What's going on at Jones Bridge Park and the Challenges of Urban Development

In this episode of Prime Lunchtime with the City Manager, host Rico Figliolini discusses the ongoing trash problems at Jones Bridge Park in Gwinnett County with City Manager Brian Johnson. They explore the park's overcrowding, littering, and the challenges of managing such a popular amenity. The conversation also touches on recent city council decisions regarding new apartment developments, focusing on smart city features, development approvals, balancing office market and community needs, navigating mixed-use development challenges, and the complexities of property rights and community growth. Tune in to hear insights on balancing community needs, maintaining public spaces, and navigating the complexities of urban development. 

Timestamp:
00:00:00 - Jones Bridge Park Vandalism Concerns
00:01:40 - Challenges at Jones Bridge Park: Overcrowding, Lack of Oversight, and Resident Concerns
00:08:55 - Addressing Trespassing and Security Concerns at a Local Park
00:14:24 - Automated Gate Proposal for Park Closure
00:16:54 - Proposal for Improving Park Management and Funding
00:18:48 - Balancing Amenities and Maintenance Costs in Public Spaces
00:23:32 - Maintaining Public Spaces and Addressing Transient Residents
00:25:48 - Development Approvals: Recommendations and Council Decisions
00:30:27 - Balancing Office Market and Community Needs
00:34:38 - Navigating Mixed-Use Development Challenges
00:37:56 - The Complexities of Development Approvals
00:44:04 - Property Rights and Community Growth
00:47:11 - Complexities of Urban Development
00:51:34 - Addressing Affordable Housing Challenges in the Community

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You know, the more they knowabout the complications of this and understand what
council is face with, the morethey'll appreciate. Welcome to Prime Lunchtime with
Brian Johnson, a monthly podcast featuringthe city manager and your host, Rico
Figliolini, taking the conversation beyond justtalk. It's about getting the facts,

(00:24):
discussing the issues, and asking honestquestions of our city. Hi everyone,
this is Rico Figliolini, hosts ofPea Street Corner's Life here in Gwinneca County,
the city of Pea Street Corners.I'm more with Brian Johnson. Hey
Brian, how are you here?We go go good? How are you
good? Good? Beautiful day.It's been hot weather, although thank god

(00:45):
we don't have a hurricane really comingour way, so I think we'll find
that one. We're here before westart on our show that we do we
tried to do every month about thecity with our city manager, Brian.
I just want to say thank youto ev Remodeling in for being an elive,
for being a sponsor of these podcastsand a good community resident and business

(01:07):
here in peatreet one is as well. They do design and build renovation work
on homes. Check them out atEvremodelinginc dot com. We appreciate them supporting
our journalism and our podcasts. Solet's let's get right to it. We've
been gone from doing this for afew weeks, but I think the first
thing that we should start off withis something that's been out there and our

(01:32):
next door a bit. And Idon't know if it's quite as bad,
although I've seen the pictures and itseems as bad, but Jones Bridge Park
seems to be getting trashed on aregular basis, and July fourth wasn't a
good weekend for that, with lotsof stuff just being treshed all over the
place there. But so you know, some people have complained about that.

(01:55):
Some people have complained about the amountof police presence that have been called.
I think one one person said therewere over three hundred calls for police to
visit in one year in twenty twentythree. I don't know if that's true.
Sounds like a lot to me,but I thought we'd talked to you,
Brian about it, because you know, obviously, even though it's a

(02:15):
county park, the city's aware ofwhat's going on there, and so I'm
curious what is going on there?Well, you know beyond what I see,
and you know, does the cityhave anything they can do about it?
So there is some challenges with jonesBridge Park, you know, Ron
I will say also important to establisha couple of things here. You know,

(02:38):
one, Jones Bridge Park is acounty owned and maintain park and so
you know there are some conversations we'vehad with them about things. And you
know, after the conversation has beenhad, we don't control. You know,
if it was our park, Iget in up, go into my

(03:00):
Parks and rec director and be likefix it. So it is you know,
county owned maintained by the Gwenett CountyParks in WRAQ. Our police department
is Gwenett County PD. And sotheir presence or you know, lack thereof,

(03:23):
as some people you know have expressedfrustration about, is them. Now
you know that's not the just youknow, relinquish all involvement. But you
know there are there is a thirdparty involved in you know, helping resolve
some of these challenges. Now,the challenge is exacerbate a challenge of any

(03:44):
public space in this case is exacerbatedbecause Jones Bridge Park is one of the
few parks at least in this areathat has access like improved access down into
the Chattahoochie River. Yes, soit is a very developed park because it

(04:09):
has everything from a lot of coveredpavilion space, picnic tables, grills.
It's a gorgeous location. It's theonly place on the Chattahoochie River anywhere near
here that has some I want tocall them rapids, right. And then

(04:29):
it has it has improved stone stepsto where you can walk into the Chattahoochie
and not have to like, youknow, go down some little goat path
or whatever. Oh, it's beautiful. They've done a great job there,
it is. Then it has abig playground, and then it also has
a section of it has athletic fieldswhere there's league soccer. Right. So

(04:54):
when you combine all of that,you have a lot of people who don't
have access to a park that wantto go or excuse me, they don't
have access to nice facilities like coveredpavilions and outdoor grills or whatever, and
they go to the park because it'sa gorgeous location. There's things for the

(05:15):
kids to do, you can gettogether in grill. So it attracts.
You know, it's one of thosethings where you create your own problem,
and you know, in this caseit has And then to compound things,
there are some neighborhoods that back upright to it. And we've even had

(05:36):
tournaments in which ways or just evenGoogle Maps, somebody will drive into the
park and there's no parking for likeleague soccer tournaments that will actually drive into
the back of Lynnfield Subdivision that backsup to it and walk through the side
yards the park free in Lynnfield andthen walk between two houses that back up

(06:01):
to the parks to get no wonderthere, no wonder. Some of those
residents are upset. Yes, Irealized that, and I know the parking
can be challenging that, yes,so that's all you know. So now
that's what all of us Genett Countyas well as the city are trying to
regulate. You know, a Fourthof July weekend is you know, probably

(06:25):
one of the you know, bestexamples where you just get a crush of
people because everybody wants to be outsidegrillin and having a good time. I
cannot speak to Gwenette County Parks inwreck In that whether they planned for their
parks to have, you know,a a need for enhanced cleanup event.

(06:55):
You know, I'd like to thinkthat they realize the Fourth of July weekend
is going to require extra you know, parks come out and get trash and
all that kind of stuff. Thatparticular type of thing has not really been
where a lot of the challenges are. It's been people that down there when

(07:16):
they should not be, oftentimes lateat night. You know, I gave
the examples of soccer tournaments and whatever. That's that's more rare. What is
more common is the park hours closeat eleven PM. At that point,
you're not supposed to be there,right but because there's lack of personnel from

(07:44):
Gwenett County Parks and Rec or GwenettCounty Police, the veticular gate that the
park just passed. Since an elementarystays open because there's nobody, they don't
have the staff to have somebody closeit every night and then reopen it the
next day. So then what happensis people either know that you know about

(08:07):
it, they go down there,and then going at PD's presence down there
for whatever reason has not been particularlyconsistent. So there are gaps in which
somebody is down there and we havecalls of cars down there doing donuts,
drag racing. Is it true thatit's like three hundred calls? I mean

(08:31):
someone said that did an opens recordAct and they saw three hundred times that
the police will call down to thepark. I mean, is that even
Well, yeah, that is potentiallypossible because or if you consider every call
going in to be separate. Sofor instance, let's say we add some

(08:52):
motorcycles back there, you know,doing donuts, revving, you know,
drag racing at midnight or one inthe morning. You could get five people
who live in Lynnfield that call nineto one one. They'll trap five,
but it's actually one incident, gotcha? Okay, so that makes more sense.

(09:13):
The number could get up there.But you know, if you told
me that there were one hundred calls, you know, or separate instances in
which nine one one was called becausepeople were doing things trespassing and doing things
late at night or whatever, youknow, one hundred calls a year probably
would not make me say, youknow, but the three hundred plus those

(09:37):
are probably counting every individual call,not sua. But there are I mean,
one incident down there is too many, certainly many many. You know,
tens, maybe one hundred, that'sway too many. Where we have
been involved of late is we havehad the marshall down there on a few

(10:05):
times where we have seen on socialmedia they're being some talk by car clubs
and others that eat there. Marshalshave been there and it's hard to know
if we did in fact prevent itfrom materializing. They've been down there,

(10:26):
They've had cars pull in and thenturn around leave because they saw them.
But we have involved there and thenthe latest is, you know, currently
Gwennett County Parks and Rec through theirdirector Chris Minor, is considering a proposal
I proposed to them, and thatis on the vehicular side. Chris and

(10:52):
I had a conversation it's many monthsago, but conversation about the vehicle gate
being closed. He you know againintimated to me, I don't have the
staff to do it, and thenwhenever PD doesn't. So I said,
all right, this is what I'llpropose. We'll put an LPR camera there

(11:13):
and there is there is a licenseplate reader camera right there at the vehicular
gate go into the park, sowe can when you know, there are
incidents there, we do pull videoto see if we can use it now.
A lot of these car clubs,they'll or motorcycle clubs or whatever they

(11:37):
know about LPR camera, so oftentimesthey'll put something over their license plate when
they're getting ready to being illegal man. So the camera doesn't always get a
good face, or we get aface, but we don't have any way
to know their name, so aface in anything if we can't, you
know, run the name to toyou know to run so but we do

(11:58):
have camera. We already install it. It's working. The second thing I
posed and he went back and said, well, I've got to run this
up the flagpole. I said,we will buy a automated gate. Okay,

(12:18):
down at eleven and up at Ibelieve it opens at seven and if
you are stuck behind it and youcome up to it, the motion will
have it to where you can leave, but you wouldn't be able to get
back in. Gotcha. If then, once we install it, they then
commit to maintaining it, and itis some degree of maintenance. Anytime you

(12:41):
have automated anything, it breaks moreoften than you know a gate that youve
got to get out of your carand walking around the lock. So there
is some dollar amount component to it. But that's what I offered, is
to you know, buy them anautomated would be similar to like, so

(13:05):
you're waiting on them, is there? I mean, is that like that's
like the railroad thing that's like theone behind the forum. I guess that's
just a bar that goes down.That's correct, and by the way,
more solid material than like just thewood you know, painted to you know,
some of the railroad ones are alittle bit flimsy. You know,

(13:26):
it's more this is both to kindof know that you're not supposed to be
there, and it should be solidenough that you wouldn't want a car to
go through it because it would damagethe car. Some of the railroad ones,
I'm not sure if you would evendamage it if you you know,
hit them. No, no,no, yeah, I get that.
And I mean the only other thingI can think of is if I was

(13:48):
a car a fanatic, I sendsomeone to the other side of it to
like wave the sensor so then itopens and then we could drive in.
I mean, yeah, yeah,there is no way that somebody is hell
bent on or we can just youknow, make but that's but that's the

(14:09):
easiest thing. The thing I wasthinking as long as it's somewhat of the
same lines that you were thinking.And I'm not sure what the the sheriff's
hours are, but there's a gatethere that closes. It just needs a
good lock on it, you know. Can't said there's already a gate there,
but you have to have somebody physicallygo out and then physically go out

(14:31):
the next morning to unlock it.And what Miner had said is I don't
have the staff right PD is like, we don't have the staff to do
that. So like you know,you know, would love to have to
close the lock. But what I'msaying is in lieu of that gate,

(14:56):
you know down and and it couldbe two arms that you know, can't
get it to go up. Youcan even go so far as if you're
on the other side after the parkcloses, you could end up to where
it doesn't go up with motion.The Fields Club actually does this there facilities

(15:18):
where if you're caught behind the gateafter hours right not supposed to be there,
you actually have to call the nonemergency number for Gwinnette Pad. They
have a key and they'll get outthere at that, you know, whenever
they can. And that almost soundsbetter because you know, if the park
is closing technical is it at duskor is it technically at eleven pm?

(15:41):
It was eleven I mean, maybethere's ms I thought it was, so,
I mean, I think it's reasonablethat whoever's still there should just be
stuck there and calling them now probablywith that again, but again that's not
our park, right. I wouldturn it over at Parks and w rec

(16:03):
they could work that out, butNOE, I'll find that unreasonable that if
the hours of the park are clearlyyou know, you know, articulated through
signage there, you get caught behindthe gate after it closes, you got
to call an emergency number. They'llhave the ability to raise it. But
maybe then, and I think inthe Fields Club their arrangement is if a

(16:26):
Gwenette PDE officer has to come outand unlock the gate, they get a
violation at the same time. Sowait there for however long it took for
somebody to have the time to getthere. That was possible because then it
wouldn't be staff intensive. But youknow Chris's point and what I'll take it,

(16:51):
and that is you're providing me anamenity that does or will have to
have maintenance dollars attack to it,right, So it was like I need
to run this up flagpole whatever,and I just have back. But that
that's our current po Yeah, Ithink that's a great propulsal. I think
you can even modify that to thedegree that, like you said, you

(17:15):
know what what the other what thelinfield does, I guess is to give
a particulate because how many times issomeone really going to be stuck behind there?
Anyway? It's it's you know,you know, at some point is
it every night? Doubtful? Right, I mean, it's just it's not
going to be like that. Andif it is, there's another problem.
But you know, right, andand the cleanup part I can understand that,

(17:40):
you know, being an issue,and that's not always. I know
there is an issue like that sometimes. I'm especially summertime weekends where the trash
bins are overflowing. There's not enoughtrash bins. They don't want to put
more trash beans, maybe to putplastic bags there, but people do steal
the plastic bags, you know.You know there's other parks. You know,

(18:02):
if we had a nonprofit set upcalled like Friends of Jones Bridge Park,
you know where they raise some money, they go and they buy some
more containers for the parks because maybe, like you said, I mean,
there's there's always there, there's alwaysexpenses like to maintain things. People don't
understand that. Even Simpson Wood,which is a passive park, which is

(18:23):
what Jones Bridge is. That thatbudget, I'm sure, I think they
said was three hundred and seventy thousanda year for that park. That sounds
like a lot, but there's trashcollection every week. There's a bunch of
other things that have to be donethere, mulching and all that stuff.
Yeah, well Jones Bridge is anactive park because it has activated it's got

(18:44):
active programming, it's got soccer.That's true, So it is. Yeah,
I would I would supplement what yousaid by just saying, you know,
as government, any time we're lookingto add an amenity, there are
two types of dollars that you haveto consider. That is the you know,

(19:08):
the upfront cost of constructing the amenity, improving the amenity, whatever,
you know, take it up.I mean, you know, we get
constantly people who tell the city,oh, you should just buy that property
and turn it into a part.Well one as soon as you have a
public you know, parcel, peoplewant it to be improved. Hey,

(19:30):
picnic tables there, can you puta playground or whatever. And now you
get into the second dollar amount,and that is the annual amount that you've
got to budget to maintain it.We have pushed back in some cases on
things that we have the money todo right then, but we know that
it's going to be adding a annualcost that we just do not want to

(19:52):
go down that road. And soyou have to make the decision that,
look, we either need to dothis, maintain this right, or don't.
You know, our town Center isa good example. I mean,
you know we've created, you know, some of our own maintenance, you
know, challenges maintenance, you know, obligations by putting in more playground equipment,

(20:17):
attracting more people. So we haveto but we committed. But that's
our downtown and we're going to makesure manage it right. If you can't,
then close it or do something,you know, and there are even
intermediate steps. If grills, grillsare actually a controversial thing to add to
a park, Yeah, grills there. It attracts people who want to spend

(20:44):
time with larger groups of people.If you don't have that you would not
have as many out of the fourthof July, you know stuff. So
if people unfortunately don't take care ofthings and take care of their own tracks,
which they should. Yeah, andby the way, a nonprofit or
a community group has been discussed forthe problem is I've been in meetings with

(21:12):
even Gwenette County Parks and w RECin the room, but residents talking about
what's going on. Oftentimes when itcomes up, the residents are kind of
like, you know, hey,who's going to be part of that group?
Right, No, there's a lotof people who have a lot of
demands on their time, and soit's going to invariably be the people who
live right there. And then theirother argument is you are charging us Gwenette

(21:37):
County Parks and Rec specific millage orproperty tech to maintain these things. You
know, why are we having tosupplement you taking taxes bus that are specific
to barks and wreck and now wealso do extra work. Aren't allocating the

(21:59):
resources necessary to maintain your l Thisis why there are cities like Duluth and
John's Creek I believe does this thathave their own parks department because this way
they know they can zone down totheir locality. They can take care of
their own parks. You know,Gwinetta is huge. Granet does a great
job the parks department. I thinkthere's a really great job in maintaining a

(22:22):
lot of the sports facilities, alot of the parks. But it's a
demanding thing. Like you said,I mean, it's then you've got to
deal with people's just people being trashyyea fourth of July, there's if there's
not enough trash bins, they don'tthey're not going to take trash home with
them, They're going to leave itthere. And unfortunately, and that's a
sad thing that that's just the waythat is. One of three. Either

(22:45):
got to have representative down there duringthe day to be policing as it's happening,
right, it's not. You eithercan put extra trash bins out there
or remove some of the amenities thatare trash. What you hate to do
saying when people don't you know theirbehavior as such, that's another recommending.

(23:08):
I'm just saying that. Or youallocate, you know, you come up
with the schedule that you know theday after fourth of July you're going to
extra cruise going out there. Toclean it up because you know, you
know, it's like our concerts,the wedding after concerts on the town Green,

(23:29):
we have extra staff that goes outthere and cleans it up really well,
because we knew that there's going tobe a lot of people on the
town Green. People just don't takecare of stuff that's not theirs. It's
sad, but it's reality, andwe just have to you know, allocate
resources accordingly, and so, yeah, there are some things that can be

(23:52):
done to mitigate this. You know, Unfortunately, Jones Bridge Park is a
great amenity. Great amenities attract peoplefrom parts way outside of Peachtree Corners and
you know, and more people thanthe residents would normally load on that park.

(24:14):
And you know, that's the downsideof having a great unique amenity.
At least at least the city's talkingto the county and you're just waiting to
hear back at least about that gig. Yeah, particular thing. Yes,
we will continue to because it isin our corporate limits and we are interested
and those residents there should not bedealing with what they're dealing with. So

(24:37):
sure, well, you know,but you know, certainly, you know,
it would be better if we controlledit directly, no doubt about it.
We don't. All right, socool, I'm glad we got to
talk about that. I know thatit's a it is a big deal.
I mean this stuff, And you'reright, people just don't take care of
things that are not there sometimes,which which second way a little bit into

(25:00):
apartments to some degree. Right,it's not equity, it's transient a bit,
right, People rent apartments and stuff. Apartments not not a bad thing
per se, it's just if it'sdone well. And two apartment zonings just
came up, right, the dayBuilding and the Da Vinci Court applications,

(25:21):
and I was reading before I knewthat they were both denied. I was
reading a bit of the conditions onthe day Building one, for example,
that was proposed for two hundred andforty eight units with a minimum like three
thousand square feet of commercial space stillto be retained. And there was a
bunch of really good, strong conditionson here about smart development, smart city

(25:44):
developments, led lights, l licenseplate readers have to be their security systems
on the property, smart home technologywithin the residential units. It's all like
good stuff good we I mean,probably won't too true and horn, so
I will. But you know,some of those have been the result of
previous conversations you and I have hadon this very podcast where we've talked about

(26:10):
are there things city can do?And developer are coming in front of us
and wanting something to make it better, And my job as an application works
through the process with the help ofstaff, is to make a project as
good as I can on the offchance that it's approved. Even in instances

(26:38):
where the recommendation from staff might beto deny for their reasons, my job
is still because I don't know.You know, I don't vote, and
council still has to vote, soI have to be prepared for either one.
So you know, even if ininstances will recommend denial, we will

(26:59):
still continue you to put pressure onthe applicant to agree to conditions to make
the product the best we can.If in fact council says, yeah,
mister city Manager, we hear yourrecommendation, but we like it, We're
going to prove it. And atleast I know I did everything I could
to make it the best, sothat's no different here. I mean it

(27:22):
didn't get approved if it had been, we made it as good of a
product as we could have possibly madeit. And I agree, and you
guys have done a great job,and certainly through conversations, I mean you've
added things even beyond what what Iwould like to see. But I'm glad
that you're also incorporating stuff like thatbecause it's you know, being able to

(27:47):
be a smart city and work thesedevelopments in a smart way makes sense to
me. Right, if we keepsaying we're a smart city, then we'd
better be making sure that what comesto fruition addresses some of that, right,
because otherwise what's the point. Andyou know, having I mean there
was also I think you guys cameup with the participation of developments like this

(28:07):
in the crime free multi family housingprogram, which I thought was great.
The individually metered areas of you know, apartment units this way at some point,
could they be made into condo equityproperty. Yes, by doing that,
even putting that they have to puttwenty thousand dollars worth of innimum value

(28:30):
of public art in the lobby insteadof this just being a cookie cutter trying
to let's just fit two hundred andforty apartments on some hill, which is
what they the big building essentially on. So I'm glad that you guys are
doing that. But let's get intowhy then, because Da Vincico was another
one that applied for apartment development forgethow many units, and this was basically

(28:56):
using an empty parking space to adegree. I guess I know the moratorium
that you will placed on the CentralBusiness District did that run? That was
for six months? Right, itis, we're currently in it. But
these both if somebody an applicant hadactually or a developer had dropped an application
in even an hour before the mararatoriumstarts, they got in the door.

(29:22):
We can't, you know, sothese that they had been in the process
for a while. I mean,as you know, these things really,
once the application is officially in ourprocess, unless we kind of push it
along a little faster for other reasons, it's generally ninety to one hundred and
twenty days before it is actually votedon, so it takes some time.

(29:45):
I mean, you know, socan we say that well, I don't
know if we can say this,but the city Council voted denial on both
of these seven zip seven to zerodenial. One of them was I don't
know if the other one was thatthey building was actually recommend for approval by
the Planning Department, I believe becauseit fits. Both of them were okay,

(30:07):
but the city Council representatives of thepeople decided seven to nothing that these
should not go move forward spirit ofthe moratorium or other reasons. And Moretorium
didn't really have anything to do withthese two. More toorum was really just
to give us a brief period oftime to take a closer look at a

(30:33):
very specific part of the city inour case, Central Business District and really
even more granular than that the officeproduct within it, and drilled down a
little bit more on making sure thatboth we have some additional things that might

(30:55):
protect us from having just more ofa crush of these mixed use development that
have aspects of it Council of thecommunity doesn't want. At the same time,
maybe looking at certain certain areas wherewe might actually loosen the code to

(31:15):
allow for some creative uses of underperformingoffice's got to be very careful. You
know, we are a you know, second largest unicipallt in Georgia with no
city property tax. One of thereasons that's the case, about thirty percent
of our general fund budget is frombusiness license revenue. So we've got to

(31:40):
make sure we're doing everything we cando and sure that businesses are healthy and
they're generating income in this city sothat then we get business license revenue from
it. And right now, theoffice market is really soft and there's a
lot of underperforming office buildings in whichthe owners are coming to us. You

(32:00):
know, I can't build it.I'm underwater, you know, will you
let me redevelopment into Well, thoseare coming, and we don't get to
choose what applicants come here. Sosure everybody has a legal right to ultimately
be heard by council with a voteof yes or no. So we're trying
to make trying to tweak the compplan section of the Central Business District.

(32:24):
We're thinking about breaking out the townCenter Forum kind of that you know area
right there that's more retail centric andmake that a little bit more unique from
Tech Park. Right now, they'retogether as part of our Central Business District,

(32:44):
and as you know, you wellknow, our local economy is both.
But tech parks, you know,type of use is way different than
a retail hub, sure center,and the retail hub is part of the
entertainment over life yeah, there's anoverlay over that to where you know,
you can do things like walk outof a restaurant with a beer and walk

(33:07):
down you know, the sidewalk andwindows shop, or go to the town
whatever. But yeah, so we'retrying to make that central business district.
Break it down even into a moregranular level, might be able to allow
us to again on one extreme,maybe protect ourselves from you know, constantly

(33:29):
getting stuff. So this will allowus to kind of forecast to people who
are looking at it what we mayor may not or a council may or
may not be open to. Butalso you know, tweaking some things.
I mean, you and I talkedprior to the podcast about you know,
an existing office building that was veryclose to putting in pickleball inside of what

(33:51):
was or actually still is a commercialoffice building broken up into offices for or
you know, white collar administrative occupants. They were going to gut the whole
thing. And the reason is isbecause right now there's not a lot of
people looking for office space, rightand the owners like, I'm trying to

(34:15):
get creative here. So we've gotto be creator or make sure that our
code for the right things in theright, instances might allow for a little
bit more creative things than our zoningcode foresaw when it was written many many

(34:35):
decades ago. Right, And sothat's why the moratorium exists. It did
not have anything to do with council'sconsideration of these two applications to do.
The from what you heard from thecouncil is the opportunity for these to come
back in different forms, like youknow, obviously two untred and forty eight
units studio one, two bedroom multifamily. I think that was we'll talk about

(35:00):
stacked flats in the day building rezoning. You know, no one's saying that,
you know, this is a mudmulti use development, a mixed use
development, mixed use. The problemwith that is that these types of things,
and I can see why the mororatorywas put in place because all these
applications that are coming is like wewant to put these two hundred and fifty

(35:22):
plus apartments and we'll keep three thousandsquare feet or twenty five hundred feet or
twelve hundred feet as restaurant or breakfastplace or you know something. So they're
trying to fit to say the mixeduse, when in reality it's an apartment
development and there's no mix use reallyto it. Can this come back?

(35:44):
Yeah? You know, we havehad a few of those symbolic things,
but we have been at our ordinanceI don't know, a year ago,
and now can't have the You can'thave a use that exceeds I can't remember
exactly, like maybe sixty one Usucceed more than sixty percent of AE hundred

(36:07):
percent. You know, so youcan't have ninety eight percent residential, one
partial, one percent retail. Youknow. You can't play that game and
then call it mixed you well,can they or is it a mixed formula
of apartments and equity like the stackflats that would be considered equity. I

(36:29):
guess still, residential equity versus rentalcannot be a consideration in and of itself
of whether something is approved or nota parcel under the zoning Procedures law,
a parcel has to be considered whetherit a residential use good for that parcel

(36:52):
or not. You can't end upsaying, well, only if it's equity,
or only if it's a stricted oronly if those things bubble up.
Developers oftentimes will offer to do thatin return for improving their odds but that
it cannot be a consideration of somethingbecause you have to understand, you know,

(37:15):
these denials. You know, whenstaff does a report, we have
to objectively look at whether or notthe application is in you know, conflict
with any local code law, characterarea, that kind of thing. If

(37:36):
it eats all those criteria, we'renot really this. These recommendations are not
like I wake up one morning andI'm like, yeah, I think one
go there. It's recommend approval becauseit meets all of the legal and sure,
that's merely to say that counsel.Each individual has to vote their own

(37:58):
conscience and they all have other considerations, so you know that's not but bring
that up to say, you justasked the question of could they come back?
Anything can come back, but itcan come back in various ways.
An applicant can wait for the coolingoff period and present sent the same exact

(38:22):
thing, and timing sometimes matters.Comments have come up about these two mixed
use development applications are very close tothe town center, a town center in
which there are two previously approved residentialunits that are not completed yet one is

(38:43):
under construction. Solace they're on thetown Center side and then North American hasn't
started theirs yet, so there's beentalk about timing. But that's one way
to come back. Another way isis they could re engage with the city
and say, hey, maybe ifwe tweaked the site plan to you know,

(39:04):
have this or whatever a wig theparcel that's basically at the corner of
Engineering and one forty one right acrosson the west side of one one from
Racetrack and Corners Liquor. They submitteda mixed use development that had two hundred
and seventy five apartment units along withsome other you know, two other uses,

(39:27):
and that was denied. And thenthey came back and just made it
a town home and just had seventyfive townhomes, right, so that would
probably sell for seven hundred and fiftyor more. I mean, so that
was a way for them to comeback, but it was a different product.
Sure. Another way is, youknow, also I have to understand

(39:50):
in the case of the owner ofthe Da Vinci Court property, they have
they have filed a suit against us. Sure, we will be in front
of a judge at some point,and if a judge finds that that the
denial was not based on legally defensiblereasons, the judge will kick it back

(40:17):
and force mayor and council to considerthat site again. Okay, so that
happened once before. Well, thathappens all the time actually, But even
before the city was approved became acity, that happened with town Center is
where the drop properties to all theround pursued because he felt that it was

(40:40):
not a good zoning and in someways he probably was correct about where it
was. So he got a hegot you know, courts through it back
and yes, it forced the countyto consider and they did approve, and
he came back to the city witha product and it was going to be

(41:09):
well, yeah it was denied.Filed suit, but then there was conversation
amongst us and he withdrew that inreturn for coming back with what was ultimately
the product that he sold it for. So it does happen, And in

(41:30):
instances a judge could say, Nope, iron counsel, you did not you
know that was violation of that propertyowner's right to their highest and best use.
You didn't meet zoning procedure law.Try again. I mean I can
see that. I think if Idon't call the exact details of the comprehensive

(41:53):
plan. But I think doesn't thatproperty if you look at the Comprehensive Plan
twenty forty I guess, and youlook at where that property backs up to
or borders, is it other officesor is it the area of land that's
been that in the plan says couldbe multi use family? You know,

(42:15):
I mean, yeahs say this isa good point our comp plan. Both
of these mixed use applications were inthe character area in which our comp plan
said would be appropriate to have denseresidential. You know, the density of

(42:37):
residential is fitting in a town center, downtown area. So from that aspect,
our comp plan does say that itwas an appropriate use. There doesn't
go any farther than to say denseresidential again, because you can't solely based

(42:57):
on what type of residential. Don'tget into rental equity age restrict or whatever,
so that it doesn't say, oh, it's you know, it's appropriate
for equity dense residential. That can'tbe in and of itself a consideration.
But but dense residential is a industryaccepted, you know, appropriate use in

(43:25):
downtown areas. You know that onewe didn't make up. We're not unique
in that regard. Now again,community may say we don't care and put
pure on the elected officials, andyou know, we certainly are at a
point I will say that we havea lot of I mean, we have

(43:49):
a significant enough of a resident basethat moved here. You know, they
oftentimes when they're not happy or witha decision council made, or they're wanting
to get their comments and you know, front of council before council is on
something. Oftentimes I'll start with aI moved here in nineteen ninety two,

(44:14):
right, and the city has grownand traffic has gotten worse, whatever,
And I do not disagree. Youknow, I have no doubt that that
those comments are true. However,we as a city, as many people
don't realize, have a limitation toour ability to say no. A property

(44:37):
owner who has a legal right toa highest and best use of their property,
and when we are located in agrowing metro area there is a constant
demand for residential and then a propertyowner is like, I can get a
higher and better use of my propertywith putting re cidential on it, then

(45:00):
I currently can get it. Startsto get into you know, difficult area
and those think that we can hitthe pause button on growth. That is
impossible. The city does not havethe power to just indiscriminate at least say
nope, we're done growing, We'renot going to more people. And that's

(45:22):
where it gets, you know,again, it's it's challenging. The most
difficult decision I have to present councilfor consideration are land use decisions. It
is, but but again, alsojust because property owners want to get more
money, there are certain things thatif they don't meet, you're kind of
like, no, I'm sorry,you know, you know, you know

(45:45):
Tobi Rico, You're like, look, I could get more money selling my
house, demoing it and constructing Idon't know, you know, wow,
something like that. And then wesay no, it's not appropriate because us
who are in a neighborhood that aresingle family, detached residential, so it's

(46:06):
not appropriate. Those are easy.There's always extreme. It's where you get
into where you know you don't havesomething that clear it's right next to one
that already is what they want.Yeah, it's I can understand. It's
a difficult thing trying to say thatthere's necessarily right or wrong answer. I'm
always just trying to make sure thatpeople understand that the city is not lord

(46:31):
over land use in such a waythat mayor and council can literally just say
nowhere, yes, indiscriminately. Ithas to be based on and this is
this is but this is also whythe comprehensive plan is there, and people
should understand that next time it getsupdated. But in four years I think

(46:53):
it was just recently updated, right, Yeah, about four years from now
or so, maybe it'll be updatedagain. It gets updated every four years,
right, So people should be awareof that because that is the That
is what guides a lot of bestbecause they can point to that eventually and
say, well, you denied me, but you know, your plan shows

(47:15):
I should be able to do thistype of development. You know, it
doesn't say specific like you said,departments or equity, but does talk about
density and stuff like that and whatyou expect that the city. You know,
how this will all pan out becausein a controlled way, that's what
the plan is. The plan isto provide a controlled way of expansion of

(47:37):
a city's population that will naturally grow. And that's what developers look at.
And if the developer comes back andsays, well, you know, this
shows I should be able to dothat, bought the land for that reason,
or I own this and I can'tdo the office building. I mean,
I just saw Dell, I think, was trying to get all their

(47:58):
employees back for full time in theoffice five days a week, and half
their employees so we're not coming back. We could do hybrid two days a
week, you know, at homethree days, but we're not coming back.
So you know, what do youdo? Do you fire half your
half your work force because they're refusingto come back. I mean, as
such a change world. And thenyou know, even on things that the

(48:22):
use itself isn't necessarily controversial, it'sjust the call it growth. You know,
we do have some anti growth peoplewho it doesn't matter what it is,
they don't want to change. Yougot to be careful because when markets
change, properties go through you knowphases. You know, would we rather

(48:45):
have an empty office building that's indecay potentially dragging down neighborhood lot or do
we want to work with the propertyowner to try to find something that's you
know, we got criticism on theproperty I mentioned earlier where they came in
with two hundred and seventy five apartmentsdenied and they came with seventy five town

(49:07):
homes. So now those who onlycare about equity versus rental, they were
kind of like, all right,their equity. We still had a contingent
of residents who were like, Idon't know why you're letting them do this.
It's going to increase traffic. Wellthat's potentially true if you consider that

(49:27):
the office that was there in thebig surface parking lot, it was completely
vacant and the office building no longeractually habitable because they had had water damage.
But there were people who would haverather of that thing sit there like
that because they didn't want any morecars. But they didn't want to me.
And you're just like, okay,you know, but that property is

(49:51):
also not generating revenue for the city, and then it's dragging property values down
because appraisals are based on comparables,and it has a ripple effect that we
as a city cannot ignore. Andthat's what makes these decisions really complicated.
And it is not and can neverbe as cut and dry as somebody is

(50:13):
like we should just seal off thecity to growth, or we could never
have any more apartments, or wewould never allow that, you know,
that legally, and we shouldn't bedoing that functionally because our local economy is
very nuanced and complicated and important.If we don't want to have levy a

(50:37):
milge rate on residents of the city. Right now, the business community is
holding up you know, that revenuestream, and you know the city is
not taking money from you. Irico merely based on the value of our
residential property we own, right right, Most cities do, yes, So

(51:01):
we've you know, it's it's goodto have a position because it provides creativity,
it provides a way to make aproject better. But you know,
I certainly disagree with those that feelthat things should exactly stay the same,
like the forum at one point,Well why was that being changed and stuff?

(51:22):
Because they would prefer having the seventeenempty stores that they was there at
one point and growing. Yes,so and people you know, obviously you
know people well you know, therent's going up and they're not letting people.
You know, you don't know otherpeople's businesses and what's necessary to actually
make that business work or what theircash flow is, because maybe it's not

(51:45):
as good as you think, youknow, because the market is not quite
there, or maybe they're trying tomake it a little different and stuff.
So, yeah, opposition is finebecause that does help make projects better.
But because we could go down thisroad forever. I mean, there's there's
things I'd like to say. There'sthere's things that where I'd like to see
the development come in and say,you know what, thirty percent of our

(52:06):
apartments are going to be made andonly rented to median income people, really
affordable versus let's say our normal apartmentrent is twenty five hundred for a two
bedroom, will make these fourteen hundredfor a two petroom, but you have
to meet that median income that allowableand make it affordable. I mean there's
all sorts of working on that veryOh are you working on that? I'd

(52:30):
like to see affordable housing here,Yeah, because we are good seeing if
we can't get you know, callit you know starter starter home, that
to call it, you know,workforce house whatever. But yes, I'm
mere look at maybe having a restrictionon the title that the owner can't sell

(52:55):
it for a period of time intothe future except somebody who's making a percentage
of the area median income. Okay, I mean all those things getting out
other states are doing it. Othercounties are doing that. I mean,
I have friends whose kids can't.They're just saying, I can't buy anything
here a piece reforms because there's nothingand I'm not making enough to do that

(53:20):
purchase. You know, maybe they'redoing well. They're doing in a household
income of eighty thousand between two ahusband and wife for a hundred thousand,
which sounds like a lot, butthat's not a lot when you're dealing with,
you know, buying a home andyou have to put down a certain
amount of money on it. Soyeah, I mean, we could keep
talking about that. Maybe we shoulddo a show on that. Actually,
well we should definitely. I willsay, you bring up a good point.

(53:44):
Here's something that many people don't realizebecause it's only a phenomenon that's happened
over the last couple of years,but for a long time, and for
legitimate reasons, people were very protectiveof, you know. Oftentimes it will
just use Simpson Elementary School as anexample, very high performing elementary school people

(54:06):
wanted to get their kids into,and its performance made the area that fed
into that. When I bought myhome in the Simpson Elementary School district eight
years ago. I could have takenmy exact home, picked it up and
dropped it into you know, BerkeleyLake Elementary or something else, and I

(54:31):
would have lost fifty thousand dollars ofvalue, same exact home, different school
feeder. So people were always protectiveof, oh, we don't want to
overcrowd the schools, we want itto be whatever. Do you know that
Pinvill Middle School, both peach treElementary and Simpson Elementary have had declining student

(54:52):
populations over the last three years andare under enrolled. And the reason for
that is because take Simpson Elementary.Most In fact, as it stands right
this second, all of the residentialunits are zoned to be an ownership and

(55:15):
equity product. You know, there'sno feeding it. The house values are
so high that people who have elementaryschool age kids haven't in their career made
enough money to be able to afforda half a million dollar home and Simpsons,

(55:37):
so they can't afford, and ofcourse interest rates hurt, and then
you also don't have turnover from thepeople who are currently in them, who
square foot homes that are now emptynesters. But they're like, we could
get a good dollar amount for ourhome, but then wherever we go,

(55:58):
we're going to have to pay throughthe now as well. Or the big
one is I have a three percentinterest rate, or I don't own I
don't know, you know, Idon't have mortgage at all, and now
if I want to buy, Igot to pay seven percent interest. I'm
just gonna stay in my home.So you don't have homes becoming available,
and then you don't have you know, younger families able to afford it.

(56:22):
So because of it, we don'thave the feeder for those. So Simpson
Elementary is in danger of losing someof their para professionals, you know that
are not teaching the class, butthey're kind of supporting the same Aneyville Middle
School because their student population is downand they're actually you know, under enrolled.

(56:45):
Don't you know what? We getcomments as recent as the last couple
of weeks. Oh, even onlike the last two rezonings. Oh,
it's going to overcrowd the schools.No that it's not. The schools are
down, but you know, justpeople people don't understand it's the head count
that funds the schools. They don'thave enough students, they're not can get

(57:08):
that budget from sure, from thecounty teacher is going to go down.
But also, you know, rightbefore our podcast, I just met with
a number of residents who provided somereally good recommendations on how we can improve
the information about land use decisions thecity is making, you know, about

(57:30):
applications coming in, making it easierto find the information, making it easier
to understand the process. Things weregoing to be at the website to make
it better based on some of therecent public hearings and you know how people
found out about it. So we'realways looking to improve as well and make

(57:50):
sure that all of our residents,you know, the more they know about
the complications of this and understand whatcouncil is face with, the more they'll
appreciate the challenging decision council. Butthey did the best that they can.
And the council did not make thesedecisions based on rolling up to the final

(58:12):
meeting barely knowing what's going on andat the end of the day kind of
being like, you know, where'sthe win. Although that way they spend
time and we spend that I'm educatedon this, and you know, they
do a great job of making decisionson really complicated land used to you know,
I think, you know part partof I mean, this is good

(58:36):
what we do. I think peoplea lot of people listen to the podcast
in a variety of ways, whetherit's audio or video on YouTube or Facebook
and stuff. I think we're goingto try to make better effort also in
reporting some of the things coming up, because we don't always do that.
We're doing post coverage sometimes. Youknow, we're a feature magazine so it's

(59:00):
a little different, right, butI think we're going to start doing a
little bit more of that coverage sothat people can be aware of the things
coming up. Also well off foryou. One other thing, Rica,
I don't know how resource intensive itis or if it's you know, advantageous
for you, but if you youknow, as you know how to look.

(59:23):
You know, when we get applicationsin certain point, staff report's done
and we make it available to thepublic so they can see the application,
they can see the staff assessment asit's getting ready to go to planning commission.
If you want to take individual youknow, land use cases in special

(59:45):
podcasts to discuss those particulars, dothat sure, right myself available a community
development director would be happy to doit. We could do it together,
you know, if you find valueand doing doing that, and then you
could push it out and say,hey, this is specific about you know
this mixed use development rezoning application thatcouncils get here and we can talk through.

(01:00:12):
You know, that's great and andon something like that. Maybe we
can even do it as a livething and take questions from people. Yeah,
okay, that'd be cool. We'llwork on that. So we'll work
on how we can what that wouldlook like, and I'll get back to
appreciate you offering that. Yeah,everyone, thank you. You know,

(01:00:35):
this was going to be a thirtyminute podcast. It ends up being one
hour. Sorry about keeping you likethat, Brian, Well, you and
I we always have the best intentionsup front, but these are complicated but
important things to discuss, and yes, for sure for sure now, so
thank you for the for more timethan I asked for. Everyone, you

(01:00:58):
know, share this podcast us.If you're on Apple I hear and you're
listening to the scoop us rating onthis podcast, certainly share it to your
friends, your HOA or whoever youneed to share this out to some good
discussion here and I think more tocome, for sure, as we do
every month but thank you again,and thank you to ev Remodeling Inc.
For being a sponsor, a corporatesponsor for our podcasts and good support of

(01:01:22):
our journalists. Well we appreciate that, eli, so check them out at
evremodelingink dot com and find out howthey can help you remodel your home.
Thanks again, Brian hanging there fora second. Thank you everyone else appreciate
it. You've been listening to PrimeLunchtime with Brian Johnson, the City Manager
of Peachtree Corners, Georgia, withyour host Rico Figlioni. The show is

(01:01:45):
part of a family of podcasts producedby Peachtree Corners Magazine and Mighty Rockets.
To find more episodes of this showor our other podcasts, visit Living in
Peachtreecorners dot com or follow us onFacebook at Peachtree Corners Life