Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

we good all right good good thank you everybody for coming special thanks to Michelle and Lita and Sam and Anton everybody for getting everything organized here the Food Service staff we got some great meals uh and we've got a great agenda today Michelle and I've talked quite a bit about it so I'm excited about what we've got on the docket uh and I want to thank the people in this room because we are the fabric that kind of holds some things together board of appeals Planning Commission to create this great City that we have and keep it running uh we're so thankful for staff mayor and city council and everybody that contributes but I want to thank each of you for your volunteer time and your commitment to that so with that let's get this meeting going and I call the meeting to order Michelle take it from there yes thank you chair um so our first presenter is our assistant city manager Kristen Bas Smith and she'll um go through the city goals and um the year in review for 2024 good morning everybody oh thank you for that Jinder so kind um so you have a really exciting day ahead of you and uh this agenda is slam full uh Michelle and I have a running back going about whether or not you'll actually finish everything in time um so uh so I'm really excited for all the material you'll get to see today the first thing that we wanted to do like we do every year uh is to kind of recap what happened last year and the major projects that staff were working on uh so first up I'd like to play our 2024 year in review video [Music]

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[Music] [Music] [Music] all right so 2024 sen from Louisiana really exciting year thank you Mr President Mr President um and we're really excited to take some of those initiatives and complete several of those projects so we'll move into the police headquarters building this year uh springway segment 2A we're going to have a ribbon cutting on that coming up in the next couple of months so there are a number of these projects that'll be completed this year and lots of new stuff coming online that you'll hear about today um so I want to Echo what Reed said earlier uh we really appreciate your time you are all volunteering your efforts I know there are many other things you could be doing

on this Friday so thank you for spending the day with us and learning about all the things that are going on in the city so with that I'll turn it back over to Michelle thank you Kristen all right so I'm here I'll give the acknowledgements you go to sorry is the clicker clickers I'm here but you can go to the next slide once you get situated I okay thank you um so we have a new and resigning commission members from the Planning Commission um welcome to showing Clemens if you could just show that one well I'll just go ahead and speak so welcome to Shan Clemen she was uh swanning in um January to replace uh Dave Nichols so welcome

and for the board of appeals we have um chair Sher Allen reappointed um last meeting and our vice chair Justin Spano reappointed and our board members the rest of our boa and you'll um raise your hand this will work as our roll calls we have Jason Bodwell Fred juwel Nathan gam he's not well today so he'll keep all of us safe by not coming in and spreading whatever he has and then Bill Faxton not here and Susan major is here yes thank you now uh Planning Commission we have uh Reed Haggard is our chair and Andy Porter is our vice chair he'll be here shortly okay okay great so we'll see him later on then uh Robin Conlin she's right over here Elizabeth Kelly next to Robin Shuan Clemens as I mentioned Andrea settles and Karen trovich thank you so much so thank you for your service and um next we have um the Chief Operating Officer of the Atlanta Regional Commission is here to give us um a load of data about Sandy Springs and the Metro and you're welcome to ask questions of him um he's a great resource he presented at the Mayan city council Retreat last month and um we just feel like you guys would benefit from hearing what he has and of course um we had some um requests for Mike to be here so thank you so much Mike wow it's great to be here and your enthusiasms is is outstanding for a Friday morning hey I'm GNA cheer for myself um yeah we're happy to be here I want to induce mosha hospital um some of

the initial slides I'm going to show you where you're going to be like oh my gosh um he he made uh and made in the sense that he processed a heck of a lot of data built reports to summarize it all um I'm glad you do what you do I was a Planning and Zoning administr I've worked a lot of planning commission and Zoning uh appeals meetings over the years um so I know what you're going through um when you're up on those boards and making those decisions and it's one of the reasons I went to the Atlanta Regional Commission so I wouldn't spend multiple nights a week in late night meetings like you do so with that um always uh I pull out your phones it's a one time point at the uh QR code don't take a picture just let your camera pull up the link and depending on what type of system you have you can download this deck you could follow along on your phone it's a huge deck the reason I give you the QR code is so that you can go back and look at this in more detail later I go through slides quickly I'll emphasize some things um and basically skip over others because I want you to know what's available to you as a resource you know you're your committed Community leaders I always say yeah people say oh you're drinking from a data fire hose absolutely there's a lot that you need to know to make good decisions right this is one part of that you're going to be followed up by two other um really wonderful uh groups of arcs and one person in particular that'll uh help you know a lot more about comprehensive plannings Michelle and I were talking said well I got here all they knew about was Arc and River the river protection act the merpa law that we've been um managing for over 50 years now but we do do a lot more we have one the broadest policy footprints for Regional Commission because that's what we really are under state law uh in the United

States and one of those core functions is long range Transportation Planning long range water capacity planning and so you're going to hear me talk a lot about forecasting information and that is really at the heart of what the research group where mosho works really does and I used to be the head of research so with that let's go ahead and click yeah I don't know if I can click you need me to wave yeah you going page next page next page right so so this is an example of it go back one slide so you can see mosha made this we really like to give you a full set of comparisons of the city highlighted Sandy Springs compared to um your peer cities and these larger geography so I will take just a second um to talk about this so you understand what you're looking at this is how I look at information I like to color code it down the column so I can quickly see you and comparison this is the fastest way you can process a lot of tabular data so you see Reds and Milton Milton's relatively small in population compared to Sandy Springs there's a red there on the 2010 to 2020 population growth rate right your Sandy Springs in the middle but you're a big city right so in 2000 you were 85,000 people this is SRI this is commercial data so now you're up over 100,000 people this city most of you probably know that but contextualizing that growth rate is very interesting city of Atlanta is worth mentioning right since 2000 the city of Atlanta itself has actually added 98,000 people things have really changed in the growth patterns of this region if you don't take anything away my whole career I watched us wait for the census and the census think the city of Atlanta had grown and then it turned out they had and now they have so there has been a

mark change in the amount of investment in the core right and there's been a ton of growth there it's really reset our understanding of patterns of growth now we're going to click very quickly through age so you can see a lot of middle-aged people in Sandy Springs these are age um by uh really fiveyear increments keep going because we're going to go quickly through this uh diversity so a ton of information about this especially that the where the reds are um in in the middle you'll see these high shares of white nonh Hispanic and the northern cities of Fulton County that's very different as you know in than the southern parts of the of the county keep going I'm trying to keep up with you and of course obviously very affluent you know this um Mountain Park is teeny so the few households they have are very high income that's those Reds two over from Sandy Springs um but you can see that median household income and you know a lot about your housing mix I think so you understand you've got some smaller households multi a higher share of multif family we're going to break that down in more detail keep going education um you're very well educated you look down at the at the bottom and the shares and these colors are reversed right so those greens mean you have a very high share so when you think about it you know over 70% of your population has a college education compared to the United States that's exceptional right very easy and quick for you to understand it this way we're going to keep going next slide you've got a lot of money in the bank that's what this slide says you've got a lot of money in your house now we're going to spend something so um if you look at this information this is the first chart I ever made in chat GPT that should make you at least chuckle a little bit right so the AI can

now make charts for you right I put in tabular information said make me a column chart so from 2019 to 2024 this is Count data how are places growing one of the best ways to understand that is just to look at net student enrollment change right there's patterns in these school systems now where um a city of Decor in the previous decade doubled its student enrollment but now that student enrollment is declining substantially because kids have Ed out of the school system and the people that raised their kids in Decor staying in decator so it's natural that it would fall because there's a limited housing stuff deab and Fulton and Cobb and Atlanta all lost substantial numbers of of of students right some of this is naturally occurring in my opinion based on the spatial patterns of how people um decided to buy homes and stay where they are but you compare that to a foresight and a Jackson what's up in Jackson County a huge battery manufacturing facility it makes a difference we were talking about manufacturing earlier right you know they call there's a term that the economic development people for the state use it's worth mentioning the battery belt right there was so much investment I'm G to talk about this globally too to put a context on it that it's impacting um our exx urban areas in a dramatic way so Jackson County actually in percentage terms uh the fastest growing County in student enrollment now right everybody know where that is it's up 85 right um so let's keep going very quickly so 2023 to 2024 most recent data a very similar pattern except that Atlanta Public Schools is positive right so recently there's been a change in that so some declining enrollment through the

pandemic but now they picked up as well let's keep going keep going right and schools are where we best understand diversity right so this is 1995 you can see foresight County at the top let's go to the next one and then look how those share changes have changed and I point this out uh specifically so now foresy county is one out of every three students uh is Asian that's a dramatic change in just 20 years so the short story is diversity really um is most best understood in our Suburban communities the city of Atlanta is not near as diverse as a guette county let's keep going now this is where I like to break it down in the county level but I've highlighted Sandy Springs just so you can see this is this is one of those most important slides um I make a lot of good jokes about this but you can know pretty much everything you need to know from this slide so looking at Sandy Springs you get the net population change from 2000 to 2024 right gettes added the most people 416,000 new people in gwet County you've added 23 the median home value right and this is esri data it's Apples to Apples we can talk a lot about the way we get to that number and the different resources we have but now the median home value is $643,000 um and sity Springs that's why we're going to talk about housing this is the way I like to talk about this is housing value to median household income and you just create a simple ratio right and so who has the most expensive housing under that measure which is the next

column so given how high your home values are when you put your income in there you know that that ratio is the highest means it's generally speaking the hardest for someone to buy a single family home and who's next and this should be surprising to you but it's the city of Atlanta there's been so much growth pressure on the city now that comparing the city in Sandy Springs to any other jurisdiction on this map that ratio is the highest in those two places so a lot of people want to be in the city a lot of people want to be in Sandy Springs that's the short of this story but it's a critical one and so then on the owner occupied side you see that green you can move your cursor a little bit so 47% right under occupied and this does reflect those multif family developments especially in the Perimeter Center what we would think of as the Perimeter Center area right so very different um story and that's that green one almost in the middle and you compare that to the suburban community like a foresythe where that's 83% right so a very different housing pattern that's this is important for where we're going to go um in the back part of this presentation let's keep going all right we'll look at this later but Los Angeles is you can look at this later but the the most expensive place is Los Angeles right because their incomes aren't near as high as the San Jose region and so they have high home prices but that ratio is is the highest they are just by an a hair and so you see all those red s San Francisco San Jose San Diego these big Western metros very expensive as we all know and we're kind of in the middle of the pack right we're we're competitive but we got to talk about Transportation cost too when you think about housing let's keep going

um I we don't have this for sandity Springs specifically but in the back of this deck is a lot of information about what people think regionally about this region it's called Metro Atlanta speaks we survey almost 5,000 people mixed methodology now and ask them a lot of questions about how they think things are going I read a book by the CEO of Gallup about how Gallup does surveying you try to get to one simple question that really answers a lot of other questions right the proxy question and so the proxy question is do you feel safe walking in your neighborhood at night you know a lot about everything if you get people to tell you what their perceptions are of that right and so um it's comparing crime is the number one issue facing the region to uh do you feel like your neighborhood is safe right that's proxy and there's some big differences right so in Cherokee you think your neighborhood is safe and you're not really answering that crime is your biggest issue for this region right so you go up to City of Atlanta well they have the highest percentage of people think that you know crime is a big issue you think you understand this but looking at some of these contrasts I think are very interesting and Fon fton as a whole including city of Atlanta you've got really a balance there of people that perceive that so Community conditions right how do people think uh the community is doing and generally um a very high share in Fon of people that think crime is really important compared to our more Suburban communities let's keep going all right we've got Sandy Springs economics lot of information here we have great resources now to give you real time information about this keep going so your job markets are very strong that's all this is showing you that gray bar is above the black line which means you're

outperforming the US right and um the metropolitan area keep going wages are very strong see that wage run up we were talking about it um before I I I stood up and so a big increase coming out of the pandemic we think that's tempering more recent data I think we'll see a change in wage um appreciation let's keep going downward yeah yeah sorry yeah big runup and now there's been some corrections interest rates as we were talking about I don't expect that to continue and honestly no skip this one go to the next one I like this a lot and it's pre-formatted out of one of our core resources that calls the web every minute looking for job postings it's the easiest way to understand that man you have a high share of healthc care jobs you know this right but to see that gray bar which is a national average it's very rare you see that blue bar extending that far the other way a lot of very high paying jobs a lot of jobs that don't pay so much and then PST and finance that Finance number look at the gray bar on finance third one down very rare you would see a Community most communities would be over the moon to have this job sector economic profile right a lot of high paying jobs and again there's a lot of diversity built into this management of companies look at the distance between the gray bar and the blue bar and then surprisingly you don't have that high of a share of retail trade right and these are zip codes we can't make the exact boundary and then accommodation and food jobs very low paying a smaller share as well construction obviously manufacturing and government you just don't have many government jobs right so that's why you

can look at this in just a few seconds and understand lots of business cluster employment in Sandy Springs right very generally very high pain let's keep going finance and insurance information like we talked about keep going administrative support business cluster what Atlanta really has at the heart of its economy is this idea of a business cluster right lots of management of companies lots of corporate headquarters lots of businesses supporting that how many of you are a consultant one of you right so lots of people doing work for business as business does activities what's headquartered here UPS right Coxs huge companies right and they've got a lot of people doing work for them as well and we spread that work out all over the US that's where the airport really does start to come in right the access of our airport that you don't have to fly to a hub makes a big difference for us and you see it yeah in these num it yeah that's exactly what man yeah the numbers aren't that high in total jobs but it's a good indicator that there's a lot of other activity feeding off of those big companies right I mean some of you may be working for one of the big big companies a Home Depot Coca-Cola a Delta again most places would be very happy to have so many corporate headquar that's when they report on corporate headquarters it's so important right that we continue to recruit and maintain that presence is good for everybody truthfully uh it lifts all boats it really does let's keep going job growth Health Care lots of great information here that's what I'm like it is a fire hose to some degree keep going and we'll get to the fun stuff all right so we think a lot

about how people move in this region and it's important for you you just um are now adjusting to 400 not 400 at 285 not being under construction right but what's coming 285 top side all right all right so let's click through this I this is more fun for me because I do if there's one of the things I geek out on it's time of day travel so before the pandemic you see that run up well that's the morning Peak everybody's rushing to get to work so the boss knows they've clocked in by 9 o' 2023 we're basically back to normal there is no morning Pig now she you clicked that you got to take away my fancy graphic click back one click back oh let's see is it just showing up click again no the other way uh it's already there see I drew that in so you could compare it that's my fancy thing right there but look at that there is no morning Fe or there wasn't in 2023 we're going to update this in the next month when we get better data but the the big change look how Jagged it is what is that that's people making short trips so people are traveling you know about the same volumes but it's a lot less of a pattern um a you know a smooth pattern than it was before this is actually fascinating stuff about how things have changed right how many of you seen somebody get caught driving in a car to a bank teller during a zoom meeting right does that not happen to y'all really man we busted so many people you know you should always ask people on a zoom call midday between 9 and 12 to turn on their camera right keep going next slide and here is again one of these

fundamental things right we're going to talk about housing Transportation so pre pandemic these are the expressway links that experience three or more hours of congested conditions does that make sense so after pandemic and then this was the last time we ran ran this set of scripts on this big data but look at how it's changed East and West walls are back and let's be honest this is why I want to show you this when you see that West Wall right you know it the East wall is the economy turning back on and why is the East wall congested where are people going they're going to this employment center and the northern employment centers right why would they why would they be going up right they're going to they're going to work so someone like me immediately can see this and go yeah the connector there's you know the connector is a connector it has been the most congested set of links for the beginning of the express way system it always has been but that West wall means that people are coming back look where it ends right Sandy Springs there's a ton of movement coming up here that 400 project matters a lot right and 400 interchange project matters a lot and so for the first time the Greta express bus system has rebuilt it's bus um it's it's bus system of of who they're going to serve to run buses North up into Northern Fulton County that's a dramatic change in the way we've always thought about people from the suburbs coming into the center now these employment centers including Sandy Spring are so big that

we're having to move people to those most northern um job centers in North North fton County there's about 350,000 jobs now and their housing markets are relatively stable meaning they're not adding as many I'm going to show you this I'm trying to get you to understand you're all you're in a different place I think of you as being not in the middle in the sense of the city core but in the middle of a lot of movement activity to get to a lot of other centers does that make sense right and that impacts housing and housing choice and where people are making decisions and then making a housing choice and having to think about movement to get to high quality jobs right we want everybody to get the best and highest quality job they can possibly get right so I'm trying to tile this together yeah exactly and I don't have an exact explanation but a lot of you might be going places on the weekend and what's your primary thought like what's going to happen to you when you try to come back into the region from the south you're all planning right that's that's almost contined I don't even think that bar really reflects what's happening down there and the county chair that's on our board spends a lot of time talking about what's going to happen to 75 truthfully right so what's been one of the big lessons and there's a Hu huge manage Lane project further to the South that have will be focused on trucks it's a big deal that we're doing that so top side what are we going to do this top side project what are we planning to do yeah managed Lanes you have to do managed Lanes right and we want to put Express buses in there that's the big part of this conversation I I've got

emails today that I need to respond to about that project and how we're going to do interchange yeah how many of you have ridden a martta bus in the last six months two people out of this room all right I'm I'm gonna get to another joke this is what core way I explain this how many of you really hate traffic raise your hand seriously how many of you like traffic now someone like me goes it's good all right well you you can like you're all raising your hand you are the traffic and it's deep in our psychology I'm not picking on you to want well nobody's riding the bus well what about you right and so as communities gotten more affluent especially in the city you know um we used to say captive Riders which is a horrible term that need to use public transit because they don't have an automobile right as a a community gets wealthier the likelihood going to ride a bus goes down J right and this is the challenge for Martin I'm try to be very honest about this we need to have an honest conversation about that right um Long Haul bus service and that's why I try to I always show this it matters a lot um the fed the feds are coming back into the office I've got a lot of friends that are figuring out if they're going to shamble or none right and so the biggest user of the express bus system the single largest entity using it pre pandemic was the federal workers because they got a subsidy to use it a lot of people going from going I see you're going ah so given our low density residential patterns which is we do have low density resident does anybody disagree with this at this point right even in Suburban in Western suburban areas those single family detached homes

are much more densely developed than they are here lot some of that is simple topography I get defensive on the other side like have you seen our Rolling Hills and our streams and if you really look at a street map in like decab County you'll see they built subdivisions to the streams and they didn't build roads over which in a way is a good thing if you think about it environmentally not impacting those streams more right um think think hard about this stuff so you're in Northern guet County and you need to get to Perimeter that Express managed Lane bus trip for you if we do it right is the most efficient least cost way we can move people from that low density pattern right but local bus service is a tough nut to crack imagine you're really Marta and you're thinking about South the cab and you want to provide regular bus service to everybody just all you have to do is Google land use density needed for bus service and you'll see the densities and you'll realize pretty quickly where it's very hard for them to provide regular service there just won't be enough people riding so on demand service gets to be a very critical part of this this story I we're spend a little bit of time on this but again we've got to make choices at the community level about what type of housing we're going to have and that's the core of this presentation I'm going to keep going very quickly here because I love the where we've gone on this I appreciate you thinking about this so very quickly um if I had one point to make I'd say depending on what years I choose Metro Atlanta has been either third or fourth and net population change among all metros in the United States there's some of you going oh my God all those people on the roads because I don't like congestion and I don't want them to be there when I'm there right but that in in it in its real form you can click man she AR come on now stay with

me so the graphic isn't playing on this computer this is a problem with going out and using somebody else's machine but did you build this Mosa so it grows like it's this thing that keeps going you can't see it never mind keep going y'all can look at it on your own it's a lot of fun just to see how we've spread out over time right keep going net population change not pretty like mha's fancy GIF animation that's not working but look at Northern guette right look at that 3860 that's a top of the city of Atlanta there's you with that 22 number right relatively big population grow growth over this long time period this is 20 years of growth but growth inside the core right but you see these big numbers let's keep going so how we've changed in diversity Red Is Lost Blues are increases look at this in more detail we got a roll keep going if you build a lake old people will move there right we're older in the more rural areas I no she leaned back on that chair I'm 54 now I get to count on this I've got more I'm I can't walk into a senate building or a house building now without getting the full pat down I'm like I got striper in my right hip I've got 12 screws in my right shoulder they are wanding the heck out of me right I've earned it click to the next one and here's the comparison has anybody heard about Thomasville Heights y'all are Sandy Springs in right a long time ago we were looking at census data and we realized in Thomasville Heights there was more kids than adults if you know Census Data you're like what that can't literally it can't be it was and now if you Google Forest Cove there are so many articles about

what happened in that community and we've invested a lot of resources but the median age Thomasville Heights is 18 you can't go to Paris Island and get a number you know everybody knows what Paras is right please I was I was a marine infantryman if you don't know this we're going to remedial um so 18 it's very young and then Buckhead you've got a census track that area that's 69 because you've got all the towers right so we have these big differences in age uh given this pattern let's keep going and you need to think about this this is a big part of the future planning so you're G to think about housing mix and accepting that we're going to have a permanent large older population so this is metro stuff on education I showed you how to do this so share of kids share of 65 plus this is Major metros so you see Miami Miami is the oldest place with the smallest share of young people still

I'm sorry guys this is that's why we doing more left br we'll keep going what's your email go give it give it to to Mo can you get it from mosha mosha can resend the link for the PowerPoint all right so we will keep going um so the thing is I have embedded videos you have to run a PowerPoint not a PDF to see see these these yeah I don't know why yeah I don't know why yeah well you yeah so see that sees it as a flat

file all right yeah click click past that let's keep going forget forget this for now big picture go back stop next slide all right so again again and again and again I have to say this all Races and ethnicities are below replacement birth level below replacement birth level who on this planet who has the lowest birth rate anybody guess what country has a lowest birth rate now Japan's a good guess you're getting closer China's gotten very low but it's not the lowest it's Korea dramatically lower than every everyone else Korea has been unbelievably successful name three companies that have invested in Georgia from Korea SK right why are they investing in Georgia why do they think the workforce will be better why would they make a decision to invest in the United States and I've given you the answer yeah their population is literally declining how do you grow your company if your population is the fastest declining on the planet can you continue to invest in your country at the same rate and expect the same growth if your population is declining you can't you've got to look elsewhere company don't want to invest in places that are declining they want to invest in places that they know have more economic potential everything you need to know

about economics is demographics at this point on this planet when I say we're going to have a permanent large older population fact right businesses have a lot of capital fact they've been very successful in Korea they want to continue to grow they've come to North America because they can get better access access to labor when I we saw reasonable people saw them put that Hyundai plant in the ground and it's already producing cars I've never seen anything like it and we've checked they found people to work in that factory they could not do that in Korea they couldn't and so we're benefiting from the additional economic energy which is actually demographic energy that we have built into our economy because we're younger right and diversity matters a lot because our population growth is now really about diversity the white population in the United States is net declining now that's just a demographic fact it's declining just slightly in metropolitan Atlanta all right let's click quickly here next slide we'll skip the videos today you're missing the fun part next just next slide I don't know what it's it's not in a view it's not in a View mode yeah that you all right so go back one no the other way NOP the flattening one right there so this is another most important thing when the Census Bureau makes projections in 2017 that's the projection they made for population growth now they've made one to 2100 are they the same absolutely not they're flattening right everybody loves we always put the great and everything the Great Recession the Great Depression the great flattening that's a mic

original right so these growth rates are coming down click to the next slide this is still a little high truthfully but this is woods and pool data the south is expected to add the most people 21 million more people that number is going to come down go to the next slide can't do that one go to the next slide so our own forecasts now for metropolitan Atlanta are that we're going to grow to 7.9 million people by 2050 right and jobs are going to go up about 500,000 much less job growth than in previous forecasts the last time we made this forecast that number was 8.6 and now it's down to 7.9 the great flattening so our growth trajectory is going um is flattening right the big point is that compared to most other places uh these forecasts show us near the top of the pack again and that population uh change right so more economic energy in the future there are many places on this planet that can't really show any population growth at all and so we have these National conversations about um migration ent ent out internationally that's one thing but as a Metro what does it mean for us if we want to continue to grow at least domestically we have to be at the top of our game and be a place that people want to go and move to a place of opportunity where the pie can get bigger all the things right because you're not going to get it from natural increase anymore you just have to accept this again sets a pattern for household growth let's keep going please

so historically we have been very much driven by migration how many of you grew up in Atlanta how many of you grew up in Atlanta your native born grew up in Atlanta not native born literally no one in this room was born in metro Atlanta two of you grew up here you see what I mean like I I do I do this all the time and I do this honestly this is the smallest share I've ever seen of people that didn't grow up in Atlanta in a room I'm speaking at what are y'all doing um here's the point and it's it gets to education because it's a great question so that num is going to go down we're going to rely more on domestic migration we won't expect growth as much we're younger we do have some natural increase but that share is going down motion knows a heck of a lot about this right so we're going to become more dependent on migration and the one thing we really can't count on the same way is in particular domestic migration this region Sandy Springs and all of our communities are success because of y'all not raising your hands you moved here you invested here you bought houses you built businesses and grew this place we can't expect you in the same rates in the future and so what happens in the educational system gets to be a lot more critical for our ability to grow and I'm being a little preachy here but you get it right and so where have we been the worst literally an economic Mobility for lowincome children Metro Atlanta has the lowest rates now of economic Mobility which just means that we leave a lot of kids out of the strongest potential economic Futures and that's the one thing we we could address if you only care about economics that would be the one thing we'd want to do a heck of a lot better

at and we're working hard on there's a lot of Partnerships to to get at this and our school systems and honestly the state the state doe I think they do an incredible job of trying to understand this longitudinal data and we have some of that here not the full deck today all right so yeah we're going to become more diverse you get the forecast stuff let's get to the housing because I think you're in a place where we can tie it all together more growth on the North side click to the next map population change per square mile I was in forye meeting with the uh County Manager yesterday um talking about their growth rat so you see all the red there but a lot of red in the core what do you see in North Fulton Blues not a lot of population growth in our forecast our small area forecast that feed our travel demand mod click to the next map um go back one so it's l no wow you went now go the other way go the other way back the other way I mean you're let me see where you are all right St ride out I call like I see let's start there all right I skipped over the big employment stuff you're checking your phones as I walked away phone's down it's a modern world man it's all good

see um so you know where are we where are we buying homes in those Northern Communities now what I wanted to show you and I don't see it in these Maps is most of the job growth the Big Reds in job growth are North Fulton lots of Blues on housing not a lot of additional housing but a lot more jobs I told you about Mobility pattern and that we're we're literally running Express buses North now into those job centers so that housing jobs ratio um mismatch that's so strong regionally is going to continue or maybe even get worse so a lot of people going north to get to good jobs and you know people want to buy homes in this area click to the next one and so what have we been we're going to get into building now this is my favorite slide seriously so the most important thing to remember is the impacts of the Great Recession are not ending we're still feeling the impacts of the Great Recession so this is permits per 100,000 people for the state of Georgia OA helps me work on this so you see a pattern here 60s 7s 80s 90s 2000s that Rao ratio of building permits to population was relatively stable and then after the Great Recession what happened we yeah we all know this but that's a dramatic change and so getting back to the home price ratio this is 1980 right and if this is 2005 here's 2012 here's the point of this this is the way I look at this

from 1980 to 2005 there was absolute stability and the way we could think about what a home's going to cost and what somebody can pay there wasn't a big change if you're a builder developer home buyer you're built into this economy that stability means a lot and the production matches it right Great Recession that price home price income ratio goes down dramatically anybody buy a house in 2012 may or may not been conscious of what you're doing but you're making a lot of money at the bottom of the market and then why did it run up like this we sto building housing whatever else you're thinking about the old Atlanta Housing Development Market small Builders gone small Banks gone who are dominating the housing production Market the biggest build who's put a ton of money into company Leno Warren Buffett Warren Buffett owned like big real estate firms you know buying and selling existing homes then he started investing in new construction because the existing Home Market changed as well very easy to understand this um but that run up is incredible what does that run up in price change du to these production systems of building houses makes it very hard for them let alone the consumer right that's why that chart is so important because you understand that stability isn't there anymore how do you really plan for and build housing at scale when you can't be sure what the price point should be given the current income right sorry does that make sense

that's our real challenge here let's go to the next one I don't even know what's coming wrong way I think let's go next one so rener occupied look at this in more detail you see Sandy Springs right so if it's blue there's not many rener occupied units but if you look at I think a lot about Clayton County because I work there um more oneperson households with kids working hard got a job can't make a financial economic mistake at all their their numbers are just tight High share of renter occupied units but they have the airport the airport is an unbelievable job center but many of them those people are going to commute North and spatially they've got to run the gauntlet they've got to either run the east side wall or the connector why to get to these good paying jobs up here because the housing affordability is much better for them down there let's go to the next slide condos I love that we get to make this next one Housing Development let's look at our pattern 507s go back one I think we've got one yeah go to the next one sorry next one 90s next one 22 we didn't build anything right next one and so um lot size Big Lots small Lots just fun stuff keep going we're going to go quickly we're getting close on some of the core stuff I want to finish with next one next one all right this is Fulton County household size this is my new J just like the traffic one I'm G to put you in

pain how many of you have one spare bedroom in your current house all right yeah be honest put your hand up so I can see it how many of you have two spare bedrooms oh you thought well it's one or more I should start with how many one or more bedrooms spare how many you have two or more bedrooms how many of you have three or more bedrooms wow right so household sizes all right you're sitting on a lot of bedrooms I'm not saying anything other than that there's a lot of space we built these big single family homes your kids moved out you have a ton of space they might come in and visit you for a week or two or my daughter's like I'm not coming to Atlanta for a while you have to come to me in Europe horrible for me that I have to go to Europe to visit her one person households big runup and this isn't just 20s something this is what's happening to having a permanent large older population right share of four person households has gone down this is seeding this conversation about what should the housing mix be given these Trends right most of that one person is truthfully in our older age groups in most communities right let's be honest next one number of bedrooms this is I learned to make this joke because we realize so household sizes are falling and we've given you a much better description of how they're falling right big increase in one person household but what we've really been building in types of units is a lot more five bedroom four bedroom right three so we've added this space that truthfully isn't going to be occupied at the bedroom level in the same way go to the next

one so right so this is for the arc area just to show you the trends are similar keep going same thing now hold on this is AR this is the 11 County area so we built right the one unit means a single family detach PS not a one bedroom so we built a lot of single family houses we I think have a net decline in duplexes he's got to verify for me I need more gesturing from you today motion um triplexes or quadruplexes a great option one of the first developments I reviewed in Clayton County was a quadruplex single family looking home but it was a quadruplex single floor 55 and age restricted you remember 55 and age restricted developments from the late 90s early 2000s great way to to get into a right siiz space we're not building them at all and we did build some multif family but the bulk of it has been single family detached the point is we're not adding to the mix and type of housing right we're very comfortable saying you can do your single family because the price Point's going to be similar to all the subdivisions around you blah blah blah blah blah but I've given you all these other demographic factors that are impacting it and this is the challenge you feel in your meetings right um every day but you know the demographics behind why uh this is such a challenge right long term um keep going I made this for you mosha made that report I like it it takes too long to show tonight and this is this is really hunting this is the way we explain this cost burden households you have to think about housing Transportation remaining costs and put it all together into really this household Financial picture right you have housing costs and then the

transport costs matter a lot especially in this region go to the next one this is where I have gotten better we've built a lot of information about Sandy Springs on this website we don't give inform and say this is what you should do everything is one siiz fits all we really break down um communities to understand what the costs have been what type of housing they have to come up with these submarkets so you can understand at the subs City level what's happening at the neighborhood level before we say well if you're thinking about the future of your housing Supply what what potential things can you at least look at right as decision makers and that's you would start with this website go to the next slide this is where I want to you know and then we have these recommendations right and this is the way we try to say we be very fair like we're not changing single family neighborhoods in my experience it just doesn't happen right 30 almost 30 years now of watching development they're stable right it's but you do want to identify appropriate areas for density appropriate areas be very clear on this so a lot of recommendations broken down on this website it's it really is a great resource uh I know we're at the the front edge of providing information on housing nationally um at a large scale because we process partial level data so we understand price per square foot from a few places that has good information about change in price per square foot and Med you know median total value and sales value that's very critical to and put to all this go to the next slide so more about the Explorer lots of data mosha helped us make go to the next one we get really good information on what's actually being built and sold all this

shows you across price points you know for your core zip codes those red lines me that there's a definite def deficit across potential um sales points and you know where you've got a surplus um in the New Market that blue line going up is in the 1.2 million market so double your median home value is where you're You're Building Homes right it's in a a place uh people with higher incomes want to be that's all this shows you keep [Music] going keep going more information for you this is where I want to start this is where we need to have a real conversation so I'm going to explain this this is complicated even for me I muck up explaining it but hopefully I'll do it right this time go one more so we're going to talk about buying a home go back one did we miss runer okay so go to this one this I should put the the next one go to the next [Music] one there all right so area median income sometimes it's area mean income so if you're at that normal number for the Metro which is about $83,000 that means you're making the average household income in the simplest sense could be median like I'm saying but sometimes it's mean average 83 so a registered nurse makes about 80 dental hygienists get paid pretty well there's a reason I think we all understand it's tough work 79 you're a cashier um Food Service host you're you're really making um you know the most meager wages and you're at 30% of that area median income right so look across um really these hard hardworking people and what they're likely to make for a second Elementary School teacher 67,000 you're below that go back

now we want to go back all right so if you look at the data and you understand what people are actually making right you really need to understand it by size of household the one person two person three person four person five person six person right and so these are the incomes you actually need to buy a home so we highlight the workforce incomes so to get to 100% a one person household you you know you're making $71,500 you want to recategorize it um by household size so for a four person household it's $12,000 look at that for a second and then let's look up so if you're at 100% Ami depending on your household size right the efficiency you can buy is got to be valued at $214,000 for you to buy how many efficiencies are we selling for $214,000 how many zero like you can go back and look at the data of what's being sold in from the market Insight earlier slides so let's get to a standard small home which isn't really the standard now a three-bedroom home at 100% it's $318,000 how many $318,000 homes are for sale right now in Sandy Spring right I'm I'm not preaching here I'm just I want you to understand the math so when something comes before you if you don't do anything else you learn

this you really understand how people are trying to function time it's it's really good work that our staff has done break us out with a consultant Bly help really built this framework of understanding this information we're carrying a for Mad respect to them on this just to really break it down so um this is now true for most places in the region even if you go down into a Clayton County and you're looking for a single family home it's going to be pushing 300s right you can probably make make a go of it but then you're in a place where your job your best job access is just the airport once you're maybe thinking about job not in that area well the travel patterns get to be interesting and as we've talked about this we could stop here or have a discussion there's one other slide I want to show you but please I'll write check for that great statement add to the ratio that market Insight talk about when he does his presentation is five lot price times five gives you what's a loot what yeah yeah yeah you're going to be spending some big big money to build a house how doare slides where we showing an increase in population in the area because

so the people that are moving in are often buying that new home at that very high price point right and this you know you've had some multif family development and that's a long time period of population change I should probably do more recent um just to give you the context I try to do I had this idea in my mind for a while to do quarter of a century back quarter of a century forward to like get out of the shortterm movement in these numbers because I don't think there is important in the short term population growth is going to be less in most of the Northern Communities you know what you've been permitting right rezoning hearing how many units are coming online let's keep going let me see if it's in here keep going we built a wonderful dashboard so you can look at realtime building per data so this your question was a good lead up into this information I know it's very hard to see with that beautiful sun that orb in the sky coming through um last moments before the storm hits but if you look at fton bunette to andab you know Colton's done the most permits but the bulk of that that number down there is since 1980 the city of Atlanta has done 168,000 units of construction a lot of that's a tear down and a build back so you're not really adding people at the same rate right but generally I think in many areas bigger household sizes someone um kids are gone you sell your house new family moves in maybe they've got kids to the schools are go to the next one so getting your permit question how did we grow the population in Sandy Springs 2010 to 2024 right I couldn't put Atlanta on this chart it was so

big so I pulled it out and made a little separate chart for Atlanta just so you could get you've done more permits in Alpharetta South fton Union City Roswell and then you can see down these are all the cities in fton County mosha actually let me make this will but then look up at the number for the City of Atlanta huge number there's no comparison right I should extend that bar out and really scale it I guess and that way you can see what you're doing so you've done some permits but it's it's really not in the same ballpark with the city of let's go to the next one there's more here yeah yeah yeah that's a great question yeah we obviously and they come in as buildings often I think if you were really talking to the building but at the end it's about the units right that's all this reporting up to the federal level it's done at the unit right remember we did the ratio stuff and see this deck doesn't have it in there but I have I have actually looked at that at the city level so permits to population is a ratio we haven't published it yet but that's a man you're on fire with these questions or comments I'm cheering you on um and you know the city of Atlanta's done pretty well U one of the cities that sticks out is actually Woodstock right now this is the this is the thing those numbers I don't I haven't published them because you have new cities so like a p Treet Corners is so new that I don't feel like I can properly gauge the building permit numbers but that is where I have have gone intellectually is to say well just

share your population who's doing the most right and are you you know like a Roswell is going to be at the back of the pack in that permits per population there's some cities on the south side like a McDon that you wouldn't think about but have been pretty aggressive about per because we honestly I think we can all agree we need housing people come in what should it be I'm like we just need housing at this point um and you know the exurban areas matter a lot to this conversation too and they haven't grown in the way they did before the the Great Recession which is just as big of an economic story as what we're talking about now with the CI question you sure all right let's keep going what are we on time Michelle it's time okay all right so I'll make sure that you get a the link to the actual deck so you can put it on your laptop it's it does but again my point point is we're you know Atlanta Regional Commission we want to give you good information my emails in that deck if you put an exclamation point in the first character of the subject line it will it will get seen I promise if you don't we all get a lot of email um but I want you to have the deck I want you to have more information my sweet spot is when someone emails me I've gone completely through the deck I've memorized all the information thank you I have these following comments and questions can you do this and then I email forward it to him and some other people and say can you do this um and that's what we really need because I'm I appreciate this time with you right hearing how your thinking matters as much to anything because we will always format the information for you so absolutely abolutely

that's funny yeah yeah [Applause] thank J not yeah I'm friends with Jim so I'm Jim is cool ultimately I'm responsible no problem all right well thank you so much um now we have uh design guidelines is next that's okay and and we're up okay great and so we'll probably cut into our break a little bit but I put those buffers in there so okay this is security ghost from rhi thank you Michelle hello my name is security go I'm with rhi um rhi has been working with the city for over 10 years we did the next 10 plan and a bunch of other plans including small area plan so we are happy to be here we're really honored to be back here working with you um we we have Eric Filman with us rhi he also worked on the next 10 plan uh with us um but I also want to give uh kudos to the Community Development Department uh they have been a blast to work with ginger Michelle John and of course Matthew who is the project manager for this project so it has been a blast working with them um Cher Haggard mentioned about the urban fabric that's that's the the duty and the role and the responsibility that you fill in day in day out as members of the Planning Commission and the board of appeals um so I want to start with that um so this design guidelines is all about how do you enhance the quality development and the quality of place for Sandy Springs um and some of that quality is about what we see and feel in the urban realm and the Urban infrastructure so that's

the role of the design guidelines and how to fill in the shoes of what the development code says and what the guidelines can help create that quality development so next so we are going to give you a quick progress update about the whole design guidelines process uh and we'll share some examples and how some of the design guidelines can be applied to some properties just an example of how design guidelines can help I know you have a big agenda so we'll try to go through as fast as possible next we had a lot of great kickoff discussions uh late 2024 we are at the very initial stages of the design guidelines uh we met with some of you in the Planning Commission uh that was great to get your feedback we've met with the mayor in the council a couple of times uh we got some good directions from all of you uh we had site visits late last year and kickoff meetings um throughout February and March uh when we met with you all in early February we have been having a lot of conversations um with stakeholders I think we met probably around 100 stakeholders already and we had a public meeting last night it was uh really good we got some really good feedback um so there is a website that is already set up for that so Sandy Springs ga.gov frd design guidelines so if you go there there is Al also a survey if you please do not mind to fill out the survey and share that with your neighbors and others um that would be very helpful next so the design guidelines will be applied in the commercial areas of Sandy Springs so the commercial areas the areas where the multif family homes are and also the areas for the town home so you can see the Roswell Road Corridor you see perimeter and you see po free

those are the application of design guidelines areas we have divided the the focus areas into two stages as we go through this oneyear process and the two stages are the areas north of 285 which are roughly North End which is on the North in the red the city Springs are the core and the perimeter to the east so that's stage one in this whole process and the stage two is the areas roughly south of 285 which is cross roads neighborhood Village and the PO FY on onto the West next so I was mentioning about this one year rough process we had a great kickoff meeting uh 2024 we are now in the thick of creating an overall framework understanding from you all leadership as well as stakeholders like I mentioned we're trying to understand how the development code and how the design guidelines can help towards that creation of that Urban better quality quality Urban fabric so we're at the very initial stages after that we'll get into stage one which are the areas north of 25 and then stage two the areas south of 25 and then towards the end of 2025 we'll be drafting the guidelines and getting into end of 2025 2026 we'll be coming back to the Planning Commission for hearing and then going to the mayor and the council for hearing and and the adoption process next and we have a lot of public meetings throughout that whole one-ear process uh public meetings in person virtual engagements including the survey that I mentioned a little while back um so there's a lot of different opportunities so how design guidelines shap places we all go to different places we like it we love it maybe some of the areas not so much what are some of the components of the design guidelines you come to City Springs you

see The Bu building you see the the materials the massing and the texture you come to the public realm you cross the green you see people in there so it's a desirable place so those are the elements that I just mentioned the building elements and the public real elements whether it's a Paving or landscaping or lighting or signage that gets you directional advice into specific buildings everything helps together to create that experience of a place that's what the design guidelines are trying to achieve so so you have the urban structure you have the building massing and the height and the densities and you have the specific mix of uses so those four on the top are kind of Guided by the development code the ones at the bottom site and the street scap the facade and the details and the materials of the facade and the public realm there is some guidance in the development code and that's where design guidelines comes in to fill in that void as to what are some of the character elements that can happen in the building and the public and the private realm in the sidewalk areas in the access areas of the in the sites what can happen to improve the aesthetic and the quality of development in this areas so that's that's where we are right now with the design guidelines next we have gotten some good feedback from the mayor and the council regarding the approach of the design guidelines we have researched a lot of design guidelines in this first few months um we will share some examples with you and there are a lot of different approaches and when we looked into all of these different examples we divided the design guidelines examples into three specific categories one is kind of a light approach which is mainly about like a very short documentation it's more about communication between the staff and the

property owners and the developers um it is more concise and Graphics heavy very visual ual um then the next category is about the balanced which is about a little bit more specificity and detail it provides um opportunities to address specific locations and specific conditions for example we are in a rolling topographical situation here what are some of the things in the public realm that we can do to help with the creation of a better public realm and better quality of design so that's a balanced and then the prescriptive is more about a form-based Cod so we have uh so there is a lot of prescriptive architectural Styles and details of buildings and P and the public realm so it's less flexible we have heard from the mayor and the council that we need to be flexible we of course want to improve the identity and The Branding of the city of Sandy Springs as we are going through the 20 years of the city's incorporation we are transforming from a Fulton County into more of a city as you saw saw all of the numbers um in the previous presentation and my head is kind of swimming into all of those numbers so it's kind of a good segue into this discussion um but the city the mayor and the council mentioned to us be flexible but still provide the guidelines in a way that guides the the Improvement of the image of the city so in the next few slides I'll go through quickly about this different approaches next the light approach um is about showing everything in diagram this happens to be from the Midtown owners manual in Atlanta Georgia um it was done by the Midtown Alliance and um you can see the diagrams it's more of a lookbook and a mosaic of different preferred elements of building and the public realm uh next it shows different illustrations about the jposition of

buildings and public realm what are some of the elements what are some of the range of approaches that can be done with the design guidelines it's still from the Midtown owners manual next uh this is from San Francisco's Urban Design guidelines and within still within that light approach of design guidelines it has it can include design principles and visual examples of what those principles mean so that a property owner or developer has that option to choose specific elements and work with the city staff to improve their properties when they're developing or redeveloping a property next uh on the balanced one which is the next category uh we looked into the roswell's UniFi development code and the design guidelines um and for the balanced one we saw that there are guidelines for specific conditions like I mentioned here the rolling topographical situations you have some retaining walls in some of those areas to retain some of those um the the facade of the public realm uh what are the menu of approaches that the city staff can sit down with the property owner and think about how to improve um their public realm or their building so there will be a range of approaches rather than a specific specifier developed approach next and we have done design guidelines for many communities around the midatlantic and this happens to be from Fairfax County Virginia and Northern Virginia and when we shared the documentation with a lot of stakeholders including the mayor and the council they liked the approach of this um the reason they liked about it is not specifying a specific architectural stye Styles but what are some of the building types and what are the principles behind all of those next we specified materials and specifications a little bit again with

the range of approaches not just this one this is just showing the the the template um on the geographic variations as you go down Rosal Ro I mentioned about the six Focus areas so they are in their own sense their own specific character you come to City Springs you feel like you're in the downtown core you go to Perimeter there is a specific character to it so that's the kind of element that we explored as part of this design guidelines for Fairfax County this is Route One just south of city of Alexandria in Virginia and there are specific areas along that rout one Corridor where there are more contemporary approaches and where there are more traditional approaches based on the existing character of the community when you are close towards the Mount Vernon um George Washington's Mount Veron or the fort belar it's more traditional so what is that rustic look what is that traditional look and that can be reflected in the building and the public realm more towards the north where you're looking towards DC and city of Alexandria it's a little bit more transitional and it's a little bit more modern how that how it finds it way into the building character and the public real character that's important next on the prescriptive side um this is an example one of our team members um seismo group who is a local Farm they're working on the architectural side of the build um design guidelines one of their staff members worked on this form based code for a community in Florida um as you can see it's very very detailed it actually goes into building standards and Architectural Styles specific architectural styles and standards um next um as I mentioned architectural Styles um so that's kind of giving you the whole approach of all of the

different um categories of design guidelines and as I mentioned um we have heard from the mayor and the council just to reiterate that that we want to be flexible and we'd love to hear from you also we want to be flexible but at the same time um Advance the development code and the design guidelines in a way that Pro provides help to the property owners as well as to the city staff next um with those kind of uh descriptions of the design guidelines I want to share with you the application how do you apply the design guidelines to couple of examples um we chose two sites one is just across from you along the Veterans Park um and the other one is a Redevelopment for the nor River Shopping Center based on the nor River not nor River nor end small area plan we chose the nor River Shopping Center as one of the sites next so like I mentioned there's existing commercial uh this is a retrofit example what can happen and we are not saying that the design guidelines when it is adopted needs to be applied to specific properties it will only happen when somebody comes to the city for development and Redevelopment if there is a faade grant if somebody wants to develop uh specific portions of the property so we chose this site um and you know this site very well we don't have to get into that next um so when we start thinking about the design guidelines we start to organize the whole area into three different pieces one is the building Elements which includes the facade and the uh materials and the colors the doors and the windows the canopy the parit the signage what happens in the building the next portion is the private realm the space between the building and the sidewalk areas what happens in there the paving the Landscaping the textures and then finally the public realm the

sidewalk areas the landscape panel the trees and everything so those are the compartments or the organization of a specific property next so this is just showing an artist rendering of what can happen with that site not saying that that's how it will develop but right now if something were to happen with this so you can see like the improved building and in the next slides um I'll go through all of this the improved building which is the facade materials how do you enhance the bottom so that there is a good Pace what is the middle portion of that building what is that parit what is the signage Lighting on the building so everything counts so those are the elements that we'll be talking about in the design guidelines next in the in the private realm and the site elements we're talking about the paving materials the site Furnishings the lighting the connection between the doors how do you enhance the entrance es what are some of the signage how do you connect from those entrances over to the sidewalk what is the interface between the private site elements and the public realm in the sidewalk is there a landscape panel that defines the boundary of a specific site is there a landscaped wall or a seat wall uh that defines that so everything comes to the picture with when you're talking about design guidelines and of course um the planting and the trees and the signage and the lighting everything counts next the final example is the Redevelopment example um the graphic on the right hand side you're very familiar with probably n 10 shop uh small area plan that was done a few years back and we chose this as an example to show what is a midrise and a lowrise development this is more of um like a sorry A midrise and A high-rise development next and again very similar to um the retrofit example when we look into any development we're looking at the building the massing the articulation

and what happens in the private realm and the public realm next and this is just uh the Redevelopment example uh the not um end small area plan had like just a white box of what is the height and we started thinking about it I mean it's not this is how the development is going to go probably not so we just showing an artist rendering of of what can happen with the building and the public realm next uh again just to give you a better view of that next so very similar to the retrofit example we start thinking about what is the base of the building how do you enhance that is there a banding in the top of the ground floor what is the middle portion and what is the the the parapet and the roof line how do you enhance the entrances of the buildings and what is the interface of the building and the private and the public real everything um is part of that um element and also this the signage and lighting for the building next on the design elements for the site uh you're thinking about what happens at the corner how do you enhance the corner what is the uh signage the planting the axis what is The Branding so that kind of encompasses I think next slide is more of a discussion um that kind of encompasses what we are trying to achieve with the design guidelines as I mentioned before we are at the very initial stages we had a lot of great stakeholder discussions met with many of you so I thank you for all of the feedback that you have provided so at this time um any other questions discussions please

yeah I think the that's the intent we're not going to be focusing on okay everything in city of Sci Springs is going to be a traditional kind of architecture I think you'll lose the essence of it because the city is an organic element right so we are open to Quality development whether it's traditional or modern or contemporary it's just the elements within the buildings that we are focused on what is the interface of the building and what you see like where the windows are and is there a good transparency so that people feel safe and comfortable walking along the streets is there balconies is everything kind of lining up so that we are focusing more on the elements rather than specific architectural Styles and to add to that is you saw the different Focus areas so and each Focus areas might have their own character and there are some areas that can transition from one Focus area to another one so those are kind of the discussions that we're having right now does that answer your question okay thank you others thank you very much okay so next we will have comprehensive planning with Andrew Smith oh there he is thank you so much me and Andrew go back a long way from fresh out of school type planning until now we do we do so I appreciate the um the invitation from Michelle yes we again my name is Andrew Smith I am a

planning coordinator there it is uh um at the Atlanta Regional Commission Arc I know you heard from Mike Alexander um a little bit ago so he I'm sure shared with you you know some more details about what Arc is as as some Preamble um but but if not we are you know the the intergovernmental coordination and planning Agency for the Metro Atlanta region depending on what subject matter you're talking about um that can vary quite a bit the part of the agency that I work in uh and this is kind of a leadup um is the State designated Regional Commission there are 12 Regional commissions throughout the state and we are just one of them um and so we cover um the 11 count Metro Atlanta area so that's a smaller footprint than our federally designated transportation planning zone and it's a little bit different than some of the other uh footprints that we have but um that's all a leadup into comprehensive planning um which as I'll get into is guided in large part by the state of Georgia um and so we're we're going to talk about it today I know that I think uh this the last thing I'll say before we kind of get into it I think Michelle mentioned um that y'all are in the early stages of planning for your next comprehensive Plan update for the entire city we're we're zooming out a lot from Urban Design and specific areas um and I believe that's due in October of 2027 um and so I think y'all are trying to get into that uh into the planning stages planning to plan is what we like to call it um but so uh next slide please so again this is our our our vision and our our uh Mission values goals uh for uh the Atlanta region so I invite you to take a look and find out more about our agency and I'm sure Mike uh is going to have some great resources in the housing packet that that yall have or that you get uh next slide so the purpose of today um talking with Michelle was to really go over and I

think it's great that yall have a a a retreat like this um I manage a program called the Comm planning Academy um and it is uh an annual opportunity for folks typically from planning commissions and bcas and things like that to opt in and come to Arc um to learn more about you know um Planning and Zoning fundamentals it's kind of a crash course and then we get into a lot of regional planning topics so I'm taking some of that into this an audience that I'm kind of you know familiar with um to really get into planning uh fundamental when it comes to um uh the the state requirements and things like that and then kind of just we'll discuss some observations and take any questions as we uh have time next slide uh the next one after that so you know what is planning every if you're involved in planning um I'm sure that you that you know that you know this and then that's why you got involved but I I find that a lot of times people come into planning commissions especially um after being appointed or recommended or some sort of volunteer role maybe without a background in it and then you really learn on the job which is great but you know this this is really the American Planning Association definition of planning is to take you know uh uh uh steps to ensure that we have you know a more prosperous convenient Equitable you know a better place for future Generations we may not uh sit under the trees that we are planting right now but we're trying to plant them now so that future Generations can can can appreciate them next slide um just a little bit about I'm going to Breeze through these constitutional Authority plan really comes out of the Georgia Constitution there were um um standard Planning and Zoning enabling a uh acts that many states um adopted uh but the the most kind of the the clearest through line that we have right now to planning in

Georgia is the home rule provision in the Georgia Constitution that provides that legal basis for Planning and Zoning it doesn't say that you have to plan our Zone there are many many counties dozens of counties in Georgia that do not have zoning many of them don't really need it because they're very very rural um but this allows uh local municipalities or counties to uh it allows them to to take um take take steps to to plan uh to provide for for you know the police power essentially to to protect the public health safety and Welfare um and so that's where that emanates from um next slide um really the the the the the the piece of legislation that guides planning in the state most clearly uh from 1989 to now was the Georgia planning act that was um a u a piece of legislation designed to create a system of coordinated planning that kind of goes from the ground up local to Regional to State uh and uh next slide if you would you know the the uh legislation was copied not copied but adapted from a model in Florida which has since been blown up and disintegrated several years ago but um but so we we we saw a lot of growth in um neighboring states and wanted to try to create you know a better um uh landscape for making coordinated you know thoughtful decisions about uh about the future so what the the big thing that this act did was that it it actually required local governments just to do a plan it doesn't say it has to be the best plan it doesn't have to it it's it's um there's basic parameters around it and that's what I'm going to get into but the biggest thing is just that you do have to do a plan and talk about certain things and document uh certain things within your community again like as I mentioned it's kind of a groundup approach not really a top down one uh plans have to be updated every five

years and then crucially the Georgia Department of Community Affairs um DCA they are the state department that manages the application of uh of the Georgia planning act and they do that via a set of rules that governs local comprehensive planning in the state next slide zoning procedures law zpl that's very much related but you know that's that that that uh governs uh how um local governments um Can rezone property and um you know do do do zoning activities um you know so that's related that's really an implementation tool I'm going to focus more on planning but I just wanted to mention that and again the the CCA uh minimum standards and procedures for local comprehensive planning that's a mouthful uh but that that really governs and sets out parameters for how local governments um uh need to plan and generally what should be covered in their plans next slide um so you know these are these are all things I'm going to speed through these but these are these are the foundations of planning these are the trying to the things that we're trying to to do to protect the public health safety and Welfare uh improve our quality of life also regulate you know private sector Investments and offer certainty uh to them um and and and protect those places as well um next slide you know why plan it's it's to really do all of these things we we if you're involved in planning you know all of the top several bullets there um but importantly one of the other things that that that uh is unique about Georgia is that um you really the state really requires it I think they would describe it m maybe as an incentive uh it's debatable whether it's a a stick or a carrot uh but the local planning rules if you comply with those you update your plan regularly and you do it according to their um framework which is very flexible um which we'll get into um you can maintain what's called qlg qualified

local government status and that gives you access to certain State funding sources and um next slide please and that shows you if you want to go um I think I had it on the next slide oh hope yeah there it is that that link should be active in the if you get a digital version of this but there's all kinds of specific uh funding sources that you um cannot be eligible for um if you don't maintain qlg status next slide what happens if we don't plan you know disjointed you might get U uh some outcomes like uh like what we were just looking at where the the parking lot just kind of Fades into the roadway and there's no curb and gutter and then next to that there's something completely different there's incompatible uses there's uh all kinds of impacts on transportation and quality of life the list could go on next slide um and then who plans I highlighted this in red because this is you all y all have an active role it's not just responding and reacting to development applications and rezonings and things y'all um can and should have an active role in being stewards of your city's comprehensive plan including the the update of it next slide um some of the tools of planning again uh zoning and subdivision regs and things like that overlay districts design guidelines those are all nested a little bit further down we're going to talk again about comp plans primarily at the top next slide and this kind of gives you a good visual that that helps um some folks understand kind of the the hierarchy or the organization but the comp plan kind of talks to every other thing really and many of those things kind of communicate or signal different things back up to comp plan but it's supposed to be really a management document a guiding document for the community documents your goals your needs uh your short-term work program um and what you're going to do to try to address those goals and then influence

those needs and opportunities um let's talk a little bit about state requirements next slide so required plan elements so this is where I'm going to there a very summarized version of the local planning rules um but the vision and goals again that's the most um you know I would say probably important element of the comprehensive plan that's where you're really highlighting CommunityWide what things uh you need to to to tackle uh at a high level um and again needs and opportunities that's that second Circle there really uh you know your goals if they're achieved over time can serve to address those needs in order you know basically solve those challenges or address those challenges uh and serve to strengthen those opportunities to seize those opportunities build on assets build on strengths um your community work program is a fiveyear uh um chart essentially that that um uh tackles you know all the things that the city wants to do in the short term to try to achieve its goals and therefore influence those needs and opportunities that could be things like uh studies projects programs Capital Improvements uh different Community initiatives it's very holistic it's very comprehensive as the name uh implies and so um so that's that's why that's there that's to really try to figure out okay who who could be responsible for this at the city level how much might it cost how long do you think it'll take and can we start at least start in the next five years okay all right well then we need to put it in the work program um it doesn't have to be as detailed as hey we need to replace this 10- foot section of sidewalk you know that may be a line item that's a package of Capital Improvements that all relates to one area or one Corridor so it's it's out a a little bit higher level than just like the the the very nitty-gritty um Broadband is part of the state rules that's a a big um you know a priority

for the state um and so high-speed internet just that as a concept for education for economic development that's found its way into a lot of different state rules for different things different departments um and so with the comp plan you do have every Community has to talk about it um it's not a highly technical scientific you know 10-page tretis on on technology or anything it's really just more of a highlevel check on hey what's our high-speed internet availability and access really look like in our community are there any gaps why might that be what steps can we take to investigate that um required for some this is these are elements that are only required for communities that meet certain criteria or conditions um cie that's for communities that collect development impact fees say Springs yes so that Sandy Springs is is one of those so developers chip in for um you know public facilities essentially that uh need additional help uh as a result of the development uh coming into the community so that can be roads Bridges Parks and Recreation Public Safety and fire uh things like that um land use if you have a zoning code then you have to have a land use element that lays out your high high level um future land use aspirations in terms of what we think should go where and and why um and generally you know it doesn't get into it doesn't have to get into like really specific densities um it doesn't have to be a parcel by parcel based thing like a zoning map uh but many communities do use a parcel based approach many other communities use what's called a character area based approach which is sort of um more generalized areas or or or nodes character areas as well what the city uh uses and so that allows a little more flexibility I think um and

then very often you'll have a character area and you might even have some differentiation within that character area of uh things that tie to you might say hey this is a a sub area of a character area and um we want to see XYZ in this area this is what the community has told us this is what our elected officials have told us that they think makes sense here this is what our professional planning staff uh and you all as stewards of the community and kind of Advocates ambassadors sounding board for the community at large um that's where you're input I think is is very important um and so that that um creates a framework that that provides a foundation for things like your zoning map which is a very you know you can only do this use you can only have it Be This Tall it has to be this far away from the street this far away from its neighbors this far away from its rear neighbors you know all those things um that y'all are probably very very familiar with in terms of your your roles um so uh so that's a little bit about land use again there are many Comm many counties I laugh but it's just so foreign to if we're in metro Atlanta to go what you don't have zoning there are many communities that don't have to do a land use settlement because they might have just like fire like life safety codes maybe a building code they don't have zoning you know sometimes they don't they just don't really need it um Economic Development um really in our region Clayton count is the only um County that's that's economically kind of distressed in this definition uh to where they have to do an economic development uh element but every community that we interact with you they're they always want to talk about Economic Development so very often this is included just almost like part for the course um transportation if you just like Fulton County and Sandy Springs y'all are really almost at the heart of arc's um federally designated transportation planning geography um so because of that you do

have to do a transportation element that's where you grab the most relevant things that uh the most relevant items from like our regional transportation plan or your like a Fulton County transportation plan and then you merge those and and combine those with your hyper local you know just Sandy Springs Transportation issues challenges improvements you want to make discussions thorny things that that need work and need thought um housing that is uh required for um any um Community that's a HUD cdbg entitlement Community or if you're in a county that is I think Sandy Springs is a direct HUD recipient so y'all have to do a housing element um and that can be it's a it's a discussion it's what are our challenges like Mike was talking about what are our issues what are we what are we trying to tackle what's important and trying to you know have all that crystallized there in that element these don't all have to be specific chap chapters you can kind of weave them together let's say you wanted to have all of these elements kind of woven into your goals and your needs and opportunities you could do that very often though we do a lot of plans will have like an element for land use that's kind of a section of the plan by itself and then you know but the the they they um are all obviously connected uh next slide these are optional plan elements again for a community like Sandy Springs there are many many of these things that are already in your plan and many things that you I want to address in terms of you know uh historic and cultural resources I'm thinking natural resources I'm thinking Green Space infrastructure all of those things but these are technically optional totally optional in the framework of planning in Georgia next slide uh the elements that are required to be updated every five years is actually really Slim you don't have to reinvent your plan every five years I know a lot of people think that maybe you do you really don't you just have to

take a new look at your needs and opportunities your Broadband element your land use element and your work program and the report of accomplishments is part of that that's where you just take a look at your last work program and go through and say okay what's the status for all of these items and then are we going to postpone these are these not a priority or are we going to start them in the next five years and we need to push them into the next work program that kind of thing next slide a little bit more about needs and opportunities again I mentioned this earlier it's kind of where you document your community's challenges or issues that need addressing and then opportunities or strengths or assets that you want to continue to build on this is just a snapshot of decab County's most recent plan with kudos to uh kimley Horn uh their consulting firm that many of y'all are probably familiar with they worked with the decab county on their most recent plan um next slide I think this is goals this is you know kind of the higher level long-term goals that if you address those you will maximize quality of life and and and and influence hopefully address those needs and opportunities again these are kind of overarching goals that guide your your dayto day uh next slide future land use again this is something that you'll see in your comp plan where you have different character areas uh and then a narrative that kind of describes and very often more in more modern plans in the last 30 years or so have a lot of visual cues and a lot of visual um AIDS in them to to help decision makers say okay well this is something if we need to go tweak our zoning based on this new plan then we should go do that or we should consider this when a new application comes in next slide Community work program again it's just what I mentioned it's uh your line items of things you want to try to address and then uh when you're going to try to do them who's going to be responsible for them what if they have a cost associated with them Etc these are things that the that the city is going

to be directly attending to in the next 5 years years next slide again going back to that tools of planning I'm going to Breeze through just small area plans but this is where a lot of folks like the the um gentleman you just heard from or Sarah who you're going to hear from later uh next slide um where where they might come into play in terms of doing really focused area plans like around City Springs and things like that um next yeah these are just some benefits for doing small area planning uh sometimes the comp plan's very hard to to it's it's CommunityWide and you need to focus on certain key areas where there's opportunity for change or Redevelopment or Improvement things like that uh this is just a snapshot of what you might find in a comp plan relative to small area plans and how it sort of drills down to get at those areas next slide uh same thing it'll often have a visual and this is not something that would override your land use or your zoning but that would complement it in some way or offer more detail that's really specific to that geographic area next slide bottom line plans are just that they they are policy guides they're management documents they're aspirational sometimes they're kind of operational um your codes and ordinances that's the law and the goal is to try to push as much as you can every time you update a plan push as much as you can as much as needed uh into things like zoning and and all your other implementation uh tools but these are living documents that's why they get updated every five years people turn over officials leave come and go folks on planning commissions come and go staff comes and go believe Michelle and her team aren't going anywhere anytime soon uh next slide this is just a sample of uh kind of what Regional commissions do one of our big goals that we've always done is that when a local plan is pretty much has been drafted and is all basically done they have to send it to

their Regional Commission which is Arc and then we share that final draft for lack of a better term with all of the surrounding communities with the planning staff at all of the neighboring jurisdictions so that's where that coordinated planning comes in it's it's intergovernmental coordination try to say okay at least um it you know your neighboring uh community in Dunwoody or Roswell can understand at least what are the things that Sandy Springs is thinking about planning for how does that interact maybe with their local planning uh uh activities and uh they can provide comments to Arc and then we Supply that back to Sandy Springs um and and we also review plans uh in relation to our overarching regional plan and offer advisory comments again it's not a regulatory thing it's really an advisory communication uh process um importantly though in Big R rules revision around 2011 2012 um where we are uh tasked with providing direct assistance to update comp plans it's free um and that's you know when a community when they you know when their due date is is coming up they can ask their Regional Commission for help and we um can provide that it's really usually for smaller communities with they might have very limited or no planning staff um and so we've done um dozens of plans throughout the region again usually for smaller cities um that's kind of the the bread and butter that's what that intent was was there for kind of some early things to think about when Maybe things that y'all can start thinking about when you're getting ready for your 2027 plan are are here on this slide you know what are things the city's undertaken in the last few years since your last plan that might need to be pulled in and updated uh what are some and are there any conflicts or tensions that y'all need to be aware of um the the sometimes a comp plan is it can be a scapegoat in in some ways if

there's something really specific happening in the community uh and then the planning process starts then people can kind of conflate those things things and and and and it becomes a referendum on whatever that really hypers specific thing is but again the plan is supposed to be comprehensive just like the name implies so trying to understand those things ahead of time is a good idea and then engagement you want a robust engagement ever you want to understand who are there any groups that didn't exist five years ago that are new and have some planning adjacent role in our community are there any all are you know sort of like artists or arts and culture groups that we could tap are there any just folks that we've had trouble engaging with in the past that we should really try again with this time and maybe taking a different uh approach uh next one just some observations here to wrap up I think the the local standards again I think um and you know Michelle probably agree with me are very they're very adaptable that was part of that big rules revision from that previous slide where they used to be much more top down um a little too too data focused to where you know now can data updates almost in real time all the time you can go grab new information every month um and so uh the submission process was more difficult now there's just one deliverable um there's less focus on on data like I said and and just a lot more opportunity to tailor the plan um to what your community is really uh trying to achieve and to the Dynamics of your uh community and your population size it's just they moved away from a one-size fits-all approach and I think that's been a positive thing um you do have that flexibility to look at a parcel based land use approach or a character area based approach um some of the advantages and disadvantages I would say again there's customization flexibility uh it's not prescriptive or proscriptive but then kind of the counterargument to that well okay is

this too is this too is this too low of a bar is this too easy is this too I don't know vanilla or something like that and so that that's been you know our it's again Flex ities there and I think that's a good thing and I think that's um in my mind kind of overrides uh that that you don't have to make it be this this unbelievable Deep dive on data every single time that you do a plan you need to try to keep it keep it alive um but be able to to tailor it um a lot of connections from your needs to your goals and then really DCA is very interested in implementation they'll look very closely at the community work program that five-year short-term work program and make sure hey is there something from last time that you said is ongoing and then it doesn't show up in the next fiveyear work program okay what happened to that project is it still happening um you know so but I think the counterargument there is hey is this are you are is DCA kind of in the weeds or should we be more Visionary um that's jury's jury's still out there you know you can lean on your Regional Commission we um can do a lot more than what we're required to do uh and our our our typical scope is is um I think we produce a really uh very good planning product but again we do have limited bandwidth not like what you'd get from a consultant or something like that it's more on the basic side um and then joint plans those are harder especially in the metro area you find those a lot more in rural parts of Georgia where you might have a county and then several small cities very small cities uh and they that's more it's easier for them to do a joint plan in those connections but I think uh you we're trying to have create you know Regional coordination that's our whole mission but um local competition is always a thing annexation home rule you know that's something that um is supported by the by the state constitution um and then the other thing I just wanted to mention is that it really is a groundup framework I think

sometimes uh people uh don't think about it that way and it's sort of like we've got these rules but again the flexibility that the rules provide um really allows the the cities to to decide for themselves what they want to tackle and what they want to talk about and that rolls up to you know the um the goal is to for it to roll up to more of a coordinated Regional plan and a coordinated uh better planned State um so that I think is all I have that was last thing this is just some resources some of these are DCA uh resources I can't really speak for them but that's where you can go find out some basic information the rules um different things like that so I wanted to put that in there and I appreciate it I'm probably overtime I'm sure I'm overtime but I could talk about this all day um but I appreciate everybody's time and if you have any is there time for any quick questions or um I asked because you know this year is where we're going to start up our comprehensive plan and I'll talk about it a little bit um after lunch or so but we'll be starting our comprehensive plan this year 2025 to get us to 2027 2027 it's an 18mon process yeah we yeah I think are yall on the June or the October June June yeah so June 30th of 2027 I didn't really mention that but the state does have this rolling deadline schedule they set deadlines uh for communi so that it's kind of spread out um some years are very in our region you might have like 10 plans due and then the next year there's like 30 plans due so they it doesn't always work great for an individual Regional Commission but um uh every Community has you know a different different deadline kind of space things out great well I appreciate everybody's time thank you yes so we're a little bit off schedule by 15 20 minutes so we're just

going to jump a little bit to the um public involvement um this uh you'll hear about a Clarkston plan that was done um by this U consultant firm they got the GPA award for Community engagement we also we Sandy Springs also um submitted our plan Crossroads for that same award so these are the winners so we want to hear what they did so that we could try to come um for that plan next time so we have you'll introduce yourself Sarah and Ed good morning everyone I'm Sarah mcau I'm with Perkins of well I'm a senior Urban designer um I was the project manager on the Clarkston Greenway project um and then I'll have Ed introduce himself and I'm Ed cadell I was the uh public engagement lead for the claron green way study and I'm with Sycamore Consulting a small uh planning firm based out a Decor that specializes in engagement that's us hopefully we kind of look like that um so next slide please um we had a more extensive project team um Perkins and will led the project management public engagement and just overall design uh we had Sycamore who um LED our engagement and then we had um pre planning and design and Trail connection to help with with the feasibility and design like details of the trail um and then we also had purpose possible on our team who uh provided the city with a funding stream um so that they could move directly into implementation and there were a list of Grants and just other public funding sources that um the city could pursue next SL please um this is just kind of an agenda of the things we'll touch upon um just the general Regional significance of Trails um the people in Clarkston and Clarkston itself and how we used the engagement to inform not only our analysis but also our recommendations

and the implementation plan um and then just some takeaways for you yeah um so the arc has a regional bike Network Vision um and this was an LCI study to kind of advance that bike Network in Clarkston um you know the belt line has created a lot of enthusiasm around trails and a lot of people want their own trail or their own belt line or they want to connect into it um and in Clarkston they have the stone mountain path trail that runs directly through the center of the city um but that's on one side of the railroad tracks and there's no Trail connections on the north side of the railroad tracks y um and this is just a further explanation of what I just said um and so Clarkston is um you know a relatively small community um about 10 miles east of Atlanta um it's part of the welcoming communities Network there's about 15,000 people there um but it's Unique in a lot of ways um there's you know over half the population is immigrants or refugees that speak dozens of languages we hear different numbers at different times but we've heard up to 60 um languages and so we had to think about that when we were engaging the community um and then there's also more than half of the population because of their backgrounds don't access to a car um and it's not a overly connected City so um there's probably long Transit rides or long walks or bikes um to get different places um and we wanted to see how the trail could not only provide a way to get around but also address other um concerns throughout the community like affordable housing public health and the environment um we in our plan recommended some uh things for housing

to offset some displacement concerns as we know um particularly around the Belt Line the trail gets built and then there's a lot of investment and Legacy res residents and business owners are often pushed out um and then Public Health was at the top of everyone's mind so we wanted to think about how the trail could uh Pro provide better physical and mental health um and then just all the environmental things that can come up with um running a trail near a creek and Ju Just different um Environmental clean up um so this was the original um map of the trail options um there's one in blue that runs through the center of the northern part of the city along the south fort Peach Tree Creek we had another one that runs um along I 285 and then a segment on um along us78 and so originally the the scope was to identify which ones we were doing of those three it ended up that we bed all of them um you'll see that later but um this is what we started with um and as Andrew was talking about with planning in cities and how there's always a bunch of plans the comprehensive plan sets the overall policy and this study was um one of those smaller um small area plans that was then adopted into the comprehensive plan um one of the things we were really excited about with Clarkston is you know it's a it's it's a small City but they've always been willing to do um Progressive things and take a chance on different ideas um that a lot of cities sometimes struggle with um for example this Cottage Court development was one of one of the first if not the first in the region um to be built um when they do make public um investments in their parks and um streets and all of that they really put a lot of thought into the design and the materials so um it's it was nice to

see that they have high quality investment in infrastructure in their public spaces all right I'm going to pass it to Ed to talk about the um engagement details just get my my paper sorted here all right um so next slide please so this is just a oh I think we skipped over uh a little bit this is just a small list so the city of Clarkston has a a pretty small staff with with limited resources so uh because of this we we really relied a lot on Community Partners um this is just a small list um we'll go into a little more detail with with um the various Community Partners later next slide please all right so uh we really wanted the community to embrace and take ownership of this plan so we really made sure that engagement drove every step of the process um and we really had the goal of being open and transparent so folks could see their their feedback being incorporated into the plan um so we also recognize the importance of not just meeting people where they are but really understanding where people are coming from figuratively literally um and and really embracing just the many many diverse perspectives in Clarkston uh on what it means to get around safely to what it means to connect what it means to form Comm Comm and all that good stuff next slide please so Clarkston um as we mentioned uh 50 plus spoken languages um representing as many or more different countries it really required a unique approach to getting the full extent of the community involved um and engaged uh the first step uh obviously is is to

make people feel welcome and it's it's particularly important in Clarkston to to understand that a lot of people are coming from particularly vulnerable situations uh so building building that trust is is the key first step and uh that's where we really relied on our Community Partners uh fortunately for us um there are a lot of organizations already doing great work in the community uh from Refugee Support Services uh child care providers Early Learning uh providers Healthcare Providers Public Health researchers from GE Georgia State we had the privilege of working with a couple of Master's students of Public Health um that both helped us with our Public Health analysis and helped us uh engage the community um churches mosques um so we really work to embed ourselves in these trusted Community networks that are really all working towards the same goals a a healthy Community a happy community and a connected Community um and so through these uh networks we were able to recruit a group of community engagement ambassadors uh so these were active community members that represented clarkston's 10 most spoken languages um we we uh kind of added languages piece by piece as we as we figured out like oh we missed this group we missed that group um and so we were actually able to uh compensate this group we set aside fee from our budget at the outset to to to pay community members a fair market R to help us translate um feedback materials meeting notices um interpret for us at events and to spread the word and invite their friends and networks um and so all of these project uh materials and feedback activities were uh duplicated on our interactive website uh to just ensure that that

folks that maybe didn't have a chance to come in person still still got the opportunity several weeks after the event to to leave their feedback um and then finally uh just given the sheer volume of cultural diversity um our team really had to be like strategic tactical and Nimble um when when finding the the Myriad opportunities to uh to engage um next slide please and so just a high level overview of our approach uh so we leveraged our ambassador group to translate interpret and share opportunities to participate um we convened a project Advisory Group of uh City and Community stakeholders uh we hosted a mixture of uh so we we tagged along we did not have any Standalone meetings per se for this project um but we targeted specific um large scale community events and then more targeted cultural uh U maybe more Community specific events um and then throughout the process we uh gave the community opportunities to share their experience living and getting around clarkon in our walk with us uh storytelling campaign next slide please and uh another way that we worked to get around the language barriers um also recognizing that while people may speak any number of 50 plus languages they might not read in that language um so we really relied on a uh Graphics campaign to to convey ideas our team hired a uh graphic designer uh to to create imagery that was both uh that's reflective of the community um and that also uh Embraces the diversity of the community and uh kind of icons and

Graphics that explain the ins and outs of of Greenways more or less next slide please and this is just a snapshot of some of our of most of our uh uh Community engagement Ambassador team um so we were really intentional about planning to uh fairly compensate them from the outset and uh that really went a long way to establishing relationships and and building trust next slide please and this is just an example of uh a little bit of our feedback activities at one of the large community events this was The Refuge coffee uh race around the World 5K event and Fun Run um maybe four 400ish 500 people uh gathered um in the in the Market Square the downtown area of Clarkston um couple hours before the race and then a couple hours after the race um and Sarah and her team I'd love to take credit for for their awesome Graphics um but this is just an example of of easy to read graphic focused uh bright colors inviting uh displays and things like that were were very helpful um next slide please and this is just an example of some of the translations I this is a goal prioritization exercise um and one little interesting like bonus data point that we got um folks were kind of uh we we kind of intended folks to leave their their dots in those gray boxes um but you can see that folks voted right next to their language so we were able to see oh Which languages are represented which are not um yeah and so about half of the feedback we received at at this community celebration which was a uh

children it was a storytelling festival for for for children um about half the feedback was was not in English and uh this is a a little example of uh this is our kind of Storytelling activity we invited folks to uh tell us what they love about their Community um and also where the challenges are and uh we duplicated on the left this is our our social pinpoint online engagement platform that lets folks uh participate online leave comments they could even um upload photos and interact with other people's comments um and yeah so this is a just a quick snapshot of of Clarkston it's a pretty there are 50 plus languages spoken but there's under 15,000 people um and you can really see that the the mode split is is reflective of the fact that um lots of people don't have access to cars so they're car pooling taking Marta um walking or biking uh much more so than in than in the Greater Atlanta region um and so we uh also created a a journey mapping exercise to understand the challenges of getting around the city um as well as how people would prefer to get around you can see that there is a pretty big difference of uh how people get around and how they want to get around um so that's that was some some helpful Graphics to show the importance of of Greenways um we also had a uh kind of a cool visual goal setting exercise um prioritization exercise I'm sorry um that let folks kind of build out a bar graph in real time I think we might have

that photo on a different slide um but just just to be as open as possible and to and so folks can see their feedback being kind of logged in real time I thought that was a thought that was a cool exercise um and uh we also really tried to so those goals that's that's I think where we really got our most valuable feedback um we really solicited the community's feedback on which of these goals to prioritize um and then from there Sarah will talk a little bit about our our analytical uh goal Matrix um that we assign different weights to um and the the last uh thing that I'll kind of mention about engagement is our uh walk with us storytelling project uh so we compiled pardon me we compiled Clips throughout the process and posted kind of 30 second Snippets of uh of folks just saying what they love about their Community or maybe what uh what they'd like to see or what are some of the challenges of getting around um and the the that culminated in a uh kind of a larger video at the that we released at our final public event that told the story of The Greenway from the perspective of the claron community and it's a it's a really cool video and again Sarah and her team uh did all of the technical uh video stuff um but the the purpose of the video was both to generate excitement for the greenway and also to serve as a marketing tool for the city to to present to uh go after different funding sources and uh the I was just getting about that being the last thing um this is just a a snapshot of the the the

culmination of our community engagement ambassadors work was a translation of the executive summary of the report which is about 10 pages um and I think we broke it down like one page for each language that it was translated into um but it was translated into all 10 languages um and so I'm going to turn it over to Sarah to dig a little more into the place and the uh technical analysis thank you and you can go to thanks um so we I won't you know go through all of our Maps we had a lot more maps than these four but uh just wanted to show you some of the things that we analyzed um and we continued to add to our analysis if we heard something was important um from the project Advisory Group or the ambassadors or um the public um but we looked at a lot of demographic indicators um and then also the typical planning indicators of what's here what's the zoning what how well are things connected um and we tried to find you know the intersect of of a lot of these um goals with our analysis um so we ended up with four goals the uh images that Ed was talking about we had a lot of different categories within them that people could vote on and then we ended up um adding all of that together and then collapsing um I think we originally had six categories down to four with the overarching goal of Public Health just because we heard that that was um very important to people um um So within our metrics for all of these goals Public Health um comes up so goal number one it is a Greenway so connectivity is kind of the main point um but then also access to parks and nature um thinking about equity and resilience and then cost and feasibility um to get different segments done um and so we broke all of the trails into different segments that directly connected to each other or streets or Parks um so that they could be realistic uh pieces of the trail to

build and then ranked everything uh for each segment on metrics related to these goals next one so um these are the metrics you can see that we have eight for connectivity um we had eight for Pars in nature four for equity and resilience and then another seven for cost and feasibility um so all of them had something to do with Public Health in here but um when it came to connectivity for example um you know if people are taking Marta we wanted to make sure that the trail got them to a street that connected to a Marta stop and so something ranked um higher if they were within a quarter mile or within a half mile and it was a direct route um and with um cost and feasibility it was is a RightWay acquisition required so that you know can slow down the process for implementation um and also how many agencies do you need to uh coordinate with in order to make something happen so if it was a lot of agencies or a lot of property owners it got lower scores because it's going to slow down the process um so this is the result of our first run of the uh Matrix you can see that the ones in dark green along the streets uh scored the highest and that's just because of those connections that they provide and they're on things that are already built um and then the ones along the creek uh which runs um they also scored relatively High um and that's just because it runs through the middle of the community and it's actually surrounded by um a lot of apartment complexes so it can reach the most people um next slide oh is it duplicated yeah can there we go um we can go back

one can we go one there we go okay um so after we went through that first run we shared this uh preliminary route with the community um and showed them what it could look like in typical sections um asked them specific questions about each of the segments um and then next slide please we ended up having everything that um was originally on the map so uh this just became a lot more detailed um our uh subconsultant Trail connection went out with the city and did multiple site visits walking through all the wooded areas to determine you know the feasibility on topography could we connect into the apartment complex is there a you know segment of the drive that could reach the creek how many bridges do we need that kind of thing um so we ended up with um the whole network as originally shown in the um RFP but then um the way we prioritized it was through phasing from the goals that we gained from the community um and so this is just one angle this looks Northeast um along the creek and one of the apartment complexes um and this is what it looks like today you can see that there's a lot of kudzu and things that would need to be cleaned up around the creek um and we can go to the next one and so this image shows what it could look like with the Clarkston Greenway running along maybe some stream Bank remediation um environmental cleanup get some more trees in there um and some Boardwalk connections and then this is Montreal Road um there's a wildlife sanctuary to the um East about a half mile um which is right in this image um and the creek is underneath that bridge and this is what it could look like in the future maybe there's a trail head here this trail running over to the

wildlife sanctuary um and that trail that runs to the east is actually uh what came out as phase one um we looked at you know opportunities for Green Space particularly on properties the city already owns so that those could be quick winds um next slide please and then phase one connects from Montreal Road because that's a key Corridor um it's a little less than a mile but it connects directly into multiple apartment complexes with different Trail Spurs um and then it also uh connects to the front ship Forest Wildlife Sanctuary that I mentioned um which has a trail within it that comes down to ponts so it provides a number of direct connections to people living in that area that they currently have to do pretty cous routes to get down to um ponon for Marta access or any other major places and this you want yeah okay so I'll talk about some of our key takeaways um before I get into the engagement one thing I wanted to note about um the city of Clarkston they were very proactive in putting this phase one in the spast so the next iteration of the spast funding was coming up Midway through we didn't have any recommendations at that point but we had enough information at the time to be able to say phase one needs to be in the spast um so now the city is um putting out an RFP for the engineering drawings and RightWay acquisition for phase one and that was you know part of the motion when the plan was adopted was to say we're activating the funds and um doing that so I thought that was a good um Forward Thinking way of of getting things done um and then from engagement um we learned a lot of things um but one thing that we did is before we designed our

entire engagement strategy we met with um Community leaders that the city recommended and uncovered that there are already a lot of networks and a lot of people working to connect with people so we made sure to connect with those individuals bring them on as ambassadors have them on our Advisory Group um so that we're not Reinventing the wheel um that covers the second bullet there um one thing the other thing is we compensated our ambassadors um when we proposed on the project we already set aside the budget in order to do that um and the city also inflated the LCI budget a bit because they knew it needed to have um that kind of Engagement with it so they provided more than the 20% match um to Arc um and I think we can go no worries we can listen this is one of our videos we can listen to Patrick he's more fun than me anyways so is like living everywhere in the world because you can meet people almost everywhere in the world you these very nice wi where you can get everywhere again and people are very welcoming very nice so you can meet someone a coffee shop uh So within within five minutes it's going to be like I used this um sense of community this sense of um belonging that's really think I like about going to keep so he was one of our ambassadors um he could speak both French and Swahili and so um he was very instrumental in making sure we talked with people at our meetings and that's the bar chart um Ed was talking about you can see we had a lot of different goals here and then

people could vote individually on on each of those so we can answer any questions um the planning process took about 16 months um and then the um implementation you know that's just when when the money can can be available but they are starting on that uh this year um we had the first few phases probably in the next five to 10 years and then we had phases four five and six which were broader connections probably after that it's a I think it's like eight miles total worth of trails so it'll take some time yeah that that first mile um that's what is going into engineering right now um and so that'll also involve property owners in the community through the process yeah question yeah we wanted we wanted to hear um what they did um to see how we could steal any of the ideas for upcoming comprehensive plan so if you you know anything you heard or so on here um is something that you want to implement you know we want to try to do that so thank you so much for coming and talking to [Applause] us all right so um this presentation is going to be short so we're going to be like um five eish minutes um uh to talk about um arts and culture incomprehensive planning uh Andrew mentioned that a little bit in his presentation and the Quita went through a program with the Atlanta Regional Commission and we actually have one of the artist here with us so it's

very exciting so we'll just um she'll go through it let me right thank you Michelle for nice introduction and I promise we'll be quick all right um so [Music] let's okay sorry all right so yeah unfortunately one of our presenters an dorky she's with the arc's community engagement um Division and come be with us today because she's unwell so a lot of these slides are from Arc so I'm not going to speak for them or on them but um I just wanted to mention that this was a way of fostering artists being the center of community engagement and when it comes to planning initiatives go to the next slide so the um program brought together a wide range of sectors while also like I said keeping artists in the center um we work with the village skate park which are these ladies here and members of The Connect um exploring mobility and Justice and skate parties so the arc um CCD initiative which stands for community and culture I'm sorry culture and Community design the program focuses on making arts and culture a key part of inclusive and Equitable planning across the Metro Atlanta um it's a seven-month program where we met weekly collaborating with Community organizations that serve under represented communities um local officials like myself and creatives like Gavin uh we design projects and planning initiative Center on arts and culture and just like the start of any Planet initiative we start with learning about ourselves our community that we serve

and um here are some examples of that so in the two images to the my left um you'll see moments in our first meeting where we took time to learn about ourselves and the people that we are with and um so on a long piece of paper you know we're br down into decades and we each wrote something significant from our lives focusing on culture and community and so afterwards we had thoughtful um conversations and discussions about what we shared and how we learned about each other so I'm gonna let Gavin speak a little bit more about his experience with the CD program and you know more about his um connection with CD planning hi everyone okay so I'm a artist designer and educator and um with CCD um my role was as an artist to like really sorry go back uh can you go back a [Music] couple perfect thank you um so one of the projects was with the skate park and uh we found out that their main focus was way finding cuz no one could find the business um it was located on a old factory and it was um the building was actually set back from the road so people didn't really know how to enter it so um wave finding was their main focus um so we were able to use materials scrap materials from um the skate park to actually build wave finding signage go to the next uh this was from the connect um which is a art organization and also actually they do multiple things they had within their

establishment um a coffee shop it was also a like co-working space And the fact were doing so many things within the community um the entry point for us going in was like okay how can we help and I guess what what we learned from that process was uh try not to deliv try not to say that you can deliver a lot if you can't so it's like these small significant changes which made a lot uh difference to them um you can go to next um this was a presentation day at the end of a connect um you can go on group photo okay um you can go to the next um so what I'll do is just talk a little bit about my practice and like how I've been working in Atlanta through the last 15 20 years um so I started off um as an interior designer and I actually while I was doing interior design I was working at a coffee shop and the Beautiful part I realized that actually informed my practice is how much that coffee shop meant to the community um the regulars who came in you knew them by name you knew their order before they even came to the door and this is not the coffee shop I worked at but um a couple of um my co-workers actually went on to create their own coffee shops and I ended up doing the design for it so this is fer Park which is located I think they have four or five locations now um and I just thought that was a good growth to be like okay you work within this industry um but then you see how those workers actually become the next business owners um So within my design practice I work with a couple different organizations I work with small businesses I work with Arts organizations developers and

municipalities so this was Pittsburgh yards which is a development on the west side of Atlanta um I actually did the interior design for that and as I was doing the interior design I realized how much art Focus was a prominent feature of that because the community really wanted to make sure that they were represented within the design of the building um it was actually a 5-year process before we even broke ground of constant weekly monthly meetings meeting with the community to understand what kind of vision they wanted for its development before we even started um one of the main focuses I I'll say is um the black and white photos with the red touches um was something that came from those meetings where they wanted a visual representation of themselves in Rob the neighborhood is quite diverse there's a lot of um older residents and new residents coming in so we had a photographer come in we created a uh house structure and throughout the course of six months we would have that house structure placed within different parts of the neighborhood where community members could come in with their families and have photographs taken and then we blew it up and we did this whole wheat pasting so once they come in they not only see themselves but they see other members of the community which they didn't even know was part of it so they it was more of a buyin for them to understand that they are part of that Community next slide okay so with some of the nonprofits I worked with this is actually kog Market um in between it being transformed from um Tyler Perry studio into kog market so a lot of times artists have access to these spaces when they're in um that like intermediate zone of not really being occupied um this was fun for fundraising uh Gala for commity Community farmers market and

another nonprofit which was wot which is no longer existing so I created the design and art installation for that we actually partnered with the belt line because at that same time they were doing uh they were cutting uh the area for pount Park which had a lot of um bamboo and I needed a material to use for the installation and thinking of like what natural material can we use at first I was thinking K but no one really likes KSU but people love bamboo so that became one of the design elements that um was used throughout you can go on to the next slide thank you so um in the main hallway we create like this Atrium with a bamboo um the leaves were used as a canopy in the main area and then also bringing in different artists to fill the space and just create that Ambiance you can go on to the next slide thank you that's some more from um that event uh you can go on to the next um so this is Atlanta Belt Line This was kind of my first installation I did working with the belt line uh it's the PS Bridge Pon Market Bridge um and some of the things I think about when I'm activating the space is um aesthetic um patina and story um Aesthetics just because of natural beauty especially when you're doing uh community art it's less about my own Vision but how is this going to fit within the community and what are they going to get out of it that will that they'll be able to engage with um you can go on to the next slide so that practice kind of grew and transformed and now I'm kind of doing these installations all over so I'm using the

Natural Built environment that I'm given and weaving um design and just different methods into that so that's one use of like how I try to workb whatevers exist in within the space and then adding these all touches to it uh actually you can go to the next slide we'll come back to that one um this one was a art installation done in Oakland Cemetery um another material I like to use is PVC but really using PBC as a way as an entry point into thinking about like artart design and like organic form so I usually heat up the PVC mold it to the tree to capture that um to capture that like organic feel um for this project um the tree that I used was actually killed by Ivy so I'm kind of recreating that feel of like the tree being completely like submerged and like taken over by the ivy if you go back one thank you so from that um I really love the idea of like this natural form using PBC which is a not natural form um and to create like art using negative space so this was also at the go from Art Center um what I wanted to achieve with this is not just to create um this organic form but along the sides of the building they started um growing Ivy which is going to go up and it's going to take over the building but I wanted to kind of create um which is really structured the way they have the ivy growing up growing along the facade of the building so I wanted to kind of introduce back into it this organic form using a um not organic material um it's the

same color because I kind of wanted it to not really stand out and hopefully as time goes on and Ivy takes over it then it's like this uh natural form gets taken over by the ivy which is itself is a natural form um you can go on to the next slide thank you okay so this is um a project I did with um Brook Haven which for which was for the international their first International Festival um but RFP was really thinking about how do you represent the community so Brook Haven is a very colorful Community even within the building structures there's a lot of um murals or the buildings are like painted in all different colors which even from a distance you can really recognize them so I really wanted to play with color so I did two things um I went around and just took photos of existing buildings so so new construction um apartment complexes um shopping centers using those photos um I made a vector file and we ended up doing um I made a vector file out of the images and then using like three primary colors to like layer it and like make um like images of those Vector files then using those putting them into the light post to make kind of like light boxes um it's a small touch but the thing I love about art especially in um Community spaces is you might not notice it the first time but along multiple passes you notice little things and it's different ways of engaging with your community or with your area that you might not um as you guys talk about creating Pathways and this way of like uh the community moving through I'm

trying to think of how to get them to stop and notice something that wasn't there or that they didn't see the first time but my creative story um so I'm constantly thinking about the stories that we don't just tell each other um but we might tell our friends or the stories that really Define your community and neighborhood um this was a really quick turnaround time for a project um I think it was eight weeks total from doing the RFP to discussing with um the council un like changes to the design um I was still able to knock it out um within budget but what it told me with this project and the other projects and even working with Arc is having artist in at the beginning stage sometimes helps with thinking about these things in a different way so even as you're even as we're thinking about the full development of a walking path what are these small little touches that we can be thinking about from the beginning and it makes it a little bit easier to implement um instead of like all this coming in on the tail and and like trying to Sho horn a thing in um I think that's it I think yes I want to say one more thing real quick it's very important like so as we've been hearing all day from DCA and Arc to involve artists into the planning processes and as Gavin just said from the beginning from the very beginning when we start um thinking about it so um I want to thank you gin the creative for coming and letting us know how you incorporate your art with on community planning and comprehensive plan so [Applause] thanks I just wanted to look at this one a little bit more it's a chain link fence right and then you put art on it and it's completely transformed right so anyway things to

think about you know we heard about design guidelines earlier today and you know we talked about having um art in comprehensive planning so all things you know to think about right as we move forward uh we're going to go ahead and do our lunch now CU it's here and then we'll just restructure some of our presentations afterwards thank you so much Gavin thank you so much e e

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e e go ahead and still continue eating no problem the mayor is here mayor Rusty Paul is here and he will get started while you continue to eat and he doesn't have a formal presentation and so he'll just talk to you and ask you're able to ask questions of whatever you want okay all

that's for e e greeting everybody so as soon as the mayor greets

everyone he'll he'll be up here thank you so much mayor well thank you I know just whenever yeah well I I can't take too much time unfortunately I have a funeral at two o'clock so that's the reason I'm starting a little bit early I think most of you know or many of you know Pam Rosenthal her mom Linda Walker died in the funerals at two o'clock and Pam's on our Hospitality board so I'm going to go over there and and uh represent the city and the hospitality board on that uh how many times how many times have most of you people heard me give this speech I know I've done it every year for like 11 years now it's always been different it's always been different because I because I'm not sure what I'm gonna say either uh but I know I'm always supposed to talk about how you run a meeting but you folks have been running meetings so long that seems plous to me to tell you how to how to run a meeting I do want to start by saying I want to thank thank you all for your service for what you do for our city uh without pay uh and sometimes without gratitude uh in fact sometimes the opposite of gratitude uh comes into play uh but it's a very both OB both uh the board of appeals and the Planning Commission play very very important roles in the community uh you're the eyes and ears and really the um value system the Judgment the uh the things that are important you represent our community uh in these very important decisions I mean we elected officials do too but you're the filter that's supposed to represent the the mass of people in this community uh as the

unbiased nonpartisan objective observers about what we want to be doing and the kinds of development that we want to see in our community uh and uh we all bring different skills different viewpoints different value systems to the to the process but when you meld all that together uh both these boards are pretty representative of uh of our city and the people who live here uh and you know very much what their aspirations for their Community is I get stopped a lot saying we love Sandy Springs I love living here we love what you folks are doing and and some times they'll make it personal we love what you're doing for our city they don't and and I know I'm the face of it uh but you're the folks behind me well I'm the face of it you're the folks that are out there helping us make sure that the things that get done is community particularly from a developmental point of view are in line with our community values and our community goals and objectives some of you have been involved and engaged in the C in well in the community uh longer than we've been a city uh some of you I know go back before we became a city and remember when we kind of had to do a lot of things ourselves with volunteers and we had things like Heritage Sandy Springs we had Sandy Springs um oh the John cheeks haded up S some revitalization Sandy Springs revitalization uh and uh we had leadership we had you know the business Council uh we had a lot of of of organizations that kind of created a quasi governmental Network in our community to provide services and do the things that we uh you know we couldn't get Fon County to do uh and that was when when

Eve and I talked about this several years ago clearly um one of the aspirations was to keep the volunteerism going not not lose that sense of community that came from these various organizations and working together uh to create a the community that really is exists today uh and in my uh I I guess my greatest disappointment is we have lost some of that Heritage is is no longer here leadership is no longer here we've had to create our own uh leadership organization to keep Sandy Springs uh you know with a we're the second largest city in metro Atlanta the sixth largest city in the state and we and I'm not just not willing to give up our identity for some of these things uh same way with the with the chamber uh we're going to try and work and make that happen but and so we are losing some of that identity some of that volunteer spirit that was Sandy Springs specific but you represent that uh and uh so we really appre appreciate what you're doing the amount of time you put into it uh and uh the service that you provide I know I know some of you sometimes get frustrated that you put all this work into it and then the council goes a different direction uh which is their perogative you know uh but uh after all they they're the ones who have to go face face the voters at election time uh and we'll all be doing that again this this fall I don't want to spend a lot of time boring you with a lot of rhetoric I'd rather just kind of engage you in some dialogue about you know what are some of the things you're interested in concerned about uh issues that maybe Council and I need to know about that we may not know about I'll give you a quick

overview uh you know we're still working to try and develop What I Call City Springs 2.0 we've been working with a one developer for uh quite a while and we put that on the pause button while we we look at some different options for the space over there the markets right now are still tight I talked to folks in the development world and I said has the money started flowing yet and they said no no I I had uh talked to a couple of developers I I said this is Friday Wednesday and said have the banks loosened up yet any money flowing no we can get some money for uh for multif Family Apartments but that's about all and that's one of the reasons why we're still seeing a lot of nothing really but proposals around uh multif family development because um office even though now Chris tells me that King and Queen Building are you know one's pretty much leased up and the other one's about 60% plus the office Market is beginning to come back a little bit but not to the point where banks are willing to to lend on it uh retail everybody thought that Amazon would be the death nail of brick and mortar retail but we have over 95% of our retail space is leased right now uh and uh it's maybe not always the kind of retail we'd like to have but uh you know it's also a reflection of the infrastructure we have the the strip malls and so on and we're hoping things will will free up a little bit so we can start some Redevelopment uh there are a number of projects that are on the drawing boards as soon as the money starts coming available you've got Jamestown has a I think an interesting

proposal on here at uh uh in just upside of 285 up on the North End streams project up there uh great plan uh Chris is working with some projects in the uh perimeter Market uh and we've talked a lot you know the the perimeter Market is one of the major job producers not only it's not only Sandy Springs major job producer in Dunwood he it's really one of the hot top uh employment markets in the entire metro area but it's old I mean it's old all those buildings over there are coming up on 50 years and one of the things that everybody's in agreement on is we need a refresh the the expectations today of what people want in a working environment is much different than it used to be uh particularly these younger employees these these real smart technologically oriented I call them kids they're my kids uh age uh and uh they want they want a little bit different working environment than many of us experienced when we were working in in in offices and so we have to try and keep up with expectations these young folks they want to come in maybe not at 8:00 in the morning uh some of them don't want to come in at all but the employers are beginning to insist that they start showing up so that's changing a little bit uh but they want to be able to walk to lunch and in that market in that area over there not a lot of places that you can easily walk to to go grab grab lunch uh same way after work they're not ready to jump in their car and head home like I always was you know they want to go some be able to walk someplace and meet all their friends and and just kind of hang out for a little bit let the traffic dissipate uh and and the perimeter

market right now is not conducive to that you've got a lot of land over there that could be adapted to those kinds of things we've got a small I'm sure they'll brief you on the small area plan we've got going on in the perimeter Market but that's something that's going to we're going to have to put some emphasis on in the next uh couple of three years to try and work with a perimeter uh Community improvement district and the the the building owners over there to see if can do a refresh it's still a very I mean I'm not saying that it's it's it's a problem are it's really not I mean just look we've in in the last six months we've got uh new rubber maate has decided to stay verev has just reup their uh lease for their building um Asbury uh the the big automotive company uh is taking over the old newal space so it's still a very popular place place for corporate uh relocations and expansions but we need to look ahead uh it's hard for me to imagine that we have already consumed 25% of the 21st century uh I I was hired on Y 2 you remember y 2K the world was going to come to an end that was 25 years ago so uh you know the calendar keeps flipping and flips a little bit faster seemingly every day so we've got to take a look at what the next 25 years of this community is going to look at or look like and that's some of the things that we're working on planning on trying to figure out and with your help and input uh you know we're going to try and keep this the most vital place it's you know we get these lists you know that we're the we're the fourth best place for Millennials in the United States and I was Jan and I had dinner at the select the other night sitting outside and I always kind of doubted that until I saw all those young people walking around coming out of the apartments over there

and uh I said yeah we do have a lot of Millennials that are here it's also the 16th best place in America to retire uh we got a whole laundry list of I mean when when the national media looks and says you know that you're one of the best in the country at whatever category it is it's one of those where we're one of the safest cities in America uh those are great things that we should be proud of and and we want to continue to keep going and you're a key part of making sure that because comes down to in the end about the quality of life that's what people are looking for can can I you know am I G to have am i g to have a safe place to live am I gonna have a great place to work am I going to have a kind of community and school system where I can raise my kids and and establish my roots and and and continue to uh enjoy my life and the expectations of quality of life are changing we have to be able to change and keep up with that as well well so those are some of the things that are on my plate uh that I'm I spend uh some people say well what keeps you awake at night uh those are the things that I I think about when I wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning and can't go back to sleep uh how are we dealing with this how are we doing are we really you know because the the great thing that we need to keep in mind and I'll close with this and then start engaging in dialogue is I promise probably 15 minutes ago um one of the things that we need to keep mind the decisions that you make the decisions that we make these are 50-year decisions these are not short-term decisions that have an impact just you know for a few months or even just a few years a lot of the things that we do and a lot of things you do really have 50 plus years of uh of Life uh these decisions will be hanging around long

after all of us are gone uh and that's the reason I tell people uh you know when they ask me about things about the city and how I make decisions I say well I care about what you think I really genuinely care about what you think and what you want for your community because you're invested in here today but let me tell you what I'm more interested in what I'm more concerned about is what our kids and grandkids looking back 25 and 50 years are going to say about the decisions that we made so we need to make sure not making light-hearted off-the-cuff kind of decisions and I'm not saying you do that or even Council does it I just want to remind us these are the longterm impacts of the decisions that we make every day when it comes to development so I again I'll just close by saying thank you for donating your time your life and uh your interest in your community we can't operate this place without it so thank you very much and I'll take a few minutes of uh any questions that you have comments yeah read well first will be this I mean we've worked on it for you know almost two years we've been ulating the land we've been working with regions partners and they've been a great great team to work with but the numbers just haven't penciled out because of the cost of I mean right now and and we're we're clearly in a period of much greater uncertainty than even we were before we don't know what tariffs are going to do with steel and lumber and all the other building materials I mean we get most of our lumber for you know we grow a lot of

we grow grow a lot of trees in Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi and South Carolina but it's not it's not Saw Timber it's pulpwood mainly we get we do have some but not that much most of our Saw Timber comes from the Pacific Northwest Washington Oregon and then in and in Canada the tariffs are going to have an impact on the cost of construction I'm not this is not a political statement this is an economic statement uh the impact of Steel and aluminum uh adding 25% to the cost of of those two materials uh is going to have an impact on material cost and supply chain uh you know that uh will reverberate for a while and and one thing I do know is in an era of uncertainty most of the smart money just sits and waits to see what the implications are that they the the worst thing for anybody in the business world is uncertainty or being unable to calculate the risks uh and right now we're in a period we're calculating the risk or a little little challenging so we were hoping that it would be you know uh survive 24 and thrive in 25 but as a result of the economic changes that are going on right now and this is Glo it's it's a global issue it's not just Canada and Mexico it's uh it's this is going to be uh something that's going to have to shake out for several several months before we know what the impact on the on the costs of construction materials particularly are going to be so um we're all a little frustrated that we've been sitting here for about two years with not a lot going on uh we've got a lot of Redevelopment that needs to be done so that's that's goal one is trying to get through this period of uncertainty and be prepared to to be the first out in the marketplace when things do free up have our plans in place have our development teams in place be ready to go the second things

get into a favorable condition but I can't tell you when that's going to be so that's number one secondly we want to finish up we want to we want to quit making Andy Porter's life miserable out here in the middle of Mount Vernon Highway get that project finished and then we'll start aggravating somebody over on Hamond drive those are a couple of big Transportation projects in this city that I'd like to be able to finish and make sure because they're transformational uh from a Mobility point of view uh but they're very disruptive uh when you're trying to go back and retrofit roads and streets into a mature Community uh you you know we we we've got and it's not just Andy's building over here we got people who live here they're live they live in the middle of you know it it looks like it's something from Dante's Inferno in front of their house uh and they've been very patient so far I mean they ask questions when this is going to get finished and I try I say well about about a year from now we'll be totally done and you're gonna love it when we get it done uh but uh we need to we we need to finish those things uh I've just been elected uh as the uh chairman of the Metro Atlanta mayor Association which is a very important job that I'm there's 75 cities in metro area and I'm been elected by my peers to kind of lead that Organization for the next couple of years I'm very active with the Georgia Municipal Association I'm on I'm chairing the transportation committee and I'm on the Atlanta Regional Commission all those jobs give me an opportunity to have impact on not only the policies that are coming that we have to operate under but also the money Arc most of our transportation money comes through the Atlanta Regional Commission being on the board there and on the transportation air quality committee where all the tip the transportation Improvement uh projects are come through to be approved uh those are key roles uh so you know I

I I really am am privileged to be able to be in that position to help our community get access I was talking to Chris Owens yesterday we've got some of our Trail systems that you these things are getting very expensive to build uh and we've got our lead on some money that I think would fill one of the key gaps we've been working on that and I'm feeling not 100% confident but I'm feeling much better that we'll be able to get the Gap money that we need for path 400 to get some of these things done uh and and to be able to do that I'm going to need to be in place for a little bit longer uh so that's one of the reasons that I chose to to run again because I'm in a position to help the community get those resources uh and uh so those are the kinds of things that I'm focused on trying to finish up and get some of these projects going James to's got a great plan you know it's not 100% what I like but uh you know we've got an aging shopping center down there that needs a refresh uh all these projects that are coming down to Pike some that that Chris has and Chris has done a phenomenal job since he's been on board uh helping us begin to explore new options and opportunities for development uh you know so I'm excited about the opportunity we're just in this period right now where the the banks can't lend and the overall economic environment is a little unsettled hopefully in the next six eight months that'll settle out and we'll be able to kick some of these things off yeah we have we're going to be in court in April it's we have a hearing in fact the very first Hearing in our brand new courthouse up here at Morgan Falls is going to be the city of Atlanta I mean

the city of Sandy Springs versus city of Atlanta on water issues uh and I can't wait you know it's pardon April something it's on my calendar oh of course I'm showing up course oh yeah it's a public hearing I mean it's a you know like all courtrooms it's it's open to the public uh and so I'll say this that the attitude of the city of Atlanta has improved marketly that's one of the reasons why we are finally getting to court um uh I've been Andre Dickens told me himself he wants to get this resolved uh and uh there up until now up until the last 12 months it has been delay you know slow things down make it difficult their attitudes changed I think they genuinely want to get some resolution uh I think that the just the politics right now is such that it's going to take a court decision one way or another to get it resolved uh whatever happens in in the hearing that comes in April it you know it's going to get appealed it'll go all the way to the state supreme court but we are now finally I mean we started a suit before we became a city Tibby and and Eva had a suit against the city of Atlanta on water back before he became a city so this has been going on for 25 30 years to try and resolve this water situation uh and I am hopeful I am hopeful that we're I mean the law is on our side I mean the the City attorney and all of our experts say yeah and and and to some degree not I wouldn't say that Atlanta has admitted that but they've kind of acknowledged that the current situation

is is untenable uh so I think we're moving toward a solution whether it's going to get done in the next nine 10 months probably no but I think that this hearing and the ruling by the judge we have a special Master as a former uh Cobb County Superior Court judge tan Kell I've I've known tan Kell he's a he's a very fair individual uh and he's going to look at the facts and I think when he looks at the facts he'll he'll acknowledge that Sandy Springs should either take control of that system or have a negotiated settlement that gives us much more impact and control over the operation of it uh and uh you I'm not I'm not chomping at the bit to take over a water system uh but if we have to we will uh so I'm hoping truthfully the best the best outcome is working out a fair arrangement with the city of Atlanta to continue to buy water from them at the rate that it costs to deliver them the water and we have demonstrated it is cheaper for Atlanta to serve us water than it is for Atlanta to serve their own customers water and the reason is the water comes from John's Creek it comes through here first before it gets to Atlanta for most of the northern part of the city of Atlanta so we have a very small area around the hospitals that are served by the hill facility but everything else is served from that that so it costs less to serve us and so these sech charges and so on that we've been paying for really since the 1950s are are not justifiable and and I think we'll at least get to that and have some some agreement about the maintenance of it my biggest night one of my biggest nightmares is Reed asked me what you know I'm focused on is catastrophic water failure that leaves our hospitals without water for days or weeks at a time uh and that's an untenable

situation and there has been nothing reinvested in our water system other than repairs and those sometimes take a while nothing but repairs been no upgrades and we've got areas with too much pressure we got areas with too little pressure and uh but the best outcome is we get an agreement with Atlanta that that fixes those problems and charges us for water what it really costs to deliver it here uh we can't do that then I'm willing to take over the system and we'll run it ourselves we got enough Revenue to come off of it we can operate it upgrade it and still cut the rates that you're paying today so we'll see how it turns out Andy well we've I've worked I and all of council I mean all seven of us have been fighting uh with the school system uh we I've worked with Dana Holliday Ingram who's the mayor of East Point because they closed Park Lane School down there simultaneously with uh with balding Drive Elementary it it didn't make sense to me to close one of your highest performing

elementary schools you know I mean okay the building's a little old uh that's why that's why we tax ourselves with a knee spast to put money into the capital to keep these buildings current uh and and for some reason or other and I said this to Mike Looney Dena and I met with uh superintendent Looney in my office just pretty soon after all this came to the Forefront uh and uh you know he's very very willing to meet he's very willing to listen he hasn't been very willing to change anything uh and uh the parents are meeting with him again this week they're working on a Charter system uh we've been working with the state Charter uh commission they're excited about the opportunity there's a bill coming through the legislature right now it's in I think it was in the House Ed Ed ation committee yesterday Senate Bill 82 I believe is the number that will make it easier for parents like those at Spalding Drive Elementary to be able to create a charter school and be able to keep the school uh you know we talked a little bit about imminent domain uh you know we can't even imminent domain the school because we our imminent powers of imminent domain do not extend to another government entity uh so we have very little leverage uh Dr Looney has said they're not abandoning the school they don't intend to sell it they're going to repurpose it into some kind of administrative function as yet undefined um I'm not sure I mean if if it's I mean clearly it's Surplus I don't understand the resistance to giving the parents a chance to come up with a plan that will allow them to save the school keep it a Community School uh I'm just not

you know I'm a little puzzled by some of the attitudes that I've I've run into uh there is a ctisle in my will that if I ever run for the school board Jan can shoot me and not be prosecuted because I clearly needed to been put out of my misery there's nothing more dangerous on this planet than a mother with a cup and so uh you know I mean we will all fight to protect our children and get them what they they expect we'll fight harder for that than just about anything else maybe you know that's at a level with protecting the property values but our kids I think even rank higher than that but we're still working I'm keeping up with the legislation and talking to the parents and trying to provide a little bit of assistance along the way but truthfully The Leverage that we have is very well is almost non-existent other than just persuasion and and Community effort and we're just going to keep keep plugging away and see what we can do anything else well look it's always great for me to come down and and meet with you and talk I feel like there's a gulf here I don't know whether it's the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America whatever there's a gulf here it's blue uh but um uh I I do enjoy coming down here and and talking to you and I am genuinely sincere when I say thank you for what you do for your community we can't we can't do what we do without you uh and uh I really G genuinely appreciate the time and effort you put into it it's clear when we get your reports and the votes that you've spent a lot of time thinking about these decisions you have to make uh and it's uh you do take it extremely seriously and uh always do a good job thank you appreciate [Applause] it yes thank you mayor we're always

grateful to have the mayor come and visit us every year and give us this um Talk um so we're sh shuffling our agenda a little bit so we'll have William our assistant City attorney talk to us about uh decision the decision- making process but he's also just going to focus on what happens after our decision like if something goes to the appeals court the superior court so that's pretty new so he'll get into that all right so um yeah I just want to say uh kind of echo the mayor um you know I usually don't have to say much at your meetings because uh you guys run them very well and it's it's Testament to your chairs and everybody on the board so if I'm quiet that's a good thing um so all right so as I think it was in another presentation uh your decisionmaking Authority it's uh from the Constitution that's your home rule powers and then of course the uh the city Charter the ordinance and the zoning procedures uh law used to be the ACT it's now the law I don't know why they changed it but they did um and this is uh this defines one thing they did when they amended uh the act with House Bill 1405 is they uh courts had struggled for years to really differentiate the review process for for conditional use permits in particular and zonings and so the in this definition uh what the legislature really tried to do was be specific in what constitutes a zoning decision or a legislative decision and this would be the Planning Commission where you're making recommend recommendations of

these decisions to the board so this is your basic definition it's it's you know rezonings conditional use permits changes of zoning conditions um you're all familiar with that U and one thing to note that denial or uh or Grant of a special use of property that is special use permit conditional use permit they just courts use that interchangeably it's the same thing so and then this applies the board of appeals quasi judicial decisions and uh the court defined this I would say I don't know if it's clearer than it was but it it's uh it gives you something to go by it really what what what's interesting here it puts conditional use permit in this definition and then special uses under a zoning condition so I'll get into that in just a minute it it but it's going to be interesting how courts review those decisions and it all comes down to how they're reviewed um but a quasi judicial decision is a variance uh an appeal of administrative decision so those all board of appeals um so yeah with a with a zoning decision it's a direct appeal normally declaratory judgment uh challenging the constitutionality of a decision the ordinance or uh whether the the uh decision was made arbitrarily and uh as I say this is a denovo review by the superior court so they take the entire record up from your hearing and in this review particularly for zoning decisions they can bring in other evidence so you can have expert

testimony that kind of thing um and it's there is a presumption always in favor of the lower tribunal's decision and that's only overcome by clear and convincing evidence so it is a presumption that the other side has to overcome uh yeah and this is just the two ways again that that you challenge a decision uh L a zoning decision it's you know due process and equal protection uh this is the standard really that that you see is from this gold V hul bridge it's a 1986 case but it's it's still what the court uses it's and just essentially it's does it bear insubstantial relationship to public health safety uh morality and Welfare and uh you know just a couple things are the existing uses uh of nearby property that's what they'll consider um the extent to which values are diminished by the zoning restrictions destruction of property values that that plays in a little bit it's really just a balancing test and one thing I will mention it's it's really uh come up a lot in recent decade I'd say is the uh the comprehensive plan one thing that courts really look to now in uh evaluating whether or not a decision was arbitrary or U you know is is the fact that did did was the decision made based on the comprehensive plan that is if a county or municipality has a comprehensive plan in place was that followed and you see that in the Diversified case Diversified Holdings that was 2017 case um and uh so that plays in when you get to your staff recommendations your staff

recommendations generally follow the comprehensive plan and the zoning ordinance uh so those are very important their suggestions and recommendations are important for that reason uh equal protection that just you know it's equal protection got to be similar to situated um and uh it must be uh discriminated against based on that similarity and this this is kind of hard to prove but in this situation with equal protection they will look at previous decisions so previous decisions of the board for similar properties that's where that comes into play That's How they'll look at it and then board of appeals um this this is where the uh the review is a bit different uh the petition for review so so at the same time that the legislature amended uh the zoning procedures law they also amended the judicial and administrative review statute and What's happen what they did is the rid of ciari and pretty well everything else like rid of mandamus uh these things you can still use those but in context of an appeal from a lower tribunal they have simplified everything into this process of what they call a petition for review and it's it's to be liberally construed that's in the statute and what it's intended for is to essentially make it easier to appeal decisions from the lower tribunal um I don't know if there's lawyers in here I don't know if any of you tried to do a rid assert but it is is a mindfield of procedural uh hurdles and so that's what the Court was intending with this and um they did change uh as I'll say the one of the

standards um is still a presumption and it's still clearly erroneous and abuse of discretion but sufficient evidence and that'll be interesting uh when under the RIT of ser it was substantial evidence so I mean it's just a change of wording but who knows what that what that's going to indicate if it's it's going to be a more lack standard than it used to be so that'll be interesting to see um and again the quasa judicial decision is reviewed on the record so the record from the lower tribunal in this case the board of appeals is brought up in its entirety and that that's it that is what they review so there's no outside evidence that can be reviewed so that the applicant really has to make their entire case at that hearing yeah and this this is just a little more about the petition for review uh as I say the RIT asserts repealed uh that's just I think already said all that um yeah this is just a little more bylaws of how the Planning Commission same as city council Quorum four meeting has to be advertised uh anytime you have a quorum uh conflicts of interest always disclosed to the city clerk in writing or announce it at the meeting and uh voting it's just a slightly different than the uh than the board of appeals but it's just like the city mayor and city council chair doesn't vote in case of it unless there's a tie um and I'll I'll just mention the open meetings act uh just a little bit here I don't think I put it in the slide but yeah the open me meetings act does exclude uh certain things like if you're if you're traveling with a qu with four more members if you are uh doing a Civic ceremonial or social

event you know but be careful about that the ACT is to be liberally construed so anytime you have four or more and you know you're going to be with them and you know you might discuss something official it's always good to just check or make sure you know you probably want to advertise it um but as I say certain things are excluded but just just be aware of it uh Board of Appeals like I say rules same as city council um here's the variances quum of lease four and uh the only difference really is that the uh the chair has a vote and then uh this last part um I'm not really going to go through it too detail because you all have seen it and it's in the code but if you you can just go through it like U all it is is really your uh your decision making criteria which is in uh section um 11 it's on one of the slides it's it's in chapter 11 of the unified of our development code and what I was saying earlier about the compliance with the comp plan uh just something to keep in mind when you make recommendations for a decision uh say you want to make a motion to approve or to deny uh it's always a good idea to uh um and you can go to the ones with the criteria it's always great to list um or you don't have to say the specific number of the statute and may' be great if you did or of the ordinance that you're citing for a reason of your decision but I would just recommend to you it's a good idea to uh cite some of these reasons that are actually in the ordinance for your decision and if you'll notice a lot of them match uh the

Spirit of that substantial relationship balance so you're looking at the comp plan you're looking at you know staff's recommendation you're seeing if it matches surrounding properties um do the zoning conditions ameliorate the uh effects of the zoning change for surrounding properties so um that's just a something to keep in mind uh and especially say I've I've been asked well what if what if you want to go against staff recommendation what if staff recommends yeah that uh you know we recommend approval but you want to deny or vice versa well that's fine I mean you you have discretion as a board uh to make that decision it's just one of the things you may want to do is couch your motion or answer within one of these things like well I you know agree with staff but I don't I don't think that it really U comports with the surrounding neighborhood or something like that you know so um it's always a good idea because that's what courts will look to when they make these kinds of decisions on appeal yeah do what now oh yeah yeah yeah yeah

right yeah like I say no you don't have to is the answer um yeah it's a good question it's it's just that um when you when you have something like this and it goes It goes to a the superior court or a higher tribunal they're going to look at staff recommendation it's it's one of the things if you're on on the other side you're the applicant say you're appealing a decision and one of the things you've always one of your you know just Aces is that the staff recommended approval and and staff I mean they they do a great they recommend based on the comp plan is what they're supposed to do and and based on the ordinance but no I mean you are you're appointed you have discretion to make the decision is yours um and so no it's not uh it's not detrimental uh to to specifically cite the reasons but it it it'd be a good idea in the future yeah you guys can ask questions I'm I'm just hanging out yeah same rules apply um and then there was a lot of confusion after the meeting wasn't clear what what whether Rusty Paul had voted sorry lights talk that situation is the chair required to vote in city council or is does he have the option to not vote so so you're saying if there if there is a tie is the chair required to vote or he

has the option not to vote which would also make the motion fail it's it's just a semantic thing but that's right what actually happened there was not clear for the people leaving the meeting I see yeah I mean I think I think it amounts to the same thing but uh are you saying is the vote counted like if he is De decides not to vote yeah so it'd be an exstension yeah I mean if if if there was a tie and he abstains then it's the same thing but if there is a tie uh and he votes then his vote would go either way way right right if you voted yeah if you voted no it you know obviously it didn't pass right right so it same same effect with voting no but not voting and qu my question was just do you have to vote in that situation or not because Robert's Rules seems to say you don't have to and share situation like that but I just ask Reed kind of what his thought was on Planning Commission same thing came up can you allow a motion to fail by just not voting as chair yeah you know what I'm gonna do on this one I think I think I'm gonna plead the fifth because because and I'll be clear about it um that one has a real potential to be appealed so fair that's fair I want put you in a bad spot sure that that's that's a great but that's a great question okay and uh and if you if you send it to me or Dan um that is a great question okay yeah all right thank you appreciate that that's [Music]

right so correct that's accurate yes sir um text or email string actually us five were were a group text discussing okay yeah is that a quorum you don't think so it's not it's not working oh here it is well no it it says meetings and it's uh it's it's pretty clear it's it's meetings now it can be by Zoom it can be by uh if you're meeting electronically but a text I mean well I was going to say say if you make a decision I don't you got to have a vote that's the thing it's when you vote on policy thanks yeah go ahead well that's what I think I was talking like for example yesterday I ended I did my typical boneheaded thing and I showed up to the wrong meeting and I couldn't go in because there was would have been a quarrel just to discuss the next week's case but I see it I see it sometimes where where you know you could get onto an email string or a text string and yep I don't know I always just happens that it gets one too many I just say I'm not gonna talk yeah I it it it's got to be advert I mean yeah but the thing I'd say is

just uh if wi in doubt don't do it just stay out of it yeah yeah yeah go ahead right well that's not really what you're and in my defense Sam had promised snacks during the meeting and if someone promises me snacks I'm showing up that was but no there yeah but there is um like Reed will have all of us on a text maybe saying confirming you're you're coming tonight so we have a quum so if that was said if there was a comment about um a case is that become a qu and you're saying no bill well Bill saying be careful yeah yeah the the ACT is yeah it's it's formulating uh discussing um anything like that has got

to be advertised um so you just got to be careful just got to be careful oh yeah yeah heading to WM for burner oh yes ma'am yeah sorry William I have a question I declared emergency you can't just meet by Zoom unless it's some kind of an emergency but there has there has to be some kind of a state emergency just to require to be all Zoom or am I wrong about that ah I I mean you can't have a quorum by Zoom is what I mean to have a quorum by Zoom oh it has to be an emergency to have a quorum to meet by Zoom you say that's what I'm asking I'm not saying that I'm asking you I don't I to have a quorum on Zoom I don't think I mean you you still uh you still have to advertise what what if you're say I don't think there has to be I mean you can always meet by Zoom it's just if you have a quorum you got to advertise see what I'm saying I mean like yeah you're saying if you need a quorum to meet there has to be an emergency to meet by for one person or another to meet by Zoom if you want to have the entire meeting by zoom and I'm not saying we'd ever do it in here I'm just oh the entire meeting by Zoom um I'm not aware of it okay I don't know yeah that's what I'm saying that's what yeah yeah that's

that's yeah yeah yeah there was I have a question for you about the um and it was I can't remember for the Planning Commission if it was for the board of appeals but there was something that if it was appealed to the state that previous decisions would be part of what's taken into account in that case is that true for the board of appeals that there's a precedent set by decisions that the board makes because our past chair would always tell us it was not that precedence was not part of our quasi judicial role that there was no carrying forward each decision stood on its own yeah yeah it it depends on how they appeal it I mean it it it suggests the statute certainly suggests and I've never really seen it where they go outside the record because the Jud the uh board of appeals is just uh it it's applying the facts of the the facts of the particular case and the ordinance uh Provisions to that set of facts so it it's really reviewed just within that context now if they if they were to allege in a in a an appeal say a uh uh a different procedure was followed uh that uh violated some kind of due process claim like you uh I don't know you gave more time you gave an inordinate amount of time to one person and didn't give it to another or you completely change around the rules yeah they could they could probably bring in other uh decisions or other processes of the meeting just to show that that wasn't followed but it's really process

oriented more than it is facts of the case okay that's that's helpful thanks have we and the other question I had is have we ever had a board of appeals uh case appealed yeah since you've been on Bo yeah we've had several what does that look like does the board of appeals get involved in that or that is a completely separate decision outside of the board of appeals members well it now I don't know really how it's going to look with this petition for review um it it certainly makes the process easier and it uh it typically they review the the court will just rev and it's a bench trial typically it's it's not with a jury and the judge will just review the record so they have the record they have what everyone says um so I mean typically you wouldn't get involved yeah personally yeah it is it'd be the and that's actually another change that was that was through case law um it the case law previously had said you have to you have to sue each member individually of a board they changed that and they actually did a constitutional amendment uh that speaks to that now whenever you sue a city or county you have to name the county like the or the city so so yeah it'd be the city or the

county that was a very recent case too thank you so [Applause] much okay so now um we're going to talk a little bit more about what comes after the decision with our code enforcement uh manager in terms of um enforcing code and those conditions that you usually happens when you make a decision and attach it to the decision Ivon Shaw good afternoon so today uh as Michelle stated I'm going to talk about the code enforcement division's involvement in the process that occurs after the decision has been made so typically um even outside of the the work that the board does we get complaints about um projects or developments that aren't either aren't permitted or they're they're working outside of the scope of what's permitted or they don't need a permit but it doesn't meet the the requirements so we're receiving those complaints and then we assign an officer to investigate um when we find a property in violation we issue a notice of violation and usually a stop work order if the development is uh still ongoing um and so we are telling the applicant to go I mean the the person in violation to go get a permit or to um on on an administrative level get permission from the director to determine if she can give them an administrative

variance um so an officer using using their to determine how long that person would need to begin the appeals process so um we're trying to get them to talk to someone within the community development department right away uh so we usually give them five days to contact someone on the planning and permitting teams and so after the application has been submitted we code enforcement closely communicates with um the teams on Community Development to see where they are in the process I stated before we're working very closely um with all Community Development Department divisions to determine um next steps so after your after your decision is rendered next slide please um we are uh mainly involved when the appeal is denied and the planning team will inform us depending on the scope of work needed to modify that the property we're going to give them some time to do that so we're considering the the cost the time the labor um the weather the site conditions all those things are determined or are considered when we're trying to determine how much time the applicant will get to comply um go back so if if that applicant does not comply within the um predetermined amount of time we're issuing a citation and then that applicant will be required to appear in Municipal Court um and of course that applicant has um 30 days to appeal a decision to the Superior Court like Williams stated earlier I'm sorry I think I ski ahead y That's

fine so the citation and Court adjudication process so of course like I said compliance is not met they run out of out of extensions um they appear in court and then of course they're given that due process of law like William talked about earlier and they're allowed to enter a plea guilty not guilty no contest if they're pleading not guilty they they're likely going to have a trial before our municipal judge um if they're found guilty the judge issues an order by code they're supposed to comply within 30 days to restore the property back to the approved condition a lot of times that does not happen um and of course the judge will usually issue a fine community service or restitution as a penalty um and then of course a stay of enforcement can occur when there is an appeal to the superior court so sometimes code enforcement we've dealt with cases that have taken months you know weeks years to to to go into compliance and sometimes like we're just continuously issuing citations and and kind of talking to all of our develop planning Community Development staff our legal team trying to get the property into compliance but we are dedicated to to doing that so however long it takes to do that that's what that's what we try to do so these are some examples of some of the complaints that we get about the structures that are are built um whether they exceed the height requirements there in setbacks and things like that are there any questions thank you hey you I do I'm sorry I do have a

question and maybe Sher maybe Sher can since Williams well since Williams gone maybe you get a legality but um as as people who took an oath to uh represent the city to live up to the code if we see violations technically are we required to report them I don't think anybody's required to report a violation I don't think you're like a mandated um like a police officer or first responder or somebody like that but I'm not an attorney so I don't want to answer that wait I think we you should okay good remember one talking to the mayor and he had he was right by his house and there was his Creek had turned white and he was like and the guy up the street was pouring paint and it was going straight the stream and when they when he went saw the guy talked to him and said he was going to report him he said because I'm required to report it he was saying as a private citizen or as a I don't know okay because I think there's a there's a difference

have it's sometimes really hard to understand the case just two dimensionally on paper did you yeah I don't knock on the door or anything like that your bad your name bad got all our questions okay great right so that was yon thank you so much and then we have Jesus now who will talk about what comes after the decision in terms of Permitting hello all right um apologies for everyone but first before I get started Chris Bernett just asked me to if you all need to get up get something to drink kind of take a quick break please feel free to while we have this discussion I'm not a very loud talker but there's a microphone it helps me um real quick me we'll get the presentation up in a second so I'm Jesus Dilla I'm the land development manager you know also do help out with permitting and some other things and that's what we're going to be discussing you know so real quick as you see here uh when we get that up the biggest question is after your decisions be it boa or pnz or Planning Commission what happens next what do you do you know what does the applicant do what does the homeowner do the commercial the commercial property owner do so Tada well simply put they have to get a permit right more often than not boa is looking at an addition to a home or some kind of fluctuation variance or waiver of the code Planning Commission is

looking at the next forethought for land use what development pattern is going to exist at this location so simply put I'll give you the the quick rundown okay so staff is going to review the application yes you have to apply be it a variance a plat to subdivide the property or some other function within the development code come in affidavits application your pretty standard bureaucratic requirements right because this is part of the mechanisms that we have in the city uh and we have the ability to apply for it online right which makes it easier the days of having to come in meet with staff and getting all that paperwork pushed across the table are easier solv go online sign up you're good to go next slide so with that our minimum requirements as you all see on the screen it's it's just that what are you proposing today what's your deviation or what's your request for the future proposal and then show us a site plan all this is going to work how is the grading going to be how's the topography going to change from now till later drainage where's water going to run on your property is it running downhill running back up pill where we going to put all this stuff um and then the standard architectural landscape tree plants right that's just what we require so biggest question that we get how long is this going to take and why is it so hard to make and develop in Sandy Springs it takes forever it takes me three years to build a house and take into account that contractor has some you know play in that as well but as you see for single family projects additions single family homes it's a five business day turnaround for reviews you know there's some administrative days buil in around those but again pretty straightforward uh minor land disturbances anything that kind of disturbs less than 2 200 square fet you know would then have that five day turnar around any larger projects take a little more consideration because now we're talking again more expans uh expansive not expans more expansive projects next slide please okay the

software itself is now created to automate our process so once everything is reviewed and considered compliant code compliant Arc compliant whatever the compliance is we're able to issue the permit hit the animation Sam okay so this is our permit cover letter gives the applicants exactly what's happening next on screen you're going to see the actual Permit card which is what authorizes them to begin the inspection and construction process and then last but not least is noise ordinance show of hands how many of you all have gotten phone calls or at least been understood that hey somebody's working at like midnight down the street and they're they're building and I can hear all that noise I saw liita raise your hand so yes ma'am yep GoLine yes yeah once they go in on their specific portal account so you would apply you have a portal account you can actually follow it along it'll be a green box it'll be red if it's stopped and it'll be gray if it's inactive you know you can go online you don't have to create an account it'll give you some very prelim information like let's say it's again one gomos way and there's a permit applied for this is where they are in the process there is some information that is redacted and not publicly available but a lot of the other information is so yes ma'am uh last but not least we get into inspections okay I gotta build it so we do have a series of steps within the workflow itself within the permit process which guides you from your initial pre-construction meeting through the construction phasing going vertical with a structure to what is the certificate of occupancy and I know you guys can't see all of this in detail but that's how we work through the flow it's

systematic you get your preconstruction you do your land or horizontal development first then you put in your foundation then you start going vertical then you do your finishes and then everything's okay we can now occupy safely to the space and you get your coo so that's it I told you my presentation was quick and I apologize for being a little bit late um but Sheila Qui is our permit coordinator she's actually our permit division manager and customer service manager Jonathan is our building official and then myself so our information is on screen uh and any questions you guys have obviously I'm here to answer today but in our website they're in the city's website under building and construction we do have links to the software we do have links on application process sees what to expect and our contact information is there questions if you had to identify the most common complaint about the process what would be I know there's a lot probably maybe file through them in your head and say Jason I think it's maybe this one well Jason what I will tell you sir is the biggest complaint that we get has really nothing to do with our process it's John's Creek Atlanta the cab they do it completely different I don't have to do any of the what you're asking me to do which is not true okay every municipality has a permit process you don't walk in with a napkin and build a house you know those days were never even here I mean I've worked in the metro area since 2006 I've been in this profession for 27 years and never in my days have I seen somebody push a napkin across the table and say build my house no so that's the biggest challenge is just coordinating with the homeowners with the contractors and getting them to understand our process getting them to understand that communication is key whatever your project is whatever that hurdle you're trying to overcome talk to staff let us know what it is whether it's a software glitch easily Sol whether it's your contractor not looking

at the drawings and building something different well we might have an Avenue with boa or a variance or the answer is no you know but communication is key that's the biggest challenge other questions I know you have more questions I know you do I could see it yes ma'am yeah like I said anything that you guys come up with obviously my contact information is here I'm on the website Ginger is our director she's able to disseminate and get any number of our team to answer the specific request so okay thank [Applause] you thank you and I know some of you have uh seen hisus at our meetings he's our expert when it comes to the flood and um variances so thank you so much for coming out and giving the expert answers to that um we're moving right along with economic development Chris Bernett is this the one no oh we're getting it pulled up but you can go ahead thanks so much good afternoon everyone I'm going to speak a little louder so you guys can hear me plus you got got to stay awake I mean it's Friday afternoon you've had a had a heavy meal and I'm sure you're all wanting to get out of here and get home for the weekend so we're only going to go a few hours with my presentation we'll try to get you out of here before the bad weather sets in tomorrow night uh feel free to stand up move around if you would like to um there's no saying that the mind can absorb only what the fanny can endure and having sat through many of these meetings I know that usually at this time of the day is when people start to drift off so again feel free to get up move around if you need to all right let's ceue up that Economic Development presentation

so first of all my while they're doing that and I joined the city I retired from banking last year in July and joined the city August 15th um in my current role is director of Economic Development and I'm got to tell you I'm having a ball it's the most fun I've had in a long time it's been a reenergy izing uh position for me and I I love this city and um just love the potential that we have and it's it I think the things that we work on are really a lot of the fun things that get done um in city government and so it's it's a real honor to uh to be in this role and and just I'm thoroughly enjoying it so let's talk about what's on the horizon for economic development um it has been sluggish no doubt about it you all are very aware of rising constru production cost and high interest rates and you know the mayor mentioned uh you know the concerns with tariffs and just you know uh some fluidity in the uh the economic markets right now um and so we've been dealing with this for a while I mean really it began with covid in 2020 and all of the C uncertainties around what covid would uh would ultimately do to our office market and um you know we went for a number of years with principally work from home most of the Employers in the perimeter are not back full-time yet on average they're in three days a week a few are in four days a week almost no one is in five days a week and so um as a result we we continue to have elevated levels of office vacancy that we're uh and we as a city are are trying to help those office uh building owners and uh leas agents to um create an experience particularly in the perimeter Market that

will attract new companies the mayor mentioned uh Asbury Automotive that was a nice win for us last year we kept newal Rubbermaid uh and they moved into the King and Queen Building they'll be moving in uh this summer on the heels of that Asbury will come in and begin um renovating the office building that they've bought from uh the old newal building uh they'll then be moving in this fall and we are having dialogue right now about another global company or with another global company uh potentially about a regional relocation um so we're working hard on the uh business promotion retention and recruitment side as well as the development side these are really the two key things that we do the real estate piece is obviously a big component of that and that revolves around our ability to bring new companies in retain the companies we've got and promote our businesses and see a growth in companies based in Sandy Springs we currently have about 6,000 companies that hold business licenses in the city um we have soon to be eight Fortune 500s when Asbury arrives this summer they'll be number eight we have close to 20 companies that do a billion or more a year in annualized Revenue uh so we are a robust office Market it's really our Golden Goose uh in terms of of our economy and it does drive so much of our tax revenue so protecting and growing that office market and those those um corporate users is critical to the financial success of Sandy Springs next slide so for 2025 we broke this really into to to two parts we call it five and

25 uh first of all on our real estate goals we're currently working on Citywide design guidelines Michelle have you all talked about that already today good so I won't dwell on that um did you also talk about the perimeter small area plan okay so as a component of of of helping to vital to revitalize the perimeter Market we're doing a small area plan study uh working with a consulting firm called roadside in Harwell meeting with building owners and especially our major corporate tenants in the perimeter office Market to talk about what they would like to see the city contribute in terms of parks Green Space bike trails um experiential cool retail um housing options what can we as a City Affect through either Financial contributions or through our own effort efforts with Parks and Recreation or the zoning process rezoning where it's appropriate to convert something from an office use to a residential and Retail use so we're we're currently doing in the interview process right now we've also identified a few tracks of land there aren't many undeveloped tracks in the perimeter uh but there are a few and we're meeting with those land owners to talk about what their plans are and how we as a city can help uh promote development or Redevelopment of the perimeter Market again with the whole goal of being building back up that office occupancy and bringing additional companies into our Market um furthering development uh initiatives within the city Springs district the mayor touched a bit on City Springs 2.0 the goal had been to put a shovel in the ground this year that's not likely to happen but I think what we're doing right now is we're taking a

bit of pause uh we worked very hard with Regent Partners they did multiple iterations of different designs we were just not able to get there this year and I think uh we we've taken a step back we're going to pause and then I imagine we'll re-engage on this initiative in 2026 um but it's definitely a priority uh and I would say it's one of the more important things that our department is working on and uh better utilization of our Development Authority is a goal that I've got um using that body to do more in terms of on the tax abatement side or on financial incentives to um to do more encouragement of business relocation and in new development or Redevelopment and finally working with developers uh our group Works closely as a liaison between the development Community um our planning staff Community Development in helping to make this as smooth and seamless as possible understanding that that sometimes s it can be a challenge that's simply the nature of the development business uh but our role is to make it is to try to remove those barriers or those obstacles as much as we can so that clearly there's a message in the community that Sandy Springs is in business to do business and we want to get that message out there to the development Community uh on the additional goals a different additional five at 25 goals uh we talked about enhancing accelerating our business Outreach um we're forming uh business education and mentoring programs uh both through the Small Business Council which is part of the Chamber of Commerce and through our own contacts um looking at bringing in business owners and pairing them with with successful entrepreneurs for mentoring we're offering some classes for example we partnered with

the University of Georgia in February to offer a class on high how to access debt and capital in a challenging market and we'll be doing more programs like that through the year U seeking more engagement with City leadership with mayor and Council especially with our large employers to get more visibility for them in front of the the decision makers that are with our big companies it's very important that we make those big companies feel welcomed and supported here in the city and the the more FaceTime we can get with our leadership I think the the better we are equipped to do that um we're looking at our incentive programs we're talking with other cities and evaluating what we do right now and are there some things that we can enhance improve upon to make Sandy Springs more attractive when looking at attracting uh new companies to the marketplace and we we set um if you familiar with um a book book called good to Great there's the the concept is called a beehag big hairy audacious goal and we've already landed uh again we landed Asbury number 281 on the Fortune 500 list but we've set our sides to bring another one in this year it may not be this year but we are constantly out there trying to find that next big win for Sandy Springs that would bring a thousand or two or 3,000 employees to our Marketplace high-paying jobs a number of new residents people that are going to put Roots down and be in our community for the long term um I think one of the most important things that a government can do for its Community is to be a catalyst and stimulant for economic development uh because normally a strong economy will pretty much lead to an amazing Community um you know the rising tidee Theory uh the higher The Tide Rises the more our community Rises and it starts in my opinion with economic development and a strong economy so let's talk about next slide please let's talk about uh we we're

doing a fiveyear look back in 2020 we did a strategic um plan related to Economic Development so looking ahead five years what did we identify five years ago and what have we done thus far next slide can I Advance these myself do you have a clicker no okay all right um these are the districts that were evaluated in 2020 you'll see uh City Springs North rdge North Springs MARTA Medical District perimeter Powers Ferry and Roswell Road uh let's look at each of those districts for example starting with City Springs the properties that were identified as Redevelopment opportunities include the Center Court shopping center where Dogtopia is the balconies which is right here just to our East infill development around City Walk The Hammond and Parkside shopping centers which are owned by Jamestown and some parcels of land on cliftwood just south of the Jamestown properties so those were identified five years ago as potential infill projects in downtown uh so let's fast forward to where we are today there are three of these that actually have some movement right now cliftwood U Sandy Springs Circle was which was not identified in that 2020 study but is underway now and then uh Parkside which is one of the Jamestown shopping centers and when you look at what we're about to show you you're going to see about five uh town home units 190 uh roughly multif family units 77 condominium 60 60 3,000 ft in new office space which can be a heavy lift in this market and 47,000 ft of retail thank you Anton all right let's look first at uh cliftwood this one's right across the street I'm sure you've passed it many

times um I'm sorry let's go back I think we jumped well maybe that's it yeah okay Cliffwood is not underway yet uh that is going to be that is going to be on the South End of the Jamestown shopping center it's an a land assemblage it's actually being done by the same Builder that's doing vo or voo across the street uh this has been through entitlements already it was uh re entitled to six stories it'll be six units per floor for a total of 36 um high-end condominium units all for sale product they'll start at a million and go up from there uh very nice units um we've been having own going dialogue uh but they are not into permitting yet um but um we believe they'll probably be in permitting this year uh before the end of the year but part of I think their initiative is to see how successful they are across the street first uh before they start on the on this new project speaking of across the street this is the one you see going up now this is um 18 boy Madison arfon didn't do well did they so uh okay oh no worries well it's 18 luxury condos we understand that 8 to nine are already under pre-sale contracts these units the smaller units are selling in the8 and $900,000 range and the the third floor larger units are about a million two so we've not had this kind of product built in Sandy Springs uh historically we not been a luxury condominium Market uh and they are th seemingly are effectively testing the waters right now with this product if this does well then I think they will will transition from this into the Gregory

Andrea yeah yeah yeah so yeah they're going down before they can go up uh and and also it just everything is so sluggish because of where the capital markets are right now things are just taking so much longer to find debt and Equity U so oftentimes that's as big a part of the delay as the construction itself this is a great new project that we're working on okay speaking of Parkside and Jamestown these are some conceptual drawings that you all may remember from 2021 this came through entitlement in December of 21 when uh Council approve taking this to from a three story height to six-story height limit with a combination of for sale product for lease multif family retail and an office building and um still trying to get that one moving forward um the office building candidly is a bit problematic right now because it's hard to go to your lender with a 100% spec office building and get financing for it so they're in the pre-leasing spa stage right now and with new construction cost where they are you need leases in a in a new office building at $45 to $50 a square foot in rents to make your numbers work and Sandy Springs is a a 22 to $25 market so you're talking about trying to bring a new a building to Market at twice what the current rental rates will support that's a heavy lift uh and as a result that's why you've seen that's one of the reasons there have been delays in getting this project off the ground the Roswell Road Corridor um

we've got some smaller winds recently Fifth Third Bank has purchased the piece of chaseland in Rosell Road and we'll be building a new Branch there we've been talking with the develop V ER about the old laaz site and redeveloping that into for sale residential uh some condominiums on that site um Peach State Academy which is a um a very Boutique Early Learning Center based over in Athens and Watkinsville um is looking at a location at the Stak and Shake site and finally across the street in the old littele site US Foods their chef store is open recently if you've not been over there youve got to go it's really cool they've got all I mean anything you'd ever want to cook with and it's just it's like a a restaurant store that's open to the public so there was a big win to get them in here to fill that Leal space um and so they are now open if you've not had a chance to go over okay now it's locked up on me still locked up got Point Computer all right um Northridge District uh not a lot going on on the North End candidly uh there is the one project uh 9300 Roberts Drive is still in the concept phase that will be for sale condominium as well um Matthew are they in for permits yet on 9300 Roberts I think they've got ldps maybe ldp's time okay um but again this

will be a for sale condominium project uh and then the other one is um you all I apologize this worked seamlessly with mayor and counsil a few weeks ago it was so riveting they were they were up and applauding it was just awesome well I'm going to keep on talking for the sake of time uh so really the only major project we've got going in the North End that's underway right now is the old Big Lot Center uh fairfield's doing that and um obviously it's it's pretty well along you drive by there and you know they're they're dried in and doing their interior work right now they'll start bringing those units to Market this year um other markets that uh have got some interesting projects ongoing oh by the way Big Lots is called way firm yeah I got a question about that I remember years ago because of the contamination of that site I thought the intent was to only build stores that weren't inhabited 24 hours a day I seem to remember that but then at some point they pivoted to apartment comp step where people are living there did they spend the money to clean up that site to get it to a point where they could actually build Apartments is that what happened yeah and so ultimately they got that into the Brownfield program with the state um but they're still per per there I mean it takes a long time you pump amoebas into the soil and you you eat the per up and um so it takes a long long time to reclaim that soil and while putting for sale residential is difficult on a site like that there uh putting for lease can be done there as long as as long as you get it into Brownfield so that the liability tail ends and that was a big reason it didn't sell for a long time is

because until the state was willing to take it into the Brownfield program whoever bought it would have assumed the liability for the perk contamination and no no one was going to close on that side until that that had been resolved um and then it's just a matter of can you get it clean leaned up to the level that your lender will put Senior debt on it which they were able to do uh and it's interesting that the requirements for living on a contaminated site differ if it's rental versus if it's for sale if it's for sale a lot of mortgage lenders won't touch it they don't want to put a mortgage on you know on a property that's could be dangerous um and if you live there 30 years um but you know most Department tenants don't live somewhere that long the average lease terms in Sandy Springs are about 1.3 years so there's a fairly rapid turnover rate um but yes uh that that took a while to work through that to finally get it into the state's hands ready uh this was the N this is consant concept drawings on 9300 Roberts again these will be for sale Condominiums sort of some unique looking buildings and hoping to get those I don't know if we'll get those out of the ground this year um but certainly probably by 26 this is Wern the the Big Lots development um Marta has got the North Spring Station and it's great piece of land and we're very hopeful that we can work with Marta uh on utilization of that land particularly into some housing and Retail and and engaging the station so we can get more transportation and traffic through that station as part of a sort of a live work and ride type of community I'm not even going to begin to try on that one uh other than to say we had multiple sites in the pill Hill area identified but um it's hard to pull empty pieces of land away from Northside

Hospital I mean you know with the growth in the medical community they need their real estate assets and they're usually not sellers in fact they're normally buyers so when a piece of property comes available if it's close to the hospitals there you know one of the hospitals is probably going to buy it but there is one project uh that we expect to uh to go vertical it's being done by mil Creek this is on Lake Hearn across from the Lake Hearn Pavilion medical building and it will be multif family uh with some retail as well math how are we on permitting [Music] there okay this is not a 25 groundbreaking either at this point probably unless it were late in the year you think you could get there late in the year yeah okay all right these were pieces that were identified in the 2020 plan um uh again Cox has a beautiful piece of undeveloped land as part of its campus um we've got some sites at aberon 400 um youve got the possible development opportunity at the mar station got infill development at NBC row and the 1117 building which is across the street from the Costco Home Depot shopping center and then um so let's look at where we are there actually is some traction now Embassy roow we mentioned uh that asset was recently acquired by a local Development Group and um they are ultimately going to there's five buildings there now

they'll those will ultimately be knocked down there'll be two remaining Office Buildings and the three other sites two will be multif family sites and the third is most likely to be a for sale town home and condo project and um we've got one of those close to permitting right the first one of those the first one of the multifamilies right probably going to go vertical on or at least start Land Development this year is what we're guessing on that one and that'll be part of the importance of adding some residential in the perimeter Market to help serve uh the uh the office tenants that are there uh this is very walkable for example to North Park which is 1.5 million square feet of square feet it's home to veritiv westrock deo's got a big office there there there are several of the corporate users in that office uh building or that complex and this will put some walkable residential um just north of their of their buildings and then there's a another project that is in my opinion aspirational but they've been talking with John and Matthew and the team uh this is uh on the old Wells Fargo Bank building on Hammond Drive across from the entrance Into The Concourse and uh it's a small site so they're hoping to go 10 stor on this 367 units uh very high-end construction which is what you get when you go to a 10-story concrete and steel building um so again I think it's aspirational in my opinion in this Capital Market unless they have incredibly Deep Pockets getting something like this started right now is is a heavy heavy lift just based on where the markets still are um but it's good to see somebody with some unique plans uh to do some density on what on What right now is just a vacant bank site mentioned Embassy Row this is kind of

the way it lays out with um couple of the retail I'm sorry a couple of the residential projects that are in the queue for this site um another project that is underway this is 100 Assisted Living uh units it's called salana on Peach Street Dunwoody and um this will be your your typical or traditional assisted living facility um nice facility good operator and we do need this type of product certainly we've got an aging population and uh I think this will be a nice quality asset um for our older residents that are looking to move into assisted living where is it near it is very close to the current newal building you right there on Peach Street un Woody and adjacent to this site is um 18 uh luxury Town Homes Brownstone units these will be for sale units um this is some artist renderings and we think this product is going to go well um there there is a demand for for sale town home housing high-end town home housing and uh you know I'm encouraged good to see this type of product it's nice to come in with for sale we have plenty of for rent it's nice to add some for sale to the market as well power faia uh the power SP area I know you all know the Voya site 23 acre track of land there uh as well as River Edge Parkway in fact 2,000 River Edge just went into foreclosure uh it's it's a struggling office building and I think we're going to see Redevelopment in that area but this is going it's going to be slower to come PO faery is just a more challenging Market it's got some

identity issues you know are they the battery are they Sandy Springs I mean so we've got to put some attention into the pow fery Market uh to help jumpstart them like we're doing currently in the perimeter area so really nothing active underway in the pow fairy Market at this time Roswell Road South we've got a few things going we got some town homes they call the Mystic Town Homes uh we've got a new puppy Haven building under construction as well as a eye clinic called Windsor Eye Care so some smaller Boutique residential and boutique retail coming down in that market um again our hieroglyphics here if I could read those uh it's about 1874 multif family units overall now of that uh the only one under development today is Wern which is the Big Lot Center so a lot of these are in the que they're aspirational they're in the future uh and you know we don't think these are all going to come to Market in the next 12 months these will be staged out over the next few years more than likely uh we mentioned the office space uh just the one new office building which is a component of the Jamestown development and then the retail space which is also a component of Jamestown and some of the other developments will have some retail as well but not in big numbers all right so I'm going to open it up for any questions um happy to go into any more detail thank you Andre you know we're in an interesting place right now the mayor talked about we're very popular city from a empty nester and retirement perspective and one of the most popular cities for Millennial relocation and interestingly enough often times the goals and desires of those two

population groups don't balance in in total cander and um so we're trying to find that balance there are certain nodes of the city where I think density is is important it's AB it's it's called for it's necessary it's a necessary part of of who we are as a city it's because we're not a suburb we're an underdeveloped urban area in a lot of ways but we have these amazing beautiful protected neighborhoods it's great asset we have so it's a wonderful blend of both uh and and our goal is just to try that try to find that right balance so that the you know great restaurants come here and and other really cool retail and walkability and biking and because the reality is those Millennials are the folks are going to buy all of our homes someday and they're going to get married and raise kids here and hopefully repopulate our school age population so we don't have to deal with school closures but we're in a transitional stage right now between our aging empty nesters folks like myself and our younger people folks like our kids who who are looking to move here here and um really can't buy a home right now it's almost unattainable but they are moving into these nice Apartments our vacancy rates around here especially are super low um we've got a couple of projects one the adly where my assistant Madison lives that's 100% occupied and so these everything that's been built around City Springs is doing really well right now so it's also good to see that four or five of the places that you listed were cases that came through us two three four five years ago for rezoning or whatever it's interesting to see that there's a light something's gonna happen yeah and and you know and obviously with the challenges in the capital markets and in the economy everything has slowed down everywhere we Sandy Springs is not unique in that respect um but we do we

we saw some thawing um but we're seeing the ice Harden again a bit right now just because of the bumpy road in the stock market the uncertainty of tariffs even some inflationary pressures again and the potential that the fed's not going to do additional rate increases in the near term I mean all of those things the mayor said investors like certainty and right now there's uncertainty and I think as a result what we thought would get done in 25 probably gets moved to 26 so what we talk a lot about is is the shovels may not go in the ground this year but the work to sharpen the blades is going on and hopefully those shovels will get put in the ground starting next year all right thank you all yes thank you so much Chris thank you yes sorry the presentation didn't show well but you guys have the accurate ones in your book though so um they were able to see the numbers we'll figure that out um next we have um Mar the director of Transit oriented development and um Michael rafon and as you know we just completed uh transitor development for North Springs mod station a study so we'll have him talk a little bit about mod in general and about that St sure absolutely thank you uh so good afternoon everyone uh my name is Michael rafon with Marta's transit oriented development program um I am one of the Millennials that the mayor and Chris has been talking about uh lunch was great I didn't see any avocado toast if you didn't get that you're not on Tik Tok but uh no I'm really really happy to be here uh and here to share some information about how Marta works and how Marta's Tod uh program works here you can see a nice example of one of our uh to projects in oops in decab County uh I just wanted to note that in fact one of Marta's first to projects was in Sandy Springs um over by Medical Center one of

the St Joseph's uh Office Buildings that is actually on Marta property and we have a ground lease with that developer there um right next to Medical Center it actually shares a parking lot uh with our patrons there we go so what is Transit oriented development at Marta so um the Tod program at Marta is our prog oh sorry mind of its own um so it's really our program to try to develop some of Marta's uh unused and underutilized real estate assets Marta has about 300 acres of land much of which dates back to the original formation of Marta um there was an idea back in the 70s that Marta would expand more than it has been and so a lot of those properties that Marta has are vacant and in the absence of let's say heavy rail expansion we've been trying to bring transit to people and people to Transit through our to program and so simply uh to is development that benefits Transit and Transit that develop and Transit that benefits development and most of which are executed through our um through ground leases so uh just a few ideas of how Marta shares a role in Tod uh we can be a direct sponsor of Tod and those are ground leases on our soil uh we also can promote uh high density development that is near our stations and advocate for Transit supportive land use policies in properties that are adjacent to our Transit stations uh why do we do this one uh to some degree uh these properties generate ridership they uh generate a return on our investment

through our ground leases and we do try to work with our local jurisdictions to try to meet some of those public policy goals whether that's through sustainable business practices or building practices or um through new parking or through uh setting affordability guidelines on those properties so if you want to develop on Marta soil you do have to abide by uh Marta's Tod principles and guidelines that were set forth by uh Mart's board of directors in 2010 uh just a few uh just a few things to highlight from our principles one is we do particularly welcome uh den and compact station areas where uh the station sort of acts as a centerpiece for the development um we I'll show how that kind of integrates with the uh Sandy springs' to Planet North Spring Station we do try to encourage a mix of land uses uh we really want to create vibrant communities where people can live work and play uh adjacent to Transit um great public realm that is we definitely want to encourage a lot of green space in our development when we do public engagement that's the number one thing we hear is that we want to see more Parks green spaces Trails things of that sort so that's one of the things that we encourage um and with parking we are Marta but we do not want to eliminate parking we know that folks are driving to a lot of our stations when we talk about North Spring Station uh that's an area where we do have a lot of folks who are driving from other areas to the station you know to go to the airport go to work so um this is not to try to eliminate parking but this is to try to encourage parking so that folks are driving to our stations and then using the development that's there so a few of some of the hard policies that we have in our guidelines is first obviously uh the development can't preclude access to the station so when we're reviewing plans that's something we always want to see we want to keep

the access to the stations open for multimodal bikes pedestrian cars whatever Transit of the future is keeping that access open um we do have some parking guidelines that are set forth in our policies uh and there is an affordability component with our guidelines too so our guidelines set forth a 20% affordability goal uh for folks making between 60 and 80% of the area median income so if we have a development that is uh doing a ground lace on one of our properties we do require through these policies that 20% of those units be set aside for folks making between 60 and 80% but what does that look like so this right here is what affordability looks like um and it looks really nice uh so this is our development at Edgewood canler Park uh it was it's a pretty large development so it's done in three phases um of both market rate units and affordability units if you add up those numbers there you're at about 23% of those units are affordable granted most of them are market rate uh are market rate units but sort of the blending of the affordability and market rate gives a really really nice uh really nice outcome just a couple of the others that I want to highlight just so yall can see them uh this is down the street from our Avendale station um this is one of our Partnerships we had with Columbia Ventures to do a to there uh it's a seven Acre Site and it's I think just personally it's really impressive how the developer was able to uh combine some of the Mart infrastructure with retail and with housing so at the bottom of it that is actually a bus transfer facility that is inside that parking deck and so from here let's say you're a

Georgia State student you can live here you can hop on the train and get right to your classes and it is a really nice if you haven't been down there I would definitely check it out few good breweries down there so you can take Marta check it out and then you uh uh walk from there uh shamley station just wanted to highlight uh sort of a different sort of project that we did uh this is all office in commercial space right across the street from family station uh really nice development on two acres of land um and the last one I wanted to highlight is Brook Haven City Hall if you drove by on pet Tre you can see the Brook Haven is building their City Hall on our parking lot um this is unique in which Marta can actually uh work directly with local governments for some of these ground laces uh other projects will have to go through a competitive RFP process whereas a if a local government wants to partner with us we can make these things happen in a much much faster expedited timeline so just as something to keep in mind so as Michelle mentioned and as Chris mentioned uh North Springs conducted I'm not North Springs sorry Sandy Springs uh conducted a master plan that included uh the Marite at North Springs station adjacent to jorda 400 um and so I'll let Sandy Spring sort of comment on the very particulars of uh of the tood master plan but just a few things to keep in mind uh as you're considering moving this forward is number one the ball is in the court of Sandy Springs and I say that to say that all of our projects particularly this one do not move forward without the approval and the input of the local jurisdiction and

even greater than that without Community engagement so all of our TOS that we do require some level of community engagement to understand what the feeling of both the elected leadership is and for the community so we're I'm going to show youall some pictures that are from the master plan but do know that we want this to be an iterative partnership uh and really work together with y'all to try to develop something that y'all can really be proud of um so a few things just about the station why that this could be a really good opportunity um is you have a lot of for one thing you have a lot of young people in adjacent to the station um you have about 6,000 people total that live within a half a mile of the station uh 37% of them are younger than 34 uh 22% of them uh have only one have kids which is a little higher than the city's average you're looking at two person households within a half a mile of the station um and very surprisingly uh my generation some you know young families are even for going cars so about 70% of of families within a half a mile uh own one vehicle or less um so expanding Transit expanding development near the our Transit stations is something that uh we do want to make sure our local jurisdictions really keep in mind um a little bit about North Spring Station so this is a higher than average ridership station it's not the highest ridership station um but it is in the upper echelons we consider this a collector station because a lot of the folks that are using the station aren't just coming from the surrounding area they're driving to get to the station since it's an End of Line Station on the red line um and so having an area where folks can drive to utilize the development utilize Transit is really important and Sandy Springs is master plan really does that really does that well um just a few

specifics so uh we own about 27 acres of land uh about half of that is the MARTA station there's two very large parking decks at that station one of which is leased by AT&T um I'll tell you this in alander pre- Pandemic those parking decks were about at 90% capacity on any given day now it's a little bit more than 50% as many of y'all know we've seen a drop in post-pandemic ridership we hope that gets better over time um but that is to say that these decks are being utilized and Transit is being utilized from North Springs if you go there around four between four and six you'll see a line of cars that are uh entering and exiting the station um now I will mention also that the just as an FYI is that the zoning is in place for these this sort of development now with that being said again this is something that we do in partnership with Sandy Springs so uh please keep in mind that y'all are sort of in the driver's seat so to speak um so this is uh taken from Sandy springs' master plan um I would say we have taken the time at Marta to fully review the plan and if I can give if I had three thumbs I would give it three thumbs up because I think yall just did a an excellent job of taking in the area surrounding characteristics taking into consideration folks that are going to be using Transit and really blending it really really nicely so just a few things to highlight that I think are unique about this is that you have a lot of the more higher density development at the North and South End of the area typically that's a little unusual for one of Mart's tods usually we

encourage development closer to the station and then goes down as you get closer to the uh residential areas but what you're not seeing on this map is the multifam housing that is at both the North and South ends of the station and so what Sandy Springs did is they said okay what can we do that really fits into the surrounding Community um and so that's why you see that being a little bit different than some of our typical uh to master plans um the other thing that is uh I think unique about this is you have this sort of I think youall call them like the single family but multi family um you know bigger Town Homes along bigger town homes and Retail along uh Petri dwy Road um sort of maybe y'all took that from lessons learned from some of our other TOS whenever we see that our retail is recessed from the main road it's hard to get a lot of foot traffic and so uh Sandy Springs perhaps might have Tak a CU from some of our other toods like at Lindberg that has had trouble trying to get some more pedestrians uh and just to say hey we're here come check us out um one thing that is sort of unique too that could present a challenge is that there is some uh some water and almost like a creek that runs through it but one of the things Andy Springs did is propose this sort of walking trail or bridge that connects from the development to the station Marta we always want to make sure that we are doing Transit that is integrated with the new development um and so uh looking at how we can connect that development to the train station through this walkway follows a really really cool idea so just a couple examples of what it can look like so um I pulled the top left from the area uh that's multi family housing really really nice um here you have on the top right that is not a Marta

to as we don't have a ground lease with them but it's right across from uh the bus Rapid Transit that's going in in the Summer Hill Neighborhood uh and we've worked with the developers over there to help them Access Capital uh bottom left is the retail that's adjacent to Lindberg station which is one of our biggest to sites um and then bottom right is a pacher Creek Greenway that obviously isn't what the uh the pathway is going to look like but hey it's what it could look like so and then wanted to end on on something we do and all what we're trying to expand at all of our stations is our oh almost um our placemaking and artbound program so Marta actually has a in-house public art program artbound and we've been trying to incorporate artbound in all of our TOs and our stations uh top left is a sculpture we put up at chambley uh that's over at Dunwoody Station on the right that big mural uh bottom right is our mural at Art Center uh bottom left there are a few things where we can blend art and infrastructure where you can see here is that pathway on one side of the pathway is a Marta Station the other side of the pathway is station soccer some soccer fields that we built in our parking lot and this right here provides a safe pathway uh and then we had a local artist come and decorate it so um by further developing North Spring Station it does open up some of the opportunities for more some of the sort of tech tactical urbanism projects as they say so um so uh we look forward to working with the city of Sandy Springs um I can't tell you that this is the priority considering that this plan was finalized in February uh but it is a priority and something we want to work closely with the city uh to see where we can work together and how we can sequence this and prioritize this so um

we I appreciate y'all having to listen to me and uh if y'all any questions I'll Stick Around sure yeah thank you so much Michael um yeah we always like for that to happen you know initially um this T hadn't been on model's radar or in the list of priorities and now that we made the initiation to do this project and now they have eyes on it so that's great all right um so next we have our GIS Department who's going to show us how they take some of these small area plans including this modern North Springs Crossroads City Springs and how they do some visualizations so this should be fun hi um my name is Bridget Lawler I am the gis manager here at Sandy Springs and um oh there we go and talk okay all right hi I'm Bridget Lawler I'm the GI is manager I've been uh here at Sandy Springs since 2019 but I've lived in Sandy Springs for over 20 years and my name is Tyler Lance I'm one of our GIS analysts I've been with city of Sandy Springs for about four years and prior to that I worked at the city of Atlanta dep Department of watershed management and we are going to show you some of the areas where we have taken the development plans and created 3D visualizations okay so uh this map shows the locations of the small area plans that the planning department has worked on recently or are pending and GIS has taken three of these and created 3D visualizations to show how the developments would look within the

current environment um so we're going to look at Crossroads at City Springs and at North Springs MARTA and to start with we often you create these infographics of the community and so what we see right here is Sandy Springs compared to the rest of Fulton County and there's a lot of data on these but the main thing to get out is that we can take any area whether it's the city or in this case um the crossroads area and just kind of compare two geogra two geographies in terms of households incomes um residential units children and and compared them um these infographics are created pretty quickly uh as long as we have the areas that we would know that we want to look at and it's all part of our software product that we have um with the company it's called ezri they're the ones who make our GIS software and this is another thing that we like to create um for each of the study areas so this one is focus on the crossroads area and it's a story map and basically what we do is we look at the area yeah you can just keep yeah lovely and so it gives an overview we have demographics of the area and then we incorporate zoning and the hydrology and the flood planes and so it's a nice way to look at all the data that we have for the location on a map

and so here we have one of our development plans that the consultant for the crossroads provided for us and so we can take that and overlay it onto our Aerials and we can digitize those building Footprints using our software and it'll overlay them into the surrounding area and from that we can pull it into one of our other programs which is called City Engine and then we can extrude the buildings into a 3D model and for this case the consultant wanted us to show the floor uh floor levels and setbacks so um City Engine allows us to visualize that so in the light blue lines you can see the um the floor lines and then step backs behind that and so after we get the buildings extruded we can pull it in and overlay it onto our aerial and here I created a um building model for the surrounding area as well and this is what the existing conditions looked like and then we take our model we created in City Engine and then we put it on top of that so we can see what the development could look like if it were to go with this proposal for example I've highlighted them here in yellow so they stand out a little better and then we can add some trees to to provide some more realism and then from there again play there we go there we can kind of Zoom around pan around and our online software also has the ability to simulate weather or Shadows depending on the time of day or year so up there you can have the calendar so um it can simulate the overshadowing in case residents or other people are concerned hey this new development might block my view or I won't have as much

sunlight and then if the developers provide us with their own Bim models or renderings they do in their software we can also import those as well if they don't do that we can also add our own facades in this case they provided us with a model for the 10 10 story apartment building so we took that and imported it and here we have what it would look like um if they go with that development model and so this is a easy way to show the public you know this is what could be the case for your future development and it's a lot easier to visualize it this way um as opposed to trying to see a flat drawing at least for me I'm more of a visual person so all right and then likewise we did another 3D visualization this time for the area just south um here of City Hall so just on the other side of Mount Vernon over there and so again kind of similar to what Tyler spoke about we take our aerial imagery and then we put the development over top of it here on the map and then we take that development and in GIS we draw it out we add 3D levels and extrude the buildings and so what we end up here is the gray area is the parking the blue is office yellow is multif family residential the red area is retail and then there's the pinkish area which was the proposed hotel and this looks good but it's kind of still looks like Legos a bit um and so we want to add some functionality to it we also like to um the software it will return back based

on the data that we provide it'll return back metrics such as the number of jobs that created the number of households that are added um number of parking spots that are needed and and these numbers generally line up with what the consultant has provided back has provided to Community Development on the um on the development plans as well and so we take these and then we we like to again incorporate it into the existing area so we see in the far upper right corner that's the current multif family housing which is over there so you can see if you turn out turn around and look at the windows we've got the red we've got the beige we've got the kind of off-white that matches with what you see up here because we just take the aerial image and we drape it on top of the 3D buildings and then the areas that are new developed vment uh we just create a facad so we add some windows add some texture to the buildings we also add in some trees to give it some Greenery and if we we can also zoom in pretty tight and add some Street side Furniture like streetlights and park benches we've got some hydrants some cars trees we can put in all sorts of different trees scale them up scale them down so anything just to make it look a more a little bit more realistic so when these are presented to the public it's not as scary as just thinking oh my gosh we're going to have this big huge structure that we're not used to we can show that yeah it can look pretty as well um also in the future what we're looking forward to doing um the software has an engagement platform and so you can incorporate both the public and staff feedback on the developments um and so it's basically a discussion board

where people can leave comments they can be made public or we can hide those comments from the public because sometimes a little too much yeah exactly well done um and so anyways we're looking forward to doing that having the opportunity to do that in the future at some point as well and so the final area we're going to look at is the one we've done most recently which is the North Springs MARTA site and so this was the plans that provided and the developer provided the 3D model for this uh for us as well um but this one we added on the facades uh to see what the finished mix use and multif family residential could look like in the surrounding area so in the north kind of middle area or north right area you have the link at the North Springs Apartments and then to the left of that is the Lake Ridge 400 Office Buildings and south of the MARTA is develop Marta site is the flats at North Springs so play might not there it goes there it goes okay so again like with what we did earlier we can pan around zoom in kind of see what it might look like closer to um the real development we can change any of that up if we need to so say the buildings needed to be different color have different number number of Windows we could change any of that if we wanted to as well should the development plans change or based on feedback okay so that's it we know we're running late so trying to make this as quick as possible um so just to recap we love these sorts of projects where we

take the development plans that Consultants provide um we can make them into 3D visualizations show a 360 view of the area around them drape our imagery over top of them and also show the shadowing and the view um The View shed changes so thank you for your time that's [Applause] it okay you're sweet no we agree thank you so much yeah so you know so this is you know some of the things that we're able to do from the planning process and have get stuff like this pass it on to Economic Development he does his magic you know we'll see um so with that um we are a little bit over our schedule um oh Ginger says I can take do the okay so oh the crowd wants to hear from you Ginger and so we'll have we'll have Sher calling a j after uh thank you all for coming um I think we had a u a great group of people who came to speak to you all today and um just be thankful I didn't have to speak thank you and I think uh Sher is going to adjourn the meeting for us talk about what has happened today no I'm not um let's just thank staff for the great job that they've done this has been a great Retreat um this I believe is my seventh or eth one and each time it's something new it's something that they keep it moving it's not a boring retreat and also we're always learning something now I really appreciate the regional Partners you all brought in and we really get to see how what we do matters to the city and how important it is so although we are not formally in a meeting can I get a motion to adjourn all those in favor say I we are adjourned