A podcast with City Manager Brian Johnson

In this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, Rico Figliolini interviews Peachtree Corners City Manager Brian Johnson. They discuss the transformation of 25 Tech Park into a 13-unit condo, a rezoning initiative addressing office space vacancies, and future developments like outdoor parks and trails. They also explore local zoning challenges, parking solutions at The Forum, and community concerns over Jones Bridge Park. Tune in for an insightful update on city planning, public safety, and the evolving landscape of Peachtree Corners.  

Resources:
Peachtree Corners Website: https://www.peachtreecornersga.gov/
Current Land Use Cases: https://www.peachtreecornersga.gov/1406/Current-Land-Use-Cases

Timestamp:
00:00:00 – Introduction and 25 Tech Park Condo Conversion
00:02:21 – Rezoning for Residential Conversion of Office Building
00:07:14 – Comparing Home Sizes and Prices in Duluth Area
00:09:48 – Efficient Redesign and Outdoor Space
00:13:47 – Addressing Vacant Office Space and Zoning Changes
00:18:04 – Land Use Planning Process Explained
00:24:36 – Concerns Over Jones Bridge Park Safety and Access
00:31:28 – Securing Community Access and Navigating Challenges
00:34:53 – Evolving Plans for Parking and Retail Development Plans
00:41:52 – Closing Thoughts

Podcast Transcript

00:00:00 – Rico Figliolini

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. This is Labor Day weekend, interviewing and talking with Brian Johnson, our city manager. Hey, Brian.

00:00:11 – Brian Johnson

Rico, how are you?

00:00:13 – Rico Figliolini

Good, good. Thanks for being with us. This episode, we’re going to talk a little bit about 25 Tech Park and the 13-unit condo unit that’s going to be working out of that building. And we’re also going to talk a little bit about what the RDA is doing with new buildings coming out and some of the rules in that. And then we’ll recap a little bit with Jones Bridge Park and what’s going on there. And some update on that. So why don’t we start? So 25 Tech Park, Technology Park Way, is where a 13-unit condo development is going to go. And it’s literally going into an office building that’s going to be gutted out versus it being torn down and going on that. So tell us how that’s working and why they chose to do that versus tearing it all down and maybe building 40 townhomes there, which they could, right?

00:01:12 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, they could. So this one is a little bit unique in that it’s actually, to back up, it’s actually 25 Tech Park South. Believe it or not, they’re in the infinite wisdom of whoever named the streets inside of technology park. We have technology parkway, which runs essentially parallel to PIB to Peachtree Parkway, you know, in the middle of, of the split and the connection coming off into Tech Park, coming off of, I guess it’s now Peachtree Boulevard, not PIB, but coming off of there into Tech Park Atlanta, there’s a small stretch of road that links up Peachtree Boulevard and Technology Parkway. And of all the words that could have been used, they decided to call it Tech Park South or Technology Parkway South, which it doesn’t even really run north-south, but regardless, that’s where it is. And this is an example of a property owner who’s owned the office building for 25 plus years and approached the city with this rezoning request because the building’s use for office only is such that he doesn’t believe he could generate the amount of you know, rent that he could by doing something else and the current condition of the building is older so it’s not competitive for those who are really looking for. So he would have to put money into renovating it. And he just said the money to put into renovating something merely to chase, you know, less office occupants than we’ve had, you know, maybe ever. And so he said, I want to do something different. He is a, he’s a resident, really a age-restricted or retirement community developer by trade. So he has residential development experience and wanted to do that here. It’s the first time we’ve allowed resident or residential development inside of tech park not on the main corridor like on 141 or you know Peachtree Boulevard. So he came in and asked for 13, it to be rezoned for 13 condo or equity units and came to that number because he’s taking the existing building and he’s gutting it and turning that into residential units. It’s a building that overlooks the lake in Tech Park. So it is in a good location, easy access to two main roads out there. And the product or the target audience for the residential units are going to be a target unit we’ve talked about here recently, which is either the empty nester who has owned a house in Peachtree Corners for a long time. They don’t have kids. They want to downsize, but they don’t want to leave the area. And they’d like to buy something and not rent. And there’s nothing really here for them to buy that doesn’t basically take what they could get out of their house and put all of it into something else. An example of that would be Waterside. Some of the complaints from people is those units are as expensive as the home that I would sell to move over there. What’s the point? And so the empty nester, and it’s not so, you know, too expensive or the, call it the earlier home buyer or equity purchaser. By earlier, I mean, it might be the very first time somebody buys something. And so they’re not in a position to buy something that’s you know approaching a million dollars and, but they want to and they like the area so it could be that missing middle, you know or the early purchaser or the empty nester. So to be able to do that and still be you know have market rates and not be any kind of a rent control, you know, situation, the developer doesn’t want to do more units than he’s asking. The city actually was interested in that’s a product we desperately need. And he could have as many as maybe 40 of these units if he had demoed the building and built a new building and went higher than the two stories it currently is, maybe two additional stories. But wasn’t interested because, he felt like it would of course, a lot more headache and everything than a reno. And he felt like it would push the price point above the one he wants to hit, which is five, he wants to maybe try to keep it at six or below. And he doesn’t feel like he can do it if he has to scrape and do a complete rebuild because the construction costs would be higher, so you’d have to put more.

00:07:07 – Rico Figliolini

Do you remember how many square feet these units are?

00:07:12 – Brian Johnson

Each one? No. I do believe we can pull that up as we’re talking.

00:07:19 – Rico Figliolini

The interesting part to me, I was looking at homes just recently with my son. And he was looking at Duluth for argument’s sake, just kicking stuff around. 1,400 square foot, $400,000. I mean, some of them are not good looking homes. They’re in also older neighborhoods, like old neighborhoods, like 40-year-old neighborhoods, probably 50, or 40 maybe, or somewhere around there. But they were like 400 grand for like 1,400 or 1,300 square foot home, which is small for that amount of money. And you really couldn’t find anything for less than that. I mean, essentially a starter home for most people will be around, in this area at least, Duluth, Peachtree Corners, forget Berkeley Lake. It would be somewhere around $400,000 if you’re lucky to get that for a small home. So you’re really looking at maybe half a million for a decent, what you can call starter home maybe.

00:08:23 – Brian Johnson

Right. Yeah, and that’s where we’re at. So, you know, he’s trying to, I’m trying to see if I can find the square footage. Alright here it is. Looks like there’s going to be two types of units. Six of the units are 2 000 square feet, three bedroom, three bath. And the remaining units looks like will be 1,500 square feet, two bedroom, three bath. And it’ll have direct access to, oh, and what’s part of this rezoning is for the developer to put in the section of our multi-use trail that goes around that lake. So it now we’ve also got verbal commitment from the owner of the only property that’s in between this one we’re talking about and Ashray, which is where our current trail ends. They are very open for us to do the trail at the back of there. So it looks like we’ll be all the way around almost to be able to link up to what Cortland did way back when it was built, what, eight years ago, seven years ago?

00:09:50 – Rico Figliolini

I think Cortland Apartments you’re talking about, which was called something else before that, I think. So, interesting to me when you mentioned that, about actually working in the same building, because we at one point talked about repurposing office buildings. That it’s not easy to do that, it’s actually difficult to do that because the plumbing doesn’t, you know, people look at that and say why can’t they repurpose? Well, if you look at a typical office building, the restrooms are probably in the center or in a certain place. And so they’re not all spread out and you have to work your piping and all that. So my assumption is they’re going to gut out this building totally and rework the piping to be able to make it work. It sounds like to me.

00:10:38 – Brian Johnson

It’s only two stories. And it’s built into the slope as it slopes away from, you know, the property slopes away from Technology Parkway South down towards the lake. So each of the units will enter at grade for them. So there’s no stairs in these units.

00:10:59 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. Yeah, I’m looking at the elevation plan.

00:11:01 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, stacked over each other. So that’s, you know it saves ADA compliance they don’t have to put you know graders in. And they, the I guess the joists in between the two floors were built in such a way that there’s a lot of room for them to then rerun plumbing. And since it’s two stories if they rerun it they just get to go both directions, you know have the unit. So it just it was you know one of those where it worked out the way the building was built. So I mean again we’d love to have more of this product. But, you know.

00:11:46 – Rico Figliolini

Right. So I’m looking, yeah, and I’m looking at the, I guess the survey plot because there’s a lot of parking around there. So what are they doing with that? Because apparently, you know, I mean, it’s 13 units, and I can’t see 13 units using all that parking around it.

00:12:11 – Brian Johnson

They’re reducing the impervious surface footprint of the property by over 13,000 square feet.

00:12:20 – Rico Figliolini

Okay.

00:12:30 – Brian Johnson

And so the parking, let’s see the total parking spaces on there is 46 for this. Which is a pretty significant reduction. What they’re doing with the parking spots that they’re ripping out is putting in a park, an outdoor area for the residents.

00:12:44 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. No amenities, just a park area? I’m just wondering, is that along the trail? Probably?

00:12:56 – Brian Johnson

It is. So you know the course the trail will be right along the shoreline of the lake including much like if you’ve been on it behind Ashray some of it’s out on piers even out from. So there’ll be a lot of that there. And they’ll have a connection from that section out to the road so you can get out to the sidewalk there and to walk parts. And then that green space that they’re creating is just going to be for the residents. And it’s not activated. I think it’ll probably be seating and maybe trees and maybe something. So not big and not open to everybody. You don’t need it.

00:13:40 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. This has been going on for a while too, I think, right? Their application’s been in there for a while. So this obviously was approved just recently at this last city council meeting.

00:13:51 – Brian Johnson

Yes, this last one.

00:14:01 – Rico Figliolini

So we have a moratorium going on right now. Which will end at some point soon. There’s going to be a meeting set up and an open house, probably October 5th, if I remember correctly. That people, it’s a public meeting. People will be able to go to talk about some of the improvement to code, regulations, dealing with buildings, redevelopment. Want to just talk briefly about that? We’re going to have another podcast on this with Sean Adams about this. But if you could just speak to it.

00:14:32 – Brian Johnson

Because I have somebody who’s more of a subject matter expert than me, and that’s Sean. But what we did is we wanted to and you know I think if those who keep up with this stuff know we started to have a quite a significant increase in larger rezoning requests coming into the city kind of our central business district if you will. We had some really big ones, the Da Vinci Court, Day Building. That’s just a year after you had some other significant ones like at the Forum. And we know that with the office product, the office market being as soft and under, you know, significant duress right now, that combined with we had office product owners starting to come to the city with all sorts of, some of them unique, some of them you could maybe go so far as to say weird or like uses that we’re like, eh. But some of them were in a gray area because you’ve never had a situation where existing office product was envisioned to ever have some of these uses. So code doesn’t specifically speak to it. So it started to get worse. So we were like, we need to just take a pause. And this moratorium is again, only for a certain area of the city, only for certain uses. And in fact, the 25 Tech Park South is the last one that got in that their application came in before the moratorium started, which is why these things take a while to get through the system, if you will, the process. And we just knew that we needed to relook at our code. We needed to add protections where we might need to add protections. We needed to add language where it might be, we want some of the uses that these owners have been proposing. We wanted to be flexible so that we weren’t sitting on office product that not only was vacant and not generating any revenue for the cities through our occupational tax, which is one of our most significant revenue streams since we don’t have city property tax, but we didn’t want office product to not only you know go vacant from that standpoint but vacant office product is not climate controlled it starts to fall apart quicker when people aren’t in it taking care of it and you just run the risk of the building going down into a state of disrepair such that then nobody would ever want it. And then you get into problems beyond that.

00:17:29 – Rico Figliolini

So having that moratorium, which comes to an end soon, is a smart move, I think, right? And giving the city an opportunity to address all those issues. So that’s coming up to a public meeting too because there’ll be suggestions of what those changes are.

00:17:49 – Brian Johnson

Our internal experts and some external consultants and land use experts have been working on this together. And they are about ready to have, again, a product that’s worthy of the public hearing and weighing in on. That’ll be the October 5th date open house where you can come in and in and see what’s being proposed. At the end of that, there’s a little bit of time that we can take any input from the public and tweak it, and then it’ll go in front of planning commission and then ultimately in front of city council.

00:18:29 – Rico Figliolini

What I want to point out to people, too, is that the city’s taken an improvement to the website. So if you’re looking at land use plans and such, it was a little bit more difficult to find that, not because it was being hidden, but just because government websites aren’t always the easiest to navigate. But you all have really improved the website quite a bit communication-wise. And although there may be people out there that feel that they’re not aware of what’s going on, stuff is getting out there in a variety of ways. Not everyone’s listening. There’s a lot of noise out there and stuff. But you all did a good job with, there’s a link on the website I’d like people to know called Land Use Cases. This is at the city’s website, right on the homepage. If you go there, you can actually see the current land use cases that are filed and active, along with their application, the site plan, staff report, when the first public hearing is, or read rather, and when the second read is, which is the public hearing where comments could be made and such. So a lot of information here. And there’s one, two, three, four, there’s five cases right now active as we speak. One of them was approved. That was the 25 Technology Parkway South. So if you’re interested in what’s coming up, this is the page to go to. These are the things that you can look at.

00:19:53 – Brian Johnson

And then don’t forget, like, we’re going to change it based on your suggestion, Rico, but it’ll essentially say how does an application become a product or a project? How does an application ultimately become a project? And we created four different ways that somebody might be able to kind of see. And it is complicated. There’s a lot of law involved, a lot of public meeting and, you know public hearing requirements I mean it’s a big deal as we all know. So we describe the process in four different like ways and so for somebody who wants to know, well how does almost like how does a bill become a law this is essentially how an application become a project.

00:20:45 – Rico Figliolini

That’s right. It’s really easy. It’s really easy. The first part that you go to is how does land use application become approved project? And it shows 13 steps. And it’ll explain each one of the steps from pre-application meeting all the way to fees paid all the way to public hearings all the way to planning and commission public hearing. I mean it’s 13 steps through this before you finally get to permitting the piece. But it’s, so for anyone that doesn’t know the process,it is a long process to do this and does take time.

00:21:23 – Brian Johnson

It is. And you know when you do it and all the arrows that you’re going around, you know, you’re like, wow, there are a lot of steps, but there needs to be. And, you know, our steps are the same steps that everybody else, every other local government has to go through. You know, there’s some slightly different ways they do some of those steps, but we all have to go through those steps. So hopefully this will make it a little bit easier. And then hopefully this may, it’s a little bit easier to understand the process and specific cases a little bit easier to find them. I believe now there are seven different vectors in which you can get to the same land use document. You can get to it from the council agenda or a planning commission agenda. If you happen to know that, you can get to it from our calendar. If you know the date, you can get to it from the department, from the homepage. Any way we could think of that somebody might think, oh, I want to find that information. We link it to the same, you know, packet of documents that you described. Hopefully it makes it a little bit easier. And this is based on things we were working on and some input from the community. So, yeah.

00:22:42 – Rico Figliolini

No, this is terrific improvement. I haven’t, usually city government and county websites. It’s a very difficult process to, to find things because it’s, because of the way it’s done. It’s, they’re not companies, you know, doing, making things easier because it’s commercially viable for them to. It’s not an apple website or you know but you all have improved it and it’s so much easier now to find those applications than it was before.

00:23:12 – Brian Johnson

You know Rico, our biggest challenge, most government’s biggest challenge when it comes website, is too much information. Because everybody you know, by law, we have to be transparent. And then beyond the minimum transparencies, if you will, residents, citizens are always saying, you know, well, I didn’t know that, or where do I find that information? You should make it, you know, publicly accessible. Well, our website is the epicenter of that. Everything linked to that. Social media posts link back to the website, newsletters back to the website. So our website is constantly under pressure to put more because people are like, that should have been made available to the public. Well, how do you make it available? You put it on the website. And so it is a challenge for us to make it, put lots of things on the website, but not make it so crammed and condensed that it’s just hard to find. And that challenge you just brought up is a real challenge that we will struggle with probably all the time.

00:24:23 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, I’m sure. And there’s a lot. I mean, just doing the drop-down menus, you could see dozens of choices of where to go. And the website is chock full of information. I mean, it’s a tremendous amount of information, depending on who you are and what you’re looking for. So I wanted to actually touch upon something else too that we spoke about last time, which was Jones Bridge Park and what’s going on there. There’s some updates. I know there’s a public meeting that’s going to be held, let me just say that, October 15th at 2:00 at Pinckneyville Community Center. So it’s being held by the community group that, you know, very intimate knowledge of Jones Bridge Park. A lot of stuff going on there. So we talked a little bit about it. But if you could give us, again, a brief about where we are with this, that would be great.

00:25:23 – Brian Johnson

Well, this is kind of this meeting that you just referred to and some previous ones are the result of residents who live in homes that are up against Jones Bridge Park or nearby, you know, neighborhoods that suffer the loss of quality of life at best. If not, there have been instances where somebody ran from police down into Jones Bridge Park. It’s a dead end. They bail and they’re running through neighborhoods in the middle of the night with, you know, law enforcement chasing them, including aviation units like their helicopter up with searchlights. And so, you know, there’s some concerns. And Jones Bridge Park is unique in that it’s one of the few parks, and least in North Metro Atlanta, that has access to the Chattahoochee River all the way down to where there are man-made improvements for you to get into the river versus like walking down, unimproved, you know, wet bank. It’s also one of the few places that has, I wouldn’t call them rapids, but some whitewater right there.

00:26:58 – Rico Figliolini

They have rocks that were added, outcrops to the river and such.

00:27:02 – Brian Johnson

Right. And then it’s been improved over the years to have lots of covered pavilion, you know, barbecue pits, things like that, playgrounds. So it’s a big park and it’s popular for those who might not have access to pools or want or barbecue or just playgrounds. But unfortunately, when the park closes there are people who like to go back in there and it’s a big park and it goes way back, winds way back in there. And the residents have brought up some concerns and you know the authority, not the ultimate authority, but the ultimate responsible party is Gwinnett County because it’s a Parks and Rec Department asset. And residents are concerned that there’s access to the park because there’s not a gate that’s being closed when the park closes. And so people go back there. And it’s a minority of the time if there’s somebody back there that when Gwinnett PD is even either notified or able to send an asset there to deal with a trespasser and as a result people go back there and they do some pretty, I mean, we’ve had, you know, gunfire back there. Luckily, nobody.

00:28:20 – Rico Figliolini

Six times.

00:28:22 – Brian Johnson

Yeah. And then a lot of vehicular stuff, even short drag racing, doing donuts back there, speakers. You know, you’re talking about, you know like it, I think the hours are dawn to dusk of the park and so you know depending on when, what time of the year it could be you know as early as six or seven where it’s dark and people are still doing things. And so people go back there loud music, drugs. We’ve had a lot of inappropriate behavior back there. And, you know, Gwinnett responds when Gwinnett can respond, but it’s not been enough for the residents to feel like their quality of life and safety is being protected. And so this frustration is born out of that.

00:29:25 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah. There are definitely a lot more people using the park over the past few years than there were before. So I think it’s just gotten more aggravating for people.

00:29:37 – Brian Johnson

I mean, Metro Atlanta is growing, so it’s not going to get any less.

00:29:41 – Rico Figliolini

No, it’s just trying to figure out how to, you know, I know the city was going to pay for the gate, the timed gate to go down and the maintenance of it is negligible over a year. But, you know, I mean, that’s the county right?

00:30:02 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, so the county you know the Parks and Rec Department of Gwinnett County, it’s their facility. Them not closing and opening a gate you know their contention is we don’t have the staff to do that. But the residents themselves have offered to be the ones to do that. You know like look let us open and close it every day so at least we prevent it, they haven’t wanted to do that. I don’t know the reason. I suspect it might be that, well, you know, what happens if they close it and then they don’t open it, you know, early enough so it gets the next day or what, I don’t know. I would submit that you know I think we talked about last time where the fields club has multiple facilities and they have, and multiple entrances to multiple facilities and the fields club doesn’t have staff to be able to open and close it every day. So the residents that are nearby there just kind of basically they just because they’re, you know, oftentimes 10 feet away from the gate or not much farther. They just kind of, you know, organize a little spreadsheet. Hey, Rico, you’ll do it on this day. I’ll do it this day. And you just go out and there and close it, unlocked it and it’s unlocked the next day. And when it started, I remember, you know, Fields Club happened to be on the board saying, look, if this doesn’t work out well, we’re going to have to, you know, not allow you to do that anymore. You know, if you’re locking it before somebody can get out and they had, you know, the authority to be back there or whatever. It’s worked out well so I’m not sure why Gwinnett didn’t say we’ll let you try it unless you screw it up and then we’ll you know remove that. But they just said no thanks so then at the city we offered to buy and have installed a vehicular gate similar to what you see at say railroad crossings gate. We researched ones that automatically go down at a certain time and go back up at another time so it could be programmed to do it automatically and it was remotely accessible so that emergency services could have it go up, you know, if they needed to get back there. And we offered to donate and install it if Gwinnett would then take it over, because it would be securing their park and it would be at their entrance. And we don’t have the authority to restrict some access to property that the city doesn’t own. And we, the company that quoted the price for the purchase and install also gave us a price of about a thousand dollars for the annual maintenance for this company to do annual maintenance and for them to have the remote accessibility. So it would have been, they accepted it, you know, $1,000 a year. Mind you, this is an organization that has over a billion dollar budget. But $1,000 a year and they have declined that option as well. So I’m not sure where we will go. We will also have a presence at that October meeting. Yeah, the 15th. We’ll have a presence at that meeting as well. Our marshals will. But unfortunately, it’s not going to get better. We’ve got to figure out something. And so hopefully we can.

00:33:45 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah. It’s always one thing or another that goes on in the city. Everything from Town Center, parking deck, to the Forum, to all these other places. There was just another purchase done in the community of the $9 million purchase of the shopping center on Holcomb Bridge Road, where there used to be the Outback Center. The restaurant used to be there, but that’s where you’ll see Peachtree Corners Eye Clinic, Dunkin’ Donuts, Taco Bell. So that property was just purchased.

00:34:02 – Brian Johnson

Well, you know, North American property was just bought by Jamestown.

00:34:08 – Rico Figliolini

There you go. There was another, right. And I spoke to someone from North American Properties. Nothing will change. Apparently, it will continue on with the plan that they have, the improvements that they want to do. So, you know, but yeah, things change, right?

00:34:39 – Brian Johnson

They do. And you know, no government can say, well, you know, you can never sell it or you can never do this. We’d love to, but we can’t ensure that a company remains a viable company. Companies go out of business. They merge. They make business decisions to go different directions. I mean, it is an ever evolving thing. And so you try to build in protections against the worst case from happening. But, you know, legally, we can only go so far, we just want to make sure we go as far as the law allows us to restrict certain things from happening after that initial change.

00:35:27 – Rico Figliolini

I mean, we’re fortunate that we have a good neighbor there, for example, at the Forum. I mean, they just opened the plaza. They’re going to move on to, I think, the parking deck later next year or something.

00:35:40 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, they’re working on it because that’ll be next. Yeah that’s, certainly there are people who have been complaining about why would they remove some parking if they didn’t already have a, and you know it’s not.

00:35:54 – Rico Figliolini

It’s just a nicer looking place now.

00:35:57 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, it is. Well, I will say an update on the parking though, they have made the decision that it’s more cost effective for them to take the overflow parking for you know, those who are visiting the proper, shoppers if you will, and they were going to move that and put it in the service parking lot by Belk. But given the amount of utilities, storm water, water and sewer, everything that are underground and what it would take, they’re going to add it to the pedestal that will be part of the parking for the apartments and the hotel on each side of the front entrance. So if you’re coming in off of 141 there’ll be a parking decks on both sides as you’re going down kind of the angle towards the fountain and that’s, they’re going to add another level on each side for the shoppers to park at. And then those who are either in the multifamily or the hotel are in other levels. So that’ll be where, it’s called Pedestal. It’s built in where you have the units above it. And that’s where, so, you know, really it’s the same distance of a walk. Maybe it’s a little bit easier to get to it, drive into it. So you wouldn’t have to do the fountain and across the way to the back.

00:37:36 – Rico Figliolini

So when would that happen then?

00:37:38 – Brian Johnson

It’s still happening at the same time. It’s just, they’re going to build the parking for the shoppers first. So that’s going to continue to go up above it when it’s time for the hotel or the multifamily to go in.

00:37:56 – Rico Figliolini

So when you’re driving up, there’s a part where it sinks down on either side. So we’re going to build, and that’s parking right there also, but they’re going to build the deck then onto that parking, those parking spaces.

00:38:09 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, well, I’m not so sure that they’ll do one level below it and then keep going. When you’re driving down from Peachtree Parkway to Forum Drive, you’re driving to the fountain.

00:38:23 – Rico Figliolini

Right.

00:38:24 – Brian Johnson

On each side, there is, you know, below that ramp down there, there’s, one’s behind, what is it? Ulta? I think it’s the back of Ulta, and the other one is the back of Barnes & Noble.

00:38:37 – Rico Figliolini

It’s not Ulta, I don’t think. Ulta’s on the other side. So it’s behind Barnes & Noble, and then, I forget what the retail is over there.  It’s a retail store. I forget what that is.

00:38:49 – Brian Johnson

It’s typically where you’re going to go.

00:38:52 – Rico Figliolini

And they’re still, I know they’re still able to do the apartments is what they want to do above that area. Are they still the Indigo, a boutique hotel of some sort? They’re supposed to be on the other side, I think.

00:39:05 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, the only change is just moving the shoppers’ parking from where the Belks was to closer to the road.

00:39:15 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. So they’re not doing anything back there like you said because of utilities? And because I drove back there recently I would stop back there this past weekend to go up to you know to do some shopping. And I noticed the utilities and stuff like that I was wondering how they would build that out there.

00:39:33 – Brian Johnson

it just was more expensive to do all that than it is to add a level on the two sides of the main entrance so yeah which was a decision

00:39:42 – Rico Figliolini

Because I was thinking also, because isn’t that retaining wall back there too, I think? The weight of that parking deck on there, I was thinking it’s going to be tremendous with the deck and the cars. It was just like, can they hold it?

00:39:55 – Brian Johnson

They were going to have pillings. But they were going to have to relocate utility lines. You start getting into, and I think there’s also Georgia Power’s got a, what do they call it?

00:40:10 – Rico Figliolini

Transformer?

00:40:12 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, it’s a station. It does multiple things. It could be a transformer. Anyway, Georgia Power’s got what they need to serve the entire property is back in that parking lot. So, you know, the residents who live back in Amberfield, you know, should be happy because there won’t be any change back there.

00:40:35 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, yeah.

00:40:39 – Brian Johnson

You know, but those who are complaining about, oh, there’s not enough parking because they’ve removed some in the middle, do what they did. I mean, there is parking, plenty of it right now. It’s just you have to walk maybe a little bit farther than finding. And I know that’s frustrating. Who wouldn’t like to park right in front of?

00:41:01 – Rico Figliolini

But if you could park right in front of something, that means there’s not enough business going on, not for anything. That’s really what that is. And if you’re walking and you go to the plaza side, I mean, they’ve done a really nice job there, I think. An area that you can eat, you can hang out there. The more stuff there will be, more of the restaurants. I mean, it’s just going to be a nicer atmosphere to be at, I think. Brian, thank you. It’s been a pleasure learning more about what the city’s doing and stuff. So everyone, thank you for being part of, you know, for listening in. And if you have any questions, for sure, put it into the comments. This is a Simulcast live feed, that you’re listening to on Facebook or YouTube. So we’ll try to answer them post the show. And I’ll put some of the links to some of these things that we talked about in the show notes. That’s where you can find it there as well. But hang in there for a Brian. But thank you again for being with us. And also thank you for our sponsor, EV Remodeling. Eli, who does a great job in building renovation work from start to finish. So check them out. He’s a resident of Peachtree Corners. His website is evremodelinginc.com. Great guy. So check out and we appreciate their support for these podcasts and our publication. Thanks again. Take care, guys.

In this episode of Prime Lunchtime with the City Manager, host Rico Figliolini discusses the ongoing trash problems at Jones Bridge Park in Gwinnett County with City Manager Brian Johnson. They explore the park’s overcrowding, littering, and the challenges of managing such a popular amenity.

The conversation also touches on recent city council decisions regarding new apartment developments, focusing on smart city features, development approvals, balancing office market and community needs, navigating mixed-use development challenges, and the complexities of property rights and community growth. Tune in to hear insights on balancing community needs, maintaining public spaces, and navigating the complexities of urban development. 

Timestamp:
00:00:00 – Jones Bridge Park Vandalism Concerns
00:01:40 – Challenges at Jones Bridge Park: Overcrowding, Lack of Oversight, and Resident Concerns
00:08:55 – Addressing Trespassing and Security Concerns at a Local Park
00:14:24 – Automated Gate Proposal for Park Closure
00:16:54 – Proposal for Improving Park Management and Funding
00:18:48 – Balancing Amenities and Maintenance Costs in Public Spaces
00:23:32 – Maintaining Public Spaces and Addressing Transient Residents
00:25:48 – Development Approvals: Recommendations and Council Decisions
00:30:27 – Balancing Office Market and Community Needs
00:34:38 – Navigating Mixed-Use Development Challenges
00:37:56 – The Complexities of Development Approvals
00:44:04 – Property Rights and Community Growth
00:47:11 – Complexities of Urban Development
00:51:34 – Addressing Affordable Housing Challenges in the Community

Transcript:

00:00:00 – Rico Figliolini

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life here in Gwinnett County, the city of Peachtree Corners. I’m with Brian Johnson. Hey, Brian. How are you?

00:00:11 – Brian Johnson

Hey, Rico. Good. How are you?

00:00:13 – Rico Figliolini

Good. Good. Beautiful day. It’s been hot weather. Although, thank God, we don’t have a hurricane really coming our way. So I think we’re fine on that one.

00:00:21 – Brian Johnson

Here, here.

00:00:22 – Rico Figliolini

Before we start on our show that we do, we try to do every month about the city with our city manager, Brian, I just want to say thank you to EV Remodeling, Inc. and Eli for being a sponsor of these podcasts and a good community resident and business here in Peachtree Corners as well. They do design and build, renovation work on homes. Check them out at evremodelinginc.com. We appreciate them supporting our journalism and our podcasts. So let’s get right to it because we’ve been gone from doing this for a few weeks. But I think the first thing that we should start off with is something that’s been out there on Next Door a bit. And I don’t know if it’s quite as bad, although I’ve seen the pictures and it seems as bad. But Jones Bridge Park seems to be getting trashed on a regular basis. And July 4th wasn’t a good weekend for that with lots of stuff just being trashed all over the place there. But some people have complained about that. Some people have complained about the amount of police presence that has been called. I think one person said there were over 300 calls for police to visit in one year in 2023. I don’t know if that’s true. It sounds like a lot to me. But I thought we’d talk about it, you know, you, Brian, because, even obviously, though it’s a county the city’s park, aware of what’s going on there. And so I’m curious, what’s going on there? And, you know, does the city have anything they can do about it?

00:02:05 – Brian Johnson

So there is some challenges with Jones Bridge Park. You know, I will say also important to establish a couple things here. One, Jones Bridge Park is a county-owned and maintained park. And so, you know, there are some conversations we’ve had with them about things. And, you know, after the conversation has been had, we don’t control. You know, if it was our park, I could end up going to my parks and rec director and be like, fix it. So it is, you know, county owned, maintained by Gwinnett County Parks and Rec. Our police department is Gwinnett County PD and so their presence or you know lack thereof as some people you know have expressed frustration about is them now you know that’s not to just, you know, relinquish all involvement, but, you know, there is one of the few parks, at least in this area, that has access, like improved access down into the Chattahoochee River. Yes. So it is a very developed park because it has everything from a lot of covered pavilion space picnic tables grills it’s a gorgeous location it’s the only place on the chattahoochee river anywhere near here that has some you want to call them rapids right and then it has improved stone steps to where you can walk into the Chattahoochee and not have to like, you know, go down some little goat path or whatever.

00:04:12 – Rico Figliolini

Oh, it’s beautiful. I mean, they’ve done a great job there.

00:04:15 – Brian Johnson

It is. Then it has a big playground. And then it also has a section of it that has athletic fields where there’s league soccer.

00:04:24 – Rico Figliolini

Right. In the back right.

00:04:26 – Brian Johnson

So when you combine all of that you have a lot of people who don’t have access to a park that want to go, or excuse me, they don’t have access to nice facilities like covered pavilions and outdoor grills or whatever and they go to the park because it’s a gorgeous location. There’s things for the kids to do. You can get together, you can grill. So it attracts, you know, it’s one of those things where you create your own problem. And, you know, in this case it has. And then to compound things, there are some neighborhoods that back up right to it and we’ve even had tournaments in which Ways or just even Google Maps somebody will drive into the park and there’s no parking for like league soccer tournaments they’ll actually drive into the back of Linfield subdivision that backs up to it and walk through the side yards, the park in Linfield, and then walk between two houses that back up to the parks to get to them.

00:05:37 – Rico Figliolini

Oh, wow. No wonder some of those residents were upset. Yes. And I know the parking can be challenging there.

00:05:46 – Brian Johnson

Yes so that’s all you know so now that’s what all of us when that county as well as the city are trying to regulate you know a fourth of july weekend is you know probably one of the best examples where you just get a crush of people because everybody wants to be outside grilling and having a good time. I cannot speak to Gwinnett County Parks and Rec in that whether they planned for their parks to have, you know, a need for enhanced cleanup event you know i’d like to think that they realize the the fourth of july weekend is going to require extra you know hard to come out and get trash and all that kind of stuff that particular type of thing has not really been where a lot of the challenges are it’s been people that down there when they should not be oftentimes late at night you know I gave examples of soccer tournaments and whatever but that’s more rare what is more common is the park hours hours close at 11pm at that point you’re not supposed to be there but because there’s lack of personnel from Gwinnett County Parks and Rec or Gwinnett County Police the vehicular gate that stays open the park just past Simpson Elementary stays open because there’s nobody. They don’t have the staffing to have somebody close it every night and then reopen it the next day. So then what happens is people either know about it. They go down there and then Gwinnett PD’s presence down there, for whatever reason, has not been particularly consistent. So there are gaps in which somebody is down there and we have calls of cars down there doing donuts, drag racing.

00:07:59 – Rico Figliolini

Is it true that it’s like 300 calls? I mean, someone said they did an Opens record act, and they saw 300 times that the police were called down to the park. I mean, is that even?

00:08:11 – Brian Johnson

Well, yeah, that is potentially possible because or if you consider every call going in to be separate. So for instance, let’s say we had some motorcycles back there, doing donuts, drag revving, racing at midnight, or one in the morning. You could get five people who live in Linfield that call 911. They’ll track five, but it’s actually one incident.

00:08:45 – Rico Figliolini

Gotcha. Okay. That makes more sense. The number could get up there.

00:09:06 – Brian Johnson

But if you told me that there were 100 calls or separate instances in which 911 was called because people were trespassing and doing things late at night or whatever, at night or you know, a hundred calls a year probably would not make me say, you know, but the 300 plus, those are probably counting every individual call. But there are, I mean, one incident down there is too many, certainly many, many, you know, tens, maybe hundreds, that’s way too many. Where we have been involved of late is we have had the marshals down there on a few times where we have seen on social media there being some talk by car clubs and others that eat there. Marshals have been there and it’s hard to know if we did in fact prevent it from materializing. They’ve been down there. They’ve had cars pull in and then turn around and leave because they saw them. But we have involved there. And then the latest is, you know, currently Gwinnett County Parks and Rec, through their director, Chris Minor, is considering a proposal I proposed to them. And that is on the vehicular side chris and I had a conversation it’s many months ago but conversation about the vehicle gate being closed and he you know again intimated to me I don’t have the staff to do it and then Gwinnett PD doesn’t so I said alright this is what I’ll propose. We’ll put an LPR camera there. And there is, there is a license plate reader camera right there at the vehicular gate going into the park. So we can, when, you know, there are incidents there, we do pull video to see if we can use it. Now all these car clubs they’ll or motorcycle clubs or whatever they know about LPR cameras so oftentimes they’ll put something over their license plate when they’re getting ready to do something illegal. So the camera doesn’t always get a good face or we get a face but we don’t have any way to know their name so a face doesn’t mean anything if we can’t you know run the name. So but we do have a camera we already installed it it’s working. The second thing I proposed and he went back and said well I’ve got I said, we will buy an automated gate.

00:11:49 – Rico Figliolini

Okay.

00:11:50 – Brian Johnson

Down at 11 and up at, I believe it opens at 7. And if you are stuck behind it and you come up to it, the motion will have it to where you can leave, but you wouldn’t be able to get back in.

00:12:03 – Rico Figliolini

Gotcha. Okay.

00:12:10 – Brian Johnson

Then once we install they then commit to maintaining it. And it is some degree of maintenance. Anytime you have automated it breaks more often you know, anything, than, a gate that you got to get out of your car and walk around the lock. So there is some dollar amount component to it, but that’s what I offered is you know, to, buy them an automated.

00:12:38 – Rico Figliolini

Would that be similar to, like, you’re waiting on them. Is there, I mean, is that like, that’s like a railroad thing? That’s like the one behind the Forum, I guess. That’s just a bar that goes down?

00:12:49 – Brian Johnson

That’s correct. And by the way, more solid material than like just a wood, you know, painted to, you know, some of the railroad ones are a little bit flimsy. You know, it’s more, this is both to kind of know that you’re not supposed to be there and it should be solid enough that you wouldn’t want a car to go through it because it would damage the car. Some of the railroad ones I’m not sure if it would even damage it if you know hit them.

00:13:16 – Rico Figliolini

No, no yeah I get that and I mean the only other thing I could think of is if I was a car fanatic I’d send someone to the other side of it to, like, wave the sensor so then it opens and then we could drive in. I mean

00:13:30 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, there is no way that if somebody is hell-bent on getting in the car, we can just, you know, make it.

00:13:37 – Rico Figliolini

I mean, but that’s the easiest thing. The thing I was thinking, as long as – somewhat of the same lines that you were thinking. And I’m not sure what the sheriff’s hours are. But there’s a gate there that closes. It just needs a good lock on it.

00:13:56 – Brian Johnson

There’s already a gate there, but you have to have somebody physically go out there and lock it. And then physically go out the next morning to unlock it. And what minor had said is I don’t have the staff. And Gwinnett  PD is like, we don’t have the staff to do that. So like, you know, we would love to have it closed and locked. But what I’m saying is: In lieu of that put an automated gate down And it could be two arms that you know can’t get it to go up. You can even go so far as if you’re on the other side after the park closes you could end up to where it doesn’t go up with motion. The Fields Club actually does this. There are facilities where if you’re caught behind the gate after hours, you’re not supposed to be there. You actually have to call the non-emergency number for Gwinnett PD. They have a key and they’ll get out there at, you know, whenever they can.

00:15:06 – Rico Figliolini

And that almost sounds better because, you know, if the park is closing, technically, is it at dusk or is it technically at 11 p.m.?

00:15:14 – Brian Johnson

It was 11. I mean, maybe there’s different hours. I mean, I thought it was 11.

00:15:20 – Rico Figliolini

So, I mean, I think it’s reasonable that whoever’s still there should just be stuck there and call in.

00:15:26 – Brian Johnson

They have a problem with that again, but again, that’s not our park.

00:15:30 – Rico Figliolini

Right.

00:15:31 – Brian Johnson

So, once I would turn it over at Parks and Rec, they could work that out. But no, I don’t find that unreasonable that if the hours of the park are clearly, you know articulated through signage there, you get caught behind the gate after it closes. You’ve got to call a non emergency number. They’ll have the ability to raise it. But maybe then. And I think in the Fields Club, their arrangement is if a Gwinnett PD officer has to come out and unlock the gate, they get a trespassing violation at the same time. So wait there for however long it took for somebody to have the time to get there. But that was our proposal because then it wouldn’t be staff intensive. But, you know, Chris’s point, well taken, and that is you’re providing me an amenity that does or will have to have maintenance dollars attached to it. So he was like, I need to run this up the flagpole, whatever,  I just have to come back. But that’s our current proposal.

00:16:52 – Rico Figliolini

I think that’s great. Yeah, I think you can even modify that to the degree like you said with what Linfield does, guess. Because how many times is someone really going to be stuck behind there anyway? At some point, is it every night? Doubtful right? I it’s not going to be like that. And if there is, that’s another problem. But, right? And the cleanup I can understand that being an issue. part, And that’s not always. I know there is an issue like that especially summertime weekends where the trash bins are overflowing. There’s not enough trash bins. They don’t want to put more trash bins. Maybe they put plastic bags there, but people do steal the plastic bags. You know, there’s other parks. You know, if we had a nonprofit set up called like Friends of Jones Bridge Park, you know, where they raise some money, they go and they buy some more containers for the parks. Because maybe, like you said, I mean, there’s always expenses to maintain things. People don’t understand that even Simpsonwood, which is a passive park, which is what Jones Bridge is, that budget, I’m sure, I think they said was $370,000 a year for that park. That sounds like a lot, but there’s trash collection every week. There’s a bunch of other things that have to be done there, mulching and all that stuff.

00:18:12 – Brian Johnson

Well, Jones Bridge is an active park because it has activated, it’s got active programming. It’s got soccer.

00:18:18 – Rico Figliolini

True, true, true. That’s true.

00:18:19 – Brian Johnson

So it is. Yeah, I would supplement what you said by just saying, you know, as government, anytime we’re looking to add an amenity, there are two types of dollars that you have to consider that is the upfront cost of constructing the amenity, improving the amenity, whatever. Take it up. I mean, we get constantly people who tell the city, oh, you should just buy that property and turn it into a park. Well, one, is as soon as you have a public parcel, people want it to be improved. Hey, what picnic table is there? Can you put a playground or whatever? And now you get into the second dollar amount and that is the annual amount that you’ve got to budget to maintain it. We have pushed back in some cases on things that we have the money to do right then, but we know that it’s going to be adding an annual cost that we just do not want to go down that road. And so you have to make the decision that, look, we either need to do this, maintain this right, or don’t do it. You know, our Town Center is a good example. I mean, you know, we’ve created, you know, some of our own maintenance, you know, challenges, maintenance obligations by putting in more playground equipment, attracting more people. So we have to, but we committed that that’s our downtown and we’re going to make sure we manage it right. If you can’t, then close it or do something, you know, and there are even intermediate steps. If grills, grills are actually a controversial thing to add to a park.

00:20:11 – Rico Figliolini

Yes, for sure.

00:20:12 – Brian Johnson

Grills there, it attracts people who want to spend time with larger groups of people. If you don’t have that, you would not have as many of the fourth of july you know stuff. So if people unfortunately don’t take care of things and take care of their own trash, which they should. And by the way a non-profit or a community group has been discussed before. The problem is I’ve been in meetings with even Gwinnett County Parks and Rec in the room, but residents talking about what’s going on. Oftentimes when it comes up, the residents are kind of like, you know, A) who’s going to be part of that group? So there’s a lot of people who have a lot of demands on their time. And so it’s going to invariably be the people who live right there. And then their other argument is you are charging us Gwinnett County Parks and Rec specific millage or property tax to maintain these things. You know, why are we having to supplement you taking taxes from us that are specific to parks and rec and now we also do extra work because you’re saying you aren’t allocating the resources necessary to maintain your home.

00:21:37 – Rico Figliolini

This is why there are cities like Duluth and Johns Creek, I believe does this that have their own parks department because this way they know they can zone down to their locality they can take care of their own parks. You know Gwinnett is huge, Gwinnett does a great job the parks department, I think does a really great job in maintaining a lot of the sports facilities a lot of the parks but it’s a demanding thing like you said. I mean it’s and you got to deal with people’s just people being trashy. 4th of July there’s, if there’s not enough trash bins, they don’t, they’re not going to take trash home with them. They’re going to leave it there. And unfortunately, and that’s a sad thing, but that’s just the way it is.

00:22:16 – One of three, you’ve either got to have a representative down there during the day to be policing as it’s happening.

00:22:23 – Rico Figliolini

Right.

00:22:24 – Brian Johnson

If not you either can put extra trash bins out there or remove some of the amenities that are creating trash. Which you hate to do saying when people don’t you know their behavior is such. That’s another, I’m not recommending I’m just saying that. Or you allocate you know you come up with the schedule that you know the day after 4th of July, you’re going to have extra crews going out there to clean it up because, you know, it’s like our concerts. The morning after concerts on the town green we have extra staff that goes out there and cleans it up really well because we knew that there’s going to be a lot of people on the town green. People just don’t take care of stuff that’s not theirs. It’s sad, but it’s reality. And we just have to, you know, allocate resources accordingly. And so, yeah, there are some things that can be done to mitigate this. You know unfortunately Jones Bridge Park is a great amenity but great amenities attract people from parts way outside of Peachtree Corners and you know and more people than the residents would normally load on that park. And, you know, that’s the downside of having a great unique amenity.

00:23:50 – Rico Figliolini

So at least the city’s talking to the county and you’re just waiting to hear back at least about that gate.

00:23:56 – Brian Johnson

That particular thing, yes, we will continue to. Because it is in our corporate limits and we are interested. And those residents there should not be dealing with what they’re dealing with. So, you know, but you know, certainly it would be better if we controlled it directly. No doubt about it. We don’t.

00:24:17 – Rico Figliolini

All right. So cool. I’m glad we got to talk about that. I know that it’s a, it is a big deal. I mean, this stuff. And you’re right. People just don’t take care of things that are not there sometimes, which segues a little bit into apartments to some degree, right? It’s not equity. It’s transient a bit, right? People rent apartments and stuff. Apartments are not a bad thing per se. It’s just if it’s done well. And two apartment zonings just came up, right? The Day building and the Da Vinci Court applications. And I was reading before I knew that they were both denied. I was reading a bit of the conditions on the Day building one, for example, that was proposed for 248 units with a minimum of like 3,000 square feet of commercial space still to be retained. And there was a bunch of really good, strong conditions on here about smart development, smart city developments, LED lights, license plate readers have to be there, security systems on the property, smart home technology within the residential units. It’s all like good stuff. Good, good, good.

00:25:30 – Brian Johnson

Well, Rico, I mean, you probably won’t toot your own horn, so I will. But, you know, some of those have been the result of previous conversations you and I have had on this very podcast. Where we’ve talked about are there things city can do when developers are coming in front of us wanting something to make it better. And my job as an application works through the process with the help of staff is to make a project as good as I can on the off chance that it’s approved. Even in instances where the recommendation from staff might be to deny for various reasons, my job is still, because I don’t know, you know, I don’t vote and council still has to vote. So I have to be prepared for either one. So, you know, even if in instances where we’ll recommend denial, we will still continue to put pressure on the applicant to agree to conditions to make the product the best we can. If, in fact, council says, yes, Mr. city manager we hear your recommendation but we like it we’re going to approve it then at least I know I did everything I could to make it the best. So that’s no different here I mean it didn’t get approved if it had been we made it as good of a product as we could have possibly made it.

00:27:02 – Rico Figliolini

And I agree and you guys have done a great job. And certainly through conversations, I mean, you’ve added things even beyond what I would like to see. But I’m glad that you’re also incorporating stuff like that because it’s, you know, being able to be a smart city and work these developments in a smart way makes sense to me, right? If we keep saying we’re a smart city, then we better be making sure that what comes to fruition addresses some of that, right? Because otherwise, what’s the point? And, you know, having, I mean, there was also, I think you guys came up with the participation of developments like this in the crime-free multifamily housing program, which I thought was great. The individually metered areas of apartment units. This way, at some point, could they be made into condo equity property? Yes, by doing that. Even putting that they have to put $20,000 worth of minimum value of public art in the lobby. Instead of this just being a cookie cutter, trying to let’s just fit 240 apartments on some hill, which is what the big building is essentially on. So I’m glad that you guys are doing that. But let’s get into why then, because DaVinci Core was another one that we applied for apartment development. I forget how many units. And this was basically using an empty parking space to a degree, I guess. I know there’s a moratorium that you all placed on the Central Business District. Did that run? That was for six months, right?

00:28:40 – Brian Johnson

It is. We’re currently in it. But these both, if somebody, an applicant had actually or a developer had dropped an application in even an hour before the moratorium starts, they got in the door. We can’t, you know, so these that they had been in the process for a while. I mean, as you know, these things really once the application is officially in our process, unless we push it along a little faster for other reasons, it’s generally 90 to 120 days before it is actually voted on. So it takes some time.

00:29:18 – Rico Figliolini

Well, I don’t know if we can say this, but the city council voted denial on both of these, 7-0 denial. One of them was, I don’t know if the other one was, the Day building was actually recommended for approval by the planning department, I believe, because it fits. Both of them were. But the city council representatives of the people decided seven to nothing that these should not move forward. Spirit of the moratorium or other reasons?

00:29:52 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, the moratorium didn’t really have anything to do with these two. So moratorium was really just to give us a brief period of time to take a closer look at a very specific part of the city, and in our case, Central Business District. And really even more granular than that, the office product within it, and drill down a little bit more on making sure that both we have some additional things that might protect us from having just more of a crush of these mixed-use developments that have aspects of it Council or the community doesn’t want. At the same time, maybe looking at certain areas where we might actually loosen the code to allow for some creative uses of underperforming office because you’ve got to be very careful. You know we are a, you know second largest municipality in Georgia with no city property tax. One of the reasons that’s the case, about 30% of our general fund budget is from business license revenue. So we’ve got to make sure we’re doing everything we can to ensure that businesses are healthy and they’re generating income in this city so that then we get business license revenue from it. And right now the office market is really soft. And there’s a lot of underperforming office buildings in which the owners are coming to us saying, oh, I can’t bill it. I’m underwater. Will you let me redevelop it into. Well, those are coming and we don’t get to choose what applicants come here. So everybody has a legal right to ultimately be heard by council with a vote of yes or no. So we’re trying to make, trying to tweak the comp plan section of the central business district. We’re thinking about breaking out the Town Center, Forum kind of that area right there that’s more retail centric and make that a little bit more unique from Tech Park. Right now they’re together as part of our central business district. And as you well know, our local economy is both. But Tech Park’s type of use is way different than a retail hub like Town Center.

00:32:28 – And the retail hub is part of the entertainment overlay.

00:32:44 – Brian Johnson

There’s an overlay over that to you where you can, do things like walk out of a restaurant with a beer and walk down the sidewalk, and window shop or go to the town, whatever. But yeah so, we’re trying to make that central business district break it down even into a more granular level. It might be able to allow us to, again, on one extreme, maybe protect ourselves from, you know, constantly getting stuff. So this will allow us to kind of forecast to people who are looking at it, what we may or may not, or council may or may not be open to. But also, you know, tweaking some things. I mean, you and I talked prior to the podcast about, you know, an existing office building that was very close to putting in pickleball inside of what was or actually still is a commercial office building broken up into offices for you know white collar administrative occupants. They were going to gut the whole thing and the reason is, is because right now there’s not a lot of people looking for office space. And the owner’s like I’m trying to get creative here, so we’ve got to be creative or make sure that our code for the right things in the right instances might allow for a little bit more creative things than our zoning code foresaw when it was written many, many decades ago. And so that’s why the moratorium exists. It did not have anything to do with council’s consideration of these two applications.

00:34:18 – Rico Figliolini

From what you heard from the council, is there opportunity for these to come back in different forms. Like, you know, obviously 248 units, studio, one, two bedroom, multifamily. I think that was, we were talking about stacked flats in the Day building rezoning. You know, no one’s saying that, you know, this is a MUD, multi-use development or mixed use development, right? Yeah. Mixed use. The problem with that is that these types of things, and I can see why the moratorium was put in place, because all these applications that are coming is like, we want to put these 250-plus apartments and we’ll keep 3,000 square feet or 2,500 feet or 1,200 feet as restaurant or breakfast place or something. So they’re trying to fit, they’re trying to say they’re mixed use when in reality it’s an apartment development. And there’s no mixed use really to it. Can this come back?

00:35:33 – Brian Johnson

We have had a few of those symbolic things but we amended our ordinance, I don’t know, a year ago. And now you know, you can’t have a use that exceeds, I can’t remember exactly, like maybe one use, exceed more than 60% of the 100%. So you can’t have 98% residential, 1% commercial, 1% retail. You can’t play that game and then call it mixed use.

00:35:57 – Rico Figliolini

Or is it a mixed formula of apartments and equity, like the stack flats? That would be considered equity, I guess?

00:36:00 – Brian Johnson

No, still residential.

00:36:02 – Rico Figliolini

It’s still residential.

00:36:04 – Brian Johnson

Remember, equity versus rental cannot be a consideration in and of itself of whether something is approved or not. A parcel, under the zoning procedures law, a parcel has to be considered whether a residential use is good for that parcel or not. You can’t end up saying, well, only if it’s equity or only if it’s age-restricted or only if it. Those things bubble up. Developers oftentimes will offer to do that in return for improving their odds. But that cannot be a consideration of something because you have to understand, you know, these denials, you know, when staff does a report, we have to objectively look at whether or not the application is in, you know, conflict with any local code law character area that kind of thin. If it meets all those criteria we’re not really these recommendations are not like I wake up one morning and I’m like yeah I think one go there, it’s the recommend approval because it meets all of the legal.

00:37:22 – Brian Johnson

Sure, sure.

00:37:25 – Brian Johnson

Now, that’s merely to say that. Council, each individual has to vote their own conscience, and they all have other considerations. So, you know, that’s not. But I bring that up to say, you just asked the question of could they come back. Anything can come back, but it can come back in various ways. An applicant can wait for the cooling off period and present the same exact thing. And timing sometimes matters. Those comments have come up about these two mixed-use development applications are very close to the Town Center, a Town Center in which there are two previously approved residential units that are not completed yet. One is under construction, Solis, there on the Town Center side, and then North American hasn’t started theirs yet. So there’s been talk about timing. But that’s one way to come back. Another way is is they could re-engage with the city and say hey maybe if we tweak the site plan to you know have this or whatever, the parcel that’s basically at the corner of Engineering and 141 right across on the west side of 141 from Racetrack and Peachtree Corners Liquor, they submitted a mixed use development that had 275 apartment units. Along with some other, you know, two other uses and that was denied. And then they came back and just made it a townhome and just had 75 townhomes.

00:39:06 – Rico Figliolini

Right. So they’ll probably sell for 750,000 or more.

00:39:11 – Brian Johnson

So that was a way for them to come back but it was a different product. The other way is you know also I have to understand in the case of the owner of the Da Vinci Court property they have filed a suit against us. So we will be in front of a judge at some point and if a judge finds that that the denial was not based on legally defensible reasons, the judge will kick it back and force Mayor and Council to consider that site again.

00:39:56 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. So that happened once before, or that happens all the time, actually. But even before the city was approved, it became a city. That happened where Town Center is, where the properties, Charlie Roberts, sued because he felt that it was not a good zoning. And in some ways, he probably was correct about where it was. So he got courts to go back.

00:40:30 – Brian Johnson

Yes, it forced the county to consider and they did approve. And then he came back to the city with a product and it was going to be, well, yeah, it was denied filed suit but then there was conversation amongst us and he withdrew that in return for coming back with what was ultimately the product that he sold it for. So it does happen and in instances, a judge could say, nope, mayor and council, you did not, that was a violation of that property owner’s right to their highest and best use. You did not meet zoning procedure law. Try again.

00:41:20 – Rico Figliolini

I can see that. I think if I don’t recall the exact details of the comprehensive plan, but I think, doesn’t that property, if you look at the comprehensive plan 2040, I guess, and you look at where that property backs up to or borders, is it other offices or is it the area of land that in the plan says could be multi-use family? You know I mean, he could come back and say.

00:41:51 – Brian Johnson

Yeah this is a good point. Our comp plan both of these mixed use applications were in the character area in which our comp plan said would be appropriate to have dense residential. You know, the density of residential is fitting in a town center, downtown area. So from that aspect, our comp plan does say that it was an appropriate use there. It doesn’t go any farther than to say dense residential, again, because you can’t solely based on what type of residential, don’t get into rental equity, age restricted or whatever. So it doesn’t say that, oh, it’s appropriate for equity dense residential. That can’t be in and of itself a consideration. But dense residential is an industry-accepted appropriate use in downtown areas. That one we didn’t make up. We’re not unique in that regard. Now, again, community may say we don’t care and put pressure on the elected officials. And, you know, we certainly are at a point, I will say, that we have a lot of, I mean, we have a significant enough of a resident base that moved here. You know, they oftentimes when they’re not happy with a decision council made or they’re wanting to get their comments and, you know, front of council before council is on something. Oftentimes I’ll start with a, I moved here in 1992 and oh the city has grown and traffic has gotten worse or whatever and I do not disagree. You know I have no doubt that those comments are true however we as a city as many people don’t realize, have a limitation to our ability to say no. A property owner who has a legal right to a highest and best use of their property. And when we are located in a growing metro area, there is a constant demand for residential. And then a property owner is like, I can get a higher and better use of my property with putting residential on it than I currently can get. It starts to get into a difficult area. And those who think that we can hit the pause button on growth, that is impossible. The city does not have the power to just indiscriminately say, nope, we’re done growing. We’re not going to need more people. And that’s where it gets, you know, again, it’s challenging. The most difficult decision I have to present to council for consideration are land use decisions. But again also just because property owners want to get more money there are certain things that if they don’t meet you’re kind of like, no I’m sorry. You know, I think. It could be Rico you’re like look I could get more money selling my house demoing it and constructing, I don’t know.

00:45:25 – Rico Figliolini

A duplex.

00:45:27 – Brian Johnson

Something like that. And then we say, no, it’s not appropriate because you are in a neighborhood that are single family detached residential. So it’s not appropriate. Those are easy. There’s always extreme. It’s where you get into where, you know you don’t have something that clear it’s right next to one that already is what they want.

00:45:50 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah it’s a, I can understand it’s a difficult thing.

00:45:52 – Brian Johnson

It is yeah. I’m trying to say that there’s not necessarily a right or wrong answer. I’m only just trying to make sure that people understand that the city is not lured over land use in such a way that Mayor and Council can literally just say no or yes indiscriminately. It has to be based on people’s principles.

00:46:17 – Rico Figliolini

But this is also why the comprehensive plan is there. And people should understand that next time it gets updated. What, in four years? I think it was just recently updated, right?

00:46:30 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, about four years from now or so, maybe it’ll be updated again. It gets updated every few years.

00:46:37 – Rico Figliolini

Right. So people should be aware of that because that is what guides a lot of this. Because they can point to that eventually and say, well, you denied me, but your plan shows I should be able to do this type of development. It doesn’t say specific, like you said, departments or equity, but does talk about density and stuff like that. And what you expect that the city, you know, how this will all pan out because in a controlled way, that’s what the plan is. The plan is to provide a controlled way of expansion of a city’s population that will naturally grow, and that’s what developers look at. And if the developer comes back and says, well, you know, this shows I should be able to do that, bought the land for that reason, or I own this and I can’t do the office building. I mean, I just saw Dell, I think, was trying to get all their employees back for full time in the office five days a week. And half their employees said, we’re not coming back. We could do hybrid two days a week, you know, at home, three days in, but we’re not coming back. So what do you do? Do you fire half your workforce because they’re refusing to come back? I mean, it’s such a changed world.

00:47:55 – Brian Johnson

And then, you know, even on things that the use itself isn’t necessarily controversial, it’s just the call it growth. You know you have some anti-growth people who it doesn’t matter what it is they don’t want it to change. You’ve got to be careful because when markets change properties go through you know phases. You know would we rather have an empty office building that’s in decay potentially dragging down the neighborhood lot? Or do we want to work with the property owner to try to find something that’s you know we got criticism on the property I mentioned earlier where they came in with 275 apartments denied and they came with 75 townhomes. So now those who only care about equity versus rental, they were kind of like, alright, they’re equity. We still had a contingent of residents who were like, I don’t know why you’re letting them do this. It’s going to increase traffic. Well, that’s potentially true if you consider that the office that was there at the big surface parking lot, it was completely vacant and the office building was no longer actually habitable because it had water damage. But there were people who would have rather that thing sit there like that because they didn’t want any more cars. And you’re just like, okay, you know. But that property is also not generating revenue for the city. And then it’s dragging property values down because appraisals are based on comparables. And it has a ripple effect that we as a city cannot ignore and that’s what makes these decisions really complicated and it is not and can never be as cut and dry as somebody who’s like we should just seal off the city to growth or we could never have any more apartments or we could never allow for that. We can’t do that legally and we shouldn’t be doing that functionally because our local economy is very nuanced and complicated and important. If we don’t want to have, levy a millage rate on residents of the city. Right now the business community is holding up, you know, that revenue stream. And you know the city’s not taking money from you and I, Rico, merely based on the value of our residential property we own.

00:50:30 – Rico Figliolini

Right, yes. Only the county does that.

00:50:31 – Brian Johnson

Right. But most cities do.

00:50:36 – Rico Figliolini

Yes. So we’ve, you know it’s good to have opposition because it provides creativity. It provides a way to make a project better. But, you know, I certainly disagree with those that feel that things should exactly stay the same. Like the Forum at one point. Well, why was that being changed and stuff? Because they would prefer having the 17 empty stores that were there at one point.

00:51:03 – Brian Johnson

And growing.

00:51:04 – Rico Figliolini

Yes. So, people, you know, obviously, you know, people, well, you know, the rent’s going up and they’re not letting people, you know, you don’t know other people’s businesses and what’s necessary to actually make that business work or what their cash flow is. Because maybe it’s not as good as you think, you know, because the market is not quite there. Or maybe they’re trying to make it a little different and stuff. So yeah, opposition is fine because that does help make projects better. But because we could go down this road forever, I mean, there’s things I’d like to see. There’s things that I’d like to see development come in and say, you know what, 30% of our apartments are going to be made and only rented to median income people. Really affordable versus, let’s say, our normal apartment rent is $2,500 for a two-bedroom. We’ll make these $1,400 for a two-bedroom. But you have to meet that median income that allowable and make it affordable. I mean, there’s all sorts of nuances.

00:52:03 – Brian Johnson

We’re working on that, Rico. We’re working on that very thing. Oh absolutely.

00:52:05 – Rico Figliolini

Are you working on that? I’d like to see affordable housing here. Yeah. Because, good.

00:52:09 – Brian Johnson

We are seeing if we can’t get, you know, call it, you know, starter home, you know, call it workforce housing, whatever. But yes, we are looking at maybe having a restriction on the title that the owner can’t sell it for a period of time into the future except to somebody who’s making a percentage of the area median income.

00:52:40 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. I mean, all those things. Other states are doing it. Other counties are doing that. I mean, I have friends whose kids can’t. They’re just saying, I can’t buy anything here in Peachtree Corners because there’s nothing. And I’m not making enough to do that purchase. You know, maybe they’re doing well. They’re doing a household income of $80,000 between two, a husband and wife, or $100,000, which sounds like a lot, but that’s not a lot when you’re dealing with buying a home and you have to put down a certain amount of money on it. So, yeah, I mean, we could keep talking about that. Maybe we should do a show on that, actually.

00:53:15 – Brian Johnson

Well, we should, definitely. I’ll tell you, you bring up a good point. Here’s something that many people don’t realize, because it’s only a phenomenon that’s happened over the last couple of years but for a long time and for legitimate reasons people were very protective of you know oftentimes we’ll just use Simpson Elementary School as an example. A very high performing elementary school that people wanted to get their kids into. And its performance made the area that fed into that more valuable. When I bought my home in the Simpson Elementary School District eight years ago, I could have taken my exact home, picked it up and dropped it into you know Berkeley Lake Elementary or something and I would have lost fifty thousand dollars of value. Same exact home, different school feeder. So people were always protective of oh we don’t want to overcrowd the schools we want it to be whatever. Do you know that Pinckneyville Middle School, both Peachtree Elementary and Simpson Elementary have had declining student populations over the last three years and are under enrolled? And the reason for that, take Simpson Elementary. Most, in fact, as it stands right this second, all of the residential units are zoned to be an ownership and equity product. There’s no apartments feeding it. The house values are so high that people who have elementary school age kids haven’t in their career made enough money to be able to afford a half a million dollar home in Simpson. So they can’t afford it. And of course, interest rates hurt. And then you also don’t have turnover from the people who are currently in them.

00:55:23 – Rico Figliolini

Oh, yeah. Who wants to sell at this point.

00:55:24 – Brian Johnson

6,000 square foot homes that are now empty nesters but they’re like we could get a good dollar amount for our home but then wherever we go we’re going to have to pay through the nose as well or the big one is I have a three percent interest rate or I don’t own it or I don’t have a mortgage at all and now if I want to buy I’ve got to pay 7% interest. I’m just going to stay in my home. So you don’t have homes becoming available and then you don’t have younger families able to afford it. So because of it, we don’t have the feeder for those. So Simpson Elementary is in danger of losing some of their paraprofessionals that are not teaching class, but they’re kind of supporting. Same with Pinckneyville Middle School, because their student population is down and they’re actually under-enrolled. We get comments as recent as the last couple of weeks. Oh, even on the last two rezonings. Oh, it’s going to overcrowd the schools.

00:56:29 – Rico Figliolini

No, that it’s not.

00:56:33 – Brian Johnson

The schools are down. But, you know, just people.

00:56:37 – Rico Figliolini

People don’t understand. It’s the headcount that funds the schools. They don’t have enough students. They’re not going to get that budget from the county.

00:56:47 – Brian Johnson

Budget goes down, teachers go down. But also, you know, right before our podcast, I just met with a number of residents who provided some really good recommendations on how we can improve the information about land use decisions the city is making, you know, about applications coming in. Making it easier to find the information, making it easier to understand the process, things we’re going to be adding to the website to make it better. Based on some of the recent public hearings and, you know, how people found out about it. So we’re always looking to improve as well and make sure that all of our residents, the more they know about the complications of this and understand what council is faced with, the more they’ll appreciate the challenging decision council made, but they did the best that they can. And the council did not make these decisions based on rolling up to the final meeting barely knowing what’s going on and at the end of the day kind of being like you know where’s the win although that way they spend time and we spend time with them educated on this and they do a great job of making decisions on really complicated land use development.

00:58:08 – Rico Figliolini

I think, you know, part of, I mean, this is good what we do. I think a lot of people listen to the podcast in a variety of ways, whether it’s audio or video on YouTube or Facebook and stuff. I think we’re going to try to make a better effort also in reporting some of the things coming up because we don’t always do that. We’re doing post coverage sometimes. We’re a feature magazine, so it’s a little different, right? But I think we’re going to start doing a little bit more of that coverage so that people can be aware of the things coming up also.

00:58:45 – Brian Johnson

I’ll offer you one other thing, Rico. I don’t know how resource intensive it is or if it’s advantageous for you, but as you know how to look, when we get applications in at a certain point, staff report’s done and we make it available to the public so they can see the application, they can see the staff assessment as it’s getting ready to go to planning commission. If you want to take individual, you know, land use cases, and do special podcasts to discuss those particular.

00:59:00 You could do that. Sure. Right on.

00:59:26 – Brian Johnson

I am myself available. A community development director would be happy to do it. We could do it together. You know, if you find value in doing that, and then you can push it out and say, hey, this is specific about, you know, this mixed-use development rezoning application that council’s going to hear and we can talk through.

00:59:47 – Rico Figliolini

You know what, that’s great. And on something like that, maybe we can even do it as a live thing and take questions from people. Okay. That’d be cool. We’ll work on that. So we’ll work on how we can, what that would look like. And I’ll get back to you. Appreciate you offering that. Cool. Everyone, thank you. You know, this was going to be a 30-minute podcast. It ends up being one hour. Sorry about keeping you like that, Brian.

01:00:15 – Brian Johnson

I was going to say, you and I, we always have the best intentions up front. But these are complicated but important things to discuss.

01:00:25 – Rico Figliolini

For sure. For sure. So thank you for more time than I asked for. Everyone, share this podcast. Rate us if you’re on Apple, IHeart, if you’re listening to this. Give us a rating on this podcast. Certainly share it to your friends, your HOA, whoever, you know, whoever you need to share this out to. Some good discussion here. And I think more to come for sure as we do every month. But thank you again and thank you to EV Remodeling, Inc. for being a sponsor, a corporate sponsor of our podcast and good supporter of our journalism. We appreciate that, Eli. So check them out at evremodelinginc.com and find out how they can help you remodel your home. Thanks again, Brian. Hang in there for a second. Thank you, everyone else. Appreciate it.

On this episode, RJ Encinas from CHRIS180 discusses the organizations’ missions to provide trauma-informed behavioral health and wraparound services to children, families, and adults in the Atlanta and Gwinnett County communities. Programs address underlying experiences impacting families, not just presenting issues. CHRIS180 provides counseling and support services regardless of insurance status, partnering with local organizations. Hosted by Rico Figliolini

Resources:
CHRIS180 Website: https://chris180.org/

Timestamp:
00:00:00 – Understanding Trauma and Community Care
00:01:20 – Transforming Lives in Gwinnett: The Story of CHRIS180
00:05:50 – Embracing Technology and Community Connections
00:08:44 – Providing Free, Nonprofit Services
00:10:15 – Expanding Awareness of Community Support Services
00:12:21 – Supporting Families in Juvenile Justice
00:14:27 – Adapting Services to Individual Needs
00:17:52 – Measuring Success Through Data and Community Engagement
00:19:47 – Embracing the New and Expanding Horizons
00:22:26 – Expanding Wraparound Services for Diverse Communities
00:25:20 – Leveraging Family Strengths in Home-Based Services
00:27:00 – Collaborative Family-Centered Approach
00:29:25 – Expanding CHRIS180’s Staff and Services

Podcast Transcript:

00:00:00: Rico Figliolini

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of UrbanEbb, a podcast that talks about culture, politics, society, and we have a great guest today that will help us a bit more to understand about the traumas in our lives and how to take care of those people we care about. His name is RJ Encinas from CHRIS180. Hey, RJ. Thanks for joining me.

00:00:25: RJ Encinas

Hey, Rico. Thanks so much for having us.

00:00:28: Rico Figliolini

Yeah. No, this is great. It’s a beautiful day outside too, so it’s good to be in the house.

00:00:31: RJ Encinas

It is nice. Yep.

00:00:35: Rico Figliolini

So CHRIS180 just opened a new facility in Lawrenceville, Georgia, here in Gwinnett County. And there’s services that are going to be expanding into that facility and reaching out to Gwinnett County. And the services that are going to be expanding into that facility and reaching out to the Gwinnett community. So I guess the first question would be, give us an overview of CHRIS180 and its mission. And tell us, by the way, a little bit about yourself as well.

00:00:58: RJ Encinas

All right, cool. So yeah, so like you said, Rico, my name is RJ Encinas and I am the Vice President of Wraparound Services here at CHRIS180. I actually am brand new to Atlanta. I’ve only lived here since January, so I’m still trying to find my footing here in Atlanta, still, you know, testing out the delicious food and different locations. The positive is I happen to choose a home in Gwinnett. So, you know, living here and the new office opening here in Gwinnett just, you know, kind of worked out perfectly. So CHRIS180, it is an Atlanta-based nonprofit organization that opened in 1981. For the past 40 years, we have worked with over 200,000 families throughout the metro Atlanta area. What we do is we provide life-changing trauma-informed behavioral health services and wraparound services to children, families, and adults in communities that empowers them to change the direction of their lives. A lot of what we do also is meeting the families where they’re at. I think that’s so important to help support them in the most natural setting. So whether that be home, school, a foster home, community-based programs, our goal is to help support them where they need it the most. And that very much coincides with our mission. You know, our mission is to heal children, strengthen families and build community. And so with that said, I’m sorry, did you have a question?

00:02:27: Rico Figliolini

 No, no, no.

00:02:28: RJ Encinas

Okay, cool. Sorry. So I loved CHRIS180. I think that’s, you know, obviously a big reason why I, you know, I was driven to come here. The diversity of the populations that we work with, the vast amount of programs that we have under our umbrella. The cool thing is CHRIS180 is actually an acronym as itself. It’s a standard for our core values. So creativity, honor, respect, integrity, safety, and the 180 itself represents change. As you know, our goal is to help change lives in the community that we serve.

00:03:07: Rico Figliolini

Wow. Great. That was a great overview. Where did you come from originally, RJ?

00:03:12: RJ Encinas

Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. Yep.

00:03:16: Rico Figliolini

You’re probably happy you left there, but the heat can be bad here too.

00:03:20: RJ Encinas

Well, you know, it’s funny because, you know, I talk to my family, you know, almost daily. I’m very close to my family and even the water pressure is hot when it’s on cold because it’s so hot there. So, yes, I’m loving this weather. That’s one of the things that I think that has made me most excited to live here is this incredible weather. Yeah.

00:03:38: Rico Figliolini

And it’s a little bit more seasonal to some degree. Although it’s changed a lot since 1995 when I first moved here. The weather has been just changed a bit. It stays cooler longer now, I think.

00:03:52: RJ Encinas

Oh, okay. Well, that’s a good thing.

00:03:53: Rico Figliolini

Yeah. But when it gets hot, it really gets hot and humid, so that doesn’t help. Yeah. So you guys opened up the Lawrenceville facility here in Gwinnett County, obviously Gwinnett is majority minority, the most diverse county in the state of Georgia, the largest county, I think still by population. It takes a lot of people to run a place. So one of the programs, let’s get right into it, I guess. Can you explain a little bit the trauma-informed care and what that means and how that’s an essential part of the service that CHRIS180 does?

00:04:32: RJ Encinas

Yeah, I mean, I think trauma-informed care, the easiest way to describe that is it’s providing services to children and families where it’s more of an element of looking at what’s, you know, not looking at what’s wrong with you versus what happened to you. How do we support you? How do we get, you know, what led up to this point of your life where we can help support you? And so part of what we do is we try to establish, you know, a foundation of where to start, a starting point, and then we take off from there. So, you know, with that said, you know, a lot of what we do here, we have a vast amount of services that we provide within our organization. We do, you know, there’s child parent psychotherapy, we have play therapy, psychiatric services. Here in Gwinnett, the office specifically has, it’s a counseling center. So we have, you know, a variety of therapists here who provide, you know, a great deal of different modalities when it comes to, you know, therapeutic interventions. Aside from that, where I come in, we have a wraparound program. It’s a huge program. And the positive is we have a bunch of specialties within our program. So specifically, the program that is housed here in Gwinnett is the birth to eight program. And so what we do is a lot of family approach, obviously, because the children are so young. And so we do a lot of, you know, ensuring that whoever is responsible, you know, in that home to help that home function well, that’s who we want to work with everybody as a unit. We also have our foster care and adopt program here as well. And that is growing. I think the positive is that we’ve always been a part of the community here in Gwinnett, working with clients and families. But I think it’s so astronomical to have an actual location here, to have a home base here where we can have people come in and provide that direct support. They see us, they see us as part of the community. And then also, you know, for people like me who live in Gwinnett, you know, it’s great to be able to have a touchdown, you know, to be able to come to every day and support, you know, in a different kind of way. I think we’ve gotten so used to, there’s so much virtual, I guess it’s just part of our life now, right? Since COVID. And so, you know, I think, you know, some of the things that I love is being able to have that direct interaction with not only, you know, people, community, but with the staff, you know, I think it’s such a different feel of the relationships you build and offering additional support to them in a way that is, I guess, you know, just plain different from, you know, this sort of conversation.

00:07:08: Rico Figliolini

Sure. And obviously we’re doing this remote too, so I can appreciate this started out as a remote podcast back during COVID, whereas we were in person before that for the most part. But it just makes life easier, right? You can talk to a lot of people on their schedule we’ve had podcasts you know people have been in the cars you know doing the podcast with me so it’s all fine it’s all good absolutely it works yeah so as far as so you mentioned quite a few programs so far yeah and play therapy, child parent, psychotherapy programs. Do you use technology at all? Does the nonprofit use sometimes Zoom calls even? I mean, are they?

00:07:55: RJ Encinas

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it’s not only like, you know, not only like you had said that it’s just, it’s part of the world now, you know, and it’s part of how we’ve developed, you know, but again, it’s also helped us to develop additional services and serving families that are unavailable. You know, if transportation is an issue, if they live, you know, further away, technology has really become pivotal in our ability to reach families at a greater distance. So, you know, even though we are here in person, we are a facility that offers counseling services, you know, face-to-face, we also offer virtual sessions as well. So we definitely use technology in lots of different ways and including some of our psychiatric services as well.

00:08:32: Rico Figliolini

Really? Excellent. Now, these services are provided free, obviously, right? There’s no going to insurance or anything like that. There’s a nonprofit supplying.

00:08:47: RJ Encinas

Yeah, it’s both. Yep. It’s both. Yeah. We definitely have grants contracts that help support families who are uninsured. So we definitely have that option, but yeah, typically, you know, we, you know, a lot of, a lot of our services are, I guess, like I said, it’s both, it helps, you know, it’s sort of like, let’s, our hope is to not say no ever, you know? And so it’s however we can help serve you, let’s find a way to serve you. So that’s typically our approach of how we look at things.

00:09:13: Rico Figliolini

Yeah. Okay. So with the new facility in Gwinnett County, how are you looking to integrate these services to the local community and within other organizations, if you will? Because I’m sure you’re reaching out to other community organizations.

00:09:27: RJ Encinas

Yeah. You know, actually last week we had an incredible open house. It was, it was super fun. Lots of sister community programs came out to say hello, which was wonderful of them. So, you know, I was here and actually, I made three really great, you know, contacts with people who I wouldn’t probably have otherwise. And so as of as early as of Monday, I was already receiving emails, phone calls from those people that I met. And you know, again, in a lot of instances, because you we, we know, aren’t such a huge presence here or weren’t, a lot of people didn’t know what we offered or what we still offer, you know, after COVID and whatnot. So there is a great need for our support services out here. So I think, you know, continuing that communication, establishing those relationships, those reports. There’s a lot of local businesses in this specific area we’re at. And so, you know, we’re supporting them as well by trying out all their different lunch menus during the week, you know. But I think aside from that, I think just showing our good work. I think that’s one of the biggest things is being able to establish a name for ourselves, you know, here in this particular area where, you know, families feel good and comfortable to come to us for help.

00:10:47: Rico Figliolini

Yeah. I, you know, with as much as what we do with the magazines that we have and stuff, I knew of CHRIS180, but didn’t really know all the services until I got in touch and someone said, why don’t you interview them for the podcast? You know, it’s just a lot of services you all provide. And I think that you’re right. I mean, quite a few people don’t know these services, right? And so the other one, I think the other part of the service I was going to ask you about, obviously collaboration and partnerships are essential to what you do. But with Gwinnett County and its court system, do you all work with the court system as well? Do you provide a program where you’re dealing with or getting referrals through the court system?

00:11:40: RJ Encinas

Yeah. So, I mean, that’s one of the, again, like how you mentioned having these relationships, you know, we have a lot of referral sources. And so we actually do have a juvenile justice program where we work directly with the courts. And so it’s supporting, you know, children who are in need in crisis. I guess to backpedal a little bit, the idea of wraparound services is to, you know, provide just that. We’re wrapping the family when they’re in crisis. So it’s sort of at the highest need. Let’s get them stable and kind of figure out at that point on what is needed next. How do we support you? Do we continue providing these support services? Is there addition? Is there not? So with the Juvenile Justice Program, you know, there’s a lot of court components in which we do help support families, whether that is involvement with the Department of Family and Child Safety, whether it is court order that they receive additional therapeutic services or interventions. So whatever it may be, we definitely have a lot of referral sources. But again, I think part of the relationship that I built last week is in addition to that as well with the court involvement. So, again, I think this is just starting to blossom into what it potentially could grow into.

00:12:53: Rico Figliolini

I like the way you talk about everything. It really is, you know, you may be dealing with a child that has some issues and stuff, but dealing with the whole family makes sense, right? Because maybe those issues are coming out because of parental issues, maybe because, you know, substance abuse within the family. And they may not be doing it, but they may be affected by it because of it, as they would. How do you handle the substance abuse in your programs also? Someone comes to you that way. Do you do that in-house? How do you handle someone that comes to you, obviously has some mental health issues, but also is doing substance abuse?

00:13:43: RJ Encinas

But like you had mentioned, such a variety of various programs that we offer here at CHRIS180. We do have therapists, so, you know, counselors who are specialized in treating children, and adults who have substance abuse problems and issues. What we do is, when we receive a referral or someone calls saying, hey, this is an issue at hand. We need help. What we do is we complete an initial assessment on the child and the family or whoever needs to be enrolled because we do support children and adults, families. And at that point, we then determine what is needed right now. If it is something that we are unable to do, which is probably very small because we have, again, so many great support programs. But if it is something that we’re not able to do and support in that moment, you know, we, part of our job is to find resources for family. That’s one of our biggest things, you know, and with the relationships built throughout, you know, the over, you know, over 40 years, you know, we have a lot of great connections in the sense of, hey, you know, I have this parent, this is the immediate support they need. What could this look like for them? So, you know, it’s also reaching out to, you know, who are the experts in, you know, particular areas. So we love the idea of collaboration. And so I think with that said, you know, it’s sort of the best part about it is that our goal is to try to individualize services for each person who’s enrolled. We don’t look at people with one particular issue and, you know, ballpark them at this is your issue. This is what you’re also going to receive, like, you know, the 400 other people that have that same issue. Our goal is to look at them as individuals and make sure that we’re tailoring those services to that particular person.

00:15:22: Rico Figliolini

I would imagine, you know, people coming to you, I mean, they’re being overwhelmed by issues in their lives, by challenges. And I can see how getting that under control makes sense first before you can treat the byproduct of what’s going on. So what challenges are you finding? Now, I know you’ve just moved here, but in society, you know, since COVID, since things, I’m assuming you’ve worked in this field for quite a while though, right? Do you see any difference coming to, I know it’s such a short time, but do you see any different types of challenges in the Southeast here, let’s say, in Atlanta that you’re listening to versus Arizona? Or is it the same?

00:16:17: RJ Encinas

Yeah. I mean, I think it varies, obviously, where you live. I think there’s different challenges depending on, you know, your location, your environment. But, you know, I think one of the things that is consistent is, you know, there are families who need help who are, you know, what is now the new norm in regards to the challenges children and families face was probably what we considered, you know, high acuity population that we worked with five, six years ago, because the world has changed so dramatically resources and just, you know, the ability to get, you know, what’s needed, you know, now it’s sort of like a lot of some of these cases we hear the it’s, ability to you get, what’s know, you needed, now know, it’s sort of like a lot of some of these cases we hear it’s, they’re very traumatic, they’re very tragic. And it’s sort of, you know, not you don’t want to normalize it, but you want to look at it as okay, I guess this is now the new challenges that we have that maybe we didn’t have before, or is one of those once in a while things you heard where now it just seems more consistent. So everything seems to have elevated severely over the past four or five years. But yeah, we’re ready for whatever comes. Our goal is to try to help them in the best possible way.

00:17:37: Rico Figliolini

Sure. No, I appreciate that. You’ve expanded. Because of the expansion, there’s probably, you have more services and all that. There are challenges in doing it in a new place. And it sounds like you’ve overcome that a bit by networking, by meeting all sorts of new people and finding new resources that you can use and other people that want to reach back out to you. How do you measure the success or the impact of the programs that you have? You know, moving forward, how do you do that? Is that something you have to do?

00:18:14: RJ Encinas

Yeah, no, I mean, I think what we do is we try to make sure we’re effective. So there’s a lot of, you know, areas in which we are monitoring it just from, you know, plain data. You know, how many successful closures have we had? How many families have graduated successfully from services? We also look at enrollment. You know, how many new members have we had since, you know, this announcement has gone out? Or how many new families have been interested in roles? How many new referrals have we received? How many additional relationships have we built within the community? You know, are we in their schools? Are we in their hospitals? Are we in their foster homes? So again, I think it’s a variety, you know, and I think that it’s hard to say just one thing, but, you know, I think you have to have both, you know, you have to have that, you know, the numbers and those, you know, obvious factors that show, you know, are our services effective? Are they working? And then you have to have that, you know, other component where it is very community-based. And what does that look like for us, you know, in this particular community? How can we improve? Because there’s always room for improvement. And what are we doing well? You know, those are the things that I like to always look at when looking at it as a whole. But I do, you know, one of the things that I was going to say earlier, too, is I think, you know, at least in this area, everybody has been so welcoming. It has felt so natural. It hasn’t felt like, hey, you’re the new kid on the block or, you know, anything like that. It has truly felt, it feels like we’ve always been here, at least in my perception. And so I think that is also motivating because it makes you feel like, you know, if this is how we’re accepted, if this is how it feels, you know, being, again, the new kids on the block, you know, it just kind of makes you want to then get out there and see, you know, what else there is to offer here. I’m a big fan of growth. I love the idea of making sure that we could potentially, you know, be even bigger than we already are. And so, you know, I think my brain is always kind of going with, you know, kind of like a hamster wheel, figuring out what is next for us? Where is an area that is underserved that we maybe have not tapped in yet? Or how can we improve an area that already exists, but maybe we can make some adjustments to it?

00:20:29: Rico Figliolini

Interesting. I’m sure that you have lots of ideas. And as the time goes on, you’ll get even more. Yeah, Gwinnett County is kind of funny that way. Gwinnett has a lot of nonprofits that work here. A lot of like Norcross Cooperative Ministries. I mean, there’s quite a few of them, actually. Good Samaritan of Gwinnett County. I mean, there’s quite a few programs out there, quite a few nonprofits and companies that are involved in these programs as well, corporations that want to make sure their employees have good mental wellness. When you’re doing the work you’re doing, what programs do you think you’d like to see in the coming year or two that you all are not yet doing that you think would have an impact here?

00:21:23: RJ Encinas

Yeah. So, you know, we just, we actually are in the process. So it’s a great question because we’re actually in the process of starting up a crisis response program. So it kind of fits parallel with the wraparound because, you know, the services that we are providing are intensified services for children and family who are in crisis. And so the crisis element of it allows us to support them on those odd times, right? So, you know, after 7pm, before 8am, if we’re struggling to get the child in, you know, into the car for school for that day, or whatever the circumstance may be, and then obviously much more severe than that. But you know, on weekends, on holidays, we want to make sure that we’re available to, you know, to the families that need our help at those particular times where they may not have a resource at that time. So that’s actually brand new. We are in the, you know, we’ve done some good work on establishing what that will look like. And so I know that once, you know, the community gets wind of that’s what, you know, that’s an additional service we offer. I know it’s going to blow up just because it’s a great resource to have for the families that we already work with. But aside from that, I think, you know, to add to what you’re saying, I think my goal would be to create, you know, a standing point for the wraparound program here in Gwinnett as well. You know, I know that the program that one of the specific programs that we have that’s housed here is the Berta 8, but we have a lot of other programs that are wonderful. You know, we have programs that are that part of their responsibility is to work primarily in the school system. So working with children throughout the day, we know resources are scarce at schools. And so having that additional support there, some training for teachers, administrators on how to manage some of these behavioral issues with some of the children that are there, emotional support. We also have specified programs that work with, like I said, the juvenile justice program. And then those, another program that we have is also those who work directly with children and families who are involved in the Department of Family Child Safety. And so again, it’s establishing what those could be in this location. Maybe we have some in the metro area, downtown, but we also have a group here because it’s grown so much. So, you know, looking at an expansion of, you know, wraparound, you know, in-home, in-community services.

00:23:54: Rico Figliolini

So you guys do go into people’s homes as well. And you go into the school system of schools, I guess elementary schools, birth to eight, right? You go into the schools as well. How do you ensure, you know, that’s kind of an odd question maybe a little bit, but, you know, when you talk about trying to make sure everyone is, that you meet the needs of everyone, right? And it’s a diverse community between language and culture. Foods, which we talked about just a little bit before the podcast. We both agree that we enjoy food. But how do you culturally keep everything – be able to reach out to these people that need it. Sometimes it’s a language barrier. Sometimes it’s a cultural thing beyond the normal, you know, nine to five, maybe they both parents are working. It’s hard to get to them during the day. How do you attend to a child then like that? But how do you handle, does that, is that an issue even?

00:25:05: RJ Encinas

You know, I think one of the things that we consider is that, you know, with the wraparound service, you know, specifically is, you know, like you said, we do go into the home. So the service itself is very intrusive because you have a stranger in the home saying, Hey, let’s try this. But, you know, part of, you know, I did that job too. You know, I, you know, every, everybody kind of starts somewhere. And so I’ve been in the homes, I’ve worked with children and families in the home. And, you know, something that I did that I felt made families feel more comfortable is just be observant. You know, what, what are the pictures you have up? What are the awards you have up? You know, what are you making for dinner? You know, what, what are your habits when they get home? So it’s really establishing sort of a starting point where, what are they doing well? What can I work off of? You know, every family does, there are things that every family does well. And so that’s, that for the most part is sort of, you know, how I like to look at services, how I’ve trained my staff is, you know, looking at the strengths they already have and let’s work off of those strengths. But yes, you’re right. You know, our goal, you know, having parents and, you know, guardians who go to school, work, those are all positives in the child and family’s life, right? So we want to be able to support them outside of that, where it doesn’t interfere with their typical tasks. And so our prime time to support families should be that two to seven block because that’s when kids are, you know, home from school, parents are getting home from work. And so really it’s providing services during that time. And we also provide services on the weekend as well. So if the family is home, you know, and they’re all, that’s the best time that fits, you know, the need for them, then, you know, we’ll arrange that. And so, you know, I think what we do, we also have something called, it’s called a YCM. And what it is, is it’s a youth centered meeting where we sit probably every 30 to 45 days with the entire treatment team and the family. And we talk about what’s going well, where are some improvements needed? What’s next? What is the next plan? You know, are we stepping down because of the progress made? Do we need to increase support services somehow? So that meeting is very powerful because it’s all driven and ran by the family. It’s their voice, it’s their need, it’s their want. And so our goal is to help support them in what they also feel is the right direction for their family. So to answer a long-winded answer, but I think part of it is it’s a combination of things. But I also feel that having their voice heard, not just in services, but as a group is extremely powerful.

00:27:47: Rico Figliolini

The powerful part, I think, is when the whole family cooperates, right? Have you ever experienced where there’s uncooperative people within the unit?

00:28:01: RJ Encinas

That is a challenge, absolutely. Because sometimes people don’t want the services, they have to have the services. And so part of it is, you know, getting their buy-in to say, Hey, look, let’s, let’s try it. Let’s try it and see what happens, you know? And that’s, you know, and I think that we have such great staff, you know, here at CHRIS180, that people are very persuasive because they’re so good at what they do. And so it starts to show the families, like, look at this progress that is being made, you know, and it’s not taking a lot of work from you. It’s just taking some, you know, habitual practices and just obviously, you know, exploring what it could look like. And so I think with that said, yes, absolutely, there’s a lot of resistance in some instances. But, you know, with that said, I think for me, it’s a motivating factor. It’s sort of like, let’s show them why they need us in their home, why they need us at, you know, for therapy. And for me, that’s sort of how I look at that is just an additional challenge. Yeah.

00:29:00: Rico Figliolini

I guess one of the things I should ask too is jobs your organization has. But do you expect to expand that staff? Is it easy to find the right people or is that a difficult proposition?

00:29:15: RJ Encinas

I think it’s, you know, I think like any, you know, job force, I think our goal is to always try to find the best fit for that position, that location, the need of that location, you know, and so, you know, I don’t know if hard is the right word, but, you know, I think we do a great job of ensuring that, you know, that the person that we’re selecting for that role is the best person for that role. But yes, absolutely. Like you said, like my goal is to expand. So hopefully, yes, in the near future, I get to hire a whole bunch of people because it is the need here in this specific area. But absolutely, I would love to grow.

00:29:53: Rico Figliolini

Yeah. The need never disappears. It actually increases. You’re right. Have we missed anything, RJ, that you’d like to talk about that I didn’t touch upon?

00:30:06: RJ Encinas

No, I think, you know, I just, I’m excited. This is a huge privilege. So I appreciate you having an interest in what we’re doing here in Gwinnett. And, you know, hopefully this continues to spread the good word of CHRIS180. The people before me have done a great job of establishing what CHRIS180 is today. And, you know, my goal, you know, my goal is to continue to live that on and, you know there’s, for me, it’s, you know, there’s a lot of, you know, motivating factors, like I had mentioned before, that have me excited to, you know, wake up and, you know, work every day.

00:30:53: Rico Figliolini

Excellent. If someone wants to find out a little bit more about CHRIS180, where can they go to? What’s the website?

00:30:59: RJ Encinas

Yeah. So our website is great. It literally lists every single thing that we do. It talks about our mission and values. Our website is chris180.org.

00:31:10: Rico Figliolini

Great. Everyone, I appreciate you listening in on this. If you have family members or people you know that you think need CHRIS180, certainly reach out to them and find out what they can provide for you all and call them. Their service has just opened in Lawrenceville, expanding into Gwinnett County. RJ Encinas, thank you for being with me and for explaining everything to us.

00:31:35: RJ Encinas

Thank you so much, Rico, for having me. Yeah, thanks for having me.

00:31:37: Rico Figliolini

Hang in there for a minute, but everyone else, thank you. If you have comments, certainly post it on, if you’re listening to this on YouTube or our Facebook pages, post it there or reach out to the organization itself. And again, thank you for being a listener of our podcast, UrbanEbb. Thanks so much.