus kind of what's facing the center green. But I do um it I was wondering like are all the houses that are on the, you know, the on the left side in a row as well as the houses. Yeah. And the ones across the alley from those that are are those all going to be served by garages?

Uh that is the intent. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I just think it's I mean it's a tricky and kind of interesting challenge is to figure out how to make houses both welcome because the alley does you sort of do want that to behave as a street in the sense of that people are going to be walking on it and so it I think it's worth considering whether you might actually want to get a little more greenery in there or a little bit more of a sort of pedestrian friendly situation and it's just That's challenging. But I think what you don't want is to walk down those that alley and on both sides of you and one side is like a garage and a front entrance which that's fine and then the other side to you is kind of the back end of the ones that are fronting the porch and um I don't have a solution to that but just kind of making sure that's not like a tunnel of um kind of un unpleasant walkings. Yeah.

You know, kind of threw away. It's hard. We've we've been struggling with it. Yeah, it is. It really is. But I do really appreciate the struggle because it's worth it, I think. And I think just we see so many um developments that have one housing type or there's um maybe two, but it's nice to see three. Yeah. And you know, part of the reason we included the denser buildings is really just so that we could get the density and still have some open space, you know, versus it being everything shoved in. Um, yeah, I'm a fan of

anything else. Thank you all. It's very helpful. Hopefully it goes smoothly. All right. And with that, we're on to other business and the gig subcommittee.

Have the slides slides to I should ask you this before. I figured you did. Okay. Looks like a note. Would you like me to? I can probably email. I also brought my laptop, but I don't know how to Okay, you can get on the ACCPS Wi-Fi. You just have to like acknowledge the terms and conditions. Sorry, I'll just We can start without that. Okay. Or should you mark which is

Danielle? Do you have Mark Bchuk's email? I'll get it to you.

So, it's a three-person presentation, but we'll take turns. Um, Charles, off and then we'll get the slides up when we get to Danielle's part.

Hi, I'm Charles Smith. I'm with a Habitat for Humanity. But more importantly tonight, I'm on the G subcommittee. So, in observance of in observance of fair housing month back in April, Commissioner Thornton asked me and some others to speak at an event and she asked me specifically to outline some goals. So, I outlined two goals which which we view to be deterrence in making housing fair and affordable. The first goal is to put more doors in the market. The second goal is to reduce the cost of housing. Pretty easy stuff. So, at the August 2025 GIC meeting, housing community development director Melinda Lord shared the mayor's charge to GIC and it read, "Carry out a review of the recently completed affordable housing investment strategy, make recommendations of actions mayor and commission can take from that document." So, four subcommittees were created that day, one of which was expanding access to home ownership. That subcommittee was convened by Commissioner Thornton in September. And at that meeting, Commissioner Thornton then created another subcommittee to investigate possible zoning recommendations. And that's the three of us. So Danielle Gilmer Mount Hall and I had multiple in-person meetings, numerous phone calls, texts, emails, and all. We presented the November 10th gig meeting, the January mayor and commission work session, and then as of this past Tuesday night, the ACC commissioners passed a resolution, you may already know this, uh requesting a planning commission to review the GI recommendations and develop modifications for consideration by mayor and commission. So, we the three of us want to be part of the solution rather than being part of the problem. We've have tried to raise some ideas. We think government should have a place in making sure these things get carried out. Current policies on our books can sometimes slow

processes and certainly curt certain policies can increase costs. So we want to present some what we consider to be minor tweaks to the code to put more doors in the market that would either stabilize or reduce the cost of housing. So for me personally um these changes are related to justice uh writing wrongs that have kept groups of people from the American dream of owning their own home. Zoning essentially could be should be value neutral but across the country zoning has been used for sinister purposes at times. So, we thank you for reviewing our recommendations, hearing our presentation, which we think will increase the supply of housing and reduce the cost as well.

Charles, I'm sorry. I should have said this before you got going, but we are streaming live. So, I think Danielle and I will speak from here. the YouTube fans in Rockdale County and elsewhere.

Um, all right. So, um, as part of this review, uh, one of the things that we were asked to do is just, um, provide a little bit of a history of how we got the zoning that we have. Um, I think many of you know that um there's a lot of housing types that exist all over Clark County and that would be illegal to build today. There are apartments in Boulevard and single family zone neighborhoods. There are triplexes and duplexes all over Five Points Cobb and Boulevard and apartments and town homes. Just all of these other less expensive types of housing already exist here and are part of the character of our neighborhoods as they exist uh today. Um, and yet we've made them all illegal. Um, and they're the less expensive kinds of housing. And so a big part of our affordable housing crisis is that we have outlawed new construction of the more affordable housing types. Um, and what not everyone knows is why we did that, right? You might wonder who thought that was a good idea. Why did why do people outlaw apartments in single family zones and triplexes and duplexes and so on? Uh and um the beginning of that story is in the is in the 1960s. Um and it happened not only in Athens, it happened all across the country. I brought exhibit a visual aid here, a book called The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein, uh which is all about how this happened. It's about how the government segregated the United States. Um, and for a long time it was legal in the US to explicitly racially discriminate in housing. Like there would be uh neighborhood covenants on old houses in Athens. You'll often see them if you go back far enough in a title search 1940s, 1930s. You'll see a restrictive covenant that says this house can only be sold to members of the Caucasian race. So, um, it was just

explicit racial discrimination in American law. Um, in 1948, the United States Supreme Court said, "That's illegal. That's a violation of the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution. You can't do that." Um, and then a couple decades later in the 60s, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act, which further eliminated some legal forms of racial discrimination in housing. Um but the people who had enacted those policies and uh done things that way for many many years in the US um didn't say oh I guess that's it we'll stop. They they looked for alternative means of achieving that very same goal. uh and uh so they the first thing that many of them started doing in the 1960s was to use zoning to uh racially segregate and economically segregate our neighborhoods. Um so you know zoning if you go back far enough the original idea was let's make it so that factories don't locate next to houses and schools and other things like that. just keep incompatible uses away from each other so you don't get polluting factories right next to a neighborhood, right next to a school, right next to a university, something like that. Uh residential land was zoned as residential land. And that's as far as as it went. You could build apartments residential land. You could build single family homes on residential land. That's why we have big apartment buildings right next to the 5acre President's Mansion and right next to some really nice homes on Grady Avenue and stuff like that in in Boulevard. and again all across the um but when it became illegal to explicitly exclude black people from uh neighborhoods um the white county commission that was in charge then in cities and counties all

across not just the south all across the United States um began to expand their restrictions on zoning and to adopt what's commonly called in the academic literature about this the history literature exclusionary zoning they would use zoning to eliminate u cheaper property uh cheaper residential types um to eliminate apartments etc um and so that's how Athens got the zoning that Athens has that's how many other the majority of cities around the United States u have zoning that discriminates in this way and the idea u seems to have been you know to use um zoning to eliminate less expensive property types so that only people with a certain amount of money could live in particular neighborhoods. Um, and then rely on economic inequalities that exist in our society anyway. Um, to ensure that if you discriminate economically, that will also tend uh to fall disproportionately on black people and to keep them out of our our single family neighborhoods. Um, so how did that look? they started to zone to require very large pieces of land for only one um house, right? The larger the land, the more expensive that house is going to be. If you say you need to have a third of an acre to build a house. Um that makes it so that uh only people with a certain amount of money are able to live in that neighborhood. Um so minimum lot sizes were a very popular method. Um other things like you know uh minimum square footage requirements. you need to you can't build a house smaller than 1,200 square feet or 1,600 square feet or 1,000 square feet or whatever. Different cities did it different ways and in different zones, but um to impose a variety of methods to prevent people from building less expensive housing types. Um another uh example is you see all over town there'll be like what was

once one parcel and it has three or four or five houses on it. And a very common um development pattern in the early part of the 20th century was a family would own, you know, an acre of land. Um mom and dad would raise their kids there and when the kids were adults and they started to have kids, um you build another house in the backyard for the son to live in with his family and then another house for the daughter to live in with her family. And and so that's how we got all these funny little private streets and and three houses behind one another and stuff like that that don't even front on a public street. Um, and you see those again in neighborhoods all over Athens. Um, and now illegal to build in Athens. And so the uh essentially the first rung on the ladder of home ownership that enabled people to build generational wealth uh was eliminated so that people could not get a start, could not help their kids get a start um to build their own u generational wealth. So the bottom line is that housing is a necessity. We all need it. Everybody needs a place to live. U and people in the private market will create it if we let them. But the government has imposed a bunch of uh barriers to the production of all of these less expensive housing types. Um and uh so now we don't have enough housing to house everyone affordably. Uh so uh that's the the sort of ugly history of the use of American zoning that went away from let's keep the factories away from the residential areas. Um so that now you know uh new apartments get built on busy streets where there's uh lots of car pollution and stuff like that. It was originally we're going to keep the residential away from pollution and now the only places you can build apartments, the least expensive kinds of housing is areas with a lot of car pollution uh and and stuff like that. So, it's kind of doing the opposite of protecting the health,

safety, and welfare as well as giving us this affordable housing crisis. Um and so based on that history, the GIK committee u recommended uh a package of six zoning reforms. Um, this is not a complete rewrite of our zoning ordinance at all. There's, uh, there's going to be many more, I think, iterations of other steps. Um, this is designed to be just a set of fairly small, you know, uh, lowhanging fruit, like not that hard to adopt. Um, changes that will essentially relegalize housing types that already are part of the character of our neighborhood and allow people to to do them. Um, and Danielle will talk in a moment about she'll talk you through the six of those so that you you know what's coming. Um, whoever's on the the planning commission subcommittee about this. Um, and uh, so with that, I'll turn it over to her.

Even thank you for your patience on all that here. Uh so Matt and Charles, thank you for going into a lot of the history um behind why we had come up with these. Oh, fancy. Thank you. Um so I feel like the folks in this room have a pretty basic understanding of what zoning is. However, this was the presentation that we have put together for folks that are normally not as well versed as y'all. So bear with me. Um so we just said our zoning define at a basic level. Zoning is how government regulates land use and densities on private land in most US cities and suburbs. Um that is to say, zoning controls how big of a building you can build on a particular lot and whether you can use that building for any given residential, commercial, or industrial use. Pretty straightforward. Y'all you all know this already, right? Okay. Um, and as Matt and Charles were both speaking, so the effects of zoning, um, currently housing affordability, uh, zoning restrictively, uh, supply segregation and inequality and urban sprawl. Um again, Matt, thank you for going a little more extensively extensively on some of the back characters of the original purpose of zoning uh being to promote the health, safety, and welfare of residents by separating residential uses from industrial and other noxious uses. um and then was turned to uh unfortunately oo sorry as a tool um to exclude minorities particularly African-Americans from desirable neighborhoods practice that continues to impact housing patterns today. So here's a fun slide uh what is legal to build in Athens. On the left you see that 7,100 foot single family home. Uh most folks in the room will probably know who whose house that is even though I didn't. I I Googled it. Kirby Smart. Um that was his former residence. And then on the right we have

a 760,000 square foot mixeduse development. And so currently what is illegal to build in Athens is workforce housing. Um this is a development that is outside of Decatur and Dicab County. Um and I apologize getting to the slide. So, the workhouse housing units here, uh, the prices ranged from $210,000 to 305,000, which Decar officials called affordable for anyone earning metro Atlanta's area median in. So, the median income uh the median home price at the time that these were built was 651,000. So when you take that into consideration that when these were were built. Um so um these are our six suggestions for zoning reforms to increase the housing supply and affordability for Athens. Uh we want to recognize that these are not new ideas that these are some ideas that have gone on to become reforms and changes in cities and states throughout the country to help create more affordable housing. These are also suggestions that have been brought up here in Athens. These are a handful of simple tweaks that could be begin to address the problem with very minor changes to our zoning code. And this package of suggestions is not a comp complete fix, but they represent lowhanging fruit. The simple small changes that could facilitate the changing of more housing here in Athens. So, first one, permit accessory dwelling units on all parcels zoned single family. So allowing basement and backyard apartments in all single family zones to support seniors, caregivers, workforce housing while keeping neighborhood character, helping families stay together and support stable stable housing near community resources. Um removing that ban on kitchen cooking

facilities um would be would support um long-term rentals instead of the short-term rentals of Airbnbs. Number two, legalize infill town homes, single family attached units. So, this will have several benefits for Athens. It will provide more housing choices at lower cost for aspiring homeowners. It will enable Athens to more efficiently use its existing road, sewer, and water infrastructure and provide more property tax revenue to maintain that infrastructure. would also enable builders to more efficiently use our limited available land to provide new housing opportunities on the lower rungs of the housing ladder and existing neighborhoods close to schools, jobs, parks, and other amenities. Number three, remove barriers to smaller, less expensive homes, including manufactured homes. Um, our current code requires that every single family residential unit must be at least 1,000 square feet in most zoning districts and 600 square feet in others. Um, manufactured homes refer to homes that were built after 1976 when the housing and urban development passed various guidelines which defined uh which clarified the building standards and codes for manufactured houses. On average, the new manufactured home listed at $124,000 in 2024. By comparison, in 2025, the average price of a traditional home was slightly over 356. The US Census Bureau and HUD report that manufactured homes are half the price per square foot of a sightuilt home. Number four, permit homeowners to subdivide their lot by reducing or eliminating minimum street frontage requirements. So, Athens outlawed flag lots uh very recently, approximately 15 years ago, by adding a provision to code that required that every lot must have a minimum

street frontage of 50 to 75 ft in RS5, 8, and 15 and even more in RS25 and 40. The sole purpose of this rule is to prevent subdivision of large lots. This harms affordability and reduces the available choices in housing while also creating an unsustainable burden on our road, sewer, and water infrastructure. and it does nothing to promote the health or welfare of Mits Indians. You probably are familiar with flag lots. Again, this room you're got a little bit more background than most. Um, let me get to that slide. Uh, Matt also brought this up earlier. Athens has a street grid that was laid out a century ago at a time when many people kept domestic livestock and grew significant amounts of their own food. Thus, there are many parcels that are very deep and with yards for far bigger than modern households may need or want. We can't create more land in this county. But we can create more buildable lots by allowing the homeowners to divide their large lots, which would enable construction of more new homes on smaller parcels. And it will enable existing homeowners to deed a part of their lot over to a family member to build their own home on it or even sell to a part of sell a part of their lot to someone else creating generational wealth to support themselves or their family. Number five, legalize and encourage starter homes in all residential districts. Um 85% of Athens residential land is zoned for single family detached houses only. These were the most expensive type of home because they have the highest land cost for any home type and high land costs require builders to build larger homes on each parcel in order to make a profit. 63% of the residential land in Athens is zoned for very large lots 15,000 square feet of land or more required for each home with a rapidly growing population requiring socially

restricts the supply of new housing and thus drives up the price of housing beyond what most Athenians can afford. The smallest lot allowed under our zoning code is 5,000 square ft NARS 5 and only 5.5% of the residential land in Athens is zoned for that. Roughly half of households in Athens consist of one or two people while many Athens neighborhoods contain exclusively 3 to fourbedroom or larger homes. And number six, reduce parking minimums. Um, according to the US Department of Transportation, urban and suburban parking reforms can optimize land use, encourage use of lowcarbon transportation, and lower development costs, all while raising funds for streetscape and transit improvements. Land is expensive. It can be a significant percentage of the overall cost of a new home development. Dedicating part of a building's footprint to parking imposes both a direct cost because developers must pay to build the parking and an indirect cost because it leaves less space for housing. These development costs are passed along to renters and owners, decreasing affordability. The benefits of parking reform are many. More of the homes we need, more of the neighborhoods we love, less excess pavement pollution and sprawl, and less red tape. uh means letting business owners and builders, homeowners and renters decide the amount of parking that's right for them and find options that suit their needs and budgets. It means getting smart with the plenty of parking we've already built into our main streets and neighborhoods rather than prescribing even more unsightly asphalt as our community grows. Here's an example of living space verse parking space. Um, in short, eliminating parking mandates doesn't make parking disappear, but it does provide more choice about how much to provide and make better use of the parking we already have. Parking

spaces will still get built, but so will more homes for the residents of Athens. Those are our six suggestions. Thank you, Hill. So, I would have taken that home. You guys been calling me on that. So, a lot of great information there. Um, and with that um and the Maring Commission's um what do you call that? Resolution.

Resolution. Thank you. Um I would like to create a subcommittee of the planning commission to faculties um these different ideas. Um and I will entertain any volunteers who would like to be part of this. Oh okay. We have we have three people jumping in. Is there more from this side? I'm interested if you're interested, too. Okay. I mean, I'd be interested too, but it seems like everybody

Well, here's the thing. Because if we start creeping up to five, that becomes like a quorum that becomes problematic. Um, I'll dip out. I don't want to restrict anyone, but I also want to keep it real. Um, and there's also a time commitment because it's going to be for the next year probably. and um and then knowing that we're going to need to work with the other committee, the gay committee as part of this too. Um so or I was willing to put my hat in too and I'm happy to come along to these meetings too, but again I don't want to create a quorum issue. Um, but if we have one, two, three, four people, I'm happy to be unofficial. Drop in.

Mike raises hand. Nope. Yeah. So, I saw Sarah, Alex, Matt, and Sarah and Kristen and me. That got us fired,

but as an alternate. So, Are there any SK from from working with the other committee with with Pastor Bledsaw and and the rest? Um I think it may be hard. You know, we haven't formally pulled this, but but when we were discussing meeting times as we got started two weeks ago, it became clear that sort of it doesn't have to be necessarily Thursday 9 to 11, but but something like that during the business day was preferable for those folks. And so is that a uh deal breaker for anyone might be an important question. Yeah, that is that is good to know. Um I'll drop out. I've got to work.

I know. I know. It's difficult. Sorry. Yes. Our committees will continue to be flexible professionals and retired people. That's okay. So, you got four So, who else gets to be on this committee? Can I is are you are there like more citizen people like I know somebody who might be interested or is this like or is it pretty much set now? So, so it's the so the gig committee that currently created what we watched with is basically like our community members. Okay.

So, really like subject matter experts at this point. And so then we're just making it official by creating that official channel to the mayor and commission. Bruce, would these be like public notice meetings that the public would be welcome to attend? The public would be welcome to attend. Yeah. And and if we can have a routine schedule, that's super helpful because then that posting becomes that much easier and it's predictable. Um, yes, I think we would be doing that. Um, we would be keeping meeting notes but not minutes. They would not be recorded in any formal fashion. So, but yes, they'd be open to the public to sit in. Okay.

And is it procedurally accurate to say that the planning commission members who are on the planning commission subcommittee will be voting like let's advance this proposal or something, but that the GI committee members um a resource. They're a resource. They're they participate, but they're not voting and certainly no member of the public would have input unless the committee wanted it. I assume

right so like the committee will be getting input from get committee members but ultimately what comes before the planning commission I mean the gate committee I mean it I don't foresee there being like votes on the committee you know so if there was if it did come down to a vote only the planning commission members could actually vote the committee members would be like exeicial members Right.

Um, okay. Well, this feels a little awkward, but um I guess we should vote on the members of the committee, right? So, restating the slate of four, right? Sarah Barersford, Matt Hall, Alex Sams, and Chris. Yeah. Yeah. I move to Is that how it works? One of us moves to Yeah, I think that would be to adopt the

That's on dictatorship. So, yeah. Okay. I move to adopt the four that Bruce just mentioned as the supplement. Okay, I'll second it. Okay. All right. All in favor say I. I. Great.

Can I make a statement? um from future land use because I've been hearing rumbles that this is all part of the plan to ruin Athens um with future land use and then now this is the timing of this is like see I told you they're doing this now. Um I will tell you I didn't know this committee existed until like six weeks ago or so. Um, and as chair of future land use steering committee, I wasn't aware of it. Um, and there is no there's no diabolical plan. I'm stating this for the record. I'm not so much telling y'all uh that this is going to be Trojan horse that's going to put all of this in there. And I and I actually may be the thorny member of of this anyway, but the point is that this has nothing to do with that and that's going to be voted on by the mayor and commission in April. So, I'm just stating to anyone watching uh that that these have nothing to do with each other directly at least.

Doesn't the G group meet quarterly? Yes, it does. Yeah. So, there's like they're like literally working in two different worlds. So, absolutely. I mean they're not but they are for all intents and purposes. Yeah. And there's one planning commission member and two county commission members on the get committee. It is a cross-section of uh people from all walks of life and all parts of Athens that

um Okay. Well, I don't have a report that was basically my dog and pony show. So, but Bruce, I got some things things.

All right. So, um in addition to the resolution that we just dealt with, uh from this past Tuesday night, there was some other activity on the agenda with the mayor and commission. Um the normal business that moved forward, all of it was approved. So, just that piece of recordkeeping. Um there is another request though for the mall redevelopment to take different approach and that approach would be the development of a special district overlay for those properties in lie of the PD. um the PD itself uh the the community benefits agreement that was associated with that kind of came alongside has timed out and the development group that was involved with that is is now in a position where they need to pivot. Um essentially the scale of that PD is too large for what they were able to pull things together and accomplish. So, the alternate plan is to create a special district overlay that carries forward some of those key elements from the PD, but allows it to be less of a binding plan um to allow for other development groups over time to pick up the ball and do components in iterations. Um so, staff is going to be working on that. It will be coming back to this group as we do with text amendments. We're going to bring those things to you for comment before we bring it to you for a recommendation. But the timeline on this is rather quick. So we are working on those text amendments um in earnest this month and we'll probably be coming to you if not April, May, June, it may be May, June and then to the commission at the end of summer perhaps August. We'll just have to see how it plays out.

Next amendments for in lie of the PD

to create a special district overlay. And so the the comparison that keeps getting made and I and I don't want to make too much of a linkage to it because it is different. Scale is totally different. But the redevelopment of the varsity property has a special district overlay that was put on it that set certain design standards. Um stepping back of the project um from the northern side next to Senny Stoval and Lucy Cobb. Um there were other provisions in there with materials and mixing of uses and building height and some things. So that's that is the most recent version of a special district overlay that we've dealt with to deal with mixeduse development. We have many special district overlays in town. It's it's a chapter of our code. It's a tool that we have available to us. Um but that that's the approach for the mall. The mall is just a totally different scale than the varsity site. It's comparable to downtown as you all remember. So, there's more to be done with that and it's going to be a more nuanced overlay.

And I was thinking of like Lakewood like with the had like a whole book of design guidelines, things like that. Yeah. So, it's probably not going to reach to that level. Yeah, that was Yeah, that was a lot. Yeah. Um but we'll we'll have more on that in the days ahead. But then

Yeah. Um I don't want to stop you momentum and maybe this is a question for when this really comes up but the the TAB that it was ex extension of the TAD from 20 years to 30 years does that hold or does that fall Nope that's separate but parallel and and the TAD boundaries are likely also to match the special district overlay boundaries. It doesn't have to but it's likely to. We'll see. But the 30 years still stay 30-year time frame is associated purely with the tab. Yeah. That doesn't go away because they changed the overlay wouldn't impact that.

Y Okay. All right. So that's item number one. Uh data center activity from this past Tuesday. So two items were on the agenda. One um they voted to hold the text amendments that came forward until April. Um they also voted to extend the moratorum through June. In April when they vote it will likely be and I don't know this to be sure but it seems like it will be to remand it back to the planning commission with direction. And so it would come back to this body with certain things to hit. Um this group send it up with things to hit. So um I would imagine some of those are going to get reinforced. Um perhaps what we're going to be talking about as a group are some of those criteria that might be part of special use review criteria that might include things like collective farming community benefits CPA

similar yeah community benefits agreements um other related to the unique aspects of data centers that need to be maybe codified. Um but we really are still leaning on the approach of a special use for these and that has been supported. So that that's not being questioned at all. Okay. Um future land use is scheduled for the April vote with the mayor and commission in anticipation with the April vote of the mayor and commission. staff has been working with several commissioners to answer their questions and entertain some of the edits that we thought might come when it got in front of them and they are starting to come. So there is likely to be at least two commission defined options coming forward in April. The first one is shared across three commissioners. Commissioners Link, Wright and Meyers have collaborated in a way. Um they each have revisions that they want inside of their districts. Um Commissioner Link has met with us on a handful of occasions to kind of pin down things on a map. Commissioner Wright has also met with us. Um I think combined what would you guess Mark the number of properties two three dozen and they're smallish? I mean maybe two dozen. Is that

that they are looking to change changing designations? I think we're close to triple digits. Oh, is it that many once it's all Oh, Lincoln had Wyoming for 80 years. Yeah, I think she Yeah. Including downtown. And that's true. Okay. True. That's true. That's true.

So, but when you look at them and and I I think they make sense. I'll just say that from staff standpoint, a lot of the things and and Ox can certainly reinforce this. When the land use committee was working on these, there were times where it could be this, it could be that. Both achieve pretty close ends. And what we're talking about are in some instances shades of intensity, but there's common ground in the middle. Um, a lot of the dialing that was going on with the commissioners was in some respects dialing down intensity. I think to say categorically that was the direction it was going. Um, but it was targeted and it was in areas where we were coming off of a corridor. we were maybe more on on some local streets. Um, those were some of the common themes with the changes they were making. Commissioner Myers had one property that she was interested in changing the designation on. And she also had a text change for one of the designation descriptions that was um I think I think the wording that has been proposed is is more along the lines of incorporating more public green space. done. And that sounds consistent with the land use committee's discussions as well.

So that's CDO number one. Commission to find option number two is coming from Commissioner Thornton uh looking at selected properties within a portion of the Sandy Creek basin. Um, in anticipation of infrastructure being in that area, we've been asked to look at targeted properties at the upper reach of where that infrastructure may go and then how that may impact the properties connecting along that infrastructure to the south. Um, a lot of this is tied to the service delivery plan outcomes for that basin. And so that's where that commission defined options coming from. No other commissioner had had come forward up to today with any sort of request to go through things. We've had a couple conversations to clarify, but I think we're going to end up with these two CDOS's for the April meeting and that that might be it. Okay. So, that's future land use.

Um, when you sorry to interrupt you, did you you said that they generally were dialing down intensity? Was that primarily residential or all sorts of uh some of that? Yes. I mean, some of it was um the intensity of residential, some of it was the type of commercial that would come with that designation. So, they were they were really looking hard at the translation of a future land use category to the zoning.

And they were looking at the the pallet of zoning categories that relates to certain categories of future land use. And um for instance, one of Commissioner Link's examples of change uh is along Boulevard where historically we've had this little bit of commercial neighborhood Dixie Painting and and those right there on Park Avenue at the intersection. And in the last iterations, 20 years worth of iterations of future land use, there was on the map the idea that that would be on the north side also the Georgia Power property and the power next the property next to that and that you might have sort of a commercial node at Boulevard in that area that would be a little more vertical and it would have mixed use residential and commercial. Um the concern was okay, we've had it on there for 20 plus years, nothing's really come of it. um let's pull that back and let's see if that doesn't incentivize residential development in some way. So, it was along those lines like, okay, we've tried that. Let's let's take it in another direction. But we weren't really having that conversation on Prince Avenue. It was like on Boulevard. There was a conversation on Hancock. Um Hancock and Pope, I believe, was the intersection. um where we had those four little properties, three of them had older commercial structures that have been converted into residential uses over the last 10-15 years. So rather than keeping it in a minor corridor designation, it was dialed into the direction of a more residential focus.

Got it. It's been those types of things. Um for Commissioner Wright, it was some of the area Hill Street um in the vicinity of Victim Red. um the minor corridor on this on the map that went up to them was stretching back onto Megs and so that got dialed back. And then the north side of downtown was another one that was talked about. The map that went forward reached fairly far north and um Commissioner Link's suggestion is to bring it back to the edge that it's had on the map um for a while.

And what was the reason for that? Um, a lot of it was to protect um the residential development that's already on the north side of the block of of the rail line that uh Elizabeth Street area um and to not open the door for that to become a target for a tear down just to put it bluntly. Got it. Um but to walk that back a little bit. Okay.

Okay. Um exciting things. So, so our our department for a long time uh since pre-COVID has had openings. We've had we we've been trying to fill staff. We haven't had a full department all positions filled in many many years. Um and there are lots of reasons for that. Uh I don't personalize it. I don't take it that hard. Uh, but there are there are things that we're up against and um I don't want to jinx it, but of those four openings, maybe by tomorrow afternoon, we will have commitments for three, three out of four. So, we might be down to one position that we feel pretty optimistic if we get it posted, you can attract somebody who's lining up for graduation um in the spring because it's that level of position in our organization. So, very excited about that. I just want to say

that one position hasn't been posted yet. It's going to be, but no, it has not been posted yet. It's a planner two position. Okay. Yeah. No, no, no. I just I'm just like, okay. So, it's like it's it's a position that's not filled, but it hasn't even been posted yet. Well, we have posted it and offered it five times. Had had it s and had people say yes five times only for them to call back and go on second thought. And so that's been a tough one to fill. Um, they probably watch these meetings. I was just thinking that sorry.

And then the last thing as we get into the summer months, remember we're looking at July as being one of those agendas where we're going to um talk about things, get caught up on things, have other subjects. Um, we've got lots that we're working on, so we're not going to be short on topics. But one of the things that's going to come back to this group as anformational item is the department's work program. In addition to all the things we've talked about tonight, including the mall overlay, the data centers, the future land use, we also have a lay park designation that's been asked of us and to revisit our airport overlay. And all these things are supposed to happen within the next calendar year. So, just want to keep you guys a breast of all the things that your staff are working on um because you'll see the results of those things in the months ahead. Um, and not to be a Debbie Downer, but is my last meeting as chair of the June meeting? Do we over?

Yeah, we'll have. So, just just dropping that idea that we will need a nominating committee maybe in April. It's awful. Soon or May. Okay, maybe. June would be fine. But my last meeting is June. Well, for the June, for June, we need a slate. Yes, we need we need to be have named, right? Let people add June. So, May. Yes. Okay. Yes. Just trying to anticipate. You're not cycling off. No, I think I have another two years. Sorry. You have you have another three. Another two years. So, sure.

How many times can you be chair? Twice. Two two years in a row. I don't know that. I was just curious. Yeah, I think you slice by level. You can do two terms in a row. Okay. I don't know. You better convince us. How many Christian discussion for later for re-election? Fair enough. Okay. We good. We got Motion to return. Second. All in favor?

Few months been getting out some. Exactly. We will be still. I see.