April 7, 2025 • 41 mins
In this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, host Rico Figliolini sits down with City Manager Brian Johnson for a high-energy, no-holds-barred conversation on the city's future. With big moves happening across Tech Park, Peachtree Corners Circle, and the Forum area, this discussion dives into the city’s strategy for smart growth, safety, and innovation.
Brian shares updates on proposed roundabouts, equity-driven housing developments, the transformation of aging office space, and how the city is positioning itself as a hub for autonomous vehicles and drone delivery.
From bold rezoning efforts to a proactive stance on data center development, this is a must-listen for residents, businesses, and anyone interested in the smart evolution of one of Metro Atlanta's most innovative cities.🔍 Key Takeaways
Brian shares updates on proposed roundabouts, equity-driven housing developments, the transformation of aging office space, and how the city is positioning itself as a hub for autonomous vehicles and drone delivery.
From bold rezoning efforts to a proactive stance on data center development, this is a must-listen for residents, businesses, and anyone interested in the smart evolution of one of Metro Atlanta's most innovative cities.🔍 Key Takeaways
- New Roundabout proposed at Peachtree Corners Circle near the Forum to address traffic safety.
- Multiple equity-based residential projects replacing outdated office spaces, including at 20-22 Tech Park, the Day Building, and 333 Research Court.
- Curiosity Corner Mobility Hub coming to Tech Park, featuring EV stations, food trucks, and drone test areas.
- Autonomous vehicles like May Mobility already operating with zero drivers on Peachtree Corners streets.
- City's proactive zoning changes include special-use permits for data centers and new infill residential zoning.
- Merger of Planning Commission and Zoning Board of Appeals to streamline decisions and reduce redundancy.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Everything. It's a mobility help so all things mobility can
come together. There everything from the Gwenett County Transit Bus
as their route there to ev charleson.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to Prime Lunchtime with Brian Johnson, a monthly podcast
featuring the city manager and your host, Rico Figliolini, taking
the conversation beyond just talk. It's about getting the facts,
discussing the issues, and asking honest questions of our city.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Hi, this is Rico Figliolini, host the Patrick Corner's Life.
Appreciate you guys joining us. This is me with Brian Johnson,
the city Manager. Hey Brian, Hey Rico, how are you good?
Good to have you. We haven't done this in a while.
But before we get into this, let me just say
thank you to two of our sponsors, EV Remodeling Inc.
And Eli the owner based here in Patrick Corners. They're
(00:53):
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(01:17):
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(01:39):
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print it onto almost any object, they'll figure it out
for you. So check them out. Fox Popularize the company.
Tell them we sent you so thanks thanks for us
supporting us. So, Brian, it's been a while. Think we've
(01:59):
got a few things to to talk about. Lot's happening
this year. One city councilman told me it's going to
be an exciting year of stuff going on. But thing's
going on right now, So let's start off with I
guess one of the biggest things we just had an
informational meeting about. So we had a lot of comments
on our social posts about this is and this is
(02:21):
about and stalling possibly another roundabout. This was an informational meeting, right,
and a round about similar to the one that's on
p Stree Corners Circle and medluck Bridge Road, right, but
this one's going to be located between the Forum and
Creme de la Creme on also corner circle. So can
(02:41):
you give us the you know, the details on that
or high level.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah, So it boiled down. It really comes to this
if anybody has ever left the Forum on the south
end by Trader Joe's and wanted to turn on a
p Stree Corner Circle, really any direction, but certainly if
you're trying to make a left out of there, it's
kind of a dangerous, you know, intersection. It's unsignalized their
Peatree Corner Circle coming from the west or the right side.
(03:10):
If you were you know, leaving the Forum is coming
over down a hill around a corner you're crossing over,
I believe what at that point you're at least five
lanes of traffic are at two lanes each way in
a middle turning lane, and it's a dangerous intersection. And
(03:31):
as the fore activity at the Forum increases, the property
right across the street, right next to Krim de la
Creme is zoned for condos, so that could get developed,
and then we're going to talk here shortly about just
up the road the day Building properly, which is actually
the next property over that just got approved, and so
(03:54):
traffic is going to even increase even more. We cannot
put a signal, another traffic signal at that intersection because
it's too close to the Ptree Corner Circle P Street
Parkway intersection, So we either have to leave it the
way it is, or a roundabout allows people, especially the
(04:15):
most dangerous turning movement is leaving the forum turning left. Yeah,
for sure that there's no way to resolve that with
I guess unless you did a four way stop, which
I'm not, Jimmy. That's again not just two lanes of
traffic each direction. It can't put a signal. So a
(04:39):
roundabout allows people who want to turn left to actually
turn right first into the roundabout and then just stay
in the roundabout as you can go around to the left,
so it's almost like making a turning right to ultimately
make a left, but you would turn right and into
the roundabout and then just follow around about around until
(05:02):
you're now facing P Street Parkway, and then you head straight.
So we did a big traffic analysis the city did
along with Winneck County Dot and Georgia Dot and a
roundabout fits at that location. And so right now where
we're at is council. The city had an open house
(05:26):
recently to solicit public comment on it. We're sharing with
you have some and we're sharing the remainder of the
information with Eureco so people can get on your social
media posts and see, you know, but it'll ultimately you know,
a lot of this detail will be hosted on our website,
but they can see all everything from the traffic analysis,
(05:50):
the accident reports, on the design concepts. But we're doing
that so that council can ultimately decide if this is
you know, good to go project. And so that's where
we're at with that project.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Okay, and we'll have links. We have an auticle being
written about it, but we'll have links to the website
to the resources that you talked about. We'll have that
in the show notes and this video I think a
three D video also that we'll be sharing.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, it's an actual traffic model. So we took real
traffic data from that intersection and then applied it at
different times of the day on how this new roundabout
would address that traffic count, that real traffic count. So
that is not like a oh, here's you know here,
let's just throw a number of cars going through, and
(06:40):
it is actually from the traffic counts.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yes, And I remember the consultant telling me that. I
asked him, I said, it looks like an awful lot
of cars, and he says, well, this is based on
on what the traffic is.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, yeah, at the worst time, like people say at
five thirty, right, you know, how would it handle that?
I mean, it's easy to handle traffic there if it's
you know, you know, two in the afternoon, you know,
nine in the morning. But we want to know what
it's like, you know, especially in the evening and rush hour,
because the Forum is not open in the early morning. See,
(07:14):
the morning rush hour traffic isn't so bad. It's definitely
afternoon of.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
The evening and when you have people leaving the forum,
when you have people coming through wanting to go into
the Forum, you have people leaving Creme de la Creme,
you have people going left out of the QT station,
which once this is put, if I instinct correctly, it'll
be a right in right out only that is correct,
because it'll be a medium across the way you can go.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
You must be able to make a left out of
the j Alexander's curb cut that's closest to p Street Parkway.
They won't be able to do that are because that's
also that's actually going.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Across that's actually worse.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Lanes of traffic with the turning lanes included.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
I can't even see how someone wants to make a
left out of there. That's dangerous, right, yeah, it's crazy
and making a right out of or coming out of
the form by the trade of Joe's that driveway. I mean,
I've personally seen anecdotally, if you will, one or two
accidents roughly a year every months. So and that's what
(08:16):
I've seen there. And I've seen people in the medium
stacked two to three four cars and if the first
car doesn't do their turn, the car behind them wants
to want to play chicken and wants to come through.
Sometimes it's like what you know, So I'm looking as
I'm coming towards peatreek Ona's Baptist Church with the QT
behind me, I'd have to be looking at the right
(08:38):
side to see the forum. People either people coming out
to make a ride, or it's coming cutting straight across,
or wanted to go from that median going into the forum,
and even sometimes the Kreme de luck front people wanted
to make a left out of there as well cutting across,
and who's gonna at.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
The same time somebody maybe want to make a left
out of the four and Krim de la Creme for them,
and then there you know. Yeah, so the only options
we have really again, g DOT won't let us put
a traffic signal there because it's too close to their
signal on P Street Parkway right. You can't really put
(09:18):
a four way stop where you have that many lanes.
So we either leave it alone and just hope, keep
hoping for the best, or we do something that allows
anybody who wants to make a left to technically do
it by making a right into the traffic circle and
then coming back around.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
And I think there'll be some improvements based on what
we learned was learned from the roundabout at the other place,
that there'll be some what's called brambles, I guess, stopping
people cutting cross from one lane to the other as
they're coming around. So there'll be areas where they can
feed into naturally into the lane. But yeah, so I
(09:56):
thought that was good. So if you guys want check
out the links, you'll be able to see that information
and stuff. So that's cool. So let's talk about also
twenty twenty two Technology Parkway that was the that was
originally I had an old developer that came in that
(10:17):
was actually approved I think for just almost three hundred
units apartments a little more than three year, more than
three hundred, right, So now a new developer came in,
and so tell us a bit about that, because now
it's moving towards equity property I think, or well, no
is it.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
But so the original application that was approved for rezoning
was to combine twenty and twenty two Tech Park South,
which is at the corner of PIB and Technology Parkway South,
and to combine the properties and then put you know,
around three hundred and fifty ish apartment units on two
(10:56):
different I don't know if you want to call them towers,
but you know, I would say six story properties there
built on top of where the existing buildings had been
demoed and the original owner you know, ends up selling
it and so when the new developers come in, we
(11:19):
you know, work with them, and the ultimate product that
they asked to be developed is reducing it by I
don't know, somewhere near one hundred, so there's like about
one hundred less units going in as tall, but it
is still a multi family you know development right there
at the corner, all being built on existing parking lot
(11:41):
or foundation of existing building. Anybody's driven there recently, that's
an old building that had structured parking there, derelict people
are breaking into it and so it's a code enforcement
you know, kind of challenge right now. But the developers
were proved for this less dense product than was previously approved.
(12:04):
So in that vein, that's a good thing. And again
Tech Park and the businesses in Tech Park need you know,
it's healthy to have a mix of housing units in
amongst these buildings because employees like to be able to
work close to or live close to where they work.
So this is a good node right there right there
(12:26):
at PIB. So, yeah, we're excited about the project and
you know, have every reason to believe the developer is
going to jump right on it.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
It's amazing how we house its transition Tech Park five
hundred acres of office, all office to slowly being more
residential in there as well. Yeah the mix, yeah, yeah,
mix of it, because you know the world has changed,
there's still a lot of people working remote, still a
lot of you know, office buildings just you know go
(12:57):
in the way of this if you will.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
And we did part of that small area plan that
council just approved recently was a office inventory in which
we graded the quality of the remaining office and we
identify the offices that are you know, and it's a
lesser percentage, but there are some that are almost at
a point where you're not going to ever see somebody
(13:20):
fill it with you know, commercial tenants anymore because the
building requires too many upgrades for it to be competitive.
So those are ones that council will be you know
more amenable to consider transitioning it to residential some of
the office product. If an application came in and they
(13:42):
wanted to demo or repurpose an office, Council would say no,
because we do want to also protect our office product.
It's still a very important part of our you know,
local economy. So we're being very you know selective in
which ones we might allow for this to happen.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Which ones, well, talking about another one. Also the day
Building which is on Peatree Corner Circle. People might be
familiar with that building. It's just it's before the Kreme
de la crem on the right hand side going up
a hill. So they've originally came in wanted to do
two hundred and twenty five units or somewhere about their
(14:21):
retail town homes or mixed use. That was denied I
think at some point, and then they filed suit trying
to figure out, you know, we want to use this land.
Let us use this land. And then they went into
a settlement with you with the city, so tell us
a bit about that, and they resubmitted I think, right.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yes, and that is all true. And so they came
back as part of settlement discussions and changed it from
a mixed juice product that had two hundred and twenty
five is or so apartments to an all equity development
of around sixty maybe a little more than sixty town
(15:01):
homes on that product or on that property. That property
has two entrances, one on Ptree Corner Circle and then
the backside also has ingres secrets onto what's Data Drive.
Then if you take Data Drive up it goes into
Triangle Parkway, their cornerstone Christian. So this development will have
(15:23):
two entrances, so it won't have to dump everything out
on Ptree Corner Circle all the time. But it does
allow us as part of this settlement agreement, we mandated
if you are on Petree Corner Circle, say heading from
Spaulding towards Patree Parkway, and you start coming around that,
you know, down the hill around the corner, getting close
(15:46):
to the forum Krim Dela Creme, the current entrance doesn't
have a deceleration length, so people don't realize there's an
entrance there, and all of a sudden, when you're on
this corner where you would think there's no entrances anywhere,
we're at a higher rate of speed. People turning into
it all of a sudden slow down, and people behind
(16:07):
are like, why are you slowing down? So we required
a deceleration lane so now they can get out of
the normal you know, travel lane and decelerate outside of it.
That will help. But yeah, this product goes from again
two hundred plus apartment units down to sixty ish equity
(16:30):
town homes and that's it. No commercial, no retail, just residential.
And it's an office product that probably would remain vacant.
If we didn't allow this because the office is so old,
it would require more money than they could make by
keeping it office just because office product, like you said,
(16:53):
is just not at a premium right now.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
No no changing environment out there and more density, you
know what I mean? Even multi use, right, multi use
is is changing also, there's not right, there's not as
much well unless you go up to John's Creek. I
guess they just approved some big multi use retail density part.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, but that's part of their new Town Center.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Though, right, So that's a whole different thing. So two. Okay,
so there's quite a few, you know, things going on
there as far as residential development and stuff. The other
thing that I noticed.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Real real quick. We have one more and our last
council meeting we're talking about that's three thirty three research court.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Right, Okay, I was going to save that for later.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
But let's go into the Okay, Well, I mean all
it was all kind of in the whole genre of
having selected office buildings that were of poor enough quality
that the occupancy or call it the vacancy was so
high and the property owners had come in and said
we're not.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
We can't keep it as an office. We're never going
to be able to get tenants without pouring a lot
of money, and right now the demand isn't high. So
it's another one that's at the end of Research Court.
Probably the best way to know is if you're looking
at Norcross High School, right of their main building is
a bunch of classroom trailers them into the woods. There's
(18:23):
a buffer there. You would come into the back parking
lot of somewhere that the only way to drive throughd
is you got to go into Tech Park onto Technology Parkway,
Research Court and at the very back anyway, this is
converting that property into Their original attempt was to put
about I don't know one hundred just maybe under one
(18:45):
hundred stack flats was an equity product, but it was
stacked flats. They were not able to make the numbers
quite work on that, and so they've they decreased the
density of the equity and that's going to be a
round sixty ish or so town home product as well.
(19:05):
So that's where that is at, and again a carefully
selected node within Technology park Way where we feel like
having a small cluster of residential will meld well with
the existing higher quality office to create the mixed use
that Tech Park is becoming.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
You know, I like the fact that we go from
I mean there's a reason for multi use and the
reason for multifamily development actually, but I like the fact
that we're moving towards equity, like the these equity properties.
I think that most stabilizes the community also a bit.
That's a lot of development decisions that I've been made.
(19:46):
There's been some also first reads of some other stuff
that's that will be in the next city Council meeting.
So we'll have links to these things that you all
can visit because cities the city are set up on
their website of special page showing development application, so you
all can actually go there and you can actually look
through the applications and see the you know, the maps
(20:08):
and stuff and what's coming up over the next next
month of time. There's somewhere else also in Technology Park
things going on there. I saw some clear cutting just recently,
so something's happening, something's beginning. I remember seeing a check
a federal I think it was Congress mid Bordeaux at
the time, gave a check for over a half a
million dollars in back in twenty twenty two for this
(20:32):
and it's a mobility help in Technology Park So it's
called Curiosity Corner now, so tell us a little bit
about that. What's coming there?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Right, So it's at the corner of Scientific Drive and
Technology Parkway and you know really post across the street
from Global Aviation. You know that area. It is you
know what a three plus acre parcel and it's going
to be everything. It's a mobility help so all things
(21:01):
mobility can come together there. Everything from the Gwenett County
Transit bus as their route there, to ev charging so
that you can have electric vehicles, E bikes, e scooters,
all things mobility can come together there. Testing around that
with then Curiosity Lab ecosystem can happen there. There's also
(21:26):
drone on location for drone both testing and as well
as if we have interested companies that are starting to
get into the drone delivery space. A number of companies
like Amazon, Google that have arms that are doing you know,
you know, point to point you know, you know, it's
(21:49):
like I guess retail to customer direct delivery of things
like medicine and other things, but they need location in
cities to make this work. This could be one of
those We're also turning it into an amenity to make
the employees within businesses here in Technology Park have a
(22:11):
place an amenity to go to, to kind of create
the sense of place within the entirety of Tech Park here.
We're going to have food truck stalls with you know
plugins right there, covered seating with you know, fans underneath it,
and public five g WI FI. Our hope is that
(22:32):
it creates an opportunity for employees and Tech Park businesses
to be able to go to maybe for lunch and
not have to get on that river of cars that's
either P Street, Parkway or PIV you know, to get
together to you know, to socialize. There's some open space
there that there could even be some you know, organized
(22:53):
events maybe in the evening, you know something.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
You know that you're going to have some green space
three space there.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yes, So it's a it's a mix of a lot
of stuff. It is a mobility hub, but it's going
to be both for practical you know purposes and as
and testing as well, which is what this ecosystem of
Curiosity Lab has become.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
It's it's amazing the we did a podcast about main
mobility and people that have gone through Tech Park probably
have seen this car has a rap and stuff like that.
It drives like thirty five miles an hour at least,
and it's going through and people will see no driver.
There's not even.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
You know, driving person in the car, right, not.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
A person in the car, right. So it looks really
strange when you when you see it, and when I
drove in it, getting into that middle seat with some
people and seeing this car drive by itself. It's kind
of weird too because it takes you a little while too, like, damn,
look at that. It's just moving.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah, there's there's nobody there in case something happened for
them to grab the wheel.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
That's right. Yes, we've had.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Safety Stewart's and some of the other autonomous vehicles. Yeah,
so they've been autonomous, but you always had that person
that was sitting there and there are there. They weren't driving,
but they were there. This one doesn't even have that,
so it is a little bit of an experience.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
So the interesting part is too that it goes so
go up and down Technology Parkway, and it goes through
City Hall parking, you know, City Hall ere and then
comes out and goes to with the former and to
be jug Jug turn if you want to call it that,
where it comes out and make a left back out
(24:34):
onto the street to come on back. So we're doing
a photo.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Also goes through the Marriott parking.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Lot right to Marriott. Yep. So we're we're doing a
photo shoot in front of City Hall. We have the
marshals there and we're doing this photo shoot. The Cross
are park right literally in front of City Hall and
we're doing the shoot and all of a sudden, I
noticed there's a car waiting like to get through, and
I'm like, it turned and it's the main mobility. It's
(25:00):
like it stopped and it's just waiting. I'm like, that's
supposed to be staging from here. What is going on? No,
the damn thing. It's just waiting. It's waiting. It's like,
I think we need to let it go through. So
we step off the parking lot a bit now, Mando,
the these martial cars are pointing towards us, away from
the building. They were like we had three of them
(25:22):
there like that, and so we stepped off. We're still
near the edge and it's not moving, so like, maybe
it's the cars and maybe it'sself. What if we take
a couple more steps back. We did that all of
a sudden, after a second or two, it decides, okay,
maybe i'll slowly stop moving, So slowly starts moving, weaves
its way up and then picks up speed and then goes.
(25:44):
And it was like it was actually waiting for us.
Look at that. It actually worked what it's supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Yeah, it does. Although you know, susly, we have people there.
You know, normally, if somebody was there and you didn't
want to move, you know, you could like motion them
to like go around or something.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Really, but you know, because if you were.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Up there and I'm like, Rico, we're doing something, can.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
You go right, You're like okay, but that won't do it.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
It's like, look, this is the direction of travel I'm
supposed to be driving.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
You're in my way.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
My you know, AI and my you know, all our
sensors say I can't go until you get out of
the way. But once you do, it's like all right,
it looks clear, all right, and then it goes. I mean,
so it works.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
No, and it made it the right choice because the
three cars that were pointing at it pretty much as
it was going, and but it was waiting for us
to get off, and then it made that decision that
those three cars are parked even though they weren't in
parking spaces. So it had to make that intelligent choice
to say it's not gonna move, they're just pointing that way.
(26:48):
It's stable for the last five minutes. Yeah, it was
just an interesting thing to say. Yeah, all right, So
we got just a few more quick things. We talked
about a little bit about a special use permit that's
being This is a big proactive decision the city Council's
making and the city's making about data centers and creating
(27:11):
special use permit for a walk us through. Why why
that as a proactive thing? Why that makes sense?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah. So also at this last council meeting we had,
we had a couple of preemptive moves. This one is
just merely for us to require anybody wanting to construct
a data center. And by data center, I'm essentially saying
these are large buildings that are constructed to house server farms.
And this is when somebody says, oh, you know, I'm
(27:39):
saving something to the cloud. Well, there's not anything actually
in the cloud. It's still going to a server, but
the cloud is really server farms, and these are these
can be hundreds of thousands of square feet of just
servers that require a lot of electricity and a lot
of water to oftentimes cool the space. And you know,
(28:03):
they have they serve a purpose. But if you're not
careful and somebody's got the current zoning allow for it,
you could find property chewed up with very large buildings
that don't really provide value to the city because you
could have hundreds of thousand square feet of these servers
and five employees that are managing it, and it's not
(28:27):
generating retail transactions for us to get sales tax, and
it's not the headquarters of a company that would pay
us a business license. So we essentially could have large,
you know, very valuable property chewed up with this, but
it's not a value add to us as a city.
(28:48):
We feel like there might be exceptions where we could
have a modest size one, maybe maybe in conjunction with
something else, with a Google or whatever, Amazon, whatever, but
oftentimes these big ones are better left for more rural areas.
You know, we we we've become more of a redevelopment
(29:09):
city because we don't have a lot of undeveloped property
left right, so our property is a premium and so
there's Metro Atlanta has a lot of tire kicking going
on with developers wanting to do it because the demand
for cloud storage just keeps going up and up, and
we just we want to be very careful. So we
(29:30):
made it to where each specific instance has to get
in front of council and has to have a public hearing,
and so that's what this is to do.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
So you at the beginning before we started the podcast,
were saying there were a lot of tire kickings going on.
I guess it was it from that or was it
also from trends that you saw other cities having some
of the same issues, had that this sort of you know,
get on your list of that we need to take
care of us.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Well reading some of the recent I think even the
AJAC had not to, but a couple of weeks ago
a recent article about the demand in Georgia as a
whole or Metro Atlanta specifically, and so that got it
kind of got on our rad screen. We did have
specific tire kicking going on here by a developer who
was actually you know, my community development director, Sean Adams
(30:20):
will get calls with people asking hey, I'm you know,
representing a property owner or whatever, and I wanted to
know is this an eligible use? And he was getting
a little bit of those, and so then he did look,
you know, he did look out nationally to see what
our cities doing, what are best practices. He took that
(30:44):
and crafted his own language that made it ours and
then presented it to me and I put it on
the agenda for council to consider. So all of what
you said is Boyle or you know, added together as
kind of how it ultimately got on an agenda. But
it is a preemptive move. So this we will we
now do have this protection. So if somebody you want
(31:06):
to do it, Council's got to prove it and there's
got to be a public hearing so the community gets
a chance to weigh on a way in on it
as well.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
It's good to see the function of city of the
city mechanics, if you will, how things come about, why
you look at certain things and stuff. So it's good
I think for the public to see this that ess
just pulled out of nowhere. It's like why why this is?
Why data is not there as well, because these trends
that you all even went out to look at the
(31:35):
competitive field, what was being done, best practices, It's all
great Rezoning Board of Appeals, the Rezoning Board, I guess,
and the Planning Commission. There were recently and I've noticed
there on the on the on the I guess through
the year is it the rezoning or the Zoning Board
of Appeals? I guess there were a lot of canceled
(31:57):
meetings at certain points wasn't being probably needed, but you
all decided to merge I guess both the both of those.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Yes, so Zoning Board of Appeals. Here's cases of you know,
where somebody has you know, a hardship due to a
zoning or a code compliance, you know, and so they
don't have a lot of cases every year. In fact,
two years ago we went the entire year and there
(32:27):
was no no, no case for them to hear, no
hardship case for the way in on. So it started
to get to where it, you know, you ask somebody
or somebody is interested in being civically active, you put
them on a you know, the ZBA, and theny don't
have a meeting for a year or they're canceled out
that's one. Two training. You know, you like to these
(32:49):
board members oftentimes go to training, and you know, we
want them to be trained up, and so we just
thought that, you know what, will you know, support and
provide even additional training to one group. And we combine
the Planning Commission and the ZBA together. So now planning
commissioners we'll also hear, you know, appeal cases on city
(33:13):
code that the ZBA would have heard, and so we're
combining it. We're adding because it's a more call it
a body that's hearing two types of cases. We decided
to add two additional spots. So the Planning Commission grew,
but now we won't have a ZBA. The Planning Commission
will serve in that capacity.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
And for people that may not be where Planning Commission,
these are volunteer positions of appointed people, citizens from our community.
The Zoning Board of Appeals would look at not only
commercial but residential appeals. Right, so if someone wanted a
little leniency on the easement on their property maybe or
they needed or.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
They wanted to park an RV. A common one is
park an RV in their driveway in Italy if they're
not using it for long period, you know where that's
not allowed per code and they make a hardship case
and you know the ZBA would say, yeah, you you know,
you do have a hardship case. We're going to allow
it on that particular property. So it's an important role.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Yeah for sure. Okay, cool, So so that's cool. So
I think the next one was the new zoning district
for the INFILLD residential development. So so what does that
mean to most people?
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Brian?
Speaker 3 (34:33):
What's the end?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Well, you know people knew anything about Peatree Corners. Again,
they're going to look at the city and be like,
you know, there's not a lot of undeveloped property left,
so you know, we are more of redevelopment. So now
new projects are oftentimes they involve the tearing down of
a of a a use that's run its cycle. You know,
(34:54):
maybe it was an office building for fifty years, but
now it's time for there to be a new office
or something else or maybe a combination. Well, when that happens,
there are oftentimes pockets of smaller properties that maybe things
have changed and we could put them to good use.
(35:15):
I'm a good example of that would be commercial office
buildings used to have a higher parking spot per square
foot ratio than we need. Now there used to be
the you know, the big sea of parking in front
of a big, you know, box store is no longer
(35:36):
the case. So we we oftentimes have office product is
a good you know, again a good example where there
could be twice the amount of parking that they need,
but they'd like to do something with it. Well, maybe
there's an opportunity for infill. And so there are pockets,
and there's not a lot of them, but we have
(35:57):
pockets where we were kind of like, what are we
going to do with these? We don't have a zoning
classification that allows for certain smaller you know, you could
almost argue shoehorn things. But yet if you don't do anything,
it's kind of a waste of a property. And so
we want to maximize our property and be as flexible
as we can. So again, Community Development Director looked at
(36:21):
best practices and came up with the infill residential. So
this could be to where you could put smaller, you know,
pockets of residential and oftentimes maybe it doesn't have the
same buffer requirement that you would normally have or some
of those other things, and so it's just a way
for us to be flexible. Again, there's not a lot
(36:43):
of cases, but there are some cases where we think
there could be a use here. So it's just providing us.
It's adding to our you know, our our bag of
tricks if you will, when it comes to trying to
maximize what is not We're not getting any more property
right now. We've got to make the best of what
we have.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
So it's good to see city being proactive, so not
just reactive to everything that's coming along, right. We want
to plan things out. I mean, that's why the comprehensive
plan is there that just got revised and stuff. We've
hit on quite a few things, So a lot of
stuff going on in city, more things coming anything that
(37:24):
we've left out, Brian, that you just want to mention
for the time being or no, not really, I.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Mean, you know, encourage people to go. I think you
put a link on there. The latest addition of Peatree
Corners Life has the mayor has a column in there.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Yes, on that website about deer population.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yes, and you know deer. So for those who want
to know what we're doing, and we're actively getting to
a point where where we will have a deer management plan.
But if anybody's curious as to what we're doing there,
I encourage them to read that. But you know, right now,
that was you know, our last council meeting was a
lot of land you stuff, yep, good things. Essentially, all
(38:05):
but one project was equity and you know, and all
of it was city negotiated a less dense product, taking
into consideration traffic and other things. So you know, I
think these are going to be it's going to be
new injection of life into property that right now is stagnated.
(38:27):
So good things and we'll can continue to drive forward.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Sounds good. We've been spending our time with Brian Johnson,
city Manager. Always appreciate his willingness to come on and
talk about things Southwest Winnette Magazine just show you. This
just is probably hitting your mailbox this week. Wesleyan audist
market that's happening at the end of April, so check
(38:53):
this out. Some decently good stories in here about summer
camps and local author great Atlanta Christian and their expansion
and some other things. Even a former Beatles tribute drummer
who just often opened the coffee shop here and Ptre
Industrial Boulevard. Well p Tree Boulevard. Actually, I need to
start saying that.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
There's still a section that's p IB. Yeah, I mean,
technically it's p Tree Boulevard. If you're heading north from
two eighty five until the split. At the split, stay
on the right heading north, it's still PIB. It's only
Ptree Boulevard while it's a state route.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Gotcha. Thanks for explaining that there is.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Still a section of PIB as it heads up into Yeah,
you gotta be a government junkie to know all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
No, I appreciate it. And I'm more of a political
chunkie than government's junkie, so but thanks.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
I'm paid to be a government junkie, so.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
For sure, thank you. Brian. Everyone else, yeah, no, hang
with me for a second, but everyone else, thank you.
You'll find the important links below, and if this is
on YouTube or Facebook, just check out our website and
you'll look for this post, this podcast post, and you'll
see all the links in there leading back to pictures
(40:12):
and all sorts of things that you need. All right,
thank you guys, appreciate you being with us. Bye.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
You've been listening to Prime Lunchtime with Brian Johnson, the
city manager of Peachtree Corners, Georgia with your host, Rico Figlioni.
The show is part of a family of podcasts produced
by Peachtree Corners Magazine and Mighty Rockets. To find more
episodes of this show or our other podcasts, visit Living
in Peachtreecorners dot com or follow us on Facebook at
(40:42):
Peachtree Corner's Life
Everything. It's a mobility help so all things mobility can
come together. There everything from the Gwenett County Transit Bus
as their route there to ev charleson.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to Prime Lunchtime with Brian Johnson, a monthly podcast
featuring the city manager and your host, Rico Figliolini, taking
the conversation beyond just talk. It's about getting the facts,
discussing the issues, and asking honest questions of our city.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Hi, this is Rico Figliolini, host the Patrick Corner's Life.
Appreciate you guys joining us. This is me with Brian Johnson,
the city Manager. Hey Brian, Hey Rico, how are you good?
Good to have you. We haven't done this in a while.
But before we get into this, let me just say
thank you to two of our sponsors, EV Remodeling Inc.
And Eli the owner based here in Patrick Corners. They're
(00:53):
a great company, great family that do designed to build,
so from everything from rebuilding your house to add a
deck or an extension or just redoing your kitchen. They've
done over two hundred and sixty family built homes and stuff,
so check them out. They just will do great work
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(01:17):
based on piece for Corners. If you have a company
and you're doing either trade shows or you have a
company you're trying to get your brand name out, they're
the company to do it with because they deal with
everything from vehicle wraps wrapping that whole truck or that car,
to trade show booths, to garments for your business, or
to if you're doing a peach recorners festival and you
(01:39):
need the tent and you need branding, they'll take care
of that. So anything you need, your your logo and
print it onto almost any object, they'll figure it out
for you. So check them out. Fox Popularize the company.
Tell them we sent you so thanks thanks for us
supporting us. So, Brian, it's been a while. Think we've
(01:59):
got a few things to to talk about. Lot's happening
this year. One city councilman told me it's going to
be an exciting year of stuff going on. But thing's
going on right now, So let's start off with I
guess one of the biggest things we just had an
informational meeting about. So we had a lot of comments
on our social posts about this is and this is
(02:21):
about and stalling possibly another roundabout. This was an informational meeting, right,
and a round about similar to the one that's on
p Stree Corners Circle and medluck Bridge Road, right, but
this one's going to be located between the Forum and
Creme de la Creme on also corner circle. So can
(02:41):
you give us the you know, the details on that
or high level.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah, So it boiled down. It really comes to this
if anybody has ever left the Forum on the south
end by Trader Joe's and wanted to turn on a
p Stree Corner Circle, really any direction, but certainly if
you're trying to make a left out of there, it's
kind of a dangerous, you know, intersection. It's unsignalized their
Peatree Corner Circle coming from the west or the right side.
(03:10):
If you were you know, leaving the Forum is coming
over down a hill around a corner you're crossing over,
I believe what at that point you're at least five
lanes of traffic are at two lanes each way in
a middle turning lane, and it's a dangerous intersection. And
(03:31):
as the fore activity at the Forum increases, the property
right across the street, right next to Krim de la
Creme is zoned for condos, so that could get developed,
and then we're going to talk here shortly about just
up the road the day Building properly, which is actually
the next property over that just got approved, and so
(03:54):
traffic is going to even increase even more. We cannot
put a signal, another traffic signal at that intersection because
it's too close to the Ptree Corner Circle P Street
Parkway intersection, So we either have to leave it the
way it is, or a roundabout allows people, especially the
(04:15):
most dangerous turning movement is leaving the forum turning left. Yeah,
for sure that there's no way to resolve that with
I guess unless you did a four way stop, which
I'm not, Jimmy. That's again not just two lanes of
traffic each direction. It can't put a signal. So a
(04:39):
roundabout allows people who want to turn left to actually
turn right first into the roundabout and then just stay
in the roundabout as you can go around to the left,
so it's almost like making a turning right to ultimately
make a left, but you would turn right and into
the roundabout and then just follow around about around until
(05:02):
you're now facing P Street Parkway, and then you head straight.
So we did a big traffic analysis the city did
along with Winneck County Dot and Georgia Dot and a
roundabout fits at that location. And so right now where
we're at is council. The city had an open house
(05:26):
recently to solicit public comment on it. We're sharing with
you have some and we're sharing the remainder of the
information with Eureco so people can get on your social
media posts and see, you know, but it'll ultimately you know,
a lot of this detail will be hosted on our website,
but they can see all everything from the traffic analysis,
(05:50):
the accident reports, on the design concepts. But we're doing
that so that council can ultimately decide if this is
you know, good to go project. And so that's where
we're at with that project.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Okay, and we'll have links. We have an auticle being
written about it, but we'll have links to the website
to the resources that you talked about. We'll have that
in the show notes and this video I think a
three D video also that we'll be sharing.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, it's an actual traffic model. So we took real
traffic data from that intersection and then applied it at
different times of the day on how this new roundabout
would address that traffic count, that real traffic count. So
that is not like a oh, here's you know here,
let's just throw a number of cars going through, and
(06:40):
it is actually from the traffic counts.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yes, And I remember the consultant telling me that. I
asked him, I said, it looks like an awful lot
of cars, and he says, well, this is based on
on what the traffic is.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, yeah, at the worst time, like people say at
five thirty, right, you know, how would it handle that?
I mean, it's easy to handle traffic there if it's
you know, you know, two in the afternoon, you know,
nine in the morning. But we want to know what
it's like, you know, especially in the evening and rush hour,
because the Forum is not open in the early morning. See,
(07:14):
the morning rush hour traffic isn't so bad. It's definitely
afternoon of.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
The evening and when you have people leaving the forum,
when you have people coming through wanting to go into
the Forum, you have people leaving Creme de la Creme,
you have people going left out of the QT station,
which once this is put, if I instinct correctly, it'll
be a right in right out only that is correct,
because it'll be a medium across the way you can go.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
You must be able to make a left out of
the j Alexander's curb cut that's closest to p Street Parkway.
They won't be able to do that are because that's
also that's actually going.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Across that's actually worse.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Lanes of traffic with the turning lanes included.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
I can't even see how someone wants to make a
left out of there. That's dangerous, right, yeah, it's crazy
and making a right out of or coming out of
the form by the trade of Joe's that driveway. I mean,
I've personally seen anecdotally, if you will, one or two
accidents roughly a year every months. So and that's what
(08:16):
I've seen there. And I've seen people in the medium
stacked two to three four cars and if the first
car doesn't do their turn, the car behind them wants
to want to play chicken and wants to come through.
Sometimes it's like what you know, So I'm looking as
I'm coming towards peatreek Ona's Baptist Church with the QT
behind me, I'd have to be looking at the right
(08:38):
side to see the forum. People either people coming out
to make a ride, or it's coming cutting straight across,
or wanted to go from that median going into the forum,
and even sometimes the Kreme de luck front people wanted
to make a left out of there as well cutting across,
and who's gonna at.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
The same time somebody maybe want to make a left
out of the four and Krim de la Creme for them,
and then there you know. Yeah, so the only options
we have really again, g DOT won't let us put
a traffic signal there because it's too close to their
signal on P Street Parkway right. You can't really put
(09:18):
a four way stop where you have that many lanes.
So we either leave it alone and just hope, keep
hoping for the best, or we do something that allows
anybody who wants to make a left to technically do
it by making a right into the traffic circle and
then coming back around.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
And I think there'll be some improvements based on what
we learned was learned from the roundabout at the other place,
that there'll be some what's called brambles, I guess, stopping
people cutting cross from one lane to the other as
they're coming around. So there'll be areas where they can
feed into naturally into the lane. But yeah, so I
(09:56):
thought that was good. So if you guys want check
out the links, you'll be able to see that information
and stuff. So that's cool. So let's talk about also
twenty twenty two Technology Parkway that was the that was
originally I had an old developer that came in that
(10:17):
was actually approved I think for just almost three hundred
units apartments a little more than three year, more than
three hundred, right, So now a new developer came in,
and so tell us a bit about that, because now
it's moving towards equity property I think, or well, no
is it.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
But so the original application that was approved for rezoning
was to combine twenty and twenty two Tech Park South,
which is at the corner of PIB and Technology Parkway South,
and to combine the properties and then put you know,
around three hundred and fifty ish apartment units on two
(10:56):
different I don't know if you want to call them towers,
but you know, I would say six story properties there
built on top of where the existing buildings had been
demoed and the original owner you know, ends up selling
it and so when the new developers come in, we
(11:19):
you know, work with them, and the ultimate product that
they asked to be developed is reducing it by I
don't know, somewhere near one hundred, so there's like about
one hundred less units going in as tall, but it
is still a multi family you know development right there
at the corner, all being built on existing parking lot
(11:41):
or foundation of existing building. Anybody's driven there recently, that's
an old building that had structured parking there, derelict people
are breaking into it and so it's a code enforcement
you know, kind of challenge right now. But the developers
were proved for this less dense product than was previously approved.
(12:04):
So in that vein, that's a good thing. And again
Tech Park and the businesses in Tech Park need you know,
it's healthy to have a mix of housing units in
amongst these buildings because employees like to be able to
work close to or live close to where they work.
So this is a good node right there right there
(12:26):
at PIB. So, yeah, we're excited about the project and
you know, have every reason to believe the developer is
going to jump right on it.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
It's amazing how we house its transition Tech Park five
hundred acres of office, all office to slowly being more
residential in there as well. Yeah the mix, yeah, yeah,
mix of it, because you know the world has changed,
there's still a lot of people working remote, still a
lot of you know, office buildings just you know go
(12:57):
in the way of this if you will.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
And we did part of that small area plan that
council just approved recently was a office inventory in which
we graded the quality of the remaining office and we
identify the offices that are you know, and it's a
lesser percentage, but there are some that are almost at
a point where you're not going to ever see somebody
(13:20):
fill it with you know, commercial tenants anymore because the
building requires too many upgrades for it to be competitive.
So those are ones that council will be you know
more amenable to consider transitioning it to residential some of
the office product. If an application came in and they
(13:42):
wanted to demo or repurpose an office, Council would say no,
because we do want to also protect our office product.
It's still a very important part of our you know,
local economy. So we're being very you know selective in
which ones we might allow for this to happen.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Which ones, well, talking about another one. Also the day
Building which is on Peatree Corner Circle. People might be
familiar with that building. It's just it's before the Kreme
de la crem on the right hand side going up
a hill. So they've originally came in wanted to do
two hundred and twenty five units or somewhere about their
(14:21):
retail town homes or mixed use. That was denied I
think at some point, and then they filed suit trying
to figure out, you know, we want to use this land.
Let us use this land. And then they went into
a settlement with you with the city, so tell us
a bit about that, and they resubmitted I think, right.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yes, and that is all true. And so they came
back as part of settlement discussions and changed it from
a mixed juice product that had two hundred and twenty
five is or so apartments to an all equity development
of around sixty maybe a little more than sixty town
(15:01):
homes on that product or on that property. That property
has two entrances, one on Ptree Corner Circle and then
the backside also has ingres secrets onto what's Data Drive.
Then if you take Data Drive up it goes into
Triangle Parkway, their cornerstone Christian. So this development will have
(15:23):
two entrances, so it won't have to dump everything out
on Ptree Corner Circle all the time. But it does
allow us as part of this settlement agreement, we mandated
if you are on Petree Corner Circle, say heading from
Spaulding towards Patree Parkway, and you start coming around that,
you know, down the hill around the corner, getting close
(15:46):
to the forum Krim Dela Creme, the current entrance doesn't
have a deceleration length, so people don't realize there's an
entrance there, and all of a sudden, when you're on
this corner where you would think there's no entrances anywhere,
we're at a higher rate of speed. People turning into
it all of a sudden slow down, and people behind
(16:07):
are like, why are you slowing down? So we required
a deceleration lane so now they can get out of
the normal you know, travel lane and decelerate outside of it.
That will help. But yeah, this product goes from again
two hundred plus apartment units down to sixty ish equity
(16:30):
town homes and that's it. No commercial, no retail, just residential.
And it's an office product that probably would remain vacant.
If we didn't allow this because the office is so old,
it would require more money than they could make by
keeping it office just because office product, like you said,
(16:53):
is just not at a premium right now.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
No no changing environment out there and more density, you
know what I mean? Even multi use, right, multi use
is is changing also, there's not right, there's not as
much well unless you go up to John's Creek. I
guess they just approved some big multi use retail density part.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, but that's part of their new Town Center.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Though, right, So that's a whole different thing. So two. Okay,
so there's quite a few, you know, things going on
there as far as residential development and stuff. The other
thing that I noticed.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Real real quick. We have one more and our last
council meeting we're talking about that's three thirty three research court.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Right, Okay, I was going to save that for later.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
But let's go into the Okay, Well, I mean all
it was all kind of in the whole genre of
having selected office buildings that were of poor enough quality
that the occupancy or call it the vacancy was so
high and the property owners had come in and said
we're not.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
We can't keep it as an office. We're never going
to be able to get tenants without pouring a lot
of money, and right now the demand isn't high. So
it's another one that's at the end of Research Court.
Probably the best way to know is if you're looking
at Norcross High School, right of their main building is
a bunch of classroom trailers them into the woods. There's
(18:23):
a buffer there. You would come into the back parking
lot of somewhere that the only way to drive throughd
is you got to go into Tech Park onto Technology Parkway,
Research Court and at the very back anyway, this is
converting that property into Their original attempt was to put
about I don't know one hundred just maybe under one
(18:45):
hundred stack flats was an equity product, but it was
stacked flats. They were not able to make the numbers
quite work on that, and so they've they decreased the
density of the equity and that's going to be a
round sixty ish or so town home product as well.
(19:05):
So that's where that is at, and again a carefully
selected node within Technology park Way where we feel like
having a small cluster of residential will meld well with
the existing higher quality office to create the mixed use
that Tech Park is becoming.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
You know, I like the fact that we go from
I mean there's a reason for multi use and the
reason for multifamily development actually, but I like the fact
that we're moving towards equity, like the these equity properties.
I think that most stabilizes the community also a bit.
That's a lot of development decisions that I've been made.
(19:46):
There's been some also first reads of some other stuff
that's that will be in the next city Council meeting.
So we'll have links to these things that you all
can visit because cities the city are set up on
their website of special page showing development application, so you
all can actually go there and you can actually look
through the applications and see the you know, the maps
(20:08):
and stuff and what's coming up over the next next
month of time. There's somewhere else also in Technology Park
things going on there. I saw some clear cutting just recently,
so something's happening, something's beginning. I remember seeing a check
a federal I think it was Congress mid Bordeaux at
the time, gave a check for over a half a
million dollars in back in twenty twenty two for this
(20:32):
and it's a mobility help in Technology Park So it's
called Curiosity Corner now, so tell us a little bit
about that. What's coming there?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Right, So it's at the corner of Scientific Drive and
Technology Parkway and you know really post across the street
from Global Aviation. You know that area. It is you
know what a three plus acre parcel and it's going
to be everything. It's a mobility help so all things
(21:01):
mobility can come together there. Everything from the Gwenett County
Transit bus as their route there, to ev charging so
that you can have electric vehicles, E bikes, e scooters,
all things mobility can come together there. Testing around that
with then Curiosity Lab ecosystem can happen there. There's also
(21:26):
drone on location for drone both testing and as well
as if we have interested companies that are starting to
get into the drone delivery space. A number of companies
like Amazon, Google that have arms that are doing you know,
you know, point to point you know, you know, it's
(21:49):
like I guess retail to customer direct delivery of things
like medicine and other things, but they need location in
cities to make this work. This could be one of
those We're also turning it into an amenity to make
the employees within businesses here in Technology Park have a
(22:11):
place an amenity to go to, to kind of create
the sense of place within the entirety of Tech Park here.
We're going to have food truck stalls with you know
plugins right there, covered seating with you know, fans underneath it,
and public five g WI FI. Our hope is that
(22:32):
it creates an opportunity for employees and Tech Park businesses
to be able to go to maybe for lunch and
not have to get on that river of cars that's
either P Street, Parkway or PIV you know, to get
together to you know, to socialize. There's some open space
there that there could even be some you know, organized
(22:53):
events maybe in the evening, you know something.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
You know that you're going to have some green space
three space there.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yes, So it's a it's a mix of a lot
of stuff. It is a mobility hub, but it's going
to be both for practical you know purposes and as
and testing as well, which is what this ecosystem of
Curiosity Lab has become.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
It's it's amazing the we did a podcast about main
mobility and people that have gone through Tech Park probably
have seen this car has a rap and stuff like that.
It drives like thirty five miles an hour at least,
and it's going through and people will see no driver.
There's not even.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
You know, driving person in the car, right, not.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
A person in the car, right. So it looks really
strange when you when you see it, and when I
drove in it, getting into that middle seat with some
people and seeing this car drive by itself. It's kind
of weird too because it takes you a little while too, like, damn,
look at that. It's just moving.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah, there's there's nobody there in case something happened for
them to grab the wheel.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
That's right. Yes, we've had.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Safety Stewart's and some of the other autonomous vehicles. Yeah,
so they've been autonomous, but you always had that person
that was sitting there and there are there. They weren't driving,
but they were there. This one doesn't even have that,
so it is a little bit of an experience.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
So the interesting part is too that it goes so
go up and down Technology Parkway, and it goes through
City Hall parking, you know, City Hall ere and then
comes out and goes to with the former and to
be jug Jug turn if you want to call it that,
where it comes out and make a left back out
(24:34):
onto the street to come on back. So we're doing
a photo.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Also goes through the Marriott parking.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Lot right to Marriott. Yep. So we're we're doing a
photo shoot in front of City Hall. We have the
marshals there and we're doing this photo shoot. The Cross
are park right literally in front of City Hall and
we're doing the shoot and all of a sudden, I
noticed there's a car waiting like to get through, and
I'm like, it turned and it's the main mobility. It's
(25:00):
like it stopped and it's just waiting. I'm like, that's
supposed to be staging from here. What is going on? No,
the damn thing. It's just waiting. It's waiting. It's like,
I think we need to let it go through. So
we step off the parking lot a bit now, Mando,
the these martial cars are pointing towards us, away from
the building. They were like we had three of them
(25:22):
there like that, and so we stepped off. We're still
near the edge and it's not moving, so like, maybe
it's the cars and maybe it'sself. What if we take
a couple more steps back. We did that all of
a sudden, after a second or two, it decides, okay,
maybe i'll slowly stop moving, So slowly starts moving, weaves
its way up and then picks up speed and then goes.
(25:44):
And it was like it was actually waiting for us.
Look at that. It actually worked what it's supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Yeah, it does. Although you know, susly, we have people there.
You know, normally, if somebody was there and you didn't
want to move, you know, you could like motion them
to like go around or something.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Really, but you know, because if you were.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Up there and I'm like, Rico, we're doing something, can.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
You go right, You're like okay, but that won't do it.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
It's like, look, this is the direction of travel I'm
supposed to be driving.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
You're in my way.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
My you know, AI and my you know, all our
sensors say I can't go until you get out of
the way. But once you do, it's like all right,
it looks clear, all right, and then it goes. I mean,
so it works.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
No, and it made it the right choice because the
three cars that were pointing at it pretty much as
it was going, and but it was waiting for us
to get off, and then it made that decision that
those three cars are parked even though they weren't in
parking spaces. So it had to make that intelligent choice
to say it's not gonna move, they're just pointing that way.
(26:48):
It's stable for the last five minutes. Yeah, it was
just an interesting thing to say. Yeah, all right, So
we got just a few more quick things. We talked
about a little bit about a special use permit that's
being This is a big proactive decision the city Council's
making and the city's making about data centers and creating
(27:11):
special use permit for a walk us through. Why why
that as a proactive thing? Why that makes sense?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah. So also at this last council meeting we had,
we had a couple of preemptive moves. This one is
just merely for us to require anybody wanting to construct
a data center. And by data center, I'm essentially saying
these are large buildings that are constructed to house server farms.
And this is when somebody says, oh, you know, I'm
(27:39):
saving something to the cloud. Well, there's not anything actually
in the cloud. It's still going to a server, but
the cloud is really server farms, and these are these
can be hundreds of thousands of square feet of just
servers that require a lot of electricity and a lot
of water to oftentimes cool the space. And you know,
(28:03):
they have they serve a purpose. But if you're not
careful and somebody's got the current zoning allow for it,
you could find property chewed up with very large buildings
that don't really provide value to the city because you
could have hundreds of thousand square feet of these servers
and five employees that are managing it, and it's not
(28:27):
generating retail transactions for us to get sales tax, and
it's not the headquarters of a company that would pay
us a business license. So we essentially could have large,
you know, very valuable property chewed up with this, but
it's not a value add to us as a city.
(28:48):
We feel like there might be exceptions where we could
have a modest size one, maybe maybe in conjunction with
something else, with a Google or whatever, Amazon, whatever, but
oftentimes these big ones are better left for more rural areas.
You know, we we we've become more of a redevelopment
(29:09):
city because we don't have a lot of undeveloped property
left right, so our property is a premium and so
there's Metro Atlanta has a lot of tire kicking going
on with developers wanting to do it because the demand
for cloud storage just keeps going up and up, and
we just we want to be very careful. So we
(29:30):
made it to where each specific instance has to get
in front of council and has to have a public hearing,
and so that's what this is to do.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
So you at the beginning before we started the podcast,
were saying there were a lot of tire kickings going on.
I guess it was it from that or was it
also from trends that you saw other cities having some
of the same issues, had that this sort of you know,
get on your list of that we need to take
care of us.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Well reading some of the recent I think even the
AJAC had not to, but a couple of weeks ago
a recent article about the demand in Georgia as a
whole or Metro Atlanta specifically, and so that got it
kind of got on our rad screen. We did have
specific tire kicking going on here by a developer who
was actually you know, my community development director, Sean Adams
(30:20):
will get calls with people asking hey, I'm you know,
representing a property owner or whatever, and I wanted to
know is this an eligible use? And he was getting
a little bit of those, and so then he did look,
you know, he did look out nationally to see what
our cities doing, what are best practices. He took that
(30:44):
and crafted his own language that made it ours and
then presented it to me and I put it on
the agenda for council to consider. So all of what
you said is Boyle or you know, added together as
kind of how it ultimately got on an agenda. But
it is a preemptive move. So this we will we
now do have this protection. So if somebody you want
(31:06):
to do it, Council's got to prove it and there's
got to be a public hearing so the community gets
a chance to weigh on a way in on it
as well.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
It's good to see the function of city of the
city mechanics, if you will, how things come about, why
you look at certain things and stuff. So it's good
I think for the public to see this that ess
just pulled out of nowhere. It's like why why this is?
Why data is not there as well, because these trends
that you all even went out to look at the
(31:35):
competitive field, what was being done, best practices, It's all
great Rezoning Board of Appeals, the Rezoning Board, I guess,
and the Planning Commission. There were recently and I've noticed
there on the on the on the I guess through
the year is it the rezoning or the Zoning Board
of Appeals? I guess there were a lot of canceled
(31:57):
meetings at certain points wasn't being probably needed, but you
all decided to merge I guess both the both of those.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Yes, so Zoning Board of Appeals. Here's cases of you know,
where somebody has you know, a hardship due to a
zoning or a code compliance, you know, and so they
don't have a lot of cases every year. In fact,
two years ago we went the entire year and there
(32:27):
was no no, no case for them to hear, no
hardship case for the way in on. So it started
to get to where it, you know, you ask somebody
or somebody is interested in being civically active, you put
them on a you know, the ZBA, and theny don't
have a meeting for a year or they're canceled out
that's one. Two training. You know, you like to these
(32:49):
board members oftentimes go to training, and you know, we
want them to be trained up, and so we just
thought that, you know what, will you know, support and
provide even additional training to one group. And we combine
the Planning Commission and the ZBA together. So now planning
commissioners we'll also hear, you know, appeal cases on city
(33:13):
code that the ZBA would have heard, and so we're
combining it. We're adding because it's a more call it
a body that's hearing two types of cases. We decided
to add two additional spots. So the Planning Commission grew,
but now we won't have a ZBA. The Planning Commission
will serve in that capacity.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
And for people that may not be where Planning Commission,
these are volunteer positions of appointed people, citizens from our community.
The Zoning Board of Appeals would look at not only
commercial but residential appeals. Right, so if someone wanted a
little leniency on the easement on their property maybe or
they needed or.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
They wanted to park an RV. A common one is
park an RV in their driveway in Italy if they're
not using it for long period, you know where that's
not allowed per code and they make a hardship case
and you know the ZBA would say, yeah, you you know,
you do have a hardship case. We're going to allow
it on that particular property. So it's an important role.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Yeah for sure. Okay, cool, So so that's cool. So
I think the next one was the new zoning district
for the INFILLD residential development. So so what does that
mean to most people?
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Brian?
Speaker 3 (34:33):
What's the end?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Well, you know people knew anything about Peatree Corners. Again,
they're going to look at the city and be like,
you know, there's not a lot of undeveloped property left,
so you know, we are more of redevelopment. So now
new projects are oftentimes they involve the tearing down of
a of a a use that's run its cycle. You know,
(34:54):
maybe it was an office building for fifty years, but
now it's time for there to be a new office
or something else or maybe a combination. Well, when that happens,
there are oftentimes pockets of smaller properties that maybe things
have changed and we could put them to good use.
(35:15):
I'm a good example of that would be commercial office
buildings used to have a higher parking spot per square
foot ratio than we need. Now there used to be
the you know, the big sea of parking in front
of a big, you know, box store is no longer
(35:36):
the case. So we we oftentimes have office product is
a good you know, again a good example where there
could be twice the amount of parking that they need,
but they'd like to do something with it. Well, maybe
there's an opportunity for infill. And so there are pockets,
and there's not a lot of them, but we have
(35:57):
pockets where we were kind of like, what are we
going to do with these? We don't have a zoning
classification that allows for certain smaller you know, you could
almost argue shoehorn things. But yet if you don't do anything,
it's kind of a waste of a property. And so
we want to maximize our property and be as flexible
as we can. So again, Community Development Director looked at
(36:21):
best practices and came up with the infill residential. So
this could be to where you could put smaller, you know,
pockets of residential and oftentimes maybe it doesn't have the
same buffer requirement that you would normally have or some
of those other things, and so it's just a way
for us to be flexible. Again, there's not a lot
(36:43):
of cases, but there are some cases where we think
there could be a use here. So it's just providing us.
It's adding to our you know, our our bag of
tricks if you will, when it comes to trying to
maximize what is not We're not getting any more property
right now. We've got to make the best of what
we have.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
So it's good to see city being proactive, so not
just reactive to everything that's coming along, right. We want
to plan things out. I mean, that's why the comprehensive
plan is there that just got revised and stuff. We've
hit on quite a few things, So a lot of
stuff going on in city, more things coming anything that
(37:24):
we've left out, Brian, that you just want to mention
for the time being or no, not really, I.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Mean, you know, encourage people to go. I think you
put a link on there. The latest addition of Peatree
Corners Life has the mayor has a column in there.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Yes, on that website about deer population.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yes, and you know deer. So for those who want
to know what we're doing, and we're actively getting to
a point where where we will have a deer management plan.
But if anybody's curious as to what we're doing there,
I encourage them to read that. But you know, right now,
that was you know, our last council meeting was a
lot of land you stuff, yep, good things. Essentially, all
(38:05):
but one project was equity and you know, and all
of it was city negotiated a less dense product, taking
into consideration traffic and other things. So you know, I
think these are going to be it's going to be
new injection of life into property that right now is stagnated.
(38:27):
So good things and we'll can continue to drive forward.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Sounds good. We've been spending our time with Brian Johnson,
city Manager. Always appreciate his willingness to come on and
talk about things Southwest Winnette Magazine just show you. This
just is probably hitting your mailbox this week. Wesleyan audist
market that's happening at the end of April, so check
(38:53):
this out. Some decently good stories in here about summer
camps and local author great Atlanta Christian and their expansion
and some other things. Even a former Beatles tribute drummer
who just often opened the coffee shop here and Ptre
Industrial Boulevard. Well p Tree Boulevard. Actually, I need to
start saying that.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
There's still a section that's p IB. Yeah, I mean,
technically it's p Tree Boulevard. If you're heading north from
two eighty five until the split. At the split, stay
on the right heading north, it's still PIB. It's only
Ptree Boulevard while it's a state route.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Gotcha. Thanks for explaining that there is.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Still a section of PIB as it heads up into Yeah,
you gotta be a government junkie to know all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
No, I appreciate it. And I'm more of a political
chunkie than government's junkie, so but thanks.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
I'm paid to be a government junkie, so.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
For sure, thank you. Brian. Everyone else, yeah, no, hang
with me for a second, but everyone else, thank you.
You'll find the important links below, and if this is
on YouTube or Facebook, just check out our website and
you'll look for this post, this podcast post, and you'll
see all the links in there leading back to pictures
(40:12):
and all sorts of things that you need. All right,
thank you guys, appreciate you being with us. Bye.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
You've been listening to Prime Lunchtime with Brian Johnson, the
city manager of Peachtree Corners, Georgia with your host, Rico Figlioni.
The show is part of a family of podcasts produced
by Peachtree Corners Magazine and Mighty Rockets. To find more
episodes of this show or our other podcasts, visit Living
in Peachtreecorners dot com or follow us on Facebook at
(40:42):
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