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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes CC - 01/11/2010 - 01-11-10 W.S. Mins (Migrated from Optiview) (2)Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Pagel of 20 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 rft 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. Official Meetings are audio recorded. am" The Work Session of the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton was held on January 11, 2010 at 6:00 PM, Mayor Joe Lockwood presiding. Council Members Present: Councilmember Karen Thurman, Councilmember Bill Lusk, Councilmember Burt Hewitt, Councilmember Joe Longoria and Councilmember Alan Tart. Mayor Lockwood • Work Sessions are a more informal setting to update Council on business items. • No votes will be taken. • Public comment is allowed that is germane to at, agenda item. • If you wish to speak you are required to fill out a comment card and turn it into the City Clerk staff. • Public comment will be allowed for a total of 10 minutes per agenda item and no more than 2 minutes per person. • Public comment will be heard at the beginning of each item. • Once the item is called no other comment cards will be accepted. Chris Lagerbloom • Asked if order of published agenda can be moved, Items 1, 3, 4 will go first and then Items 2 and 5 next. P_ Interim City Clerk Gordon read the first agenda item. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director `°"°� • In August, Mayor and Council approved an easement swap for Sally Rich Kolb on the Crabapple property. • On the back page of hand-out passed out, is a Plat showing two things: 1) an existing easement that is dotted (current easement on the property for access over to Sally's piece), 2) the dotted piece is the swap. • The dotted piece is the area that is used for access to that property. • The intent was to make unusable to usable property. • There is parking and a few large trees in the old easement. • After council approved, Sally reviewed the easement and had a few comments. • On the 2nd page of this document, Items i, ii and Item C were the sections that Sally was asking to have modified. • The original language on the easement before you where it says "grantee", "that the grantee would perform any work within the easement in a workman -like manner", Sally is asking that to be the "grantee or the grantor". • So that either one of us that perform within that easement would have to do so in a workman -like manner. • The other item Sally was looking to modify, Item C, Termination Clause for the easement. She has asked for that to be removed. • Stated this was originally in the document to give the city enough flexibility since we did not have an intended use on that property quite yet, that if something came up in the future and we needed to modify that easement that we could or in this case, eliminate the easement completely. • Ken Jarrard and I talked and the compromise on this language is that rather than termination of the somm easement that it is worded to be "that easement can be modified if necessary in the future". WAW City Manager Chris Lagerbloom • What we are hopeful to accomplish with this is we drafted an easement that we thought was representing the city's interest and presented that to Sally. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 2 of 20 • The next time we bring something forward to council in a council meeting, we wanted it to be a document r... Sally could live with. • If based on some of these feedback comments, council is interested in modifying this document, to bring back something that Sally might find more attractive, that is the purpose of this session. Ken Jarrard, City Attorney • With respect to Item I and ii, he can see that language being modified to say "The Grantor or Grantee, as applicable" in both of those, that would be fine. • With respect to C "Grantor shall have the right to terminate the easement", from a standpoint of equity it would make more sense to not allow us to terminate the easement upon 60 days but to allow us to modify. • Theoretically, what could occur, is we could get the document signed, terminate the easement and Sally is left with no easement at that point. • He can see Sally resisting this. Mayor Lockwood • Asked if from a property owner, was this her angle that she would rather not have an easement permit that could never be terminated? Ken Jarrard, City Attorney • Yes, she never wants the rights to basically forfeit her easement rights. • She wants to have something there. • What we are saying is that we are not going to terminate it all together but we have the right to move it around to give us maximum flexibility on the property since we don't know what we will be doing on the property yet. Mayor Lockwood • Asked, if this takes care of both parties which allows Sally to have easement accessibility and also the city if we do anything to the property? Ken Jarrard, City Attorney • Correct. Councilmember Lusk • Asked if Sally was agreeable to substitute and modify? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Her request is that the language be eliminated all together from the easement document. Ken Jarrard, City Attorney • Thinks we would have a hard time agreeing to this because we are absolutely locked in to having to work around the easement parameters and we can't do that. We need flexibility. Councilmember Thurman • Asked what the original easement read with Fulton County for Sally. Ww" Ken Jarrard, City Attorney • Stated he was not sure what the original verbiage looked like on the contract. low • Asked Carter Lucas if he had the language. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director 0 Stated he did not have the language. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 3 of 20 Councilmember Thurman w. • Stated it seems like if Fulton County had granted Sally an easement even if we modified it, we cannot terminate it without there being some kind of legal consequences. Ken Jarrard, City Attorney • Stated clearly there was flexibility in the original document. I can look into that or Carter can. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Stated he is not sure he has seen the original document but he can look for that. Mayor Lockwood • Asked if the council would be in favor of the legal opinion and Carter going back and talking to Sally to see if she is okay with all three changes. Ken Jarrard, City Attorney • Stated basically we would bring you back a document that has Items 1 and 2 with the modification being to allow both her and the city would do the work in a workman -like manner. • Then on Item C, the functional equivalent is that we would change terminate to modify. Interim City Clerk Gordon read the next Agenda Item. Discussion on the Use of MARTA off -set Funds. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • This is a copy of the memo handed out at the December 21' council staff report. • MARTA has been made available $25M in funding for the Atlanta region of which about 6.25M were designated to N. Fulton County, and $625,000 to the City of Milton. • The funds are intended to provide transit enhancements within 'h mile of our bus routes. • Our routes, 140 and 185 are right here in the city hall area. • The funds are going to be distributed based on the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP). • We have been asked to bring forward a list from the City of Milton of potential projects that can be added to the first quarter amendment of the TIP which would be done in February or March. • We have put together a list of projects that we think would qualify for the program and are within '/z mile of the two bus routes. • The list that we have is a little over $1M projects. • The $625,000 can be used to either completely fund a project or help to fund a project. • There is no match on the city's part as it is 100% funding for any of these projects. • We are hoping at the next regular council meeting to bring forth a resolution with these projects. • He wanted to bring this back up to see if there are any thoughts or if any further discussion is needed regarding this list before it comes back in a resolution form. • We have tried to blanket and give a broad description of the projects so we are not locked into anything in particular. • There would be sidewalk improvements, continuing the lighting along Deerfield from Webb to Highway 9. W,,, • This project would be able to fund from Webb to approximately Avonsong that would get us to the 'h mile point. • If we wanted to continue it on from there, that would be out of city funds. mow • We would use about $140,000 of the offset funds to get us out to Avonsong and the remainder would be about $60,000 to get out to Highway 9. • We have a number of ADA upgrades at the intersections that we would be proposing. • We had bus shelters at selected locations also on the list. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 4 of 20 • We can prioritize the list at any point but once we get them in the TIP we at least have the option of using those funds in those particular areas. • We are looking to see if we have any further feedback from the December 215` meeting that we could incorporate in the resolution coming up. Councilmember Tart • Asked at the December 215` meeting, there were questions asked relative to the use of the funds for possibly a Highway 9 gateway. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Stated the signage would qualify and there is a question about land acquisition. • Stated he has asked the question but has not received a response yet. Councilmember Tart • Stated that in priorities and needs, these two things (especially the pocket parks and land acquisition on Highway 9) would rise above the bus shelters in terms of our needs, contributing to the quality of life to the residents in and around the Highway 9 area in Milton in general. • Asked what can we do to receive a response on this? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Stated he would try again to get a response on this. • Stated land acquisition is not one that is specifically called out in the enabling ordinance on this. • His guess is that MARTA is having that same discussion internally. • The difficulty is that we have not identified any particular parcel in this enhancement area and also WNW assigning a cost estimate to it. Councilmember Tart • Stated with the $100,000 dedicated to bus shelters that could be the signage. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • We can add the gateway signage to this list also. Councilmember Hewitt • Asked would it cost some $300,000 to bring all of this to fruition? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Yes, if we did this entire list. • This does not obligate us to spend the money but allows us to spend it. • As we work our way down the priorities, if we decide that the lights are the highest priority then we can choose sidewalk sections for the funding we have left. • We have probably six sidewalk sections shown and they can be prioritized. Councilmember Hewitt • Stated he would agree with Councilmember Tart that the bus shelters might be a lower priority item. Councilmember Tart • Asked if we were to follow through with the bus shelters, how do we keep the bus shelters from looking like some in our surrounding areas? One right up here on Windward and right in front of Lowe's. There are a few turned over shopping carts there that serve as a table '/z the time. • Stated he is fearful of putting that many bus shelters in this area. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 5 of 20 Carter Lucas, Public Works Director .o. • Stated from an overall design standpoint on the bus shelters, he has been told that MARTA will work with us to make them what we need them to be. • MARTA has a standard design which is what this cost is based off of that they use and they have a new design that they think is nice. He has not seen it yet but it must be different than the current shelters. • The variable in cost is based on advertising. • If you allow advertising on the bus shelter, it is a lower cost and if you don't, it's a higher cost. • As you add to the shelter, the cost of the shelter will go up. Councilmember Lusk • Asked who eventually owns the bus shelters and who maintains them? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Stated to the best of his knowledge, MARTA does but he will find that out. • They are in the right-of-way. Mayor Lockwood • Asked if there are requirements to have the bus shelters? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • There is no requirement to have the bus shelter. Councilmember Longoria • Asked, basically, MARTA is getting us to spend grant money on something they will have to build "m" eventually anyway? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Yes, if we wanted to do it as part of this program. • Typically he thinks they have a program where MARTA will build the bus shelters if requested by the community. • We have put bus shelters on the list just in case we wanted this as an option to be able to perform in the future under this funding. Mayor Lockwood • We can pick and choose these numbers, we can shift the funding over to sidewalks if we felt at the time it was a priority. In the meantime, if we felt the citizens needed bus shelters, we could use funds. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • The goal would be to get the projects that we think we need to do on this list now and be able to move dollars around as we need to once it is in the TIP and approved. • Once projects are in the TIP and approved, we have the flexibility to move between projects. • We will not be locked into these particular dollars. Councilmember Thurman • Stated she would prefer to spend the money on items that were not paid for any other way, i.e. street lights, signage, streetscape for a gateway entrance, sidewalks in areas where the developer would put them in. �""" • Stated maybe one or two bus shelters but if MARTA is maintaining them she prefers to have no shelters from some of the ones that she has seen maintained by them. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 6 of 20 • Stated he would confirm if MARTA maintains the bus shelters. Councilmember Lusk • Asked the mechanics of how the funding works and if that would be transferred to the city's account immediately or is this on an as -completed basis? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • This is reimbursable as it stands right now. Councilmember Longoria • Asked if the ADA upgrades are in the intersections where we are proposing that? Are those intersections connected to someplace where people could benefit from those upgrades and have access? • Stated he wanted to make sure we are not upgrading an intersection that doesn't have any sidewalks going to it or wouldn't have access otherwise because then the upgrades are not being utilized. • Sidewalks can be hit or miss and if you don't have a contiguous sidewalk from a residence or someplace where they would come from, then they are just islands all by themselves. Councilmember Longoria • Yes, I think the sidewalks we have identified have been existing sidewalk sections where we may upgrade the handicap ramp, install countdown pedestrian signals, audible pedestrian signals, etc. Councilmember Tart • Asked regarding the streetlights if we were to go from Avonsong to Highway 9, we would need to pay for that and why is that? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Funding can only be used within'/2 mile of the bus routes and Avonsong is about''/2 mile from the edge of this bus route. Mayor Lockwood • Stated that what he is hearing is put the bus shelters on the backbumer and try to spend the money on things that will improve Milton and also permanent structures our citizens can use, signage and streetscape. Interim City Clerk Gordon read the next agenda item_ Discussion on Crabapple Circle Abandonment. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • We have received a request for the abandonment of the remainder of Crabapple Circle. • In the Crabapple area there is a gas station on the northwest corner of Crabapple and 372. • There is a small piece of right-of-way that runs between 372 and the back drive. • The gas station on the corner has come to us with a request to abandon that piece of right-of-way. • When the John Wieland site was built there and they relocated the drive, there is not much left of the old road. • It is an abandoned road bed, overgrown and not maintained by anyone so it is not being used any longer. • In the future what would happen with this type of request is that it would come in, be advertised, be a public notice and then bring forward a resolution to council for your consideration for abandonment of the right-of-way. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 7 of 20 mom • This particular case will be abandonment to three property owners, split with the gas station and John .� Wieland and at the west end of the existing right-of-way there is a small piece that will be abandoned to the property owner to the west. • This right-of-way was acquired through deeds and acquisitions rather than being purchased so probably not an opportunity for the city to ask for reimbursement. Councilmember Thurman Stated this was abandoned back on August 3, 2006. Asked what are we abandoning different from that? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Stated to the best of his knowledge, it was abandoned "up to this point" is what the title search has found so the Crabapple Circle all the way back to where it terminated ................. Councilmember Thurman • Stated it says from Birmingham Highway according to the ordinance that was passed. • Asked if he would like a copy of the resolution that was passed? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • That would be news to the attorney. • That would make it easy. .— Councilmember Tart • Asked what was the date on the resolution? Councilmember Thurman • August 3, 2006, right before Milton became a city. Councilmember Lusk • Stated whether it has been abandoned or not, what happens to that curb cut? Mayor Lockwood • They are forced to extend the sidewalk. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Stated if a property were to come into develop, they would be required to provide those street improvements. Up until that point, any work within the right-of-way would be up to us. Mayor Lockwood • Would it be feasible to require the property owner to seal that curb cut off? • Asked are you saying as a city the only thing we can do is block that so that if anyone were to redevelop the property, they would have to get rid of it? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Stated he doesn't know of anything in the ordinance that would allow us to go to the property owner and "Mm remove that curb cut and continue the sidewalk unless he came in for a development or building permit. Councilmember Alan Tart 0 Asked if this discussion is tabled since the Fulton County has already abandoned it? Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 8 of 20 City Manager Lagerbloom am" • Suggested we get the new information to Ken Jarrard and let him work on it. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Stated he would make a copy of resolution and get a copy over to the attorney. Interim City Clerk Gordon read the next agenda item. Discussion on the Revisions to the Traffic Calming Policy. Bret Cole, Hopewell Plantation (Treasurer of HOA) • Stated 80% of the residents signed petitions for speed bumps in our neighborhood. • Hopewell Plantation is a severe cut -through from Hopewell Road over through Rose Plantation to get over to Bethany. • We have serious problems regarding speeders in our neighborhood and gates are not an option for us but speed bumps definitely are an option for us. • We had the petition signed by the residents and turned in at one point. • The speeding is atrocious and we have a lot of kids in our neighborhood and there is really no way of controlling this right now. Mayor Lockwood • Suggested that City of Milton staff contact Bret Cole later or vice -versa, or send an e-mail to us. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • • We have been in contact with them and this will be on this presentation tonight. • Brief background is that the goals of the program are speed reduction related, not necessarily volume reduction. • The volume will only be reduced when they have somewhere else to go with no other option. • The ordinance is intended to address speed reduction. • Want to clearly define and simplify the process that we have for the traffic calming measures and create a set of standards for these measures so that we have 3 or 4 standards throughout the city. • How, where and cost will be addressed in the standards of these traffic calming installations. • Stated a quick summary of process is we would receive an application from a homeowners association or a group of individuals with no HOA, and then Public works would review to determine if it was eligible under the criteria. • Next the applicant would then make a determination as to whether or not they wanted to proceed through the process if they were so eligible. • Then there would be 75/25 split now, the revised ordinance would be a 50/50 split between the city and the HOA. • One of the questions we will have tonight is the implementation of an application fee through this process. • If the applicant decides to move forward and pay the application fee, Public Works would put together a design for the subdivision as well as a preliminary cost estimate that the cost sharing would be based on. • At any point in this process, police and fire always have the opportunity from a public safety standpoint to either change the details that we have been using, select another detail that may be more appropriate or deny the application in its entirety. • Finally, the applicant would submit the estimated 50% share of the construction costs and we would go through our standard city procurement policy to begin the construction of the traffic calming measures. • The eligibility criteria under this program has to be a local residential street, has to have a posted speed limit of 25 to 30 mph, and a daily traffic requirement of a minimum of 400 vehicles per day and a maximum of 4,000 vehicles per day. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 9 of 20 • Another criteria we would like to discuss is that currently there is a requirement that your 85"' percentile .... speed limit is 10 mph or greater over the posted speed limit. (i.e., 85% of the vehicles are at 10 miles an hour or greater) • Street Smart City did the original recommendations for the traffic calming policy revisions and recommended that 85h percentile be lowered to 3 mph over the posted speed limit. • Our staff discussions following that recommendation, is that is very difficult to demonstrate that you have reduced back down to the speed limit. • If you look at the criteria from surrounding communities, most use the 10 mph over the speed limit. • Woodstock has a criteria that if 30% of the vehicles are going over the speed limit or 10% or 10 mph over the speed limit, that would be the threshold that would trigger their traffic calming policy. • In this case, based on the data that we had, felt like this was going to get us somewhere in the neighborhood of an 85`h percentile — 6 to 7 mph over the posted speed limit. • The breakdown is 11 requests initially for the program, one did not meet the posted speed limit, three did not meet the ADT (most were below the 400 vehicles per day), and the remaining seven requesters — we looked at the 3 mph, 3, 8 and 10 mph to get a break -down to see where that threshold would put us as far as qualifying communities. • On the 3 mph — seven requesters met the criteria. • If you bump it up to 5 mph — six communities that would meet it. 4 mph — 8; and only one would qualify at the 10 mph threshold that the program is currently at. • If we use the Woodstock criteria — we would guess somewhere in the 6 to 8 mph — we would have 5 or 6 requesters qualify if we use this criteria as our threshold. • The qualifying communities — White Columns, Crooked Creek, Triple Crown, Hopewell Plantation, .... ..-. .,Wyndham Farms and Avonsong: • White Columns would be the only one that would qualify at the current rate of 10 mph over. ftw" • Hopewell Plantation is at 9 mph over the speed limit so they would qualify under the Woodstock criteria also. Mayor Lockwood • Asked if council had any questions on charts, graphs and understanding the percentiles? Councilmember Longoria • Stated he wanted to ensure he understands that if you are saying the 85"' percentile — 85% of the cars measured are going above the posted speed level or 15% of the cars are going above the speed limit? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • 85% of the cars were traveling 34 or less so you have 15% of the vehicles that are traveling even greater than that. Mayor Lockwood • Asked if we use Hopewell Plantation as an example, if we held it at 10 mph, then they would not qualify. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • That is correct. The only one that would qualify would be White Columns. • We will review the subdivision as a whole when the request comes in and certain sections may qualify and certain sections may not. • We will work through a plan with the HOA that might address both locations but may not specifically add traffic calming measures in those sections that do not qualify under the program. be" • The application fee was not typical in the programs we looked at in other communities but with the threshold at 10 mph, perhaps the number of applications aren't what they would be. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 10 of 20 WWR • We would be recommending an application fee of $500.00 that we would use to cover the internal costs on" of working through with the HOA, development of the plan, development of the cost estimate and administration of the construction. • There is also a consideration that this fee could be rolled into the construction cost. The $500 could be credited into their construction cost but it will allow us to recover some of the costs building up to that point. Mayor Lockwood • Asked Council how they think this fee would go over with the Homeowners Associations? Councilmember Tart • Stated as long as we could justify the amount of the fee based on hours we expend, believes it will separate those inquiring from those who are really serious about wanting implantation. Councilmember Thurman • Asked if they did not qualify, is this a non-refundable fee? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • The HOA would know if they qualified before we made them pay the fee. Councilmember Lusk • Asked are your thoughts on getting a preliminary or ballpark estimates for a community (like Hopewell Plantation) where you could judge they are going to need 10 speed hurdles, etc. — get some idea up front before you get into the whole design process? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • The term "design" may be a bit misleading from an engineering standpoint. • It will be a relatively simple design. • We provided earlier the full details developed for the program. • In these details, it lays out the criteria of where and when those specific things can be used. • We can simply go through and say this section of road qualifies for this one measure or these three measures and see what the HOA prefers in that location. • Along with the details are estimated construction costs. Councilmember Longoria • Asked if an HOA does not qualify, is there an option for the HOA to pick up 100% of the cost and go ahead and have the traffic calming devices built? • Stated something that HOA would have to contract with the City and meet the criteria but the HOA would have to pay for it. Ken Jarrard, City Attorney • The City of Milton can always accept funding from private entities if they want to pay for that and meet permits and engineering guidelines. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director "�"" • We addressed in the ordinance is that if the subdivision qualified but there was not funding available on the city side that they could move forward through the program if they funded it at 100%. air • They would still be required to follow the entire program as if the city were funding their portion of it. City Manager Lagerbloom 0 It needs to qualify based on the standards that the council adopts that we recommend. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 11 of 20 rte. Councilmember Longoria • It has to be an HOA issue and subject to the voting of the HOA or the group of homes that is included as part of that because you have to have a 75% vote to warrant this. • My concern is that some people take 8 mpli as serious business and don't see the difference between that and 9 mph. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Some of the other programs have a different phase, wherein Phase I would be to take a speed trailer out to the site and posting to see what the travelers speed is at that location. • That can be effective while the speed trailer is out there but as soon as it leaves, the effect diminishes. • Once they are installed they become the city's to maintain. • Under the Lark Program where the state is paying for repaving, that they will repave a road with traffic calming measures on it so that takes it out of that program. • We could consider this and handle it as a case-by-case basis and look at it to address those subdivisions that don't quite meet the threshold. Councilmember Tart • Asked what the liability issues would be assuming there is property damage or something associated with the installation of those devices given that the neighborhood paid for them and not the city? • Who would be responsible for the damage? City Attorney Jarrard • That would ultimately be a city project on city roads utilizing city right-of-way so whatever the liability question is, is not off of the city's back. • It would not go to the private entity just because they paid for the devices. Councilmember Alan Tart Stated he can understand why we would not want to reduce the threshold to 3 mph because the city does not have the money to fund all these neighborhoods but would offer that some of the neighborhoods that are second tier if possibly we could have something in our ordinance that would allow them the opportunity to go 100% if they are able to do that and then we would have money to be able to pick up the maintenance. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • He stated part of our discussion tonight is to determine mph threshold as it seems 3 is one extreme and 10 is one away from 9 mph • He stated this is part of our discussion this evening to determine if 10 is the number or if its 5 or 8 or 6 or 7. Councilmember Longoria • Stated that the test is still subject to priority, budget and scheduling. Ken Jarrard, City Attorney • Stated that funding of a 100% can be tricky because you are involved in road projects and they depend on Nomm cost overruns or there are change orders or contract disputes. 100% can become quite expensive and this is why we see bonds issued on the construction projects. `m • Stated his point is if we want to accept money at 100%, we will have to be careful what we set the 100% mark at. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 12 of 20 show • We have the same issue with the 50/50 split, how we address cost overruns, and all issues on the contract side. Councilmember Alan Tart • Asked if it costs more to pave a road which has these devices installed? • This could be an issue because some of the neighborhoods do not have brand new roads and if they were to come up with the money to install the devices and they go on an old road, it may end up costing us a lot more when we have to pave it — that is a consideration we need to look at. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Stated there is a start and a stop. Depending on what the device is (vertical vs. horizontal) dealing with the pavement right adjacent to those traffic calming measures becomes an issue. • Some of the traffic calming measures are removable. • The vertical deflections are anything you have to travel over, (speed bumps, cushions). • The horizontal measures where you narrow the road or you require traffic to move around a particular obstacle in order to control speed. • Stated the standard details developed for this were to give us location considerations, standard dimensions, standard materials, types of traffic control (warnings) and an estimated base cost we can work through on the construction cost estimates. • Stated we took these to DRB who reviewed the details and had various comments on materials and marketing. • The DRB wanted to try and use a base material that wouldn't expend a lot of city dollars. • Stated there is a provision in the ordinance that if the HOA or subdivision wanted to upgrade the materials on any of these measures, the additional cost would be at 100%. • Stated the 50% the city would pay would be based on the "base" cost on the details established. • Stated DRB liked the landscaping and some of the horizontal deflection measures where we had center islands or chicanes. • DRB preferred these rather than a concrete top. • The landscaping again would be the subject to the HOA maintenance in its entirety. • Stated that he would envision having an indemnification and maintenance agreement. • Temporary traffic calming devices could run from $2,000 to $3,000. The manufacturer states it takes about an hour to install at each location. • Stated realistically it takes about a day. • Stated the biggest concern with the temporary measures is the aesthetics. Typically black, rubber with yellow or white markings. • Stated the speed tables and cross -walks is another standard detail. We would use a base material (asphalt type)- • Stated that the public safety prefer speed cushions to maneuver around. • Stated in the horizontal deflections (i.e., chicanes, center islands) • Require a vehicle to maneuver its way through the measure. • Stated that he thinks the chicanes and narrowing islands are not quite as effective because you have to clear a path through those and would have a minimal impact on speed reduction. • Stated the discussion tonight is to try and obtain feedback on the threshold, the eligibility criteria, the speed limit and whether or not we want to move forward with the application fee. • Stated that the next step would be to incorporate any comments tonight and bring the revised ordinance back to council for adoption at a later meeting. Mayor Lockwood Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 13 of 20 Op.. • Stated that the application fee would not be a huge hurdle for the subdivisions and certainly could be Now justified. • Asked for council's feedback on this and also on the criteria trying to hit in the middle like the Woodstock criteria. Councilmember Longoria • Asked regarding the application fee — is that the $500 only if the application meets the criteria? • Stated that if the application fee is meant to deter, is it doing the job at that point because someone can ask for approval prior to that. • Asked if we knocked down the application fee and make it a barrier to some subdivision coming in and saying they have 22 locations that need some kind of devise, will this make sense to move forward and actually make it a fee based on the application or leave it where it is and it becomes the cost of construction? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Stated we would only determine whether the subdivision is eligible to move forward which would involve the city going out and performing a traffic count at the location. • Stated he is okay with this. We like to have traffic data. There would be no conceptual plan developed at that point. Then we would be saying you met the speed limit, the traffic count, whatever the mph criteria is, so you are eligible to move forward. • Stated before the city spends any additional time and effort in the development of the conceptual plan, that is when the application and the fee would be due. Councilmember Lusk W-0 • Suggested if we gave them a ballpark estimate to take back to the HOA to see if they could fund/afford the device installation. Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Stated that when we get to Step 3 which would be to determine those criteria, then we would take the fee, and then we would develop a cost estimate. • Stated at the time they apply, we can provide them with the details which has an estimated construction cost on it. Councilmember Thurman • Stated the 10 mph is too high of a threshold and needs to be lowered. • Suggested that we make it 5 or 6 mph or went with the Woodstock method that would hopefully take care of some of the speeding problems. • Asked why the island on Birmingham Road from the Park to the intersection that we removed but it was originally installed as a calming type feature? City Manager Lagerbloom • Stated it was the wrong feature for the location which was evidenced by the fact that drivers continued to hit it. Councilmember Thurman "PM • Asked are there any 35 mph speed limits that we should consider? ftm Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Once you get outside of the typical subdivision where those are going to be the normal posted speed limit, then you start to get into a question of liability on the city's part of possibly putting an obstruction in the Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 14 of 20 roadway. If someone were to be injured on that and you are outside of what would be considered the OWN normal criteria for a traffic calming program. Ken Jarrard, City Attorney • Stated you have to rely on General Accepted Engineering Principles that will dictate what you can put in a roadway and whether it's safe or not. Councilmember Thurman • Stated she would like to see if there are any traffic calming devices for roads that are 35 mph because we have a lot of 35 mph roads that people are speeding on. It seems like there is some acceptable speed device or signage. Councilmember Hewitt • Stated he does not see the application fee as an issue. • Proposed council looking at going 7 mph over the 85th percentile. Councilmember Longoria • Asked regarding the 75% approval by the HOA or group — how is this defined and how do you balance the 75% approval in the interest of the homeowners? • Stated the people that live on the affected road have the largest stake in the issue. • Stated the people that don't live near the road, sometimes don't care. amp-" Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Stated the way the ordinance is written that 75% of the people within the affected study area have to AM.* agree. • The city would have to look at the subdivision as a whole and determine those properties that are affected by these traffic calming measures. • Stated if a resident has a way out the back, then they may be outside the study area. • Stated if the subdivision only has one entrance and everyone has to travel in/out of that entrance, then everyone is affected by the traffic calming measures so it will vary for each subdivision. • Stated where we draNv the line is on a case-by-case basis. Mayor Lockwood • Asked if the Public Works Department would use "common sense" on this? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Stated that Public Works Department would make the final decision on who those affected property owners are. • Stated once we make that determination of who is affected then the city is out of the picture. That group will have to go back to the HOA and convince them that they need to pay for this or other funding sources. Councilmember Alan Tart • Stated that he thinks the affected homeowners are those that live along the stretch where the devices would be installed. N.•. • Stated his apprehension is that the funding aspect in the fact that every homeowner pays dues and every homeowner pays for the installation and the overriding document that controls would be the covenants. saw • Stated the Covenants would dictate in cases of special assessments, there would be a number such as 2/3`d's vote, etc. to pay. • Stated that in the covenant, is there a limitation on dues increase that a board can increase the dues without going to the membership, and a democratic process in the covenant in place. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 15 of 20 Yr w Councilmember Lusk • Stated that after the approval of 75%, the funds are the problem of those affected. Ken Jarrard, City Attorney • Stated as far as in the context of traffic calming, we have a tremendously more flexibility of how we define who has to opt in. • Stated this is going to remain a city road so we can configure this however it best makes sense. • Stated that if we want to make it simply those that are contiguous to the effected roadway, the city has that discretion. City Manager Lagerbloom • Stated this is a case in those larger neighborhoods where getting 75% to agree is near impossible, maybe this is a situation where we take a person to person vote we allow the HOA to speak on behalf of its neighborhood residents. • Asked if council would consider depending on the HOA's own by-laws and covenants, which the HOA could serve as the 75%? Carter Lucas, Public Works Director • Stated that what we wanted to ensure because we were using tax dollars on our portion of installation that everybody who was affected or had to travel over these had an opportunity to voice their opinion. • We didn't want to be in a situation where a homeowner's association was speaking out for property on" owners who were going to be affected so we were trying to get the largest area so that everyone could have a voice for whether they wanted that money spent. Mayor Lockwood • Stated perhaps this is something you all can firm up, rethink it and come up with some other ideas and bring them back to us. Councilmember Tart • Stated that where he stands he is okay with the 50/50 split provided we have funding available. • Stated in terms of the 9ercentage and qualification eligibility criteria, he is willing to go down to 8 mph with the greater the 85 speed the higher the priority in terms of funding. • Stated we could look at the Woodstock criteria. • Stated he is okay with the $500 recommended fee provided that staff gives a ballpark figure providing preliminary numbers to them right off the bat. • Also if there is a way to make clear to them that once the study is completed, and you are approved, we are going to determine which devices are appropriate for your neighborhood. It could be something you may not want or prefer but you need to know that any access of what we approve will have to be paid by the subdivision 100%. • In terms of affected homeowners would be those people who live contiguously with where the devices are going to be installed. If approved and eligible it should be left up to the HOA on how they provide the funding whether it be the affected homeowners coming up with the 50% or whether the HOA foots the bill out of their reserve. am"* Mayor Lockwood • Stated that this is tax dollars being spent and it is homeowner's dollars being spent so obviously the *AM majority of the residents are being affected cost wise. • Stated he would like Carter and team to rethink, research and come back with some other thoughts. Councilmember Longoria Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 16 of 20 rmr • Stated he would favor allowing the HOA's covenants to manage funding and the reason is because for a lot of issues, many homeonwers don't get out to vote on the issue itself. Councilmember Lusk • Stated he would go along with the Woodstock formula. Interim City Clerk Gordon read the last agenda item. Discussion on the Alcohol Beverage Code with Respect to Distance Requirements and Schools. City Attorney Jarrard • Stated this is a resolution which is proposed that was something that was forecast a few weeks ago when we had an alcohol application come before you involving Sip Wines. • The issue that was presented that served as a catalyst for this resolution was how we measure distances with respect to Sip Wines and the notion that we believe the school grounds than their surveyor did and upon hearing the discussion and arguments with their surveyor, we decided with the absence of any language in our code that it made it absolutely clear we would yield to their surveyor in this situation but then the notion came up that maybe we should modify our code to seal up this loophole. • The issue had to do with whether or not you can leave the impervious portions of either a sidewalk, a road or a highway as is called out both in the Milton Code and the State law and go in the right-of-way to then bridge the gap to get to the nearest school grounds. "^ • Our code says is you go from the alcohol establishment and then the nearest direct line on the ground following what appears to be the impervious surfaces. We were walking off of our impervious surface ,.." and getting on the right-of-way which can be ditches, grass, dirt and gravel and then hopping onto the school grounds that way. • Sip Wines surveyor legitimately said that is not the way you do it. You need to take the impervious surface to the front entrance and the notion was brought up that we need to add right-of-way to the Milton Code to close that loophole. • Stated that this would make our code less forgiving. • Stated that state law and the Milton code are perfectly consistent right now. • Stated if we add "right-of-way" it will be different. Mayor Lockwood • Asked as our code is now, you are saying it is in synch with the State code? • Asked if the situation came up in future, would that be handled in the same way as we handled this last one? City Attorney Jarrard • Stated yes, I think at this point we have a little bit of precedent now that we are going to calculate these measurements based on the impervious surfaces. Mayor Lockwood • Asked is this the way the state does it? • Stated he would be the first to say he would not want to deviate from the state code if that is what the som state and everybody else does. City Attorney Jarrard • Stated we can make the code more restrictive but we cannot make it more lax. 0 Stated that this would be making it more restrictive because this is making our distances less forgiving. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 17 of 20 so" Mayor Lockwood • Stated that Milton has such a small commercial base, he would personally would be for keeping within the state code. Councilmember Lusk • Asked if e(2) written in the state code with the exception of right-of-way, does it spell out a straight line to the nearest public sidewalk? • Asked could it go over a possible pervious route? • Asked would you follow a straight line distance or the pervious? City Attorney Jarrard • Stated it is terribly complex, that it shouldn't be, but it is and what we have typically tried to do is by the nearest vehicular/pedestrian path. • Stated you come off of that establishment from the front door and then the goal is to try and find the nearest either sidewalk or thoroughfare by that straight line and yes, could that have you walking on the grass, yes it could to get there. • Stated, the question we are faced with here is once you are on that impervious surface; once you get to the school ground do you then hop off the impervious and go back on to the grass again. In light of there being no clear direction, we yielded to their argument. Frankly not yielding would have produced worse consequences for the city than we were comfortable with. "' Mayor Lockwood • Asked if the state guidelines would follow along an impervious surface. City Attorney Jarrard • Stated the state guidelines are consistent with our code. • Stated we need to have a fairly consistent application and interpretation so that in the future, if we don't change anything, he would still be in favor of what we did with Sip Wines. Staying on the impervious roadway until we come to the main entrance. Mayor Lockwood • Stated in his experience, that engineers would look for the most direct path but it would have to be on a sidewalk or a parking area. You could not jump down through a ditch, it would have to be where a normal person would walk or travel by. City Attorney Jarrard • Stated the city only has to get into this when it's a close call — 95% of these are not impacted. We don't have to worry about this sort of line drawing. Councilmember Thurman • Asked how a church can receive an alcohol beverage license? City Attorney Jarrard memo • Stated that he has seen special event licenses such as at a Greek church such as a food festival where they want a permit to serve wine. • Stated he has never seen a religious establishment have a permanent on premise consumption to pour nrrr license. Councilmember Thurman 0 Asked the question whether a daycare qualifies as a school? Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 18 of 20 • She stated the case Mr. Jarrard gave was a case from 1982, prior to this law that is currently in place, even w... being enacted with the stipulations in it. • Asked are there no new cases? • She stated she does not feel a daycare qualifies as a school if its primary purpose is as a daycare and not as an educational facility that is providing .............. (certain number of days you have to attend or else you get kicked out of the school.) City Attorney Jarrard • Stated the case he provided did not cite back to what he believes is the controlling statutory authority which is O.C.G.A. §22.6.90. • The reason he provided the case was to provide case law where the courts were anecdotally talking about the distinction between a daycare and a school. • Stated the court summarized exactly, it's kind of like pornography, I can't define it but I know it when I see it. • Stated the court said it's the daycare's primary function is not to education but be a caretaker while a school's primary function is to educate. • The First element in O.C.G.A. §22.6.90 is: the primary purpose of the institution is to provide education. It goes through four elements which is both in the state law and our code both say that to define a school vs. a daycare you need to satisfy these four elements: 1) primary purpose has to be education; 2) institution has to be operated on a continuous basis; 3) has to provide instruction at least 120 school days per year and 4) provide a basic academic educational programming in reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies and science. • Stated if you meet those four criteria, you are not only considered a school but you can become funding under PeachCare or some of the state funding guidelines for education. Councilmember Thurman • Stated the state guidelines for PeachCare fall not under the educational part of it but fall under more of a childcare facility part of it. • Stated we need clarification on whether or not a daycare is considered a school. City Attorney Jarrard • Stated the situation we had last time, The Goddard School, and that was a tough one. • Stated it looked like to him, based even on their own website, and the things they held themselves out as, it looked to me like they were attempting to educate and prepare kids for the next level. • Stated we have not had a lot of experience in applying this to daycares but he thinks that if there was a concern, the City of Milton can give a yes or no as to whether this is a school or daycare. • He believes that between Chris, he and whomever on staff, that we could come up with an applicability of this section and decide because these criteria are fairly exacting. • Stated a lot of places that are daycare are not going to provide mathematics, language arts, reading and social studies, etc. Councilmember Thurman • Stated that the code talks about being suspended for lack of attendance and she doesn't know of many *oft kids that get suspended from nursery school because they didn't show up. Mayor Lockwood flaw • Stated that this could go separate? City Attorney Jarrard Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 19 of 20 • Stated there are two issues here: 1) Does Mayor/council want to go forward with the resolution with respect to adding right-of-way. • Stated if the answer is no, we are comfortable with the code the way it is and we are comfortable with it being consistent with state law, then he does no more. • Stated the 2) second issue let's make certain that when people come in that they know what to expect from Milton on how we interpret what is a school vs. what is a daycare and that we do it correctly and consistent with state law. Councilmember Thurman • Stated the reason she brought forth the question is that other ordinances she has looked at from other jurisdictions, they added daycare to the language so they would say school, church or daycare. • Stated that if we want it to include daycare, then we need to add daycare to it so there is no question as far as whether or not our intent it. City Attorney Jarrard • Asked Councilmember Thurman when she said "want it" - does she mean add it to the things that require the setbacks? Councilmember Thurman • Yes. City Attorney Jarrard '"' • Stated what he thinks he is hearing is you all don't want that because I think what you're saying, is that the space in Milton is such that if you do that, you then basically eviscerate a lot of area for commercial ..� development. Mayor Lockwood • Stated Ken is saying if you want daycares in there, you don't want to list them. If you want to exclude them, then you list daycare. • Stated that since Milton is so limited on commercial space, that we may not want to include daycare as specified. City Attorney Jarrard • Stated one attorney posed it to me this way, "It makes no sense, but it is a formula and it is a formula set up by State law and the formula works both ways. Sometimes it is very punitive and would have effects that don't make any sense. In that situation, it would obviously inure to the benefit of the alcohol provider but it is a formula. Councilmember Hewitt • Asked Mr. Jarrard to take the map and draw how the Sip Wines was calculated. City Attorney Jarrard • The formula states that you would make that straight line to the nearest thorough fare or right-of-way and then along this thorough fare or right-of-way you would then follow down to the main entrance. • Stated that the issue with Sip Wines, was the grounds where we were actually cutting across the right-of- way to touch the ground. Their surveyor was saying, no you need to go straight. Mayor Lockwood • Stated it looks like the general consensus is we leave our ordinance as it is. It matches the state and we are not going to specifically include daycares in with schools and churches. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm Page 20 of 20 After no further discussion, the Work Session adjourned at 7:58 p.m. Date Approved: February 1, 2010 Sudie AM Gordon, Interim City Clerk Joe Lockw d, lay