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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes CC - 05/25/2011 - 05-25-11- S.C.W.S. (Migrated from Optiview)Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, May 25, 2011 at 6:00 pm Page 1 of 6 ■•• 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 summary form. This is an official record of the Milton City Council Meeting proceedings. Official Meetings are audio recorded. The Work Session of the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton was held on May 25, 2011 at 6:00 PM, Mayor Lockwood presiding. Council Members Present: Councilmember Karen Thurman, Councilmember Zahner Bailey, Councilmember Bill Lusk, Councilmember Burt Hewitt, and Councilmember Joe Longoria. Councilmember Tart was absent/excused from the meeting. Mayor Lockwood: • Work Sessions are an informal setting to update Council on business items. • No votes will be taken during these sessions. • There is one (1) item on our Agenda tonight. • Public comment is allowed that is germane to an Agenda Item. • If you wish to speak you are required to fill out a comment card and turn it into the City Clerk *ow" 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. Interim City Clerk Gordon read Agenda Item #1. Discussion of the Crabapple Plan as Presented by Lew Oliver, Inc., Whole Town Solutions to Identify Current Policy Changes Needed for Implementation and to Discuss the Long -Term Planning Needs of the Crabapple Crossroads Community and the City of Milton's Future City Center. (Presented by Lew Oliver, Whole Town Solutions) Lew Oliver: • Since our public presentation, I have showed the plan to Roswell DOT. • I outlined what I think needs to happen with this project. • I think the most important part is for Council and Mayor needs to adopt the Town Plan in concept. • I think until you all adopt the concept we can't move forward. • You can call this the conceptional town plan when or if this is adopted. • Site planning contains building setbacks as well as build to lines. • Site planning will also include encroachments, parking zones, coverage ratios, tree saving areas, rr. service yards, hardscape and landscape requirements (pavement materials etc.), and echo - features (bio -swells, solar charging stations, gravel lots, etc.). 0 Building descriptions and how the buildings will look is a large portion of this project. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, May 25, 2011 at 6:00 pm Page 2 of 6 • The descriptions will include mass including heights, limitations, and requirements with square .ter footage. • Fenestrations are important in the overall look which includes stores and windows. • Any additive features such as porches and balconies will be included. • The architectural skin of the buildings for this plan is important for the overall feel of Crabapple. • We will preselect materials for this project to promote consistency. • The architectural code that is submitted can be used as a template for future projects. • We can start to make final revisions and coordinate this with traffic engineering and GDOT. • Things we will coordinate with GDOT would be street sections, street alignments, and intersection details. • These plans will show lot lines of existing and proposed lots. • It will show building setbacks and build -to lines, existing building footprints, tree save areas, new building footprints, and all easements. • Overlay zoning classifications and special districts onto lots can be formed based on which is economically agile. Councilmember Tart: • How can you specifically limit the things you want in the city without taking away uses? Lew Oliver: • I believe that some areas should only be residential. The entire plan shouldn't be free usage. • I think market conditions dictate what happens in these districts. • Successful downtown areas usually have business owners guild or group to help keep areas separated somewhat. • If we were doing a new town from scratch, which we are still doing sometimes, we would have a retail marketing entity to program the retail. • I think it would take a professional to come in and program this area if you wanted it. • The City could sponsor it and attempt to corral the community to implement it. Councilmember Tart: • If we did use an area programmer, is it legal to say that only areas can have about three uses? • I'm not sure limiting is legal or not. Councilmember Hewitt: • I think if we came up with a vision that property owners want to work with, we could limit the areas uses. Councilmember Thurman: • How do we be sure that these buildings will be used economically? • How do we balance limited uses economically? Lew Oliver: • I think the retail consultant would help with a lot of those questions. • Good common sense and experience would be key. • My last recommendation would be to hire a "town urbanist" or a town architect to administer this implementation. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, May 25, 2011 at 6:00 pm Page 3 of 6 • The position could be on a contract basis or as an employee. • It is a hands on position with the city and developers. • You could have the DRB to oversee the process. • If you consider this, you should base the decision on their success and working knowledge of development. • I think the plans you put forward will draw the people to want to put their businesses in our locations. • Some people in Roswell that have seen this have said they would like to be in Crabapple. • With this master plan, you will create a draw. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • I believe everyone would agree that architecture code is important. • I think we need to pursue transfer developer rights. • I hope staff is still pursuing transfer developers rights to help us end up in a better position. • I think it is important to keep it in the discussion. • We need to make sure the concept of the plan and how it is done. • I think we owe it to the long term of the community, I believe we should dedicate green space in connectivity with bike paths etc. Lew Oliver: • The transfer development plan was created for densifying certain areas and undensifying other areas. • I think the concept can be abstracted into five statements. • The development is not encured by the city. • We can put square footages and give you statistics on the amount of infill we see. • Back to site plan codes, I think it is important to adopt these codes. • There are two parts to the pedestrian golf cart system. • One part deals with the community and one part is optimistic it can connect with the country side of the city. Councilmember Longoria: • I hate to think that the cost of the Crabapple area has to come from another area of Milton and I'm not sure that is fair to the rest of Milton. • I think we need to look at this cost as additive to Milton and not limiting on Milton. • I think the transfer development rights are key to making this work. Mayor Lockwood: • I think transferring development rights would help the city of Milton. • I think we should let some of the public give their ideas tonight if anyone is interested. now Councilmember Thurman: • I believe we want Crabapple to be a destination place. • There are a lot of properties that are zoned commercial that haven't been developed yet because of the economy. • I think if we start putting more restrictions on what they have to build somewhere I think we are discouraging growth. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, May 25, 2011 at 6:00 pm Page 4 of 6 • I think we want to encourage businesses to want to come to the area to make it a viable area. boom Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • I don't think TDR's should be viewed as limiting. • 1 think it allows expanding in Crabapple. Adam Orkin: • Overall, I believe we are getting on track. • I believe we need to have trust and flexibility with this project and the community. • I think cities that have flexibility with the property owners have been very successful all over the world. • I think if you allow the architectures to drive the uses we would be more successful. • If the city eliminates all of the uses that they don't want in Crabapple such as topless bars, tattoo shops, etc. • Outside of the eliminations, we should provide flexibility for the market to dictate what we use our buildings for. • If we try and control the market, we will fail. Councilmember Thurman: • 1 know we have lost businesses because of problems with being approved through the design review board, are you in favor of having the DRB oversee this project or having a paid architect or planner to have one professional person? Adam Orkin: • 1 believe the best bet is to use a professional. • You just have to find the right architect and the right professionals to work on this project. • It has to be a town architect that understands the city and its history. Mayor Lockwood: • We need as a city to control the look of the city, but to Adam's point we need to create the flexibility for everyone to benefit from this plan. • In Milton, we have only 14% of Milton designated for commercial. Councilmember Lusk: • How do we kick start this plan and get it off the ground? Adam Orkin: • You have to do a study to see if the city should be the master developer. • A few key components would be to route traffic around the area and it will create a more pedestrian friendly area. Lynn Tully: • The first step is to adopt the concept. Councilmember Longoria: • 1 think staff needs time to pull together the financial aspect of this project and how we will do funding. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, May 25, 2011 at 6:00 pm Page 5 of 6 Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • Everyone wants to help Crabapple be successful. • We still need details so that everyone understands how to get from point A to point B. • We need some additional detail to understand what is being proposed. • At a minimum, we want to get transportation networks in place. Lynn Tully: • We can go ahead and go through it and get the level of detail we want before we approve it. Mayor Lockwood: • One problem I have is everyone wants to move forward, and the longer we take without taking action, in the next six months we will lose more control of Crabapple. • I think we need to take action sooner than later. • What do we think is the right direction for this project? • I like the architecture of the plan but my concern is specifying uses in the plan. • I would like to leave here with an idea as to what we want to do with this plan. • I think flexibility is important for success in this. Councilmember Thurman: • I think we need to get rid of some of the specificity of this plan. • I think being too specific is our biggest issue with this concept. • I think we should generalize it somewhat. Adam Orkin: • I think Lew and Lynn can come up with the proper use and work with the landowners for the area. Councilmember Lusk: • I think we need to lay out a step by step process. • I would like to outline the entire thing so that we don't waste time later on down the road. Councilmember Zahner Bailey: • I think we need some level of detail for this plan. • We need a transportation network for this plan and it is important to figure out the steps we need to take before we approve any concepts. City Manager Lagerbloom: • I think what we have taken from tonight is that we need to take some specificity out of the plan so we can come up with a plan that is a bit more general so we can get moving on it. • There are going to be check in points throughout the project. no" 0 If we feel like we have gotten off track, we can always redirect where we are going. Special Called Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, May 25, 2011 at 6:00 pm Page 6 of 6 After no further discussion, the Work Session adjourned at 7:50 p.m. Now Date Approved: July 6, 2011. Sudie AM Gordon, City Clerk Joe Lockwo6d, Mayor