City Government
Combining Cities’ Teamwork Community and Development Solutions
Mayors of Berkeley Lake, Peachtree Corners and Norcross agree that pooling each city’s strengths will mean economic success for the area.
With mixed-used developments popping up all over metro Atlanta, Gwinnett County may be poised to catch up to or surpass Fulton County as the most populous county in the state. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Fulton County’s population is at 1.05 million and Gwinnett is at 926,000 at the last 10-year count.
Currently, more than 500 international businesses have a footprint in the county with booming industries such as information technology, health sciences, professional services and supply chain management. With a diversity index of 80.9% (meaning that if two people are picked at random in Gwinnett County, there’s an 80.9% chance that the two would be of a different race or ethnicity), it is also the most diverse county in the southeast. Add that to a labor force of over 1.8 million individuals and along with a wide range of incentives and resources, Gwinnett is expected to continue growing and attracting companies of all sizes.
These facts are clearly evident in the southwest corner of the county. To add perspective to where the area is headed, the Southwest Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce hosted a panel discussion during its First Friday breakfast meeting on July 8 among the mayors of Berkeley Lake, Peachtree Corners and Norcross to enlighten residents, businesses and stakeholders of the potential future growth.
More growth on the way
Right off the bat, Peachtree Corners Mayor Mike Mason mentioned the $500 million expansion of Intuitive Surgical’s Peachtree Corners operation. The robotic surgery systems company — the dominant player in the space — has had a presence in Georgia for a decade. The plan is to expand the Peachtree Corners campus to 750,000 square feet of manufacturing and engineering operations, training facilities for surgeons and hospital care teams and administrative offices.
The expansion will take place in phases, with completion in 2024. Intuitive Surgical plans to add 1,200 jobs on top of the 180 professionals it already has based in Peachtree Corners.
“Intuitive needs a highly educated, committed and diverse workforce; quality infrastructure; and the right geography to meet the rising demand for minimally invasive surgical technologies,” Intuitive CEO Gary Guthart said when the company first announced the project. “We’ve found that here, and we’re excited to continue to grow in the state.”
This is an incredible boon to an area that is already bustling with technology advancements.
“You have people picking up and moving here with an average salary of $130,000,” said Mason, adding that about 400 jobs will be filled locally, but another 1,000 or so will be moving into the area.
He pointed out that currently, there aren’t 1,000 available housing units in Peachtree Corners even if the wider net of Berkeley Lake and Norcross were cast.
“There’s not even 500,” said Mason. “It’s going to make a tremendous impact on this whole area. That’s exciting. And it’s the thing that the three of us have said many, many times — a rising tide lifts all boats.”
Berkeley Lake looks for housing solutions
All the mayors agreed that housing is an issue across the board. However, it’s not just about the influx of high-income residents that’s cause for concern. The dearth of affordable housing across the country has governments, real estate professionals and social services agencies seeking solutions.
That led Berkeley Lake Mayor Lois Salter to mention her conundrum. “I would have to say honestly, that as the fourth most expensive place in the state to buy a house after Sea Island, Milton and Druid Hills, …I don’t have anything to write about in that regard,” said Salter.
According to recent data compiled by Zillow.com, the average home price in Berkeley Lake is about $750,000 which is a 30% increase in the past year and a 63% increase in the past five years.
“We have looked at the only way …to make some affordable housing is what’s called accessory housing,” she added.
Also known as accessory dwelling units (ADU), they are smaller, independent residential dwelling units located on the same lots as stand-alone (i.e., detached) single-family homes, according to the American Planning Association. ADUs go by many different names throughout the U.S., including accessory apartments, secondary suites and granny flats. ADUs can be converted portions of existing homes (i.e., internal ADUs), additions to new or existing homes (i.e., attached ADUs), or new stand-alone accessory structures or converted portions of existing stand-alone accessory structures (i.e., garages, outbuildings).
“That has worked in places like Buckhead and historic Savannah,” said Salter. “They have carriage houses and garage apartments and things where single-family homes have been made.”
The concept is slowly gaining support.
“We made a potential ordinance that required anyone who wanted to do that …to get a special use permit, and to control the people who were living there so that it didn’t look like a duplex,” said Salter.
Initial concerns were about on-street parking and diminished property values.
“People who are aging in place could have an additional income from that. And then they can have people live near them with them with their own privacy, but also accessible to each other in what could be a very positive way,” said Salter. “We’re not there yet in Berkeley Lake. That’s the only thing that I can think of that Berkeley Lake can do that will create affordable housing.”
Affordable housing a priority in Norcross
Norcross Mayor Craig Newton had a different perspective.
“Housing is important for a couple of reasons,” he said. “In the last three months of 2021, institutional investors bought up 20% of all homes that were for sale. This is boxing residents out of homeownership. Now research shows that the shortage of affordable housing costs the American economy $2 trillion a year.”
Newton went on to explain that this problem is affecting a family’s ability for self-sufficiency and wealth building. When housing costs exceed 30% of one’s income, that can lead to a downward spiral.
“Addressing this, the city of Norcross made housing a priority,” Newton said.
Norcross is part of the Georgia Initiative for Community Housing, a three-year program that is jointly administered by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs and the University of Georgia. The program aims to help communities around the state meet their housing and neighborhood revitalization needs.
“We’ve partnered with …Norcross Housing Authority, created a new affordable housing development to transform a 50-year-old development into a modern, affordable community with over 150 units. We’ve also established a revised Norcross Development Authority and empowered them to address affordability along with economic development. And during the process, of creating a separate affordability product that will yield close to another 150 units.”
Peachtree Corners balances development and livability
With Berkeley Lake and Norcross on nearly opposite ends of the spectrum, Peachtree Corners is somewhere in the middle.
“Housing is not the business of the city,” Mason pointed out.
But Peachtree Corners has become a much sought-after area for developers. Mason cited the revitalization of Town Center as an indicator of its cachet. He pointed out that retail in the post-COVID world has changed and Town Center’s new owner, North American Properties has a proven track record of success in this modern age.
“We’re looking forward to what they have done,” he said. “They have put a package together and given it to our community development folks that’s very exciting.”
But not every developer makes the cut.
“Developers, they come in and say, ‘We’ve got a great idea, we just want to tear all this down and put in an apartment complex or mixed-use development,’” Mason said. “We’ve turned down a number of apartment complexes because people want to just put them everywhere.”
Mason added that Peachtree Corners is working to be a good steward of its responsibilities and look at what’s best for everyone — the newcomers as well as those who’ve been around since day one.
Ten years ago, when the city was founded, it was mostly filled with single-family houses. “And we were told when we became a city that …Tech Park was falling apart. People are leaving, the office is old, and you need to do something about it,” said Mason. “So I got two wise men and women to do a survey and they told us …the young people who will work in these high tech companies want to live in Midtown where it’s cool — where they can live, work and play.”
That’s where a lot of the new development is headed.
Mason mentioned the new Waterside development, too. “Waterside sticks out as ‘old age restricted,’ although there’s an area that is not age restricted but is filling up with old folks. You need a mix of that as well,” said Mason. “We don’t have a housing plan for the city’; however, we do monitor what we’ve got and what we need.”
With each city bringing a particular set of assets to the table, all three mayors agreed that achieving controlled growth relies on teamwork.
In what has now become tradition, the Southwest Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce hosted mayors from Berkeley Lake, Norcross and Peachtree Corners at a panel discussion on July 12 at the Hilton Atlanta Northeast.
The conversation centered around strategies for revitalizing and expanding metro Atlanta cities, with a focus on redevelopment, zoning ordinance reform, pedestrian and bicycle safety and investing in local schools and affordable housing initiatives.
Zoning changes
“We are beginning a really big project in our city. We have had ordinances that we’ve been working on ever since the city was incorporated in the 1950s,” said Berkeley Lake Mayor Lois Salter.
“We feel that we need to overhaul the whole zoning ordinance system and hire a consultant to come and elicit understanding and opinions from our citizens. We want them to be a part of that. We have some folks that resist any kind of regulation. They just want us to regulate their neighbors,” she added.
Norcross Mayor Craig Newton agreed that evolving needs are an important reason to change the zoning, and planning for what lies ahead is paramount. He pointed out that all Georgia cities must implement a comprehensive plan to maintain their qualified local government certifications and remain eligible for selected state funding.
Land development
“We intend to focus on improving pedestrian bicycle safety downtown and establish a sidewalk activity improvement,” he said. “We’re also looking at approving parking in our town center and constructing the Norcross Greenway, which will bring a much-welcomed park, green space and a trail,” he added.
The county announced earlier this year that the project involves redeveloping the existing property into a park that will span almost two acres. It will offer various community spaces, including a multi-use trail, playground, covered picnic area, restroom building and a 41-space parking lot.
In addition to its amenities, a 12-foot-wide concrete trail segment will wind through the park and utility corridor, connecting Singleton Road to Dickens Road.
The trail is part of the 2018 Gwinnett Trails Countywide Trails Master Plan‘s Norcross to Lilburn Trail with an internal loop trail connecting to the neighborhood.
Commercial use
Peachtree Corners has had several “community-friendly” projects come online in the past year, but the effects of the pandemic continue to linger.
“When you think about the future, you’re thinking about the landmass and buildings and commerce. Probably the most significant issue facing a lot of us in the near term is modern office space,” said Peachtree Corners Mayor Mike Mason. “There’s a lot of space. The question is, are people going to come back?”
He said that the central retail area has shifted with the revitalization of The Forum and that’s making city leaders rethink city planning.
“We’re having a look at our code and things like that. But from another point of view that will drive the decision about what communities are going to look like,” he said. “For example, there are people coming into the city that say some buildings are technologically obsolete.”
Public safety
Even though Berkeley Lake is the smallest of the three cities and has the highest average home values, all the mayors agreed that public safety is a growing concern.
“Living in Norcross offers residents a dense suburban feel that’s somewhat rural compared to the city of Atlanta,” said Newton. “But some of our public safety initiatives are increasing police presence in high crime areas.”
As the only one of the three cities with a full police department, Norcross is seeking creative ways to implement effective community policing strategies to build trust and communication between law enforcement and the residents.
Newton mentioned programs such as Neighborhood Watch, youth outreach programs and educational initiatives along with enhancing emergency response capabilities with training for the local fire department and EMS services.
“Our response time goal is for an officer to be on-site in an emergency within 30 minutes,” he said. “But that doesn’t happen.”
Extended-stay hotels tend to attract crime, so Newton said the city has worked with owners to improve lighting in the public spaces to deter criminal activity.
“We’ve partnered with nonprofit businesses and local stakeholders to support social services employment opportunities for at-risk individuals,” he said. “By working together with various organizations and entities were able to address the complex challenge of public safety.”
Community accountability
With no police force, Berkeley Lake relies heavily on cameras and old-fashioned “knowing your neighbors,” said Salter.
“Some of our individual HOAs are buying and furnishing and paying for cameras to safeguard their neighborhoods,” she said.
Although there may be pockets of criminal behavior around the city, Salter said a police officer once described Berkeley Lake as a “black hole” of crime because there’s so little crime data.
“One of the reasons for that we feel is that historically we’ve been a very neighborly people,” she said. “There is an amazing system of community cohesiveness.”
Peachtree Corners is taking its own approach.
“We’ve recently added a Marshal Service and as Lois mentioned we’re also leaning on technology,” said Mason.
The marshal department doesn’t take the place of the services provided by Gwinnett County Police, it primarily enforces city code and aids Gwinnett PD when necessary.
“We’re utilizing as much technology as we can,” said Mason.
Gwinnett PD is instructing where to locate cameras and the city keeps adding them. There have been several instances in the last year or so where coordination among agencies and the use of technology have thwarted or caught criminals.
At the end of the day, the three mayors said the cities all rely on each other. Being so close means that economic development, enhanced entertainment and other desirable amenities are boons for them all.
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