Remarks by Melissa Link
58 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 3
- Play at 20:56
“Yeah, I I agree with the Planning Commission's recommendation on this primarily because um, you know by returning this to an AR property, it preserves the property. It is a historic home. It's historically a farm. The Planning Commission put these conditions on it to prevent it from being an intensive active farm that might disrupt the surrounding residential neighborhood. With that RS-25 zoning, future owners could come in there and bust up the property and turn it into a bunch of lots, tear down the house, tear down the other historic structures. I think this is a means of assuring that…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 25:23
“I'm just glad to see this property getting restored and used.”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 28:51
“Yeah, I just want to reiterate Commissioner Meyer's concern about the trees. I want to ask the applicant to please add some decent shade trees in that little green space. Not just for shade, but, you know, the shade trees can help clear the pollution. It's on a busy corridor. It'll cool the air. I think it's just real important. It also slows traffic. There are legitimate studies that having decent street trees and shade trees will help slow traffic. So I think that can really benefit the whole corridor quite a bit.”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 2:24:48
“I'll move to accept the option presented to remand this to Planning Commission with some direction. I'll go ahead and read the direction. We've had a lot of back and forth discussion, and the mayor has presented us with some of this information as well. Allow secondary dwelling units in new subdivisions. Allow secondary dwelling units in existing RM and RS zones on homesteaded properties, that is owner-occupied properties only. and that if properties transfer to a non-homesteaded owner in RS zones, require that the definition of family is met on the parcel. Limit secondary dwelling units to…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 2:25:55
“Yeah, I believe these are some reasonable criteria to start with. And, you know, when I heard the folks at the podium, you know, over and over again, I hear folks who are in support of this ordinance talking about family, giving families the option, talking about putting grandma in the backyard or the boomerang child in the backyard. And that's... where I feel like ADUs can really benefit this community. The last thing I want to see is the student housing profiteers take advantage of our code, because they already are. God knows they already are. I mean, take a drive down Pope Street or Pearl…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 2:26:39
“Arch Street. I mean, it's creeping into Rock Springs now. We've got to accommodate our families, our working-class community, our lower-income community. I believe in housing options. I believe in multigenerational neighborhoods. I heard that word come up. You know, and smaller housing. And, you know, by limiting these to one bedroom, we are encouraging those smaller housing units. You know, and I... I feel like we can find a way to do this. We can find a way to make these legal and increase affordability. There's definitely increased opportunity for affordability when you're talking about…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 2:44:50
“Yeah. i mean i i can tell you who these people are going to help they're going to help the people who when when you can build an extra unit in your backyard to put grandma in grandma's not taken up an apartment in brookside senior housing or denny towers um you know you spread the wealth around a little bit um And I do feel like we need the guardrails. We certainly need the guardrails. And I would like the Planning Commission to discuss lot size as one of the criteria. We certainly have in-town neighborhoods with really small lots that are not going to be able to logically accommodate these.…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 5:31:26
“I agree. I mean, the fact that the university will not meet with the community is enough to put the kibosh on this and demand that there is some transparency and some outreach from the university. Also, the traffic study. That's a lot. That is a lot of traffic going through a neighborhood. If that was going through my neighborhood, hell yeah, I'd be upset. So there needs to be a lot more outreach, and the university needs to engage the community.”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 5:43:28
“Yeah. Commissioner Fisher offered preventing 18-wheelers, but What about RVs? You know this is gonna be used for game day parking. Do we have any say over limiting the kind of vehicles that will be run through there?”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 5:44:11
“And we're responsible for maintaining the road.”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 6:02:23
“Yeah. I'd like to make a substitute motion that we table this until staff can come back to us with a clear plan for low barrier emergency day shelter where folks can actually go. It is useless to pass an ordinance like this when people literally have nowhere to go. At the very least, it's putting the cart before the horse. Not to mention all the cruelty and the ineffectiveness of such an ordinance. Honestly, we should not have seen this until we already voted on our resolution. The resolution offers some clear solutions that might direct folks to some help. And like so many people who stood…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 6:04:13
“The real practical thing would be to bring it back up in the future. I want to make a substitute motion to deny.”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 6:10:21
“Yeah, I mean, I just want to point out that Athens-Clarke County owns 30 acres of land, like two or three blocks north of downtown. At the very least, we could set up, you know, a sturdy banquet tent and some lounge chair seating and partner with some of our nonprofit organizations to at least give people like a safe shady place to hang out. you know just at the basic most basic like accommodations at the problem is people don't like seeing homeless folks downtown well let's give them a place that's near downtown it's easy to get to you know offer some basic accommodations some water and a…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 6:17:25
“Yeah, I would love to incorporate the suggestion we had from one of our homelessness providers to add a bullet point to that, whereas, you know, implementation of evidence-based practices, add the bullet point. pursue intergovernmental, regional, and business partnerships to prevent and reduce homelessness.”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 6:17:55
“Well, let's put it in writing. You know, let's put it in writing.”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 6:18:13
“I mean, this does not mention, doesn't mention UGA.”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 6:18:31
“Well, this says, you know... it says let me read this evidence-based practice that including but not necessarily limited to i just know that in savannah college of art and design savannah college of art and design funds their downtown day center which was crucial to them being able to implement their no camping ban. They went by this compassionately. They established a day center where they could compassionately steer people towards rather than simply arresting them. We don't have that infrastructure.”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 6:30:21
“Yeah, I'll reiterate, Commissioner Davenport. I'm eager to see us get seriously started on the items in the homelessness resolution. I've got plenty of ideas, and I just feel like we need to hit the low-hanging fruit and solve our most obvious, offer some respite for our most obvious issue, which is folks visibly homeless, chronically homeless folks, if we can at least offer them a place to go during the day. Also, I'm really disappointed that our ADU ordinance seems to have gone down in flames. I would kind of ask staff or the Planning Commission or somebody to reconsider it as merely an…”
Commission · Aug 4, 2026
- Play at 11:49
“Yeah, 12 and 13, just for a quick comment.”
Commission · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 38:47
“Yeah, I'm grateful to see this property getting some stewardship. This was in my district once upon a time, and I'm pretty sure I wrote a couple of those work orders too. It's been a big concern for a very long time for historic preservation advocates. So I'm really grateful to see that it's getting rescued. I look forward to seeing what the HPC thinks about the design. I hope that it can pass with flying colors.”
Commission · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 51:32
“Yeah. So it appears that the footprint of a building is getting replaced with lawn. Where are the trees? Are there any tree requirements here? They're for every 14th space. But in that vast lawn area, there's, I mean,”
Commission · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 52:24
“I mean, I would like to see, you know, considering that there is this available blank space, it would be nice to see at least a handful of healthy native shade trees go in there for the benefit of the environment and maybe suck up some of the pollution from the cars going by. So maybe Commissioner Myers and I can talk about that as a possible condition.”
Commission · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 1:06:13
“yeah um this used to be my district once upon a time um yeah and and it's long been a treacherous stretch of road like i'm i'm always sketched out going through that area um so it's good to know that you know there there will be some of this infrastructure going in that will certainly help calm traffic i'm concerned about a light i would love to see a light there i feel like that is like the main solution to um making that road safer and slowing down speeds on that road I'm wondering if Athens in motion has weighed in on this at all. We have this citizen body tasked specifically with bike and…”
Commission · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 1:09:26
“Yeah. Has our bike peg coordinator taken a look at this as part of the evaluation? Yes. OK. Good. Thank you.”
Commission · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:49:56
“First of all, I just want to ask Bruce, this ordinance as it stands does not distinguish between owner-occupied or non-owner-occupied properties. Is that correct?”
Commission · Jul 21, 2026