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Home My WebLink AboutMinutes - CC - 06/15/2020Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 1 of 78 1 CALL TO ORDER Mayor Lockwood: I’d like to call the regular meeting, the Milton City Council for Monday, June 15th 2020, to order. The city strongly recommends that you review tonight’s agenda carefully, and if you wish to speak on any item on the agenda, please bring your comment cards to the clerk as soon as possible. While the Milton rules allow a speaker to turn in their comment cards up until the clerk calls the agenda item, once the agenda item is called, no more comment cards can be accepted. The City Clerk, please call roll and make general announcements. Sudie: Good evening, Mayor, and, Council. I’ll be happy to call roll for the June 15th, 2020 regular meeting. As I call roll this evening, please confirm your attendance. Mayor Joe Lockwood? Mayor Lockwood: Here. Sudie: Council Member Peyton Jamison? Peyton: Here. Sudie: Council Member Paul Moore? Paul: Here. Sudie: Council Member Laura Bentley? Laura: Here. Sudie: Council Member Carol Cookerly? Carol: Here. Sudie: Council Member Joe Longoria? Joe: Here. Sudie: And for the record, Council Member Rick Mohrig is absent. Would everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 2 of 78 2 Councilmembers Present: Councilmember Peyton Jamison, Councilmember Laura Bentley, Mayor Joe Lockwood, Councilmember Carol Cookerly, Councilmember Paul Moore and Councilmember Joe Longoria. Councilmember Absent: Councilmember Rick Mohrig. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE (Led by Mayor Joe Lockwood) Everyone: I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mayor Lockwood: Again, I wanna welcome everybody here tonight. We appreciate you being here as we get back to our live meetings. Tammy, if you would please, sound the next item. APPROVAL OF MEETING AGENDA Tammy: Approval of Meeting Agenda Item No. 20-166. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, do I have a motion on the agenda? Joe: Mayor, I move that we – Mayor Lockwood: Hold one second, and I’m sorry, Joe. Alright, I need to have the Executive Session to discuss litigation to that, so. Then I’ll ask for a motion. Joe: Mayor, I move that we approve the Meeting Agenda as prepared with the addition of an Executive Session for litigation. Paul: Second. Mayor Lockwood: Okay. I have a motion for approval as read from Council Member Longoria with a second from Council Member Moore. All in favor please say aye. City Council: Aye. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 3 of 78 3 Motion and Vote: Councilmember Longoria moved to approve the Meeting Agenda. Councilmember Moore seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Mohrig was absent from the meeting. PUBLIC COMMENT Mayor Lockwood: That’s unanimous. All right, do we have any public comment, Tammy? Tammy: No, Mayor. CONSENT AGENDA Mayor Lockwood: Okay. I’m gonna move on to the Consent Agenda, so Tammy if you would please or the City Clerk, please read those items. Sudie: The first Consent Agenda Item is approval of the May 4th, 2020 regular City Council Meeting – Council Minutes, I’m sorry, Agenda Item No. 20-167. Next is the approval of updated financial statements for Period 1 through 7, October 2019 through April 2020 for the Capital Grant Fund and the Revenue Bond Fund, Agenda Item No. 20-168. Our third item is approval of a construction services agreement with CW Matthews, Inc., for the reconstruction and resurfacing of the roads called out in the Bid Document, Agenda Item No. 20- 169. Next is the approval of a construction services agreement with Triscapes, Inc., for the Excavation and Repair of Sinkholes Located in the right of way at 320 Oakhurst Leaf Drive and 1250 Hopewell Crest, Agenda Item No. 20-170. Our fifth item is the approval of a contract between the Fulton County Finance Department and the City of Milton for water service at Cox Road Sports Complex, Agenda Item No. 20-171. Our sixth and final item approval of a contract between the City of Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 4 of 78 4 Milton and AT&T to move circuits from 13000 Deerfield Parkway, Milton, Georgia to 2006 Heritage Walk, Milton, Georgia for the phone system and to increase bandwidth for improved functionality, Agenda Item No. 20-172. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, do I have a motion on the Consent Agenda? Laura: Mayor, I’d like to make a motion to approve the Consent Agenda as read by the City Clerk. Paul: Second. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, I have a motion for approval from Council Member Bentley with a second from Council Member Moore. All in favor please say aye. City Council: Aye. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Bentley moved to approve the Consent Agenda. Councilmember Moore seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Mohrig was absent from the meeting. REPORTS AND PRESENTATIONS Mayor Lockwood: That’s unanimous. Tammy if you would or City Clerk, please sound the items under Reports and Presentations. Tammy: The first item is presentation on farm wineries as it relates to Chapter 4, alcohol beverages, Miss Sarah LaDart. Sarah: Good evening, Mayor, and, Council, and when I was before you June 1st, we passed the Chapter 4 alcohol rewrite, but you asked us to take a deeper look that farm wineries. So, we’ve come back with a few suggestions. So, just to start at the beginning and recap, the purpose of the Chapter 4 rewrite was to create new opportunities while also still very clearly stating that bars and nightclubs are restricted within the city. And the concern about farm wineries that Council had was would this ability to serve beer and liquor at a farm winery change the fundamental use of the land away from its desired agricultural use and the potential negative impact on the neighbors? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 5 of 78 5 So, our goals here today, one ‘em would be to find a solution that complements our current zoning policies taking into consideration the concerns of our current farm wineries, making the correct structure’s in place for future farm wineries, and the considering the impact on the surrounding neighbors in the community. So, the three choices Steve Krokoff and Robin McDonald and I met and talked about these, and these are the three would like Council to consider and take a look at. All of these minimums and the numbers are your decision to make. They’re just suggestions that we had. So, the first one is to simply allow it by right. If you’re a farm winery, you can apply for a consumption on premises without any other considerations, no restaurant. It’s just allowed by right. So, the pros of that is it matches the state regulation. It’s easy. The revenue that will generate from people getting a consumption on premises liquor and beer license. But there’s no consideration of the impact on the neighbors, and there’s little oversight from the city as far as sound, traffic, and parking. The second one is put a few stipulations into Chapter 4 where it would still be allowed by right if you, for example, had a minimum of 20 acres of land, no more than a certain percentage of your sales can come from beer and liquor, having a closing time, and the Sunday beer and liquor only if you meet the states 50/50 food to alcohol ratio. With that you get some internal consideration because we have put a few rules in place in order for them to get it. If you meet these criteria, you can get it without going through the use-permit process and again, the additional revenues. And with it you have some consideration of impact on the neighbors. You have a little bit of oversight from the city. But it does remove the opportunity for smaller parcels. So, if say you have a five-acre farm winery, they never even have the opportunity to come and ask for a liquor and beer license. And then allowing it by use permit, so put those same criteria in place but you actually have to come in, apply for it, we’re gonna get the input from the neighbors and the public, a lot of oversight from city staff. They’ll have to submit site plans that way you can look at parking and traffic and sound levels. Then the cons of that are the length of the process, and you’re still removing the right of that parcel that’s 50 acres from being able to apply the Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 6 of 78 6 consumption on premises of beer and liquor. So, those are the three. I would also like to say that I did a little bit of research into what both Dahlonega, Lumpkin County are doing and what White County is doing. My discussions with Dahlonega, Lumpkin County is that they only allow consumption on premises of beer and liquor with a full kitchen that operates at 50/50 food to alcohol ratio. Both Frogtown Winery and Montaluce Winery, they both have full kitchens and estimate that maybe five to 10 percent of their sales are from beer and liquor. And Accent Winery doesn’t have a full kitchen and therefore does not, cannot sell beer and liquor. White County, they do not allow liquor sales at farm wineries, but for a very small price, they do allow their farm wineries to sell retail and consumption on premises beer. And so, Habersham Winery sells beer without a full kitchen and still estimates that it’s maybe five percent of their total alcohol sales. So, with that, if there are thoughts and conversation, just some direction, so we can come back to you with the amendments to the farm winery section of Chapter 4. Male Speaker: I’ll just say sometimes it’s easier just to go with the state regulations and others. While I agree with some of those, the one, one of your cons is we don’t have any oversight on any parking, noise, that type stuff, so. Obviously, if we go to a use permit that allows us to do a little bit versus if we go with the second option though that kind of boxes people in, too, whereas we could look at each individual circumstance if it makes sense, so. And again, I brought up last time only because, again, Milton is unique. We’re losing a lot of land. If there are creative ways that people can keep land and make some kind of revenues off of it, it may help keep Milton different and better, so. Sarah: With the – oh, sorry. Male Speaker: No, but that’s – I’m trying to get the conversation started. So, anybody have any – Laura, you had some thoughts on that? Laura: Did you –? Sarah: Oh, I was gonna say the difference between if the second and third options, if we just allow it, we took away the need for restaurants and people applying for liquor license to put that big, yellow sign Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 7 of 78 7 out in front of their establishment a few years ago. It was a $300.00 fee to advertise that the state no longer mandated. So, if we go with the second option, that big, yellow sign won’t go out for neighbors to be alerted while they will have to come in front of Council to get the approval of the alcohol beverage license. With the use permit they will still have the big, yellow sign out front for neighbors to be alerted that something is going on. So, that’s it. Laura: So, can you tell me how many acres Painted Horse Winery is? Do we know that? Sarah: So, I believe she’s around 22, and she’s looking to acquire a few more acres. Laura: Okay, and I’m just curious what the average acreage on a healthy winery would be, and I don’t expect you to know that. Just for potential further discussions, I’d be interested to know on the average is there’s some specification for that. My comments on these different scenarios are I like the idea of the use permit because as someone who has a farm, I would want to know if we were gonna introduce such a different type of land use to property that was next to me. And I’d like to have the opportunity to comment and understand the hours and whatnot. It also looks like we’re pretty high on the sales, in the 30 percent range, as related to other wineries that are probably even more intense or bigger. Which is why I’m asking about the acreage because if they’re 100-acre wineries, and they’re at five to 10 percent, I mean, I think it’s all important to understand as go into this area. Because we went to a lot of trouble and all of those different chapters to band bars and nightclubs. And I don’t think we can be too careful with this as far as looking into the different options. Sarah: So, I’ve reached out to both the – Male Speaker: Because if bars pop up in barns, nightclubs next thing you know. Male Speaker: Shannondale Farms is a nightclub. Laura: I wanna know. Sarah: I reached out to the Department of Revenue and the Georgia Winery Group and haven’t heard back from them with that Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 8 of 78 8 question. Laura: Okay, thank you. Sarah: So, hopefully we’ll get that soon. Female Speaker: But – Male Speaker: Okay. Female Speaker: May I? Male Speaker: Yeah. Female Speaker: But a boutique is a boutique. I mean, we’re probably not gonna have working wineries per se. We’re gonna have the flavor of a winery per se. Okay. And speaking of Painted Horse, where exactly does one enter and exit? I’ve never really been clear on that? Female Speaker: She has two entrances. What’s the road? Male Speaker: I think she has – Female Speaker: Three? Male Speaker: I think she has four or five entrances altogether. Female Speaker: But she doesn’t – sorry, I’ll speak into this. But she doesn’t use the entrances on this street; she uses the few on this street. Male Speaker: She’s got Hopewell, and she – Mayor Lockwood: Clarify that. This street [inaudible – crosstalk] [00:15:23] not on that street. Female Speaker: Oh, I’m with you; I understand totally. So, where her sign is because she’s at the corner, it’s a difficult corner. And I understand it would be improved in time, but I couldn’t really tell that her egress and etc., would be improved. So, do you go through the main – and what kind of parking is there? Because it feels given the situation and what we’re moving to some oversight is – Female Speaker: Robin wasn’t aware of any parking plan had ever been submitted. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 9 of 78 9 Male Speaker: We’ve dug through everything we have. There are no parking plans for the farm winery as it exists. It’s an agriculture use. They park in the grass. They park wherever they can on her property. Another benefit of a potential move if you were interested into looking a use permit because now you can look at a site plan. You could designate where parking would be in relation to the neighbors, things along those lines. But right now, if you’re asking for that specific area, I think she has done a decent job of being able to marshal her parking together, but it’s not because of something the city did. Female Speaker: Okay, yeah, I probably align that – I just, I couldn’t see inflicting anything on neighbors that we hadn’t looked first. I mean, it just would not be fair. Male Speaker: Sure. That’s the beauty of the use permit because then we can review it. Paul? Paul: Yeah, I think my thoughts are similar to what’s been shared already. I would add one caveat to that is I think that although we’re discussing one in particular, I always hate it when we contemplate legislation while we’re thinking about one specific entity. And that’s not how we should do ordinances; that’s not how we should make our plans. So, we should contemplate something that paints the big picture for what a farm winery should look like here, and if this particular entity needs to apply for something that’s not consistent with that, then we look at a use permit that’s separate and apart from that. So, you legislate for that one use for that property, and then you get the engagement of the community that would come along with that. Because if you just read it straight up right now, if you were to ask me to contemplate what has been proposed to us, it’s no different than defining a bar; and we don’t allow bars here. So, there’s gotta be something else that comes in the mix of that that allows us to consider that. And it may very well be that her business plan does not match our farm winery ordinance. And then she’s got two choices, change to meet the ordinance, or change her business model. Mayor Lockwood: Okay. Anybody else? Joe? Joe: Well, I think those are all good points. I would also say that there’s Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 10 of 78 10 not a lot of these running around. And so, the challenge is how do we plan for a future instance of something that may very well be a one-off? And I think that the reason we asked you to review this, and we asked staff to take another look was because we have citizen who’s reaching out to us, asking for help. And it’s a citizen who’s trying to make a business work, and I think that it’s in our best interest to see if we can assist if possible. Now, I would agree that doesn’t mean we drop everything in terms of what their neighbors would expect or the conditions under which most of our citizens operate. Because no matter what anybody thinks, I mean, we’ve set a really high standard for what expectations are and what neighbors believe their protection is when it comes to their property and what’s gonna show up next to their property. So, we can’t jeopardize that, but we certainly can try to help a citizen. Female Speaker: And Miss Jackson wanted to be here. She’s stuck in meetings all day, so she apologized. Female Speaker: Yeah, I just think that I do wanna say on the record though I admire and appreciate the creativity in bringing something different to Milton, and so, that’s a tag onto your comments about trying to be proactively helpful. So, thank you, Sarah, for your input. Male Speaker: I hear some good feedback, and to Paul’s case I agree with your statement of you can’t mold it under one circumstance, but I’m also thinking along the lines of what Council Member Longoria said that this may be a – it’s not like we’re probably 20, 25 more farm wineries. So, you gotta kinda blend it in the middle there, so. Anybody else? Male Speaker: May I? I might be able to add something just to help structure your conversation a little bit, so we can get good direction. There are three triggers really. First is what is going to be allowed there as far as wine. Currently under our ordinance, she is only allowed to serve her wine that she makes there and other Georgia wine. That is just our ordinance. Under the state, she could serve what’s called foreign wine, and that’s all wine in addition to Georgia wine. So, wine from California would be considered foreign just like wine from France would be foreign wine. In talking with just this person, if she was creating a priority or Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 11 of 78 11 hierarchy of what she needs, her highest priority was foreign wine because the cost of Georgia wine apparently is quite expensive. And if you’re going to do it by the glass or by the bottle it becomes prohibitively expensive, and it affects sales apparently. So, that was when she was giving us her hierarchy. You could do foreign wine, and you could do that whether it’s by right under the current farm winery or you can make it part of a use permit. But it can go anywhere along that spectrum. The next thing in that hierarchy was malt beverage beer. That was the next level of need, and maybe that invokes a higher level of scrutiny. Maybe that invokes, and you can obviously go anywhere along the spectrum, maybe that invokes the use permit and maybe a higher acreage. And then further down the priority list was distilled spirits. Wine was by far the most important for her, beer secondary, and then distilled spirits way down for certain, special type occasions. So, I don’t know if that is universal in what makes a farm winery work, but that is at least how it came back from her. And that might help guide your decisions and your direction back to us to bring, whether it be Chapter 4, back before you. Because if we have to change the requirements for just Chapter 4 regarding the farm winery, that’s just Chapter 4 which would require a first- read and then back before you for a vote. But if we’re going to be looking at things like use permits, that’s Chapter 64 which is a text amendment. And it goes through a different process as y’all know. I don't know if that helps guide the conversation if you wanna approach it from that way. But we do need some guidance back. Right now, the only thing I’ve written down so far is “average acreage for a viable winery”. And I wanna make sure that I can bring you back a product that you can vote on. Male Speaker: Okay, and I’ve been to a few Georgia wineries which I’m not quite sure what the difference between a farm winery and just a winery is, but. And I do realize sometimes they’ll “foreign” wines there just in the mix if you’re tasting them and just to compare, and also as I think Steve said price and different options for people. I guess the question is and I’m gonna assume what we have now and what’s approved at this farm winery, people come and taste the wine, and then they can buy it, right. Female Speaker: Yeah. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 12 of 78 12 Male Speaker: But so, I’m wondering, my thought process is this. I’d be okay and this in stair-steps. One, to where if we can change our ordinance, existing ordinance, if the state allows it to have some foreign wine, if that helps, we’ll round it out a little. But I guess my question is that, what’s the negative to that? Would that mean that someone might consume more if they different options or –? But if it’s just a wine tasting and then you’re gonna buy some and take it with ya, I wouldn’t see it as that big of an issue. But I guess I’m just throwing out I could certainly consider doing that, adding that to our existing ordinance, and then, as we make the – if somebody wants to go and change it to the other things we talked about, maybe go to the use permit or whatever. But I’m just throwing that out there, certainly wanna hear what you guys think. Laura? Paul? Laura: Go ahead. Paul: Yeah, I think you’re on the right track, Joe. I have less heartburn about it being Georgia wine versus foreign wine. At least in the winery experiences that I’ve had in North Georgia, I don’t at the moment remember whether I was there consuming local grown and produced wine versus something that was foreign. Male Speaker: If it was really sweet, it was local. Paul: May have been, yeah, with the elderberries or whatever it is make it so sweet. But my bigger concern is whether or not there’s any food at all, if we’re talking about again about this specific one. I’m also, because then you’re talking about just alcohol consumption. And that worries me a little bit. So, I think our plan at the moment with some food production is an important asset of the ordinance making it more comfortable in my mind. I also think there needs to be some minimum acreage requirement so that you haven’t suddenly got one-acre farm wineries popping up because we haven’t put a reasonable limitation on that. Male Speaker: I don’t think we can limit that. Paul: Minimum? Male Speaker: An Ag1, I just wanna jump in there. Ken and I spoke at length about that because it’s agriculturally zoned, I don’t think you’re Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 13 of 78 13 going to be able to prevent a farm winery from growing up on a one-acre. Because I actually talked about maybe a three-acre minimum on that, and that was iffy because of the zoning. Paul: All right, let chips fall where they may legally on that, but I would hope that we could find a way to make it, so they’re not popping up everywhere like that. There was one more thought. It’s now escaped me. It had to do with the – I guess leave it there for the moment. Male Speaker: If something comes back to ya – Laura? Laura: Just to be clear, so foreign wines are allowed per the state? Sarah: Yes, ma'am. Laura: Okay. Female Speaker: And they’re just other wines? Sarah: Right, they’re California wines, they’re French wines. I mean, but what Painted Horse said very clearly is her main goal is to sell her wine. That’s what farm wineries – they push their own, but they have other options at different price points in different flavors. Female Speaker: Yeah, I’m kinda lost on what we’re doing. What are doing from this point on? I mean, because the last issue was about spirits and beer, correct? And so, what’s our protocol to get there? Male Speaker: Yeah, obviously, right now the three options we had if we just make a change in Chapter 4 or bring it all the way to a use permit as we’re talking. Because right now you’re just looking for a little bit of direction. Do we bring it back to you as to where it all has to be under use permit? Is there a small tweak you wanna make within the existing and somewhere in-between? Is that correct? Sarah: Right, we could just amend Chapter 4 to say you are allowed to have foreign wines, and that would satisfy her immediate, her No. 1 need and not go into the beer and liquor. We could do that and do any number of these with the beer and liquor. Male Speaker: Yeah, and I don’t see the difference between one wine or another wine. So, to me, if they’re serving wine it doesn’t really matter where it comes from. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 14 of 78 14 Male Speaker: That was kinda my point. I mean, I don’t think the neighbors or the community’s gonna – it’s gonna change anything for the neighbors or the community because we’ve already approved it as a farm winery. That’s why I brought up if we wanna do something simple, but then if you guys wanna bring it back to us, so we have a process if they or any other wants to go further with the beer or the spirits or other changes. But, Peyton, you had a question? Peyton: You mentioned Dahlonega, Lumpkin on the 50/50. Is that for the foreign wine, too? Sarah: No, that was so have beer and liquor. Peyton: Oh, okay. Okay. Female Speaker: Okay, so they can have – there’s no minimum food. Sarah: No food and whatever wine you want. Female Speaker: Okay, and that’s allowed by the state regulation. Sarah: That’s allowed, yes. Male Speaker: I think the one thing, too, to keep in my mind, and I’m assuming this is just gonna have to be a business practice, a lot of wineries have the cheese, crackers, things to clean your palette in-between so it kinda by default there’s some food there. Female Speaker: Yeah, a little snack. Male Speaker: It doesn’t have to come out the kitchen. It comes out the box. Male Speaker: Yeah, well, the cabinets, fridge. Female Speaker: My point was just that it is already allowed, and so, I feel a little bit safer with that allowance at the state level, so. I feel comfortable in doing that without public notification because it’s wine, and it’s – Male Speaker: Well, but let me ask the question, is the Council comfortable with because it’s under the state allows it to allow our existing Chapter 4 to be changed to allow foreign wine? And then, do we wanna have a process where if a winery whether it’s the existing Painted Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 15 of 78 15 Horse or in the future, a use permit process? Or do we even need to formally do that now? Or do we do that if somebody wants to come back and ask for something? Female Speaker: Well, they’ve already asked for it. Male Speaker: Yeah, I don’t wanna create a use permit if no one’s gonna use it. Male Speaker: That’s what I’m asking. Female Speaker: So, I’m fine with that. Male Speaker: Well, let’s just use this scenario. Let’s say we changed Chapter 4 to allow foreign wine, and let’s just say Painted Horse wanted to say, “Well, we wanna have beer and distilled spirits,” or something else. Then they’d have to come back for a use permit, but do we have to address that now or in the near future, unless they ask for that or somebody else does? Male Speaker: You don’t have to address it now. I know what her desire is, and again, I know this is just about this one place. But from a farm winery standpoint, I think the allowance of the foreign wine would be a big benefit. Just so you know, the idea behind the Georgia- only wine was purely local economic development. There was nothing else behind there. We knew that was some of our limited taps and things like that which makes sure that we put Georgia first. So, that’s the only benefit. It’s not going to limit the other things that you may consider that might come along with a farm winery. It was only economic development. Male Speaker: I guess to clarify though what I’m wondering or asking is let’s say, and it sounds like the Council’s okay adding the foreign wine, okay. I’m just making assumptions here, but it sounds like they are. Let’s say that you do that and bring that back for us to approve. Then do we have to formalize a special use process for farm wineries or if this Painted farm comes back six months from now, three months, say, “I wanna have beer and wine,” or, “I wanna have this or change that,” then would they just apply for a use permit and then you craft it? Or does it need to be crafted? Male Speaker: It would need to be crafted. There’s no use permit currently to apply for. So, we’d have to create a use permit that would – I didn’t mean to jump in on your game there, but you would have to craft the use permit around farm wineries that would bring in the Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 16 of 78 16 beer and distilled spirits if that what you chose to do. Male Speaker: Okay, Carol? Carol: So, is there any language at the state level currently that includes beer and spirits with farm winery? Sarah: Yes, they’re allowed to do it. Carol: So, if we’re going to go ahead and do this with the one with the foreign wines, why would we trot people back in for a special use for this other if it already a base line at the state? Male Speaker: I may be able to address that. I think more of what the state contemplates in these farm wineries are large, expansive pieces of property where you have these large wineries where parking and noise, you’re not even gonna see ‘em let alone hear them. And I think just because of kind of the way that Milton’s set up, we do have more concerns because we’re not gonna have that same 100- plus, 200, 300,000-acre parcels where these farm wineries are. Think almost like a Chateau Elan, that’s not what we have here. We’re going to have to – we’re just a little bit more compressed. I think that’s what drives it, but yes, state law, they’re all allowed by state law. Female Speaker: So, would we then more so than control what’s served, would we want to control then how many people can be in attendance? Is that the goal and that’s by use permit, right? Okay. Male Speaker: It’s one of the benefits of the use permit. It let’s you look at each individual thing, each individual entity that would come before you because each one will be unique. They’ll be set up differently, the neighbors, about the neighbors might be different, and you have more control over how you can create a site plan that wouldn’t necessarily impact the neighbors so much. That’s the benefit of the use permit, the individual control over each individual potential operation. There may be one in the City of Milton, and this becomes a moot point. Mayor Lockwood: Anybody else have anything? I mean, I guess I’ll question the Council. Would the Council be in favor or changing Chapter 4 to allow the foreign wine and then asking staff to craft a use permit in case someone brings something forward in the future whether it’s this one or another one? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 17 of 78 17 Male Speaker: Yeah. Male Speaker: I’m good with that because we need to have some flexibility that we can offer folks that wanna try to do this. Female Speaker: Could – oh. Male Speaker: No. What’s that? Female Speaker: So, would the applicant be interested in splitting beer from spirits? Sarah: They could. Female Speaker: Okay, because, I mean, the whole point – Male Speaker: Yeah, I think Steve did say that in the hierarchy that spirits is the smallest. Female Speaker: – yeah, well, I mean, because we’ve already – I mean, that is the issue that person felt was the difference between making money and not making money was having an alternative. Male Speaker: Well, let me just ask the question. I’ll ask the question to you. Because if we go back to let’s say a seafood restaurant, they gotta have a hamburger or something or a vegetarian dish because some people don’t want – I could see a beer. Is there any appetite on the Council that – and maybe it’s very small, 5 percent or something, to allow something some kind of craft beer –? Female Speaker: Yeah, I think that’s fair. I really do. Male Speaker: I mean, I’m not promoting that or whatever. I’m just asking. Sarah: And would we wanna, I’m in favor of using the word craft because that’s again in general supporting local, but that’s a defined term, so would we want it to be craft beer or just beer? Female Speaker: I think it’s beer. Sarah: Okay. Mayor Lockwood: But so, I’ll ask the question. Does anybody else wanna do that? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 18 of 78 18 Male Speaker: I like what we had [inaudible – crosstalk] [00:35:50]. Mayor Lockwood: What’s that? Male Speaker: I like just the wine for now. I mean, this is a first step into, that’s just me. I don’t know, one step at a time. Female Speaker: Yeah. Male Speaker: So, the wine with a use permit if they wanna go further? Male Speaker: Yeah. Sarah: And would you want food? So, I didn’t include any sort of food ratio, only if they wanted to do Sunday, but be able to sell beer or liquor at whatever point would you want there to be some sort of food requirement? Male Speaker: Would that go to – that’d be in the use permit, obviously? Sarah: Mm – hmm, yes. Male Speaker: The only thing I’m hesitant on that, I mean, because I’ve been to some where they just have these premade cheese and snack plates and whatever to try to help with that. But if we’re under the perfect scenario and somebody had the right property and the right business but it wasn’t viable because you have to buy a build commercial kitchen and all the Health Department laws and all that, I could see that being – but I’m just – that’s what I’m throwing that. That’s the only reason I hesitate and maybe you research it before you bring it back, but that we have a mandatory food if it’s not covered by state law if it’s not in demand by state law, but. Sarah: Okay, okay. Female Speaker: Which and I would be in favor dropping that percentage way down and considering prepacked – Male Speaker: Right, something that you do have for food, but. Female Speaker: – cheese and, I mean, on a use permit, so. Sarah: Okay. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 19 of 78 19 Male Speaker: You look at there are viable businesses in our surrounding community that are based on cheese and crackers, and the charcuterie, whatever it’s called. That doesn’t necessarily require a full-blown kitchen to do that. I mean, so there needs to be something that’s available to the patron to offset the alcohol. Male Speaker: Maybe it could be “food”, but it wouldn’t have to be prepared onsite. It can be catered or – Sarah: Okay. Okay. Male Speaker: Okay. Male Speaker: Can I just ask a quick question, and you may have understood this. Council Member Bentley asked for percentages to be way down. What was that in reference to? Sarah: I’m assuming the 30 percent down to maybe 10 percent? Laura: Five or 10, yeah, which is whatever is in the state. Is that where you got it? Sarah: It’s not in the state. That’s just when I called and I talked to the different wineries. I said, “Estimate the percentage that’s actually beer and wine,” and they all said, “Between five and 10 percent.” Laura: Yeah, so that’s good information, and that would make me more comfortable. Male Speaker: But that might – let me ask you a question. Is that a requirement, or is that just what they’re saying their sales are? Sarah: That’s just what they’re saying their sales are. Female Speaker: And where did we get 30 percent? Sarah: 70/30, food to alcohol was the number we’d used in the past. So, I that was to start the conversation. Mayor Lockwood: I think [inaudible – crosstalk] [00:38:26] we got. That’s almost telling us what the market versus what our requirement. And I think to your point maybe, Steve, somebody said if it’s 150, 200 acres producing wine versus five acres, it may be a little different Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 20 of 78 20 scenario, different ration, so. Male Speaker: And you’d do that by use permit. You could and I – well, I should probably check with Paul, but you might be able to determine the ratio by the venue. Male Speaker: I mean, you can work it in. You can make it as complicated or as simple as you want. Male Speaker: We’re good at complicating. Male Speaker: Well, I think the scenario, I’mma just make the assumption here, if we change Chapter 4, Council’s okay with us going forward and bringing that before us. We may or may not, if we’re prepared to do a special-use permit application would be prepared if that’s brought before us. And then, obviously, that’s gonna be on a case- by-case basis and different parameters on each one probably if we got a template. Everybody, anything you guys wanna add? Male Speaker: Yeah. Male Speaker: Yeah. Male Speaker: Okay, all right, staff got direction. Thank you very much. Male Speaker: Very clear, thank you. Sarah: Yes, thank you. Male Speaker: Okay, we don’t have any items under First Presentation. So, we’ll move on to Public Hearing. If the City Clerk will please sound the next item. ALCOHOL PUBLIC HEARING Sudie: The consideration of the issuance of an alcohol beverage license to Milton Scratch Fresh, LLC., at 12890 Highway 9 N, Suite 160, Milton, Georgia, 30004, under the Item No. 20-173, Miss Bernadette Harvill. Bernadette: Good evening, Mayor, and, Council. Before you this evening you have an application for consumption on premises of wine and malt beverage for Milton Scratch Fresh. The applicant is in compliance, Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 21 of 78 21 and staff recommends approval. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, are there any questions on this? Okay, I’ll open up for a motion. Joe: Mayor, I move that we approve Agenda Item No. 20-173. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, do I have a second? Laura: Second. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, I have a motion for approval from Council Member Longoria with a second from Council Member Bentley. All in favor, please say aye. City Council: Aye. Mayor Lockwood: That’s unanimous. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Longoria moved to approve Agenda Item No. 20-173. Councilmember Bentley seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Mohrig was absent from the meeting. Bernadette: Thank you. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, we don’t have any items tonight under our Zoning Agenda, so we’ll move to Unfinished Business, and if the City Clerk will please sound that first item. UNFINISHED BUSINESS 1. Consideration to Adopt the Revised Milton Tree Canopy Conservation Ordinance and Tree Conservation Manual. (Agenda Item No. 20-157) Sudie: The first item is the consideration to adopt the Revised Milton Tree Canopy Conservation Ordinance and Tree Conservation Manual, Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 22 of 78 22 Agenda Item No. 20-157, Mr. Parag Agrawal. [No dictation] [00:41:11 – 00:41:52] Male Speaker: Give us just a moment, please. Parag: It seems I cannot show a PowerPoint presentation for the rezoning fund. Male Speaker: I gotta be honest with ya; I was preparing for the Tree Ordinance. Male Speaker: It’s just an important presentation. Over this on the right. Male Speaker: No, that was Unfinished Business. Male Speaker: Oh, right. Male Speaker: I think this has Public Hearing has [inaudible] [00:42:20]. Male Speaker: Mr. Mayor, may I interrupt for a moment? Mayor Lockwood: Yes, sir. Male Speaker: Before we proceed to the next Agenda Item, I want to have an abundance of caution if the Council and Mr. Mayor could sound on the Public Hearing for any public comment on the alcohol ordinance or the alcohol license. I’m sorry. Mayor Lockwood: Okay. Yeah, my bad. Do we have any public comment on the alcohol? Tammy: No, we do not. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, what’s that? What’s that? Paul: And if you’ll close. Mayor Lockwood: I’m sorry. We don’t have any public comment. I’m gonna close the hearing. Thank you, Paul. Male Speaker: And for the record, we’ll reiterate the motion and second after the public hearing has been closed. Mayor Lockwood: Okay. So, you’re saying we need –? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 23 of 78 23 Male Speaker: If you would. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, all right. Sorry. Male Speaker: Mayor, I move that we approve Agenda Item No. 20-173. Female Speaker: Second. Mayor Lockwood: Okay. I have a motion and a second for approval. All in favor, please say aye. City Council: Aye. Mayor Lockwood: That’s unanimous. All right, thank you, Paul. Sorry about that. Parag: I’m Parag Agrawal, City’s Community Development Director. And today we are here to present the final draft of the Tree Conservation Ordinance and the Tree Conservation Manual. Today I also have with me City Arborist Sandra Dewitt, Conservation Project Manager Teresa Stickels, and City’s Development Coordinator Dale Hall. Sandra has as the Project Manager of this ordinance update, and has worked very hard these last 18 months to make sure that we have one of the best ordinances possible. As we all know, the Tree Conservation Ordinance is very important to preserve and enhance the character of Milton. And the staff has worked very hard with various stakeholders to parent together the best tree preservation ordinance. An ordinance that will not only enhance the canopy of Milton, but will also help to preserve Milton pastures. If the City Council today approves the Tree Conservation Ordinance, the new ordinance will go into effect on August 1st, 2020. This will give the city staff approximately 45 days to conduct community outreach and schedule training workshops for Milton residents to educate them about various requirements of the new ordinance. As suggested by some City Council Members, the staff will also launch a Plant Milton campaign this fall to enhance the tree planting in the City of Milton. The planting initiative will have two primary objectives, No. 1, to finding priority areas on public property to plant trees with the help of tree fund, and No. second, encouraging tree planting on private property by partnering with private nurseries and private businesses to hand over free trees to the Milton residents. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 24 of 78 24 So, coming to the structure of today’s presentation, and to this presentation I will start by giving you a very brief overview of the process. It has been almost three years now. So, I will be very brief. After that, Sandra will walk through the major changes of the Tree Conservation Ordinance and also the major changes of the Tree Preservation Manual. We still have one or two open items, so Sandra will seek feedback from the City Council Members on some of those open items, and at the end, Teresa will give you a broad overview of the Plant Milton campaign that will be launched in fall of this year. So, starting with the process, so after Sandra and I started working for the City, we met with the Stakeholder’s Committee in March of 2019. The Stakeholder’s Committee comprised of approximately 16 members, and it included developers, business owners, residents, environmentalists. So, I will say it was a very balanced group. We met with the Stakeholder’s Committee a few times, and in June of 2019, the consensus was reached on the updated ordinance. In July of 2019, we started working with the Planning Commission. We met with the Planning Commission on three separate occasions. So, the Planning Commission and the Stakeholder’s Committee was on the same page on vast majority of the things, but there was a couple of disagreements. So, we had a joint work session of the Planning Commission and the Stakeholder’s Committee members, and all the, I would say, disagreements were ironed out. In December, we had a joint work session of the Planning Commission members and the City Council members. And in December, Planning Commission recommended going forward with the Tree Conservation Ordinance. We again met with the City Council members the second time in March, and we basically discussed three things with the City Council members in March. The first one was the protected tree size. The second was the tree removal permit fees. And the third was how we can incentivize the large-lot subdivisions. And based on the feedback we received for the City Council members, we have updated the ordinance, and I will ask Sandra now to, No. 1, she will first go through the goals and objectives of this update. And then she will walk you through the major changes of the ordinance and also the major changes of the Tree Manual. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 25 of 78 25 Sandra: Good evening, Mayor, and, Council, good to see you again. So, as Parag said, he kinda took you through the process of what we’ve been working on since I got here with the amendments to the Tree Canopy Conservation Ordinance. So, during that process we tried to use these three objectives. The first objective was to conserve trees with the understanding that open fields, pastures, and agricultural settings are as critical as natural vegetation and heavily wooded land in maintaining Milton’s small-town quality of life, sorry. Our second objective is to strive to achieve our Council-adopted tree-management plan goal of no net loss of trees. And the third objective we used is to create the least intrusive regulations to obtain our objectives on both developed and undeveloped properties while ensuring we do not place an unfair burden on property owners. So, these are the three objectives we used when we went through the Stakeholder’s Committee, the Planning Commission, and when we came to City Council at the work sessions. So, I just kinda wanted to briefly go through the major changes that were in the Tree Ordinance. The first thing we changed was the protected tree size. It was 2- and 6-inches diameter at breast height, and we changed that to 8 inches diameter at breast height to coincide with the beginning of specimen tree size criteria which starts at 8 inches. We also changed the definition of specimen tree to remove medium-height class trees and include tulip poplars and sweet gums in the same categories as pines. We changed the minimum tree canopy coverage requirement for Ag1 from 60 percent to 57 percent to coincide with our existing tree canopy that we have currently. We also looked at residential lots three acres or larger to have a minimum canopy coverage requirement of 25 percent or existing whichever is less. And did this to help incentivize large lots in Milton. We also removed construction zone and improvement area which restricted the creation of yards and the pastoral look. And in doing that we also made existing trees be one-third of the required canopy coverage during development to prevent clear cutting. We also approved waivers in the Tree Ordinance, so that we would add more transparency, and will present them quarterly to the Planning Commission. We also allowed for reasonable discretion for tree removal on Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 26 of 78 26 existing developed properties. And when we say developed properties, we are talking about existing homeowners in Milton. And the rest of the work was focused on streamlining the Tree Ordinance, removing redundancy, and keeping more consistency throughout the Tree Ordinance. So, we also made just a very few minor changes to the Tree Conservation Manual which is kind of a supplement to the Tree Ordinance and will be adopted along with the Tree Ordinance. So, in the manual we added the community force vision and goals from the Tree Ordinance that was taken out of the Tree Ordinance and put into the manual. We also moved some technical Male items from the Tree Ordinance into the manual because the manual is meant to be more of a technical guideline. So, we felt that stuff belonged in the manual instead of the ordinance. And then we just also added the language was actually in the Tree Ordinance to ensure that the ordinance would govern over the manual if there was ever a conflict between the two. Okay, so just a quick reminder, at our last work sessions we had with the City Council, we discussed protected tree size and the decision or the discussion was to leave it at 8 inches DBH. We also talked about application fees, and there was no change made to that as well. The last thing we talked about was large lot incidents, and we did make a change based on your recommendation to reduce that minimum canopy coverage requirement to 25 percent instead of the 57 percent. Male Speaker: Can I jump in a second? Sandra: Sure. Male Speaker: After I told ya I wouldn’t – I just wanna make sure so leaving it 8 inches, I just don’t want that to come across misleading. You just told us not to make any changes for this presentation, but open that up to discussion. That was not something you agreed on leaving at 8 inches, just wanna make sure we’re clear on that. Male Speaker: That’s just where it landed, at 8 inches. Male Speaker: That’s correct. The only one you directed us to make the change on was the larger than three acres. There still may be interest amongst the Council to discuss the others, and I just don’t that to come across misleading. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 27 of 78 27 Sandra: Okay. And so, one of the last things we discussed at the prior work session was how often the tree canopy would be measured. The ordinance says that it would be measured every five years. So, we had a recommendation of doing it every two years, and we left the language as not to exceed a five-year period because we felt that captured the two to three years. We can still do it in two to three years, but we won’t let it go more than five years. And there are some costs that would be associated with the tree canopy measurement as well. So, let me see. So, are there any questions about that before Teresa gets into her talk about the education? Mayor Lockwood: Laura and then Joe and then Peyton. Laura: All right, I just need to go through the three-acre, the 25 percent thing. So, these are scenarios so bear with me. So, a three-acre property owner has three acres. They sell once acre. So, that one acre is then held to the tree canopy ordinance at 57 percent. There remaining two acres if they need to pull an LDP for any reason, they will also be held to the 57 percent. Sandra: Mm – hmm, assuming it’s Ag1, yes. Laura: Okay. So, four acres, so the once acre is still held to the 57 percent. The remaining three acres are held to 25 percent or existing, whichever is lesser, correct? Sandra: Mm – hmm, correct. Laura: Okay. So, the “or existing whichever is less” that’s important, and I don’t think it has yet been changed in the tables which is what we will capture tonight. Is that right? Sandra: Well, right before the table, the language in the ordinance says that you must meet the minimum canopy coverage per the table or what is existing, whichever’s less. So, if your existing canopy is less than what is required in the minimum canopy coverage table, you would just have to maintain that existing. You wouldn’t have to bring it up to whatever your minimum canopy coverage requirement is per zoning. You would have to maintain what you had existing. So, really the minimum canopy coverage or existing whichever less, really applies to everybody. Laura: Okay, I just wanna make sure that language exactly is in there Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 28 of 78 28 because when we’re all gone, that’s the intent of being able to incentivize the larger parcels at three acres or above. And it wasn’t clear to me when I read it because of the table. The residential lots three acres or greater, it just says 25 percent. If we can asterisk it and just make sure that’s finalized. Am I still missing something or –? It’s on Page 20 of the – Female Speaker: Well – excuse me. Were you asking, Laura, were you asking somebody buys a parcel, and then they sell an acre or two, what happens with that they’ve sold? What about the parcel they’re left with? Is that retroactively – do they have to go back to 57? Because – Sandra: It depends on the size and what they wanna do, right. Female Speaker: I’m sorry. I missed the first part. Male Speaker: My understanding is the language covers that through the or whatever, no less than what existed. So, the clause that covers, we don’t have to get up to 57 percent if the property has less than that, covers subdivisions or dividing up one property into multiple other properties. Because it’s highly likely in a four-acre plot, two acres have tree coverage; two acres don’t. And that’s enough to meet the standard. You subdivide it into four one-acre lots. All of a sudden you got a lot with no trees, but that shouldn’t be a problem because it didn’t have trees to begin with. Female Speaker: Yeah, but if – Sandra: So – Male Speaker: Is that you’re understanding? Female Speaker: Mm – hmm, yes. Female Speaker: I just wanna make – I get that. So, if you subdivide to one-acre lots, you’re held to the 57 percent tree canopy. Male Speaker: No. You’re held to the – Female Speaker: Or existing. Male Speaker: – 57 percent or whatever the percentage is on the property when you have it. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 29 of 78 29 Female Speaker: Right. Sandra: Or existing. Female Speaker: Or existing, on a one-acre lot. Sandra: On a one-acre lot, yes. Male Speaker: I think it’s your concern someone would take a three-acre or larger lot, get the 25 percent, take down to trees to the 25 percent, and then split it into smaller lots. Female Speaker: Right. Female Speaker: Okay, I just wanna make sure that I understood that, and the language matches the intent of what – Female Speaker: Is there anything to prevent people from doing that, buying four or five acres, selling off three, getting the benefit of 25 percent, sell off three, and then being able to keep your two without the canopy at 25 percent? I’m just looking for fairness across the spectrum. Sandra: You mean is there something to keep them from subdividing it that way? Female Speaker: No, not subdividing, being able to do that and then reaping the benefit of having done that. Mayor Lockwood: And is it more of the zoning issue because if it’s a three-acre lot or above, and they have approval for it, and then come to divide it into smaller lots, that would have to go through staff for zoning or at least have to go through staff for approval, correct, to divide lots? Parag: There’s a plan in process. Mayor Lockwood: So, I’m wondering if there’s a – and I don't know if we wanna get into this, but if there’s a process where if somebody did do that, if somebody bought a lot, and we’ll just call it three acres, and cut trees enough to where just they abided by the 25 percent, and then next year they came in and divided it into the three lots to get around the 57 percent. But if once they do the subdivision process on those lots, the city could pick up that, “Wait a minute, this was Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 30 of 78 30 three acres. This was only 25 percent, now you’re doing this. You’ve got to plant back –” Something would kick in that they would have to replant a bunch of trees or something. I don’t know how complex that’s getting. Male Speaker: Well, it would have to capture under the – I don’t have an intimate knowledge of this, but if the future subdivision came before you, it would go through a process which would reveal it, figure the, I mean, if the language of the plotting process reflects it’s not done in order to avoid the requirements of other ordinances. We could capture it. If it said it just complies with existing ordinances, we might have to look to see if that eventually was expressly exempted, and we have to look at the exact language of both the plotting and the Tree Preservation Ordinance. Parag: So, Mayor, we had a similar discussion about Ag exemptions with the City Attorneys. So, what happens if suppose a property owner applies for Ag exemption and gets the Ag exemption. And maybe after two years, after three years they fold the business, and they move away. So, is there anyway in which we can again bring the property owner into compliance? And the answer from the City Attorneys’ Office was you basically apply the same ordinances. Again, you got the Ag exemption. Again, it was in good-faith, and they moved forward. If the business does not go well for two years, and they again went back to single family homes, but they were still able to clear the trees, so same issue over here. Mayor Lockwood: Well, that’s the same thing, yeah. Parag: It’s the same issue over here, and they what the City Attorneys told us that the city can do very, very little if it was in good-faith. If they were basically trying to circumvent the city requirements, that’s a different thing. But with a good-faith effort, the city can do very little on those things. But to answer Council Member Bentley’s question, maybe as part of the motion you can clarify this, and we can again work with the City Attorneys’ Office. All that’s already part of the table, but we can also work with the City Attorneys’ Office to make sure it is written much more permanently over there, if that’s the word. Female Speaker: Yeah, I would suggest that. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 31 of 78 31 Mayor Lockwood: Okay, I think it was Joe, you had a question. Joe: Yes, the cost that you mentioned would be limited to the cost to recertify canopy coverage, so the satellite imagery and – Sandra: To measure it, mm – hmm. Joe: – whatever software program we use to identify that or whatever labor we use to identify that? Sandra: Right, well, the first time it was done, my understanding because that was before I was here, my understanding is that somebody on staff took it upon themselves to do it in their spare time. But with the workload everybody has now, that’s kinda getting more and more difficult to do. I don't know how we would find staff time to do that in-house with us, but GIS, we could work with them. And they could do it, but they’re so swamped right now. They say it would take them a while to do it. So, almost your best bet would be to contract it out, and that could be $12,000.00 to $15,000.00 to get a canopy study done. Joe: Yeah, I was trying to get an idea of what the – when you say costs, what did you mean by costs? Because future budgets are gonna have to deal with that. Sandra: Right. Mayor Lockwood: Peyton and then Carol. Peyton: All right, couple questions, so that 57 percent actually cleared up a lot of these questions. For some reason we’re, I don't know why I was under the impression that you would have to plant up to 57 percent. So, you keep that existing canopy which helps. You refer to the protected tree as 2 inches, and I think on – Sandra: Before we revised it. Peyton: Correct. So, but I think for the first 10 years or 11 years of the City, a protected tree was 15 inches. Is that correct? Sandra: Correct. Peyton: Okay, so I think that’s some of the heartache that I think I’m getting throughout the community. So, when you mentioned the Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 32 of 78 32 tree canopy survey, I have a second question. So, let’s say you got two-and-a-half acres. The canopy coverage is 45 percent. You wanna put in a pool. Your canopy coverage goes back down to 43, right. So, after that, you have to bring it back up to 45, correct? Sandra: Correct. Peyton: And then with this tree canopy, so if I’m applying for a pool, do you do that tree canopy survey? Or would I have to go hire someone like you just said to do that? Sandra: Yeah, you would have to show it on your site plan when you submit for your pool permit. So, it may not be that you have to go and do a full survey and identify every tree on the property. If you have wooded areas, the ordinance does allow you to show them as wooded areas with a description of what is the wooded area and a measurement of what that wooded area consists of. You would just need to identify the individual trees that aren’t overlapping canopy and identify the trees that you’re specifically removing. Peyton: Okay, because I guess the whole point is, I’m trying – because I think the intention of this hard work of Paul and the Planning Commission and the Tree Committee, I think the intent of the ordinance is there. Because I think this will help, I mean, I think it will as far as the landowners trying to clear cu t and develop the property to a mass degree, I think this helps out a lot. But I think I see some of the heartache and the heartburn of the individual landowners that already here that wanna put in a barn or wanna put in a pool or stuff like that and trying to alleviate some of that red tape that I think we’re probably gonna more burdensome on ‘em now, I guess. Because I can see the phone calls of someone who’s put in a pool and say, “Now, I gotta do a tree survey? And now, it’s from 15 inches to 8 inches; It’s gonna cost this.” That’s all I was trying to get at. Sandra: Right, well, that’s a whole different process. So, that’s a development permit, and so, anytime you want to add an accessory structure or pool, you would have to go through that permit process regardless of the Tree Ordinance or not. So, that’s a process that’s already in place, and the trees are just a part of the process at that point. Mayor Lockwood: Carol. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 33 of 78 33 Carol: Okay, I don’t wanna wear you out, but let’s talk about the tree canopy coverage, the canopy one more time. You just made a distinction there. Would you just walk me through it again from the aspirational aspect of 57 percent? Male Speaker: Fifty-seven is our existing canopy. Sandra: Well, 57 is for Ag1 zoning and anything over. So, anything Ag1 zoning is 57 percent unless you’re the three acres or larger. Then it’s broken down in the table by zoning. So, you see not all the zonings are at 57 percent. Some require 40 percent. Some require 20. C-3 is 20 percent. So, the way it would work is you would look at your zoning and see what your canopy coverage requirement is. So, if you’re Ag1, it’s 57 percent. So, but if you have a lot that is already below the 57 percent, like Peyton said 45 percent, then you would just have to maintain that 45 percent. You wouldn’t have to bring it up to the 57 percent, but you couldn’t bring it any lower than what you had. Carol: Unless, to his point, you wanted to add a pool or a barn, and then you would go through a process to see if you could do that, okay. So, one of our tenets or your three tenets is the goal is to conserve trees, and I’m just gonna quote this, “Conserve trees with the understanding pastures, open fields, and agricultural settings are as critical as natural vegetation, heavily wooded land, and maintaining Milton’s small-town quality of like,” which is comprehensive and well-written and well-stated. But my question is this, if those are things are as important, and some might argue that the canopy, even though we love it, might be arbitrary across the spectrum, then why wouldn’t people be able to get credit for lots of shrubbery and grass and meadows, etc.? Why does it just have to be canopy? Because I think, I feel we’re putting a lot of emphasis on canopy which is great, and as you know, I’d like to see proactive campaigns to get everybody to plant Milton. But I feel that statement, if we’re true to that statement, people can get a lot of credit, and it might reduce some of the heartache about the technicality of the coverage. Sandra: Well, the canopy ordinance is based on tree canopy. So, and it’s based on the result of a tree and the canopy that you get is what we’re trying to focus on. Because typically, you don’t think of shrubs and grass as giving you any of the same benefits as tree Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 34 of 78 34 canopy coverage dose, the shade and the reduced carbon and the oxygen and that kinda stuff. So, I think the focus of the Tree Ordinance was to give credit to the tree canopy. And the discussion of giving credit towards shrubs or grass never really came up in the Tree Ordinance discussions. Carol: Well, okay, but I think that it works with certainly on the larger lots’ effort. There are some people who feel, okay, talking with tree companies that are cutting down trees, some of the push back they’re getting because I’ve asked some of them, I don't know. Any opinions on that? It just seems to me to be a little bit inconsistent. Parag: No, sure. So, Council Member Cookerly, as I mentioned we were having dual objectives, right, as far as Tree Conservation Ordinance. So, we were trying to enhance the tree canopy, but we were also trying to preserve the Milton pastures. We were also trying to encourage the Milton pastures. So, in a way, yes, 57 percent is our existing tree canopy. And there is a goal of no net loss. So, we are tying to maintain the 57 percent, and we will try to have the Plant Milton campaign and stuff like that. But as you mentioned, we want to preserve the pastures. So, that’s the reason for three-acres or more, we are trying to incentivize it. So, we are not basically asking them to have, let’s say, 57 percent or existing. It’s 25 percent or existing. So, again the whole pasture [inaudible] [01:11:55] you are talking about it, I think that works with this tree lot three-acres or more incentives. Again, we do want to make sure that the grass coverage and those pastures are encouraged in Milton. So, again, we came up with 25 percent, if you want to say 20 percent or 25, we’ll be okay. But we don’t want to incentivize large lots in Milton. Mayor Lockwood: And I see your question because there is some benefit to even grass and shrubs just with permit building and runoff and whatnot, but. Laura? Female Speaker: So, that’s where I would love to see in the manual and in the table for the exemptions, that Ag exemption. We have in there all the other things like forest management, tree nurseries, imminent threat trees. But if we really want to make people feel comfortable about coming here and buying a hobby farm, we need to have this document stand alone and documents what our intention is with Ag uses which is grass, pastures. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 35 of 78 35 That yes, you can buy an eight-acre or 10-acre parcel and clear it for pasture, and that’s what we consider an Ag exemption, doesn’t mean you don’t do soil erosion control. It just means that you can have animal husbandry and crop management. Correct? Parag: Yes. Female Speaker: Okay, because if you’re thinking about buying an estate here to do that, I think it needs to be not in someone’s head. It needs to be in a document somewhere, that we’re going to honor an Ag exemption that you’re exempt for the Tree Conservation Ordinance if it’s a bonified Ag use. And that would be my suggestion on this Table 5 for exemptions where we list about four or five. But we don’t have the Ag exemption in there. Parag: No, definitely. So, for the Ag exemptions, it’s basically crop management and animal husbandry. And as per the state law, generally the Tree Preservation Ordinance is exempt for those crop management and animal husbandry. Right now, we are working with the City Attorneys Office to identify places where this Ag exemption should land at various places of the City Ordinance, and we will make sure that we let the City Attorneys Office know about City Council’s intent. It should also be part of the Tree Conservation Ordinance, and we can always update this when we will be updating all other ordinances for the city. Female Speaker: The Unified Code, is that what you mean? Parag: So, again, we will be – currently I checked with Jeff [inaudible] [01:15:05] in the morning. He will be preparing a draft for the City Council in the month of July. So, most likely we can a work session with the City Council in August to go over all the places where this Ag exemption language should be part. As you mentioned, Council Member Bentley, it should be also be part of the Tree Conservation Ordinance, and we can always update that. Female Speaker: Thank you. Mayor Lockwood: Carol, did that clarify or muddy up? I’ll just make a statement, too, and I know it’s tough from the staff side and our group, Planning Commission and the Committee and Council. Trees are one of those things where you ask 100 people in the City of Milton, it’s important and save all the trees, and 99 percent are gonna say Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 36 of 78 36 absolutely until it comes to their yard or if they wanna put a pool in or if they have a tree they wanna take down or somebody wants a farm and you wanna have some pasture and whatnot. So, this is a tough thing. You gotta really think it through. So, and again, trees are beautiful, they’re beneficial, but also, the thing people like about Milton is to ride by and see a pasture and a fence and a barn and things like that, too. So, I know it’s been a tough balance, and I think the whole reason for this rewrite came up with the pressure of development and clear cutting, and everything was, lot of things were being developed. So, I think we’re kinda hitting where that’s what we want most of the control over is to make sure a large development doesn’t come in, clear cut everything, and just looks barren and takes years and years for it replant and whatnot. But we also have flexibility both with agricultural or something to incentivize large lots as well as just individual homeowners. As Peyton mentioned, if they wanna put a pool in and need to do something, we don’t wanna be too overbearing. So, I think it’s a good discussion, so we can hopefully come up with a good blend and a mix there for that, so. Paul? Paul: I have just a scenario question. I know we can’t contemplate every single one, but there is one that’s existing right now. So, there’s an Ag1, large parcel today that is developing some pastureland. And in that, they’re taking down a large number of trees which by this ordinance, we should be embracing that. That’s part of the look and feel of the pasture part of our Milton ambiance. But that’s a net loss. If you’re taking down let’s say it was 100 percent wooded, and then is there a requirement that they still maintain some percentage that’s wooded or can they go border-to-border in an Ag1 application? Sandra: Well, if they are deemed to be a true agricultural use, then they are exempt from the Tree Ordinance, so. Paul: Okay, so they can go lot edge to lot edge? So, in the scenario with the way we’re gonna hope to apply this ordinance, do we ever get that percentage back somewhere? Because that by right is allowed to do, and then yet, we just reduced the canopy of the city. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 37 of 78 37 Male Speaker: I can jump in on that just real quick. So, a few things are gonna be in play there. First, they’re going to be exempt for the area of use, if I’m correct, from an agricultural exemption. Doesn’t mean they just get to cut border-to-border, it’s where they’re gonna actually have the agricultural use. And it has to be a bonified agricultural use, animal husbandry, and crop management. It’s not everything is just blanket agricultural exemption. The second piece of that as far as, that’s something that’s just beyond our control. You’re not granting them that right. The state grants them that right. We have no choice but to allow that exemption. And in the second half of this presentation which Teresa is going to be bringing you, we are going to start all kinds of campaigns to grow Milton. I don't know if we landed on that slogan or not. But – Male Speaker: Plant Milton. Male Speaker: Plant Milton, there you go – to continue to plant up areas that can be planted. We could take the Milton Country Club and add all kinds of canopy coverage there if we chose to, and other publi c areas. We could look at other areas that we own property to grow. Plus, we can look and try to continue to get our residents to embrace increasing their canopy size. There’s no perfect formula in this because we can’t – there are certain things were just beyond our control, and those agricultural exemptions are just beyond our control. Male Speaker: That’s the clarification I was looking for, but it is outside of our control. Then there is no guarantee we’re gonna get it back in that particular scenario. Male Speaker: No. Male Speaker: I do wanna take a minute since we’re bouncing around, I wanna go back and talk about how often we do measure the canopy. And I know we talked about the cost associated with that, and what’s the right number of years. And you know this is kind of pet peeve of mine, so I’ll bring it up for the benefit of the Council, and that is I’m not convinced that at the five-year mark that we’re doing ourselves any favor if we wait that long to do that. So, I’m basically saying this to my teammates here. If we’re a 15-year-old city, we’d only be measuring it for the third time at this point. And we know that a lot has changed in our city in the last – since we created it. I think to allow five years to pass when there’s still Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 38 of 78 38 pressure for development if we wait to the five-year mark, we’ve done ourselves a disfavor. I think that it should be a maximum of three years before we take that look. And I don't know what the staff workload is. That’s not something that’s under our purview, but I would that’d it be something with the benefit of GIS that we could do pretty simply and don’t have to farm that out. Or we plan for it in the budget. If it’s $12,000.00 every three years, that’s not an impractical budget allotment for that. But I’m just pitching for something less than five-year consideration on that. Mayor Lockwood: Carol. Carol: So, you can call me remedial Carol after this. All right, so same street, all right, people over here buy a couple acres, and let’s say the tree canopy is 20 percent. People over here buy a couple of acres right across the street, and let’s say it’s 90 percent. Okay. So, the people over here with 20 percent have a lot of open land, and they’re gonna do whatever they do. But they don’t have to bring it up to 57 percent. Correct? Sandra: Correct. Carol: Correct, okay. Across the street, these people ideally are not supposed to go below 57 percent, or they’re penalties. Correct? Sandra: Correct. Carol: Okay. Therein’s my issue about fairness on property rights. And I just, I don’t think we’ve solved that because if – and I’m not saying that we should provide favoritism per se, but I think we have to be able to have some sort of an equilibrium. Now, I realize that maybe they can go to a bank, or they could do this, but that’s just not to me in the spirit of fair play. I don’t feel that kink has been worked out yet. And that is not disrespect to all the hard work everybody has done. That is what has tripped me up from the beginning. Sandra: I understand. It’s hard to find a solution that fits every scenario perfectly. So, we tried to find the middle ground as best as we could and tried to work with the Stakeholder's Committee and Planning Commission on working through that middle ground and finding that middle ground. It’s hard to find. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 39 of 78 39 Carol: Could we – is there something in the apparatus where the people who might have a wooded lot who would like to somewhat of a less wooded lot, and they’re at or above the 57, where we can – when you do a home sale, you get comps of what the value is? Is there anyway to look at the surrounding area of what is in the area, and then these people don’t have to standalone with a heavily wooded lot if they really wanna bring it down a notch for their lifestyle vis-à-vis the neighbors and what’s around them? Is there any –? I’m just looking for any creativity to create a fair playing field? Sandra: Off the top of my head, I can’t of how you would – Carol: It’s probably more than for tonight, yeah, I understand. Sandra: I mean, we do have alternative compliance in the ordinance. We do have those options. It doesn’t allow you to use alternative compliance as your complete solution. But if you want to add to the tree fund, you can do a third of it to the tree fund and just have two-thirds of your canopy coverage requirement. And if you want to do a tree bank where you have that person maybe that has the two acres with only 20 percent and maybe they do wanna bump it up, but they would rather somebody else do it for them, they can register their site as a tree bank. And then that person could go and work out an agreement with them to plant trees on their site. But there again, you can’t do it for all your canopy coverage requirement, you can do it for half. So, there are some alternative compliance options there that will kinda help you balance it out a little bit, if that make sense. Carol: It does. Thank you. Mayor Lockwood: I totally agree with you, Carol. I mean, I see your point, but I think the reality is this is not going retroactive. This is somebody new coming in, and if they buy the two-acre lot that doesn’t have much tree coverage versus they buy a wooded lot, they know what they’re getting. And if they were buying a large piece of property and gonna do a large home site, over three acres or whatever, they do have the option of taking trees out, so. I think that balances it out somewhat, if that makes sense. The whole intent is to keep mainly a developer coming in and clearing it out, but I mean, I see what you’re saying. If we were Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 40 of 78 40 going back and making this add and this guy take out after the fact, I don’t think it’s fair. And I agree with ya; it’s not a total level playing field. But moving forward on this, people they know what they got when they buy it. It's a wooded piece, and they have to follow these regulations. And if it’s not – I don't know. I’m not coming up with an answer. I’m just saying I think that’s kinda the situation. Does that make sense? Is that kinda the way –? Carol: Mm – hmm. Peyton: So, let me give you another – I love the examples; it kinda helps. So, if you wanna build, do you know The Hayfield subdivision off of Providence Road? So, let’s say you wanna build that, and the parcels are, let’s say they’re 60, the undeveloped, it’s 60 percent. I mean, obviously, The Hayfield is not 57 percent. Sandra: Right. Peyton: Okay. But I love the neighborhood. I don't know why. I just like it. I think a lot of people in Milton like those neighborhoods. So, my question is, it’s probably more of 30 percent; that’s just a guess. So, if you want to develop a neighborhood look that, I guess, they obviously can’t meet the 57 with replanting is my – Sandra: Whether they would maintain the existing, so if they were already below the 57 percent, they would just have to keep the existing. Peyton: Well, that’s what I’m saying. Let’s say it was 60. Sandra: Oh, if it was 60? Peyton: Yeah, it was above. So, if you’re at 58 and you wanna build that neighborhood, I mean, is it even possible to even do that? Because then you’re gonna go to – Sandra: Well, it would look a lot different. Peyton: See, that’s what I’m saying. So, how would it look a lot different? I’m just – Sandra: There would be more trees out there. Peyton: But, so how would there be –? I mean, that’s what I’m saying. So, you couldn’t physically build those size homes with those pools Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 41 of 78 41 and those guest houses anymore if you want that type of development. Is that correct? Or do you just write a big check to the tree bank? Or is that another possibility? Because I think that’s gonna be another – see. I think the issue is we want bigger homes. That’s just me or maybe I would prefer a larger home with a pool and a guest house than if we’re trying to condense the homes. Sandra: Well, I think it is doable. Peyton: I think everybody likes their home values higher. So, I mean, that’s what I’m trying to make sure we don’t – Sandra: Right. Well, and you have people that argue that trees make your home values go up, but I mean, it is doable. It’s gonna look different. It’s not gonna have that open yard look that it has now. It would look – you would probably have more trees along the back yards and along the perimeters. But you would still have enough room for your septic and your pool. Peyton: So, I guess another – Sandra: It may not be as big of house. It may not be as big of a pool. But I think it’s doable. Peyton: See, but I think that’s where I don’t wanna go down a road to where we’re all of sudden we’re shifting Milton’s development pattern in a way I think people don’t want. So, but I see where if it’s 30 percent canopy, kinda going to Carol’s point, if you have a 25 percent canopy or 30 percent canopy lot, you hit the goldmine. You can develop whatever you want. So, I think we need to be careful on that, but, too, was in order to plant, maybe try to plant up, as much as we can to get to that. Because I heard I don't know developers and builders are trying to understand how this ordinance is going to – what’s the causes and effect. So, can you get, when you hit the recompense of trees, can you get credit for grouping them together? Or do they have to be spaced out? That was one of the worries, and I don’t know the answer to that. Sandra: It is the same credit. So, the recompense tree credit is based on the species and what canopy coverage it will provide at maturity. Mayor Lockwood: So, to that – Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 42 of 78 42 Sandra: So, it’s based on future canopy. Peyton: So, can you put all four together in a bunch and get credit for each one individually? Sandra: Mm – hmm. Peyton: Oh, you can? Oh, good. Sandra: It’s the same credit whether you clumped ‘em or whether you spaced ‘em out. Peyton: Okay, well I think that helps out a lot for aesthetic purposes. Male Speaker: You may not benefit those trees because it may be, let’s say you plant on oak, and it’s gonna have a 40-foot wingspan. You wouldn’t necessarily wanna plant those 10-feet apart. But what you’re saying is you can, and you would still get the benefit of the 40-foot wingspan of that, and you’ve accomplished the objective for your recompense or for your requirement on the lot. But you haven’t necessarily provided for the success of four 40-foot oaks to develop to their – Sandra: Oh, yeah. And I should probably clarify. When you can clump ‘em together, you still have to give ‘em adequate spacing. Peyton: So, I guess that was my question. In order to get a development like a Hayfield or some of these other developments I think are good developments from when you go inside, the question is, it sounds like you can’t even plant up to the – you can’t even, not matter how many trees you can put on a lot, you’re not gonna be able to make it work, I guess, was my point. So, is that –? Sandra: I’m not sure I follow. Peyton: I guess the whole point is there’s no way a development like that could fit no matter how much you can replant or recompense. Mayor Lockwood: You’re assuming that if someone bought a wooded – Peyton: Correct. Mayor Lockwood: – fully, 80, 90 percent treed lot, they would have a hard time Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 43 of 78 43 having a neighborhood. Peyton: Yeah, there’s no way they could do it unless Council Member Longoria wants to – Mayor Lockwood: Joe. Joe: No, I think these are all viable arguments, however, I think what we’re forgetting about is that’s what makes Milton, Milton. I mean we put these kinds of restrictions on the property already. Male Speaker: When? Joe: Okay. Male Speaker: Not the canopy. Joe: No, I’m not talking about just the canopy ordinance. The canopy ordinance is a specialized version of the sewer ordinance. Not all property can have sewer. How come? It’s available. Well, you can’t if you’re not on the map. Well, how come I’m not on the map? Well, you’re not on the map because you weren’t around when the map was made, and we put a moratorium on adding any other people to the map. So, this is just yet one more version of that. I mean, people that buy the property have expectations on what they can do with the property based on the rules that are associated with it when they buy it. And that’s what we’re talking about here. Peyton: Correct. So, the rules were – so, what I’m saying is I think the canopy is a good solution, however, I’m starting, the more I’m talking about it, the more I’m thinking Milton’s development pattern which I think it might shift in a good way as far as the larger estate lots. I think we covered that really well, but I’m starting to think we’re gonna get a lot of push back because land prices in Milton are premium for a reason because they want to build their pool and their pool house. And what I’m saying is that might not be, I mean, we might not be doing that anymore is kinda my question. I mean, I don't know. Joe: So, is the question is 57 percent the right number? Peyton: That’s invalid, and I came into this meeting assuming it was, right. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 44 of 78 44 I was more worried about the 15 and the 8 inches, but now I’m thinking maybe it’s not, so. Mayor Lockwood: Well, in keeping my – and Paul and Carol have something. But 57 percent would have a maximum coverage over 25 percent of coverage of your lot for actual structures and pool and whatnot, so. It still gives you what? Forty-three percent minus 25 percent. There’s still a little bit of wiggle room on lot size, but so. But I see your point, definitely. We’re not gonna have open – let’s say North Valley or Six Hills or whatever. You drive in and see a beautiful lawn and a couple of oak trees in there. You’re not gonna be able to develop something like that unless we have some kind of parameters for that if it’s a wooded – if it’s existing, wooded property. Paul and then Carol. Paul: I didn’t follow your math just now, Joe, on the coverage, but that goes back to the concern that I’ve had for a long time. We decided long ago for the city that we were gonna allow a higher percentage of coverage on the lots for structure development than I was comfortable with. And I think now you add on the fact there’s a tree canopy requirement, I’m not sure at the moment, without somebody helping me figure that out, how that combination of math works. If you have 57 percent tree canopy requirement, and you’re about that now, you can’t go below that. But if you can also by right have a certain percentage of structural development and impervious service on your lot, how do those two blend? I don’t understand that at the moment, and I would like somebody to help me understand that. Because I think the percentage of allowable impervious surface by structure is higher, and so if you wanna have the pool and the lanai and the outdoor cooking area and the tennis court many of which are being built just like I just described them, in Milton, obviously you can’t build that on a one-acre lot. So, the incentive is then to have a larger – that’s not incentive, it would be required that the homeowner then look at a larger lot. Male Speaker: And if it shifts that way, then it’s good. Female Speaker: If possible. Paul: Yeah, I’m okay with if it’s pushing in that direction, but I’m not sure that it is yet. So, I don't know the answer to that. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 45 of 78 45 Mayor Lockwood: Yeah, the math I was using, if you got 57 percent tree coverage you have to maintain and 25 percent lot or structure coverage, nonpermeable surface, then that’s – what’s 57 plus – 60 – 83 – that gives you 17 percent open space left, yard basically. Male Speaker: Let me just jump in real quick, for the impervious coverage, typically those are maximum limits. So, if the tree canopy forces you to stay below that, it’s not a conflict. You can apply both of them at the same time. One may restrict what the maximum that – the tree canopy may restrict the maximum you can get up to as practical matter. Even though the code would let you to 25 percent or whatever, if the tree canopy takes you below that, that’s still not a problem legally in enforcing it. Male Speaker: But our numbers larger than 25 percent. Female Speaker: No. It’s 25 percent, right? Mayor Lockwood: I think it’s 25. Isn’t it 25 percent? Male Speaker: I thought so. Female Speaker: Yeah, I’m pretty – it’s 20 or 25 percent. Mayor Lockwood: Yeah, lot coverage. Female Speaker: Yeah, impervious. Mayor Lockwood: Okay. Male Speaker: Well, it’s the higher of the two whatever it is. Mayor Lockwood: It’s 25. Well, I think it’s 25 and gated in private neighborhoods, so. Parag: I’d like to respond to Council Member Jamison’s comment about that particular neighborhood. So, again, the way I will say is not every property, you cannot build every type of project on every property. If I want to build a hospital, if I want to build a school, I would basically choose my property for that particular project. So, same thing, if I want to build up a different type of development, particular type of subdivision, I would basically choose my property that will be suitable for that, right. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 46 of 78 46 Peyton: Right, what I’m saying is I think there’s certain properties that we would prefer than others. Parag: Yes, we would encourage, yes. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, I think Carol had a comment. Carol: Okay, so the scenario you’re identifying it’s a property rights situation because we’re talking mostly from, and actually, I like the thought of keeping a lot out of density out. So, no, I’m not on the other side of this issue, but if you think about it, we’re talking about what people would buy. But what about from the seller’s point of view, I mean. If we create a bar, let’s say somebody has a more wooded property or something. If you had The Hayfield originally, and you sold it, then you had pastureland. So, this is not applicable. I mean, it is what it is. But what if you had mostly wooded, and you own this property, you’ve held onto it forever, and you wanna sell it, and now there are all these obstacles because you have a 65 or 70 percent, and you can’t take it below 57. And, I mean, how many people are gonna line up to buy that property when there might be other properties? And is that fair? And again, listen, I’m not chilling so that can sell more property, but it gets down a seller’s property right, and I’m not a seller because I’ve mostly bottom land. But maybe some of you are. Is that fair? Yes, sir? Actually, he needs to recognize you, not me. Mayor Lockwood: [Inaudible – crosstalk] [01:38:53]. Joe: You can’t start to pretend that we’re all about property owner rights. Carol: I can; I’m new. Joe: We have all the zoning and restrictions and ordinances and everything else that we put in place specifically to tell the owner what they can’t do with their property. And we tell ‘em where they can or can’t put a riding ring, okay. So, the idea that we’ve got think about the owner rights when it comes to trees, it seems empty-chested. Carol: Well, I mean, property rights are property right. I mean, they’re Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 47 of 78 47 sort of endowed with everything else. Joe: I agree with ya, but we didn’t feel too, we didn’t worry too much about taking the rights away in other areas. There’s only certain things you can do with Ag1 property. We just talked about this afternoon or earlier today the fact that you couldn’t put any kind of a farm winery on your Ag1 property. It had to follow these certain rules and guidelines. Carol: Well, those are certain uses. I think this is starting at the very blank slate of even being able to, I mean, if we create, again, I mean, I feel we’re getting across purposes here. But if create a barrier for unique situations where people can’t sell their property, unless there is truly a waiver opportunity, I mean, look. I support the 57 percent. I see it more as a target rather than something that is bonified. It’s like, “Boom. Here’s your 57 percent. You can’t go below it.” But anything that’s super punitive through the tree bank and all that, I mean, it’s – and it may be one in 1,000 cases where it prevents a property sale, but just something to think about. Joe: But the reality is if the number that we put in the ordinance is 57 percent, we’re really fooling ourselves to think that we can maintain 57 percent coverage in the city overall because – Carol: Well, we may be able to go higher with Plant Milton. I mean, I don’t think we’re fooling ourselves. I think there’s a lot that we can mitigate. I disagree with that statement. Joe: I’m just saying from a mathematical point of view, if tree coverage is a handicap everybody’s gonna minimize to 57 percent if they have more than that. And if they don’t have more than, it’s gonna be less. So, if you add all that, you’re gonna be less than 57 percent. So, my point was, is 57 percent the right number? I think the direction that we gave staff last time was that 60 percent was too much, or maybe it was 65 percent. So, let’s take it down to 57 percent. So, now it sounds like we’re talking about, “Is 57 percent the right number? Or should it be lower?” Carol: So, how should it be? Mayor Lockwood: Let me ask one question, and then, sorry, Parag. What is our existing Tree Ordinance do? Because I think what we’re talking Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 48 of 78 48 about right now – Male Speaker: The original Tree Ordinance. Mayor Lockwood: The original. Female Speaker: The density. Mayor Lockwood: But let me say, I think what we’re talking about right is somebody that, let’s say, has a, let’s call it, 50 acres or whatever, I don't know, that’s all wooded that has to abide by the 57 percent versus if there pastures that somebody bought. And is it fair or not, or we’re putting undue burden on –? But what would our old Tree Ordinance have done on somebody with a fully wooded piece of property that was gonna develop a neighborhood on it? Sandra: Well, so under the Density ordinance, and, sir, I probably won’t be able to give you specifics numbers off the top of my head or examples because I haven’t worked with the Density ordinance as much. But you basically had a density-unit requirement per acre. So, for residential use, that was 20 units per acre. So, from what I’ve seen, the 20 units per acre is usually more strict than the 57 percent. So, the units are based on basically that you have existing tree density units, and then you have new tree planted what those unit values are worth. So, the existing tree units are worth more typically, and it’s based on the DBH. So, basically you had a table in there that told you the DBH and that unit value was for that size tree. When you planted a new tree, it was worth a lot less. A 4-inch tree was only worth .5, .7 density units, way less than an existing 4-inch tree. So, in looking back at some old plans, what I’ve found is they usually had to plant back a lot more to meet that 20 units per acre on residential stuff. I think commercial was 15 units per acre, I wanna say. And so, then when you removed specimen trees, you had to plant back density unit for density unit. So, as you get bigger, your density units increase. So, a specimen size tree could be anywhere from 15 to 20 units in itself to replace. So, at times you were having to place back to replace a specimen tree as much as you needed per acre. So, I saw some really high planting recompense numbers with the Density ordinance. Mayor Lockwood: I think the advantage to the homeowner on this plan though is you Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 49 of 78 49 get full value for a new tree – Sandra: For maturity, right. Mayor Lockwood: – assuming it matures versus something that – Sandra: Right, so you plant oak tree. You’re gonna get 1,600 square feet credit which is based on what that oak tree can provide canopy - wise at maturity. Mayor Lockwood: Versus the old one, you may take one tree down, you may have to plant four or six trees to equal. Now, you can plant a new tree that one day will – Female Speaker: Do you control the size in order to get the credit? What’s the caliper of that? Sandra: Well, with the canopy ordinance or the –? So, with the density ordinance you did get different credit amounts depending on the size of tree you planted, but with the canopy ordinance you pretty much get the same credit no matter what the size. We have a minimum size at the time of planting as 2 inches caliper. You can’t plant anything less than 2 inches caliper if you wanna get credit for it. Which 2-inch caliper is –? Female Speaker: Tiny. Sandra: Not that big, but it’s big enough that it’s established, and it has a high success rate of maturing. Mayor Lockwood: Let me ask a question, too. And I see where you guys are coming from. Let’s assume we pass this ordinance with some minor tweaks. Is there a process that, let’s say, somebody came in and wanted to develop a, I’ll use Hayfield, since you brought it up, Peyton, a neighborhood, and it’s heavily wooded and have to keep it at 57 percent of the land? But the developer wanted it to be 40 percent or 35 percent or whatever for that same look. Then we can bring them back under a special use or bring it back before Council to where you could weigh to where you could allow less density coverage or less canopy coverage, and maybe they have to bump the lots up. Instead of one-acre lots, they’re one-and-a-half acres or something like that. Is there a way to do that? Or does that get –? I mean, it’s more really legal, and, Paul, I Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 50 of 78 50 don’t know if you have a comment. Paul: That’s where the large-lot incentive was s’posed to come into play, but now, I’m really conflicted. Because I thought we were going in the right direction with what I had heard before, and then, with what Sandra just explained, now I’m really troubled. Because if you go back to when we started this in the first place, the reason we wanted to review the ordinance was because there was this outcry from community and all the developers going, “We were seeing all this red clay.” So, we said, “Oh, my goodness. Our ordinance is not working because all this development is happening, and we’re taking down more trees than we thought.” And we contemplated the path we were supposed to go down, and then the, my understanding was, that the introduction of the tree canopy ordinance instead of the density ordinance was supposed to sort of stop some of the big changes that were coming from the development community but yet still be respectful of the private landowner that still wanted to take a tree down or develop a back yard or put a pool in. I thought we were really going in the right direction until I heard your explanation just now where we are potentially looking at a conflict in that objective in the fact that we’re gonna get less replanting. We’re gonna get less stuff replanted, smaller, and the development community isn’t necessarily gonna have the brakes put on them. So, now I’m conflicted. Sandra: Okay. Well, that’s not really what I meant to convey. I apologize, but. So, I don’t think is that we’re getting canopy or less trees. We’re getting a better, healthier canopy by not over planting in that situation. So, the density ordinance and the tree canopy ordinance look at two totally different things. The density ordinance was based on old Basil area formulations. This kind of applies more to forestry and takes into consideration the Basil area of the trunk. So, it’s counting the trunk. Whereas the canopy-based ordinance goes on canopy because the canopy is what provides the most benefits. That’s where you get your shade and all that. So, instead of focusing on the size of the trunk, it focuses on the canopy coverage. So, that’s where that difference is in the density and the canopy ordinance. Male Speaker: I think you found a perfect overlap. I don’t think that was zero- Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 51 of 78 51 sum. I think you found a win-win between those that wanted to remove trees and the health benefits of trees. It wasn’t the size of the trunk that was really that mattered. It was the size of the canopy. So, we didn’t have to have all the replanting, but we got the benefits of the canopy without having the same regulations on people that wanted to develop the property or remove a tree. While it may be easier under the new model, and might not be – it would be less – one of the objectives that we talked about was to make sure that we instituted the least amount of regulation to achieve the stated objective. And that’s not just here, that’s what you generally try to do in government. You don’t wanna overstep any further than you have to. And they were able to do this with this canopy ordinance. Yes, the initial objective, I agree, was an issue associated with what was perceived to be clear cutting during the construction process. Perceived is the big word there. The canopy coverage, when we started looking at this early on as you all know many years ago canopy was the new way to go because things change. And it was determined that it was no longer the DBH of a tree that determined truly its true impact on a community. So, we moved as most do now to the canopy-based coverage. It just so happens that the benefit that we see to our community also happens to not be so intrusive on our property owners and possibly the developers. But keep in mind that the value of the property to the developers also helps determine the price to our current property owners. So, my firm belief is that we’ve found a win-win. I don’t believe it’s zero-sum when you’re talking about the, I don’t like old ordinance, I’m sorry, the density-based ordinance versus the canopy-based ordinance. Mayor Lockwood: And I totally – and I’ve learned that myself. I’ve got heavily wooded part of my property and other properties that got some big trees and all, but they’re all compacted together. And they don’t have much of a canopy, and one dies, then the other one dies, and whatnot, versus you plant a smaller tree off by itself. And I really think our responsibility is not next year, two years, five years from now, but 20 years, 50 years later. That’s gonna give you the big specimen and the big whatever versus if you make somebody plant six trees now and 20 years from now, they’re fighting for each other and whatever and not Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 52 of 78 52 healthy and whatnot versus one that’s a big specimen tree that gives you the canopy. So, I think there’s a balance there, too. Female Speaker: Yeah, but a 2-inch tree or something that small to start, so there’s no minimum. I mean, 2 inches is the minimum? Sandra: Two inches is the minimum to replant, yes. Mayor Lockwood: My point is 100 years from now, that’s gonna be an asset to the community versus planting six or eight of ‘em now. And then they die, whatever, 20 years, 50 years, something like that. It’s kind of a balance in there. Peyton. Peyton: I mean, just a couple things. I think no matter what, all of us have been around the city long enough that no matter what we pass tonight, it’ll probably be tweaked in the future just based on real- world stuff which I think is healthy and good. So, I do support this type of ordinance. But one thing I was thinking about to maybe make it work even better and don’t kill me, but so we got the one- acre at 57 percent, we got the three-acre at 25 percent. In order to really start shifting, like you said, so some people might not like those type of subdivisions, but I think it can be an asset to the community. But if we wanna really start shifting to those larger lots, why don’t we do a two-acre at 45 percent or to where we’re just –? It’s just an idea. Because we’re just talking about one and three acres. Was that any discussion? Was there a discussion on tiered level? Or was it just one and three acres? Sandra: Well, three seemed to be the magic number when we talked to [inaudible – crosstalk] [01:53:26]. Peyton: Right, right, and three works. I just wasn’t sure. Parag: Because for the city ordinances also we talk about we have done gravel roads. We have three acres. So, that’s the reason why we came up with the three-acre number. Peyton: So, to throw in a two might – Mayor Lockwood: Let me – and I want thinking about that right before you said it. To me a three-acre lot is an estate lot and what we would, probably most of us, consider a large lot and has a thing. But when you brought up the point about certain neighborhoods and how the 57 Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 53 of 78 53 percent wouldn’t work and basically the way we have it now, or minimum, one-acre lot with Ag1, I might throw out there something. Yeah, maybe we have somewhere in the middle for a one-and-a- half-acre lot. If someone’s doing a development, if they’re willing to go from one acre, if it incentivizes them enough to go to one- and-a-half acres, that’s 50 percent less homes in there. Maybe they have 40 percent, 45 percent or something like that. I certainly see a value to that. Parag: Graded scale from one to three. Male Speaker: I think I’m good at politics. You just go one, three, and you go two. And it’s a win-win, right. Mayor Lockwood: The only reason I say two might be too much a stretch that world wouldn’t take that incentive, but if somebody’s building a neighborhood, and they say, “If we go from 1.2 acres to 1.5,” they may be willing to that. They may not be willing to jump all the way to two with land prices; that’s all. Male Speaker: I think it’s not, going to Carol’s point, where you’re really disincentivizing the people with 70 percent coverage. Mayor Lockwood: Carol? Carol had a question before that. Carol: So, having planted a whole lot of hardwoods in the last 20 years, and we went through, what? A drought for 10, 12 years, the only thing that got those oaks through was they were truly established when I put ‘em in way beyond the 2 inches. I think they were 6- inch calipers. Is that you say it, caliper? Mayor Lockwood: Mm – hmm. Female Speaker: Mm – hmm. When you plant, it’s caliper. Carol: Okay, whatever, and sorry. I couldn’t remember. Anyway, so they were somewhat substantial. I think they were 8, 10 – Female Speaker: That’s pretty good. Carol: – tall trees or – Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 54 of 78 54 Female Speaker: Ten feet tall. Carol: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that’s I think about right for five, six caliper. Anyway, I’m just trying to paint a visual here. Because 2 inch is spindly. And so, my point is, if we’re gonna have all this penalty on the one side of having to record everything, and then you might have to go back and replant, and you can put in spindly trees, I mean, there’s not a lot of effort with that. I mean, if I can go out with a shovel and put it in, it’s not a tree, okay. So, I’m just laying it out for ya. So, I feel we should, it’s not unreasonable to set a limit, I mean, put a bottom level on what that should be. To me, that just seems reasonable. Because, yeah, the goal is 50, 60, 100 years, but it really shouldn’t have to be. Mayor Lockwood: But let me ask, and this is just what, and I may be totally wrong, but what I’ve learned in the past, the difference between a 2-inch tree and a 6-inch tree doesn’t mean that tree is three times – if you go out your – Carol: I understand. I understand. Mayor Lockwood: – it’s probably very close. And the 2-inch tree actually has a better chance of establishing itself and getting to maturity than a larger tree when you plant it. Is that –? Carol: I don’t think there has been science that supports that. Sandra: Well, there actually is. Carol: With a person with a lawn mower, you want to know what happened to the lawn mower with a 2-inch tree? Sandra: Well, okay. So, a 2-inch tree is a pretty standard minimum for planting because in the industry we have found that 2-inch trees are easier to – they’re big enough that they establish quickly. They’re not small enough to run over with a mower, typically. They’re big enough to establish, and they take less time to establish because they don’t have the root system that a 4-inch, 6- inch tree has at the time of planting. So, it doesn’t have as much root loss at the time of transplanting, and it thrives better. And so, it'll catch up to that 6-inch tree in probably about three or four years. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 55 of 78 55 Where that 6-inch tree will kinda sit there for three years because it’s in shock, and it takes it a little longer to establish. So, you may not see much growth right away. It takes it a while, and then, but after a three-year period, you’ll finally start to see some growth. But it’ll sit stagnant for a while. So, that’s why we do kind of encourage the smaller trees because they’re easier to transplant. They establish quickly, and they start growing quickly, so. Carol: That was not my experience. Sandra: Well, but if you – Carol: There’s what you hear, and there’s what you experience, so. Sandra: Right, well, you probably gave your trees good care, and if they get good care, they will establish better. But when you have the developer who’s going in and planting and then leaving it, it’s better to have those smaller trees that establish quickly on their own and need that extra maintenance and that extra care afterwards. Carol: Listen, you all have done a tremendous amount of work, and I was not here for the great majority of it. I am probably just because I have a number of questions and I have some of those issues as stated, I’m probably not in the yea category right this minute. But it’s not a knock on what you’ve done. And it could just be that I don’t understand enough of it, but if you were to defer, I would jump in and do a little bit more. Because when we also started about the difference between the canopy and the – I was like, “Hmm,” so. Mayor Lockwood: Okay. Paul. Paul: I think Carol makes a good point, and I have been here for the duration of it, first on the Planning Commission and then now with Council. And I have more questions now as a result of tonight’s discussion than I had before I came in this evening. So, I’m not convinced that I’m prepared to cast the right vote tonight to be able to move this forward without benefit of more discussion and maybe another work session. Mayor Lockwood: Joe. Joe: Can somebody remind me what’s in place right now without this ordinance being [inaudible – crosstalk] [01:59:48]? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 56 of 78 56 Female Speaker: Either or. Sandra: Right now, you have the choice of using the density the – Joe: Okay, so we give ‘em the option right now, okay. Sandra: Mm – hmm, but that does expire. Right now, it says until July 31st you have the option of doing that. Mayor Lockwood: Peyton. Peyton: I’m actually pretty good with the ordinance. I think we can make some minor tweaks, a size here and percentage here. I mean, I think I’m comfortable, but maybe, nothing wrong with deferring it a week or two, I mean. Mayor Lockwood: I’m there, too. I won’t say we beat this thing to death. I mean, it has been up ‘til it’s gotten to us. So, and I think it is – you have done a good job and vet it through and had lots of input and all that. So, I was hoping we could make a decision, put this thing to bed, but I’m certainly not the only one up here, so. Joe: Well, I’m ready to vote just in case you thought I wasn’t, so. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, all right. Is there any tweaks you wanted talk before we decide to vote or defer or whatever? Male Speaker: The only two tweaks that I was thinking about was maybe making that tiered approach maybe to really start shifting to the larger lots, and two, I really think the protected tree for those individual landowners that we’re used – going from 15-inch to an 8-inch is a big deal. So, I don't know what the magic number is. I think that’s probably something that might be tweaked along the way, but I think that’s a big jump that we’re gonna get some discomfort from, not from developers per se but just for individual homeowners. Parag: So, as a graded scale was what Council Member Jamison was saying, maybe we can propose one acre, 1.5, and then three acres, if it works for you, yeah. Peyton: I’m fine with any, 1.5 to whatever we can start shifting. Mayor Lockwood: I only brought up the 1.5 versus the two because I think it might incentivize somebody to use it. If it’s two, and they don’t use it, Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 57 of 78 57 then we’ve wasted it. Peyton: I agree. Female Speaker: And I’d be in favor of looking at that tiered approach, too, just to try to use this ordinance to get what we really want which is less density. So, there’s the tiered approach. There’s the diameter issue. I mean, I would like to, if we’re gonna vote now, I mean, that’s fine. But if we do defer, we went from 15 to 8, and I guess I might be – ask what other canopy ordinances are using as their protected diameter. Sandra: One of those that is in play right now? Female Speaker: Mm – hmm. Sandra: Is that what you’re asking? Female Speaker: So, other cities that have canopy ordinances, I’d just be interested to know what their protected trees, what the diameter is. Sandra: Okay, well, I can try to remember off the top of my head. Female Speaker: I don’t expect you to know this. I’m just asking – Sandra: Well, I know for a fact Sandy Springs is 18 inches. Alpharetta, they require a permit for any size tree. There’s no minimum size criteria. It’s quite a scale up there. I don’t remember. I think Johns Creek doesn’t really specify anything like that. They only require a tree removal permit for homeowners if it’s in a stream buffer or in a zoning buffer. Female Speaker: Okay, well that’s helpful to know. I mean, just to – Sandra: Yeah, and then I think in Roswell it’s – in Roswell it’s a little different in that if you’re under an acre, it seems to be not as big a deal. It’s when you’re an acre or larger that you have to really get a permit for trees. And I think if you’re under an acre, you only have to get a permit if you have specimen trees. But if you’re over an acre, you have to get a permit for anything pretty much over 2 inches. Male Speaker: Defeats the purpose, but. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 58 of 78 58 Sandra: Does that? I guess their thinking is opposite of Milton. Female Speaker: So, I’d love to see a community similar to what we’re tying to accomplish, and I don't know if there is such a place. Sandra: Well, Roswell is still using density-based. So, the only ones using canopy closed to us would be Sandy Springs, and Alpharetta, I think you have a choice of using canopy or density kinda. They have it written really weird. It’s hard to compare because you’re not comparing apple to apples. Everybody’s kinda different. It’s just like trying to compare everybody’s zoning ordinance to your zoning ordinance. They’re gonna have a lot of differences. Female Speaker: I under – and that’s – I’m just trying to figure out some way to – if we change the diameter of a protected tree, how do we have that conversation? What makes sense? Sandra: Yeah, it’s a hard one because it’s not a magic number. Mayor Lockwood: How did the 15? Because that’s what you guys had with the Committee and everybody, right. Sandra: That’s under the density ordinance, is 15 inches. And so, I don't know how they came up with that number. I wasn’t here during that time. I don't know. Parag: What we do or why we do it. Sandra: Yeah, the 8 inches we came up with because the Stakeholder's Committee kinda head that idea because the specimen trees start at 8 inches. Female Speaker: Dogwoods. Sandra: For a dogwood to be a specimen tree it has to be 8 inches. So, since the specimen tree criteria is started at 8 inches, they thought it would be a good idea to start protected trees at 8 inches. Female Speaker: Okay. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, so what I’m hearing some folks in concern want to defer, others okay with some changes or maybe a stair step with the size of lots like we talked about, and then maybe change the diameter possibly to protected trees not on overall developments but on Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 59 of 78 59 maybe individual lots or existing homeowners or whatever. But anything else that somebody wants to bring up that they might consider tonight or –? Laura. Laura: No. I don’t wanna – this was just another question that I had because Council Member Moore was talking about the measurement, the span of time between. I just wanted to, I remember this conversation and work session, but it’s been a while. So, how easy is it to see the changes? I guess, the longer you wait, you would see more changes. Is it that – I just wanna understand how we picked five or if there’s some sort of –? Sandra: Well, the five was picked before me. But I can just tell ya from my professional experience, in a one- to two-year period, you’re usually not gonna see a significant change. Part of that reason is it’s because you have this margin of error. So, your margin of error usually is around one percent, and you usually that change is around one percent a lot of times unless you’ve just had massive, massive, massive projects going on. So, that difference you see, that one percent, since it falls within your margin of error, it’s usually kinda considering insignificant. Mayor Lockwood: So, what you’re saying is you need a reasonable amount to have a basis and to see a change, your positive or negative. Peyton. Peyton: So, originally when I started just this one conversation, I was to ready vote. But now based on the tiered approach and maybe getting so much information on the protected trees from the other canopy ones, I think we’re 99 percent there. I just wanna be very, very careful. So, I’m okay with deferring it until the meeting, and then that’s it; that’s just me. Mayor Lockwood: I’m okay just to keep deferring it, right, kick it down the road. Yeah, like I said I agree, and I know everybody’s had a chance to talk to staff about it and ask questions and all this. But sometimes you get an in-group conversation and other things change. So, I’m not necessarily – I’m more in favor of voting on it but adding some changes. But I totally respect and if majority Council wants to defer it and thinks that’s valuable, too, I’m fine with that. Male Speaker: If you wanna do it on a whim, I mean, I just – I’m not okay with making those changes and voting it through tonight. Mayor Lockwood: No, what I was thinking was the density as we talked, basically Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 60 of 78 60 you go in-between and an acre and a half and maybe make it 40, 56 percent, but and then some diameters. But if there’s more question and all, I don’t think we’re gonna solve the world’s problems on it tonight. If there’s more open questions and concerns and whatever, then yeah, we can’t handle that tonight, so. So, okay, Teresa, your presentation is after this, right? Teresa: Yes. Mayor Lockwood: So, it’s not of this, correct? Okay. Teresa: No, it is part. Parag: So, the goal of Teresa’s presentation was when the City Council will approve and adopt this ordinance, what will be the educational workshops look. So, we would like to get some guidance from the City Council about this ordinance first before we move to the next step. Teresa: We obviously [inaudible] [02:09:50] if you defer it. I’m not sure. Mayor Lockwood: Right, I’m wondering is there any value to the Council of getting that to decide whether they wanna defer it or not. Parag: No, again, it’s basically the workshops once we have the ordinance, how you can basically do community outreach to inform the community residents about the regulations. Mayor Lockwood: Okay. All right, well I open up for a – well, is there any other questions or comments? Parag: But this is good feedback. Thank you for this tonight, yeah. Mayor Lockwood: We all enjoy making you guys come back and talk. Gives you some job security, right? So, if there’s no questions, I’ll open up for a motion. Laura: Mayor, I’d like to make a motion to defer Agenda Item No. 20- 157. Paul: Second. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, I have a motion for deferral from Council Member Bentley with a second from Council Member Moore. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 61 of 78 61 Male Speaker: Did you have specific time you wanted to bring it back? Male Speaker: And also, public. Mayor Lockwood: Yeah, we need – what’s a reasonable time for staff? Male Speaker: We need as long for consideration if there’s call for public. Male Speaker: If they’re gonna vote to defer, is it open to [inaudible – crosstalk] [02:11:16]? Male Speaker: No, you would not need to adopt it if you want to. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, so the question would be what is a reasonable time to bring it back? But also, the question’s gonna be what is Council gonna need time – do we need another work session? Do we need one-on- one with staff members? That’s the question, too. And also, does it affect our exiting tree ordinance? Do we have to extend something? Male Speaker: When is their work session? Mayor Lockwood: The second week – Male Speaker: The second week in July. Male Speaker: And then it has to be advertised again, so it’s still – .? Male Speaker: And that work session is full. That is probably gonna be a two- to three-hour work session as it is. Parag: Five items or something, yeah. Male Speaker: I think we can hammer it out in the next couple – I think we’re – I don't know if we – I mean, a work session would be great. But I don't know if it’s mandatory for it. That’s just me. Female Speaker: We can work with staff individually and in small groups. Mayor Lockwood: But what I would ask is a commitment on the Council to – and again, not to put too much burden on staff, but you guys can maybe schedule something, a one-on-one or whatever. And again, I hate to put too much on ya, but it’s important, but a commitment Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 62 of 78 62 to Council that wants to do that to get together with ya and try to hammer this out, so we don’t keep coming – Female Speaker: Not to torture you. Mayor Lockwood: No, to get – I just want a consensus. Male Speaker: How soon can it be back on our schedule for a vote if we defer tonight? Mayor Lockwood: I’ll have to ask staff on that. Parag: Yeah, so let us do some – we will come in front of you as soon as possible. Because I know Sandra’s going on a vacation, she will not be here this week, so not next week, maybe the following week. Male Speaker: We’re gonna have to bring it – we’re gonna have to extend the current. That’s gotta come back before you in July because it expires the end of July. Because currently, they have the option to – we keep extending. We figured July of 2020 would suffice. Mayor Lockwood: But that was only four years ago. Male Speaker: But we do need to extend that first because there’s no way we’re getting this back before you and a vote before you’re able to extend that. So, that’s gonna have to come back to you either at the first or second July meeting. We have some much in the hopper right now. If you tell me this is a priority, I knock something else off. This is your call not mine. Male Speaker: I just don’t think we’re – I think we’re right there. I mean, I don’t think we have to rewrite anything. Male Speaker: No, I think we’re 90 percent of the way there. Mayor Lockwood: Well, we’ve figured out where there are some questions or hammer it out now or not. Male Speaker: I’m there where I could hammer this out now if y’all wanna sit around for a while. Mayor Lockwood: I could, too, but I mean, I don’t wanna push anybody though. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 63 of 78 63 Male Speaker: I’m not ready to do that. Female Speaker: No. Mayor Lockwood: Okay. All right, well, all right. So, we have, Laura’s started to make a motion, but we need to make a motion to the time as Paul said. Correct? For a deferral. Male Speaker: What day do we want it to come back by? Male Speaker: Christmas. Mayor Lockwood: But I think what you’re saying Steve, we all also then would need to extend the existing. Male Speaker: I mean, without a question we have to extend that. Mayor Lockwood: And is that something we can add and extend tonight or not? That would have to be a subsequent meeting? Male Speaker: We’re not prepared for that. We don’t have the resolution done or anything like that. But if you want this back at the work session, it’s simple as saying you want it back at the work session. Mayor Lockwood: No, we’re just saying when could we put it back on an agenda, next available agenda, and in-between that time, those that aren’t ready can hopefully have the time and resources to be ready. Male Speaker: We can do our best to get it on the next agenda. Female Speaker: Next week’s agenda? Male Speaker: No, it’s the first meeting in July. We’re done until the first week in July. But we’ve got some vacations. Why don’t you, I’m gonna ask respectfully if we could have the leeway, we’ll try for the first one in July, if not, the second one in July. I don't know what that motion looks like. But we can do our best. And again, I can knock other things out of the pipeline to push this one along. Mayor Lockwood: If the motion is for the first meeting in July, but then that’s not gonna work. Male Speaker: Can you say no later than? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 64 of 78 64 Mayor Lockwood: You don’t have to put it on the agenda. Or do we have to put it on the agenda? Male Speaker: We would put it on the agenda, and then I would say we failed you, and you could defer it then again and say, “Second week in July, second meeting in July.” Mayor Lockwood: Okay, let’s do that. Oh, well, I’m not saying let’s do that. That’s an option. We have a motion. Laura, you wanna restate your motion? Laura: All right, so I’ll make a motion to defer Agenda Item 20-157 to the second Monday, no later than the Monday of July. Male Speaker: It would be the second meeting. Laura: Second meeting. Female Speaker: It’s the 7/20 meeting. Male Speaker: If that’s acceptable to the Council, I will push to get it to the first one, but that still gives us the leeway to go to the second one if we can’t do it. Mayor Lockwood: And that gives leeway to get some more answers, too. Male Speaker: That gives us some cushion there, but we’re still push to get it on that first one. Male Speaker: As you know in time to have it done, then it’s just a couple of days. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, all right, Laura. You wanna go ahead with your motion? Laura: Okay, I’d like to make motion to defer Agenda Item No. 20-157 no later than the second Monday in July. Male Speaker: Second meeting. Laura: Second meeting, I’m sorry. Second meeting in July. Male Speaker: I could you give the date. Female Speaker: It’s 7/20. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 65 of 78 65 Male Speaker: It’s July the 20th? Female Speaker: July the 20th, the first one is July the 6th. Male Speaker: Why don’t we – would that be all right? Female Speaker: July 20th. Laura: Twentieth? Okay. I make a motion to defer 20-157 to July 20th. Male Speaker: No later than. Laura: No later than July 20th. Paul: Second. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, I have a motion for deferral from Council Member Bentley to defer this item ‘til no later than July 20th, 2020. I have a second from Council Member Moore on that. Any discussion? Only thing I’mma say, I’m gonna respectfully probably not support just because I hate to be deferring things and whatnot, but that’s totally respectful for everything you guys say, so. All in favor please say aye. City Council: Aye. Mayor Lockwood: Any opposed? Male Speaker: Nay. Male Speaker: Aye. Mayor Lockwood: Nay. Male Speaker: So, it’s three/three. Mayor Lockwood: Three to three. I didn’t realize that, but so, Paul, we had a tie. Male Speaker: Motion fail [inaudible – crosstalk] [02:18:28]. Male Speaker: It’s a tie vote; it fails. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, so it’s failed. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 66 of 78 66 Male Speaker: Item’s still on the table. Male Speaker: You do your motion, and vote again, quickly. Mayor Lockwood: What’s that? Male Speaker: I mean, we know how this is gonna – Mayor Lockwood: No, no. I’ll, yeah, I mean, no. Let’s open up for another motion, yeah. Female Speaker: Let’s talk about this. I’m not – Male Speaker: I thought Joe and I were the only ones voting against it, and I originally was gonna vote for it because I can wait a month to vote on this, okay. But when Joe said he was gonna vote against it, I felt bad by making it look like he was the only guy ready to vote. And so, I wanted to just add my support. I didn’t realize you were gonna do the same thing. Male Speaker: Yeah, I was gonna mess it up because my comment was, I guess what – because in my opinion, the only thing that’s really holding me up is getting that protected tree size and the tiered. But I think we can do, I still – is that something that –? Mayor Lockwood: I thought that was the easy part, yeah. Male Speaker: Yeah, I mean, so I guess my question is to the other Council Members, what are we missing other than, I guess? Male Speaker: In my mind, there’s three things. It’s tree size, it’s the calibrated, tiered, and I’d like something definitive about the number of years until we’re gonna look at it. I’m not convinced that I have enough information to decide though on the tiered, what that looks without some additional discussion on that with the benefit staff’s knowledge for me to come to that conclusion. But those, in my mind, those are the only three things we have to work on. Mayor Lockwood: Yeah, I mean, I see this, and I think some of us could discuss it, but I’m certainly comfortable or respectful if not. So, I’ll tell ya what, so process, I’m gonna open back up for a motion. Laura, you can make a motion. Or somebody else can make a motion, and so, I’m gonna open up – Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 67 of 78 67 Male Speaker: Mr. Mayor? Mayor Lockwood: Yes, sir. Male Speaker: If we’re not going to defer, I would suggest that we do need to have public comment. Mayor Lockwood: Okay. All right, do we have any public comment on this? I’m sorry. Female Speaker: No. Mayor Lockwood: There wasn’t –? Male Speaker: We don’t, Mayor. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, and I thought that, but I need to clarify that for because we did vote, and it failed, so. All right, so, no public comments, so I’ll close the hearing on that, and then I’ll open up for a motion now. Carol: Mr. Mayor, I’ll make a motion that we defer Agenda Item No. 20- 157. Mayor Lockwood: Until? Carol: Oh, until no later than the second meeting in July. Mayor Lockwood: July 20th? Carol: July 20th. Mayor Lockwood: 2020. Carol: And thank you for the help, 2020, yes. Mayor Lockwood: All right, do I have a second? Paul: Second. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, I have a motion from Council Member Cookerly which mirrors Council Member Bentley’s motion for deferral of this item until July 20th. No, I mean on that – good. And I have a second from Council Member Moore. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor please say aye. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 68 of 78 68 City Council: Aye. Mayor Lockwood: Any opposed? Nay. Male Speaker: Nay. Mayor Lockwood: So, it passes four to two with me and Council Member Longoria against, so. Okay, so we’ll bring that back. Parag: Ready for your feedback. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Cookerly moved to defer Agenda Item No. 20-157 until July 20, 2020. Councilmember Moore seconded the motion. Mayor Joe Lockwood and Councilmember Moore voted against. The motion passed (4-2). Councilmember Mohrig was absent from the meeting. (Agenda Item No. 20-157) Mayor Lockwood: No, thank you guys, and hopefully we’ll bring it back and everybody gets comfortable with questions and all that. And we’ll look forward to seeing this again, all good. Male Speaker: A quick comment? Mayor Lockwood: Absolutely. Male Speaker: I know that we’re dealing with vacation schedule. We need to know how soon we can get together, so we can launch that conversation. Female Speaker: Next week maybe [inaudible – crosstalk] [02:22:30]. Male Speaker: Yeah, okay, great. Thank you. Because before too long then we’re into 4th of July and everything else. Mayor Lockwood: That does make – all right. So, City Clerk, please call the next item. Sudie: The second and final item is the consideration of an ordinance of the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton, Georgia, to adopt Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 69 of 78 69 amendments to the Fiscal 2020 Budget for the General Fund of the City of Milton, Georgia, amending the amounts shown as expenditures, prohibiting expenditures to exceed appropriations, and prohibiting expenditures to exceed actual funding available, Agenda Item No. 20-158, Miss Bernadette Harvill. Bernadette: Good evening, Mayor, and, Council. On June 1st we discussed the proposed budget amendments in great detail. This evening I’d like summarize the General Fund changes, address the public comment we received, and then opportunity up the floor for any questions you may have. As you will recall economic impact of COVID is being seen in revenue collections statewide, and Milton is no exception to that as the city’s second largest revenue grouping is sales and use taxes. In that you’ll see the greatest contributing change is our local option sales tax expected reduction of $1,353,347.00. That goes towards any overall General Fund revenue reduction expected of $1,363,459.00. Staff went through the budget and found areas of offsetting expenditure reductions totaling $507,264.00. These are primarily made up of salary savings related to position vacancies and projects that were identified that can be delayed until there is better understanding of the full impact of COVID -19. These projects include the purchase and installation of a stationary license plate recognition system of $39,540.00, $50,000.00 in savings towards reviewing and updating expenses related to the form-based codes in Crabapple and Deerfield, and a solid waste plan. The overall net change in fund balance for the General Fund will be $856,195.00. That will leave us with an anticipated fund balance of $8,022,469.00 which will maintain the required revenues per Milton’s Code of Ordinances – sorry, reserves, required reserves, not revenues. As you will recall, Milton is legally allowed to utilize fund balance in excess of that required minimum reserve as a budgeting source, and such use shall be deemed as one-time revenue for budgeting purposes. So, before you, you see the General Fund funds summary showing that overall net decrease of $856,195.00. The general comment – or, sorry, the public comment we received last meeting was regarding our current debt. So, I just wanted to just touch on that. Milton’s current debt is made up of general Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 70 of 78 70 obligation bonds for the Greenspace Bond. And that is in the principal amount of $23,495,00.00. To date, we have paid down $1,665,000.00 of that principal balance. And we have a revenue bond consisting of the refunded or refinanced amount of $6,145,000.00 from the original 2014 series used to renovate Bell Memorial Park, and then the addition of $18,065,000.00 for the Public Safety Complex, the reconstruction of Station 42, and a station-wide alerting system for the fire department. The city’s total principal to-date due is $46,000,000.00 and that is well below the 10 percent debt limit that the state sets in place. Of the 10 percent, we are at 7.86 percent of the 10 percent as the end of FY2019. Just want to see if you had any other questions, I’ll be happy to go into any detail about any of the amendments. Joe: I wanna make sure I understood that last statement that it was 7 percent of the 10 percent, okay. Bernadette: Of the 10 percent, correct. So, the way it works is that 10 percent of the assessed property values that we talk kind of at [inaudible] [02:26:44]. You’re allowed to have that in debt, so we’d be abl e to have $286, 670, 684.00. Joe: Yeah, 7 percent of the total. Bernadette: So, yeah, 7.86 percent was last year’s, only general obligation debt goes towards that balance because you’re paying off revenue bonds from general revenues. Joe: Understood, thank you. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, no other questions so far? Okay. Bernadette: I’ll be happy to answer any other questions or go through any of the pages if you have any questions about the amendments we talked about last meeting. Mayor Lockwood: Any other questions? It’s good? Okay. And do we have any public comment? Sudie: No, we do not. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, I’ll close the hearing on that. And I’ll open up for a motion. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 71 of 78 71 Peyton: Mayor, I’ll make a motion to approve Agenda Item No. 20-158. Joe: Second. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, I have a motion for approval from Council Member Jamison with a second from Council Member Longoria. All in favor please say aye. City Council: Aye. Mayor Lockwood: That passes, unanimous. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Jamison moved to approve Agenda Item No. 20-158. Councilmember Longoria seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Mohrig was absent from the meeting. Bernadette: Thank you. Mayor Lockwood: Thank you, Bernadette. Okay, before we go into staff reports, is there anything Council want a report on? So, okay. Then we’ll do community development, but I think Parag has stepped outside. Male Speaker: I think he did his report. Mayor Lockwood: What’s that? Male Speaker: I think he – I think we got him. Mayor Lockwood: No, but, Dave, if you wanna, I think, Dave, are you doing –? Okay, let’s let Dave go ahead and go. You can have Parag’s time, too. Joe: You snooze, you lose. Mayor Lockwood: Tell him to sit down, Robert. Female Speaker: Parag is gonna – Dave. Mayor Lockwood: Have a seat, Parag. Male Speaker: It’s too late, I’m sorry. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 72 of 78 72 Dave: Good evening, Mayor, and, Council. Just to try and be brief, it’s been a very busy quarter for IT. All things considered with the COVID pandemic, we’re about as well-positioned for the crisis as we could be. Even though events moved pretty quickly at the beginning, we took a proactive stance to get ready to allow people to tele-work. So, continuity of operations was our No. 1 priority, and to do that and set up a tele-working environment, we had to use the resources we had on hand. So, we had quite a few staff minutes who already have laptops. So, they were able to use that. We had a stack of decommissioned public safety laptops which we upgraded to Windows 10 and did some memory upgrades, and we got those working as well, and about a dozen new computers from our conference rooms around City Hall. Those are the little, tiny computers. They’re about the size of a DVD case and about that tall. We basically stick ‘em to the back of wall displays to run meetings from. Well, we took all those out and made ‘em available to employees. Bottom line, we were able to get about 30 people working from home that wouldn’t have been otherwise and there still was another several computers available should the need arise. With people working from home, we were able to use Microsoft Teams and city cellphones to keep departments communicating with each other. And also, we have the city’s phone system set up to forward department calls to those individuals who are working at home. So, we didn’t lose communication with the public. So, that was a big thing as well. As you also know, we’ve been using Zoom. We’ve been using Facebook and Granicus and have really created a tremendous online presence for the online Council meetings. And kudos to Tammy and Greg and Stacy for really putting a lot of work into that. They put probably the lion’s share of work into that. So, that was our basic COVID operations just to make sure people can still do their job from home. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have all our other projects in the pipeline working at the same time. The Public Safety Complex, we’ve got a lot of IT infrastructure going in up there, and that’s still on track for our move in date. And we’re looking for new ways to prepare for future possibilities, too. You never know when there’s gonna be a second wave or what else is gonna come along. So, we’re looking at things like the kiosks, computers that people can come in and use without having a face-to-face conversation, Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 73 of 78 73 things like that, so. Got any questions? Mayor Lockwood: Questions? I’m just – comment? I know it’s been a tough quarter as you said, and I just appreciate all your hard work and everybody else that supported you and all that to in this new strange world that we’ve lived through the last few months. So, thank you very, very much. Dave: Never a dull moment. Thanks. Male Speaker: Mayor, if I could just add on to that, it’s hard for David to pat himself on the back, but during this time David was here early in the morning. Mayor Lockwood: David, you listening to this? Male Speaker: And here ‘til late in the evening every day, on the phone all weekend long. We were in the middle of our [inaudible] [02:32:23] pandemic planning when a pandemic hit. So, we just weren’t prepared to be able to deploy the laptops like we will going forward. That was part of what Matt Marietta was working on. If Dave did not spend the time that he did and really the creativeness and turning those nukes into workable, high-capacity computers for people to be able to work from home, we like the other communities around us, would’ve had to shut down parts of our operations. And I think that David was instrumental in making sure that we were able to continue running from an operational standpoint at 100 percent. So, this was a tough IT time. Mayor Lockwood: Yeah. So, thank you guys. Female Speaker: Thank you. Mayor Lockwood: I mean that for everybody, so. Parag. Oh, hold on. Female Speaker: Who is that masked man? Mayor Lockwood: Who’s the masked man? Female Speaker: The cleaner. Parag: I can present this, and then you don’t have to. Mayor, and, the City Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 74 of 78 74 Council Members, just want to present summary for the various projects in the department. But before I do that, I do want to introduce a new employee of the Community Development Department, Dale Hall. Dale is Development Coordinator, and will be directly supervising the permitting and inspection aspects of our department. Just giving you a brief of bio of Dale, very impressive bio, Dale is a seasoned professional with more than 30 years of practical experience in public and private sector planning, design, and implementation. He received his Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from Michigan State and a master’s in public administration from University of Georgia. Dale comes to us from, he was most recently he was the City Administrator of City of Houston, but before that, he has been the Planning and Zoning Director of Henry County. He has been the Community Services Director of City of [inaudible] [02:34:27]. And he has worked in a number of private settings also. So, let me introduce Dale Hall. Dale: Thanks, Parag. Thank you, Mayor, and, City Council. I’ve been here for a little bit over four months, and I guess it’s time we get a face with the name. I have met with a number of you and have talked with I think the rest of you through an email or whatnot. I did wanna say that I am happy to be here. When Parag asked me to put together a brief summary of the things that I’ve accomplished, I looked back and I said, “Wow, 30 years.” That gets kinda scary doing this same types of things. I have been in the public sector, the private sector, and I even had a stint of about seven years at University of Georgia teaching environmental design school. So, I’m hoping that with my education and experience that I can continue to assist Parag and bring together and help him and the community to provide a level of service that you’ve been used to throughout the years. So, again, thank you for letting me be here and speak to you briefly. And if you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to reach out to me, okay. Thank you. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, thanks, Dale. Welcome. Parag: So, he has been here for four months, but we were doing all these virtual meetings. So, it’s always good to have a face with the name so here you are. So, with us, again, talking about the numbers, so Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 75 of 78 75 these are the numbers from May 15th to June 12th. These numbers are almost comparable to the last month’s numbers. So, we have not seen a dip in our permitting operations. The number of building permits issued were 154. The building permit inspections were around 425, land development inspections more than 400, and the number of tree and work permits were around 45. So, in the last few weeks we have seen some concerns from the development community about the pool permitting operations. So, because of that we have scheduled full permitting workshop for June 23rd. It’s from 11:00 to 1:00 in this room, and we already have a full house, more than 20 people have already registered. We have a capacity of around 25 over here. So, we are planning to have this virtual also on Facebook Live. And if we have more people interested, we can have a second workshop on this. And in this we are basically talking about the state and city requirements for pool permitting, June 23rd. Second, the Trail Master Plan we have received the final draft of the Trail Master Plan. I have shared the Trail Master Plan with some of the City Council members, with all of the City Council members. Right now, the Trail Advisory Committee is also reviewing it. We have received some very good feedback from the Trail Advisory Committee members. We will be presenting you that draft of the plan on July 6th’s City Council meeting. So, I know you have that draft, but if you have any comments, any feedback, just let us know. It will not be up for a vote. It will only be a presentation to get your feedback. Second thing we are working on, we are updating our checklists. So, right now, we have biggest permitting operations like pool permits, fence permits, demo permits, so we are currently updating our checklists for external users and also for internal staff review. That will greatly help to enhance our user experience. So, when developers or when the applicants are submitting let’s say a pool permit application, they need to know exactly what to submit as part of the packet. So, this project should be completed by the end of this month, long time coming. And we will be presenting you those checklists in our July work session. Some of the board meetings, the BZA meeting is tomorrow. That’s June 16th. The CZIM meeting is June 23rd. We have the fireworks stand next amendment on the agenda for the CZIM meeting. And then we have the Planning Commission meeting on June 24th. That’s pretty much it from my side. You Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 76 of 78 76 have any questions, let me know. Mayor Lockwood: Any questions for Parag? If I had known Dale had a degree in landscaping, we would have got him up here to figure this tree thing out. Kidding. Parag: He has been a great help. Mayor Lockwood: Good, good. Thank you, Parag. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, let’s see. Next up is Executive Session added motion to vote on our Agenda to discuss litigation. Do I have a motion to adjourn into Executive Session? Male Speaker: So, moved. Male Speaker: Second. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, I have a motion and a second. All in favor please say aye. City Council: Aye. EXECUTIVE SESSION Motion and Vote: Councilmember Longoria moved to approve to go into Executive Session to discuss land acquisition and potential litigation, along with personnel at 8:39 pm. Councilmember Bentley seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Mohrig was absent from the meeting. Mayor Lockwood: That’s unanimous. All right, Steven, I think we’re gonna go snack room. Steve Krokoff: We are. RECONVENE Mayor Lockwood: All right. Do I have a motion to reconvene? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 77 of 78 77 Male Speaker: So, moved. Female Speaker: Second. Female Speaker: Wait, wait, wait. Mayor Lockwood: Okay, I have a motion and a second to reconvene. All in favor please say aye. City Council: Aye. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Longoria moved to reconvene from the Executive Session in the regular meeting at 8:52 pm. Councilmember Moore seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Mohrig was absent from the meeting. Mayor Lockwood: That passes, unanimous. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Female Speaker: So, moved. Male Speaker: Second. Mayor Lockwood: I have a motion and a second to adjourn. All in favor please say aye. City Council: Aye. Mayor Lockwood: That’s unanimous, thank you. Female Speaker: Who was the –? I’ll get it later. Who was the motion and the second for the reconvene? Male Speaker: Mayor, do you know who –? Mayor Lockwood: [Inaudible] [02:40:55] respectfully. [Inaudible – crosstalk]. No, I just wanna make sure. I wasn’t trying to push you too hard, trust me, so. Joe: Me, I made a motion to reconvene. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, June 15, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 78 of 78 78 Male Speaker: Thank you. You got that? ADJOURNMENT Motion and Vote: Councilmember Moore moved to reconvene from the Executive Session in the regular meeting at 8:54 pm. Councilmember Longoria seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Mohrig was absent from the meeting. Date Approved: August 3, 2020 __________________________________ _____________________________ Sudie AM Gordon, City Clerk Joe Lockwood, Mayor