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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes CC - 09/15/2008 - MINS 09 15 08 REG (Migrated from Optiview)Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, at 6:00 pm Page 1 of 83 This summary is provided as a convenience and service to the public, media, and staff. It is not the intent to transcribe proceedings verbatim. Any reproduction of this summary must include this notice. Public comments are noted and heard by Council, but not quoted. This document includes limited presentation by Council and invited speakers in summaryform. This is an official record of the Milton City Council Meeting proceedings. Oficial Meetings are audio recorded. fir/ The Regular Meeting of the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton was held on September 15, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Mayor Joe Lockwood presiding. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Lockwood called the meeting to order. ROLL CALL City Clerk Marchiafava called the roll and made general announcements. Council Members Present: Councilmember Karen Thurman, Councilmember Julie Zahner Bailey, Councilmember Bill Lusk, Councilmember Burt Hewitt, Councilmember Alan Tart, and Councilmember D'Aversa (arrived at 7:41 PM) City Clerk Marchiafava read the following statement from Councilmember Tina D'Aversa: I have notified Mayor Lockwood that I am unable to attend the meeting this evening due to a mandatory state of Georgia Education Certification class. The class is held twice in the fall and I missed the first attend the August 4th City Council Work Session. If possible I will join the meeting later this evening. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE The Sons of the American Revolution led the Pledge of Allegiance. APPROVAL OF MEETING AGENDA Staff recommended the following change to the Meeting Agenda: 1. Under Reports and Presentations, Add a Public Safety Appreciation Proclamation. 2. Add Executive Session to discuss pending litigation. Motion and Second: Councilmember Tart moved to approve the Meeting Agenda as recommended by staff and added removal of agenda item 08-670, Consideration of a Milton -Fulton Sanitary Sewer IGA process so it can be considered in a Special Called Work Session on September 22, 2008. Councilmember Zahner Bailey seconded the motion. Discussion on the Motion: Councilmember Zahner Bailey • She received over one hundred e-mails and a lot of phone calls asking that this particular item not be considered this evening because some of the information that is taped on the wall is the first time that the people in this audience or those of our community have had an opportunity to review this information. • Just for the record, she received a packet of information on Friday that included a map. • She also received an IGA for consideration at 2:00 in the morning on Sunday; therefore, she would support the motion to move this to a work session on September 22°d which is only seven days away. But, as a matter of course and a matter of open and transparent government, she would support that motion. Vote: The motion failed 2-4, with Councilmember Thurman, Councilmember Lusk, Mayor Lockwood and Councilmember Hewitt voting in opposition. (Councilmember D'Aversa was not present for the vote.) Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 2 of 83 Motion and Vote: Councilmember Thurman moved to approve the Meeting Agenda, as amended by staff. Councilmember Hewitt seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously 6-0. (Councilmember D'Aversa was not present for the vote.) PUBLIC COMMENT Mayor Lockwood read the rules for Public Comment. • Public comment is a time for citizens to share information with the Mayor and City Council. • To provide input and opinions for any matter that is not scheduled for its own Public Hearing for today's meeting. • There is no discussion on items on the Consent Agenda or First Presentation or from Council. • Each citizen who chooses to participate in Public Comment must complete a comment card and submit it to the City Clerk. • This is not a time to engage the Mayor or Council in discussion. • When your name is called please come forward and speak into the microphone stating your name and address for the record. • Typically we have five minutes per item but tonight, because there are so many he asked that public be restricted to one minute per person with the exception of general public comment. Myles Eastwood, 7205 Riverside Drive, Sandy Springs, Georgia • He is running for Superior Court Judge for Fulton County. • The jurisdiction runs from Milton to Fairburn. • At the end of the ballot there is a non partisan race for judge. • The current judge is retiring at the end of her term in January. • He lives in Sandy Springs and has lived in Fulton County since the age of 8. • He is a Vietnam Veteran. • He has practiced law in Buckhead. • He has been an Assistant US Attorney, a Military Judge in the Navy, served on the board of governors of the State bar of Georgia since 1994. • When you get to that election, there is not an incumbent so you cannot look for the I after anybody's name so you have to remember the name of who you want to vote for. • Vote Eastwood for judge. Martin Littleton, 13215 Freemanville Road, Milton, Georgia • Would like to direct his comment to Mayor Lockwood. • Did not know him before he ran for Mayor. • Has seen him out doing community things that other Mayors do not do. • He thinks he has gone above board and wanted to tell him thank you very much. • He wants to state his total frustration with this City Council. • You have taken a seasoned veteran and basically pushed him out of the way. • Do not know who you think we will be able to hire after Mr. Beckett leaves. • We have now tarnished our relationship and what people think of us. • He is like the Captain of the ship and you are the corporate entity that says where we are going to go to port. • He is the person beside your legal counsel that keeps you walking the straight and narrow path. • You have done us as a community an absolute disservice. • If I were asked to vote for the City of Milton again, I would refuse. • You guys are like cry babies crying about sewer. Every time we read about something it is about sewer. • It is a known fact that if somebody comes along and decides to challenge you on your sewer policy and they decide to spend the money and cause you to spend money, they will take you guys to court and they 9 Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 3 of 83 will win and you guys need to start taking a more reasonable attitude toward one another and do the right thing. • You need to ask Mr. Beckett to stay and see you through these issues you are facing. • Have dealt with city government for a lot of years and he thought he had seen some troublesome Council, but this one absolutely takes the cake. • You do not care anything about anyone but yourselves and what your personal political beliefs are. • You need to be worried how we are going to pay for our City, 3 or 5 years down the road. • Not one of you have come out and publicly said that we do not have enough money generated from our tax digest as it stands. • We do not have enough money to support our city, so the only thing we can get if we do not have that money is higher density somewhere. We will have to have industrial use somewhere and we will have to have commercial development somewhere in order to pay for the things we want. • If you continue down this path then we may as well sign up and be behind Lithia Springs and the Clayton County Board of Education because everybody around us laughs at us and the way we conduct our business. • It makes him sad. • He does not even tell people he lives in Milton, he tells them he lives in Alpharetta. • He thought he wanted a city that he could come and speak to. • At least with Fulton County, they left us alone. • You guys do not even leave us alone. • We have to read about these things in the paper every day. • He just does not understand it. • Mr. Tart is not the Captain of this ship. • The City Manager is the Captain of the ship. Mayor Lockwood • Advised Mr. Littleton not to address individuals. Martin Littleton • Ok, but no one person is the Captain of this ship. • You need to take good professional advice and hire people that will deliver on that advice and help. Ben Aycock, 505 Heron Run Court, Milton Georgia • He is also very sorry to see Billy Beckett go. • He had hoped that his experience would bring stability to the City government. • He is hopeful that we have learned a valuable lesson in the ordeal that has been going on. • He hopes our elected officials will realize that compromise and a willingness to work together is the only way we will see growth and future in the City that we want ahead of us. There was no further public comment. CONSENT AGENDA City Clerk Marchiafava read agenda item 08-669. Approval of the September 3, 2008 Regular Meeting Minutes. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Lusk moved to approve the Consent Agenda. Councilmember Tart seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously 6-0. (Councilmember D'Aversa was not present for the vote.) Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 4 of 83 REPORTS AND PRESENTATIONS (Added by Motion and Vote) Public Safety Appreciation Proclamation Councilmember Lusk • Too often we tend to forget our history too quickly. • Last Thursday, we commemorated the seventh anniversary of 9/11. • The most heinous attack on American soil in American history. • Fortunately, there are people in our community who will not let us forget that history. • Last year, Kathleen Smith started an initiative at Northwestern Middle School and installed 3,000 American Flags to commemorate those who had given their lives on that day. • This year her brother, Michael Smith, a junior at Milton High School chose to carry on that tradition. • He is an honor student, Eagle Scout, and a leader in our community. • He is on the football team at Milton High School and he is there tonight so standing in his stead is his father, Michael Smith, Sr. • We all appreciate him and his children for the efforts that they have put forth. • Once again, we are too quick to forget our history. • We also take for granted those who serve us day and night, 7days a week, 365 days a year. • We take for granted our City staff. • We take for granted their professionalism. • We take for granted our fine City Manager who has served us for the last few months. • We take for granted our Public Safety officials. • Those who are in the background and protect us day and night so hence we are here to recognize those public safety officials and personnel and to also commemorate 9/11. • He read the Proclamation and presented it to Public Safety Director Chris Lagerbloom and the Sons of the American Revolution. PUBLIC HEARINGS City Clerk Marchiafava read the first Public Hearing item. Public Hearing on Ordinance to Adopt adjustments to the Fiscal 2008 Budget for each fund of the City of Milton, Georgia. City Manager Billy Beckett • Does not need to spend an hour going over budget amendments that we have been over before. • We have given ample opportunity to review the amendments. • The total amendments are $4,478,173. • $4, 176,000 relates to the SSD funds we received. • Those funds are in reserve and will be budgeted for Fiscal Year 2009. • Your proposed final budget for the current Fiscal year will be $22,632,360, including the SSD funds. There was no public comment. Councilmember Zahner Bailey MR • We had discussed the possibility of having an additional work session. • Some of our questions are still outstanding with regards to the specifics of the $600,000 that is part of the rr incremental amount over and above the CH2MHill contract. • We had some questions about transportation funding and, specifically, the funding by the Board of Education as it relates to the new high school. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 5 of 83 • There are some questions about signaling and some others about Adopt a Road program. l.. • Asked if they want to address those tonight or if they would have another work session. City Manager Beckett • He was talking about the amended budget for 2008. • The 2009 budget is coming up. Public Hearing Closed Mayor Lockwood announced the Public Hearing is closed after there was no further discussion. City Clerk Marchiafava read the second Public Hearing item. Public Hearing on Ordinance to Adopt the fiscal 2009 Budget for each fund of the City of Milton, Georgia. City Manager Beckett • The budget has been posted on the web site for some time and as previously indicated we also had a copy updated and in City Hall. • The budget is balanced and proposed at $22,873,436. • That is only a couple hundred thousand over the amended 2008 budget. • We did not have a lot of money to work with on the revenue side. • The millage rate remains unchanged at 4.731 mills. • There are also constraints about how you can change that millage rate. • Unlike most cities you do not have the ability as a City Council to change that rate up. • An increase requires a vote of the majority of the registered voters and just the voters voting in the election so it makes it difficult for you to increase that millage rate. • Other variables impacted us, the governor froze the homeowner's tax relief grant program and that cost in excess of $250,000. • We also have a number of appeals going on that go back into subsequent years and that affected our digest because they could not tax them at the current assessed value. • Unfortunately we have some things that harmed us significantly. • We also had some insignificant things that harmed us. • One being fines and forfeitures were not as high as you had originally anticipated. • One of the final things that harmed us is we have to honor the economic development tax abatements that Fulton County put in place before Milton became a city. • With regards to the questions, this paper work reflects 50% of the questions submitted by three Council members. • He thought we had answered all of the questions to the best of our ability. • He would also say to Council up front his responsibility is to evaluate on the basis of input from the department and others what we feel are the needs of the city and prepare a budget that is balanced and we have done that. • If Council feels collectively that they want to make some significant changes because some of the questions are significant it is your right to do that, but his recommendation is to you that you form a budget committee composed of Councilmembers and the Council amend the budget after the September 30, 2008 deadline. • He also wants to remind Council that there are some statutory advertisement requirements that need to be met as well. • He is not intending to be arrogant or condescending, but more along the line of telling Council that the kinds of changes that are contained in here some of them are substantial and should be reflected in Council's budget rather than the City Manager's budget. 9 First of all Council required that the reserve be funded at a two month level and we achieved that. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 6 of 83 • We also set aside 1.2 million dollars and that was reduced slightly, as a set aside for parks and/or green space acquisition. • He agrees it is not enough and what we can do is finance that property over time and it does provide some seed money for grants if there are any available. • The CH2MHi11 is funded per the contract document and the escalating clause which is explained in the budget document. • There are additional funds in there for additional services and the question was asked can we go out for bid and his answer is yes, but his question would be to them do you really want to manage multiple contracts and do you have the ability to do that. • That is for Council to decide. • The City Hall lease and utilities are continued. • We originally set aside $124,000 for Council and Court Room enhancements to improve usability and functionality and Court Room Security. • Security is a major problem that he thinks they need to attend to, but we reduced that to $100,000 using $24,000 to go toward that $200,000 request for the Milton Trail. • We talk about transparency government and we have provided funding for the Granicus system. • People who cannot attend the meetings will have streaming video on the internet and they can click on any item they want on the agenda in an archive basis and watch Council in action. • It has a number of features that are beneficial. • It will also end the practice of having transcribed verbatim minutes, which take up a tremendous amount of time. • He was shocked when he got here and found out we were doing 70, 80 and 90 pages of minutes. • Nobody does that anymore. • There will be better microphones and screens set up so the public can see. MO • We did set up a bucket fund. • We identified on a priority basis some items that we would like to fund if we had the money, but they are tied to the governor or the legislature's release of the Homeowners Tax Relief Grant Fund (HTRG). • If those funds are released you will have those funds available. • One of the things in the bucket is a pumper tanker truck. • There is a portion of the City that is not covered by public water supply and even though we have mutual aid and response agreements, we would provide better fire protection and probably lower our ISO rating, thereby to lower homeowners insurance premiums for our residents and ensure we are covering those properties that just happen not to have a fire hydrant near by. • We did increase road improvements for general roads. • We increased the mowing schedule by two. • We added money for sidewalks. • We added funding to the basic CH2MHi11 contract for NPDES functions, which is your storm water, non source pollutant management program which is part of the additional $600,000 that has been called into question. • That is a mandatory federal program. • We put in $50,000 for ADA services. • We have talked with an individual who can provide those consulting services. • We added one additional police officer per shift. • We provided funding for a narcotics detective and they tend to generate money than they cost because there are a lot of shared programs and swaps. • We also have a general detective in the budget to help with that case load. • We provided funding for promotions so we clarify lines of responsibility. • We also put a record clerk to handle court and police records because of confidentiality issues and security. 0 We provided additional vehicles, software and funding relating to IT. how Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 7 of 83 • We provided additional funding for fire fighting equipment. • We provided funding to convert 911 from Fulton County to Alpharetta and promotions for our fire personnel. • We put money in for a part time recreation director through CH to coordinate with the Parks and Recreation Commission, to coordinate with the youth athletic associations, to coordinate a limited parks and recreation plan. • We put money in to provide a well, a parking lot and initiate some erosion and sediment control measures at Bell Park. • We put in a little money to start doing something at Birmingham Park. • Finally, he would say to Council the articulated pretty legitimate needs with a couple of exceptions in his opinion. Just from public works and public safety, requests exceeded all the revenue that you had available this year and he wants them to keep that in mind because it is important. • There are things that he knows Council wants to do, but when you are talking about fundamental infrastructure issues, and there are some challenges and he hopes they will consider things down the road like long term indebtedness and those sorts of things because he really believes they will need to do that. • He encourages them to bring the ARC in and have them do a pay and classification study right away. • He would also have the new manager meet with the North Metro Managers and discuss pay and benefits issues to be sure that you avoid the trend toward escalating salaries and benefits and provide a fair salary. • Here are the changes to the document that you originally had. • Council asked for $200,000 to fund the initiation of the Milton Trails program so we decreased the City Hall improvement plan from $124,000 to $100,000. • We decreased legal fees from $250,000 to $180,000. • We decreased land acquisition and park enhancements by $105,104. • That gave us the $200,000 for the Milton Trail. • It was pointed out we might have a deficiency in the difference in the salary and stipend in Municipal Court and that is correct. • We did not know that we had an on call pay for the Municipal Court Judge at $100 per week so we adjusted that by $5,200. • We had to add another $3,185 to education and training for Mayor and Council. • Because it was the only donation we were making to any non profit, we decreased by $1,200 the dues and fees from the Mayor and Councils budget. • We decreased the contingency account in order to accommodate those changes by $280. • We increased our contribution to the reserve fund by $6,557. • That concludes any remarks he has. There was no public comment. Mayor Lockwood closed the Public Hearing Mayor Lockwood • Thanked staff and stated he had the privilege of working with them on a daily basis and he is able to see they are doing a great job. • He would like to get a Council consensus. He supports our City Manager's recommendation about adopting this budget and then setting up a committee to amend it if we need to. • He is comfortable with this budget. 6 Councilmember Tart • The main thing he is concerned about is the reduction of the legal fees and asked how much the legal fees were this year. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 8 of 83 City Manager Beckett • Projecting it close to $300,000. WAW • We only had the fees through June so we still have July, August, and September which we have not been billed for, but it has been trending over $30,000 a month. Councilmember Tart He just does not want to set us up for defeat next year. That is a considerable reduction of $120,000. City Manager Beckett • Actually, it is an increase. • You had budgeted $120,000 this year and you have exceeded the budget so we originally increased it to $250,000, but he did that with the caveat saying, in his opinion, Council needs a filtering process and he knows this is controversial, but it is not very common for City Councilmembers to be able to pick up the phone and call the City Attorney for any reason whatsoever. • Normally, that will be filtered through the Mayor or in some cases the City Manager, but if you want to continue that process then you need to increase your budget. Councilmember Hewitt • He is comfortable with the recommendation of the City Manager. Councilmember Thurman • Thanked the City Manager for answering all of her accountant type questions. am • Appreciates the very thorough job he did on the budget and giving them all the detail they could possibly want plus some. r • She understands they will be amending the budget sometime and she is in favor of approving this budget. City Manager Beckett • He does not want to take any credit for this budget. • His input into this budget was more general in nature. • You have a wonderful staff who expended a lot of time and energy into this budget. • Those are the people who deserve the credit. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Echoed the thanks. • It is important that we are comfortable with what those dollars are because they are the taxpayer's dollars. • As it relates to transportation and knowing we may or may not end up with another work session, she would like to say that when they last met it was mentioned that we would have that opportunity for another meeting. In terms of advertising should we decide that we would need another work session, would we still be able to meet the advertising requirements? City Manager Beckett • How a lot of governing body handles that is they simply adjourn to another date and time and location for the purpose of approving the budget and we keep that in front of the public rather than meeting the statutory requirements of two hearings so far apart. • He has been pushed to the last hour sometimes on budget. • He thinks they can recess the meeting. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 9 of 83 Councilmember Zahner Bailey ++ • With the new high school being announced at Bethany and Cogburn, which we just found out about in the last week, one of the questions that she had posed was whether or not we needed to consider within this budget any transportation funds. • Initially, the answer from you was not because we could rely on Fulton County, but her concern is making sure we are comfortable that the SPLOST that Fulton County Board of Education has that they would be willing to fund some of the those intersection improvements. Public Works Director Dan Drake • The main impact that we are looking at is Bethany and Cogburn and since the school property fronts both of those. Their policy on transportation improvements is that as long as it fronts their property, they can put funds into it, so he is comfortable with that. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Again, because it is such a hot topic with the citizens, she asked if he had had that conversation with them. Public Works Director Drake • He has not had any conversation with them at this point. Mayor Lockwood • From what he has heard, they are talking about 2011 or 2012 so they have time to adjust the budget as we move forward. Councilmember Zabner Bailey • She would like to footnote that we need to have conversation with the Board of Education sooner and not later. • Also, if we want to pursue any grants for potential 80/20 matching that we go ahead and identify those sooner and not later. • In terms of the signaling at Birmingham and Providence the fact that is probably the most dangerous intersection in our community and that is top priority for intersection improvements. A question she had raised is whether or not we could have flashing signals both approaching from South to North and from North to South. Public Works Director Drake • Regarding the flashers that we talked about, we have spoken to GDOT about those and they were less than warm about the idea. • We do need to talk to them about what if anything can be done. • There are funds available for that. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Another item was insurance premium. She knows there was going to be some discussion with CH2MHill in terms of whether or not those insurance premiums were able to be enhanced or whether or not there was going to be that opportunity. City Manager Beckett • No, Rick Hirsekorn and Tami Hanlin both are aware of the need to have further discussion, but that is not 9�r.r reflected in the budget at this point. Councilmember Zahner Bailey 0 But the fact that we would approve a budget would not preclude us from having those discussions. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 10 of 83 She would like to footnote the importance of working with CH2MHi11 to reduce the cost to the City and taxpayers. Impact fees are one of those items we talked about. City Manager Beckett • He thought he answered all of those in writing, but if he needs to comment on impact fees there are statutory provisions associated with the imposition of impact fees. • Many communities have chosen not to implement impact fees because they are development specific and activity specific, you cannot put those monies in your general fund and use them. For example, for general road improvements. • If you have an improvement relative to the development or you need to construct a fire station or you need some additional capacity for one thing or another then they make since but the first thing you have to do is have an impact fee study which is fairly costly. • Before you set aside money for that you need to decide if you want to even go down that road and he would recommend you invite ARC to come in because they have impact fee experts on staff and/or DCA. • Impact fees are good when you are in a high growth area and have concentrated growth. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • She is familiar with some of those constraints. • She just wanted to high light before we start to approve a final budget that it has come up and given that we do have some concentrated areas in our corridors, she thinks it would be ashamed to have a conversation about whether or not impact fees could be one way to help fund some of our infrastructure needs. • In terms of the budget committee, could you explain how that would work from a timing perspective? rrrlii City Manager Beckett • He does not recommend a budget committee. • If she is asking for his personal opinion, Councilmembers have no business doing the budget. • The City Manager has submitted to you a balanced budget and would not presume to recommend how Council would form such a committee. Mayor Lockwood • He would be open to looking at the amendments as we move forward. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • That is what she was asking, if she could clarify with Mr. Beckett what would be the process that he mentioned about having a budget committee for amendment purposes. City Manager Beckett • He thinks City Council can do anything they want with it. • He has never ever in his thirty years had a budget committee composed of Councilmembers. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • It was not her suggestion; she was trying to clarify that. Councilmember Lusk He was pretty heavily involved in the budget review last year and he knows what he process entails. rr He would recommend we approve this tonight knowing it is a balanced budget and that is our target and knowing we can revisit this issue as often as we need to. His one major concern is the number of trees we killed to develop this document and maybe we could look into that next year. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 11 of 83 .+ Mayor Lockwood • He agrees we could pass this budget and amend it as we need to. Councilmember Thurman • Would like to clarify one thing, we had discussed the possibility of adding a work session if necessary, but at no time did we make a decision to add a work session for the budget so it was advertised that the budget would be approved at this meeting. Mayor Lockwood • Correct, we said we had the opportunity if we needed to, but it sounds like Council is ready to move forward. ZONING AGENDA City Clerk Marchiafava read the Zoning Rules. At the second regularly scheduled meeting of the month, the mayor and City Council consider a Zoning agenda. These items include rezoning petitions, modifications of zoning, use permits, and associated concurrent variances, in addition to ordinances, resolution, and text amendments. The petitions will be heard in the sequence listed on the posted agenda. I would like to acquaint you with some of the rules and procedures for this meeting. The applicant, and all those speaking in support of an application, will be allowed a total of ten (10) minutes to present the petition. The applicant may choose to save some of the time for rebuttal following the presentation by the opposition. The opposition will be allowed a total of ten (10) minutes to present its position. If time remains, the opposition will be allowed to rebut. Since the burden of proof is upon the applicant, the applicant will be allowed to make closing remarks, provided time remains with the allotted time. The City Clerk's staff will be keeping track of time and will inform you periodically of the remaining time for your presentation. Those called to speak will be taken in the order that the speaker cards were received by the City clerk's staff prior to the beginning of tonight's meeting. All speakers will identify themselves by name, address and organization, if applicable, before beginning their presentation. The Planning Commission heard the rezoning agenda items and recommendations have been forwarded to the Mayor and City Council for consideration and disposition. In addition, the applicant shall not submit material to the Council during the meeting, unless requested to do so. All material that you wish to be reviewed by the Council in consideration of your application should be submitted to the staff of the Department of Community Development, to be included in the normal distribution of packages to the Council. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 12 of 83 When an opponent of a rezoning action has made, within two years immediately preceding the filing of the rezoning action being opposed, campaign contributions aggregating $250.00 or more to a local government official of the local government which will consider the application, it shall be the duty of the opponent to file a disclosure with the governing authority of the respective local government at least fie days prior to the Planning Commission meeting. A violation of the relevant state statute constitutes a misdemeanor. Therefore, if you have contributed $250.00 or more to a Councilmember and you have not filed a disclosure prior to the Planning Commission meeting, the City Attorney strongly suggests that you have someone else speak for your point of view. City Clerk Marchiafava read the first Zoning Agenda item. (All zoning items typed verbatim) RZ08-08/U08-04NC08-04, 3501, 3499 Bethany Bend Road - To rezone from AG -1 to TR (Townhouse Residential) and obtain a use permit for senior housing to develop 98 residential units at a density of 19.84 units per acre (Article 19.4.41(2)). The applicant is also requesting a 2 part concurrent variance: 1) To reduce the setback from 100 feet to 10 feet for swimming pools, pool equipment, accessory structures and fencing (Article 19.3.12.3). 2) To increase from 2 stories (30 feet) to 3 stories (40 feet) from average finished grade to bottom of roof eave (Article 12G.4.F.14). Ordinance No. 2008 -09 - Community Development Director Alice Wakefield: As was stated, this applicant is requesting a rezoning with a use permit for a senior housing development consisting of 98 residential units. The applicant is requesting the 2 part concurrent variance. The recommendation of the Planning Commission was approval of the rezoning, approval of the use permit and approval of part one of the concurrent variance and denial of part two related to the height of the building. The staff's recommendation is approval of the rezoning, approval use permit, approval of part one and withdrawal of part two of the concurrent variance based on the revised site plan submitted by the applicant showing compliance with the height requirement. Now we will have a more detailed presentation by Matt Zyjewski. Staff Intern Matt Zyjewski: STANDARDS OF REVIEW: Staff is of the opinion that the proposed senior housing in a TR (Townhouse Residential) district is suitable in view of the use and development of adjacent and nearby property. The proposed TR (Townhouse Residential) zoning is consistent with the policies and intent of the Focus Fulton 2025 Comprehensive Land Use Plan. The Milton City Council adopted the Focus Fulton 2025 Comprehensive Plan as the City's Comprehensive Plan on November 21, 2006. The proposed development is consistent with the following Plan Policies: • Encourage development consistent with the surrounding scale, transition of densities and uses, and Comprehensive Plan policies, where appropriate. • Encourage a variety of housing types throughout Fulton County • Encourage the development of a variety of housing options and ensure safe, sound, and equal housing opportunity for all residents of unincorporated Fulton County. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 13 of 83 • Increase opportunities for seniors to live in their communityand near services by encourage senior housing such as independent living, assisted living, and cluster housing accessory housing units, and nursing care by making senior housing more available in more zoning districts. Staff further notes that there are TR (Townhouse Residential) zonings abutting the subject site to the north and west. Based on the above, Staff recommends APPROVAL CONDITIONAL of RZ08-04. USE PERMIT CONSIDERATIONS: Staff notes, provided the applicant complies with the Recommended Conditions of this petition and the Use Permit requirements of Article 19.4.41(2) of the Zoning Ordinance, the proposed development may be consistent with the intent and following policies of the Comprehensive Plan: • Encourage development consistent with the surrounding scale, transition of densities and uses, and Comprehensive Plan policies, where appropriate. • Encourage a variety of housing types throughout Fulton County • Encourage the development of a variety of housing options and ensure safe, sound, and equal housing opportunity for all residents of unincorporated Fulton County. • Increase opportunities for seniors to live in their community and near services by encourage senior housing such as independent living, assisted living, and cluster housing accessory housing units, and nursing care by making senior housing more available in more zoning districts. Furthermore, the preliminary assessment for the City of Milton Comprehensive Plan discusses the need for senior housing. Staff notes the following excerpt from Section 4.6 of the Housing Section: "As Milton's population ages, it is important to provide housing and mobility options to allow the elderly to access housing and other resources within the community. As an area which has a relatively high level of income, it can be expected that the City of Milton will attract accomplished business people, many of whom are likely to have been in the workforce for many years. This, plus the aging of heads of households which have been living in Milton for longer periods of time, will mean increased demand for senior -friendly housing in the future. These residents often prefer more compact housing in close proximity to amenities such as healthcare, food and other goods, and community activities, by offering housing options for this population which will allow them to get around in spite of decreased mobility." Staff recommends APPROVAL CONDITIONAL of U08-04. SITE PLAN ANALYSIS 0"4 The applicant's site plan indicates compliance with the standards of the use permit. The applicant had .a agreed to meet the standards therein when building and marketing the development. The site plan indicates compliance with the required building setbacks. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 14 of 83 PRIVATE POOL REQUIREMENTS Staff notes that the applicant is requesting a variance to reduce the setback from 100 feet to 10 feet for pool fencing. Article 19.3.12.3 states, "Swimming pools, pool equipment, accessory structures, and fencing shall be located a minimum of 100 feet from any residential building, adjoining property line or street." Due to the irregular shape of the subject site, Staff recommends APPROVAL CONDITIONAL of Part One of VC08-04. The applicant has met the requirements of the Public Participation Plan. Planning Commission Meeting — August 26, 2008 The Planning Commission unanimously voted to approve RZ08-08/U08-04 and Part 1 of VC08-04 but denied the request to increase the height from 2 stories and 30 feet to 40 feet (Part 2). The applicant completes the necessary flood plan studies. It was recommended that the bike and trail plan be adhered to the bike path. The applicant resubmit the site plan if it changes in any way. The approval is conditional on the City of Milton developing a sewer service plan that supports sewer on this location. They also requested of the applicant, in which the applicant agreed to the following conditions which are reflected in the Recommended Conditions: a" • To allow the DRB to approve the "equestrian type" fencing along the frontage of the property. two • To allow the DRB to approve the "equestrian type" fencing around the detention area. • To provide additional screening along the west property line abutting the single family lots in Hidden Forest Subdivision as approved by the DRB. • Provide a minimum of 30 feet separation between all buildings. And in conclusion, it is Staff's opinion that the proposed 98 unit senior housing development is consistent with the Focus Fulton 2025 Comprehensive Land Use Plan and the City of Milton Zoning Ordinance, therefore Staff recommends APPROVAL CONDITIONAL of RZ08-08 and U08-04 if developed with the recommended conditions. Staff recommends APPROVAL CONDITIONAL of PART 1 of VC08-04 to reduce the setback from 100 feet to 10 feet for swimming pools, pool equipment, accessory structures and pool fencing. Based on the revised site plan submitted September 8, 2008 that complies with the 2 stories in height and 30 feet, Staff recommends WITHDRAWAL of PART 2 of the concurrent variance. And that concludes Staff comments. Public Hearing: Attorney Don Rolader, 11660 Alpharetta Highway, Suite 630, Roswell, Georgia Mayor and Member of the Council, I am Don Rolader 11660 Ste. 630, Roswell Georgia. I am here tonight along with Steve Rowe of ADC on behalf of Bajen America Properties LP. This is a request to rezone property from AG 1 to TR. It is about 4.94 acres and is for senior housing. It is located on Bethany Bend north of McGinnis Ferry, right at Strickland Road. To clarify this in the out set, we agreed with the Planning Commission and we have withdrawn a request for variance for three story buildings. These buildings will be two stories in height and comply with all of your ordinances. The Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 15 of 83 property is presently improved with two older senior family homes. Across Bethany Bend to the east in from of this property is Forsyth County. With an approve senior housing development being four and five story split buildings at the density of 20.15 units per acre. Property abutting the majority of our north and west boundary is zoned TR and is under construction. To the south of this property is property in the City of Milton zoned AG 1. The property is L shaped. The proposed use is in compliance with the comprehensive land use plan. What we intend to develop is 98 units in four two story buildings. Each senior living unit will be located on one floor of these buildings for access purposes. There will be a pool, a courtyard and passive amenities planned on the site. There is one entry off Bethany Road south of Strickland Road and one roadway within the project. The buildings are located away from abutting properties to maximize privacy. The variances requested for the swimming pool equipment setback which your staff supports. Applicant's intent is to develop a high quality senior community providing a safe and comfortable environment in a desirable city. The staff supports the application as to use and density. It acknowledges it is in compliance with the land use plan. The use is suitable. It will not adversely affect the use or usability of adjacent or near by properties. It will not have a significant on public service and facilities and a minimal on the environment and natural resources. It fulfills the city's express need for senior housing. The density is allowable in the opinion of the City Attorney. It will generate a minimal increase in traffic have adequate open space. The buffers landscaped to provide adequate screening. In addition we would ask that you note there would be no impact on the school system and a strong positive impact on the tax base. Senior citizens are not obtrusive. This should not create any noise issues and lighting will be minimal. We feel this is the right development in the right place. There is no reasonable opportunity to develop this tract as low density residential or agriculture given the uses being developed in the immediate area. We have looked at all of the conditions and the only three we questioned at all. I think the planning commission made an excellent recommendation regarding and that is that fencing both along the front of the property and around the detention be subject to Design Review Board approval. We have a very high grade architecturally significant project and we are not sure the standard city required fencing would go along with that. We will trust the Design Review Board if you do. I think it takes it out of making an issue tonight to let them do the work. We have some question as to whether making an oasis of a bike path out in front of this when there is not an opportunity to do it north of it or south of it. We will leave that up to you. We are not adverse to doing it. We just think there might be better used with pathways and other things making it work but we will abide by your decisions on that. I think the Planning Commission recommendations as to the additional landscaping and things like that are entirely acceptable to us so what we feel like we have brought you is something that the staff can support that your Ordinance supports and that your Planning Commission supported and is beneficial to the community. We would ask your kind consideration of it. We would like to reserve the remainder of our timer for rebuttal and both Mr. Rowe and I are happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you. Mayor Lockwood: Thank you. Do we have any questions? Ok, at this point, I would like to hear from those in support of this application. City Clerk Marchiafava: That completes public comment. Mayor Lockwood: Is there any opposition on this? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 16 of 83 Leon Cole, 16700 Birmingham Hwy, Milton Georgia The 2025 Comprehensive Land Use Plan does encourage governments to make senior living more available. As a senior citizen, I completely agree with this. In this matter my concern lies not with the subject matter senior citizen, but rather the proposed density of this development. 19.43 now two story units per acre. I am aware of the policy of increasing density beyond the 5-8 units per acre for TRs, but this proposal goes way beyond that and I would suggest the City might need to set a specific increased density for senior housing, something for the future use so we will not go through this and the developers will know what is meant in the City of Milton by increased density for senior housing. At the Planning Commission meeting, it was mentioned that underground parking, which was planned for some of the buildings would have to be deleted if the third story was eliminated and I did not hear them address this. I just wondered if the underground parking is still in the plans, because if it is not that means more surface parking would have to be made thus perhaps less green space for this development. Also at the planning commission meeting concerning the wet lands, Steve Rowe of the ADC, the site engineer stated the flood plain study would be accomplished prior to the LDP. I wonder if that has been accomplished yet because that is kind of an important issue. I also wonder if 19.4.41(2) which deals with elevators, wheel chair, wide doors, disability kind of stuff, if that has been stated as a necessity to be implemented in this development. I think that is all. I am not opposed to senior development, but I am really concerned about the density of this. Thank you. City Clerk Marchiafava: M4 That completes public comment for support and opposition at this time. There is time remaining on both sides sir. two I am sorry Ms. Sowder, you can come forward. For some reason the card got mixed up. Are you for or opposed? Heidi Sowder, 525 Sunflower Court, Milton, Georgia I am saying I am opposed, but I am actually in support of senior housing. I just have concerns about this particular development. My subdivision is on Bethany Bend. I have live here over nine years and was a part of CPAC when we had the whole senior housing discussion. I am a meal on wheels volunteer also. I have done that for about five years so I am keenly aware of the senior concerns and what challenges they face here in Milton. It is my belief of the senior housing ordinance is to provide affordable housing ordinance and to cater to the needs of seniors. One of the things that the Milton zoning ordinance article 19.4.412B states: "Housing shall have at least 80% of the dwelling units have one resident 55 years or older" and also that the development be deed restricted to 55 years and older. I believe that this senior housing development is a precedent setter for Milton and since it is saying at least 80%, I think it would be appropriate to suggest that the applicant have 100% senior residency in this development. If you are going to truly serve seniors in the area, I think that the development should be 100% seniors. Otherwise, it will have a greater impact on the residents in the area on the transportation, infrastructures in schools, etcetera. I would ask that you deny part 1 of the variance. I believe that it is important to maintain the borders and buffers around structures. The zoning ordinance has been reaffirmed time and time again. This is a portion of the ordinance that is important and should be reaffirmed. Even though the townhouse development adjacent at five per acre, there is a thirteen unit section that is immediately adjacent to this development that is thirteen single family detached homes and it is immediately adjacent to this senior housing development, so the lights and the noise from the swimming pool if it is allowed to be right up against the property line is going to have a greater impact to them. At the Planning Commission meeting, there was talk about the flood plain and the detention pond being in the flood Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 17 of 83 plain and it is my understanding that when the environmental site analysis is done that the applicant is also charged with showing quote "how the project implements the protection of the environmentally sensitive areas such as flood plains, wet lands and streams so when I was at the meeting I did not hear that from the applicant and the section that does address that is section 28.4.3.13A so I would just be curious to see how that is going to be planned for. There was mention in the zoning documents that the wet lands would be mitigated and another site, I would really like to hear more of how that is going to be planned because that is going to have a significant impact on these wet lands. Obviously the stream buffers here on this site and I think that should be addressed at rezoning. I also had asked that plans be made to save the 3 specimen oaks. They are beautiful healthy trees, thirty five inches, thirty four inches, and thirty seven inches. I know that Mr. Drake had mentioned that it is a site distance issue. If there is any way that some of the trees can be saved, those were the only specimen trees of significant value. The rest were pines on this site. If that could be addressed or just revisited again, I would appreciate that as well. I do not know for sure if the applicant had agreed but the buildings that face Bethany Bend are along Bethany Bend, face Bethany Bend and that the development adheres to all of the state route 9 overlay standards as well. These standards require multi family buildings to have exterior wall materials consisting of 75% brick or natural stone and that is per vertical wall plane. That was approved and amended as well. I do support the four board horse fencing. There are five developments along Bethany Bend. It is only about 1.6 miles form McGinnis Ferry up to state route 9 and five of the developments along there do have some form or fashion of this four board horse fencing so I think it would be a nice addition to that area and as well, this is kind of a gateway road into Milton so it does kind of say, here you are in Milton and I think it would be a nice addition to the developments as well. In summary, I just ask that you deny part 1 of the variance. I was glad to see that they withdrew the second part with the heights, since the heights of all the area town homes are not over thirty feet in that area and that we address more this evening the issues of the wet land and the flood plain and the detention pond in the flood plain. I do have a concern about the density. I know that in the zoning ordinance policy that you cannot limit density for senior housing but also the focus Fulton 2025 plan encourages development consistent with surrounding scale transition of densities and uses. I know with reduction in the height there is also reduction in density but if, still with reduction in density, you still require so many variances and encroachments into environmental issues on the site than really is it really an appropriate density for that site. That would be my question. If you have to encroach into a wet land, if you have to put your detention pond in a flood plane in order to get your density, then is it appropriate and if you have to reduce your buffers around your pool and pool equipment is it still an appropriate density, that would be my question and I will reserve the rest of my time for rebuttal. Mayor Lockwood: Does the applicant have any comments? Attorney Don Rolader: I would like for our comments to respond directly to the questions raised by concerned members of the public. I would take density first and tell you that the height is correct and the design is correct. All of the different requirements for senior housing are met. Assistance rails, elevators, all of those things. Density is only an evil thing if it impacts the quality of your services - traffic, utilities, police, fire, and those things. Your staff has analyzed those and says it does not, so I would ask that you support the density, it makes the project viable, number one and it enhances your tax base, number two and number three it causes no harm to the citizens to the City of Milton Georgia, so I think that is important. The issue of wet lands, I want to make you understand, only involves the right bottom corner of the property that is a matter that is resolved at the planned use permitting phase. The wet lands are reviewed and a Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 18 of 83 decision is made, you cannot build and you cannot get your land disturbance permit until those matters are resolved, so this will either be approved as it is or if there were an issue in that right bottom corner, it would be approved with less density and less building and a relocation of the detention pond. Mr. Rowe can address that more technically for you if you would like. Eighty percent, fifty five or over, we have one problem, it is called discrimination. That is the reason was written that way. If John and Jane Doe are 75 years old and they want to buy a unit, we allow them to. John and Jane Doe are marginally ambulatory and they need for their daughter who is forty five and widowed to take care of them. The daughter, who is forty five, wants to buy the unit next door. She fits in the 80/20 rule. If we tell her no because we have been imposed with 100% rule rather than 80% rule then we are subject to a discrimination claim from the lady who could not move in with her parents. We think the 80/20 rule was the intent of the congress and it adequately makes everybody comply with the 55 and over rule, but that is our issue with it. We do not want to have to tell someone no, offend a senior citizen and lose two sales those are our risk factor there. If we deny part 1 of the variance we just do not have a swimming pool. I think your staff fully supports this variance. The only question there is your going to have a bunch of rowdy over fifty five people partying down and disturbing the cluster home and town home, people next door. My experience has been I do not think so. Having joined that over 55 crowd, I regret that I cannot party like I used to but I truly ask you to think about that. It is an amenity for this project. It is not an offense to anyone else. The trees, the other issue I would address with Steve Rowe, they are right in the middle of where your transportation department says our driveway has to go. We have no intention to go out and destroy trees involuntarily but that is the issue we are faced with. I would ask Steve to comment briefly on the flood plane and the trees and then we will answer any questions you have. Steve Rowe, 8995, Roswell Road, Atlanta Georgia Just quickly on the flood plain issue, the struggle we had here the flood plain is in a zone x section and it does not dictate an elevation. Further studies have to be established, we have to do a hex study to establish that flood plane elevation at the time of the land disturbance permitting. It is not an expense that the developer would want to incur without having the entitlement of the zoning up front. With regards to the wet land issue is we are subject to the Army Core of Engineers regulations on the wet lands. We will try and get this within a nation wide permit if possible. The advantage of doing is that these are not high quality wet lands they are very low quality wet lands where we will be purchasing wet land bank credits at much higher quality wet lands that are in a much grander scale and better for the environment overall for the state. If you have any specific questions I will answer them or I will reserve the rest of my time. Mayor Lockwood: Are there any questions from Council? Councilmember Lusk: I have one question. It is regarding transportation and public works under the comments section. It states, show a required left turn lane. I did not notice a left turn lane on your preliminary site plan. Steve Rowe: We have not had a chance to put that in but that is a requirement we will get into the site. There are things we need to coordinate with the developments going on across the street with some of that right of way issues and there is a lot of cross coordination that we are still in the middle of. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 19 of 83 Councilmember Lusk: In the second one is and could probably be addressed by staff, is Strickland Road, it is approximately 350 north of the intersection is about 350 north of your main entrance. Strickland Road, I believe is in Forsyth County. Does the County Line go up the center of Bethany at that point? Public Works Director Drake: It does. Councilmember Lusk: Is there any discussion with Forsyth County about straightening out that intersection? Public Works Director Drake: We did have a discussion with Forsyth about that exact matter. It is my understanding that they have recently approved some type of zoning for some convenient store or something in that location and that is not possible that they are able to make that into a ninety degree turn that we wanted to see. Councilmember Lusk: So you are saying they will make it into a ninety degree turn? Public Works Director Drake: They will not. Councilmember Lusk: Really, I go through there about twice a day and that is a relatively dangerous intersection. Mayor Lockwood: Are there any other questions for the applicant? Councilmember Thurman: My question is concerning parking. It looks like you have 137 spaces required and you are putting in 144 spaces is there any reason you are putting the additional spaces and is there any way that those spaces could be of gravel or something, just to try to limit the amount of asphalt? Steve Rowe: We could do that. There are very few service parking spaces on the plan most of them are underneath the building. We actually would probably not build all of them up front and see what the needs were long term and they phase them in. Councilmember Thurman: I just hate to see a bunch of asphalt. Steve Rowe: I agree. I would rather have green or grass pavers or some other type of pervious material and I would be acceptable to that. Anything over our required minimum. lw Mayor Lockwood: Are there any other questions for the applicant? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 20 of 83 Councilmember Zahner Bailey: *No Mayor, just as a matter of process, I do not know if we have finished the public comments so I do not know if I should ask some of my questions now or if we want to wait for the rebuttal from the opposition. Mayor Lockwood I would ask the City Attorney. City Attorney Jarrard: Think I would wait until the public comments are done. Mayor Lockwood: Alright. At this point do we have any Council discussion or questions of staff? Councilmember Zahner Bailey: I am sorry, just as a matter of process, I think there was time left for the citizens for rebuttal, and so I did not know if we had closed our public comment. Mayor Lockwood: Do we have any citizens for rebuttal? City Clerk Marchiafava: If Mr. Cole or Ms. Sowder wants to come up there is a little time remaining on that side. Heidi Sowder: I guess I will restate. I would not be adverse to the 80/20 percent, if the staff of the Community Development Department were charged with enforcing that. There is a part in that 19.4.412, that basically states that the Planning Department be charged with monitoring adherence to the percentage of the age appropriate occupancy. Again, if you are going to grant increase density and everything else that goes along with senior housing, you need to set the precedent that there will be an enforcement of that use permit, and I am not against the increased density and I am definitely not against senior housing. I really love the seniors that I visit a lot, and I know it is a need here in Milton, but it needs to be done right, so if you do go with the 80/20, please put in place someone on staff who is going to be the person that will monitor that whether it be quarterly, yearly with the applicant. Also, I am not clear in the percentage open space and I would appreciate hearing what percent of that development is open space. Thank you. Mayor Lockwood: Does the applicant want to answer the rebuttal? Attorney Don Rolader: If you will give us just one second, the print on the site plan is very small and Mr. Rowe is testing it. "�"' Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 21 of 83 Steve Rowe: I do not have the exact calculation on the open space at this time. I can come up with it fairly quickly, but I do not have that right off the top of my head right this minute. It is one of the things staff reviewed, obviously, so we are at the minimum. Mayor Lockwood: Public Hearing is closed. At this point, is there any Council discussion? Councilmember Tart: I have a question regarding, I guess it would be for the City Attorney regarding verification by the city staff of the 80/20. City Attorney Jarrard: Well, as it stands right now the code requires there to be deed restrictions anyway, so obviously that is one mechanism of enforcement. I will tell you that from and enforcement standpoint I have seen this in other jurisdictions it is difficult to enforce this as you might suspect. Just the notion that City staff are going to have the resources to go out and continually verify this. I believe under HUD regulations, there are audit requirements that exist where they have to verify that they are continuing to meet the standards set forth in the law to get the exemption because obviously that is the way that you are able to do these kinds of 80/20 rules as you are exempting. Basically, you are saying that children can be literally exempted or not allowed in these subdivisions or these developments and so there are some protocols they have to follow independent of the city to confirm they are in fact abiding by the law. Councilmember Tart: Ok, and the other question I have it has been mentioned that there will be a detailed flood study that will be done prior to the issuance of and LDP, my question has to go with staff. I do not know if it is Ms. Wakefield or not if changes are needed because of that detailed flood study; would that change come back before the City Council as a form of a site plan modification or would it go before the Board of Zoning Appeals as a variance? Community Development Director Wakefield: It would be City Council as a modification. Councilmember Tart: Ok and that is in spite of the fact that streams and wet land and that kind of thing go before the BZA? Community Development Director Wakefield: Well, if they are requesting a variance it would but if they are going to make any changes that require the site plan to be modified, it will come back before this body. Councilmember Tart: Ok, my third question needs to go to Mr. Drake. It has to do with the trees especially the three that are i at Bethany and Strickland. If you look on page 20 of the packet that you guys provided to us tree 4, 3, and 2 which have to do with the large oak trees. I read somewhere in the packet that the reason these trees have to be taken down has to do with the traffic study and the way the entrance is right there is there not any way to move that down further on Bethany to save those trees? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 22 of 83 ruolic words Director Drake: I do not know of any other way. At this point we are dealing with sight distance issues, as well as driveway spacing issues and it is primarily the sight distance issues that keep us constrained to that location. Councilmember Tart: I am concerned even with the exit and entrance being right there even with those trees taken down, because we have already talked about how dangerous that intersection is so there is not going to be really and improvements made to that intersection no four way stop not anything. Correct? Public Works Director Drake: Nothing. Councilmember Tart: Ok, I may have another question later. Councilmember Hewitt: Will the trees in question be compensated for? Community Development Director Wakefield: Yes. Councilmember Lusk: I think it is obvious, I answered my own question. The parking under the building that is subsurface ..r� parking is it not? Community Development Director Wakefield: Yes sir, it is. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: A couple of questions and some of these I will start with staff and then if we need to ask the applicant, as it relates to the wet lands and the stream buffers. As I read the mitigation would be off site, has there been any consideration for mitigation on site? I am a big believer that when there are wet lands and disturbance of flood plain and stream buffers that as a first matter of course we should at least try to mitigate that on the actual site since that is what impacts the other waterways that are there within the community. Has there been any review or consideration for what would need to be done to mitigate flood plain stream buffers and wet land and issues there on site? Community Development Director Drake: I will try and answer and then I will defer to Mr. Drake for more detail. It is difficult to say whether they can mitigate the wet lands on site or not until they actually submit their land disturbance plan which will give us more detail and more engineering information, so if Dan wants to comment. Public Works Director Drake: As far as the flood plains, the applicant is going to do a flood plain study and if there is shown that there is a 100 year plain on the property then there would not be any building in that area, so I am not sure there is any mitigation of flood plains and it also addressed the wet land piece. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 23 of 83 Y.. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: I guess part of the question then would be part two if you were to mitigate that on site, the wet lands, and you may not have that data yet but rather than have a density of 19.8 units per acre, I am assuming that part of that density is driven by the fact that the 4.9 acres is further limited from a yield perspective because you have wet lands and stream buffers and flood plain and so at 19.8 units you have to use more of the land to accomplish that density level. Did you look at what density level would be possible if you did have to mitigate and not build on the flood plain and mitigate the wet lands on site? Steve Rowe: It is difficult. We do not know where the flood plain is right now. It could be two feet off the edge of the creek or it could be fifty feet out. We just do not know. With regards to wet lands the challenge we have is really the Core of Engineers dictates that. The state does not, the City does not. It is more of a Core of Engineers and their recent change in policy is they prefer the wet land banking because it is a more effective and more controlled environment and then all of this small scattered mitigation banks on site, so I think a more effective use of money, time, and effort would be off site and wet land mitigation and like he was saying that the flood plain mitigation really will not be an issue because we will have to respect it. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: I appreciate that comment. I was just wondering if you had done any study on this particular site on the 4.9 acres, do you have an alternative approach that would show what the density would yield if you mitigated on site? Steve Rowe: It was hard to come up with something like that without the actual data of where the flood plain is. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Yes, so we really do not have an option that you have created at this point? With regards to the trees, I know we are talking about 3 that are along Bethany Bend. It looked like, and I do not know if Mark Law is here, in terms of other specimen trees, could you verify that those 3 the 35, 34 and 37 were the only specimen trees. I know in our packet, but could you speak to the specimen trees? Arborist Mark Law: I am sorry, I do not have that in front of me, but there is a specimen dog wood along the frontage. Also, there is a poplar at the number ten at the bottom and those in the center are pine trees. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: So the twenty seven inch poplar, obviously, is still a specimen? Arborist Mark Law: That is correct. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: 6w I just wanted to point out that there were more pines and that is still considered a specimen tree according to our ordinances, correct? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 24 of 83 Arborist Mark Law: That is correct - twenty four inches and larger. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Yes, when I heard only 3 specimens, when I looked at the packet, just to make sure we are being clear, I saw that there was at least eight if not nine trees that were specimen. Again, just so we all have similar information, I wanted to make sure that I was reading that correctly. Arborist Mark Law: That is correct. There is a total of nine. It is just those three at the front that I was mainly focusing on. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok, thank you and so of these nine are any of them being saved based on these 19.8 units to the acre? Arborist Mark Law: Based on what I am seeing right now, it is not. The trees along the front is there and when I talked to Mr. Drake and Ms. Leaders about that trying to realign the drive and the site distance is a problem there, just no where they can do that, other than... Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Thank you. So in terms of the 19.8, I guess another question would be mitigation of wet lands and flood plain and those things, is there any other suggested site plans that you guys looked at in terms of positioning the buildings that could have preserved some of those trees? Steve Rowe: We find it best not to do heroic efforts for poplars or pines because they are both temperamental trees, so no we did not look at any alternative plans to save those trees. The oaks, we tried, but with regard to the traffic issues, there was no possible way to do it. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: And thinking about trees, I know in some other instances when it has been difficult to save specimen trees, there has been some discussion as to whether or not for recompense, a larger caliper tree would be considered instead of a 2 or 4 inch, whether a 6 inch tree might be an option, to try to give some better buffers for some of those adjacent properties, would that at least be a consideration? Steve Rowe: We can consider it. I do not know that I would go as high as a 6 inch only because the stress level on replanting a 6 inch tree the 4 inch would catch up to it and actually pass it within 3 years. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: But that would be a consideration, possibly? Steve Rowe: Yes. D Mayor Lockwood: Ok, do we have any other questions? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 25 of 83 Councilmember Zahner Bailey: I am sorry, I am not done. Mayor Lockwood: You are still not done? Go ahead. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Thank you Mayor. In terms of separation of building, the Design Review Board made several recommendations and as I read them the thirty feet of separation of building was one of those. I know that part of that was a public safety issue because of the fire hazard and the proximity of buildings. If Mr. Lagerbloom could speak to that from public safety's perspective on separation of building - is it adequate. Steve Rowe: Actually, that has been accomplished - the thirty feet. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok, so on this plan, thirty feet, then I guess my separate question would be, (to Public Safety Director Lagerbloom), are you satisfied that the separation is appropriate for fire safety? Public Safety Director Chris Lagerbloom: I have not actually looked at it myself, but I can tell you it has been through the appropriate review within the agency and if they are comfortable with it, then I am as well. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok and Alice is that something that was a DRB item that you feel has, I mean if you guys have accomplished that with this revised site plan? Community Development Director Wakefield: It was a recommendation of the Planning Commission and it has been included in the conditions. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok, some of the other things that appear to be, again, just from the information provided from the Design Review Board, they did indicate some additional buffering along the pool and club house, as well as additional buffering along the west property line which abuts to Hidden Forest subdivision. If either staff could speak to what you have been able to accomplish with this revised site plan to speak to those two issues, I would sure appreciate it. Steve Rowe: We did show some additional plantings in those areas, we have not specifically put what plants on paper but we have worked with Mark in the end result on what those species were. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: And I am less interested in the material. Of course I would want those to meet the DRB and the arborist perspective, but I was more interested in was there a greater distance or width of strip versus that ten feet or does the variance specifically go from 100 to 10. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 26 of 83 Steve Rowe: Correct from the pool. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: In terms of the variance being requested. Steve Rowe: Correct. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: I know a moment ago you mentioned on open space, and Ms. Wakefield I do not know if you can speak to that, the applicant mentioned that he did not have that percentage, but does staff have that in terms of open space? Community Development Director Wakefield: We do not have that calculation. It is not a requirement of the use permit or a requirement of a TR development. The applicant is showing the appropriate setbacks and the appropriate buffers against AGI so that would constitute open space, but I cannot give you a specific percentage at this time. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: One of the reasons for my question is that one of course you have heard it from the community, but I am also concerned also. With regards to the Highway 9 overlay that has been an item that we have talked about is how to bring the Highway 9 overlay more in concert with what was the Northwest Fulton, now the Milton overlay for Northwest parks portion of Milton. What would be a typical percentage that we would expect to see, and I realize we do not have that specific percentage, my memory serves, if it serves, I am thinking it was about 10%. Thinking about the Birmingham Crossroads just as one example is 10% open space something that would have been commensurate with that overlay. Community Development Director Wakefield: I believe so. This particular piece of property would be bound by the Highway 9 overlay. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Yes ma'am and I do realize that, I was just wondering if we were to have the same percentage that is required in our other overlays, would it be a 10%? Community Development Director Wakefield: I am almost certain it is 10%, but she will double check that. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: And for the applicant, is that something that you guys looked at, and I know you do not have that percentage, but did you look at perhaps trying to preserve 10% of that open space? Steve Rowe: Not as a percentage. We were just meeting the minimum requirements of the ordinance. Between the ''S* stream buffers and the buffering as the AG, we would easily get 10%. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 27 of 83 Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Sorry for the questions, but this is kind of what this process is about. In terms of the bike and pedestrian pathway, I heard you mention some concerns as an applicant. Of course we have been addressed recently and you heard earlier in our budget that we have allocated some funds from our budget for bike and pedestrian pathways. Mr. Drake, I do not know if it is you or Ms. Wakefield could you speak to kind of staff s expectations with regards to bike and pedestrian pathways on this site. Public Works Director Drake: Sure, we have a system that is called the Milton trail that is laid out and that system has a combination of asphalt, concrete, and gravel sections that are ten feet wide and some sections have a six foot off street path and a four foot bike path. This particular roadway, Bethany Bend, has the latter, so we are looking for a six foot concrete multi use path that is five feet off of the roadway as well as a four foot bike lane on the City of Milton side of the roadway. Again, the other side of the double yellow is Forsyth County. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: And does this revised site plan meet that standard? Public Works Director Drake: This site plan as shown here does not, but again we will be working through that in the LDP process. rpm Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Is it fair to say that the bike and pedestrian committee assumed that there would be a bike and pedestrian pathway on Bethany Bend? Public Works Director Drake: Yes, and this site plan does not show it, but the conditions reflect it. Mayor Lockwood: Councilmember D'Aversa, you had a question? Councilmember D'Aversa: Just a question Mr. Drake with regard to public participation and the community meeting and you guys may have discussed this as I was coming in, how many people attended? When was this held and were there any... I know that Ms. Sowder was here to speak earlier, but were there any other community meetings and how much participation was there from the community. Community Development Director Wakefield: I am going to defer that to Robyn MacDonald. Senior Planner MacDonald: At the community zoning information meeting, it was just Ms. Sowder that was here and as well and Leon Cole looked at it, so that was two for the CZIM. Then for the actual public participation separate Pon meeting that the applicant held, I believe there were 3 or 4 people participating. Most of them were adjacent property owners just interested in looking at it, but they can address that. At the Planning Commission there was again, Ms. Sowder and Mr. Cole in attendance to look at this petition. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 28 of 83 Councilmember D'Aversa: Just have a question for the applicant. From a perspective of the community meetings and the request that you have from the community, do you feel like you are able to meet most of their request and can you maybe share some of them from the people that were in attendance. Attorney Don Rolader: I think you have heard the concerns of Mr. Cole and Ms. Sowder. The other concerns were recondite. They were basically just the neighboring property owners who were curious about what was going on there. The substantive comments went to the height and to the density and to the trees. Councilmember D'Aversa: So they were concerned about three stories, but is not like they would be comfortable with two stories. Attorney Don Rolader: Two stories does not require a variance, we just agreed to wave the three story request. Councilmember D'Aversa: I was just curious as to how congenial it was at the meetings. Attorney Don Rolader: There was no great contest or upset or uproar to the citizen meetings. They were very low key and more informative and inquisitive than they were strong opposition. Councilmember D'Aversa: Concerns about buffers or anything like that to their properties? Attorney Don Rolader: No, the surrounding home owners basically have their properties up for sale for development. They were more curious as to what we were building there and what it would do to impact their property values. Councilmember D'Aversa: Ok, thank you. Mayor Lockwood: At this point I would like to see if we have some interest in a motion and a second to either approve or deny this and then we can certainly have discussion after that. Motion and Second: Councilmember Lusk moved to approve agenda item 08-662, RZ0808/U0804 VC0804, 35013499 Bethany Bend Road, to include the recommendations of the Community Development Department and also the City of Milton Planning Commission. Councilmember D'Aversa seconded the motion. a" Discussion on the motion: Councilmember Zahner Bailey: 0 Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 29 of 83 I have a couple of questions. Based on some of what I heard in the commentary and based on what I 6NO think I heard the applicant agree to, I would like to offer up some possible conditions that would help to confirm what has been agreed to and what was stated. As a matter of course since there is a motion on the floor, what would be the most appropriate? Would it be to just list what conditions I would like to have considered? City Attorney Jarrard: You would need to make a motion to amend the primary motion on the floor. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: And perhaps would it be the pleasure of this board if I mentioned the sort of things that I am thinking about just having heard from Ms. Sowder and the community as well as the applicant. As an example, and Ms. Wakefield if you would comment, I do not know in the current packet if it mentioned that the detention facility as others had been, that it would need to be, earthen, surrounded by four board, with a 2x4. I know that in other instances in this area we have mentioned that as a matter of condition just to make sure it was clear. Community Development Director Wakefield: That is included in the condition, subject to the DRB review. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok, so that is there, terrific, so that has been added. In terms of the four board fencing, I know that the applicant said they were receptive to that. Is that also a matter of specific conditions? Community Development Director Wakefield: That is also a condition. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok, I would like to ask that we would consider a minimum of a 4 inch caliper tree as a replacement versus a 2 inch. I know that the Highway 9 overlay is not perhaps as detailed as some of our overlays, but to meet that desire and I see the applicant shaking his head that it would be a positive and we could add that and I do not want to speak for you but I see head shaking that it would be ok. Also, can we confirm that the 80/20 is a matter of condition? Community Development Director Wakefield: It is a standard within the use permit so it is not necessary to state it as condition. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: We do not need to state that separately, thank you very much. In terms of deed restrictions, I also heard our City Attorney mention, I believe that I heard that is a matter of requirement as well. Is that correct? City Attorney Jarrard: Yes. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok, in terms of the pathway, because there was some discussion, do we need to confirm, Mr. Drake, that would be a condition? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 30 of 83 Public Works Director Drake: They already provided it. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok, so we do not need to worry about that. In terms of the additional screening, I was a little concerned about the screening that was mentioned for access next to the Hidden Forest Subdivision around that pool, if there would be any consideration, instead of going from 100 feet down to 10, if there could be some consideration of maybe it is 100 to 20 because one of the variances in the motion did not mention the variances specifically. The motion just talked about approving it so there are several variances we need to discuss as a matter of that motion as well. So I would like to hear us at least consider supporting perhaps instead of 100 down to 10, maybe it is 100 to 20, to try to accommodate some of that buffer. It is a matter of density. If we could accomplish some of those as a matter of condition. Mayor Lockwood: Ok, at this point we have a motion and second to amend that motion or to do a second motion? City Attorney Jarrard: It needs to be a second motion. A motion to amend to set forth the following conditions and then that needs to be voted on by the entire Council. Mayor Lockwood: Ok. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: So that would be my motion is whether or not I could put forward a motion, please, to amend the primary motion to add some conditions of zoning that would be consistent with some of the things that I just mentioned. Councilmember Lusk: Did I understand the applicant is in agreement with all of those? Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Not the pool buffer. Attorney Don Rolader: We would not be in agreement with the pool buffer. Just to clarify the fence issues, I think the way we handle those was the DRB -would make the final determination of them. As to whether they were really even four board of five board, but what they were because of the upscale quality of the development. Other than that we are fine with it. I think. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: And just to clarify, my request for amendment was that because it is consistent with what we have done in other cases. I would ask that we would add that as a condition of zoning because it would be subject to that DRB review anyway, but if we have it in here it is consistent with the other ones that have been put forth. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 31 of 83 Mayor Lockwood: im-+ I believe what I am hearing from the applicant they would probably be alright with that because it would only be an upgrade if they went further. Attorney Don Rolader: It is already in the conditions that the DRB would make the call so we are fine with it. City Attorney Jarrard: Councilmember Zahner Bailey, would you mind for purposes of mercy on the person doing the minutes, restate and succinctly as you can just the items. Councilmember Thurman: Just the ones that were not already conditions of it because a lot of these were already conditions. Motion to Amend: Councilmember Zahner Bailey moved to amend the primary motion to include conditions of zoning to be added to the recommendations of staff to include at least a four inch caliper tree for any recompense, to also ensure that the earthen damn and five board fence that we as a matter of condition are also accepting the withdrawal of a variance. Councilmember Lusk: I would agree to accept the amendments as stated. Mayor Lockwood: At this point I think we need a second. City Attorney Jarrard: Councilmember Lusk that would be a second and we need a vote on that amendment that was just made. Second to the Amended Motion: Councilmember Lusk seconded the amendment. Vote on the Motion to Amend: The motion passed unanimously. City Attorney Jarrard: Now, Mr. Mayor you are voting on the motion as amended. Mayor Lockwood: Do we need to restate that motion? City Attorney Jarrard: No sir, you do not. Vote on the Original Motion: The motion passed unanimously. Mayor Lockwood: two* Will the City Clerk please sound the next item? City Clerk Marchiafava: Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 32 of 83 Read Agenda item 08-663: U08-05NC08-05, 1150 Birmingham Road - To obtain a use permit to develop a cemetery on awi approximately 17.313 acres (Article 19.4.9). The applicant is also requesting a concurrent variance: 1) To delete the 75' buffer and 10' impervious setback to 0' along western property lines N 00°32'03" W for 360.96', S 89°27'57" W for 65.23', and N 00°32"03" W, along all eastern property lines, and along the northern property line from northeastern corner to the 50' stream buffer line for a distance of 320' (12H.3.1 Section C.2). Community Development Director Wakefield: As stated this applicant is requesting use permit for cemetery. Petitioner is also requesting a concurrent variance to delete the buffering. The recommendation of staff is approval of the use permit. Approval conditional of the concurrent variance. The Planning Commission recommendation is also approval of the use permit and approval condition of the concurrent variance. You will now hear more detailed presentation from Matt Zyjewski. Staff Intern Matt Zyjewski: USE PERMIT CONSIDERATIONS: Staff notes, provided the applicant complies with the Recommended Conditions of this petition and the Use Permit requirements of Article 19.4.9. of the Zoning Ordinance, the proposed development may be consistent with the intent and following policies of the Comprehensive Plan: • Encourage development consistent with the surrounding scale, transition of densities and uses, and Comprehensive Plan policies, where appropriate. • To the extent possible, open space should be incorporated into all developments. SITE PLAN ANALYSIS At this time, the applicant does not have any plans for buildings on the subject site. LANDSCAPE STRIPS AND BUFFERS Staff further notes that the applicant has applied for a concurrent variance to delete the 75' buffer and 10' impervious setback to 0' along western property lines N 00°32'03" W for 360.96', S 89°27'57" W for 65.23', and N 00°32"03" W, along all eastern property lines, and along the northern property line from northeastern corner to the 50' stream buffer line for a distance of 320' (12H.3.1 Section C.2). Staff notes that there is some existing buffering along these property lines that will be preserved, which will be reflected in the recommended conditions. Lastly, the applicant has stated in his letter of intent that all graves will be placed 85' from the nearest property lines. Excluding the concurrent variance request, it appears to Staff that the applicant has met all landscape strip and buffer requirements. The applicant also indicates that no grave sites will be placed within the existing buffer areas. A condition will be included to reflect this requirement. In accordance with the Focus Fulton 2025 Plan, "Maintaining Rural Character in Northwest Fulton 'mo County, Georgia," Staff finds the applicant's intent of preserving pastureland consistent with the following plan goals: Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 33 of 83 + • Northwest Fulton County's existing rural character -defined by historic resources, wooded areas, agricultural uses, horse farms, pastures, lakes, farms, estates, and natural settings along roadsides -will continue to exist. • A mature and natural landscape with informal placement of trees and indigenous vegetation is characteristic of the area. • Cemeteries and places of historic, archeological or architectural significances are preserved. In addition, in accordance with Article 22.3.1.A, "Relief, if granted, would be in harmony with, or, could be made in harmony with, the general purpose and intent of the Zoning Ordinance." Based on the above, Staff recommends APPROVAL CONDITIONAL of VC08-05. PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING — AUGUST 26, 2008 The Planning Commission unanimously approved the use permit and the concurrent variance. The applicant requested that the four board fence color be changed from black to white as it already exists on the property. This is reflected in the recommended conditions. There was discussion regarding the amount of buffering along the northern property line adjacent to the Bream ridge Subdivision. After looking at the aerial, it was determined that the power line will provide a further separation between the AG -1 (Agricultural) subdivision and the cemetery. CONCLUSION Staff notes that the proposed cemetery appears to meet all requirements as stated in Article 19.4.9 of the City of Milton Zoning Ordinance, and recommends APPROVAL CONDITIONAL of U08-05. Furthermore, Staff is of the opinion that the requested variance is in line with the goals of the 2025 Focus Fulton Comprehensive Plan and that relief, if granted, would be in harmony with, or, could be made in harmony with, the general purpose and intent of the Zoning Ordinance and recommends APPROVAL CONDITIONAL of VC08-05. Staff is adding the following condition under site development considerations: "To provide a 75' buffer and 10' improvement setback to remain on all property lines except, "western property lines N 00°32'03" W for 360.96', S 89°27'57" W for 65.23', and N 00°32"03" W, along all eastern property lines, and along the northern property line from northeastern corner to the 50' stream buffer line for a distance of 320' to remain natural, with no buffer or improvement setback." And that concludes staff comment. Mayor Lockwood: At this time, I would like to hear from those in support of this request. City Clerk Marchiafava: Is the applicant present? Jim Bell, 1150 Birmingham Road, Milton, Georgia: I sent everybody a letter outlining what I wanted to do and I know you all get a lot of stuff on agenda night, so I will reserve my time to answer questions or rebuttal. But basically what I want to do is build Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 34 of 83 a "green cemetery" and not cut down any trees and not build anything else so it is sort of a non - development, development. Mayor Lockwood: What you mean is it is a dead issue. (laughter) Are there any other comments? City Clerk Marchiafava: In opposition sir? Mayor Lockwood: Yes. Leon Cole, 16700 Birmingham Hwy, Milton Georgia: I am not in opposition to the cemetery. In fact, I think it is a great idea and will be an asset to our community. I am concerned about the future, like what if. What if the property is sold in twenty years or whatever? Could the cemetery style be changed? Right now, there is going to be no vertical as presented by Mr. Bell there is no vertical monuments. There are no slabs of cement. There is maybe flesh stone as I understand it or something like that, that can be a monument that lies flat on the ground and I like all this. This is fine and I like his entranceway and everything, but I am just wondering can something be done to ensure that it remains, you know this cemetery is going to last a lot longer than these building you have approved tonight. This is going to last for hundreds of years, we hope, unless we get atomic bombed, but anyhow, you see where I am coming from Council. What happens if the green concept does not come through for Mr. Bell that people does not buy into it? It is relatively new thing, I think, in our country, although historically it is not, but could he change it to a more standard, with curbing for lots, family lots, with vertical monuments. With even a mausoleum built on the thing, these are the only concerns I have. I hope we can approve the thing for him but with some conditions of thinking into the future. Thank you. Mayor Lockwood: Thank you. Are there any other public comments. City Clerk Marchiafava: Not on this item unless the applicant wants to rebut. Mayor Lockwood: Mr. Bell, do you have any rebuttal to that comment? Jim Bell: Well, it probably will last longer than I will also so that is not covered in anything we have done to answer that question. Mayor Lockwood: Thank you. Are there any Council discussions or questions for staff? Councilmember D'Aversa: %1W I was going to ask Ms. Wakefield if you could address Mr. Cole's comments and what would happen in the event or the "what ifs" that he proposed. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 35 of 83 Community Development Director Wakefield: There is nothing to prevent this from being converted into the standard type of cemetery. There is no condition that restricts the placement of a vertical monument, however, if in the future someone wants to put in a structure or to make improvements to the driveway, that would require at the very least a site plan amendment, but more than likely a complete new use permit because the conditions of zoning does not address building or any additional buildings on the site. Councilmember D'Aversa: We could condition this property that there could not be another use. That he could not change the use to be a non "green cemetery" use. Community Development Director Wakefield: We could condition it to a "green cemetery", yes. Mayor Lockwood: Any other questions for staff? Councilmember Thurman: I just had one question. I noticed it said a white four board fence and I know in a lot of other places in the city we are using black, is there any reason why, I believe it said white here rather than... Senior Planner Macdonald: All the existing fencing, many linier yards of fencing, is already white and he asked that to be white. Councilmember Thurman: I would love to see our DRB come up with a standard citywide, whether it is black or white or whatever, and I would hate for them to come back before us for a zoning modification if they change the fence from white to black. Mayor Lockwood: Ok, any other questions for staff? Go ahead Councilmember Bailey. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: I appreciate your offer to answer a couple of questions Mr. Bell, as part of your discussion. Just with regards with your intent to have a "green cemetery" and I did hear obviously a potentially condition that would allow it to be as you intend not only about the "green cemetery", I know that within your letter of intent, you also mention that you intend to keep it as a gravel in and out, can you just confirm that is the intent? Jim Bell: They will not let me. rte• Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Oh, they will not let you? Jim Bell: Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 36 of 83 They want it paved a certain length up. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok, because maybe this is a helpful - I want to confirm some things that I have read with maybe some information that you might have, so the gravel entrance and exit is not going to be allowed to be gravel. Is that a function of staff's recommendation? Public Works Director Drake: The first forty or so feet will be paved, but it will be a gravel driveway. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: I guess my question for staff because I know that Mr. Bell's intent was to keep the gravel, those of us that live out there, we love the sound of gravel beneath our tires. Is there a reason that the gravel could not be as he intended it? Public Works Director Drake: It is just to keep the gravel off the Birmingham road. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Off the Birmingham road? Is your current road in and out; do you have some current gravel roads in and out. 0" Jim Bell: To meet the site distance requirements we will have to move it over. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok, so staff is recommending the first forty to fifty feet would be asphalt, is that both on the entrance and the exit? Public Works Director Drake: There is just one. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: So they are not going to have any more than one. With regards to what sort of bonding or deed restrictions, and I know that this is something that you have been researching and it may be Mr. Jarrard, if you could help to weigh in to the question of cemetery, obviously, once it is about special use. Let's just say the people obviously want to use your services or services of the "green cemetery" once someone is laid to rest there, and let's just say that, at some future point, you decide that this is either something that you are not going to continue to pursue or it changes hands, what mechanism is in place to protect that as a cemetery? Could you speak to that a little bit? Jim Bell: The Georgia Secretary of State's Office. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: So regardless of the conversion of property owner, it will be protected under the Georgia existing laws? Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 37 of 83 Jim Bell: Yes. You have to put on the deed itself, when you deed it out the Secretary of State is notified. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: So it will be deed restricted, effectively. Is that correct Mr. Jarrard? City Attorney Jarrard: That is correct. There is a whole body of statutory law that protects cemeteries, particularly, obviously, once there has been someone laid to rest there, because of the whole process of disinterment is not favored in the law as you might suspect. In addition to that there is the perpetual care trust fund that he will have to begin to pay into and which actually is a fund for if you have a graveyard or a burial ground owner that goes bankrupt that they can then draw out of to make sure that it is maintained. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: So both perpetual fund as well as state law there will be deed restriction. Again, this is just to make sure that everything... Jim Bell: Perpetual Care fund is part of state law. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Correct, so both of those will apply. In terms of hours of operations, if I read correctly it was seven days .r a week but it would be at the end of five o'clock and that you have no intent of having outdoor lighting. Because there is no intent for outdoor lighting, I would like us all to consider as a matter of discussion, whether or not no outdoor lighting could also be a condition of zoning, similar to the fact that it would be a "green cemetery" for perpetuity. Jim Bell: That gets into the definition of "green" and I think you are getting into an area that is a little more grey than you may think it is. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: I am sorry, do you mean on the lighting? Jim Bell: No, on, I thought what I heard you say was you wanted it to remain a "green cemetery" when you approved it. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: I was hearing that Councilmember D'Aversa had mentioned that she would like to mention a condition of zoning. Jim Bell: Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 38 of 83 You may have to define "green" and that is not easy to do. For instance, if somebody has a metal pen or anything we do not have that strict of a definition. We have guidelines but not strict definitions. aft+ Councilmember Zahner Bailey: So, I know that the concerns... Councilmember D'Aversa: We will try to articulate it when we make the conditions. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: But in terms of lighting, which is really my point, was that I wanted to confirm with the applicant that your intent is to have no outdoor lighting. Jim Bell: Right. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok, so if we could consider that as a matter of condition, I think that would be helpful. Again, Mr. Drake, with the bike and pedestrian recommendations I know that this indicates that there would be an alternative path that would be, if I am not mistaken, zero feet off of the right of way is that consistent with the bike path and what your expectations are. on% Public Works Director Drake: That is correct. Assuming the fence is 3 feet back. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: And to Councilmember Thurman's point about the white fence, obviously, I drive by there every day and it is currently white. If ever that fence needed to be repaired or if you made the decision as the applicant and owner to replace that the fact that we would have a condition that speaks to four board fencing, could we articulate that it could either be white as it is currently or if ever replaced with four board fence. Jim Bell: It is not just that fence. It is all the way around. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: I know, that is why I am just suggesting that, that way we would not restrict you if we said it could be one or the other, it would be consistent I think, and give him that option. Mr. Jarrard, can you speak to the issue of whether or not the City is involved at all in this. I know that some prior letters and prior letters of intent, there had been some discussion about whether or not funds would be coming from the sale of a plot to the City to benefit acquisition of land and I know we had some discussion at work sessions, can you speak to whether or not that is any part of this letter of intent. City Attorney Jarrard: Councilmember Zahner Bailey, the only thing that I can speak to is that I am not aware of there being UO any relationship with respect to an exchange of proceeds between this gentleman and his enterprise and the city. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 39 of 83 i.. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok, and if you will, I know at one point there had been some discussion, but is that accurate, Mr. Bell that this no longer involves funding coming to the city. Jim Bell: No, that is not what the situation was. Originally we were trying to have a city cemetery. There are three types of cemeteries: city, church and private. We were trying to have a City of Milton cemetery. Those were talks that were dropped. We still have intention of setting up for 5013C and donating part of the proceeds and lots to the city, unless they do not want it. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: I appreciate that and because we had gotten some legal advice on the earlier options that is why I bring it up now before we vote to confirm that from our City Attorney's perspective there is not a legal issue. City Attorney Jarrard: That does not present a legal concern. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok, thank you very much. Mayor Lockwood: As a point of order, Mr. Jarrard, can someone from the audience ask a question? City Attorney Jarrard: Mr. Mayor, unfortunately, no. Mayor Lockwood: Is there any other question for the applicant? Councilmember Zahner Bailey: I had one other point. I would like to ask Mr. Bell. You had mentioned you had no intent of erecting buildings. Is that correct? Jim Bell: Not at this time. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Is that currently a staff condition, that there would be no erection of buildings? Community Development Director Wakefield: It is not a condition. It is just that his site plan does not show any buildings, which is condition 2A for that site plan. tw. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 40 of 83 Ok, and if staff could also speak to the additional buffer that was mentioned when our staff member added that to tonight's discussion, can you confirm was that just that it was not part of the earlier site ..d plan, and so that was just an oversight that was being corrected. Community Development Director Wakefield: That was just an oversight that was being corrected. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok, and Mr. Bell, I know that your intent based on your letter of intent was to allow that pasture to continue to be an open view. Jim Bell: Yes, the only thing we are building is what you all are requiring us to build, which is the road and the trail. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Yes sir. I am now asking about the buffer and the variance. That is my next question, is just with regards to the desire not to have to plant to that seventy five foot buffer. Can you maybe just describe the current tree line that separates adjacent properties and this is obviously people are coming and going and the process of burying folks, just to speak as to why you are requesting that variance. Jim Bell: Well, it is different in different areas. We have one whole side that is nothing but woods so we did not see any point in adding more trees to those woods and on the top we have sort of a pie shaped power line area and then we have trees all the way around it, except in the front, so you all are requiring us to plant trees in the front but the rest of the areas already have trees. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: So the property line that would be on the east side closer to heading toward Freemanville Road that is, and maybe staff is to respond, in terms of the density or the width of that existing tree buffer. I am just trying to understand that existing tree buffer before we consider a variance to remove the buffer. Arborist Mark Law: On the east side, you roughly have a about a ten foot existing vegetation in that area. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: So it is ten feet? Arborist Mark Law: Roughly, it is going to vary back and forth maybe five and some areas ten in the most extreme areas. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Just for orientation, obviously there are residents, I guess the Primitive Baptist, and can you point to the church. No Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 41 of 83 Jim Bell: There is a cemetery there. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Right, I know that. There is a cemetery there. You have some other land owners that are back behind, this just was not part of the presentation so could you speak to...., I am just trying to understand the existing buffer before we consider that variance. Mr. Law, the ten feet that you mentioned, where is the ten feet of existing tree? Arborist Mark Law: Probably talking about five to ten along this area and probably more like five along this area... (Mr. Law moved away from the microphone and the comments could not be heard.) Councilmember Zahner Bailey: How about any adjacent neighbors that are amongst the living? No pun intended. (The recorder did not pick up the comments) Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Just a quick question for Mr. Bell and the reason I wanted to understand was to know the density that exist, had you considered of course not across all properties. r.. City Clerk Marchiafava: Mr. Bell, please come to the microphone because we are recording this. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: I was just going to ask you Mr. Bell if on those where you have neighbors to the north, even though it may be through that transmission line, had you considered maybe just some additional trees just in the event that those additional phases, eventually as that business picks up, had there been any consideration... Jim Bell: They already have the roads in and the street is laid out. They will have to come to you all again to change the roads to build a road underneath the power line, which I do not think is likely to ever happen. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: No, I would agree. I just wanted to make sure from the buffer perspective then does staff feel confident that the adjacent land owners are not going to see the activity of burial or folks coming for ceremonial purposes? Community Development Director Wakefield: Well, the project is conditioned such that no graves can be within eighty five feet of a property line and also proposing to leave the property except for graves in its natural state, so basically what the adjacent property owners see now is what they will be seeing in the future so we are comfortable with the request. Jim Bell: Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 42 of 83 So, you are really kind of buffering nothing. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Right, I just wanted to understand the distance between the before and the other. Mr. Mayor, I have a motion I would like to put forward. Mayor Lockwood: At this point, I believe we need to finish with our public comment or our presentation with our applicant, or close the public hearing. The public hearing is closed. I believe Councilmember D'Aversa had had a motion. Councilmember D'Aversa: What are your items that you would like to have included in this motion and that way we will not have short amendments and what not. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Thank you very much Councilperson. I would like to see us consider no outdoor lighting because that is consistent with the applicant's desire. I would ask that we encompass what Councilmember Thurman said about the white or four board black fencing so that obviously it is up to the applicant to remain with that white fencing, but at some point if it be the applicants desire that they could switch and have that be four board fencing but the point being for some period of time you are going to have four board fencing regardless of color. I would ask that there be a condition of zoning that would make clear that no buildings would be erected on the site because that is consistent with the letter of intent and that would also then allow the applicant to come back if those plans changed. I would ask that we specify the trees that were highlighted as specimen trees as being saved and I think that is the intent, but if we can capture that it takes any mystery away. I would ask that we be consistent, and Mr. Drake, if there is a way that we can confirm that the gravel beyond that first fifty feet, do we need to condition that or is that currently what it states, that only the first fifty feet would be asphalt. Public Works Director Drake: I believe it is up to the Director of Public Works as to what is needed out there. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok, in terms of bonds or any of that, I am hearing that we do not need anything because the state covers it from a perpetual funding perspective. City Attorney Jarrard: That is correct. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: So no outdoor lighting, no erection of buildings, I would ask, Councilmember D'Aversa, that as you pointed out that you define what that "green" cemetery means as much as you can. I hear that there would not be any monuments erected, so that would be one thing I think you would want to be consistent with that and that there would be... What I heard was the intent was not to have the elements Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 43 of 83 of a traditional cemetery and that is what has been presented to the community, so anything that you could do to make it specific to the conditions of zoning are consistent with what the letter of intent says would be my suggestion. Councilmember Thurman: Do we need to condition it to no buildings? I thought you said that was automatic based on the site plan that they have no buildings. Community Development Director Wakefield: That is correct. Councilmember Thurman: So, it does not need a condition. Councilmember Zahner Bailey Can we clarify that? I heard a special use permit that while they might have to come back for a site modification. If we condition the use permit to no building, they would have to come back for a separate use permit, not just a modification. Community Development Director Wakefield: I believe what I said at the very least they would have to do some type of modification, but if they are going to be putting buildings on the site they will have to come and get a new use permit. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: So would there be any reason, and I will ask either staff or the City Attorney, is there any reason not to include that condition so that we are clear, so that if Alice is on vacation the next time this comes forward... City Attorney Jarrard: What I am hearing is that is just going to be an operation of the request itself and it would just be picked up. It does not seem to me like it would matter one way or the other, but I cannot think of a reason not to. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Ok, so I would ask that just to clear that we include that. Those would be my comments. Mayor Lockwood: I would like to ask a question of the applicant. Those items that were added, would you be ok with those items? Jim Bell: I would prefer not to and here is why there has been some discussion... Is anybody familiar with the veteran cemetery in Cherokee County? What they have for lack of a better word is a permanent tent, and that is where they conduct all of their services. They do not have any grave side services and no h.w tents out in the field. We have considered doing that at some point in time, but we want to get through this step first. The other thing we have talked about doing is basically it looks like a picnic shelter, where they have the services for the whole cemetery. If the case of the federal cemetery, there are Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 44 of 83 several of them in place. We thought about building one at some point in time. The other thing we talked about with our designers is incorporate perhaps at some point in time incorporating some sort of a mod memorialization in that shelter itself, like a wall with names on it or something like that, so we have not thoroughly gotten into the memorialization thing yet, but that is why I would prefer not to. I want to come back here and show you all the design and so forth, but I do not think it needs to be in there anyway. Mayor Lockwood: To staff if that were the case, if we did not include that as a condition, if that were the case, the applicant would have to come back anyway. Community Development Director Wakefield: He would have to come back and show those structures. Jim Bell: I am going to have to come back anyway, right. Community Development Director Wakefield: That is correct. Motion: Councilmember D'Aversa moved to approve U08-05NC08-05, 1150 Birmingham Road to obtain a use permit to develop a "green cemetery" on approximately 17.3.13 acres, with the following additional conditions taking into accord staff's recommendations and the following conditions: first and foremost, that the cemetery governance is through the Secretary of the State of Georgia, there will be no outdoor lighting on the property, the white or four board fence that is currently there will be erected around the property, as well as if that fence ceases to be there that a similar white or black four board fence would be erected, that this will become a "green cemetery" and for the purposes of structures, no permanent enclosed buildings except with the expressed written permission with the City of Milton, would be allowed, and no raised head stones and/or monuments above ground level would be allowed on the property. Jim Bell: I will get to this memorial wall thing at some time a memorial wall, which is like a raised, it is not out in the field but it would be.... Councilmember D'Aversa: Right and I did not include that. Jim Bell: When you said memorial that is what came to my mind. Councilmember D'Aversa: Well, individual monuments, and it will come before this City for approval. Jim Bell: ""'i Is this redundant or what? Councilmember D'Aversa: Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 45 of 83 It is not redundant, no sir, but that is the conditions. That is the motion with the conditions. Second: Councilmember Tart seconded the motion. Mayor Lockwood: We have a motion by Councilmember D'Aversa and a second by Councilmember Tart. Do we have any discussion on the motion? City Attorney Jarrard: I have a question, Mr. Mayor, if I could, I just want to get to the issue because I heard something in the presentation that, not concerned me, but, I think the condition was it is to be a "green cemetery". I think what I heard the applicant say is that there are different variations on what that is. The only reason I raise it is because I do not want the Council to adopt something and then it leave the applicant unsure how to comply or the City unsure how to enforce. So typically what I would expect to see there would be a "green cemetery" under the standards as promulgated by X or going out to some sort of governing body. On my web page here, I found some standards for "green burial", but I do not know if those would be acceptable to the applicant. Councilmember D'Aversa: Do you have, Mr. Bell, I know you said it is difficult to define, but... Jim Bell: We are working with the "green burial" council and will be certified by them, but when you dig deeper into it, you will find that there are some exceptions like if you have a metal plate in your head, it is not "green." If you have plastic under the Milton Trail, it is not "green." There are all kinds of implants and all kinds of people that are not completely and one hundred percent bio -degradable. Councilmember D'Aversa: Well, you see the challenge that this body has, we are being asked to approve a "green cemetery", not a cemetery, but a "green cemetery", so how would we... Jim Bell: Well, I do not know. You will have to ask Alice if there is any difference. Councilmember D'Aversa: Yes, apparently there is. Councilmember Hewitt: What if it was conditioned upon being sanctioned by the "green burial" committee? Mayor Lockwood: Industry standard? Jim Bell: ... They set the standard, but they do allow exceptions. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 46 of 83 If I may, I would like to ask our City Attorney, do you have some specific suggestions. It does seem to me that the letter of intent is specific to a "green cemetery" and given that our staff has said there are a lot of variables in terms of what that would be. Mr. Jarrard, do you have any suggestions as to how we would define that so that we do not leave that to chance. City Attorney Jarrard: From what I have heard the applicant in my few minutes here of legal research it looks like the "green burial" council is the body that sets the standards for these. If he is indicating that you can do that, but there are exceptions to it then it seems like reaching out to their standards in a very generic way would be appropriate. I think that is the aspirational goal is for this cemetery to meet those standards, even with the exceptions they allow for. Mayor Lockwood: Mr. Bell, is that something you would consider? Jim Bell: That is what we have already done. Councilmember D'Aversa: All right, now you have messed up my motion so now we have to have one of those friendly things. City Attorney Jarrard: You can now lay it to rest Councilmember. Mayor Lockwood: No pun intended. Councilmember D'Aversa: So how do we include that at this point? Mayor Lockwood: We have a motion and a second. Councilmember Thurman: Motion to Amend: I would like to make a friendly amendment that we add to the conditions, under the definition of "green cemetery" the standards imposed by the "green burial" council. Second: Councilmember D'Aversa seconded the motion. Councilmember Tart: Just a point of order, I do not know that what just happened was legal. Rather than a friendly amendment and a second, she needs to amend the original motion, or... City Attorney Jarrard: I am taking what Councilmember Thurman did as a motion to amend the existing motion on the floor. Om Councilmember Tart: Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 47 of 83 Ok, then you seconded. Ok. Mayor Lockwood: Ok, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Councilmember Lusk: Just one - I am probably going to need this facility a lot quicker than most of these folks here on Council and I hope it is not before the end of this meeting. Mayor Lockwood: I just want to clarify, Mr. Bell, are you clear on this amendment and the amended motion and these items? Jim Bell: From what I hear no outdoor lighting, white or black fences, it does not matter. I am not clear on the necessity of it, but I think I am clear on it. Councilmember D'Aversa: Trying to make it a standard in the City and that is what we are addressing. Mayor Lockwood: Is there any other discussion? Hearing none... City Clerk Marchiafava: We are voting on the motion to amend. Vote: The motion passed unanimously. Vote on the Original Motion as amended: The motion passed unanimously. UNFINISHED BUSINESS City Clerk Marchiafava read agenda item 08-661. Approval of an Ordinance Amending the Rules of Procedure for the City Council meeting and Public hearings for the City of Milton. Ordinance No. 08-09-23 City Clerk Marchiafava: • These amendments were discussed and the August 11, 2008 Work Session and the First Presentation on the Ordinance was on September 3, 2008. • There are eight sections that we are recommending be changed. • Section 4, under quorum, a quorum must be physically present at the site where the meeting is to be held for the conducting meetings of the City Council. PM • There is another amended to that same section that reflects the change. • Section 9, amendments to the rules, all amendments require a majority vote of the Council that is 6w physically present in order to be adopted under section 11 regular meetings. • All regular meetings shall be held at City Hall in the Mayor and Council meeting room unless provisions of section 12A are applied. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 48 of 83 • Section 14, under agenda, work sessions and Council agenda items shall be submitted consistent with the, we took out the word attached and it would be a process established by the City Manager and City Clerk. • Section 16, under decorum, all comments by Councilmembers shall succinctly address the motion that is being discussed and also the Mayor shall rule on a question or may allow the City Council to debate that issue and decide by a majority vote. • Section 17, voting, passage of a motion shall require the affirmative vote of a majority of those voting at which a quorum is physically present at the site where the meeting is held. • Section 19, public participation, under decorum, individuals violating any rules of the City Council shall be ruled out of order by the Mayor or by a point of order made by a Council Member. • Under sub -paragraph D, public hearings, we took out hearings require at least ten minutes per side and changed it to hearing on zoning decisions shall be governed in accordance with the zoning policies and procedures and require the opportunity for each side to have at least ten minutes to discuss their position and offer comments. • The last amendments to the rules was under minutes wherein it states that more detailed information may be included in the minutes at the request of the majority of the members of the City Council. Mayor Lockwood • Asked if there were any questions. w Motion and Vote: Councilmember Thurman moved to approve an Ordinance Amending the Rules of m Procedure for City Council meetings and Public Hearings for the City of Milton. Councilmember Tart seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously. City Clerk Marchiafava read agenda item 08-644. Approval of an Ordinance of the Mayor and Council of the city of Milton, Georgia, to Adopt amendments to the Fiscal 2008 Budget for each Fund of the City of Milton, Georgia, Amending the Amounts Shown in Each Budget as Expenditures, Amending the Several Items of Revenue Anticipations, prohibiting Expenditures to Exceed Appropriations, and Prohibiting Expenditures to Exceed Actual Funding available. Ordinance No. 08-09-24 City Manager Beckett • As we discussed earlier, the amendments are before Council for approval. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Lusk moved to approve an Ordinance of the Mayor and Council of the city of Milton, Georgia, to Adopt amendments to the Fiscal 2008 Budget for each Fund of the City of Milton, Georgia, Amending the Amounts Shown in Each Budget as Expenditures, Amending the Several Items of Revenue Anticipations, prohibiting Expenditures to Exceed Appropriations, and pq Prohibiting Expenditures to Exceed Actual Funding available. Councilmember Thurman seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously. add City Clerk Marchiafava read agenda item 08-665 Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 49 of 83 Approval of an Ordinance of the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton, Georgia, to Adopt the Fiscal 2009 Budget for Each Fund of the City of Milton, Georgia Appropriating the Amounts Shown in Each Budget as Expenditures, Adopting the Several Items of Revenue Anticipations, Prohibiting Expenditures to Exceed Appropriations, and Prohibiting Expenditures to Exceed Actual Funding Available. Ordinance No. 08-09-25 City Manager Beckett • You have before you approval of the budget before as discussed earlier or recess the budget discussion to a future work shop agenda. • Public Safety Director Lagerbloom has worked diligently toward the software portion associated with the 911 conversion to Alpharetta, so we asked if or when you approve the budget, that you authorize conditional approval of the software maintenance agreement between SunGard Public Sector Incorporated and the City. • The City Attorney has reviewed the document and supports the conditional approval of the proposed agreement. • The funds would be contained in your budget unless you modify them. Motion and Second: Councilmember Thurman moved to approve an Ordinance of the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton, Georgia, to Adopt the Fiscal 2009 Budget for Each Fund of the City of Milton, Georgia Appropriating the Amounts Shown in Each Budget as Expenditures, Adopting the Several Items of Revenue Anticipations, Prohibiting Expenditures to Exceed Appropriations, and Prohibiting Expenditures to Exceed Actual Funding Available and add to it the additional, conditional approval to enter into a contract between the City of Milton and OSSI for the appropriate software in that transition. Councilmember Lusk seconded the motion. Discussion on the motion: Councilmember D'Aversa • Thought we had some items that had changed on the budget as recently as over the weekend and that we had discussed last week that we would potentially have an additional hearing and discussion on the 22"d of September. Mayor Lockwood • We discussed that. • The majority of the Council decided to go forward. • We also talked about there may be a need to amend the budget and that we collectively come up with a committee within the Council to look at that. • We will amend the budget as we need to. Councilmember D'Aversa • Normally, you do not plan for amendments. *a. • There have been some changes that she is not certain how they transpired as far as the legal budget went down and she was not sure where that money went and there are a number of issues. 0 • She was not prepared tonight because the discussion as recently as this afternoon through e-mails was that we would have an additional meeting next Monday. • For the record, she would like to have an additional meeting next Monday. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 50 of 83 Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Seconds that comment. OWN • She spoke to that same issue earlier. • She would have preferred to review and have commentary on a twenty three million dollar budget that are taxpayer dollars. • She would still support a work session September 22nd or any day, any time, any hour to make sure we go into a budget without the expectation of an amendment. Councilmember D'Aversa The issue that she posed with regard to Public Safety benefits and the changes that were happening that would impact the budget and she was not aware of that situation until that time. She would have pushed the issue over the week end but she thought that they were going to have a work session so they could discuss. Asked if there was any more information forthcoming. City Manager Beckett • They have not heard any complaints expressed by the Public Safety people at the staff level. • Public Safety Director Lagerbloom confirmed that with him. • We sent to Council this afternoon from Connie Jacobs the City's HR person and he advised the Council earlier that they should probably pull the ARC in at some point during this winter to do a pay and classification study to evaluate those issues. • Also the interim Manager or subsequent manager begin discussions with the other North Metro communities to ensure that we do not get into an escalation provision. Councilmember D'Aversa • Thinks it is a wonderful idea to go through the ARC and do a review. • She really wants to make a point that we talked about the raise that we would be affording our staff. • She is not sure she would have agreed to the 2.5% if she thought their benefits were going to increase their payments of their benefits. • She just wants to make sure we are doing everything in their power to keep them happy and to make sure we are better than competitive. Public Safety Director Lagerbloom • He would love to pay them each a million dollars and that probably still would not be enough. • He has learned that he cannot keep all of them happy even though he tries. • Our Human Resource Department, in putting together our benefit package this year, compiled a task force that was a representation from both our Police and Fire Department at assorted levels of supervision in the agency and they came up with the benefit direction that we just went through in open enrollment so this was not just forced upon our people. • They had their input with that committee. • He knows the constraints of the budget and that is what we will go with. City Manager Beckett Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 51 of 83 • As food for thought for the future because the first year, you only collected 93% of property taxes and because you do not have a completed audit this year, the normal range for collection for real and personal property taxes, particularly in a community that is this affluent is normally in the range of 97% plus. • As your tax revenue comes in from those particular sources, it effectively provides you with a cushion. • We were not going to budget 97% when your very limited history tells us that you got 93%. In part because of the confusion of having 2 bills going out when people are accustomed to receiving one bill from Fulton County. • Also keep in mind that you have the appeals issue in there, so no one is really sure what the percentage of collection is going to be. • Normally when you build a model, you have ten year of history to look at, and we had one year of information and a second year that is not audited. • So there is a good possibility that if you collect taxes the way most people collect taxes, at least at 97% or higher then you have a substantial amount of money so in a few months from now as the tax revenue comes in and you monitor it, you should have enough money to give your people raises. • You will have 4% potentially after the beginning of the year and if you are serious about giving them a raise and serious about their benefits then you can allocate that toward their raises and make that commitment tonight. Councilmember D'Aversa • She is serious about not only that but also about the evaluation of the budget and where funds have gone. • She would like to have the opportunity to evaluate more. Mayor Lockwood • The budget is a very serious issue for us. • We have had it out for a while. • We have had our experienced staff working together to bring us a balanced budget. • We have had a lot of questions. • He has worked with everyone on that. • He is comfortable with it. • He knows there are things we would like to do. • As the City Manager said, if we get more revenue in, we can amend the budget, which is pretty typical because we would have to amend it anyway. • He thinks we have done a good job on it and he is comfortable with it. Councilmember D'Aversa • Where did the difference that was taken away from the legal budget get allocated to? Mayor Lockwood • We funded $200,000 for seed money to the trail. rr.r Councilmember D'Aversa • That is tremendous. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 52 of 83 • What was the outcome of the discussion last Monday night when we were proposing taking that funding from the sidewalk system? Mayor Lockwood • We did go over all of that, but asked the City Manager to recap for Councilmember D'Aversa. City Manager Beckett • The $200,000 is composed of $24,000 that we took from improvement from this particular building. • We took $70,000 from legal fees. • We took the balance of $106,000 from the money set aside for park and greenway acquisition. • We budgeted $100,000 specifically for sidewalks this year. • You also have a sidewalk fund that is funded primarily from developers that do not want to put sidewalks in about $47,000 is in that fund currently, so if you approve this budget you will have $147,000. • We adjusted so you could get to the $200,000 specifically for the Milton Trail. • He would encourage Council not to use that to build a section of trail, but to use it for seed money. There was no further Council discussion. POR Vote: The motion passed 5-2, with Councilmember D'Aversa and Councilmember Zahner Bailey voting in opposition. wag NEW BUSINESS City Clerk Marchiafava read agenda item 08-670. Consideration of a Milton -Fulton Sanitary Sewer IGA process. Mayor Lockwood: • Would like to cap the public comments to one minute a piece being the hour that it is and in respect to the citizens that are here as well as the staff. • Asked for feedback from Council. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • Would ask to be respectful of the folks that have sat in the audience for this item to allow them one minute and thirty or forty five. • Regardless of the opinion, she thinks they have sat there long enough. Councilmember Lusk: • In that same vein for the sake of time here and in keeping with our policies in the past, he suggested that we have no duplication of comments. Councilmember Tart: Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 53 of 83 • Given the lack of preparation that the citizenry has had in advance of this meeting and given that bw we are going to be considering maps and IGAs that have not even been posted on the web or given to the citizenry yet, we need to be very careful to limit public comment to one minute a piece, or to say dido when there is a comment to made by somebody else. Mayor Lockwood: • He is trying to be respectful for the people that are here and the staff. • He agreed to one minute and half with a little flexibility. • Also ask the public that if it is a ditto they just say "I agree with the last person", with respect to time. Councilmember Thurman: • Thinks that is a good compromise. Community Development Director Wakefield: • This is a task that took many hours. • Staff has closely and thoroughly scrutinized the proposed Big Creek sewer service area map as presented by Fulton County. • There is a slight difference in the map that Fulton County presented on August 4, 2008 and the map that is currently up for consideration tonight. ^ • Along Cogburn Road, there were six lots approximately 7 acres located in land lots 1050 and 1049 zoned AGI that were removed from consideration by the County. • Also there were approximately 11 acres in land lot 0681 off of Glencreek Way adjacent to Crooked Creek Subdivision that were eliminated from consideration. • In order to deal with this task, staff decided to look at the map from the point of the process of elimination. • We color coded the map of which is on the wall and also shown on the screen and we removed those areas that we thought were not an issue or did not depict a possible sewer extension. • The color codes were as follows: blue, those land lots are the ones identified in the 2006 Inter Basin Transfer Ordinance and that represents approximately 520 acres. • We then applied the ridge line between Big Creek and Etowah and that is the ridge line that the staff of Milton came up with based on the topo. • Again, she had to go on record and say that was not engineered but strictly based on the topo map. • Also those properties that fell under the ridge line are those properties that we feel are in the Big Creek Basin. • That represents approximately 1, 291 acres. • By process of elimination, we looked at property where they were already built out, for example Crooked Creek. • They are shown on the map in dark orange and represents approximately 906 acres. • We then said let's look at those properties that have LDPs, properties that are under construction, properties that have some commitment from Fulton County and of course this was prior to the City of Milton's creation, such as the Weiland Development and Ken Morton's piece of property him in lot 1047. • Those properties are shown in two variations of tan on the map. • There are some properties on Hopewell Road that is under construction. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 54 of 83 • There is the Crabapple Crossing that is under construction, there are some properties along Highway 9 that defaults out of the ridge line and those are under construction, those properties represent 229 acres. • Also because there were some concerns about the school property, we showed those properties in purple and that comes to about 142 acres, which represent the schools in Crabapple and also the school that is on Cogburn Road. • This does not show the proposed high school, nor does it show the school that is north in the un- sewered area, so basically what you have left is approximately 110 acres and these are what we consider to be, nigh nodes, there conceivably could be an interpretation of an extension of sewer. • There are some caveats to some of these parcels. • She wanted to point that out so Council can make a decision on whether they should be included or not be included. • The first property is land lot 1166 and is at the intersection of Arnold Mill Road and Green Road. • It is approximately 8 lots which form a triangle shape and represents approximately 9.76 acres. • The property is currently designated as MIX use on the Comprehensive Land Use Plan. • Six of the lots are zoned AGI with single family homes and 2 other lots are zoned 0-1. • The next property that we think is worthy of consideration of removing is property that is located in land lots 1167, 1136 and this property is locate off of Green Road and is approximately 7.03 acres and is currently zoned AGI. • It is currently designated on the land use plan as one unit or less. • This is one of those sites that the Council may want to have additional discussion about removing it from the sewer service area because it is surrounded by the Waterside Subdivision on 3 sides. Mai • That is a subdivision that came out of a law suit with Fulton County and the developer and the issue surrounded sewer. • The issue of that law suit and the reason that she believes that the County did not prevail in that law suit is because of the language that was in the comprehensive plan at that time. • That language is no longer in the comprehensive plan. • The next property is land lots 1096, 1137, 1168 and is approximately 44 acres located between Waterside Subdivision and Crabapple Village. • This property is part of the Crabapple Master one unit or less and 1.5 units per acre. Plan, the Comprehensive Land Use Plan calls for • There are some smaller tracts that are shown on the Crabapple Plan that calls for a little higher density and I point that out because this is also a site that the City Council may want to have further discussion because when you look at the Crabapple Master Plan, it shows this property at least a portion of the property, except for ten acres being in the Big Creek Sewer Basin. • The same applies to the next tract of land, which is land lots 1061, 1100 and this is at the northwest intersection of Mayfield Road and Freemanville Road. • There are 3 parcels and 2 parcels are total parcels and then it is a portion of a larger lot. • It is adjacent to the Fulton County Board of Education properties, approximately 26 acre. • The Comprehensive Land Plan for the majority of it calls for one unit or less. • Upon further inspection of the Crabapple Plan, it shows that there is the ability to provide some increase density, not a whole lot, ranging from one unit to the acre, to 2.3 units to the acre. • This is also a parcel that Council may want to have some additional discussion about. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 55 of 83 • The next property as we move on to Freemanville Road is in land lot 1060, so approximately five ■.. lots along the eastside of the road where the service area boundary runs diagonally across the lots and represents approximately six acres. • The Comprehensive Land Use Plan calls for one unit or less per acre. • That parcel, the staff is recommending be removed from the service area. • The next group of properties is land lot 1059 and 1058 on Mayfield Road. • There are 2 lots which are dissected by a smaller tract of land in the City of Alpharetta. • These two lots are larger lots and they represent approximately 30 acres, however, there is a small crescent moon that runs across the properties that represent approximately two to three acres shown along the road as being in the sewer service area. • It is currently zoned AGI and the Comprehensive Land Use Plan calls for one unit or less so staff's recommendation is that crescent moon property be removed. • Also if we move on toward Hopewell Road, in land lot 1108 and 1109, it is 7.6 acres of land that is located on the east side of the road and is zoned AG1. • The Comprehensive Land Use Plan calls for one unit or less and the recommendation to remove this property was based on action previously by this body to designate that property to one unit or less. • Then if you go to land lot 1049 at the intersection of Webb Road and Cogburn Road there is a one acre tract of land, zoned AGI, Comprehensive Land Use Plan calls for one unit or less on both sides of it is City of Milton property that is not currently in the service area, so it looks odd to have that one little piece there, so we are recommending that it be removed. • Staff also looked at this and we are recommending that some parcels be kept or added to the service area. • If you go back to Crabapple Road and land lot 36, there are three tracts of land located within the Crabapple development. • Over half of the land falls below the ridge line. • This recommendation only covers the rear portion of these tracts and they are included in the Crabapple Master Plan as areas to be sewered at a higher density, which necessitates sewer, therefore staff is recommending that those properties be kept in the sewer area. • If you go to land lots 1099, Mayfield Road, the rear portion of three parcel tracts of land located within the Crabapple planning area also, over half of the land falls below the ridge line except for one little lot that is above it. • This recommendation only covers the rear portion of the tract and these are included in the Crabapple Master Plan as areas to be sewered and the property is currently zoned MIX and Comprehensive Land Use Plan calls for MIX. • We found something quite unique when we were reviewing the County's plan, we discovered that there is a subdivision that the County is not showing on their sewer service area, however, the subdivision is indeed sewered. • We will admit that there are a few lots that cannot be gravity flow so they are one acre lots and this property is located in land lots 1053, 1108 and is on the eastside of Hopewell Road and represents approximately 46 acres, it is the Vickory Crest Subdivision that is currently under construction. • Structures are coming up out of the ground and it is currently on sewer. • We are asking that be added to the sewer service area. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 56 of 83 • The end result for staff was to produce a proposed Big Creek service area map recommended by the Community Development Department and that map is also posted on the wall and that map represents 84% of the City to remain un-sewered, which is roughly 20,798 acres. • There will remain 3% in the Little River Basin which is roughly 795 acres and the Big Creek service area represents 13% which is roughly 3,344.9 acres and is shown in the darker blue on the map. Mayor Lockwood: • Obviously to everyone this is a very important issue. • He wants to clarify what Ms Wakefield has just said and get our City Attorney to clarify his position on this. • Thanked Ms Wakefield and her staff. • They have put hundreds of hours into this and just to let you know a little about the history, as the City of Milton, we need to have something definite that we can support and basically have some rules to go by so we had asked and Fulton County had presented us a map. • We have to have an IGA with Fulton County; they supply us with sewer and water, so we asked them to supply us with a map of where they thought the boundaries were for sewer in the City of Milton. • They presented us with a map. • This map showed a lot of parcels that were outside of the original 2006 ordinance. • He asked our staff as well as the City Attorney who worked closely with our staff to go through that map and dissect every land lot, every property, everything they could. • He has heard decisions loud and clear and he stands firm. • He does not want to add any additional sewer or density or development or any "extension of sewer". He asked our staff to go through everything and make sure there is nothing in this map that could be constituted as being adding additional sewer or additional density or "extension of sewer" so basically as Ms Wakefield said, they took the map, and he put that map purposefully on the wall so they could see the magnitude of this. • If you take that middle map, everything that is not grey or white, the different colors, the gold, blue, green and the red were the items that were on Fulton county's map that basically showed additional sewer, or sewered areas. • A lot of them were outside the additional land lots and area, but in doing that, a great example and Ms Wakefield mentioned, if you look at the top right hand corner, there are almost 1,000 acres that is Crooked Creek. • Crooked Creek had been developed and built before the City of Milton. • People have been living there, flushing their toilets; it has been hooked up on sewer. • There is nothing we can do about that and as staff went through, and that is why the different color is there, they were either something that was built out, had been granted sewer in the past before Milton or had permission and had taps and LDPs that were issued. • It is a great illustration. • He believes staff was very conservative. • The only land lots or properties that even could be considered, that we were considering that would be additional sewer or giving sewer to, are those properties in the red. • If you look at those properties in the red, it is a very small amount and it is up to us tonight whether we include those properties or not. • If you look at that grey map, it is about 5/8 to 2/3 the size of Milton. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 57 of 83 • Milton is much larger than that and when you look at those small red dots, it gives you the real picture. • We are not looking to sewer Milton or extend sewer into the un-sewered area. • He asked the City Attorney to explain the process that he went through with our staff. City Attorney Ken Jarrard: • Thanked the Mayor and the Community Development Department for all the time and effort. • It was a formidable effort. • These are the latest versions of the Intergovernmental Agreement that he prepared for Council's consideration. • Attached to that IGA are two supporting documents. • One is the 2006 No Inter Basin Transfer Ordinance and the second is the map that staff prepared. • That is the map that our Community Development Department has indicated if adopted would be the map that sets the Fulton County sewer service area within the City of Milton. • The maps are basically educational pieces. • The map that would be the actual sewer area, is the one that is in blue and has primarily blue toward the very end. • There are basically three important colors on that map, there is a dark blue, a light blue which is the little river area. • The dark blue would be the Big Creek sewer area. Purple is the Fulton Board of Education properties. • The IGA is necessary. i.. • Before Fulton County can provide sewer, they have to have an IGA. • They have to have our consent and our agreement. • Conversely both sides obviously need to agree before there can be an agreement. • An IGA is simply a contract between two governments. • This IGA goes through a little bit of history on what has gotten us here. • It embraces the 2006 ordinance. • The No Inter Basin Transfer Ordinance is once again sort of the bed rock principal. • It acknowledges the fact that prior to the creation of Milton, certain things occurred. • First of all there were developments already sewered in Milton and it would be appropriate to Milton to recognize those. • Also there are other developments within Milton that have received such assurances that their development will be allowed to proceed with sewer that it is equitable for Milton to recognize that as well. • This is not something that Milton has done, this is simply something that we have to deal with now that we exist. • We also embraced the fact that the big Creek sewer service area is not particularly controversial. • It is the Etowah that everyone is attempting to protect, so this IGA takes the map created by staff and calls out each of the land lots that are identified in that map by name, the actual number of the land lot and it says that before you are going to be considered part of the Fulton County sewer service area, first of all your property has to be located wholly within one of those land lots, but that is not the only criteria. • The second criteria you have to satisfy is that you look at the land lot and then you have to literally look at the color coding on the map. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 58 of 83 • If your parcel, in fact Ms Wakefield said that at one point they were pulling plats, that is how meticulous it got, they were pulling plats within the land lots to make sure they only color coded the correct area and if you satisfy both of those requirements, the land lot and the color coding then that will be considered part of the Fulton County sewer service area. • If the Council were to adopt this IGA, first of all that does not mean we have a deal, it means that we send it to Fulton County for their consideration. • This is one of the IGAs that is up for Council's consideration this evening. • Fulton County has also provided their version. Mayor Lockwood: • Many people do not have the benefit that he and staff does. • They wonder what the hurry is. • The Community Development Department has been frozen because our staff has no direction on which way to go and there could be pending law suits. • We have to be fair to the people that actually do deserve sewer. • We have to be fair to them, as well as the people that do not get sewer, so we need to come up with something that is cut and dry and reflects what our citizens want and what we were elected to do but also to gives our staff and city direction. • He would like to "put this to bed", draw the line, be able to support it, and then move on to other things and move forward with the City with some quality of life issues and parks and road improvements etcetera. Richard Robbins, 999 Peachtree Street, Atlanta, Georgia 30309: • He is with the law firm of Robbins Law LLC. • He is speaking on behalf of one property, not on the issues generally and that is Howard Carson and his partnership, Cogburn Road Investments. • This relates to the remaining two parcels of the Windward Village that is not yet developed. • These parcels are currently shown as being on the map as approved for sewer access. • They are here to urge the Council to leave those parcels on the map. • They urge the Council to approve the map in the proposed agreement. • Fulton County approved Windward Village plans including the sewer access to these parcels and Mr. Carson in reliance on that, in fact built the Windward Village lift station at more than $700,000. • He has land disturbance permits currently pending for the remaining two parcels. • He has constitutionally protected vested rights. • It is also fair to let him go forward with his plans. Roger Festa, 540 Champions Hills Drive, Milton, Georgia: • Any part of any Fulton County plan is not acceptable. • Fulton County has no love for the City of Milton or any cities that have seceded from it. • He commends the fact that staff has done this tremendous amount of work and come up with a lot better plan that what he first saw, however, we are missing one little step and that one little step that we are missing is that people just got this stuff over the weekend. Now • Most of us did not get it until today and the step that is missing is a little time for people to look at it, digest it. • There is no reason to not just let people digest it a little and make sure that staff has it right. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 59 of 83 • He has looked at the maps and there are subdivisions that are just not there. ++° • He developed some of those subdivisions that are not even on the map that are on sewer. • He ran that sewer so he knows where the sewer is. • Fulton County sewer map is not even correct. He would like Council to defer this for a couple of weeks so everybody can look at it. Sue Samples, 13310 Providence Road, Milton, Georgia: • His family has been in this area for thirty five years. • He is in total favor in keeping the rule at the character we all love, but he is also a realist and understands that we must have smart growth to allow us to financially operate. • If we have a very limited amount of property zoned commercial, which it seems we do and we prevent it from being developed, he is concerned that his property tax is going to rise rapidly. • He is not in favor of that. • With all due respect to the sewer issue, it seems it has become a political ploy to further confuse citizens to try and make them think we are doing something we are not actually doing. • Council needs to bring this to conclusion and go ahead with the vote and complete this transaction. John Bratten, 440 Bethany Green Cove: • He is President of the Homeowners' Association. • A couple of things, the sewer is obviously very important to us, we view it as a gateway to density and an impact potentially to the rural nature of our community. • He would agree with one of the speakers who said we would like to postpone this. • Looked at what was published on line, at the IGA and we found many mistakes. • They have not had a chance to really look at this, in fact some of the lot numbers were changed on a couple of maps. • Do not see the rush. • Thinks it is important to get this done right and would like to know when they can expect to have this published so they can review it. • Would like to have the opportunity to contribute to some of the input. Laura Bentley, 2500 Bethany Church Road, Milton Georgia: • Thanked staff and the City Attorney. • Knows they worked hard on this and this is a great step in the right direction. • Request that Council not vote on any sewer service agreement tonight. • Citizens do not have these maps. • The newly revised map has not been provided to the public and Council with adequate time for review. • During the August 4th work session, there was no indication from the Mayor of the time frame of which this issue would be voted on. Poo • In fact it was stated in the meeting minutes, "we can come back at the next meeting and narrow this down and get everyone's questions answered." • Based on that statement it was assumed that a work session would be the next step to determine this critical issue for our community. • It appears that this issue has now become time sensitive. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 60 of 83 • Would like to understand why they are rushing to vote on such an important decision. Citizens are here tonight with good intent and the desire to understand the details of this very complicated r issue. • Please allow a work session to take place so that they can all move forward with a policy in which due diligence has taken place. • It will be a relief to have a policy in place that they have all been able to study, discuss, and ultimately agree to. Rose Prestianni,105 Providence oaks Point, Milton Georgia: • Thanked Robyn MacDonald for taking some time to explain the maps to them. • The dilemma is there just was not enough time for the number of people. • She sent a letter to the Council and would like to take a couple of minutes to point out a couple of key points in it. • Some of which have been brought to their attention tonight. • First she would like to say thank you to Councilmember Allen Tart for at least bringing up the opportunity to delay, just to delay the vote. • Disappointed that it was voted down. • Should have given the citizens a little bit more time. • It is not that we are against doing the right thing. • We want to do the right thing but we think it has such a tremendous impact to the future of our city that as one other citizen said we need to give this due diligence. • Something this critical that has the potential to change our future forever really needs to be given care, time, attention and thought. • There was missing data, confusing data, not enough time to review the data. • Would like Council to prove that they can do the right thing. • Please involve citizens in the process. • Let us help to decide the future of Milton. • Staff has done some fantastic work here. • It just seems that a little bit more needs to be done. Carolyn Etchison, 200 Green Road, Milton, Georgia • They are surrounded on three sides by a subdivision, which they went to court about and lost, because that is sewered and they did not want sewer on the north side of Green Road, however, the court decided that Waterside Subdivision could go in so they are completely surrounded by the Waterside Subdivision. • It would only be logical that their property also would be sewered. Phil Etchison, 200 Green Road, Milton, Georgia: • He has lived there for about 41 years. • They have seven acres along Green Road and would have liked to keep it less dense than it is but the court decided a few years ago that Waterside Subdivision would come there and they did and MIR it is sewered and they are surrounded by that on three sides. • The forth side is Green Road which is the boundary of Milton. Would like to have those seven ,,,,,A, acres available for sewer at some time. • It is not now, but it could be hooked into the Waterside sewer and they think that is the logical way to go and they ask Council's agreement with that. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 61 of 83 Vic Jones, 1125 S. Bethany Creek Drive, Milton Georgia: • He reviewed the previous IGA and looked at the 2006 agreement. • He has been to Council meetings on the topic. • Was present when Ms Riley made her presentation early August. • He has seen people stand up here and make pleas for their property to have sewer and be deferred while more information is gathered. • He has heard the Council's desire to roll up their sleeves and work through this. • He was part of the original searing committee that worked hard to bring this city to a vote, working alongside Councilpersons Lusk, Thurman and D'Aversa. • He has lived in Milton since 1999 and knows what this area was when he moved here and has seen the changes that occurred when Fulton County was calling the shots. • He understands what the vision is for Milton. • Believes the majority of people that live in Milton, developers included, share that same vision. • We are different from our neighbors in Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Alpharetta, and Roswell and we are proud of it. • Our vision is a far cry from what we find with our neighbors. He does not want to see high density, residential or over abundance of commercial. He feels like there are more pressing issues and that we need to get this resolved. • Decide on this tonight and move forward. Louis Russo, 200 Wigton Drive, Milton Georgia: • Very impressed with the maps and all of the colors, although he is colored blind and it takes a little while to figure what the colors are. • He is less impressed with the exceptions, the variations, the precedent setting and it is seemingly every three months that we seem to be gathered here and all of these people come to remind the board what we wanted when we elected the board. • We do not want high density. • We do not want expansion of the sewer, and he hears people say, it is only seven acres, but then you put how many people on those seven acres. • He cannot even water his grass because people say we have to many people but yet we can put x number of people on seven acres where right now we have low density. • He also objects to the heavy handed way we dealt with this as far as getting this so quick, hearing about it this week end, being at the end of a three hour meeting. • It is not the way this should be done. He agrees with the people who say, why we are in such a rush for this other than the obvious reason. • He understands why Fulton does it. • They do not care if we are stacked up nine deep. • The only thing he has to ask is when the red, if it gets approved, what turns into red the next time? Julie Worley, 2590 Burgess Road, Alpharetta, Georgia: • When Mr. Beckett introduced the 2008 and 2009 budgets tonight, he said that there had been �.. ample time for your review and also for the public review. • She thought that was a very interesting point and that same courtesy should be extended to us in this very important question of the sewer. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 62 of 83 • "Thinks Council needs to allow us a chance to understand what is going on with these new maps. No 1W Garfield Cousins, 310 Wigton Drive, Milton Georgia: • It is commendable to see so many of the citizens of Milton come here to participate in their government. • Believes Council should respect that and give them the chance to participate. Paul Moore, 15290 White Columns Drive, Milton Georgia: • Here to speak as a private citizen and not representing the Planning Commission and as such he would like to remind Council of the unanimous motion put forward on August 4th by the planning commission that supported the 2006 IGA and No Inter Basin Transfer Policy adopted as Ordinance. • The ordinance is land lot and parcel specific. • Any new policy or changes need to be the same, land lot and parcel specific. • Let us not be fooled by the Fulton County semantics of what the sewer service area is. • If you have to lay one more inch of pipe, it is sewer extension, their map would detect sewer everywhere. • We need to refuse to accept the Fulton County maps. • We need to only approve maps for sewer service for Milton as we have understood them and adopted when we became a City. • Maps with the corrections to reflect where sewer was already provided, corrected to show where the true lines are already exist and to show where the LDPs have been already issued and that is it. • Most important part of any ordinance approved tonight needs to be the adoption with the corrected maps and the No Inter Basin Transfer Policy. • We need the protections this policy puts into place as far back as 2002 at a December 10th meeting of the Etowah Basin Advisory Council and the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District, they were concerned too that much water was being transferred out, long before drought today. • A No Inter Basin Transfer Policy ensures the water stays in the basin. • Please ensure our ordinance includes a No Inter Basin Transfer Policy. Dennis Potts, 2745 Webb Road, Milton Georgia: • Supports sewer and the IGA in our commercial areas. • It is only financially responsible and environmentally responsible to approve sewer to our commercial areas. • For the record, he does not agree with the map completely. • He can show a red dot on there which is the Coffee property which is at the corner of Cogburn Road and Windward Parkway. • It is a red dot and it already has the sewer. • When the Dana Group put the Windward extension through, one of the conditions that the Coffees asked for was the sewer. • They have the manhole right on their property, so why would it be excluded. • It already has sewer, so it does not even need this judgment. • If the Howard Carson property becomes sewered, which it should be sewered then he is surrounded, 100% by sewer and he is for the umpteenth time left out of the picture. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 63 of 83 • He should be reconsidered for sewer because he is surrounded by sewer zoned commercial. Chuck Campbell, 550 Kensington Farms Road, Milton, Georgia: • Ask tonight that we push this issue forward. • We agree on 98 to 99% of what we want this sewer policy to be. • We have many issues in front of this city, namely finding another City Manager, another capable City Manager. • Ask that we move this issue forward as quickly as possible. Phoebe Loughrey, 14735 Wood Road, Milton, Georgia: • Earlier there was someone who was asking for the variance to go from AG 1 to the townhouses. • She understands that location. • She understands why that should happen, but what everyone may not know is that all of these areas shown here, when she moved here were AG 1. • This is why we are so testy about extending sewer at all because they say it is just going to be here and then next week it is there and it is further and further and like someone said, it is red today, how much further is that red going to be there tomorrow. • It would also be nice to be able to extend this so we could have a little more time to look at this. Richy Guida, 470 Champion View Drive, Milton, Georgia: POW • Here with some other neighbors from Champions View Subdivision and we are from my family standpoint, not supportive of high density growth, just like the Mayor said. • In fact we chose to live where we live for the very reason of lot size and so forth. • Given all of the discrepancies we have heard tonight and questions about what may be on the map and maybe not on the map and differences of interpretation, he frankly thinks it would be irresponsible to call for a hard vote right now without giving everyone the opportunity to take a look at this stuff. • With information just showing up literally Friday, Saturday and early Sunday morning, as important as the issue is, he would really appreciate the Council's consideration to delay and have a chance to digest this. John O'Neil, 435, Champions View Drive, Milton, Georgia: • Would like to echo what Ricky said. • It would be prudent to wait and give everybody a chance to study the maps that might be new to the process. • If you do not have enough income or revenue, the problem is not how much money you bring in, but the problem is how much you spend, so if it is concerns about increasing tax, industry, commercial, maybe we need to think about how we can keep our budgets in line. Scott Reece, 846 Cowart Road, Dawsonville, Georgia: • Scott Reece doing business at 13685 Highway 9, Alpharetta Georgia. • As a business owner and a property owner in the City of Milton, it just continually amazes him that we do not control our growth with zoning like every other municipality in the State and in the Country. • Sewer is a product. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 64 of 83 • He does not understand why we are using it to control growth, why we are abdicating our position as far as controlling growth with design. • If sewer is available to these properties, and it is gravity flow, why are we spending hours and hours and money on deciding on a map when it is simple enough to say, if the property flows to the sewer by gravity then it is a sewer accessible property. • If not, then it is not sewer accessible. • If the zoning is set on the property and it is currently zoned commercial, it needs to be used commercially and our tax revenues need to be reflected in that. Brooke Hunter, 14680 Wood Road, Milton, Georgia: • Agrees with the gentleman that just spoke. • She would like Council to move forward. • There are logical additions to sewer extension, commercial, O -I, those surrounded as the Etchinsons were. • She remembers when it went to court. • She remembers sitting in Bob Fulton's office when we finally convinced him to make a sewer policy. • She believes that there are places where sewer needs to be extended into this community. • She thinks the comprehensive plan is the means by which to slow density. David T -G, 15835 Westbrook Road, Milton, Georgia: • Grateful for the forum. • Very grateful for the staff members who have done such a lot of work. • He drives past Kingsridge School daily. • He does not know anything about the school, good, bad or indifferent, but it makes his blood boil that the school has been able to tie into sewer simply because it is across the street from a development which was itself permitted to have sewer in the back door, so to speak, and then ran it right out through the front. • He understands that through the normal workings of Fulton County's internal or administrative process, additional sewer permits were granted that may or may not have originally been part of the 2006 agreement. • We should not move to quickly. • The right thing is to not stand for any vagueness or inconsistency or something unknown in an agreement. • The map that has been presented to our City by Fulton County does not reflect the state at the time of the 2006 Inter Governmental Agreement. • There are still questions about the allocations of various areas, the staff has made a Herculean effort to dissect the map but we have to get the answers before we can make a decision. • Please do not ratify any agreement tonight. Diane Maloney, 14420 Wood Road, Milton Georgia: • Feel we need to table this issue. • We are all human, everybody makes mistakes. • She appreciates all of the work that staff has put in on these maps but we have not had a chance .� to review them. • It needs due diligence. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 65 of 83 • It is obviously very important to everybody that is here. Cary Schlenke, 490 The Hermitage Drive, Milton Georgia: • She has been following this closely. • She understands the maps and the agreements. • She understands the IGA was incorrect and we are trying to fix it. • She read the new proposed IGA from Fulton County. • She finds it to be very flimsy and very weak. • She has not had a chance to see the one that Mr. Jarrard spoke of. • She does not feel there is enough time to make a vote on any of those agreements because of the outstanding issues. • She would like more time to look at the maps. • A couple of things that I noticed tonight, land lot 1029, was not called out. • She thinks that is worth investigating. • She also saw a couple of maps or land lots that are within the City of Milton that show red sewer lines that are not listed. • She does not have a lot of confidence in these maps and would appreciate if Council would table this. Leon Cole, 16700 Birmingham Parkway, Milton, Georgia: • He has lived on his property for forty years. • He finds it necessary to address his elected official as he did Fulton County on an issue that would impact our City in the near and distant future. • He remembers the election time pledges that the majority of this Council, five of you, made that you would be in opposition to the extension of sewer in our City. • People do not forget what you promise. • Tonight is not the night to vote on this issue, not on the document that was on the City's web site and not on any modification recently made to that document, which incidentally the people have never seen, nor have they been given the opportunity for input. • The sewer issue is so important to us that we expect sound judgment by our officials. • A judgment not made on the spot with a hurry up and get it done attitude, but a sound judgment made by an in depth study of the ramifications that this extension of sewer presents. • Please do not vote to sign any agreement with Fulton County tonight. Todd Chernik, 430 Bethany Green Cove, Milton, Georgia: • He is speaking tonight as a concerned citizen and not as a board member. • It is hard to find humor in anything of this nature but a famous quote from a movie, Cool Hand Luke, I think what we have here is a failure to communicate. • We are hearing from the public tonight, we would like to have some time to digest, ensure that what we are presenting to Fulton County and any Intergovernmental Agreement is accurate since ••• we will be bound by this going forward. • We please ask for your willingness to hear further from the public, point out any discrepancies before we move forward with a vote on this. Carol Lane, 14890 East Bluff Road, Milton, Georgia: • Concerned about this proposal to approve this document that we have not seen. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 66 of 83 • The IGA that has been on the web site does not mention the 2006 Inter Basin Agreement, No Inter Basin Transfer Agreement. • That is a mild stone or corner stone into what the City will become by approving these land lots and not having a No sewer Inter agreement. • The next property that comes up could come up and request sewer and there is no way to stop sewer, so even if you have the top part of the City of Milton that is not sewered today, if you pass this tonight, we will be a sewered city and what we have all hoped for and the community we have lived in will be no different than all the others that we moved away from. Bill Loughrey, 14735 Wood Road, Milton, Georgia • The staff aptly described the proposal tonight, the extension of sewer and then listed dozens of parcels that sewer would be extended to. • The critical issue for the overwhelming majority of people in Milton City for Fulton County was the no sewer policy which was implemented by Bob Fulton. • He religiously stuck to that policy for a number of years. • Unfortunately he passed on and then after that the lame duck Fulton County Commission, not a single one of which lives and a majority of which does not represent here, now wants you to ratify what they did after we decide to have our City and that is wrong. • If you look at the two Milton campaigns, there were five votes that made a commitment not to extend sewer and in fact that last election, two members were ousted specifically because they did not make firm enough commitments to oppose the extension of sewer. • If the issue is we need more money, well Bob Fulton and he got forty two million to expand Georgia 400 and upgrade eighteen intersections. • The City can take the same initiatives and get that money. • It is important that we not engage in the cynical thing of running for election one way and govern another and give the people downtown another excuse to oppose Milton County. That completed public comment. Mayor Lockwood: • Obviously, there are some misinterpretations. He made it very clear with staff that this was to draw the boundary so we could support this. • Those who already had sewer and deserve sewer, get it, but we do not add any sewer and we do not extend any sewer. • The red dots are the dots staff recommended taking out to make sure there was no extension of sewer. • At this time if there are no questions for our City Attorney, he will open this up for a motion. Councilmember Thurman: • Asked if we were going to limit the amount of time for questions for each Councilmember. Mayor Lockwood: • We will be glad to let each Councilmember ask questions. Councilmember Tart: 9 He would like some time to review this. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 67 of 83 • He would like some time for the citizens to review this issue. • Asked Community Director Wakefield to speak to issue that was brought up about land lot 1029. Community Development Director Wakefield: • That property is not shown as being sewered. Councilmember Tart: • An enormous amount of work went into this obviously very late last week and he does appreciate that. • Thinks we are moving in the right direction. • The problem we heard tonight is not necessarily that this map is necessarily bad. • What we have heard is that we need to talk about it more. • Howard Carson's property has come up specifically. • Asked the City Attorney which land lots were his property. Community Development Director Wakefield: • That property is covered by several land lots. • It is land lots 1042, 1041, 1040, 1048, and 1047. Councilmember Tart: • Asked the City Attorney to affirm that allowing sewer to go to this area would not be in violation of the 2006 No Inter Basin Transfer Ordinance? City Attorney Jarrard: • Every land lot would require a little bit of a different analysis. • For instance, the analysis for 1041 may not be the same as the analysis for 1040. • The short answer to your question is yes. • Irrespective of which one it was, we are mindful that was one that there was a concern about and the facts that were presented to me was that there was an LDP issued for what was a phased development by Fulton County and that since the LDP had been issued there have been expenditures with respect to that LDP. • Although the particular parcel that may be in question right now is not currently under development, there was enough there to give rise to a conclusion by me that it should go forward and that was the basis upon which I made the conclusion. Councilmember Tart: • If there are parcels that are being developed or have already been developed, even if those are in the Etowah Basin, we need to consider those differently than a land lot or parcel that has absolutely no development that has been issued an LDP but they have not even cut ground yet. • What was the threshold that was used to say there has been a lot of money spent or excessive money spent or a lot of infrastructure development that sends this over the edge versus another 000 one. `4l* City Attorney Jarrard: • It was significant that there was an LDP for a multi phased development that encompassed all of the various components of this. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 68 of 83 • There was an LDP that covered all of the phases of them and based upon that factual presentation, he simply went to the case law and then advised Ms Wakefield accordingly. Councilmember Tart: • Was that the standard used for any type of development that would have been similarly situated? City Attorney Jarrard: • It was. Councilmember Tart: • He is concerned about discussion they just had on why, what makes that development different and what makes other developments different are not captured. • That whole discussion is not captured in the IGA. • There is not any language in the proposed IGA from staff or the attorney that says, this is what makes these developments different than other developments and he is worried about precedent setting going forward. Councilmember D'Aversa: • Most everyone has probably realized that she is in support of deferring this item to at least next Monday night and having a work session. • That is what we promised on August 4th • We promised that it would be brought before us in a work session and a work session is quite a different type of a meeting and far more informal than this meeting is here tonight. • Staff has done a tremendous job and she is sorry that they were forced to do it in such a short time frame and not be able to take the time that was needed to evaluate all of the service areas. • We deserve more time than this. She heard Community Development Director Wakefield say we need additional discussion about all of the properties that are noted in red. • She certainly supports that and that is why we need to have our work session for next Monday night or a subsequent work session to discuss this. • The minute we open up the additional sewer services, we have citizens, and we have had this situation happen in the past, the minute we start talking about lets allow a property that maybe did not fall within the No Inter Basin Transfer Ordinance, we have a person that will come forward and suggest that their property too needs to have that sewer. • Mr. Potts gave you a case and point tonight. • He was the very first person that came before us. • It has been months and months ago and immediately he sat down in his chair and another citizen came up and said "you know what if you are going to consider Mr. Potts property too I want that service as well." • Would like to see the documentation that supports Mr. Carson's property, having the sewer since it does fall outside the No Inter Basin Transfer Ordinance. • The business owner that came before us and questioned why we are using density to control growth, the reason why we are doing that is because there are no guarantees. • Again, the currently sewered areas are not in question. • We are not going to hold anybody up, any business owner, any residents, any developer from ` connecting to sewer where there is a current area. • She has not supported holding anybody up where there is a current area. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 69 of 83 • There is no since of urgency here that is going to cause a hardship for someone. • It is not really about the sewer service, it is not about necessarily controlling density but it is about how we go about as a governing body making decisions. • We just owe it to the citizens and to ourselves to take a little bit more time on an issue that the citizens survey came back telling us was one of the top three issues of concern in the City of Milton. Councilmember Hewitt: • He appreciates everyone being here and sharing their concerns whatever they may be. • He does not support the maps received from Fulton County, but he does have strong confidence in our staff and our City Attorney and the maps that they have presented to us today. • Asked the City Attorney: "I had somebody approach me this week end asking about land lots and whether they are totally in it if it is called out or whether it is partially in it, this that or the other. Specifically land lot 832. I know the quick count in the whole map there is probably about fifty of these that are like this so 832 is just a sample of it. The area south of Bethany Bend, land lot 832 is south. The east corner of Bethany and Cogburn, I guess is the new proposed high school site, just to give everyone a frame of reference, it is color coded currently on the map as a LDP parcel; the area south of Bethany Bend. The area north of Bethany Bend is not coded. It is color coded the gray as a not sewered area. Am I receiving that correctly and how is that reflected in the text version of the IGA?" City Attorney Jarrard: • That is correct. • Land lot 832 with respect to Bethany Road, the south part of land lot 832, below Bethany Road would be part under the map that has been prepared and presented to you today, would be part of the Fulton sewer service area. • The area north of Bethany Road, still within that land lot would not be a sewer serviceable area. • It is broken down. • Land lot is your first criteria, you have to satisfy but then you have to actually satisfy the color coded area as well and only the part south of Bethany is color coded for sewer. Councilmember Hewitt: • Asked if the way that it is captured in the text version of the IGA is referring back to the map? City Attorney Jarrard: • The text to the IGA captures the map, calls out the land lot, and then says check the land lot area for the color coding and that is in the IGA. Councilmember Hewitt: • He does not have any doubt or argument that this IGA is just mind boggling when you sit down and read it. !�* • We have gotten somewhere around 95 or 96% that is either school property, built out and the Big Creek Basin called out on the 2006 agreement under construction, LDP status. lir • To Councilperson Tina D'Aversa's point, how does it stop in my mind from the next lot. • We made these criteria under consideration which are the red areas inter basin transfer. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 70 of 83 • He has spent a lot of time thinking about this, as probably everyone has, waking up in the middle of the night and this is what we are thinking about. • While that is good it is also real bad. • In those thoughts, he has done a lot of soul searching with both head heart. • He believes that he is doing what he said he would do and not extending any sewer based on this map that our capable staff has put together. • He thinks the Milton proposal dots our is and crosses our is without going against our citizens wishes. Councilmember Lusk: • He pretty much echoes what Councilmember Hewitt stated. He has deliberated over these maps until all of these colors run together. • Nothing is ever perfect. • This is not going to be perfect. • He thinks it is probably at this time as close as we can get to being something that we really can work with. • He understands the whole issues here. • He understands the quest not to expand sewer throughout Milton and has spoken his position in the past. • We are as close as we are going to get to nailing down the boundaries of this service area. • It has always been vague with Fulton County. • Whenever Fulton County granted sewer service to any parcel or land lot out here it was an administrative issue. No • They did not go back with every single case out here and update the map on a daily basis, so he can understand some of the confusion out there and some of the lack of confidence in the Fulton County maps because they did not update them on a regular basis. • So what we got from them was never really complete but we have probably reached a level of completeness within the past week and with the current discussions we have had and even as recently as today with further scrutiny of these parcels and land lots, we are probably 99.9944% pure on it. • We have something here that I think we can work with, we can enforce and that we can on with. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • This is an issue that has to do with the future of your city and the seven of us are here to represent the citizens. • It is not about emotion for me it is about land use and it is about sewer extension. • It is about sewer extension. • It is about sewer extension and she has reviewed this information for a long, long time. • She got a new map Friday and was teaching, so the first time that she could see that map was Friday about midnight. • She got a new IGA at two in the morning on Sunday, that was yesterday and we are being asked to review a map, lots of maps. """ • She spent the whole week end trying to understand these maps, because that is a map and this is ft a different map and that is a different map and that is a different map and that is a different map and those are to be compared and contrasted with these maps that we had. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15,2008,6:00 PM Page 71 of 83 • There is a lot of data that deserves attention and this audience is only reflective of a lot citizens that care about this issue. • We have been working on this issue for fourteen years, why in the world, with all due respect would we jump to conclusion when the people we represent have not seen the first map, other than what is on this wall tonight. • She is ashamed that we have this on our agenda and that we as a body are being asked to make a vote when we have not had the first discussion about this new map and IGA. • Had we been given the opportunity for a work session, respectfully Mayor we would have had an opportunity with all of these maps open, with everybody at the table, with our City Attorney, with our community development person to say explain this land lot to me or lets refer to the fact that Fulton County's maps are inaccurate. • Community Development Director Wakefield has already identified, but with respect to what we are considering, it is not a light issue and here we are, it is quarter to eleven and we have not even started to talk about the red, which we have heard from our community development director, absolutely represents sewer extension. • It was a while ago that you first heard her introduce this issue, but there are nine red nodes, to use the term of our city Attorney that represents sewer extension, so at the first premise is that we are here tonight to talk about not extending sewer then we have to start with those nine red nodes. • Some people might say we are 98% there. • We are on the road to the right decision and we can get to a map. • This deserves more than one hour. • All we have asked is to have this taken to a work session so that not only can we as a deciding body make a good decision, so that we can ask our community development staff, our City Attorney, substantive questions, not emotional questions, about the data. • The fact that we have nine red nodes that represent sewer extension and it is sewer extension. • We have an analysis that is three pages from our Community Development Director Alice Wakefield, which we also got Friday afternoon and it says land lot 1166 is sewer extension. Land lot 1167, 1136 off of Green Road, it is sewer extension. • Land lot 1096, 1137, 1168, it is sewer extension. • Land lost 1061 and 1100, it is sewer extension. • Land lot 106, it is sewer extension. • Land lot 1059 and 1058 that is sewer extension. • Land lots 1108 and 1109 that is sewer extension. Land lot 1049 that is sewer extension. • If we are going to decide for sewer extension, so be it, but let's have some dialogue that encompasses our comprehensive land use plan in process, that encompasses our CPAC committee and most importantly involves our community. • We should not be making a decision unilaterally about the biggest issue that faces our community. • If we go to land lot 1097, she is looking at what a hand written note says is map three and I will ask our City Attorney does map three correspond to your attachment B because we did not get anything that told us if attachment B was map three. City Attorney Jarrard: • The map that is the basis for the Fulton Sewer service area is the map that was prepared that is blue that is overwhelmingly blue. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 72 of 83 Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • My question again, this is a basic question, what was attached to the IGA says exhibit B. Community Development Director Wakefield: That is map three. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • Ok, so map three equals exhibit B. • Looking at map three, land lot 1097, when we go back to the Fulton County map, it indicates that on the Fulton County's version there is no infrastructure highlighted and yet we come to our map which is supposedly based on Fulton County's data and we show that being sewered. Community Development Director Wakefield: • If you are asking why is that particular land lot shown as an area to be sewered, it is basically because that particular property is commonly referred to as the Braden Subdivision by John Weiland and there is an approved land disturbance permit, although there are some EPA issues with it but it is a project that was under construction and the utilities are in the ground. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • The reason that she brings the question is that the majority of land lots that are the foundation for this IGA and that the majority of land lots that are the foundation for this revised map that we are all just now getting, in large part is the dependence on Fulton County to highlight where sewer exist and/or where it does not. • She does appreciate the hours that have gone into this but there are other examples where Fulton County's map that we had received from Lynn Riley and our maps now show something else. • She is not suggesting that perhaps staff has not been able to reconcile all of those, but simply highlighting that as an example, but, one example where we may be relying on some data from Fulton County that we have not yet been able to validate ourselves, unless Ms. Wakefield can tell me that she has validated every single parcel and every single land lot on this map. Community Development Director Wakefield: • She has went through every parcel on this map, every land lot, and has spent countless hours going through the Fulton County site, going through the map with staff. • In the case of 1097, we have the land disturbance permit. • The city is in control of it. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • So on the 1097 to highlight that as an example, the Fulton County map, which we did rely on for some other ones, did not show infrastructure, yet they approved the infrastructure and yet their map did not show it. • The point being if we have relied on Fulton County's maps, perhaps they need and deserve a little bit of validation. Community Development Director Wakefield: ..w • It could be because we have an active land disturbance permit the property has not been platted yet, so that is why you are probably not going to see the lines on the County's map. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 73 of 83 Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • Again, she uses it as an illustration that it is not as simple as let's get her done just because we are going to get her done. • We need to do it and do it right. Mayor Lockwood: • As the Chair, he is going to break in and this may not be very popular, but this is the reason he is not supporting a work session. • He does not want to see our staff put on trial on this. • We are not all going to come to terms exactly on this. • We can go around in a big circle and come back. • We can spend three more hours on this. • We can spend two weeks on this, but we are all going to come back to the same decision. • At this point, we could beat this thing to death. • He certainly respects everyone in this room, the only thing he is hearing is people would like more time. • He has not talked to anybody who disagreed with the map. • He has the benefit of the knowledge that a lot of the Council does not hear. • He lives it everyday here at City Hall and with our staff. • We have lost several good people with the City and it has cost us probably hundreds of thousand of dollars. • We have not been able to move forward. • Everybody looks around and twiddles their thumbs all day because they do not know which direction to go. • We have to move forward. • Continue with your questions. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • 1034: why is the bottom right corner showing sewer service? • Fulton County does not appear to have any existing pipes or sewer service. Community Development Director Wakefield: • Asked if she was talking about the property that goes to Providence Road. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • There is a portion of 1034 that on Fulton County's map that shows no sewer and yet we are showing it as sewered. Community Development Director Wakefield: • Because it is an existing subdivision that is there. • It is an existing property that is there. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: 9 Asked if she could confirm what subdivision. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 74 of 83 rublic Works Director Drake: Providence Oaks. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • Asked if they were confirming that portion of 1034 is fully piped. Community Development Director Wakefield: • It is part of Providence Oaks. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • Ok and you believe that whole corner is part of 1034? Community Development Director Wakefield: Yes. Mayor Lockwood: • Asked the City Attorney what his opinion is on this plan and this proposal from staff. City Attorney Jarrard: • With respect to the overall proposal, he was one of the individuals that actually worked with the Community Development Director to come up with it. • He likes the map. • He drafted the IGA. • He obviously understands the debate that is going on but is comfortable with the map based upon what he knows the process was. Mayor Lockwood: • At some point you have to trust your staff and your professional people to make judgment calls, instead of going through every item. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • On page 3 of 3 Land lot 1136 on Crabapple Road, she asked the City Attorney to please comment as to whether that is sewer extension or if that currently has sewer. Community Development Director Wakefield: • Those are two parcels that, one is Crabapple Crossing and the crossroad wraps around. • A large portion of both properties fall below the ridgeline. • The northern portion falls above the ridgeline. • The staff's recommendation on this one is to keep it as part of the sewer service area and also because it is part of the Crabapple Plan which we can show that, which clearly calls for these lots to be in the Big Creek sewer basin area to be sewered. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • The statement out of the analysis is that these areas are to be sewered because it needs higher +�++ density and it makes the point that sewer brings higher density. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 75 of 83 Community Development Director Wakefield: • The plan itself calls for higher density on these lots. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • She would like to confirm that legally the master plan is not a sewer policy. • The master plan does not include language that says sewer will be extended to this parcel. • It talks about a comprehensive land use plan master plan and we have always separated the sewer policy from that. City Attorney Jarrard: • The memo by Ms Wakefield points out that it is in fact a red node. • It is identified as a red node which under the operational definition we have been using is a sewer extension node. • So just to clarify then, on page 3 of 3 of the analysis, 1136 would be a sewer extension and that it is up to us as policy makers to decide if we want to be consistent with not sewer extension, we could opt to not include that in the map? City Attorney Jarrard: Yes. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • She is just clarifying that from her perspective, land lot 1136 is sewer extension. • She could not support that because it is sewer extension and we said we are not going to support sewer extension. • Land lot 1099 is identified by our staff legitimately as a red node, which means it is sewer extension as was just defined, which means if we were to approve that we would be approving sewer extension on Mayfield Road to land lot 1099. Councilmember Thurman: • To clarify that because that may be his opinion, but it is not Fulton County Attorney's opinion. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • She is asking our City Attorney, who is on our staff, to provide us his opinion. City Attorney Jarrard: • Yes, land lots, 1136 and 1099 as identified in the memo and on the map are the red nodes. • The red nodes, the operational definition is a sewer extension based upon the definition that he came up with. • He came up with it based upon what the 2006 policies with respect to sewer of Fulton County were when Milton came into existence. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: 1,,,. • And again, it ties to the red map and the red nodes that are where sewer extension is and we as policy makers have to decide. • Are we going to approve sewer extension or are we not. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 76 of 83 • Ok, land lots 1053 and 1108, these are the ones on Hopewell Road. Is this Richard Warnick's No property? Community Development Director Wakefield: • Yes it is. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • When he was with us on August 4th that he himself noted that part of his subdivision is in Big Creek and therefore is sewered, but another portion of his property is actually definitively in the Etowah and he came to the microphone that evening and said that the reason he was not sewering all of his parcels was because he acknowledged that they were not to be sewered and that is why they were approved, fronting on Hopewell Road as a one unit per acre. • Again, she would just say that she could not support 1053 and 1108 as being approved as part of our map if this goes to a vote tonight. • She cannot support that because it is sewer extension. Community Development Director Wakefield: • If you look at 1108, a good portion of that property falls below the ridgeline and Mr. Warnick, which we have and we the City of Milton is processing the construction of that property, a good portion of those lots are smaller than one acre and they are dispersed throughout. • It is not a clear indication of where the divide is. • That is one of those site plans that we pulled and looked at. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • When it was approved, it was approved with the one unit per acre fronting on Hopewell Road, so she would ask that if we are going to look at a map that does not extend sewer that we please be consistent with those earlier approvals and again on page 3 of 3; that analysis defines these as sewer extension. • She would also like to bring up that on the 1040 land lot; that has been a debate for a number of years and it is not developed currently. • She questions that an LDP for a multi phase development actually grants or provides a vested right to sewer, especially given that the No Inter Basin Transfer Policy says that no land will be pumped that would take sewer from the Etowah into the Big Creek. • That parcel would require pumping because it is not gravity fed. Community Development Director Wakefield: • She a copy of the plan from Fulton County which showed the entire seventy five acres and this was phase evolvement and first came to Fulton County for rezoning for MIX use in 1998 which shows the entire property with the construction of the pumps, the lift station and the extension of the sewer line and what is remaining on the property is two phases: the one that you pointed out at the corner which is a commercial development and an office development and it is a five phase development. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: Naw • If you have a copy of that, that would be great. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 77 of 83 • Again if we had more time than 2 am on Sunday until now to review the IGA and some of this data, we could have gotten through it without having to spend time in a public forum like this because we need time to make good decisions. • She still has a question about 1040. • She questions the fact that it is not fully developed and if we had another week, we could provide that evidence. • We could talk more about case law as opposed to jumping to the conclusion that, that has always been for sewerability. City Attorney Jarrard: • He would like to speak to that issue real quick and obviously the issue of vesting or grandfathering is a difficult issue. • It is a call that city and county attorneys get asked to make all the time and we have to make them, otherwise they are made by a judge and jury so they are a difficult call to make and that is a call that he made based upon the information that he had. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • With due respect, she asked if he could clarify that he received actual data and has been able to personally review that to make that conclusion. City Attorney Jarrard: • No. • He relied on the Community Development Director. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • She just did not know if there was now new data that she had not been privy to. • Again, she thinks an issue like that, especially on Webb Road which is the introduction to the rest of our community deserves a physical look by our City Attorney. • With regards to map 3 and she is repeating it to make sure she has it right is exhibit B to the IGA put forward by Jarrard and Davis. • By her estimations of looking at those red nodes and comparing it to map 3, she would ask that if there be consideration tonight of a map or an IGA that none of those red nodes be included in an approval because we have clearly heard that those do represent sewer extension. Councilmember Thurman: • She thinks all of us up here want nothing more than to preserve the area we live in. • She does not look at this as us trying to decide what new parcels we want to add sewer to. • She does not think it is that at all. • The issue really is we have to determine what parcels in Milton have been given sewer not which ones we want to add it too but which ones really have already been given it. • Fulton County Attorney and Commissioner Lynne Riley have spent considerable time verifying what the Fulton County policy was at the time we were incorporated. • That was the policy we thought we were adopting when we approved the first IGA in the first place. 9 We just did not realize it had an old map and had not been updated. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 78 of 83 • They have issued a map with an IGA that represents their legal and professional opinion as to what their own policy was at the time we were incorporated. • They worked with our staff to try and ensure the accuracy of the map and their IGA. • They have made changes where changes need to be made. • It is a work in process and we may always be making tiny little changes but if we wait until we get this thing 100% correct, you will all be back here every singly month for the next two years and we will be discussing sewer and nothing else in the City will get done. • The Fulton County attorney has stated that their IGA that they provided to us and their map which include those red parcels were not a sewer extension. • Our City Attorney has given us a different opinion on that, but their interpretation of their own policy said these red parcels that we keep discussing was not sewer extension and us not allowing these people to have sewer would be a taking of their property. • That is what they have said it would be. • We have a Crabapple Master Plan. • A plan that was approved by this board after we became a City. • That plan shows some of these parcels that are currently in red as being one and a half and even two and a half units per acre. • How in the world are we going to make these things at two and a half units per acre, if we are not allowing sewer on the property. • We have a conflict between what we have already approved as our policy and what this sewer policy is now stating. Community Development Director Wakefield: • The properties in question in the Crabapple plan and these are the ones that she pointed out that may need some further input from the Council is the properties identified as 1096, 1137 and 1168. • These are all properties that are located between the Waterside subdivision and what is currently the Crabapple Crossroad development. • The portion of the property that is located in 1137 that is shown as red and a small piece in 1168. • It is designated as an area that was identified as being sewerable. • The reason that we showed it as red is because right now there is no development activity on the property. • There is no pending development so that may be a piece that Council might want to reconsider and add back into the service area to be more consistent with the Crabapple Master Plan. • The parcels located in 1136, are the rear of two lots that front Crabapple Road. • Over half of one of the lots is below the ridge. • Half of the second lot is below the ridge. • The development has occurred around the property. • Those developments have even installed stub streets, leading into those two parcels with anticipated development. • Those areas are depicted on the Crabapple Master Plan as developments that would have higher density. • The other piece, 1099 is the rear portion of a development that is below the ridge that is already zoned for MIX use development, so our recommendation is for it to be in the sewer service area. • The other piece in question is 1100 and that particular piece of property and one lot that is in 1061 are three parcels that are in the Crabapple Master Plan and although the plan calls for the Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 79 of 83 majority of the property and particularly property that fronts Freemanville Road to be one unit or less, but as you go further into the development adjacent to the school, it calls for some higher density. Councilmember Thurman: • So all of these red dots that you mentioned if we do not allow sewer on them, we have a conflict between our sewer map and our Crabapple Master Plan that is an approved policy by this board. Community Development Director Wakefield: That is correct. Mayor Lockwood: • He would like to make a statement. • He respects everyone on this Council and thinks we all have the same ultimate vision. • We may disagree on how we get there and timing. • He also respects every citizen out here and appreciates everyone being here. • Everyone may or may not understand where he is coming from but he truly feels that if we make a decision tonight, there is going to be a lot of people in this room that are mad at him, but they are going to be mad because we did not spend more time or have another public meeting. • He feels confident that they not going to be mad because we made a decision against what he had pledged or what he had represented. • He does not feet that this is adding sewer, but that this is defining the area. ••+ • We have competent staff and what you do in any business is hire the experts. • Then you use your judgment, and as an educated board, we need to use our judgment. • We need to make a decision and we need to move on. • We could spend more time. • We could spend a couple of work sessions, another meeting, whatever, we could spend another year. • He feels confident that after what he is hearing tonight we will end up at the same spot that we are and again for the health of the city and the benefit of our tax payers and our citizens, we need to make the right decision and then we need to move forward and do our job. • We should take your comments and then make our decisions and hopefully the way it is supposed to work 90% of the time we will be on the same page. • We are not all going to agree all the time and when we look back, we have such a great opportunity here, a city and we just need to move it forward and we need to make Milton a great place and we do not need to be stuck arguing about sewer and going over this stuff for the next six month, year, two weeks or whatever. Motion and Second: Councilmember Thurman moved to approve the map and IGA that has been given to us and that changes will be made to the map that reflects the Crabapple Master Plan so it is not in conflict with the sewer map and the IGA that has been written will be changed to reflect the parcels "* that are in the Crabapple Master Plan at more than one unit per acre as sewerable. Councilmember Lusk seconded the motion. rr Discussion on the motion: Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 80 of 83 Councilmember Hewitt: • Asked the City Attorney if there was something in conflict with our Crabapple Master Plan and if this were to go through, how do you decide what prevails? City Attorney Jarrard: • You have to decide there is a conflict first and if there is a conflict, what prevails is what the Council chooses to do. • He does not know that there is a wrong legal answer with respect to that. • It is whatever you believe the appropriate policy should be. • Right now Fulton County does not have lawful authority to sewer that area because the IGA in existence does not allow it, so obviously be approving those land lots as part of the new IGA, you have every right in the world to do that and if you believe that makes that area consistent with your existing policies, that is perfectly appropriate to do it. Councilmember Hewitt: • Right now, Fulton County does not have the constitutional authority to serve Crooked Creek either. City Attorney Jarrard: • It does because you cannot take it away. • The lines are in the ground. • You cannot make that argument. • You cannot take sewer pipe out of the ground. • That just does not happen. Mayor Lockwood: • No matter what the outcome of this vote is, he hopes they will all work together moving forward for our citizens to make sure that we do keep the vision. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • As it relates to these red nodes which in the analysis we have heard from our City Attorney does represent sewer extension, she would like to spend a moment and ask about that probable Master Plan. • She thinks she heard the City Attorney say the master plan or the current IGA does not allow for sewer service in that area. Is that accurate? City Attorney Jarrard: • That is correct. • It does not allow for sewer service in a lot of the areas we are discussing this evening that is the reason it is front of Council. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: 0" • Asked if it was his opinion that those land lots that are highlighted on page 2 of the analysis, do indeed represent sewer extension. ..iii • She realizes this is a question she asked earlier, but she wants to make sure that she heard correctly. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 81 of 83 City Attorney Jarrard: • That is his opinion. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • She would like to point out that the Crabapple Master Plan currently is at a maximum density according to the neighborhood node definition. • It is defined by Fulton County and it is defined similarly by our own policies, to Councilperson Thurman's point, we adopted a policy called the neighborhood node and that says, 100,000 commercial and 100,000 of office and we have already met it. • We have turned down rezoning because of that maximum having been met. • Based on the land lots that were read in as part of this motion, she sees that as at least fifty acres of sewer extension in Crabapple and she thinks perhaps even more. • Asked Community Development Director Wakefield if there was mention of 1061 and 1100. • She is unclear as to how many land lots we are adding for sewer extension as part of this motion. The areas of red that were recommended removal, but that Councilmember Thurman is suggesting as a matter of this motion to include for sewer extension in Crabapple. Community Development Director Wakefield: • That would be 1137 and a small portion of 1168, 1061 and 1100 and that is not the entire land lot, it is a portion of it. • Eleven thirty six, which is a very small portion of a large tract that falls below the ridge. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • So just looking at those numbers, it is at least fifty five to sixty acres that are being added as sewer extension within this particular motion. Community Development Director Wakefield: • Those are parcels that are consistent within the Crabapple Master Plan that are being added. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • Does the Crabapple Master Plan, when it talks about the master plan and the density; does it say that these, despite that they are in the Etowah Basin, are to be allowed for sewer expansion? Community Development Director Wakefield: • If you look at it that is actually from the Crabapple Master Plan and the squiggly line there shows those parcels. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • She understands that. • The land use plan calls for that but it does not say that it is for sewer service. Community Development Director Wakefield: �Aw • That is the map from the sewer service section of that plan. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 82 of 83 Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • Right and earlier there was question about how you serve higher density. • First of all you have to decide if you want to give it higher density and since the neighborhood node has already been met, she thinks we said that would be a question for our master planning initiative. • Her other question ties to whether or not community septic is also an opportunity for serving higher density. • We have other community septic that has served higher density areas, so is that true that a community septic system can also serve higher density and it does not have to be just public sewer. Community Development Director Wakefield: • You can do community septic. Mayor Lockwood: • Ok again we are getting into the semantics of the Crabapple Plan. • We have a motion and a second. Vote: There was no further Council discussion. The motion passed 4-3, with Councilmember Zahner Bailey, Councilmember D'Aversa and Councilmember Tart voting in opposition. P" City Clerk Marchiafava read agenda item 08-671. Approval of a perpetual sidewalk easement from Ronald G. Wallace. Public Works Director Drake • We are asking Council to accept this easement. • It is on the west side of Freemanville Road. • This is for the acceptance for an additional right of way for the Milton Trail, section along Freemanville Road. • This allows Mr. Wallace to provide that to us. • He did pay into the sidewalk fund for this piece but it will be the Milton Trail section that is along this area. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Lusk moved to approve a perpetual sidewalk easement agreement from Ronald G. Wallace. Councilmember Hewitt seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously. (Added by motion and vote) EXECUTIVE SESSION The purpose of the Executive Session is to discuss pending litigation. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Tart moved to adjourn into Executive Session at 11:28 p.m. ago Councilmember D'Aversa seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously. Regular Meeting of the Milton City Council Monday, September 15, 2008, 6:00 PM Page 83 of 83 RECONVENE %No Motion and Vote: Councilmember Lusk moved to reconvene the Regular Meeting at 11:57 p.m. Councilmember Tart seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously. ADJOURNMENT Motion and Vote: Councilmember Tart moved to adjourn the regular meeting. Councilmember D'Aversa seconded the motion. There was no Council discussion. The motion passed unanimously. After no further business, the Regular Meeting adjourned at 11:58 pm. Date Approved: October 6, 2008 J6R&te R. Marchiafava, City Clerk Joe Lock od, Mayor