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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes CC - 04/26/2007 - MINS 04 26 07 SCWS (Migrated from Optiview)Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 1 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Special Called Work Session of the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton was held on April 26, 2007 at 5:30 PM, Mayor Lockwood presiding. Mayor Joe Lockwood called the Special Called Work Session to order. City Clerk Marchiafava stated we would like to move the second item on the agenda to the beginning of the meeting. Presentation by Disability Awareness Committee Councilmember O’Brien and Councilmember D’Aversa thanked the Mayor, City Manager Bovos, and the other members of the Council for graciously agreeing to host a special look at our community regarding disability issues. They introduced Mark Johnson, Renee Catanzaro, Ann Coggins, Thomas O’Seanasey, and Jennifer Arnold (with her canine assistance dog, Carley). They all spoke on their various aspects and involvements with people with disabilities and the need to make the community aware of what can and should be done to assist with special needs individuals. Inter-Basin Transfer of Sewer Deputy Director of Community Development Tuller said the case is related to the inner basin transfer policy adopted by Fulton County in 2006. In particular, we have a case from Dennis Potts, who is a resident living on Webb Road here in the City of Milton. As a quick background, Mr. Potts was before the Fulton County Board of Commissioners last year for commercial office utilization for his property, which is between Windward Parkway and State Route 9 on Webb Road. In doing so, the County Commissioners decided to leave the final determination of the connection to the Fulton County Sewer System to the powers that be here in the City of Milton. Public Comment: Jack Coffee, formerly 2735 Webb Road, said he had been neighbors to Dennis Potts for 30 years. As far as the sewer thing, apparently, Fulton County overlooked his property being upstream. He is required by law to have access to the sewer. Rose Prestiani said she is asking that even though this property was “zoned commercial,” this looks like another inherited Fulton County situation. She is requesting that the Council and the Mayor deny this request and not support Mr. Potts’ request to allow for the inter-basin transfer and to not send the letters to approve it. Jay Moss stated that he is in support of Dennis Potts and what he is trying to do with his property. Willis Russo, 300 Wigton Drive, said he is opposed to this exception. We just have to stop at some point. Exceptions build on each other and make a stand here. Far Atomee,2875 Ledbrook, stated that everybody around him has a flood light and he does not and he wants one. He does not see any reason why not. John McMillan, 14255 Thompson Road, stated that he has property along Webb Road and these are all commercial properties. There is sewer on every side and everything all around it has sewer except for Potts and it looks like a Fulton County oversight. There are some experts that would love to give more testimony to the Council. A seminar for water reclamation and the benefits of and we would like to offer that as well. Leon Cole, Jr. said we all came out here because we love this land and we hope that you will help us keep it this way and no sewer or anything else. The sewer is going to be higher density with lots more commercial. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 2 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Garfield Cousins, 310 Wickton Drive, stated he moved here because it is beautiful country and that is why he moved from Clayton County. What they are proposing doing is what is happening down there. He asks for you to refuse this. If we approve this we are going to have more cars on the road and, eventually, you are going to have to talk about coming in and taking the property to widen the road to get rid of the congestion and the pollution. Carol Lane, 14890 East Plus Road in the City of Milton, stated she appreciates the fact that Mr. Potts has been allowed for the commercial development by Fulton County, however, his land is in our no-sewer, no-transfer basin area. That is the bottom line. She thinks these people need to go back to Fulton County and work out a recommendation without us. Marsha O’Seanasey stated that she lives on Nicks Road. She agreed with Carol Lane that it is in the no-sewer basin and pretty soon it is going to be wall to wall sewer. She would love to have sewer at her house, but it is not the right thing to do and you do need to say no. Paul Moore, 15291 Column Drive in Milton, Georgia stated that he would like for you oppose this request. He will just remind you that this is simply a letter of convenience that you have been asked to participate in. It is not a requirement that you even respond to this request in writing to Fulton County. He encouraged the Council to act upon this as you have said you would for the community when you were placed into office. Dennis Potts said you all know me. He has lived here a long time. He has paid taxes. He realizes that you inherited this problem. He inherited this problem. They keep saying it is going to set a precedent. Well, we had the commissioner in writing stand right here and tell every one of you, this will not set a precedent. You will be able to control your sewer through your zoning. He has already been zoned commercial and asked if they wanted him to pay commercial taxes and then continue to be a resident. He just does not feel like he is being treated with any compassion or understanding. He feels the same way these people do if he was just a resident somewhere, but he is not. He has six and a half acres of land that has already been zoned commercial. He guesses if you do not give him the letter then he still has to appeal to Fulton County. You are not in control of the sewer. Fulton County is always going to be in control of the sewer. He further stated that next week we were thinking about bringing this to a vote and in all fairness to all the parties, perhaps we should put this thing off for 30 days and bring in some experts to really tell us what they are doing right or what they are doing wrong and then vote. Councilmember Thurman said she would agree with that because she thinks that unfortunately the community is automatically tying sewer and zoning together. They are two very, very different issues. Unfortunately, under Fulton County we had no choice but at times to rely on lack of sewer to get us what we wanted in the area. That is not the case anymore. You have got seven of us up here that will be controlling zoning. We do not have to rely on lack of sewer to handle density. People are using scare tactics to make this community believe that if we allow these few parcels to have sewer that all of Milton is suddenly going to become sewer. That is not the case. Commissioner Lynn Riley, when she was here before, very clearly stated that there is only a very small parcel that Fulton County would even consider putting sewer on. Some of these are not zoned for commercial or office and are zoned residential. At one unit per acre, they do not need sewer, should not have sewer. For those that are already zoned commercial or zoned O & I, we need to look at the zoning. We need to look at the sewer as two very different things. She would love to get some additional advice on that. In the past she sat in a meeting and learned more than she ever dream that she wanted to know about sewer and water reuse and things like that. But the truth of the matter is a commercial shopping center on a septic tank is probably not what is best for the environment. So we need to look and see that, whether or not what we are doing by out of scare tactics and being afraid of density is causing us to react in a way that is not best for the community as a whole. She is not saying whether or not we ought to do it on this particular property, but it bothers her to think that people are automatically putting the sewer and the zoning as a package deal when they are two extremely different items that need to be looked at differently. We do not have to use the sewer as a way to control the zoning. Councilmember Lusk said he would like to second that and reinforce that. We talked about sustainable growth a lot Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 3 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ and we talk about what is good for the environment. He believes we are talking about a problem down the road in 20 to 25 years with the proliferation of septic systems throughout this area. From an environmental stand point, he thinks John Matisko, spoke on it earlier. There is certainly a plectrum of other experts out here in the field that would give us some sound advice on where we are headed here. He had contacted a member of the Georgia EPD and he is willing to come out here and address us. We need to proceed from a stand point of education, of facts, and of unintended consequences that people talked about on this Council. He would welcome Mr. Potts’ recommendation that we defer this for another 30 days also to just help educate this community and what the actual facts are out here. He thinks it is sensationalism hinging on where we were in the past dealing with Fulton County. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she could not agree more that education and facts are critical. She thinks that the facts from the legal perspective are that you really cannot separate sewer from density and so while we talk about Fulton County, separate from the City of Milton from… Councilmember Thurman called for a Point of Information from our City Attorney on that matter. It is a legal issue. Councilmember Zahner Bailey says she thought it was an informal meeting, Mayor? Mayor Lockwood asked Councilmember Zahner Bailey to finish and then we will let City Attorney Scott. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she thinks that is what the work sessions are about is respecting one another’s opinions and obviously some of us may have different opinions. She believes that when we think about the facts. When we think about the reality, it is not just about debating the science of whether or not septic or sewer is appropriate and thirty days is not going to solve that. Thirty days is not going to convince us whether or not water reclamation for all of Milton is the right answer. When it comes to the facts, we need to make sure that we are not using scare tactics, but similarly we are also not lessening the facts when it comes to the law. She thinks that not only do we need to look at the issue of sewer and what that means for our area. We need to look at the law and what case law says. The State of Georgia has not allowed for the separation of sewer and density.She has talked to some attorneys and has spent a lot of time over the last twelve years dealing with the issue of sewer versus density. Some of us on this Council have done that as well and we have been part of cases where in fact, attorney after attorney, has said you cannot separate density from sewer. There are issues and there is evidence that when you introduce the ability to bring sewer versus septic, you do bring a legal issue of the ability to introduce density where previously it was not allowed. So, if we ignore that with regards to the policies, and these are not just policies that Fulton County has adopted, but we sat back there in November and then again in December, and based on the citizens who elected us, we adopted those Fulton County policies. We adopted the 2025 Comprehensive Land Use Plan and it is the plan we must abide by, by law, until we have a new one. Based on the stuff that she has read from the City of Milton, we are not going to have a new CLUP for 18 to 24 months. So if we are going to defer this decision, she would suggest that we defer it until we have a complete re-update and a full up-date including our planning commission and include the community on all the discussions you want to have about water reclamation, and about all public input about sewer versus septic. So if we are going to defer it, thirty days will not do it. She thinks it is a great suggestion that perhaps we defer this. Indeed, if we send a letter it will result in unintended consequences because we are looking at one decision without looking at the whole. And so if what we are saying if we go through this Comprehensive Land Use Plan process there are members of this Council who want to introduce sewer to the City of Milton, which is what she is hearing because of environmental benefits, then let us have that discussion in an open dialogue with our community members, not just with these folks.She means with hundreds of people in this community that can be party to that discussion. She believes that until we have a public process that absolutely goes through all the issues that have to do with septic versus sewer and the fact that we are a community that adopted a no-sewer policy and a no inter-basin transfer policy that we not make an exception that could have legally binding unintended consequences. So for this record she does not support the extension of sewer. She does not support the extension of public sewer on this one parcel. We heard tonight and God bless you, Mr. Potts. She stated that she does understand his scenario. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 4 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Dennis Potts said he does not believe she does. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said whether you believe her or not, she is here to represent the citizens who put her here to help make a decision for the whole City of Milton. Mr. McMillan also addressed us. This is not an issue of just one individual looking for sewer extension. We already have evidence that it is Mr. McMillan, and it is some additional properties. There was another gentleman that addressed us this evening. We also have staff that provided 38 to 40 different parcels. She still does not have an answer as the amount of acreage that those 38 to 40 parcels would represent. The fact that effectively we are looking at 38 to 40 parcels that has acreage associated with it and in addition to the acreage, we have sewer that would therefore be the density,the new density that would be allowed that today is not allowed. City Attorney Scott said he wanted to make the comment that he would suggest that all members of the Council would refrain from making legal conclusions because you are not attorneys. He understands Councilmember Zahner Bailey’s long history as a community activist and even as a litigate. Councilmember Zahner Bailey says that is really not the point. At the point of order, her point had nothing to do with my past history. My comments have to do with being on the Council. City Attorney Scott said the point is that he understands he has no agenda as far as sewer. He is here to give the Council advice. His only point is that while from a factual standpoint density and sewer clearly go hand and hand. Zoning and sewer are completely separate issues. Deputy Director of Community Development Tuller said the map did show the areas within Milton that are surrounded by sewer that could actually be sewered. The only areas that staff would recommend to be intentionally connected to the Fulton County Sewer System would be those two land lots on the southern part. We are not looking for the land lots that are adjacent to Cogburn nor those on Hopewell Road. We are only looking at the ones that are based on our future land use and Fulton County’s future land use for an office utilization. It is really economically unviable that they work on a septic tank system, most of these. Now, in the current utilization they are basically residential houses, most of them, that have a little office out of them, but based on the Fulton County Land Use plan, they are promoted for an office utilization which arguably should be in a sewer manner. Mayor Lockwood asked if we are just talking about these two. Deputy Director of Community Development Tuller said from a staff perspective, our only interest as it relates to this case here is for those two land lots, 1048 and 1049 on the southern side of Webb Road that amount to about 26 acres. Mayor Lockwood said he believed the City Attorney was going to comment on including specific parcels in this resolution so that it would not preclude or specifically specify which parcels were going to be included in this resolution and asked if that was correct. City Attorney Scott said he would certainly recommend that you draw the line somewhere and you have several options. You have the option that you could limit it to this parcel or parcels adjacent to it. He has done research to see if there is any case law out there in Georgia that discusses any type of a right to having a sewer service and there is none. So certainly Mr. Potts or anyone similarly situated he does not think would have a legal right of recovery against Milton solely or with the county for that matter because someone would be granted or denied sewer hook up. Certainly, he has been granted zoning by the county for the type of use that has been granted to him. It is your call as to how many properties you wish to include. He will say this; this is probably not where this Council necessarily wants to go on this if you wanted to completely avoid precedence. Again, as he addressed you earlier with the overpass, precedent only applies where the fact pattern is the same or nearly the same. He would say that all similarly situated parcels would be in the same legal framework. He would say that the parcels that are not totally surrounded by sewer, such as Mr. Potts’s Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 5 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ is, would be in a different and in a much heavier burden to try to say as a result of this kind of action they should then be allowed sewer. So the question is where you wish to draw the line. That is clearly a policy issue and that is up to this Council. We can certainly discuss it and make recommendations, but his advice would be to include the parcels that you think you should be included and that are factually similarly situated and draw the line at that point. Mayor Lockwood stated if he may paraphrase what the City Attorney is saying is if these parcels are granted sewer, this is not setting a precedent for the entire City of Milton. City Attorney Scott said again it is a matter of whether the entire City of Milton is in the same fact pattern. Is the entire City of Milton surrounded by other sewered areas? The answer is clearly no. Councilmember D’Aversa asked does the Fulton County have to allow for the sewer to be provided. City Attorney Scott stated they have the ultimate decision. All this body would do is to make a recommendation one way or the other. Councilmember D’Aversa asked the City Attorney to explain to us and to our citizens gathered here what he thinks would play out if we were not to write the letter. City Attorney Scott said, well again, he has done some legal research on the subject and he does not think that anyone has any kind of fundamental right to sewer clearly. He does not think you can make an argument that it would be affecting a taking because again, it is not our decision ultimately and there is not a fundamental right to sewer. Denying sewer does not deprive someone the use of their land. Councilmember D’Aversa said so whether we write the letter or not, Fulton County can provide or not… City Attorney Scott said clearly. He would have to tell you that just as a general principle the law sort of cuts both ways on this issue. You know, there is no right to it. There is nothing that says we must deny it either. It really does cut both ways and ultimately for that reason it comes down to a policy decision that this Council would have to make. Councilmember O’Brien said he has a few questions and if he can direct some to Mr. Tuller and perhaps the City Attorney. He would observe that judging by the expression on the City Attorney’s face, he thinks he was acknowledging the considerable experience Councilmember Bailey has in this arena and he wondered, and we kind of touched on this, what are the implications of no comment. He is guessing that Fulton County would probably respect our wishes if we asked them not to extend, well, he should not say extend because it is not, but he does not see this as an extension of sewer in the truest sense. If they afford access to sewer and on the other hand, he guesses they would be inclined if able to afford access if we requested it by letter on behalf of the petitioner. Can either of you comment on the implications if we just made no comment? City Attorney Scott said it is very difficult to say what a legal implication would be and in the situation where we are just making a recommendation. We are almost in the same situation that the planning commission or another one of our boards or commissions do not have the ability to make a final decision or a final legally binding decision. That is kind of the position we are in between us and the Fulton County. Mayor Lockwood said effectively it is advisory. City Attorney Scott said effectively advisory, yes. And it is almost the same. Certainly, the planning commission could pass on a zoning application or a zoning ordinance with a recommendation to pass, with a recommendation to deny or no recommendation at all. The Fulton County Commissioners will ultimately have to do that, and do with that as they will. He does not think it puts us in a particular situation either way. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 6 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Councilmember Thurman said but Fulton County requested us to look at that, is that correct? Deputy Director of Community Development Tuller said yes, he thinks they were looking for concurrence that we would not be objectionable. The property did fall outside the land lots that were noted on the no inter-basin transfer policy. Councilmember O’Brien said okay and he wonders what the alternatives are and really appreciates the feedback that he has gotten. He confesses that it seems to cut both ways really. He has seen a fair amount of feedback from constituents and residents that are inclined to support the request that Mr. Potts is advancing. On the other hand there have been very consistent messages represented here tonight, of course, that would be inconsistent with their wishes. The hard part for us is we come from a history in this area where the only way we could handle the county is primarily for sewer. It is a relic of that era although he is inclined to believe that he has more tools at his disposal now that we are in charge, but what are the alternatives if we actively deny. His question is what goes on that property. Would we down zone or can you offer any comment from the community development’s perspective to help us understand. We talk about unintended consequences, he thinks that the challenge for the Council is we have to be mindful if not then what. We cannot just say no. We prefer to walk away and now that it is happening on our watch, it is in Milton, we have to be prepared to have an alternative or have a counter alternative on behalf of all the constituents whether they are in favor of or against a particular policy. He thinks we need to have a rational outcome in mind for the City. He thinks that is our responsibility as much as anything else. He is interested in some ideas either from the City Attorney or probably more so from Mr. Tuller. Deputy Director of Community Development Tuller said just quickly as noted, we are undertaking a land use plan process and the works will take approximately 18 months to complete, which will be a long time for Mr. Potts. As part of the process, we do have the ability to the character area map and potential amendments to our official land use map to change the classifications. We cannot change the zoning legally or we should not, but we can change the future land use and locate character area mapping specific to this area. He thinks Fulton County has real involvement from the constituency from this area and did agree to an office utilization for this quadrant that is a commercial activity center and if we change it there will be in opposition from those property owners who have been sitting on an office use for quite some time. It is your decision and the communities’ decision as to what to do through this process. Councilmember O’Brien said so really without changing the zoning we cannot go back from O & I or is there any precedent? Can you do that if it is the desire of the community? Deputy Director of Community Development Tuller said it would not be advisable. He would defer to legal, but it would not be advisable to change the current zoning. He said it has been done in other cities, but it is a very contentious issue. We do have the legal ability to change the future land use when that property changes hands or seeks new zoning, the new future land use would have a stronger voice in that process. Councilmember O’Brien said that he guesses that really what he is getting at is that someone mentioned, and he did not know if it was Mr. Potts, but someone talked about fairness. He does think we need to figure out an appropriate fair outcome however we act because he guesses the equivalent might be if we have an area that is zoned commercial or O & I, but yet we resolve as a body that we will not issue a building permit to such a building. He thinks that is fundamentally unfair so he thinks that we may not agree and decide in favor of Mr. Potts’ request, but he thinks we need to examine some reasonable opportunity for the use of the land consistent with the wishes of the community. Deputy Director of Community Development Tuller said he agrees and he did not think it was dissimilar from the Long Street issue. This is another situation we kind of inherited from a decision by Fulton County and we are doing our very best to make it work for Milton’s benefit. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 7 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Councilmember O’Brien said he did think, as Councilmember Bailey mentioned, in the longer term it is not for any of the ground water issues that we can suffer from proliferation of the septic. He is not an engineer or a chemist, but he thinks that is a legitimate concern for us going forward and a legacy that we have to respect. The water covered programs are intriguing so he is mindful of the unintended downside consequences, but he can only observe as he mentioned in a conversation in the back of the room on a break, this is one of several issues that we have had to struggle with that there is not really a very comfortable set of choices here. He thinks that he can probably speak for everyone that this is not a particularly comfortable situation to be in because we share and embrace the concerns that you have and yet as fair people and as neighbors we can certainly empathize whether it is Mr. Potts or anyone else who has a petition that on the face of it many may feel is reasonable. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said one of the things that she understands caused Fulton County to implement this rule, if you will, or policy that we had to write a letter and that we were going to be making the decisions. Especially, even along Highway 9 because Commissioner Riley supported a decision against the will of the citizens up on Cochran Road just a stones throw from where she lives. We have had some comments tonight about the fact that the road is having a lot of challenges and she would say that whether it is from a legal perspective or from a factual perspective that we do have to be cognizant that there is a direct correlation between sewer being allowed and density increasing. That is what we have seen on Cogburn Road in the last six months. Now that does not mean that Highway 9 is the same as Cogburn Road, especially up on north Cogburn and Cogburn Northwest. However, we have to be cognizant of it because we have seen the traffic lights that had to be installed and still she waits for 30 minutes every afternoon when she is coming home from school with her kids to get through that light and the subdivision is not built yet. The school is not active yet, so she wonders what exactly is going to happen. Commissioner Riley shared with her that that is why she made the decision that she did to give us the flexibility to make the decision going forward even on Highway 9. So certainly we had the decision making power for the rest of the City because we cannot allow sewer. There is no opportunity for sewer in the rest of the City right now but along these areas. We had the opportunity to make these decisions because of Commissioner Riley giving us this opportunity. She does not know where this vote is going to go and she is not even sure that they should be voting, and that may be something that Attorney Scott needs to answer for her. The idea to write a letter or to not write a letter, why is that a vote impacting decision for this Council? City Attorney Scott said you could certainly decline to vote on it. It is clearly going to be an agenda item at a future Council meeting. It is May 3rd, and that could always fail for lack of a motion. City Manager Bovos said that he would just say that you have an application in front of you from a constituent on a policy change that staff cannot make. So that is why you are voting on this. Staff cannot make that decision for you on your behalf. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said so we are not in fact voting on a letter being written, but a policy change. City Manager Bovos said you are voting on a letter to be written which would affect the policy that we do not hold. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said that is a good point. That is an excellent point and just to clarify, it would effectively be that we are changing the policy of the currently approved no-sewer, no-inter-basin transfer and that is a decision that will be on our agenda next Thursday, the 3rd, and asked if that was correct. City Attorney Scott said the resolution does not affect our change; it affects Fulton County’s change. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said that is right, but if we wrote the letter it would effectively recommend that Fulton County make that exception. We would be effecting a change to the current policy that not only Fulton County adopted and closed on a loop hole, but those we adopted part of our own policy on documentation. City Attorney Scott said correct. And he is not sure that they would allow it. There is substantially more to that letter Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 8 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ than most said. We do not own the policy. We do not own the sewer system. Councilmember Mohrig said we talked a number of times here about the need for education and he would support that they do need to educate themselves. He does not think that anybody there is an expert on water or on natural resources. Looking into the future, we do have a responsibility as we go forward to say from a planning stand point, what we can do, and what makes sense from use of our natural resources, especially in this area. We heard a little bit about reclamation. Along those lines he suggests that we do bring somebody in separate from this, but kind of feeding off of it so we start to learn from the EPD and from experts that actually studied this in the area and what are our options as we go forward. Secondly, he guesses he has a question for the City Attorney. He has heard all this in the past and he has lived along Highway 9. We fought high density situations and prior zonings. Fulton County always paid. We always got maximum density. We are living with two lane roads with three way stops. He lived there and he felt that everyday. When we look at zoning or if we have a comprehensive land use map that we are going to enforce and we have one today that we are going to enforce. We have one in the future that we will adopt with citizen input. Looking at that Comprehensive Land Use Plan, that is a zoning decision. Now if a sewer was nearby and was successful, can we still enforce it if it is one acre minimum? Can you still enforce that and not be forced to get higher density. That is what he hears is the issue here. City Attorney Scott said you can still obtain one acre lots with sewer. From an economic perspective, that is what the builders will build under these circumstances. That is a separate issue and another question. Councilmember Mohrig said the question he has is, legally we as a governing body, because it is no longer Fulton County, it is us. We do not have this situation today and we do not have sewer extended, but he is looking to the future and we are potentially going to have thousands of homes coming on line in the next 15 or 20 years that if we continue to just say that it is just septic, that is why he wants the education to go forward, what is the impact environmentally. But what he hears is the mistrust saying legally we open ourselves up to say well, if sewer ever gets out in that area, you can not uphold the one unit per acre. This body cannot control that. Is that true? City Attorney Scott said this Board has the power to set the zoning for the City. Councilmember Mohrig said and can we withstand any legal challenges from a property owner to say we want higher density. City Attorney Scott said Georgia Zoning law is generally pro-developer and if the developer can prove that the current zoning constitutes a substantial detriment to the use of their property then they can have that zoning overturned based largely on the consent to a battle of experts. Because when you get into a zoning case over a rezoning that is denied for example, what happens from a logistical stand point is you have a bench trial before the judge and both sides present experts on which way it should go. The strongest way that a municipality can uphold their present zoning is to show that what is being asked for is not in conformance with what is already there. So the stronger basis that we have if we want to continue a one acre lot is to be consistent in keeping to one acre minimum lots. Councilmember Thurman said if we enact the comprehensive land use plan that has the one acre minimum and we stick by that plan. City Attorney Scott said the closer we stick to that plan, and there is no guarantee, but the closer we stick to that plan the more likely it is that that plan is upheld. Councilmember Thurman said she guesses the surrounding area is also the one acre. City Attorney Scott said if it consistent with the surrounding area. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 9 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Councilmember Mohrig said that he thinks with this whole body here, nobody is saying we want to spread high density so what we are going through here is trying to understand. How can you look into the future and say is there an option? Is sewer down the road, is the safer way a better use of water, a better use of our natural resources and that is not tonight’s decision that is a future decision. Can you find or is there a legal way that you can guarantee as much as possible or is this something we need to go to the Georgia legislation to try to get some changes made. It seems like we are almost opposed. We are saying okay, you have to have septic although that may not be over the long term the best thing from a water stand point, but that is the only way you are going to keep the City the way we want this City to be developed. City Attorney Scott says he would tell you that the majority of the law on this subject is not so much legislative law, it is judge made law. It is case law. As Ms. Henderson expressed to you several weeks ago, when we were talking about Georgia’s courts and the fact that particularly the Appellate Courts of Georgia are extremely pro-business. Frankly, there is one member of the Georgia Supreme Court who seems when he reads his opinions to vote against local government at every chance he could possibly get and that is the danger. He is afraid that the legislature does not have a whole lot to do with that. But again, he thinks that as he explained to you another litigation context in terms of size. The more we can establish a strong case for a strong comprehensive plan, compliance of that strong comprehensive plan, and consistency in our decision making on zoning issues, the stronger the case we would have. Mayor Lockwood said he would like to say, and he certainly can see both sides of the situation and he certainly respects both sides, but he can sympathize with Mr. Potts’situation. This would be a much easier decision if it was limited to one parcel, one piece of property and it was something we inherited. We could make a simple decision there. His concern is, and he does not think he hears that we can legally limit this to one parcel or two parcels or whatever and over time get maybe 20, 30 or more parcels in this area, he does have a concern with the traffic and more congestion. To be honest, we have gotten a lot of feedback and it is really both ways. He has been hearing from both sides. He does not know if it is 50/50 or whatever, but the one thing he can say is that before we were elected up here, he is sure he met four to five thousand residents and overwhelmingly the biggest concern probably from 90% of the people was against sewer. He would say if it were a one time deal it would be more comfortable, but at this point he does not have any guarantee that if you give an inch that it does not end up being a mile. Councilmember Lusk says he would like to say a few things. It is not that he is callous and he does not understand the issue out here. He operates from a practical standpoint. He worked for one of the largest or the largest water department in the United States for over three years. He was in their used water department. That is what we are talking about here tonight. He thinks that what we are looking at right now is a corridor. He thinks the concern out there is we are going to have increased density in White Columns, Crooked Creek, North Valley, Wood Road, and Birmingham Highway. From a contractor’s stand point and from what he knows of sewage treatment and sewage distribution systems, he does not think it is going to happen out here. He thinks we are talking about billions and billions of dollars to sewer this entire City. If we are talking about a corridor down where sewers are already accessible it may mean and makes sense to continue it there in those areas that are commercial or commercially zoned. He does not think we are going to have an isolated pocket out here or up on Waigton Drive in Scotland Well. It is going to be an automatic service by sewer and increase in density up there. You have to have a plant to process sewage. From what he understands with the Big Creek Plant it is going to pick up this corridor of 9. They are almost going to max out on it and Mr. Tuller may be able to comment on that or Miss Jones may be also. We have several drainage basins here. It is not all going to flow towards Highway 9. It is flowing towards the other way also. To put sewer in this entire City he thinks it is economically infeasible from his own personal standpoint both as a contractor and as an engineer and one who has had experience in sewage treatment systems. He does not see it happening in his lifetime anyway. City Attorney Scott said just to chime in on that from a factual standpoint in his work for Forsyth County currently. Forsyth has been trying to gain additional capacity purchase from Fulton County and it is not available. Yes, his understanding too is aside of the Johns Creek Plant they are rebuilding and perhaps more that they are doing at Big Creek. He does not believe there are any other plans to expand that. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 10 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she believes they call it just to that point that Pollard Creek has been expanded several times and some of those plants where they said there was no capacity obviously there was additional capital improvement so that the capacity continued to expand so that capacity could then be sold. City Attorney Scott said that is correct. Just as a point, it would take an extreme increase in capacity in order to sewer belt it. Councilmember Lusk stated you are talking here about 50 square miles of property and the linear footage of sewer required to sewer this whole area or 50 square mile area here is astronomical. He just does not see it happening. We may be talking about something here that we will never see in our lifetime anyway. Mayor Lockwood said obviously it is not going to come to a conclusion tonight and he would like to conclude this discussion, but give everybody one more chance and respectfully asked that everyone be brief. He would like to say that certainly he does agree with Councilmember Lusk and economically he does not know if it is feasible to the majority of the Westside of Milton for us to physically be able to sewer that. But he would have to respectfully disagree and thinks that some of these areas on Highway 9, as a matter of fact, someone was talking earlier, just the traffic and just a little bit more density or a couple of properties and add a few more and he thinks all that is a big issue. Again, just with the traffic problem we have and with the infrastructures. For the record, he is not comfortable opening up what he thinks is Pandora’s Box until we can get some more definite information legally. Councilmember Thurman said she had a question of the City Attorney. She thinks they all lived in this area and she has lived in this area longer than 90 to 95% of the people here because it is a different area and it is very important to all of us that we keep it the way it is making sure it does not become like the other side of 400. We have heard from Fulton County that there is only a very small amount here that could ever have sewer. She truly believes that we can control the area and control the density of the area without it being tied into sewer. We have been told for the most part they do not have to go hand in hand, and that zoning decisions are not based on strictly sewer availability. At the same time, she has seen cases where someone has sued because they had been turned down and with the way the court systems are in Georgia, if they did give him the sewer it could open up the doors maybe even further for sewer and for other people because she has seen what courts seem to be. If they do overrule you, they overrule you big time. We have seen it twice before. They have given you much higher density than what the community wanted. She is afraid they can do it and her thought process would be only the areas that might be possibly surrounded by sewer. If we did it very carefully and worded it that way so that clearly there would be no other areas that could possibly meet that same precedent because there is no other areas that would be completely surrounded by sewer. Does that give us enough of a fact pattern so that no precedents could be set? City Attorney Scott said he could not ever guarantee what a court might do with something like that, but he thinks that you would be safest by following that road. Councilmember Thurman said that makes it a very, very narrow area that we would consider allowing it and basically by doing that, stating that automatically it was not going to be allowed in any other areas. City Attorney Scott said you would want to include those lots totally surrounded by existing sewered lots that are not sewered now so that you could distinguish those from any other area from a factual standpoint. Councilmember Thurman said those other people, it would be a different fact pattern and they would have less chance of doing that. City Attorney Scott said probably significantly less. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 11 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Councilmember Thurman said significantly less. It would automatically limit it as much as we could possibly limit it. City Attorney Scott said that would be the safest course. Now whether that would mean this case, he cannot say. Councilmember Thurman asks are all the parcels that are completely surrounded right now by sewer, are those all zoned either commercial or O & I so that we would not be changing any kind of zoning or density whatsoever on those parcels? Deputy Director of Community Development Tuller said all the parcels along Webb Road are all zoned for commercial office utilization or they are AG-1 that has been allowed a commercial business license. But there are properties along Hopewell Road and Cogburn Road that are of a residential classification and we would need to support those. Councilmember Thurman asks are those surrounded by sewer. Deputy Director of Community Development Tuller said the ones on Cogburn and Hopewell are also surrounded by sewer. It should be noted on your maps. The only other ones are those on Webb Road. Councilmember Thurman said so if we were going to limit it we would make sure we have our fact patterns right. We would want to limit it to ones that were not only surrounded, but also currently zoned commercial. Deputy Director of Community Development Tuller said based on our future land use map would be of a commercial or an office jurisdiction. Councilmember Thurman said what she is trying to do is to make sure that if we do decide to go forward with this that we have got it as narrow as possible so that no precedent is set or we could reduce the chances as much as possible so that any precedent could be set with it. Deputy Director of Community Development Tuller said yes, he thinks with mapping and text language and our comprehensive plan and guidance from the City Attorney, it could be. Councilmember Thurman said is that what the staff would recommend us doing if we go forward with it? Deputy Director of Community Development Tuller said he thinks for those parcels on the southern side of Webb Road, those would be the only ones staff would potentially support,yes. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said first of all Mr. Tuller, the questions that was asked are all those properties currently zoned commercial and O & I and she heard him say yes, but then you referred to the future land use plan. Could you be more specific? Deputy Director of Community Development Tuller said there are some AG-1 and he has the current zoning map here. There are some AG-1 properties there, but on the future land use, they are all office. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said but also on the Hopewell Cogburn, if she heard correctly, there are also some properties there that are currently not in the area that allows for sewer, but they are also surrounded by sewer which would map back to that criteria that was just discussed. Deputy Director of Community Development Tuller says they are surrounded by sewer, but they are on our future land use as residential. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 12 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Councilmember Zahner Bailey said correct. Councilmember Thurman said that would not meet the qualifications that we just discussed. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said her question specifically are they surrounded by sewer on Hopewell and Cogburn and she thinks his answer was yes. Deputy Director of Community Development Tuller says yes, but staff would only support those in office utilization. (There was a side discussion regarding the zoning map) Mayor Lockwood said again in the interest of time, and not that this it is not very important, but we have nine other agenda items tonight. Councilmember D’Aversa said she needed to understand those properties circled in dark purple that are off of Highway 9 right up the road. She is trying to understand if it is to a certain area and be able to legally do that and how can we do that when we have got someone right up the road that is getting it. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said that is a great question and if she may, she would like to make a comment. She thinks that attorney Mark Scott made a great point and that is we are in the best legal position when we consistently apply our comprehensive land use plan and when we consistently apply those policies that represent our no sewer policies, our no inter-basin transfer policies, and our zoning categories. But the Georgia law and the case law that Mr. Scott referred to absolutely showed examples where even though we might set up here and extend sewer, but she is going to have that property a one acre minimum. The reality is that that land owner wants to have access to sewer and goes to the court of Georgia and they say gee, you know what, I have got access to sewer and therefore, I am allowed greater density. Regardless of the zoning, the court overturns the case and that is the issue and that is what we have the responsibility to do is to represent the best ability to maintain those things and the citizen’s values that we have heard. To Mayor Lockwood’s point that we have heard from thousands and thousands of folks. This is not about how do we accommodate one specific scenario where Fulton County has a decision to make. The issue is the collective property rights of thousands of people and she would also like to clarify she was not suggesting that making these exceptions automatically mean that we are going to have sewer on 50 square miles. The issue is that separate from 50 square miles, we have got citizens that are concerned today about not just one additional property with sewer, but about Mr. McMillan’s property being sewered and the other applicants who came forward and said that they would like sewer. And then the 38 to 40 who are not on this map, but are on the map that Mr. Wilson provided that said that those similarly could be under the definition legally, but those land owners could pursue in a court of law a similar argument and claim that well, if we gave it those guys, they want it to, so even those 38 to 40 parcels concern her. She is concerned about Highway 9 and the folks on Cogburn. She is concerned that they are speaking out of both sides of their mouths. We say we are concerned about those citizens and what they say and yet when we look at these issues with regards to sewer and density, we are fooling ourselves to think that we can separate the two. She does not believe that they can legally. In terms of what we do, going forward she strongly believes that we should not write a letter of support. We are not legally obligated. We were asked to write a letter and we can respectfully say that we will not support an exception to the policy. Going back to Mr. Scott’s comments, the strongest policy and strategy for us to be able to say to future applicants who want that sewer extension or to say to a judge is what have we done to be consistent. The very issue of writing a letter that says we are going to allow for an exception to that policy that becomes a matter of record of this Council and of this new jurisdiction. And so the very process of writing that letter sets in motion that we have established an exception to our own policy. Separately, she does not believe that Mr. Potts runs out of his avenues for pursuit of a solution just because we do not write a letter. She thinks the next step will be for him to return to Fulton County and they will resolve that based on Fulton County’s policy. She heard Mr. Scott say several times that he could not guarantee a court of law would not overturn a decision with regards to sewer extension and density.Another point she would like to clarify, there was talk about well if we extend sewer we can still maintain one unit to the acre. The Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 13 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ majority of the 50 square miles of the City of Milton previously unincorporated in Fulton, the yield is actually not even one unit to the acre. It is more like 1.5 to 1.6 so statistically the extension to sewer is not just or even if you want to buy into the argument that you can maintain one unit to the acre. The reality is that the pattern of development based on topography, soil, percolation, the science of the soil on which we are surrounded means that without sewer the yield is really about 1.6 so that in and of itself helps to mitigate increased density. When there was discussion amongst some of the Council that well this is just Highway 9. She takes issue with that. She respects that comment, but she does not agree with it. We have got sewer accessibility through Cherokee County. Councilmember Lusk, to answer your question, he has mentioned that Highway 9 is a corridor. We have also had discussion and she has heard folks on this Council talk about Arnold Mill needing to be another commercial corridor. If we start to make exceptions to our policies on sewer with regards to the City of Milton,we do have exception to that policy which also happened to apply to Arnold Mill. The same is true of Crabapple. Crabapple has access to other sewer basins as well. So the exception to these 38 to 40 parcels, although they are not in front of us tonight, she believes we will set in motion other potential risks of parcels that are over on Arnold Mill and Highway 140 in Crabapple. City Attorney Scott said he just wants to make it clear that comments he made did not refer to sewer. They referred to zoning. He has looked for cases discussing the entitlement to sewer and whether someone in a municipality can challenge whether or not they should get sewer. He has not found cases in Georgia law that addresses that issue. His comments were confined to the issue of zoning itself and zoning categories and rezoning from one category to another. He just wanted to make that clear. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said maybe between now and some future time if we could talk about some case law and some specific cases where zonings were approved and they ultimately went back and asked for more density and they got more density because of accessibility to the sewer and so we may be speaking the same language just saying it in different ways. Councilmember O'Brien said he just thinks that rather than pass the buck to Fulton County that we were elected to make decisions and in some cases, courageously or at the very least he thinks we should look Mr. Potts in the eye and either say yes or no. That is the challenge before us and we need to be responsive to the wishes of the community, but also he observes that the nice thing about having our own rule here is that we have policy agility. He thinks that sometimes when you tie yourself into boxes by non-legal advisory policy of the past it becomes more cumbersome than constructive. He thinks that we need to make a decision and then act on it. But clearly, he thinks they are kind of conflicted about that because we want to respect the wishes of many in the community although some have spoken in favor of this. He will yield to his colleagues. Councilmember D'Aversa said she is really not sure that there is much more for her to say tonight because she thinks that it does boil down to a precedent setting situation. She has a real hard time understanding that we could approve the sewer and looking at this map she thinks she may need to sit with staff and understand this map a little bit better. The way she looks at this map there are other opportunities for sewer adjacent to Highway 9 that are also adjacent to Bethany Bend Road and to the Chatham Property that is being developed. And then from a precedent setting perspective, she does not think that we can make a decision that will open us up. We all went to training when we became newly elected officials and the big message that was sent to us at Mayor’s Day training down in Fulton County ironically enough was to be consistent. She thinks we are called to do the same thing to run this like a business and to be consistent with our decisions. It is a tough decision to make whether to allow certain things and there are a lot of heart strings that get tugged at when you are making decisions that impact Mr. Potts’ livelihood and his area. One thing that she would encourage everyone to do is to be very cognizant of that. He is not doing this to hurt members of the community and whether we make a decision to write a letter or not to write a letter, to allow sewer to not to allow sewer, we have to remember that we are a community and that it is not for anybody’s gain or lack of gain that we are sitting up here. Councilmember Mohrig said he can refer back and kind of piggy back what has been said. He would like to challenge everyone out here, including himself and other Councilmembers, to watch our tone when we are addressing each other Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 14 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ and when we are going through issues. We are trying to make decisions up here. These are difficult and are not easy, but if all of us kind of look at it and be a little more open instead of some of the nasty notes and the tone that he has seen coming across. He knows the things about sewer versus no sewer, and density are the very passionate things. He has seen his property values impacted negatively because of things over the years. But he would just ask everyone on both sides to kind of step back and let us try to take a little bit of the emotion out and look at where we are trying to go as a City and what type of City we want to be. Do we want to be what we talked about is smart growth and take a look at what smart growth really is and study it as we go forward? Mayor Lockwood said one thing he would honestly say that all of us probably agree on, that this is a very difficult and a very important decision. We appreciate all our residents and our business people’s respect on this issue. Discussion on a Right-of-Way Ordinance. Program Director Greg Wilson said we have spent a lot of time putting this together and have actually looked at a number of issues. We are going to touch on some of the issues that we have discussed this evening. The overview that we wanted to provide is kind of a high level overview so what we have done is to take the right-of-way ordinance in its entirety. Hopefully,you have had a chance to review the hard copy of the document with all of the details. He is not going to go into all of the details, but he is going to hit what he thinks is the most valid points from each of the relevant chapters. First of all, our agenda looking to the future, one of the things we want in the City of Milton is better road construction. We have taken a lot of time to look at construction of our roads to put this emphasis on things that we think are important and that will give us better consistency in our roadways going forward. We want to have clear regulations that are easy to read, easy to follow, and easy to interrupt. We also want to include rural applications. You had a lot of discussion and citizens have talked a lot about maintaining the rural character and the rural integrity of our City. We have taken that into consideration as we developed and written our right-of-way ordinance. We also have major updates that we have gone through. We want to keep several things. We have had to revise several items. We have looked at a number of the Fulton County regulations and where they apply. We have looked at them in a way that is going to move us forward in a positive way. Several aspects of our right-of-way ordinance that we wanted to take a look at. First of all, we want to look at the definitions. We have definitions for traffic controls, speed limits, specific items that address our truck routes. We have spent a lot of time and energy around construction standards and specifications. If you recall earlier, we have adopted the GDOT construction standards and specifications, the on-line edition. We have got a lot of discussions on prohibitions and uses. Specific items were street numbers, road names and also some traffic impact studies, particularly around construction details. Definitions include levels of service, specific things around maintenance. We have taken some time to separate maintenance. We talk about capital improvements, where those lines cross so you will see some details there such as litigation in terms of lessening the impact of certain procedures. There is some discussion of reserve right-of-way and the transportation master plan which fits inside of the comprehensive plan. We have looked at this in a way that we will address all the appropriate items going forward. We have also addressed some of the public and private roadway issues and also making a clear delineation between some of the urban needs versus the rural needs for the City of Milton. Traffic control, the manual of uniform traffic control devices, we have taken some time and energy to look at our signs, particularly, new construction sites. We put energy on signage and warnings as we have construction areas making sure that they are safe. We put some energy into excavation and trenching making sure that they not only follow the GDOT specifications and the other things. Also, all of the OSHA regulations that would apply with respect to safe trenching areas throughout the City. Speed limits will be enforced on May 1st, and our police force will be on line. We put some discussion there around enforcing the speed limits, making sure that radar permits were applicable. This also includes the process that will allow for edits to go before GDOT. We will submit those edits on July 1st and we also wanted to be clear that traffic calming is a policy.We separated that from our right-of-way ordinance. On many occasions we have had citizens talk to us around traffic policy as part of the right-of-way process, but we included that in our policies instead of putting it here in the right-of-way ordinance. There was discussions of truck routes; a plan for vehicles that would be 56,000 pounds or better. We need to make sure that we post all of our weight limits particularly around our bridges. Parking storage and Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 15 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ we have also got the sections there in for violations of this particular part of the ordinance. Councilmember Mohrig asked how we would enforce the 56,000 pounds, the posted weight limits. Because we know that over or weights above that start destroying the roads when we have heavy equipment. How do we actually enforce that from the City? Transportation Engineer Jones said one of the things that will be a follow-up action item is that staff will need to create a map that shows the truck routes within the City of Milton. But that will be something that will need to be shown on a map. This document is just creating the rules and place for it and the enforcement of the map. Program Director Wilson said construction specification standards and we are particular about our right-of-way and encroachment permit. We want to be sure that any construction in the right-of-way includes the appropriate encroachment permits so we do not have construction activities. Making sure that, again, safety is a big item. In some case we will need off duty police officers. Open cuts are a big item, particularly in the utility cuts and we want to make sure that those are properly addressed. We have rural and urban sections and also in terms of the mast arm and other devices. We have specified there the standard mast arm so it will be applicable, but if you want decorative mast arms, decorative poles, decorative lighting, that sort of thing that it would be on the cost of the HOA. The City would provide the standard items and if there were additional items that someone wanted that there is a process that they can go through to get the additional items that they would need. In terms of appropriation and uses, we have addressed bikes, horses, particularly in our right-of-way area; we have talked a little bit about horses. We know that the horses will be in our area. Interestingly enough, we have also had a discussion with our police officers for the public safety vehicles. We want to be cognizant of our others, but certainly the fact that we have our horse traffic that will be in the area and that is an appropriate application that we have taken into consideration. Sprinklers, landscaping, fences, walls, all of those things will be toward the right-of-way. We have taken some time to address that and also the over-size vehicles. There is a portion of the ordinance that addresses tractors on the right-of- way and that sort of thing for the agriculture areas. Street numbers, road names, we have a lot of alleys that are starting to develop and we want to make sure that they are properly addressed. Visibility is a big concern. Naming is one of the convention ideas. This actually ties to this second bullet there being relationships between community development and community services. One of things that we looked at going forward in terms of naming conventions, instead of having development in certain areas that were maintained, the agriculture integrity or the rural integrity of the areas that we developed going forward. We might have a question such as names for certain developments or something of that nature. When the developers bring the information to us, then we go through the zoning process then we are able to address that at the front end and maintain a consistency as we go forward. Traffic impact studies are a big requirement versus the DRA thresholds will be in place. We want to make sure that we require that before we get to the rezoning cases. One of the reasons for that is to make sure that the engineer has the appropriate facts and that we have applicable conditions identified up front. One of the models we used is the Athens/Clarke County and also Roswell. Certain implications, of course, mitigation, extraction and we have a series of legal definitions that are there and we wanted to point those out to your attention. Standard drawings are one of the major items. One of the things is making sure that we do have appropriate drawings for all of the structure items throughout the City and making sure that we have those in a format that is going to be user friendly. We do not want to maintain a huge file within our file drawers, if you will. So whenever we can apply on-line applications that will be one of the things that we would like to do going forward. The next steps would be to incorporate comments from citizens from members of Council as well. We will continue posting information on the web. We do have the model ordinance posted on the web to solicit citizen comments. So comments are certainly welcome. It is a requirement if you will. Some of this also including the bike and pedestrian master plan and we wanted you to know that the second reading we will go before Council on May 17th. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 16 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Councilmember Lusk said you mentioned materials used in paths. Was this information conveyed to the bicycle and pedestrian path committee? Transportation Engineer Jones replied yes. We actually have already provided information to the bike and path steering committee about ADA acceptable paths and we have also discussed the fact that we probably need to consider at least some section of the Bike and Ped Master Plan system when we go into ADA compliant and perhaps tying in with parks that we would have sections for parks that are ADA compliant. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said one, obviously there will be more opportunity for a comment and input and she believes that some of this you touched on this, and asked about things like the rural road standards. She knows that you mentioned that and assumes that part of what you did was to look at some of those federal standards that can be a little less urban. The rural preservation plan that was adopted back in 2001, and separate from tonight’s meeting she has a copy of that with her if he does not have one, unless you guys have not already reviewed that. There was a lot of citizen input, and developer input over a two year period. Several of us on this Council, Councilmember Thurman and herself were a party to that for over two years and so there was a lot of discussion through those two years about rural road standards. And she suspects that she has already passed that but in case not, she would just highlight that for your consideration. Also within the document she noticed that there was a grid that talked about speed limits. And some of the roads that highlighted speed limits that were faster that is what is currently on the road. She will highlight some of the roads that are around the Birmingham Crossroads. Part of that master planning process included a step down of speed, if you will. Transportation Engineer Jones said she can probably explain part of that. There is an official list and GDOT holds it. They are the one holder of the one radar permit in the State of Georgia. They are basically licensing various municipalities to use their radar permit. And cities and municipalities get the chance to update their city once a year and they actually are making suggestions to GDOT. GDOT then has to approve that process, send it back to our Mayor. Then it goes from the Mayor to the public station service at the state level and the state level people have to bring it back to our police. So there is this big ping pong that goes back and forth. If we change something on the side of the road, if somebody called us and said put a different speed limit, put a 15 out on Highway 9 or whatever, and we did that, it would void the radar permit for us for the entire length of that road. That is what has happened in the Birmingham area. It is not radar enforceable because Fulton County put signs on the side of the road without first making the change at the radar permit with the paperwork. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said and that is her question, are we pursuing the changes of that paperwork. We are not going back and saying we want to step it back up but instead we are going to go through the particular procedures that would allow us to be radar compliant if you will. Transportation Engineer Jones said what we have done is as your staff working for the citizen is since you only get the one chance a year to make edits to this, so we had asked first just to adopt exactly the Fulton County list for our section so that we can continue to study and continue to get citizen input on which road people feel they have safety concerns with or, you know, have a hard time getting out of their driveway. We had continued that that was the July 1st date that we had in our presentation, so come July 1st your staff plans to submit these once a year changes to the radar permit. So we are just trying to adopt Fulton County’s now so that you can get radar from the police. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said so the adoption of those currently in this grid in no way implies that those other, those earlier community eccentric efforts over the course of a couple of years, those have not gone away. It is just that in order to be compliant with our police force coming up next week, that we can meet that requirement. Then July 1st still allows us to meet this year’s one opportunity to reflect those changes. Transportation Engineer Jones said that is correct and what we are encouraging folks is that number on the board will Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 17 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ be e-mailed and we are asking for people, preferably e-mail but if do not have email, that is okay,you can use the 2500 number to put in each of your requests for those different items. And then staff will be compiling all of those requests and providing appropriate further data from the City of Milton in the letter of annual update to the GDOT district seven offices. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said it is just a separate from just where someone would say they would like it to be 15 on Highway 9 and other than that example and that is not a personal opinion, just for the record. Is it in those cases where there has been planning and there has been, obviously through Fulton County’s transportation department, there has been a lot of work, would that be helpful so that some of that documentation when you go forward and it is not just a request, but it is part of the planning process and it was indeed supported by Angela Parker and the various departments in the DOT historically. Transportation Engineer Jones said they have all that information already. They keep very detailed records at GDOT. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said so hopefully we are not re-creating the will, is what you are saying. Transportation Engineer Jones said that is correct. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said other questions about gravel roads and obviously other than tonight, we will all provide input on this more specifically. But as it relates to gravel roads, can you just maybe spend just a moment and talk about how you have addressed this particular consideration. Obviously we have a lot of people who love their gravel roads. Transportation Engineer Jones said there are still going to be gravel roads per this ordinance. We talked about the fact that there would be standard, typical sections drawn for them so that it is very clear how to maintain them. Also, should particular places come up where future gravel roads are built, which again, that standard would be uniform. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said okay. So again, that is being addressed with the right-of-way and within the document. Transportation Engineer Jones said yes. Councilmember Lusk asked in the 300 series transportation where you list 301A and B, typical sections? Rural roads, access easement, industrial subdivision streets, side roads and the last road in there is gravel. Should that be gravel roads? And are you going to use which standard for that use? Transportation Engineer Jones said what staff is doing is continuing to get these; we have not started the process of getting these drawn in CAD yet. As they will be maintained by staff and approved by an engineer, as all drawings should be, they will be on file. Program Director Wilson said just for clarification Councilman Lusk, was your question concerning the construction standards for gravel roads? Councilmember Lusk said yes it was but it was not clear in that last part of the section. It went from subdivision streets, side roads, and gravel. Program Director Wilson said we will take a look at that. Thanks. Program Director Wilson said it should be gravel roads, and then you will have an appropriate detail and specification. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 18 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Councilmember Thurman said I just wanted to further reinforce Councilmember Zahner Bailey’s request for you to look at this maintaining rural character in Northwest Fulton County claim that was adopted. It was or there were 10 of us on the committee and it did bring in people from all walks of life including developers and zoning attorneys and it was a very interesting process as people can imagine. But what it did was it set up guidelines for what we wanted Fulton County to go forward with and one of them was this right-of-way type issue. Unfortunately, it was a great plan that never got completed by Fulton County. But I would encourage you to look at that because it did have some ideas as far as not only right-of-way but a lot of other issues that helped us maintain the character in the area that we wanted to see put into place that never quite got there and hopefully a lot of those in Milton can put in place over the next year or so. And she will be glad to get you a copy of it. Program Director Wilson said he is not read it personally and it sounds like a great document and we will make sure that we include that if we can to items in there. Councilmember Thurman said well, it was just very frustrating to those of us that were on the committee because we did spend two full years meeting, at times, weekly for hours. Like that is where she learned more than she ever wanted to know about sewer because she thinks they spent six months discussing sewer and sewer reclamation and all kinds of other things that she did not really, and in much more detail than she had ever planned on learning but, the frustrating thing was we had a great guideline that just never got carried out. And she would love to see a lot of those things that we spent a lot of time working for and came up with over those two years actually be put into place by the City of Milton. Program Director Wilson said that one of the great things about this process is being able to give that kind of feedback as well as the feedback that we get from the citizens as we write our ordinances so he can appreciate that. Councilmember Lusk said one more thing, and then he will hit the road. As regards to gravel roads again, he has some government publications on design and maintenance of gravel roads and offer that to you if that will help. Program Director Wilson said they will be happy to look at that. Councilmember O’Brien asked the rural urban roads, can you or who at high level break that out? He is hopeful that we are not segregating into Highway 9 urban and all the rest in Milton. Can you give a couple of examples and what are rural and what are urban roads per your plan? Transportation Engineer Jones said staff always tries to reference approved documents that Council has already adopted and one of those is the 20/25 Master Plan. In that we are clearly aware of which areas or plans to be added for zoning and low density zoning and so those areas would be, but it could be made clearer before our final draft to Council is complete. We can make that more clear and reference that document insofar as defining urban versus rural areas specifics using the 20/25 future land use plan because there are sections of curb out in the middle of nowhere that by reading this it may be somewhat confusing to folks as far as what typical sections they should use. But by referencing it more to the zoning and the type of zoning is the definition of the rural or urban section. It would be perhaps appropriate. Councilmember O’Brien said so it is more zoning dependent. Transportation Engineer Jones said we are going to clarify that before we bring it back. Councilmember O’Brien said okay. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said just to give one minor example like swells or curb and gutter. In the past some of the discussions have been in a more rural area, again based on zoning or categories. Is it that we do not need as much curb and gutter just because you have got less storm water run off and you have got more natural ways to handle the swell? So those are just some of the examples. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 19 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Transportation Engineer Jones said that is a fundamental difference from what your current Chapter 13 and Chapter 16 says where it says thou should put curb and gutter absolutely everywhere. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said that is correct and that is how we would love to fasten it. You would refer to some of those other elements that have been worked on. Councilmember Thurman said she had one question with regards to state highways. She knows we had several of them within the City. What kind of control do we have over the right-of-way and things like that on the roads that are a state highway? Transportation Engineer Jones said so our police can enforce laws. Councilmember Thurman stated that that is a good thing so but as far as the construction of them and curb and gutter and things like that, do we have that kind of control over those or is there a state highway or state control system. Transportation Engineer Jones said that is a great question and she would guess that most people who do not know where the GDOT district seven offices is probably do not know the office to that. They are off of Peachtree Industrial. This is an important item because GDOT owns those roads and GDOT pays to maintain those roads and GDOT fixes problems as soon as problems occur on those roads. That is a big deal because those are also generally the biggest roads in your City with the most traffic lights on them. Part of the beginning of the City is developing that relationship with the District Representative and being able to have that relationship where they understand what our needs and concerns are so that they are not in a fighting battle with us. Other cities in the Metro Atlanta area did develop a hostile relationship and that only causes more problems in the future when they want to do some sort of project on their roads. She thinks everyone is aware of Roswell, so you have to be careful because it is their road but if we could develop the relationship with them and continue to maintain that relationship with them then they usually listen to us. Councilmember Thurman said so we may not have to put curb and gutter on the state highway as long as we keep them happy? Transportation Engineer Jones said that is very possible. She also feels like that is one of the things that are possible with the Citizen’s Advisory Committee that has been formed and that will be meeting on May 10th. She will actually be here with you all presenting the storm water ordinance or helping to present the storm water ordinance that evening but generally she will be at that committee from or with other staff represented in addition to your appointed coach to be able to answer typical questions on behalf of the City of Milton. Councilmember Thurman asked did we get all the appointed folks that we needed for that committee. Transportation Engineer Jones said she was told yes by the GDOT folks. Program Director Wilson said he wanted to echo what Abbie had just mentioned about relationships. He said they had had several good meetings with some of the folks at GDOT so he thinks they were in a better position to understand our needs. We have even talked about maintenance on some of the Highway 9, 140, 342. We have talked with them about grass cutting and a lot of the day to day maintenance as well as the long term planning, so he thinks that the relationships that we have already established with them will serve us well going forward. Councilmember Bailey said with regards to maintaining that relationship she could not agree more because she thinks we can influence them even if we can not control their decisions. In terms of roundabouts, will that be a discussion point that you had with the DOT or have you already had some of those discussions? Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 20 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Program Director Wilson said he would let Abbie pick that one up. He can say that they have had some discussions on that but he can not say that it is moving in one way or another at this point but we have been engaged in some of those discussions. Transportation Engineer Jones said she has spoken with one of their people, his title is not a roundabout expert but he is about the closest thing they have to him and she has done about three of them and on this, the design side and then to several long classes where they, unless they had photographed from Australia reversed because there are too many American examples, which is pretty fun. Roundabouts are proposed on the two of the three current CIP projects that we have. One of the items that will be discussed in further length at our May 10th CIP transportation update, we will talk about that particular design component and inspect the longevity of those for our area. She will say that one particular idea is that roundabouts can not act as a rear for transportation. They only let a certain amount through. And that could potentially work to our advantage in maintaining two lane roads which is a pretty unique concept and we can talk more about that on May 10th. But there are people at GDOT and they are agreeable and understand that we want to maintain a rural character and they want to try to help us with that. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said wonderful and is it fair to say that at least you as staff and are an expert in that area are open to roundabouts in our area where they are appropriate. Transportation Engineer Jones said she would not call herself an expert. She wants to make that real clear. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said but you have some expertise in the area. Transportation Engineer Jones said right and let us be real careful right now because now in the State of Georgia really does not do anything other than single lane roundabouts. Two lane roundabouts will probably come about, she does not know when, when she has great, great grandchildren or something. But right now we are just trying to get a single lane one passed. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said thank you so much. Councilmember O’Brien said just the other thing on truck traffic. 56,000, that is configuration dependent, is that correct? Program Director Wilson said was that configuration dependent? Mayor Lockwood said the types of truck. Councilmember O’Brien said regardless of the actual combination and so forth,56,000 is correct. Councilmember D’Aversa said about speed limits. Not on state routes but just within our roads. There seem to be some that are 45 miles an hour. I mean, do we have any control over those? Transportation Engineer Jones said the radar permits is over the non-state routes. That is the difference on your charts, if you will flip through about halfway. There is the “on system” and then there is the “off system.” On system is going to be on GDOT system roads and the off system is going to be the City roads. We still have to go through the state process for every road because again there is just one radar permit and it is held by the state DOT. We are just licensees of their radar permit. Councilmember D’Aversa said she was asking about what select facility we have in changing some of these. I mean some of these roads; you have got Windward Parkway at 45 miles per hour and that makes sense to her, but some of the roads like Francis Road, maybe that does not make as much sense. Are we planning on doing some studies, you know, Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 21 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ to see? Transportation Engineer Jones said that is the July 1st update. The once a year update that we get and so that is where if you contact the info with and make your suggestions there and encourage your constituents to make their suggestions there. We need to be able to have that list of why those suggestions are being made, from whom those suggestions are being made, so that we are able to provide that in our packet to GDOT. Councilmember Thurman said okay.So we can make those suggestions the exact same way the constituents do by e- mailing. Transportation Engineer Jones said yes. Councilmember D’Aversa said she recommends that everyone take a look at this list here because there are a couple of roads here where really she does not think there is any need for it to be 45 miles an hour. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said that was her earlier point. What is the deadline in order for you to meet that July 1st, what is the deadline by which you need input from citizens? Transportation Engineer Jones said July 1st is the citizen deadline. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said when does that ultimately get put forward? Transportation Engineer Jones said to be completely honest, she just arbitrarily picked that date because she was just trying to get a date. Councilmember Thurman said some of these roads are a half mile long and 45 mile per hour speed limit does not make sense. Councilmember Mohrig said he had a question too about new signalization and we have had discussions along for some of the residents who live off of Highway 9 and we were going through the zoning process we worked with developers to actually have them set aside money for new signals because the stretch between Bethany Bend North is suicide for anyone living in Lake Laurel, Five Acres, Crooked Creek, the new Beazer subdivisions, you can not get out. And our City Manager was on the trip with us when we did the drive around. It is dangerous to try to get out of those subdivisions. What do we do and how do we go about that if we need to do some type of the break in the traffic and look at new signalization? And he is speaking here specifically of GDOT roads where we know we can not just say let us put up a signal. Transportation Engineer Jones said first of all it would depend on whether or not the City would be doing such a construction or whether it would be a developer that would be obligated to do a signal and she will give you a specific example. The Super Target is required and is in the process of permitting a signal at Webb and Highway 9 and that is one of the higher crash incident intersections that we have so that is great news for us. So when they are doing an application as a private developer, the process is they come up with a plan. The City will look at those plans. After the City is OK with it, then we pass it to GDOT to bless it and once they have both sets of the approvals, they are able to do the construction and then both the City and the State will do the punch list before it is turned on. Councilmember O’Brien said and on the face, he guesses, let us say we do not have the developer’s sponsoring the whole thing but there were funds set aside or earmarked. We see a safety issue. How does that go about? Does GDOT or can we petition GDOT to actually contribute dollars or is this going to be totally on the City of Milton if we needed to do it from the safety stand point? Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 22 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Transportation Engineer Jones said this goes back to the relationship building. One of the things that staff is setting up and we plan to set this up between now and the end of May is a meeting between our Mayor, our DOT Board Commissioner and several other different important people including the entire DOT head commissioner. It is very important for us to have those relationships at the very top where the funding decisions get made and where fiscal year concerns are able to be taken into consideration and then it would be a very important part of that process. It will also be important for us to be talking about that process with our CIP and that May 10th, we will be looking into presenting various ideas for the Council and we are trying to get support and edit so that come budget cycle we will start mid- summer and we will be able to plan for those. But anytime that is set aside, we intend to use those in addition to additional revenue the City would set aside. Councilmember Mohrig said so it would still be us taking forward our wishes to GDOT to add a light By Crooked Creek or something for slowing down the traffic and allowing people to get in and out in the different subdivisions, we would have to get GDOT approval for that to ever go in place, but we could also request funds so it is not going to be the City of Milton just doing that. Transportation Engineer Jones said that is correct. Councilmember Thurman asked if you have to have GDOT’s approval if it is not a State highway. Because she and Joe were out speaking to the homeowner’s at The Manor, is that Hamby Road that they were having such a problem with? And she does not believe any of those are State highways right around that area and evidentially it can be a real problem at certain times of the day. If that area strongly wanted a traffic light, is there any way for them to get that information to the City and what would the City have to go through in order to get one. Transportation Engineer Jones said again, this is something that we are going to be tracking and we are going to putting out an all call for requests for those types of things in conjunction with the CIP. But it will again be from this info email and then from this 2500 number where they can request those. That will always be prioritized in terms of safety improvements first. Areas with known crash histories will always be prioritized above areas where there are just people who can not turn left. Councilmember Lusk said getting back to Neal’s point about the gross vehicle weight, you can see the abuse on a lot of these older roads out here because the ball of the contractor’s, probably the worst time, more so across the county line in Forsyth County, these roads are really rutted. He is concerned about not only those within our City, but the bridges in our City too. He guesses his point goes to enforcement. Have we made any provisions for weight enforcement and do we have the facilities to do that? Councilmember Mohrig stated that that goes back to what we were talking about and what he asked earlier was how were we even going to do that. I mean, how. City Manager Bovos said there is the ability for our police department to carry what is called commercial scales in a sport utility related type vehicle. About $30,000 per scale and they can be pulled off the vehicle and used at the site to weigh a vehicle and a ticket can be issued. So at the point and time we are able to fund that, we will obviously have the ability to enforce it a little bit better than we do today, but we are certainly working on that. Councilmember Lusk said so we do not have that available at this time? City Manager Bovos said no. Councilmember O’Brien asked what the typical fine for an overweight vehicle is. City Manager Bovos said he did not know the answer to that question. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 23 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked beyond the scale itself on those no truck routes; in addition to the weight limit we have got a lot of roads in our area obviously that are no trucks at all. What will be the enforcement process starting next week when we have our own police force out? Can they visually on those no truck routes when you obviously have a truck that is a certain weight can they pull them over or must they have a commercial scale to validate that it is a truck and it is on a non-truck route. Do they have to be able to weigh it and define it as a truck based on weight? City Manager Bovos said if we are going to fine them on weight, then we are going to have to have the commercial scale, but if it is a non-truck route and there is an 18-wheeler driving down it, clearly that is a violation. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said so in that case we do not need that $30,000; so in some cases hopefully we will be able to begin enforcing, she means a truck is a truck, right. City Manager Bovos answered yes. Councilmember O’Brien asked if we ever identify the escrow funds that had been mentioned for the light at Crooked Creek, Highway 9 area from believes Beazer. Councilmember Mohrig said Beazer is the one that committed funds. Councilmember O’Brien said did that not get escrowed to Fulton County and did we track that down. And he understood that they had prepared to underwrite a light which has long been sought somewhere between Bethany and the county line. Councilmember Mohrig said they would underwrite a portion of that, but they were looking also for contribution for Crooked Creek and that was part of the zoning conditions. When they got that is that there has got to be something because you are adding traffic to the area so you have got to do improvements. Transportation Engineer Jones said she had heard numbers around 200 or 250. She has not been able to get paperwork documentation of that as of yet. Staff is still pursuing that. We understand that was a concern of Crooked Creek residents several times already and our work is on safety improvements at the moment. We are still looking for… Councilmember O’Brien said the other question he had was where would be on evaluating the relevance from a public safety perspective of having red lights, cameras and protecting school zones especially, but he thinks that some of the neighbors who live on the former Ferrari test track on Bethany might be interested in some of the automated or the mobile speed systems that we looked at recently. Transportation Engineer Jones said the next item on our agenda is a discussion on community services policy and that has it in there but with the different opportunities that will be available in that particular document, but would be separate from the right-of-way ordinance. Discussion on Community Services Policies. Program Director Wilson stated we took time to document a number of policies we have identified by standard methods. We want to look at future and minor updates throughout the Department of Community Services and also to further explain a number of the City codes that bear relevance on this process: Road abandonment, privatization, some discussion of reserved right-of-way and mention of a gate policy, inter-connectivity, traffic calming and also driveway manual. Road abandonment, we want to make sure we have a pre-design meeting with our staff. We feel that a pre-design Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 24 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ meeting is a pivotal part of the process in looking at road abandonment so we can identify all the relevant issues. We certainly want to make sure we have an opportunity for public notices for the public to be fully aware of what we are doing. Construction inspection is a huge item as well so that we can clearly identify any of the construction specifications that are involved. And where it says assessed values, we are also going to take an opportunity to look at actually appraised values for the roadway and the network there. When we talked earlier, about the dedication of Long Street, this is one of those stop gap measures that we will be able to capture that information going forward. He heard one of the citizens mention earlier of how we prevent this sort of thing happening going forward. This is one of the pivotal areas where we have the opportunity to capture that information up front so we do not have to revisit this type of situation that we had with the dedication of Long Street. Privatization, there were many legal questions that have come up around that. It is certainly a legal matter. We are making sure that each land owner has the opportunity to sign whether or not they will be privatized. City Council must accept it and also a big piece of construction standards. We want to make sure that we are properly authenticated the standards of construction before any of this information or these transactions go forward. Reserved right-of-way, we are primarily looking at areas where we know future development is going to occur. He will re-emphasize here that we are looking at the comp plan in many cases so we may be aware of something that is going to happen in the future. We had definitions in our ordinance, a GIS map, and we want to get a clear GIS map of the area. Certainly planned or programmed areas, planned areas and programmed areas. And credits may apply in the case where we have to use something to the effect of a lands lot for reserved right-of-way. Gate policy is only mentioned here but it is related more to public safety so we just put a mention here that public safety is going to address the gate policy. We are also working closely with the Department of Fire to make sure that truck sizes are something that are part of this review, fire or emergency vehicles. Inter-connectivity is a big item. Going forward we want to make sure that if someone brings us plans that do not include inter-connectivity that they certainly have an alternative design that is going to be required for us to consider. We also want to match City code and the National Fire Prevention coordination, making sure that we match those two areas together. Right-of-way, we are concerned with map right-of-way easement. We are drawing a distinction between the two and also making sure that we look at pavement considerations. For example, if we have a development at the end of the road not being paved and we know that there will be a future phase two of a particular development, then we want to include that information up front. Traffic calming, anytime we have traffic calming, first of all these are residential roads and we want to point that out clearly. An application and the petition process involved, enforcement would be up to our public safety folks. We have 400 to 4000 vehicles per day, so we are going to need a good traffic count so that we can measure where this will apply. Cost sharing at seventy five percent and this is a proposal and is up for consideration but we needed a place to start. Cost sharing being seventy five percent for the City, twenty five percent could be home owner’s association or some other entity. We are moving and want to make the point that there is a sixty five percent of the affected residents required on the petition for traffic calming but the exit would be the same. We do not want to make it easy to get out of a traffic calming situation after we had invested our time and energy as a staff or as a City to go through all of those mechanisms to put it in place so a back-up clause if you will for removal of a traffic calming set of devices. It would have to go back through the same process to make sure that the homeowner’s agree with everything that we are doing before we decide to undo it. Councilmember Thurman stated so that you do not have one neighbor moving out so that has put you over that sixty five percent and now you are suddenly under it. So at least sixty five percent of the people want it removed. And you have got to have a thirty percent swing in order to get it changed. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 25 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Program Director Wilson stated absolutely and this touches on the front consistency as well. Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked how this compares to the standards of it in place before just so that we understand that the sixty five percent, so she thinks that historically it was a higher percentage. Is that under Fulton County,is that correct. Transportation Engineer Jones said about the time that Sandy Springs left Fulton County, the people who were writing that document, it was mostly Alex Hoflex, and when he went to Sandy Springs, there were several edits that were in the works and so we used the absolute latest edit from Sandy Springs’ final edit. But she believes it might be seventy five percent to get them the sixty five percent to return, to remove them but again, it needs to be some amount of the threshold. All of these threshold items and the cost splits, these are all policy items. There is really not an engineering science to how much money you wanted to spend. And to be honest we have had conversations with two different subdivisions where they were willing to pay one hundred percent of the cost and we generally have homeowner’s associations that are in pretty good shape up here so that is just something that has been discussed already but not approved. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said she was not thinking so much about the cost share but just the number within an HOA that is required and that is sixty five percent, so that was based on edits and revised documents and she was just curious and you do not have to answer that tonight as to how that compared to what Fulton County had. My recollection was that the county historically had a higher level threshold. Again, she is not making a value statement but she wondered if we could compare it to those who may have pursued it historically, they would know how this compares to that. Councilmember Thurman would like to know how it compares with Fulton County, Roswell, Alpharetta, just some of the areas around for these exact numbers at which time we go to vote on those. Program Director Wilson stated we could take a look at that. The last item he wanted to mention here is that traffic calming is not the standard safety improvement. In many cases we have had homeowner’s association’s come to us and request traffic calming but what they really needed were safety items to deal with that. And we want to be clear about that distinction. The driver manual, there is a quote there to enact all the business of Fulton County. We looked at that from one of their documents. We want to formalize the driver manual as a unique Milton document. Some cases, our thresholds are slightly higher than GDOT specifications. If you keep in mind that GDOT is looking at the entire state and we are trying to look at areas that apply to our specific multi needs. Driveway spacing and also single spacing, we have some values that we are looking at there as well as we continue to address those items, with driveway spacing being 300 feet and single spacing being 1000 feet. The next step would be to incorporate the various comments that we have had from citizens. We will have an opportunity for them to respond on the web as well. We will continue to post those items on the web but we wanted to wait until it is approved by Council to respond to all the traffic calming applications. And we also wanted to note that you will have a second reading on May 17th. We want to make sure that we capture as much information as possible. The 2500 number as well gives us the opportunity to track citizen comments. The CIP update is on May 10th. There is a transportation item that will be discussed on May 10th on that update. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said when you mentioned that this, have you already worked with Bill Doughty and is both this and the right-of-way, are those going to be posted on the web site relatively soon? Communications Director Doughty said it will be in the next day or two. Councilmember Zahner Bailey but she meant specifically that they were pro-actively seeking public input for these particular deadlines and what we need and why. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 26 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Program Director Wilson stated yes, those will be posted. Councilmember Thurman said which of these sections or it might be a different section it goes under but she knows in the Crabapple area and she is sure it is probably somewhere in the Birmingham area, one of things we are looking at is not necessarily having all the pavement for retail or office or whatever, but having gravel parking lots. Are there standards for the gravel parking lots? How does that impact interconnectivity and have we looked at that type of issue? Transportation Engineer Jones said the gravel parking lots are not clearly explained or suggested. She guesses you could say that everything is silent right now on gravel parking lots. Staff has at least two plan reviews or plans that have come in that would have gravel parking lots and we have been agreeable to that idea, but it is very silent right now in our development items. And if it is something that is not technically in the right-of-way, it would probably need to go more into the land development chapters but we talk to Mike and Tom about that. Councilmember Thurman said that she thought that in a lot of the rural areas something they may want promote is not having all the asphalt but having gravel parking or having some other kind of other impervious surface parking. She stated that obviously we do need to have some kind of standards for it and also wanted to know how it would work with the interconnectivity. So stated she did not know where it belongs but she would like to see that looked at. Program Director Wilson stated that they would look at that and that it should be relatively easy to address in the maps. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said that just on that same subject of interconnectivity she knew in the past when they have been faced with new subdivisions that ended up being gated communities. She understood the desire for that but, the unfortunate part of that is that sometimes it can be counter to the premises of interconnectivity because you end with a community that goes between roads and then there were be no interconnectivity. She asked how staff was proposing this and could they be more specific about it. Transportation Engineer Jones stated interconnectivity, the definition that they had, is the ability to easily move between locations because of planning along designated routes. These alternative routes assist with the transportation system and lessening the effect of point loading. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said her only point was that there had been a lot of discussion in the past and how would they reconcile those two things, the need for interconnectivity and yet other jurisdictions have historically still allowed for gated communities which end up being counter to that so she surely does not have the right answer but at least if we can continue to explore that. City Manager Bovos said just as a matter of clarification, these items were scheduled for first reading on May 17th and a second reading on June 7th. Councilmember Thurman said before they left the traffic arena, even though she was not here, she wanted to take a moment to thank Representative Jan Jones. After sitting through a meeting with Tom Wilson, these people on Crabapple and Tom looked at me and said, if we had $10,000 we could probably get an update to the Crabapple Master Plan and maybe take care of some of the problems. She picked up the phone and called Representative Jones, even though it was very, very late in the session and she said she would see what she could do and she was able to get us, according to the information we just received today, a $15,000 grant that is specific for the updated traffic flow and safety improvement study for the Crabapple intersection. She was able to do that for us and she appreciated that. She stated she knew that is one of the worst intersections. Tom said it would take $10,000 so she immediately asked for $15,000, being the accountant in me she knew there was no way it would take $10,000 so she wanted to thank her for getting that for us. She knew it would not take care of the traffic itself but maybe it would help least start deciding what Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 27 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ we need to do to take care of it. Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked how the timetable would be determined when those actually would get provided. Councilmember Thurman stated she thought to would be pretty quick, but stated she did not understand the whole budget that goes with this. She believed Mike Tuller may know better than she did when they would be getting the $15,000 for Crabapple, and asked if he had any idea? Community Development Deputy Director Tuller said it was just approved by the legislature. He stated he would guess the next fiscal year but honestly was not certain about that. Operations Manager Wolfe stated the legislature earmarked those through the Department of Community Affairs so all of that would then go to DCA and there was a lot of paperwork that goes behind that. She stated they would facilitate paperwork and send that to us and let us know when we can start spending the money. She stated that it would be a re- imbursement type grant. She estimated two to three months before they are formalized. Mayor Lockwood called for a 3 minute break. Changes at the Market Place at Birmingham intersection. Public Comment: Leon Cole, Jr. 16700 Birmingham Hwy, Milton GA 30004. Talked about the area on the Birmingham Highway where you have to swerve and the hazard it causes. He said he had called and emailed Fulton County and they did nothing. And then Milton became a City officially and he started e- mailing the City about his problem and he is so proud and he is going to see what is going to happen here with this road hazard. He expressed his pride in the efforts of the new City of Milton to make Milton a better place to live. He also discussed the way city lights are being billed to the citizens and whether amenities in the subdivisions, such as tennis courts, swimming pools and other things if the City would be paying for those. End of Public Comment Program Director Wilson gave an overview of suggested road improvements at the intersection at Birmingham Village. He explained what they proposed would be a change that would actually direct traffic in a more natural flow directly, and stated they would see some striping on the right hand side of the road as well, to sort of calm that down a bit. Our proposal is to remove it, it will be re-striped and you will see the center line roadway going there. We have also talked with the developer about maybe even saw cutting that area where you see the stripe on the right and filling it in with some grass. He said that in short their recommendation was to remove the west bound chicane on the Birmingham side and to take it towards a more natural path and also the island planter on the eastbound side of the lane from the Hickory Flats Road approach. City Attorney Scott stated they had received approximately half a dozen tort claims regarding this chicane, or he was sorry, not the chicane, the planter. Under Georgia law a City can be held responsible for claims like this if it actually was responsible for maintaining or creating that hazard and if the City had actually constructed notice of it and by constructed notice, it meant it had been there long enough that you should have known about it. He said his advice to Council was that this needed to be addressed soon. City Attorney Scott stated many of them were out at the Hickory Flat Fire station at the special called meetings out there and he thought the night of the midnight annexation meeting when they actually heard that there had been somebody who ran into there that night. He said it was clearly a dark area, it was not well lit, and that it was good for Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 28 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ the county and the rural areas of Milton, but it was not good for traffic calming features that allow people to run into them and create problems. Greg Wilson stated most of the comments from most of the feedback they got were that this is something that is not working, and they had not gotten feedback about what would work. He said they were certainly open to that feedback. He thought this was well-intentioned from all of the information that they gathered. He just thought that it was the wrong implementation for this particular area and now it was causing us major problems. Councilmember Lusk stated he did not have the opportunity to go through the entire right-of-way ordinance, and that he had borrowed the Mayor’s copy here a while ago. He asked Ms. Jones if she had made any provisions for any types of traffic calming devices out there aside from maybe a round about which had been considered up there at one time. Abbie Jones stated she had not had the opportunity to be able to take that on and to be able to do some design considerations thus far, but the round-a-bout that was proposed out there was one of the possibilities and it would be considered a traffic calming project. It would mean that the City would need to probably purchase additional right-of- ways to make that part of the Capital Improvement Plan Project be acceptable, keeping in mind that was at an intersection of a State route, so they would definitely have to lobby for that with Council’s relationship building, especially if it becomes a round-a-bout to be truck capable. They were not just taking any old type of round-a-bout, but it had to be truck capable, because she stated that they just talked about the truck routes earlier and she and Roddy had been talking about bringing together the truck route map and it has got to include your State routes. Councilmember O’Brien asked if they thought they needed to have some temporary device up there in the interim before they did come up with an ultimate plan such as a round-a-bout or should they just eliminate everything that had been installed there to date. Greg Wilson stated his sense was they needed to remove what was installed there. He stated they had an immediate problem and needed to really take our time and think through what is the better solution, but the immediate problem dealt with the people crashing vehicles into what was in place right now. Councilmember Mohrig stated he agreed as they go forward he understood the intent was to get people to slow down, so they want to do it in the way that was certainly context sensitive. Street Lighting Expenditures. City Treasurer Wolfe stated that Greg Wilson was handing out just a short memo regarding an issue at the King’s Ridge Subdivision which they had talked about that at previous meetings; she wanted to let them know that the skirts had been ordered. Roddy had put together a memo to show them visibly [from pictures], why the decorative caps that are at Crabapple would not fit on the mast arm that are the King’s Ridge Subdivision. As they could see the mast arm at King’s Ridge is not tall enough to accommodate those decorative caps, but the skirts have been ordered. Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked if there a distinction between the decorative mast arm adjustment or addition here versus those that are used on School Drive, that lighting component, as it seemed to her that it was different there at the intersection versus the one that was used at School Drive. Robyn MacDonald stated no, she thought she was absolutely right. Councilmember Zahner Bailey stated she thought it was different and she is hoping that for all of Milton, that this particular lighting fixture was not necessarily the one that they were going to say is the one they want to use everywhere. Field Services Manager Motes stated they were all decorative, he was out there today they are the decorative style, the Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 29 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ pictures that Council sees for Crabapple, and they are all the same. Councilmember Thurman stated she was asking if this was only style of decorative that we have. Field Services Manager Motes stated no,you can order the style that is shown at Bethany Bend that could have been ordered to accommodate and look exactly the way it looks now except that shaft would have been taller, it would have been a design standard that we would have made up front that would have requested that. Councilmember Thurman stated to her it was a very important gateway into this area and she would love to have something decorative there, even if it was not a light, some kind of cap on top of it or something to make it look. Councilmember D’Aversa asked how much it would cost just to replace the whole thing. Field Services Manager Motes stated probably around $8,000.00 or $9,000.00 and you would just replace the upright, just the one part would be replaced and to do that would take a temporary pole set to hold the traffic signal up while that was literally being done, so to and again this is just a wild guess, he would say the whole thing completed would be around $15,000 to $18,000. Councilmember O’Brien asked at the whole intersection? Mayor Lockwood stated or is that per mast? Field Services Manager Motes stated that would be per arm. Councilmember Lusk asked City Treasurer Wolfe is she had issued a PO for the skirts at both intersections. City Treasurer Wolfe stated just at the intersection at King’s Ridge. Councilmember Lusk asked where those funds are coming from. City Treasurer Wolfe stated those were coming from the contingency fund and capital project fund. She said there was roughly $71,000.00 set aside as contingency in the Capital Project Fund and they were using $5,500.00 for the skirts. Councilmember Lusk stated is that the only charge to that fund to date? City Treasurer Wolfe stated to the Capital Project Fund, there had been some other expenditure in the Capital Project Fund such as the purchase of the park land, purchase of some equipment, fire equipment, police equipment, and it all comes out of the Capital Project Fund. She said not out of the contingency, those were budgeted items but that is the only use of contingency. Councilmember Lusk stated he understood the painting was going to be done by King’s Ridge. City Treasurer Wolfe stated her understanding is that King’s Ridge was going to do the painting and we will budget for the maintenance of that painting moving forward. She then said with regard to the street lighting, they had a memo in front of them, and that really the purpose tonight was just to get some information to them on street lighting costs, provide them some alternatives on street lighting costs as an educational process. In May and early June a budget adjustment is coming as we all expected when we budgeted in October there were items that we either did not budget for, were overlooked in the budget and there have been items that have come up since then. One of those items was going to be street light expenditures, so they wanted to get in front of them before that budget adjustment to sort of explain street lighting expenditures and offer some alternatives so they all can begin discussion and make some Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 30 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ decisions on how they want to move forward in paying for street light expenditures. She stated that the City right now pays for approximately 1800 street lights, those are located both on what she would call major and minor roadways in the city as well as subdivisions and when she says subdivisions, also on streets, neighborhood streets that may not have an official homeowner’s association and call themselves a subdivision. She said that currently our expenditures are about $21,000.00 a month, we pay the street lighting for all of those street lights in subdivisions and on roadways, we have some alternatives listed for you, we did budget $25,000.00 in total for our utilities, so definitely we were going to have to or if you choose to continue to pay all the street lighting expenses that will definitely be a budget adjustment that we will bring forward. She said the street lighting payment of street lighting expense is addressed in the subdivision ordinance attached to your memo and simply says that the City assumes payment for subdivision street lights upon 50% occupancy of the home and dwellings in that subdivision. She said they adopted that from what she understood from Mr. Wilson, and adopted that ordinance from Fulton County back in December, so the alternatives that they had in front of them were: 1. To continue to pay the street lighting expenses as the ordinance currently requires and that would be currently about a $252,000.00 annual budget impact. She wants you to understand that as development occurs that will increase, because as new streets lights are put in we will obviously pay those costs. 2. Revise the ordinance to reflect the current street lights that we pay for to be grandfathered if that is what you would like to call it and then further development would assume their own street lighting expense. 3. Third alternative is to pass the cost of all street lighting that is in subdivisions or neighborhoods onto those homeowner’s associations or residents. The City would then identify through Roddy’s help and public safety the street lights on major highways and minor roadways that we would want to continue to pay for. So those are the alternatives in front of you to begin to discuss and ask questions. Roddy is here for technical expertise on street lights and maintenance of street lights. Councilmember Thurman asked if Fulton County was currently paying for all of these. City Treasurer Wolfe said that was correct. Councilmember Thurman said so if we start now charging the subdivisions the Mayor is going to get to write an article three or four weeks in a row defending the fact that we are now charging for something they were not paying before. City Treasurer Wolfe stated she would certainly anticipate that is not going be a popular thing. Councilmember Thurman asked if we will have information from Fulton County on revenue numbers for this year prior to having to make these mid-year budget changes or at least estimated information from Fulton County before we make budget adjustments. City Treasurer Wolfe stated not on property taxes, and that they would not receive a property tax digest until early July. Councilmember Thurman asked if they had any revenue numbers from Fulton County at all. City Treasurer Wolfe stated they would not release any preliminary numbers outside of the digest. Councilmember Thurman asked if it would be a whole lot easier to look at budget adjustments if we knew the revenue side of our budget which will be adjusted also. City Treasurer Wolfe stated they were going to bring them some revenue adjustments as well, when they bring them the budget adjustment in May and it would not only be expenditure adjustments, but it would be bringing the funding Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 31 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ forth for that and some of that will include revenue adjustments. Councilmember Thurman stated but the biggest revenue number will be a shot in the dark. City Treasurer Wolfe stated it would be, but they were going to recommend an adjustment in local option sales tax revenue. She stated that had received three months of local option sales tax, it is trending above what we did budget for and she felt like with some savings we have realized in the risk management account that she had talked about a couple of agendas items to go we have realized a $200,000.00 expenditure savings. She stated that a reduction in our risk management as well as some increases in some revenue sources, but that would not include an adjustment in profit taxes. Councilmember Thurman stated so we will not have any information on the biggest number in our budget prior to having to make these decisions. City Treasurer Wolfe stated that was correct. Councilmember D’Aversa stated Fulton County paid for the street lighting then. City Treasurer Wolfe stated they did. Councilmember D’Aversa stated and other counties do the same? City Treasurer Wolfe stated they did a survey of some cities and we did get Dekalb County to answer us. She stated that most cities do cover street lighting expenses even in subdivisions because they consider the roads in subdivisions available for public use, even though the majority of the users in the subdivisions are the homeowners, they do consider those open for public use, so they use tax dollars to pay the street lighting. Councilmember Zahner Bailey asked is that was true on private roads also within the subdivision that is gated with a private road. City Treasurer Wolfe stated a privately owned road would be responsible for their street lights. Councilmember Thurman stated now in Fulton County she believed that hers was a gated subdivision and she believed that they had not been paying those, although they had been paying for street lights. She said she knew it was not in the budget when she was on the homeowners association so she did not know who was paying for it, but they were not paying for it. City Treasurer Wolfe stated if you are not paying for it, the City is. Councilmember Lusk asked Roddy that he has a street light hound out there who keeps up with the street lights that are burned out. He has been doing this for the last couple of years and when he finds them he calls Suwanee and they will say get the number off the pole, right and most of these poles do not have tags on them, how can we improve that process and work closer with Suwanee he guesses to identify the pole. Field Services Manager Motes stated he is putting together a program now to because we have a little different relationship than a typical homeowner. The homeowners are where Suwanee is really reactive to them is when they can give them a street address and they say they live in subdivision A, B, C and the street light is out at such and such address. Suwanee is very reactive, they get back with them, they tell them when it will be fixed, they will get back in when it is repaired and tell them it has been repaired. Now he takes on the corridors, all of our collector roads and he started this, he did not have a program in place right now but he is working on a program to where he will tell Suwanee Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 32 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ to ride these roads and what they told him is they have crews that are on call, the on-call person, part of his duty is to ride these roads at nighttime and he will tag them, then the field crews the next day will come in and repair those, so he will make lists and basically just generate work orders. Councilmember O’Brien asked what the approximate cost to repair a light was. Field Services Manager Motes stated there was no cost the cost to repair a street light that we are paying for is part of that cost. In Roswell we called them parkway lighting and those are the ones that are mounted, in fact there are some that they have got the information circled. He said we call them parkway lighting, Suwanee calls them roadway floods, and according to Suwanee they are $11.50 a month, that is what we are paying for those. Councilmember Lusk asked if they were going to label the poles so you can go out and physically identify that. Field Services Manager Motes stated well, again that was what they had discussed that these or each individual one would have an address that would identify where it was physically located. That will be a supplemental chart because if you are driving down Hopewell Road, there are no addresses near the swamp. He said he saw what they were saying, in that there maybe some kind of identification tag number, but they did not know what it was, so hopefully there would be a supplemental chart to go with that which may give us an idea but the ones in the subdivisions will obviously have each address. Sharon S. Mays, 15160 Highgrove Road, Milton, GA 30004, stated this is not meant to beat anybody up who was trying to make a lot of budget decisions in a very short crunch time but nonetheless it is concerning the significant difference in the original budgeting amount for street lighting utilization maintenance and what we are now learning the actual costs to be. Her comment is not that she is opposed or that none of her neighborhood are opposed to paying for the lighting through the City but rather that the concern is why there is such a large difference in the original budget amount and the current amount. It is just such a huge discrepancy, secondly considering the magnitude of the difference between the original budget and the quote from Suwanee and you have addressed this to some degree, but will there be further analysis and testing or validation of this quote? It is so, so huge that you would like to want some verification that this quote is something that we should really be paying to that extent and then lastly there is just this little bit of nervousness of whether there might be some other budget items out there that there is going to be a huge discrepancy and how it is going to be paid for. Thank you. City Treasurer Wolfe stated we did rely heavily on Fulton Counties General Fund Budget in putting together our budget. As you know last October when we were trying to balance our budget we did have a lot going on. Fulton County does not pay for the utility costs out of their general fund, they pay for their costs, their utility costs out of another, an enterprise fund, so that was not in their general fund. We were relying heavily on their general fund budget for our budget estimates and it was simply an oversight in budgeting. Councilmember Thurman stated she would reiterate that because she knows working on the finance committee for the steering committee we never saw any information on street lighting and any of the information that was supplied to us from Fulton County or from the University of Georgia studies or any of that, it never addressed any street lighting expenses because it was not paid for out of either the special service or the general fund and was in a whole different fund that was not even looked at by them when they gave us the numbers. City Treasurer Wolfe stated the $25,000.00 that is actually budgeted was classified as the utility expenses for gas and water and things they knew we were going to pick up when they purchased parks and so there is $25,000.00 budgeted and they had obviously used that to pay utility costs including street lighting costs and used that pretty quickly and those are not estimates from Suwanee those are actually invoices and they had taken the invoices from January 1st through to day and trended out what was needed till the end of the fiscal year. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 33 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Councilmember Zahner Bailey stated just to the question that was raised about this enterprise fund and were there any other unknowns in that enterprise fund that we did not anticipate? City Treasurer Wolfe stated not that they had identified, and they had certainly done their due diligence in going through and identifying and having incurred already six months of expenses into our current budget that is when they begin to uncover things that they did miss in the original budget. Councilmember Zahner Bailey stated and earlier Mrs. Wolfe when you mentioned about the additional development that is occurring, at what point would a development that is currently underway but may not be at that 50%, have they done some estimating about beyond this $250,000.00 based on what we currently have in the pipeline and some estimations in terms of when that 50%would kick in, do we have any sense of time table as to when we would need to? City Treasurer Wolfe stated we have not done that type of analysis, and she would probably work with the Community Development Department in identifying the incremental growth rate and then apply that to the utility rate as well. She said if we are growing at a rate of 3.5% we would include a 3.5% growth rate in our budgeting for utility costs. Discussion on the possibility of residential development standard including buffers along roadways and detention facilities. Councilmember Zahner Bailey stated if you think about the development patterns within Milton just as we had just talked about lights as subdivisions continue to grow and to evolve, much of the rural character that many of us see and enjoy as we drive down a particular road ends up eroding. This is because as that subdivision goes in obviously you get clear cutting, you get buffers that are removed and that natural vegetation that ultimately goes away as a function of that development pattern, so when we talk about commercial development she thinks we also need to think about what other development patterns are out there that we could proactively address that would still help us to embrace the development community and the subdivisions while also trying to maintain that vision In the packet she handed out the Council can read what we do about development standards that as subdivisions occur would allow us to keep some vegetative buffers along the roadways and then another component of that is what might we be able to do with detention facilities. There are a couple of great poor examples of detention facilities and how they are not attractive sometimes and with simple standards we could make those more visibly attractive. Mr. Wilson has mentioned that there are a couple of approaches for how we could get there without it having to be an exhaustive process so she brings this forward this evening just for discussion purposes and to address any questions. The first with regards to vegetative setbacks and included in this is some of the original language that was already part of that approval preservation plan. When a subdivision goes in having some vegetative setbacks so that the first house that gets developed keeps, as an example a 50 foot or a 75 foot or a 100 foot vegetative setback and it does not mean that you could not clean it up a little bit, but that effectively preclude clear cutting right to the street. So that is really it, that is the topic and it can be a combination of things that could either be just an adjustment to the existing subdivision or residential standards which is one of the approaches Tom Wilson had suggested. The other as it relates to detention facilities you might be aware and she will use a couple of examples where a more naturalistic detention facility ends up being a win not only for the development and the ability to sell those but also for the residences that live near them and drive by them and some of the commercial detention facilities that we had been able to encourage within Milton include that at the Birmingham Crossroads. It is much more visually attractive. There is great example in Roswell at the Hembry Park where when you drive by Hembry near those schools in Roswell that front water feature is actually detention/retention facility and that is a more naturalistic approach that of course meets the development standards but it is also visually attractive. Also on that one she believes that Mr. Tom Wilson was already making some movements towards development standards as it relates to residential detention facilities. Abbie Jones stated Staff has already been making recommendations of the person who reviews your hydrology studies, she has already put together a draft item and when the storm water ordinance comes before you one of the major items has to do with structural controls versus vegetative controls. This basically means casting walls in detention areas versus actual detention ponds that have earthen dams. The Georgia Blue Book does discuss how vegetative measures are Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 34 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ especially to be considered over structural items and staff has been encouraging that, we have had lots of projects about 60 LDP’s that are already active projects when we became a City but we have been strongly encouraging everyone to not use those and so we had already included some amount of that in the storm water ordinance writing process so we are on that page with you. Councilmember Thurman stated she knows also on the detention pond we actually do have some variance cases down at Fulton County on detention ponds and a lot of times it was Fulton County’s design standards that would require them to put in something that really was not what we wanted and was not what looked best and so she wants to make sure when we are looking at the storm water run off that we take into account all the water and everything but also look at what is really going to look best for the area. There were times that they would come before us and what they would want to put in looked great but it did not use Fulton County standards for some reason or another so she wants to make sure when we work on that part of things that we try to be flexible and have things that enhance the area rather than these concrete. Abbie Jones stated well we are going to have to be very flexible because with 381 stream miles we have a lot of areas where the water flows in two directions or in three directions more so than in a big flat area so it makes it more important because you have a more complicated hydrology network. But there is going to be more exceptions because people will be coming and saying well that part is not going to hurt anybody. It is going to be really important to be flexible in that we can be accommodating for the very unique topography and stream network that we have but also that it is enforceable. Councilmember Zahner Bailey stated with regards to the next step on the residential standards is that some of it is separate from tonight. We will just confirm, she means assuming that it is the pleasure of this Council that Tom Wilson would then just continue with integrating that as a residential development standard. City Manager Bovos stated we are actually going to have a pretty candid discussion about Council priorities and work plans at the retreat so quite frankly we are probably going to need Council to come back and reprioritize and we will get into that. Discussion on Expanded Notification to address providing better and more complete notification to a broader audience on re-zonings, variances, etc. Councilmember Zahner Bailey She said that currently the requirements were that the staff and the City of Milton simply notify anybody within 300 feet of a variance or a re-zoning. Her suggestion is just that since our goal collectively she thought was to inform and engage more of the community on any particular issue that we look at whether or not that 300 feet was really adequate, and that was a minimum and she thought that there were some cases, especially in more rural environment, where you might have a variance and there have been examples of this historically where you might only have one land owner that is within that 300 feet and yet the impact of the re-zoning or the impact of that variance dictates that more people need to be apprised of that. She spoke with our City Manager about what would be some relatively straight forward ways that we could go beyond that 300 feet and not have it be an onerous effort on staff. Just for discussion purposes instead of a minimum of 300 feet could we instead say 1000 or 1500 feet from the property line of that zoning or re-zoning and/or or in addition to making sure that regardless of distance that our notification process notifies at least 50 residents and this would apply to any variance or re-zoning for public notification. She gave an example of a variance for XYZ and she is going to have a one time event that goes past that 10 o’clock, it was her understanding that they would have to seek a variance and that would have to be posted, and that this expanded process would apply to those as well. City Manager Bovos stated it could apply to whatever notification processes that they had - alcohol beverages, etc. He said there were a whole slew of them. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 35 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Councilmember Zahner Bailey stated and a consistent application process would be applied accordingly. City Manager Bovos stated anytime they do a notification process it would be nice if it is consistent versus having 12 different policies on 12 different notifications. Councilmember Thurman stated she would like to have some idea though if we are going out 1000 feet she wants to know if we are picking up an extra 800 or 900 people that this is going to end up costing us tens of thousands of dollars a year. City Manager Bovos stated that was one of the reasons why they talked about a minimum notification number versus, well, we talked about several different components but that would be in response to that maybe one of the items to consider would be leaving the distance requirement the same but just expanding the minimum number of people that had to be notified. Councilmember Thurman stated if we have big signs for everything posted so people that are just driving by do get the information. City Manager Bovos stated and that was exactly right and that is kind of one of the paradigms that you come across in evaluating what is better than what we currently have today and what we really want to accomplish. But if they set a minimum of 50 we just continue to draw a raised map around a parcel until we get to 50 and mail 50, if we say 1000 or 2000 or a mile in some cases that may be 10 people and some cases that may be 200 people. Councilmember Thurman stated if you did 1,500 feet from over near Hwy 9 you could end up with 1000 people, maybe. Councilmember Lusk asked who is bearing the cost of these notifications. City Manager Bovos stated the City bears the cost because it is built into the variance application and it is exchange revenue. If somebody applies for a variance and they pay us $100 based upon our current cost to process that variance and that cost goes up to $125.00 during the budget process when we re-evaluate costs, we will change our costs to be $125.00. Councilmember Lusk stated so ultimately the petitioner bears the burden, so if he understood the discussion asked the City Manager if he was in favor of this. City Manager Bovos stated he did not really have a position on this, but he knew that Councilmember Zahner Bailey would like to do it, so they brainstormed on ways that would make it more beneficial not being overly burdensome on staff still making the goal of trying to get additional notification out. He does agree that our goal is to get community input when we have items that are before the Council so if they feel like they are not accomplishing that then certainly he thinks we need to change it but other than that he did not have an opinion. Councilmember Lusk stated he likes the minimum notification, maybe 50 is ambitious but to have a little more input because he does believe that sometimes very few people receive notification but he wonders if there is any effort to ultimately link GIS data to an e-mail where you could just capture surrounding parcels with a selected radius and disperse an e-mail out to people for notification. City Manager Bovos stated we would have to have our GIS system then tied to the e-mail system. Councilmember Lusk stated that this sounded reasonable as long as the cost is not prohibited but it seems people have shifted quite a bit away from mail and more to e-mails and where someone may get a notice or see it on our website it Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 36 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ will then be burst around the track and a lot of people may see it and that generates pretty good notification too. He would support having maybe a minimum of maybe 5 or 10 property owners, something perhaps a little bit less than 50. Councilmember Zahner Bailey said if they were talking about it from a cost perspective, she believed they would all agree that we want to make certain it is an efficient process. She said her understanding was that because they have a GIS system in place going from 5 to 50 is not a labor intensive process and then it is just the cost of the stamp, a piece of mail. City Manager Bovos stated that just continue to draw a radius map out until you hit the number of parcels you want. And there may be occasions where you draw it out and 50 is our number and you get to 49, draw out one more foot and you get 52. We would obviously err on the side of 52 and this is just a matter of printing the addresses that that circle encompasses and if it is not completely automated there is certainly some personnel interaction in there to get it done. It is not as if we are going to big plat books like 10 years ago would have occurred and flipping through those and spending 45 minutes. Councilmember Zahner Bailey stated it is intended to be a cost effective way to simply make sure that we are apprising more folks, even when we had those alcohol license folks that came and some; even though they lived right there they had not seen it. And they still may or may not get the notice with this but at least there is a greater chance that some would. And while many of us use e-mail more often we still have that senior citizen community that may not be as linked up with e-mail and so she thinks that this also speaks to trying to address all audiences including those that may not be as proficient with electronic notification. Discussion of an Ordinance establishing Mayor and City Council Committees of the City of Milton. Mayor Lockwood stated this is the ordinance establishing Mayor and City Council Committees for the City of Milton. To be honest with you he is a little perplexed or questioning. Originally, before actually even before our election there were some Council members that expressed interest in having committees and after the election there was still a lot of people expressed an interest. He does not think staff was really excited about it and the more he talked to other staff they are not excited about it either because it does add a lot of work for the staff. But anyway, he was getting a lot of feedback and he thinks staff was of having committees. He looked at it as a positive way to, he will use the example when his youngest son started playing baseball at 4 and the kids are out on the field and the ball gets hit into the outfield and everyone of them runs to it and then the kid that is batting runs to third base and nobody is there so that gets kind of slipped between the cracks and he felt like there was a lot of things that could happen with the City or has happened or whatever where unless we isolated and gave or prioritized things, something would happen and everybody would go work on this but this would get left behind. He thought as a positive way not to add anymore work but it would at least have or go to people that are point persons for certain issues and also had asked people to give us their interest in different areas. Anyways, recently though we have gotten feedback from several people but they are concerned about the Council for a number of different reasons and also as he looks at our newly adjusted charter from our State Representative Jones he sees that the authority of power that he had has been taken out to even appoint these committees. So he is opening it up for discussion. If we do not want to do committees, again he was trying to do it in a positive way, give people to be able to channel positive energy and make a difference but he will certainly open up the floor for discussion if, and he will be glad to refer the committees… Councilmember O’Brien stated before that somber note he was going to say so you say we are 4 year olds, but. Councilmember D’Aversa stated that legislation that Jan passed or brought before the legislature and passed that was what or she did not know about it until it was referenced in the Milton Neighbor, she read about it in the newspaper. Councilmember Thurman stated I think she brought four bills. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 37 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Mayor Lockwood said Karen may address the issue. Councilmember Thurman stated some of the changes she knew about, some of them she did not know about, some of them she had gone over with us like the term limits that are in here, others were clarification changes; some were the house bill about the term limits, so she does not know. Councilmember Zahner Bailey stated so if our term limits get changed to six months are we out of here? Mayor Lockwood stated we are out of here. Councilmember D’Aversa stated do you all have copies of everything? Councilmember Thurman stated did not she give everybody packets and everybody. Councilmember Zahner Bailey stated she did not have packet. Councilmember Lusk stated is that what this is? Councilmember D’Aversa stated she got it at 5 o’clock this afternoon on her chair. Councilmember Thurman stated she only knew it was here because she told me it was coming so. Councilmember Zahner Bailey stated so we got $15,000 but we got some changes we do not know about. Councilmember Thurman stated well she called her to ask about the… Councilmember D’Aversa stated she had somebody call her for her comment and she said what did she do now? Councilmember Thurman stated she called to ask about her Crabapple grant, as she was really worried about the money. Councilmember O’Brien stated going back to the committees he would say Mr. Mayor, it was clearly his impression that you were striking out a positive direction and he would say that his only, well a concern he had was just with the productivity levels we have had and as challenged as we are with meetings and things he would or if we are going to engage in something like this he would probably want to do it when our plates were a little clearer that is all, but he absolutely agree with your assessment that this was intended positively and he guesses other cities depending on their style of government and so forth have these or have examined this issue. Mayor Lockwood stated any other comments. Councilmember Thurman stated no she told you right up front she struggled with this and the reason why she struggled is she spent so much time talking to the people on the other side of Arnold Mill Road and every time they would say what is the difference between Milton and Roswell she said well in Milton we want to make sure we do a few things really well and we are not going to be all things to all people. She is wanting to make sure that if we go with the committees we do not try to be all things to all people and we know for sure what the role of the committees are and all of that up front. So she did call Mike Bodker, the Johns Creek Mayor, like she told you she was going to, who had all these committees in place last time she was at his meeting, he actually had the 13 or 14 he kept adding new committees. In talking to him because she felt like well maybe he could reassure her that we are definitely going down the right path because she knew he was very much in favor of all his committee structure and it ends up that they have actually tabled their committee structure until and are redoing the whole thing because there was she thinks some discussion on really Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm Page 38 of 39 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ what is the role and responsibilities of these committees and how are they going to be used and have gone now from 14 to 6. They have even restructured how people are placed on the committees and who serves as chair of the committee. She guesses that is what she is still struggling with is she thinks we have got to come up with some way to be more productive and get things through. At the same time she wants to make sure if we go with the committee structure that we understand very clearly what the roles and responsibilities of the committees are. If she had to vote tonight on whether or not we do it she has no idea which way she would vote so she is still confused on this item. Mayor Lockwood stated and he is certainly open minded it is very obvious that Representative Jones took the power away from him so he is willing to defer this or we can look at them and address it later. Councilmember O’Brien stated does that mean that we can not do it or. Mayor Lockwood stated it is up to the Council now. Councilmember Thurman stated her change was or you may still appoint people you just need a Council that would approve them like they would approve the City Attorney or City Manager or anything else, it would just be, she does not think she took the power away it is just. Mayor Lockwood stated she did but he is putting it up to Council now so he will be glad to defer it we can research it a little more. Councilmember Thurman stated she definitely wants to find out what did not work for Johns Creek because she thinks that would be and she is definitely not in favor of going down the same path they went down to. Councilmember Mohrig asked if this is something that might come up in our retreat too. Mayor Lockwood stated he does not know if we will have time. We would have to add another day. (Humorous comments from Council about adding more time to retreat.) Mayor Lockwood stated again he is totally open to looking at this, looking at what Johns Creek does and we could discuss it as we move on. Neal mentioned we have got a lot going on right now and maybe this is something we would look at when we get settled in a little bit, Rick. Councilmember Mohrig stated that is his only comment Mr. Mayor at this time we have got a lot of things that we are trying to work through at this point in time and he thinks some of these we need to get to as we go forward. He just would be concerned that we are going to stretch ourselves out too thin in this first year that we are not really going to be able to address them. But as far as the concept, he thinks it is good to actually get community involvement and do some committees, he just thinks timing may need to put it back a little bit. Mayor Lockwood stated he would just ask that as we move through and hit issues, keep that in the back of your mind and come up with some suggestions on what might work better. Any other comment? Councilmember Lusk stated he will he will weigh in too. Neal and he have talked about this previously. When you first opposed it he jumped right on it because there are some of these issues out there that are near and dear to his heart. But he guesses the reality finally set in and over the course of the past month or six weeks when we have gotten involved in all of these other issues here, his plate is full. He would like to even possibly collaborate with Johns Creek and keep an interchange of ideas and research between us and see what really works. He thinks we have a lot in common between us and Johns Creek and he would like to see it deferred. SpedaI Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Thursday, April 24,2007 at 5:30 pm Page 39 of 39 Mayor Lockwood stated any other comments. Does staff have any comments on committees? Move on to the next item. Discussion on City Hall Flap PoIe. CounciImem'besLusk gave an overview of the proposed Flag Pole for City Hall and stated he learned from our City Manager here a week or so ago that we were going to have a flag pole, but it is going to be located at the rear of the building. He would even propose to personaIly buy the flag pole and have it installed when we put it out front. There was discussion between the Mayor and several Councilmembers if it could be installed by Memorial Day and statements about others chipping in to help purchase the flag pole. Discussion on Resohtion No.RZ07100-Resolution to assist in Settlement of Fultan Countv v. 0.009 Acres of Land et almatter. City Attorney Scott gave an overview of the issues regarding the Settlement and stated that on ApriI 4, he was asked to attend a mediation session between attorneys for Fulton County and the Statham brothers. There were a couple of items they were questing fiom the City. (1) The Statham brothers own the red brick building in the center of Crabapple which is currently occupied by Eddie West. The issue here in this lawsuit, this is a condemnation lawsuit and an eminent domain action brought by Fulton County to obtain 372 square feet of real estate which is directly at the comer of the property and they have aIready taken it, they have assumed possession and it is only a matter of discussion about the amount of money at stake. (2) The next thing they are asking for is that they be granted a license for the parking next to the building. The issue with the parking now is that the way the property lines run and the way the parking is configured there, the front part of any vehicle sitting in a parking, they are not lined stalls or anything it is just a gravel Tot but the vehicles the way you would park there, the front half of your vehicle is on the Statham's property the back half is on our properfy. They are asking that we just grant them a license so that they can continue to use that and it would not be for an exclusive license, they just want permission that the tenant who uses that building for retail purposes or business purposes can continue to park there. They have been doing it for a long time. (3) The property now has a zero lot line along the two street frontages. It did not have a zero lot line before because even though it was right-of-way and subject to condemnation it actually had not been taken yet, so it was their property and that is why they condemned it. So the property line of the buiIding is actually the very edge of the building. The eaves stick out on this building rather significantly and what they have asked us for is an easement to allow them to access it and it is essentially just formal legal permission and perpetuity to allow them to access the building that way. It seems like a pretty reasonable request. (4) They are asking us for the needed relief to allow them to reconstruct an awning that has historical photos indicate was originally in place along the side of the building. He has spoken to Tom Wilson and he indicated that what is needed is simply a right-of-way variance, not anything other than that, the Designing Board does not deal with right- of-way variances. Councilwoman Zahner Bailey asked me questions about the Design Review Board, certainIy before they were actually constructed. He thinks that is appropriate we go to the Design Review Board. What they have asked for is the right-of-way relief. He thinks you can grant that and then have the Design Review Board deal with the design issue if and when they actualIy construct it. Motion and Voter Councilmember Lusk moved to adjourn the April 26,2007 Special Called meeting. Councilmember Ti~umanseconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. Date Approved: September 6,2007 -, -, /\A ~eabetieMarchiafava, City Clerk Joe ~ockwo&d,Mayor