City Council - Special Meeting

I've already lost besides mine. You good? Good evening. I'd like to call the special called meeting of the Milton City Council for Monday, February 9th, 2026 to order. The city encourages you to re to review tonight's agenda carefully. Each citizen who chooses to participate in public comment must complete a comment card and submit it to the city clerk prior to the agenda item being called. While the Milton rules allow a speaker to turn in their comment card up until the clerk calls the agenda item, once the agenda item is called, no more comment cards can be accepted. Will the city clerk please call the role and make general announcements?

Good evening, mayor and council be happy to call roll for the February 9th, 2026 special called meeting. I would like to remind those in attendance to please silence all cell phones at this time. As the mayor mentioned, if you would like to make a public comment, you are required to complete a a public comment card prior to that agenda item being called. All speakers will identify themselves with their name, address, and organization before beginning their comment. If you are representing an organization, a notorized affidavit is required stating you have the authority to speak on behalf of that organization. Please review the agenda and if you'd like to make a comment, please bring your comment cards to me now. Demonstration of any sort within the chamber is pre prohibited. Please refrain from any applause, cheering, booing, outburst, or dialogue with any person speaking. Anyone in violation may be asked to leave. Mayor and council, as a call role this evening, please confirm your attendance. Mayor Payton Jameson

here. Council member Brian Dolan, it was almost a habit. I have an easy name. Council member Brian Dolan, I am here. Council member Juliet Johnson here. Council member Carol Kirkley here. Council member Jan Jacobus pres. And council member Phil Kramer here. Mayor Council Member Doug Haney is joining us via Zoom. Council member Haney, are you there? I'm here. Thank you. And mayor, you have a quorum. Everyone, please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all

and next is approval of the meeting agenda. Do we have any executive session Steve? Okay. So do I have a motion to approve the meeting agenda? M I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as proposed. Second. Second. Okay. Okay. I have a motion from council member Cranmer and a second from council member Jacobus to approve the meeting agenda. Is the voting open, Tammy? Yep. Voting's open. Please place your votes. Doug, is that a yes from you?

All right, hearing none. That motion it is. Yeah. Sorry, I'm pulling up my app to vote that way. Give me just a sec. I did it for him. He's got it. He said yes. So, I did it for him and then as soon as he logs on, he's got it. That motion passes unanimously. We will now move on to general public comment. Do we have any general public comment? Just one, mayor.

Okay. General public comment is a time for citizens to share information with the mayor and the city council and to provide input and opinions on any matter that is not scheduled for its own public hearing during today's meeting. Please remember, this is not time to engage the mayor or members of the city council in conversation. When your name is called, please come forward and speak into the microphone stating your name, address, and organization for the record. If you will please call the first speaker.

Mayor, the first one that I will is an email that I will read into the record that was sent. Tim Enllo at 1375 Bethany Road. My parents purchased our farm in 1978 to raise their family and an as an asset for future generations. They did not buy it as a carnival attraction to appease hypocrites but for safety quite horses and agriculture none of which have been protected. All have been attacked. Additionally, countless federal and state laws have been violated by given power as well as evidence being withheld when our farm was vandalized and continues to be. We would like to move on before our life ends but cannot due to the constant red tape destroying our bottom line by over 50%. Consider that all of Crab Apple was zone agriculture with no sewer not long ago. After the change, 1 acre.8 miles from our 6.3 acre farm sold for over $1 million. Curious, I wonder if any of you would be okay with the assets you're planning on leaving your kids, having the value cut in half to appease others. Now, it's quite obvious there is a debate about implementing even more restrictions against the few remaining farms, killing innocent futures even more so. I'm 100% against any additional restrictions on my most valuable benefit. I implore y'all to practice more object objectively and less self-righteousness. Life is so very short. Mayor, that concludes the general public comment.

Okay, I'll close general public comment. There are no consent agenda items. We will now move on to reports and presentations. Will city clerk please stay on the items?

Thank you, mayor. That next item, mayor, is going to be the discussion of AG1 issues and opportunities. Our community development public works director, Sarah Leers, and our deputy community development director, Tracy Wilds. mayors, member of council, good evening. Tonight we will be presenting um on the uh AG1 issues and opportunities and tonight is an opportunity to talk about two things. First is the further the discussion on challenges and opportunities for AG1 lots and the second is to provide you with further information to decide on the moratorum as it applies to minor plats and creating lots less than 3 acres. So as we look to what the issue is, we've kind of identified two issues. one being the root cause. Um, and that is that today's building trends with larger homes, amenities, and more site improvements are pushing the limits of existing development standards on smaller lots. Why does this matter, you say? Well, as lots get tighter, it becomes harder to meet setbacks, lot coverage, and other standards, and the outcomes potentially conflict with the rural character that was envisioned in the 2040 comprehensive plan. So, we think that that's the driving problem. That's ultimately the root cause. Bigger houses and more amenities on basically the same size or

smaller pieces of land. We do think however that there is an amplifier to this. It's amplified which is what's causing the problem to grow and that's the minor plat process. For new lots that are under three acres in size and less than 3 acres total. They can be created through the minor plat process with little development review on the front end. That results in development issues that aren't caught up front. Instead, they surface later during the building pro the building permit process where options are limited and impacts are harder to manage. So, the bottom line is the minor plot process is quick and it's easy with limited up upfront review making issues harder to correct later and enabling more small lots which ultimately is amplifying the root cause. When we looked at the 2040 comprehensive plan, we specifically looked at central Milton, which is one of our largest character areas represented in the blue on the right hand side of the slide. And this is an area that has many large lots that are actually over one acre in size. Um, this has created a uniform overall density that has actually retained the rural character. But building trends today are potentially conflicting with that vision. So I'm going to start with looking at some of the data that we pulled as we were reviewing these issues and opportunities. So the data source is going to primarily be from the years 2021 to 2025. In 2021, we changed permitting software. So you may see some of the data actually representing from 2022, but we'll

highlight that as we get to it. It just was the information that was readily available through our current city view system. The other thing about this data is it only applies to AG1 lots. So we're not looking at anything in Crab Apple or Deerfield. This is just AG1 lots. The last item related to all the data is that this is based on when the certificate of occupancy is issued for the home. So these are all going to be data points around new home construction when that construction is completed. So when the co's issued, that's when it is added to this this count that you'll see in some of these data slides. So the first thing we looked at and kind of the first first part of the data point is the lot size for these new home constructions. When we look at some other measures like lot coverage um there is that's related to proportion and lot size is always the base. It's always the denominator of that proportion that we're going to look at related to footprint related to amount of improvements on a site. So lot size is is that base denominator of any of our proportions. So this shows a couple different things over the last five years. First of all is the bucket where the the different um lot sizes fit into. So we have the blue the blue bar which is the 1 to one and a half acre lot size the brown which is one and a half to three and the green which is greater than 3 acres. So in in each year you can see the breakdown of how many new homes were constructed on each of these size lots. Then I took the total of all the lot sizes, averaged those to get the black

trend line you see here. Another measure it looked at was taking the median of those different acreages and it produced a very similar trend to what you see represented by the average. Next we're going to talk about footprint. So that is any part of the structure that is covered by a roof. Um so the graphic on the right shows the the lot area in blue and that footprint outlined in red. It also correlates to what you would see on the tax assessor site that lays out the square footage of again that that base footprints, the first first floor house footprint, any covered porches, attached garages, and that gives us our total floor area. So now that you've um heard what how the footprint is determined, these are the trends related to the that floor area footprint for the same same data set you saw with the lot area. So this is over the five years and it shows a increase in that footprint size year-over-year. And as we consider ratios, this this type of metric would fit in the um the top part of the proportion with the lot size being the bottom. As we look at ratios and as we get further in the presentation, there will be an opportunity that looks at how we can look at structuring footprint as a consideration in lock coverage. Okay. The next category is lock coverage. So that is not only the building footprint, what's under the roof, but it's any other imperous improvement coverage on the entire lot. And we have two values that we look at

that with our zoning code. And that is a 20% lot coverage if the lot fronts a public road and 25% if it fronts a private road. So these are roughly similar size lots and you can see the peach is the what we would consider the lot coverage on each of these. So this is one of our smaller data sets 2022 through 2025. And another element we looked at in this data set was we took those smaller lots that blue what we represented by the blue line here. So it's the one to one and a half acre lots. Looked at all of those and determined what was the approved plan for the percent lot coverage on each of those and plotted those as data points. So one thing you can see with this is what our ranges are in that percent coverage across the years. One opportunity that we wanted to look at with this as we talk further is looking for an opportunity to get that range to be a little a little closer. So maybe to um to see the the data points within that range. So um what I wanted to highlight here hopefully you all can see the green color that's a little different. So that represented kind of the lower the lower third of 2022, 2023, and 2024 of those data points was in the 10 to 15% coverage range. When we get to 2025,

you'll note that there's there aren't any below 15%. So that indicates that that the lots are being permitted and they are nearly nearing the um top of that range of percent coverage. And just to point out in that data set there were 123 total that were used in that 1 to one and a half acre um range across all four years. So a few patterns a few trends we noticed in that data. We also looked at some of how that impervious or lot coverage breaks down across different areas. So the house and the driveway are the largest. they represent the largest of that percentage. And then we looked at what what percentage pools, pool decks, how what they averaged across and how many of those lots actually were built on the front end with a pool. And so that was about 50% and the average was 1650 square ft. Another um contributing factor that we noticed as we started looking at this lot coverage was that there there was a difference in some cases between what was on the approved plans as a meeting the exact requirement of 20 or 25% and then what was actually built out in the the field based on aerial imagery. We've identified an opportunity to address this and we'll discuss that later as we get to the opportunities on how to better better account for and track that lot coverage between approved plans and what is actually built. One other thing I wanted to point out on this slide is that the the two graphics on the right, the aerial imageries, these are two bordering subdivisions.

They're both private subdivisions along the same road. they actually adjoin property lines. And just to illustrate the difference in that home construction with the top one being happening in the 2013 to 2019 time range and looking at driveways and pools and house sizes relative to the development that's adjoining it that was started in 2017 and is currently still underway. I can get some water. Okay, our next data point is related to variances. So, we want to talk about the variances that have gone to BZA. You all have seen um a couple variances and so how that relates to what you may not the public public data that may not be available related to um in inquiries we get about lock coverage things that may not be built to plan built without a permit or just these inquiries into variances for different lock coverage or any any variance issue first and then we're going to focus in on lock coverage. So I wanted to give you this data just in context to overall variance request. So to see that there's there's various requests related to setbacks and then to lock coverage for particularly in this case it was a driveway and lock coverage for pools. So you can see the percentage that lock coverage represents in the overall consideration of variances.

We'll note that that light blue line is a a subdivision that that proceeded with a primary variance which because of the number of lots was impacted that was um presented in April believe April of 2025 um for council consideration. Sarah, before you leave this slide, it it is important to note that the variances from our data is primarily for new construction and not necessarily for existing hardships on existing lots. So that this slide sort of represents that analysis.

Good point. Keep forgetting that there. So now we're going to focus on those lot coverage items you saw in the previous slide. So the the bars with the red box around them represent cases that went before the board of zoning appeals and were approved. And you can see that those breakdown by type. So in 2021 again that that um permitting software change um we we just show record of two that two pools that were approved by BCA in 2021. In 2022, you can see the number of approved pools. And then you can see the we had even more than that in inquiries about how do I how can I build a pool? Can I build a pool? What's my lot coverage? And then some the other categories related to additional driveway, an addition to a home or an accessory structure.

Excuse me. Are these approvals or inquiries? So the ones with the red box are approvals. So just the uh the bars that have the red box around them were approvals. Everything else is not approved. Correct. It was just a inquiry that we had um to our staff member that handles 2025 after the red box around the yellow. All of those were not approved. Correct. They got a hearing. They were inquiries. Inquired.

Inquiries. Yes. So they either changed their mind, they found a way to remove some impervious or the whatever condition was prohibiting them to be able to proceed with with their what they were inquiring about whether it was a pool if they removed a piece of a driveway. I'll I'll go through a few examples of what some of those alternate solutions were. Okay,

just a point of clarification. So all of those outside of the red box were inquiries related to projects that were going to exceed the impervious limits and we found other alternatives to try to avoid that including things like pvious pavers and things along those lines. Correct. But those were all ones that were going to exceed the pvious sur the pvious surface impervious surface limits. Right. And do we have a way to follow up to see if it is done by code that those inquiries stay if if they're not quote approved that they do follow the rules?

All of those that are not within the red box worked with our staff to find alternative methods. So they still had construction done or or improvements done or they abandoned their project altogether. But those that did have the projects done, we still had to inspect those. All right. Thank you.

And this was a just a staff generated data point that was we have one person that deals with all the variances. So he was able to look through his records and see all the inquiries over the years, categorize them by type, and that's what we were able to present with this um chart. We'll point out to you that the 2026 number is only for the month of January and we're already at three. When you say Sarah, sorry, this is Doug. When you say um three inquiries, it's does that mean that it's actually gone to BZA or that they're just asking about parameters of what it takes to build a pool?

They are asking about parameters of what it would take to to build a pool when they're already exceeding or their project would exceed the allowed lock coverage. Okay. Okay. And in the last three years, we've had five instances that have come in fara and been approved. In the last three years, right? Just those five. Right. Correct. One for one for a driveway and four for pools. Okay. And just to be clear, this is all all up to one and a half acre lots or is this all this is all all AG1? All AG1. Okay.

Yes. Sorry, I did jump criteria there. I went from Yeah. Yeah. I wanted Yeah, because one kind of we're kind of having the issue around one up one to one and a half. Right. Right. Now we're back to all all AG1. Yeah. Okay.

So, okay. Okay. Now, this gets to a few of those examples. Um, so we looked at the narrative behind what what that inquiry was and what process it wind up taking. So the first one is a circle driveway turnaround. A lot wanted to add that after the fact, but they were already maxed at 19.8% um on that lot coverage already. So I don't believe anything has proceeded on that particular one. Um, but it was at least evaluated as can I add a circular turnaround. Next one. A new pool went over the 20%. So in that case, the owner removed some of the gravel from their driveway to equate to the area they needed to stay under 20%. We had an inquiry about pickle ball um adding that type of court to their yard. And while the court could not function with pvious pavers, they were able to use those pvious pavers on a pool deck to stay and walkways to stay under the 20%. We have an example where the home buyer was unaware that their impervious was maxed out and the realer had told them that they could build a pool. They did go to BZA on that one and they were granted the additional 2.95%. And while that is a relatively small number, it does still have a a visual impact on on that lot coverage because you're only at 20%. So 2% can still have that that impact. Quick question. Is lot coverage and impervious surface limits the same thing

or are those two different items?

So they're very similar. So lot coverage in our definitions is defined as imperous coverage and it's defined as including the house, the accessory structures, concrete, pools and pool decks. When we define imperous related to storm water, a swimming pool is not in that list of what makes up impervious related to storm water. So, a pool while it doesn't allow water to soak into the ground, it also doesn't have runoff. So, it's it's treated a little bit differently. Um, but for the most part, impervious and lock coverage, as we're talking about tonight, are synonymous.

The maximum that we allow for imperous surface limits is 20%. On lots that front public roads and it's 25% on lots of front private roads.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And the last case study is related to an accessory inquiry. They workshop some other ideas. No variance as of now and still revising the permit. So that's one that's in the works. Okay. The last trend point we wanted to share was just some adjacent neighbor concerns we've heard related to we call it adjacency and that's most commonly found where a new sideyard adjoins an existing rear yard. So the two pictures on the left are again that the view from the the rear yard approaching the rear yard and the the new structure that you can see through the trees is a sideyard of a new build. So that's one instance and then the other just shows again an existing house. Hopefully you can see the arrow here. So existing house and the existing rear setback compared to the the new build on the right that is a side setback adjoining that rear. So that's where we we have seen and heard the most concerns from adjoining neighbors. These aren't as frequent as a rear torear um situation that you would have, but we did want to note that scale and setbacks um can have an impact as it relates to side to rear. Okay, so this slide actually um shows the relationship between how land is divided and how land is developed. And so to reorientate you, we have

identified the root cause, right? Um max buildable um elements and amenities built on small lots. So the 1x problem, the root cause, the amplifier is on the left side, which is what I'm going to be talking about. And that relates to the minor plat process. So to subdivide a parcel, you can use the minor plaque process, but that minor plat process determines the size of the lots and where those lot lines go. It does not necessarily evaluate what things are going to be built on that lot. So the development standards for developing a lot control the building size, the impervious surface, but that's only applied after a lot has been created. Um, so the result is that the development impacts are often assessed too late uh when lots are already created and maxed out. Okay. So I want to it's important to note that we have two processes for subdividing parcels. We have the minor plat process and we have the preliminary plat process which ultimately goes evolves to a final plat. Right? So if we look at the process on the left, um the minor plat process is a quick and easy way to create lots that are less than three acres in size and less than a total of three lots. So anything less than three in total, but those parcels are divided with limited development review upfront. That lot can then be sold and many of the development issues such as building footprint, site analysis, impervious

surface, trees, storm water, those are all addressed during the building permit process. And again, that's after the lot has sold. So that burden is pushed to the homeowner or to the person who's going to be building and developing that lot. So, it's important to note that the person who subdivides the property, takes it through the minor plaque process, is not necessarily the same person who's building out and developing that lot. So, that process often leads to variance requests, added costs, and design changes after a lot has already changed hands. In contrast, the preliminary plat detailed on the right side requires extensive upfront review which allows allowing site constraints and impacts to be identified earlier in the process and usually before the user has purchased the lot. So there's a key takeaway here. The timing does matter. So both processes ultimately receive the same level of review and scrutiny by the city. But when the bulk of the analysis is conducted before the lot is sold, as is the case in the preliminary PLA process, there are fewer problems and significantly improved outcomes. The minor plat focuses on size and shape of a lot without considering what goes on that lot. So the design is backwards. It's the lot first and the function later. Um so the lot can still meet the city's requirements, the minimum requirements, but still not meet the future homeowners needs or expectations. So, the best analogy that I have for

this is you're buying a new house. You're going to be moving into a new house, but you go and purchase all of the furniture before you actually see how big the rooms are. How many bedrooms do you have? What furniture do you need to fill that house? It doesn't make sense to buy the furniture before you see how big your house is and what you have to work for. This analogy is used here because when lot size are sized before the actual analysis is done, you don't really see the problem until much later in the process. Tracy, can I ask a question, please? But the size of the lot is an acre, right?

Yes. Or greater, but minimum of an acre. But why aren't we getting into just random buyer beware stuff? I mean, I don't I don't see how that you buy an acre lot, you need to build something that works on that lot that meets the city criteria. I feel like I'm missing something here. No, it's a it's a buyer beware for the for for the new anybody that's buying under the minor plat really should do a lot of investigating before they decide to buy that and build what they think is their dream home,

but that that could be said of any lot. Yeah, it's true. I'm not like we have a distinction without a difference. I

I may be able to help that. The I think the issue we have here is they certainly would have to build um and improve within the confines of our regulations. What we're seeing is that larger and larger homes are being built. So so that yes, generally they are still staying within within without the variances. They're staying within the regulations though you're going to find out that some are not and we we have a solution to that issue as well. Um but what you're seeing if you if you go back to that um that one slide where it showed how the we were getting larger and larger minimum build. So what you're what you're getting as a result of that is a different feeling and it's hard it's hard to quantify feeling. So but what we're trying to is trying to show that what you're what you're experiencing over the last 10 years is larger and larger improvements on those same size lots. They're not necessarily exceeding our regulations, but the question is, do our regulations match what the expectations were in our comprehensive plan? I think that is kind of what we're we're trying to determine tonight.

The criteria, right? They're meeting the code as it exists today. The question I think the council will have to determine if if it if you feel it meets the vision in our comprehensive plan, our work ends today. If you don't feel that it meets the vision in the comprehensive plan, then we have some more work to do. Well, how do how do we characterize what a feeling is? When you say meets the feeling, and I'm not being combative. I'm really interested, as you know, from our conversation today. I'm trying to understand this What is the feeling of the comprehensive plan if they're within regulation?

If respectfully, let me return that question back to you as you drive around the city and you recognize that some homes just don't seem to fit in currently with with what we think the city of Milton is. How do you capture that feeling? And I know we've had those discussions as well. It's a it's a challenge. You're leading me to characterize good-looking houses versus but ugly. I mean, I don't know. Well, not necessarily the architecture. Yeah, I understand.

But, you know, the it if what what is the feel of and and I know it's very difficult and that's kind of what I I've been hoping to be able to position the council well for tonight because at the end of the day, if you read the comprehensive plan, most of it's about feel. It's not about dollars or numbers. It's the character thing. And I think there's a

I think if you drive around you you know which subdivisions were built in which decade in Milton as buildings and yeah has changed. You know you see some they have plenty of mature trees up along the road that are buffered very well. Some are clear cut all the way up to the curb. It just depends and they work within the rules and regs that we have. But I think we we've been having this debate really a constructive debate for 20 years and the city is always trying to catch up to these building as building changes and evolves over time. But are there places that are clearcut to the road?

Oh yeah, there's a lot of these minor pler plenum that we the ones we talked about. I don't know. We'll have more information shortly, but I think one slide that really shows kind of captures what we're talking about is the slide that we had a couple of slides ago, which showed the two subdivisions that are right next to each other that was built about 10 years apart. Well, one thing that's very I'm sorry, my last point. Go right. One thing though at this inflection point is kind of interesting is that

the committees seem to be doing their jobs. I mean, they're saying no. And the city seems to be doing its job looking for solutions to meet, you know, I'm just I guess I'm I'm very not sure I I'll learn more, but I I don't see the whole

It's our role to do anything about the oneacre buyer beware thing. I'm not sure the buyer has to be that aware. They're getting an acre. No, but isn't isn't I I guess I misunderstood your point, but to me is the issue the fact that we've got individuals buying lots and not realizing they can't do all that they thought they could on the size lot that they purchased. That did I misunderstand what you were saying? In this example, for small lots, the development review is not captured up front. It's simply the lot size and the lot lines where they

I understand that. But but are we finding that homeowners that buy the from these minor plats are coming to us saying I wanted to build this house. I bought this. I it's a minimum of one acre. Now they're I can't because it's sloped or what. So they're running into issues after the fact after they've bought the land.

So that is what staff is experiencing. In fact, some of these minor plat lack of better terms applicants are getting the minor plat going through this quick process and flipping the lots. And if they flip the lots to a homeowner, this homeowner may have decided, oh, you know, maybe there are site constraints, too challenges, easements, and things like that that may have demanded a little bit larger lot for the things that they desire to be on that lot. And just one point, I just want to be clear. We're not trying to convince you there's a problem. Oh, I know that. Thank you. This is I appreciate that.

So, as we further look at some of our plat data over the last five years, this graphic is just representing how many lots have been created using the minor plat process versus the preliminary plat process. Um this does exclude our large lots. So this is lots that have been created from one to three acres in size and we've had 36 plat um over the last five years that has produced 83 lots. These lots did not have that upfront development review. Um in contrast from the preliminary plat we've had eight plats over the five years that have produced 104 lots. So the takeaway is that that we have similar number of lots that are created using both processes. So one final data point is more than just just the data. We wanted to get a take on how some of these outcomes make people feel. So we reached out to a set set group of stakeholders and this is the breakdown that shows the respondents that we had in each of these categories and there were there were similar numbers that were on the initial list under each category but this was our response rate of the 66 respondents at a 36% rate. So, one of the the big questions that every group got was, is too large for the lot a problem in Milton? And the the piraphph on the right shows that the the green the two shades of green are the the yes, either significant or moderate, and the blue is no, not really. The orange and peach are not enough information or maybe. The other other component of that is how often does it occur with a majority

saying sometimes often or very often? The majority the 64% of the 44% plus the how often does what occur? Who are the 64% of those that say yes? Do you recall that one, Steve? I believe it would be 64% of the total the total surveyed respondents. So it that was not one of the uh one of the logic questions. I don't believe it said if you say yes, you get the next question. I believe that still opened it up to that question. So I'd have to assume that the ones that showed up in the 8 and 12 probably showed up here in the four and 32.

But wait a second. If 16 are moderate and 36 say no, not really. 12 say maybe not sure. And that's really the majority. So the 64% say yes sometimes often very often that it's too large for the lot. I mean my I tend to sometimes think that I would think it would be 64% of only the 44%. I'd have to go back because I don't want to uh answer you wrong. I believe I captured it. I want to just remind you that unfortunately we only had 24 respondents.

Yeah, I understand. All right. And the last point on the survey was just some of the top themes in a couple different categories. These were the ones that had the higher percentage. There were other options to choose from that had lower percentages. So with the most cited impacts that being loss of privacy from height, massing or proximity, the tree canopy, reduced cohesion or enjoyment and the what respondents picked as what they thought was driving it was market demand, setbacks that do not scale with building size and lock coverage and impervis allowances. The final data point on the survey was how to approach any policy change and the 44% chose a top priority with 32% saying biggest risk. So we do have that full full data on the survey but these were just some some areas we wanted to highlight. So this slide we wanted to now break uh we've gone over all the trends all the data that we've looked at related to the perceived um issues and opportunities in AG1. And so now we're going to shift to the opportunities. We're just going to go over these very very high level. Um, there's a lot more research that can go into looking at these as potential options, but we didn't want to to get into any of them in too much detail, but at least go through potential opportunities. So, what we wanted to visualize with this graphic is we see an opportunity to put some improved guard rails around

that lot development standard. So looking at what what can fit on the lot and what the needs and wants are um for for new lots and then let that drive lot size and feel like a possible better outcome. But the opportunities are going to focus at what we could look at for for some guard rails around lot uh development. So we'll start with lot coverage. This was the same graphic from earlier just to illustrate what we're talking about with lock coverage. So we said right now we have two different thresholds. For public streets that lock coverage is 20% and for private streets 25. So opportunities we see with lot coverage are to to look at our percentages and to standardize some policies. First of all looking at the percentage we do have that varying number between what sort of street it fronts. So we could look at standardizing that we could possibly look at the opportunity if a area is is reserved or dedicated as a undisturbed buffer. there may be a um incentive percent that we could look at. And lastly, to not max out at initial build, but to reserve a little bit of that lock coverage for future needs. From the standardizing the policy standpoint, we would propose to require asbuilts so we can confirm that that lock coverage is what is represented on the approved plans and confirm that it's built according to the the uh approved conditions. Related to footprint, there's a calculation known as a floor area ratio that takes

the building floor area, which is the footprint that we talked about earlier, divided by the total lot area. Again, that footprints the first floor of the house, any attached garages, porches, anything under a roof. This graphic just shows for different size houses on the same lot what that ratio is. And the ratio is is a percent of the the total area. Just another way to look at that. Accessory structures or amenities could also have a proportion. They could be lumped with the floor area. We could look at a combined can this impervious um amenity and house proportion maybe not include the driveway let that still be part of lot coverage but to to group these these two things that are kind of unique about each property together. So this just shows how you could calculate a amenity coverage percentage or ratio. Another opportunity would be able to look at buildable area uh in relationship to the adjacency of existing home residents and and parcels. Um, it's important to note that the lot size uh does not necessarily represent the buildable area. You may encounter site constraints with stream buffers, uh, flood planes or easements um that that further limit your buildable area. So again, the buildable area could be smaller than the actual lot size and setbacks. So we also see another opportunity for um uh here to modify what is eligible for the minor plat process. So again the

minor plat would continue to be processed for subdividing large lots over three acres and to process simple lot line modifications. However, the creation of multiple new small lots, uh, three or fewer lots under three acres would no longer qualify for the minor plat process. Um, we would see those go through the preliminary plat process. The intent there is to ensure that the lot size is informed by development standards before the land is divided. And the added benefit is that there's better protection of tree canopy and the rural viewshed. So this brings us back to the first slide where we talked about the the 1x issue and the 5x issue. So wanted to just look back at based on what we've presented. Do you believe that the amount improvement on lots offends the spirit or intent of the comprehensive plan? And then for the 5x issue, do you see issues with the amplified concern of creating more lots with minimal review? So, we can stop here. We only had a few other slides after this. I know that was significant amount of information, but wanted to stop and first discuss the the content that was presented as well as the the amplified concern. Will you go to the uh comprehensive plan slide? We can take a look all the way back.

So is it fair to say if we take your recommendation on question number two and the minor plat is taken away and they go through the major or the major process that the rural viewshed will apply to minor plats. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay. It could Okay. Okay. if we so to correct okay because I think that goes to yeah I mean kind of the the viewshed is a lot in this comp plan and that's just if we allow it on the major plats maybe that is something we do I'm just

when you say major are you talking about the the three acre even when they're subdivided if they've gone through the process or just the preliminary three acres the the major plat process is more than five lots is Is that right? More than three. More than three. Okay. So, is that where we are? Are we now trying to decide? I think we're trying to decide. Is the comp plan the first question? No, it's good. I mean, you brought us to that, but here's my go back to your one times amplified. What do one and five again mean? My my short recall. What is that?

That's all I say again. first bullet one times. What What is that amplif? It's just basically saying that's the root cause. Um the amplifier is just amplifying it. But the 1x problem versus a 5x problem. So who has the amplified concern of creating more lots with minimal review? Who has that? That I would say that's more outcome based. Um, going back, can you go back to the funnel slide? Yeah.

So, everything in that what you lose is um everything in that orange when you're doing the minor plats. And a lot of times when you look at the when you do that site analysis and you determine what your footprint's going to be, um it helps better determine what your lot lines will look like as opposed to creating the lot lines first and then trying to cram the house or the building envelope within that. That's one example. Um the hydrarology tree canopy and some of the things that they discussed is certainly impacts it. But I think for the purposes of tonight's conversation, it's really that building footprint and the and the associated amenities which would be in total the impervious surface.

This may be a dumb question, but and and maybe I'm jumping the gun here, but can we collapse that process and just follow the other process? Yeah, that's that's kind of that's the second question. That's the second question. Yeah. Is is the question get rid of the minor process and just go with the preliminary final plat process so everyone follows the same and there's no surprises for whoever ends up building the house. So that is generally what I believe we we were discussing with the exception of large lots. So currently

so this is a minimum of one acre minimum of three three lots that would be the case. should get rid of the minor plat. My I guess my question is what's the drawback? Like what what do we not know that is a negative to getting rid of the minor plat process?

I envision some developers would be able to identify what they believe to be drawbacks in that process. One of the reasons you have minor plats is so um land owners can fairly easily subdivide without going through everything you see within the orange before they can subdivide. So there there are challenges I'm sure I'm sure that that people in the business could probably bring up more of that. One other point though I just want to make because going back to our our large lots which are in excess of three acres, those regardless of the number of lots of subdivisions of subdivided lots, as long as they're all over three lots, it's still a minor subdivision, a minor plat. And we there is no recommendation on changing that process. So that those large lot subdivisions would still can follow the old minor plat process of of speed.

It's kind of easy. Under three acres. So over over three acres you're doing minor. Under three acres you're doing major. That is that right? Correct.

Okay. So, is it fair to characterize if we got rid of the minor plat process and rolled it up into the other process? You've referenced that maybe some in the business or whatever, there would be some angst because of changed their way of doing business, but it sounds like there's already angst with on the buyer side and perhaps the sales side, etc., which you know personally I don't think that's our role to worry about that because our committees are doing their job you all are doing their job and you know there is the whole buyer beware of anything but the ultimately there's probably the same amount of angst that we get. So if we got rid of that that angst from either one of those parties might be shortlived. We just focus on the other side

and perhaps there's ways that we could streamline our current preliminary flat review doesn't mean we would we would eliminate any of those steps, but maybe there are ways that we could speed that process up. Um, but I'm sure that and I look and some of the responses we got in the survey, I think we got eight or nine developers and builders and they they talked about this a little bit. Um, and it and I do believe that some of them do believe it would it could impact things. I think we also heard from some build builders and developers that also supported potentially having more review at that point. Um, but again, our sample size on that was nine or eight. So, it's I think we should should the council decide to move forward with any of this, we need to do more work. This was uh basically a three or four-week process trying to get as much information as we could in front of you during this uh short-lived emergency moratorum. Well, it feels like you're bringing up an issue of of fairness and the feeling of Milton will benefit and I've reflected on that. And what does everyone say when they come to the podium? They're they're very kind about the vegetation, the trees, the open fields, the so anytime we have a s a oneacre lot fronting a busy road and it if it's not well treed and have a lot of landscaping, it sticks out and it's it's not the feeling of Milton. It's it's not what we want. And that if there's things that we can do to enhance that, I mean, that would be extremely appealing. Hey Steve, quick question back to who who could this be detrimental to? If we were to change that process, would that impact builders and developers more or would it potentially impact current land

owners? I would have to say probably both. So there would be negative implications to those who own property now. they would be less able to very quickly subdivide their property. It wouldn't prevent the subdivision of property though. It would cost them more and it would take more time. Can we can we get numbers with that length? Like what's the length and what when you say cost? What is that?

Yeah. I mean my my concern is it's one thing to say we're going to make it more difficult for builders to build in our city. It's another to say we're going to hamstring some property owners that now make things more difficult for them to subdivide for their family or whatever their their reason may be a concern. Um

but what specifically what is that? I I don't want to leave that alone. Well, I think I think like the question tonight is do we generally think, yeah, you know what, let's take that next step. And I think the the slides ahead of us are going to say, well, if council's like kind of lukewarm about this, like why don't we just take that next step? I think over the next 60 days is when we have all those meetings with the stakeholders and builders and developers and and land and land owners. And if you wouldn't mind, could you go ahead and go through that process what that would be? planning commission, CZIM. Are we going to have community input meetings then council and work session and all that stuff? Because we're not going to decide that obviously tonight I don't think we've skipped a few slides here now, right? We only skipped one.

Oh, okay. See,

so we ended here and then if we do proceed with addressing um some next steps related to both of these, we have have some immediate next steps. And then how that lays out is we see these working on a similar tract but the anything we look at development standardbased would is likely a more complex issue that would likely take more time. It may take you know a whole meeting with planning commission just to discuss floor ratio what that is how we looked at it. Um, so there's there's more that goes into that, but this is the fastest track proposal that we could come up with to start on code amendments. So with public input opportunities running throughout the process, the we would propose to have this very similar presentation to this at the February 25th planning commission to preview them to the topic. We could then advertise for CZIN public hearings that would fall the end of March for that community zoning information meeting and then the planning commission. If we wanted to, again, this is just very fast-tracked. If there wanted to be a first presentation at a special called meeting the end of March, that would set up for consideration under the zoning agenda, April 13th. April's a odd month with the spring break hitting that first week. So everything's pushed a little further back.

Quick question. Can we strip the two and do the minor major one? I I think that would I think we could hit the fasttrack target on that one. Um still obviously want the input from everyone, but I think a lot of this complexity, floor area ratio, buffers and all that stuff. Um incentives. I like the incentives that that you that you threw out on the impervious surface. I think that's going to involve a lot more public input and citizens and you know everyone all the stakeholders. I think it works out well when we extend things and we allow more public input. We tend to get a better result. So maybe we can strip those and say major minor plat let's go through this process fasttrack it in the moratorum in in April and then allow all that public input and process to go on and allow y'all to have more time is that that is that what y'all are thinking Steve

I believe so that is yes is that we're thinking like two different tracks

right we could start the preliminary work on getting more data really looking at if we go back here. We we felt we really needed to further evaluate and vet that showing the opportunities um and that that root cause. So that's the lot development standards. So we we do see a need for more data analysis review to inform what we would even look to move forward with. Whereas with the the amplifier issue, the minor plat issue, um felt like that could that could be ready to move to that next step a little quicker. Um, so we don't we don't have to necessarily have these on on the same tract. We could whether we introduce it at planning commission. Maybe we just go with we don't even bring the lot development into into their discussions yet. We focus on on the minor plat initially and we'll continue to do data analysis and just really looking at the uh lot development standards before we we start any sort of process on those.

Leader go for it. Okay. later. So, where then is the hard stop? Because a large part of my brain has a hard time playing with other people's money and you know the the fairness scenario. And I I think we're all fair and we're looking at something ultimately to be fair, but um I want to go back to council member Haney's question. We're talking about cost and time between the two. And I don't I mean we we got here tonight I guess because of cost and time and I don't think that I don't think it to just blow past that. We must have some idea what that is. So what is the difference between the cost and the time between the two tracks?

Can I offer another variable? Mhm. Outcome. What is the desired outcome? What experience and outcome is created by going through these scenarios? Okay. we have. So I'm just I'm just saying if if we have better outcomes going through the preliminary because more thought process goes there while there may be more cost and time does it present a better outcome? Yeah. So but what is that? Yes. Yes. I agree. I don't know if we have that information and at this moment and I don't think it's a great question and I think it's the most important question but I don't think we expected y'all to have that answered tonight. I think that answer comes April 13th.

Wait a second. Is it an assumption or is it a feeling or is it is there gonna be I agree. I think that begs a different question. C Sarah, can you go back to the comparison slide of the two neighborhoods built within 10 years of each other or so? Was this the one the comparison of the processes?

No. No. Where you showed two different neighborhoods side by side. The neighborhoods are close to each other. Oh, that one. So, I guess my question is, are we trying to solve for not doing the bottom right and putting as much on one acre lots or are we trying to solve so that those homes are just on bigger pieces of property? Like, what are we what are we getting at? Because the the bottom right, if those are all built within code, I don't know what we're talking about. If if they needed a variance, that's one thing. And maybe we don't grant a variance, but if they're all built within their legal rights to build those properties, I don't I don't know what we're talking about. If we're just suggesting we would rather them build those homes on bigger pieces of property, then we're back to the large lot incentives. How do we incent them to take one of those homes out and make all the lots a little bit bigger?

I if I could, I think I think the we could all agree except for maybe a couple of those lots there that they comply with our our current regulations. I think the question before the council tonight is do those current regulations still match what you expected to see in the city of Milton because we're seeing a steady increase in the amount of improve or the ratio of improvement on the lot. And if the answer is we don't we don't see an issue with this increased ratio then there is probably very little reason to discuss much further.

So if it's in code the ratio might be higher but it's within code. They are you you can generally assume what you're seeing is within our current development codes. There are a couple in this picture that probably are related to another issue and that's asbuilt inspections that we need to be doing, but generally you can you can assume what you just stated, Council Member Cookley, is correct.

And is it fair to say if if we take the next step to allow some discussion and the end result's either going to be one of two things? You're going to have a smaller home on a on the same size lot or you're going to have a larger home on a little bit of a bigger lot. Correct. I mean, it's either going to be one or the two. They're either going to shrink the house size or they're going to increase the house size but have a larger lot. I think that's if if we choose to do something to change AG1. If we don't, then not. But I guess my my question is what what's our endg game? Like what is what is the problem we're trying to solve for? What is what are we trying to get to?

I think the problem we're trying to solve for is whether or not this council feels that the current building patterns are still in alignment with what was expected in the comprehensive plan. Well, okay. So, we've we've now left our process and it's are we now in whether we have a feeling that people are building too big a homes and we're not happy about that even though they're within code and is that really something that how are we going to legislate that with the original thesis we started on tonight?

It was that's exactly where we started respectfully. it and it's it's it's legislation is exactly how we how we create the vision or we how we execute the vision of the comprehensive plan. Um it's a it's it the current AG1 standards are are a perfect result of that. It's just that building styles and amenities have changed. And what staff is hearing are complaints, complaints from some neighbors, complaints from some of the new home buyers. Um, and we're duty bound to bring this information to you because we're seeing a trend. It's up to the council to determine whether or not you think that trend is is in line with what you want to see as as policy makers.

And over the last 20 years, whether good or for bad, this council, prior councils have created these standards along the way. And they've changed like impervious surface that was just probably introduced what 10 years ago. Rural viewshed 12 years ago. So I mean it's not like unfortunately that's kind of part of our job. We either make rules and regulations, we we we tweak them or we just say no, we just move on. I mean, it's kind of kind of what this city's and we've had this debate for the last 20 years and it continues. It really does boil down to this something somewhat simple is what you if what you're seeing if that's if if that's still in alignment with your expectations

and I want to extend it a little while because I think it's important to get I mean we have we had 25 responses out of 42,000 people. That's very difficult to legislate when you don't give it to the citizens to allow them to have that dialogue and have all that discussion and then we make that you know difficult decision and that's why I feel like you know going down your proposal I think is the right way to kind of get those answers from the people. I mean it's kind okay but all those people that you're talking about they've exercised their property rights. I'm talking about

No, but wait a second. But the people who haven't exercised their property rights and may want to sell or may have smaller lots that could be subdivided, they're going to be affected. So, you know, they're sort of the last out. And so, I don't I'm not sure.

I mean, my calls are 50/50. I get the calls from the property owners saying, "Don't don't touch any of my property." I got the people that have just moved here prior I mean pre after COVID. I have people that just drive through here or just residents that have been here for 20 30 years and get it from all over. And that's why I think this is always a difficult discussion and we've had it every few every few years and it's important to allow it to be vetted in the public form and just letting it go through the process. We're talking about extending a moratorum for 90 days April 13th, right? Is that 90 days? or no up to 120 days but with the expectation that we should be able to complete our work by April well I forgot what the date was

13th the concern with the moratorum is is those land owners how many of those land owners are we impacting we have a risk slide it's a good question well um Steve let me ask 2025 there were 20 inquiries or things that came before the BZA and only what two of those were approved. Is that correct? In the red box. So the inquiries came in to staff

and didn't didn't even advance to a variance application because we were able to either work out an alternate solution using pvious pavers and whether that while it still represents an improvement on the lot. It it does satisfy the storm water component of impervious paper wood but it is that it does still you know change the the feel of the of the lot. So, uh, that was one of the Okay. the solutions.

Staff is able to solve problems, which is fant. Always knew you could. That's fantastic. BCA approved two of them out of the the 20. So, having a hard time seeing where some of this problem lies. I got a question. I mean, I see a I mean, I'll just be very frank. There is a obvious problem I believe with the minor and the major plat when you drive. I understand that part. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, I've already said that. I understand.

So, we're good. Oh, okay. Well, I think the second one is much more com complex. I don't think our intention is to extend the moratorum all the way through. I don't think this council wants to extend the moratorum all the way to get all those other objectives done. I don't think that's the question, is it Steve? I think it isn't. Okay. In fact, you this isn't about expanding the moratorum to to preliminary plats. It's still sub it's still focused on the minor plat. Um if the council wanted to do that though is not something we're recommending. You would you'd have to enact that moratorium separate and apart from this.

If we if we if we didn't extend the moratorum but we still wanted to look at the whole AG1 process. What's the downside of that? We have a slide for that.

Can you describe the the slide so they have an un a better understanding?

So this risk slide uh identifies if the moratorum which were were to end that there would be no disruption. We would continue um as we have as our policy is now quick splits creating potential problem lots. Uh we could extend the targeted moratorium on modern plat which would have a limited disruption. Uh it would stop the quick splits while process and standards are vetted. And then the final would be to consider a future moratorum to pause for more review of the root cause on AG1 lots which would create more of a higher disruption. So, but explain to me

if we stop if we don't do the moratorum, what can h what can happen versus if we have the mortorium in place. What I just want to get that a great question. the the purpose of a moratorum is to kind of put a stop in place. So we have a chance to any uh body has a chance to determine better analyze if we have a problem and if there is a problem to be able to change the the code accordingly. In this situation the risk would be with the preliminary plots specifically is because they could be done so quickly. Um it kind of that's that's kind of what's behind the 5x label on that.

Okay. um because they could be done so quickly. And all of those those parcels in the pink are not necessarily anybody that's come to everybody has come to us about subdividing, but parcels that are easily subdividable that would probably fall into that minor plaque category. That's the that's the worst case scenario risk you're seeing in front of you. And so those would be Sorry, dear. Go ahead. Okay. You say quickly. They could be done so quickly. Now we're getting to my question of what's the time frame? What's the time frame of one versus the other? For a Can you give me a guesstimate on a minor plat versus

for a minor plat? It's approximately three months. It does not require a minor plat does not require to go to planning commission. There's not necessarily a public hearing. In fact, minor plats are presented to you all on the consent agenda. So if we don't extend the moratorum, the the downside is that individuals that need to move forward with selling their property through the minor plat process can continue to do that and that's what's at risk is that the number of those might pick up or go faster.

That's generally the risk and it's not necessarily just sell. It could be just just home land owners wanting to subdivide. But at the same time, we could be doing going through a complete review, but we're not negatively impacting anybody. I mean, that's I Well, maybe land owners would say would differ on that one. Well, no. I mean, we've had this moratorum in in place. I don't have you heard from anybody. That's I heard from one from one person and and so that is why I think there is a reason to extend it a small amount of time to get more feedback from the citizens because when we have a moratorum and I hear from one person that

doesn't want it I I feel like or or or vice or vice versa. So I think doing the minor and major and having an end to the moratorum for April 13th if that's our target date 60 days I I think people can tolerate that a little while. I don't want to go I don't think any of us want to go further than that for sure. Um but I think the other conversations are much deeper and it's going to be more more complex. So the question is do we just go ahead and stop the you know open the moratorum and end it and then

if I may Mr. Mayor and Council, um we have a public hearing coming up next for that very purpose to hear from the public about any concerns about the extension of the moratorum. So, not to cut off this conversation as to the merits, but as to whether to continue for consideration the merits, it might be useful to see if there's a public outcry tonight or So, is it fair to say that we already had this information for for this item that we can just kind of carry it over because they do kind of mirror

Oh, absolutely. So, and I think this, in fact, the resolution um contemplates that you've been provided this information so that you have an understanding of what could happen um going forward. But yes, I think you would end this item with no action coming from the council at this time and you could proceed into the public hearing and then you make a decision at that point about whether to extend the mortorium or not. But Steve, do you have enough feedback through this presentation? Do you have enough council direction on this presentation or will that take on the next item? you'll know where our direction is. I don't

that's that is a fair question. I I don't I don't know that I have necessarily the direction that we need. I because it can the direction we can get can be completely independent of the moratorum. You can you can direct staff to continue looking into all of this um both the preliminary plot issues and the and the the major plot issues without a moratorum in place. Um, you could also tell us, uh, we believe that everything we're seeing generally complies with the code of ordinances and we don't see an issue and we don't want you spending any more staff resources on this. So, so I would, if I could, and it's it's this is always that kind of sticky situation when we're not calling votes and things like that on these reports and presentations, but a general idea of whether or not you would like to see staff resources continuing on would be good. I may be able to split the baby on this and I'll lean on legal counsel. Perhaps we could move into the hearing or the moratorum. you can hear from some of the public comments and maybe that can help some of your thought process if that's allowable.

Yes, absolutely. And I think following the public hearing, you'll need to make an affirmative vote on the moratorum and whether you're going to extend it or not, but you could also take a secondary vote on how you want to direct staff going forward based upon your decision on the moratorum. I like that answer. Y'all good with that?

Okay, great. All right. Uh, no more reports and presentations or that ends the public hearing or no that's no more reports and presentations will now go into the public hearing. Will the city clerk please sound on the item? Mayor, that public hearing item is consideration of a resolution of the city of Milton, Georgia, extending for up to 120 days a moratorum barring acceptance of minor subdivision plats with the AG1 zoning district that create any lot of less than three acres in size pursuant to the city of Milton Unified Development Code. Article what is that? 12 administration section 126 subdivision of land. It's agenda item number 26052, our city attorney, Miss Angela Davis.

Yes. So the the resolution, you can skip. Sorry.

The resolution that's before you is to consider extension of the existing emergency moratorum that was in place pending the ability to run the notice and publication in the newspaper so that we could have a public hearing tonight to fully vet the concept of whether to extend under the terms of the moratorum. If you agree and decide you wish to adopt this resolution, it would provide for up to 120 days, which gets us to June 9th, but it provides specifically that that could be terminated at any time upon um your additional vote. It could be extended if you so choose, and it could be um adjusted as needed. So up to 120 days does not mean that it has to be in place for that long. Um and I think um we already understand what it's barring. it would be barring um the acceptance of minor plats for consideration of creating less than three acre lots. That's the limited basis of that. And then just one last thing I wanted to point out for any plats that are currently in process with staff that have already been submitted. Those would not be exempt uh be included in this. They would be exempted and they would be able to continue to be considered.

Thank you. All right. Do we have any public comment? We do, mayor. We have three. Okay. And mayor, I would like to just make a quick reminder. Uh, speakers will have a total of five minutes. I will announce when one minute remains and I will announce when time expires. I invite and I am calling the speaker cards in which they were received. And Tony Rich, I invite you first to the podium.

Good evening, Mayor Council. Tony Rich, 1960 Bethany Way, Milton, Georgia. Um, whenever I write my comments, when I have ideas and thoughts, I come in here and I write them up and I go, "All right, I know what I'm going to say." And then when I listen to you guys talk, I'm like, "Well, I don't even know if I really need to read half the stuff." Um, you know, because we're not allowed to participate in your discussions, I my mind is all over the place. I mean, um, you know, Council Member Cookie, you've said four or five things that I just want to talk to you about right now. And then council member Jacobish, you say some things and I go, "Oh, I need to address that." And mayor, you say some things and city manager says some things and so I get to a point where I'm like, "All right, I don't even know where to begin." But, you know, I will say that I hope you extend this moratorum. I mean, that was the biggest message I wanted to to request of you guys tonight is that this is a big topic. It's huge. you know, we first listened to discussion back in I think early December and you were talking about uh um you know, lot lot setbacks on oneacre lots and you know, there was a presentation or request to reduce those setbacks. And you know, I heard a comment that said, "Well, if you're in the back of a subdivision, who cares how close the house is to the road?" And you're right, if you're a half mile back in the middle of a big subdivision, I really don't care how close a person's house is to the road. But it goes so far beyond that. It's really what do we want to encourage as a city when it comes to developing our land. Um, you know, this goes so far beyond property rights. Um, I'm all about property rights. I mean, I own my own farm. I don't want you guys telling me how to handle it or what to do with it. But we've got to decide, do we want to protect the people that want to stay in Milton because we've decided to raise our family here and call this our home, or do we really put the people that want to sell their land and leave Milton at a higher priority? And I'm not sure what the answer to that is because the older I get, um, a condo sounds more and more appealing. And, you know, there

there are days I've got a huge water leak in my house I'm dealing with right now. And so, there are days when I'm just ready to sell the farm and move. I say that it's somewhat inest, but I love living in Milton and everything about this town makes is different. You know, we could have lived in Sandy Springs or Alpharetta or Roswell, but we didn't. We picked Milton because Milton is different. You know, everything our city government does, this is what I wrote down based on some of your comments. Everything you all do as a city government, um, you are inflicting uh or affecting a person's property rights in some fashion or another. You know, you could decide to have 10-ft setbacks on all four sides and reduce the uh you know, the development standards to quarter acre lots. And guess what? There are developers that would buy that property and they would love it. You know, we could put sewer in Milton and there are probably people that would applaud that decision. I'm not one of those people, but somebody would applaud it and pro and probably our property values would go up because the density numbers would go up and people could put all kinds of development on that property. But I don't want that. I live here. You know, we paid a lot of money for this farm and I want to I want to protect it. So, I think you guys need to realize that everything you do, every piece of legislation that you fashion, uh, in the words of Ken Gerard, and you approve in some way or fashion is going to affect a person's property rights. Okay? Maybe it protects our property rights because it keeps Milton different and it keeps it unique. Or maybe it reduces our property rights because the land's not worth as much. I don't know the answer to that. I'd like to think that if we could figure out a way to eliminate 1acre lots in Milton that my land would be worth more because it's different and it's not Alpharetta and it's not Roswell and it's not John's Creek, it's Milton. And if you want to move to Milton, you need to live on a big piece of land or go somewhere else. I mean, I know that sounds simple and I know that's not something that you guys can so easily figure out because the conversation started when we moved here

10 years ago and it's still going on just as strong today as it was back then. I'll tell you something. Somebody that I know and respect wrote a letter years ago and I'm going to read you a piece of that letter. It says, "A number of years ago, Milton adopted the aura of green pastures in an equestrian lifestyle. Whether you were part of it or just enjoyed living near it, it was a bold pronouncement for our little city's character. But in those same years, one pasture after another succumb to development. Now there's a drum beat for more amenities to service everyone. To do so would mean the loss over time and more and more of our character as Milton tilts towards sameness. I don't want to be the same as everybody else. I want you guys to figure out a way to keep us different. I've watched every single person in your group get elected. And not one person hasn't brought up equestrian heritage, rural lifestyle, and protecting all those things. And to sit here and worry about a person's property rights and to give up what makes Milton different, I think that'd be too bad. So

time's expired. Please, please extend the moratorum. Right on. Thank you. Thank you all. Mayor, I invite Shannon Quidley to the podium, please.

Shannon Quiddley, 1135 Next Road. Um, I'm here in favor of extending the moratorum. Um, I feel like there's just not um enough public input. And I can just tell you guys from what I'm hearing as a citizen is no longer, oh my god, you live in Milton. It's so pretty out there. It's you live in Milton. Oh my god, have you seen those houses on Freemanville? Oh my god, y'all have such big houses. And I don't like that. you know, we we I think we're kind of going backwards and I think we need some more time and thoughtful effort um in speaking to the public. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker. And our last speaker is uh Leila Hovic. I thought I had it. Sorry. Yes. Hi everyone. Um good evening. Um again, I wrote a little speech. Um, but as I got to kind of listen to y'all have some of the commentary and things like that, it seems like there's a continuous conversation about um, development and what about the selling and stuff, but it's more about like what about us who live here, right? Um, so I kind of wanted to just put some things together. Quick five seconds. Uh, name and address.

Oh, sorry. Leila Hosanovic, um, 2445 Mountain Road. Um, Milton, of course. So, good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Laya Hassnovic. I'm a homeowner in AG1 zoning. Um, thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. Um, I'm here to urge council to vote in favor of extending the AG1 moratorium so that the staff has the time and space needed to properly evaluate subdivision standards and long-term impacts. This issue was brought forward by the staff for a reason, and it's important that we allow them adequate time to do this work thoughtfully and thoroughly and without pressure from pending applications. The second point I want to emphasize is AG1 itself. Keeping larger lots and preserving land is why we live here. AG1 is not simply a residential designation. It exists to protect open land, rural, character and working agricultural uses. Once that land is subdivi subdivided and fragmented, those qualities are permanently lost. I live on Mountain Road which is defined by large parcels, limited road capacity, and rural infrastructure. Incremental subdivision in areas like this change how the land functions affecting traffic safety, drainage, tree canopy, long-term land continuity. These impacts accumulate quickly and cannot be reversed. Once it's done, it's done. I'm also a beekeeper. Like many residents in Milton, beekeeping and other agricultural uses depend on space. Milton zoning um zoning code recognizes this by allowing agricultural uses and livestock in AG1 with required setbacks including significant distance from neighboring properties and occupied structures. As lots become smaller and closer together. Those uses become increasingly constrained and incompatible. Not because they're mismanaged, but because the land pattern no longer supports them. Protecting AG1 protects more than lot size. protects land stewardships, pollinators, and agricultural character that Milton has intentionally preserved. Extending the

moratorum allows staff and council to ensure that future decisions continue to support that intent rather than eroding it one approval at a time. I respectfully ask you to extend the moratorum and reaffirm your commitment to land preservation and thoughtful planning. Again, thank you for your time and I do agree with um the other homeowners that mentioned. I don't think that there's enough public um input from the city and with this extension hopefully it'll allow me to make sure that I get everyone at least to be able to make some sort of commentary whether it's one way or another. Um so allowing that would enable me to do so. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, mayor. That concludes public comment for this item. Okay. Um, is it fair to say that if council would like to extend the moratorum, we do it in a shorter time time frame? I think I've kind of gathered that. Okay, that's right. So, Steve, knowing that, give me because I think it's important for the community to understand when it's going to end and make sure we communicate. Give me the timelines again on one path, two paths, and what staff's going to do in the meantime. I can tell you I can tell you the the preliminary

the I'm sorry, the minor plat. Our goal is to have that across the finish line by April 13th. As long as we meet that objective and that that April 13th is the shortest possible critical path within within the zoning procedure law and everything that we need to do here in the in the city. You mean present on that and vote on that that night. It would be before the council at that point whether to dissolve that procedure in lie of the other procedure.

Correct. And you know there are some variables there. Um we are we've compressed this so much if the planning commission determines they want to defer something that could push things off but and and perhaps a little bit of a cushion there would be of value. However, I could tell you staff from a staff perspective we can have that work done for April 13th. So question, how do we set expectations with with your call to the public to get involved? How do we set expectations on what we can legally do and we can't legally do? Like I can appreciate people don't want and it's a fair comment such big houses. Um, but then how do we what's what's the criteria then for having smaller houses and what would that be that we would have to do or our hands tied? I think that needs to be otherwise people are going to come in with an expectation that all of a sudden people aren't going to be building big houses on oneacre lots and they're going to be sorely disappointed that if they meet the criteria in the code that we can't do anything about that. So I don't want to have a bunch of false things out there. I want it to be very realistic. On the other hand, if we have the opportunity on any of these lots to improve the viewshed, to do other things and know we just need to understand and the public needs to understand what's our latitude if they're coming in to lobby, what are they what are we able to do? What are they able to lobby and be for and what is just not going to fly? Because I'm not exactly sure either with a wave of my hand and my wand, I'd like to roll it back when I got here in 97, you know? I mean, it's painful. So,

that was a lot of questions in that. Um, and I'm not going to tell her where I was in 1997. Tried to keep track of them as you were going. I think I might be able to generally answer it. I think even in light of also what we've heard tonight and in light of the very limited and unscientific approach to our survey um and we let's face it we identified a group of stakeholders that you know it was it was decent stakeholder analysis but then we handpicked representatives from them who we could send that out to. I think we need to open that up quite a bit. I think we need to hear from more citizens um not handpicked by by staff. I think we probably should have some open forums for people to come and speak and we could structure those around what could and could not be done. Um, you know, one of the conversations that that that we had, it go hearkens back to when we did the tree canopy ordinance and there were some people here who were on on that committee with me and one of the we we looked at it through through three lenses and one of the lenses was to ensure we don't unnecessarily impact homeowners and land owners. And I think that should be one of the lenses that we look at through this because they're an important part. In fact, I'm embarrassed that I I went to builders and developers before I went to homeowners when I answered your question earlier. Uh land owners um land owners that we heard from a few tonight. There are uh there there's all those pink parcels you saw on that map earlier are all land owners. And there's more than that, too, because we have much larger land owners throughout the city as well that aren't represented on there. I think we need to hear from them. So, okay, but what are we going to do so that people know what we can and can't do instead of pie in the sky and then they're angry like we

have to have some documentation so that everybody who comes to the podium doesn't have a set of expectations over here that we can't touch. I think from a problem solving standpoint, we look at what outcome you're looking to achieve. And if it's the outcomes that that we talked about tonight, we talk about some of those tools instead of saying instead of speaking in generalities, I don't want to see the property develop next to me. Um, what does that look like? You know, I don't want to see a property develop right next to me. You know, I want go back to that picture. Uh you don't have to go back to pictures, but if you remember the one where they were talking about side setbacks, that that's an actual situation that that we're dealing with right now. And that's a a resident who has a an extraordinarily large home being built behind her. And because it fronts inside the the new subdivision, which is a large lot subdivision, the side step back is only 25 ft. So what so what she's looking at and you can't really see through that through that picture

it's you can see it it's enormous and that's you know it's an kind of it's while it's part of the house and it can be considered almost an accessory but it is part of the home. So I think that we need to talk about what outcomes we're looking for and structure that in a manner so people can give feedback on realistic strategies. Okay. So what would you say to people that because half of your respondents I guess that's what 13 people said 12 houses are too big.

Okay. So then I think there should be something specific people are able to lobby for and we can't wave that wand and say you have to build a smaller house if you meet the criteria. Are we saying that we were we are open to changing the criteria? We can go with more impervious I mean more less impervious no more imper No. Yeah. More impervious surfaces. I got it on the third time. Let the record show. I'm tracking. I think that would go contrary more impervious surface unless it was unless you're improving the ratio would would be contrary to what we're talking about. But I get what you're what you're trying what you're saying.

Help me with that. Um Let me sleep on this. Let us sleep on this. Okay. This has this has been a a a tremendous amount of work getting up to this point. Maybe we can reconvene tomorrow morning and we can brainstorm a little bit about some of the things that have been brought to us and I could probably better answer your question because I think the easy button the easy button is that 5x right that's the more easy thing and I think is that the two pass is that what you're

and then the first one is going to be the much more complex community I mean a lot of input that needs needs to be had so the vote tonight is do we extend the moratorum period Right. And I think is the thinking Steve that that will be lifted on April 13th because I think that's council wants to know when's this moratorum going to end first barring we can't control what other bodies do assume assuming that we're able to move through the zoning procedure law process the the time as we have them laid out we can have this done by April 13th I I can't control for those other variables.

Okay. So tonight it's going to be 120 days, but our intention is we hopefully we'll lift it on April 13th and then we'll go through the process of y'all will come back before us numerous times with what y'all are thinking along the way as far as all the menu of criteria that's going to be involved in a much longer process. Is that correct? Is that fair or Yes. Okay. Um though you I correct me if I'm wrong council. I don't know that you need to say 120 days right now. It could be up to if if it's up to 120 days, but if you decide we don't we don't care about the process if if it gets delayed, we're not willing to go beyond x amount of days. Okay.

You could do I think you could do that tonight, right? um as drafted currently as proposed is up to 120 days. But if you complete the process by April 13th and everything goes along exactly as slated and planned, then you would vote to terminate the mortorium at the same time or you could. Okay?

If they decided that we're not willing, regardless of what happens, to go beyond 90 days or at least have another hearing at that point, they can do that as well tonight, too. could, but just remember the same bind that we got in while we had to have the little two things is if you decide it and it's less than the time needed to get. So, if we say it's going to end April 13th and you decide end of March that, oh gosh, you know what, we're not going to be ready. Well, then we're going to have this other problem because we would not be able to get it advertised. You have to have at least a minimum of 15 days prior to the public hearing to be able to extend it. And this concept of the public hearings to extend moratoriums. If that seems kind of counterintuitive, I can understand that it may. But the idea is and under the case law is once you have a moratorium in for more than a very very brief emergency period, which we have equated to about 30 days, then it's a zoning decision in and of itself because it's a no zoning. So because of that, you have to go through the ZPL process and that means at least an advertisement 15 days in advance in a public hearing.

So or actually 30 days. We haven't changed our code yet. It's about to change, but we're still at 30. Okay. So, then that even makes it harder. So, you would have to decide, you know, by the beginning of March, which is a couple of weeks, that you're not going to make your deadline or else you would be in that little, you know, quagmire again. So, giving yourself the leeway up to 120 days gives you the flexibility. You can cut it off anytime sooner. But of course to your point if you know no matter what happens you're ending the process whether you've accomplished anything or not certainly shorten it tonight. Can you do special called meetings with our committees if in order to expedite the process?

I is and I want you to confirm that I just made a correct statement too about is it still 30 days? It is still 30 days. Yes.

And did some I think did some of that process include special called meetings? it did for first presentation before council and that is piggybacking off of going right out of the planning commission into submitting the packet for first presentation. So that's a very compressed timeline from when planning commission would hear it to when it needs to be submitted to then be on first presentation and that would first presentation would need to be a special called again because of the spring break how it fits in April. Pull that slide back up. All right, let's see here. March 24th, 13th Basically, March is fair play to schedule meetings and do whatever. Is that fair?

I mean, it's Does council want to It's pretty easy. I mean, it's not easy, but does council want to extend it for 120 days? Let the let the flexibility or do y'all want to hard end on April 13th and we can reup on we can always re up and I don't know if you want to give it maybe another week or something maybe just a little buffer

the 90 days in in having the discussion we just had um does give me a a moment of pause because we're we're going to need to know within a couple of weeks of whether or not we're going to be able to meet that April 13th deadline and we're not going to know that because it won't before the planning commission yet. So you risk we risk um a delay at the planning commission point if we because we won't have advertised in time. Now we could advertise it and then just never do it right. We could we could just go ahead and advertise within the appropriate deadline and then when that date comes up you decide what you want to do that that could that could hedge that. Is is it fair to say we can also lift it at any point in time too?

Absolutely. It says that on its own terms. Okay. So we can days when we need to. There were a few moratoriums that we quite a while ago that we had rolled. Mr. Mayor, I'd like the flexibility with the full intent of lifting it on April 13. I think that's kind of what I'm we don't know what we don't know. If to your point, if there's a board that or committee that we can't anticipate what we don't know. Yeah. We're putting too much pressure on ourselves at the extended time. If we can bring it in, let's bring it in. Exactly. Get the right input. Feels right. Okay, let's do it. Sure.

I think the 120 days would be the safest with the understanding we plan on getting this to you by April 13th and with the understanding you could end this mortorium tomorrow. All right. Yeah, fair enough. All right. Any other council discussion? So, what's the time period? Currently stated is up to 120 days. If we just approve the agenda item as is, then we're good to go. Okay. Are you ready? Yep. Go. Mr. Mayor, I make a motion. We approve agenda item number 26-052. Second. Okay. I have a motion from Council Member Cookerly and a second from Council Member Dolan to approve agenda item number 26-052. Doug, you good.

He's asleep. He's gone. I'm not asleep. I'm totally paying attention. Okay. I meant to call on you before we place the vote, so I apologize. Hey, I my vote had hit before Council Member Kramer's, dude. Thank you. All right, that motion passes six to one. Thank you. Okay. Uh since there are no items under zoning agenda, unfinished business or new business, does um council have anything to report on? Staff, anything? We do not. Okay. With that, I'll have a motion to adjurnn. Mayor, I'll make a motion to adjourn. Second. Okay. Motion from Haney, second from Johnson. All in favor, please place your votes. That passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay.