Podcast
Michael Corbin on School Safety, Teacher Pay and Election Integrity [Podcast]
In this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, Rico Figliolini interviews Michael Corbin, the Republican candidate for Georgia State House District 97. With his background as a parent and husband to a Gwinnett County public school teacher, Corbin shares his deep commitment to school safety, advocating for immediate actions like enhanced security measures, mental health resources and more school resource officers. They dive into topics such as using state-of-the-art technology to protect schools and fostering a safer learning environment without making schools feel like prisons.
The conversation also spans broader issues, from the importance of teacher pay to ensuring fair and secure elections in Georgia. Corbin emphasizes his dedication to making housing more affordable for teachers and public servants while also supporting job creation in tech-focused communities like Peachtree Corners. Tune in to hear Corbin’s thoughtful perspectives on the future of Georgia’s schools, housing, and government.
Resources:
Michael Corbin’s Campaign Website: https://www.corbinforga.com/
Michael’s email: Michael.Corbin@corbinforga.com
Timestamp:
00:00:00 – Michael Corbin’s Perspective
00:04:11 – Securing Schools and Practical Measures to Protect Our Kids
00:06:48 – Addressing Mental Health and Warning Signs in School Shootings
00:09:51 – Leveraging Technology for Student Safety
00:11:48 – Addressing Teacher Pay and Affordable Housing for Educators
00:17:27 – Cost of Living Adjustments for Teachers
00:21:29 – Leveraging State Support for Tech Hub Development
00:26:30 – Identifying and Fostering Technical Aptitude in Students
00:28:48 – Balancing Healthcare Access and Affordability
00:31:36 – Healthcare Costs Crushing Middle-Class Americans
00:33:30 – The Real Costs of Natural Disasters
00:35:13 – Navigating Disaster Recovery for Businesses
00:38:53 – Ensuring Secure and Accessible Elections in Georgia
00:40:53 – Secure Elections and Voter ID in Georgia
00:45:01 – Importance of Accessible Voter IDs
00:49:02 – Voting for Candidates with Your Interests in Mind
Podcast Transcript
00:00:00 – Rico Figliolini
Hey, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life here in the city of Peachtree Corners, Gwinnett County, Georgia. I have a special guest tonight that we’re going to be spending some time with. Tonight, I say, because it’s Thursday at 8 o’clock p.m. and nothing ever stops around here. We just keep going on. So it’ll be an interesting time with Michael Corbin, who’s running for Georgia State House District 97 as a Republican candidate. Hey, Michael, thanks for joining us.
00:00:32 – Michael Corbin
Hey, Rico. Thanks for having me. It’s always a pleasure. I was on a couple of years ago when I was running for Congressional District 7 at the time. And yeah, thank you for doing this and having candidates on so voters can hear directly from us and get a little bit more background about just also our stance on some of the issues.
00:00:52 – Rico Figliolini
For sure. The candidate interviews, funny enough, days or a week leading up to election is always the most searched on our website. So it’s always good to see that people actually look. It’s good that people are looking.
00:01:06 – Michael Corbin
Yeah, that’s good to know. Yeah, that people are looking and researching the candidates before they cast their vote.
00:01:13 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, that does my heart well to see that. We’re going to be touching on a lot of subjects here tonight. We’re going to be touching a bit on school safety and education, public safety in general, jobs in the economy, healthcare, voting, election integrity, I forget too, its technology and online safety. So a bunch of topics that we’re going to start off with. Let’s get right into it. School safety and education. I know that obviously with more shootings going on, more active shootings, whether it’s schools or it’s a candidate like Donald Trump out in the field making speeches, there’s just a lot going on. It seems a lot more violent for some reason this year than most. But schools have, from some of the recent shootings, it just becomes, you almost feel like if you’re watching enough TikTok and Instagram, it feels like it’s happening all the time. But we should attend to school safety, right? I think one of the proposals you made was obviously, as many candidates do, that we should be looking to create a safer environment in our schools to protect our children from active shooters. So I guess the question would be, can you elaborate a little bit on what those solutions might look like? What are your thoughts about implementing what should be done along those lines?
00:02:41 – Michael Corbin
Yeah, definitely. And it is near and dear to my heart. Number one, both of my children are in public school here in the state of Georgia, right in our community. And you don’t want to be a parent worrying about your kid, not coming home at whatever level it is. They’re in elementary school now, but time flies and they’ll be getting into middle school as well as high school soon. And just to mention, it was a few weeks ago, right after Appalachee, there was a middle school student that was found with a gun for Duluth Middle School, which is where my daughters will be going. It’s where I went to middle school. So it’s near and dear to my heart. And my wife is a public school teacher here in Gwinnett County. So I am highly invested in this. There’s a lot of people that I think, you know, propose, I would say, feel good, do nothing proposals out there. Number one, because they’re too partisan in nature, you know, with red flag laws and gun safety. Those are such high overarching discussions that are going to take so long. And I’m tired of it. We, there’s things that we can do and we can do now to protect our kids. And yes, we need to, we need to look at some of the issues when it comes to gun safety and mental health and things of that nature. But why are we waiting to protect our kids? Why do we have metal detectors in airports to protect people that are traveling? Why do state legislators have to have people that come through the Capitol doors get screened for guns, right? So there’s all these technologies that are out there that we’re using in other places, courthouses, that we’re not putting into our schools. Why? That’s the question that I ask. That should be the most bipartisan thing that we can talk about is investing in the technology, security assessments and gaps to make our school safe. And nobody wants their kid going and feeling like they’re in prison. But I’d rather have my kid going to where I know somebody is going in and out of the school. And they’re being screened by and these days, I’m in technology, we have very state-of-the-art metal detectors that aren’t these you know 1980s looking metal detectors that you see and have. If you picture in your head they can be embedded in walls, you can put them in to where it doesn’t look like a prison. And we have the money as a state to spend on this, and we’re not doing it. You know, so you asked about your question, just to get back to that, but, you know, nobody likes to hear mandate, but, you know, we need to mandate having security assessments. Where are the gaps at every school? And then we need to make sure that those gaps are filled with the technology that’s available. You know, talking about metal detectors, cameras, alarms, at all ingress and egress points, entry exit points. Another simple thing that we can do is hire more school resource officers. You know, those jobs can exist. There’s people that want to do it. And you can maintain a ratio of student resource officers to student body enrollment. And then also, you know, mental health, right? We don’t have the mental health experts in our school system to identify. And once it has been identified to adequately deal with those people that may be vulnerable to using a gun or some type of violence. There’s a lot of things we can do right now.
00:06:34 – Rico Figliolini
Would it make sense to, obviously you want to prioritize things, right? Past shooters have always been a mental issue or family issues that starts it off. I don’t want to lessen the importance of metal detectors in schools, but if you look at the state of Georgia, how many times has an active shooter happened in the state of Georgia? How many schools do we have actually out there? And what type of investment would that be? I think that a lot of times that we find out that a child is just not being listened to. And if they were, we would know what the problem is, right? Several of these shooters had already been in touch with either school officials or police, and they weren’t taken seriously, right? So we’re prioritizing getting social psychologists into the schools, staff of that nature first, makes sense, and then work your way through. Because budgeting, you know how that works. It takes two years to budget a bill out of the senate or even that, right?
00:07:48 – Michael Corbin
Right. And it does and I agree. You know you have to, all of them were not really in, I would say an order of priority. Getting one of those things that I listed in action would be great and then work your way towards what you can work towards, because there will be an investment. You got to get it passed from a budget perspective. But I do believe that it can be done. There can be something that’s put in place. But yeah, we need people that can identify and deal with those situations and isolate those situations when it comes to known issues of mental health. Now, there’s going to be some that slip by, right? Even the best of mental health experts, the people that are around them, that’s going to happen. But I agree with you. Like most of these that we hear about, there were warning signs and there just weren’t adequate enough resources to take care of or help the individual that was affected. So I think that that’s an easier entry point in. And then the second piece is you’re not going to be able to catch all of it. And not all of them, a lot of them do have mental health, but some of them just could, it could just be somebody that, you know, wanted, gang violence, something else that, that comes up. So, you know, the technology would still have to cover for that because that person may not have been identified with somebody with a mental health issue. So it’s really kind of all encompassing, but I think we have to really have that comprehensive program in place to protect our students because they shouldn’t have to worry about going to school and dying and parents shouldn’t have to worry about sending their kids to school to die. I grew up through the Columbine, you know, school shooting. That was my senior year in high school. And it was kind of one of the first times it really hit home for everybody. And it was a very odd time. And even me, you know, as a high school senior, big football player, I was scared to death to go to school. We had no resources there to protect us. So I don’t want my kids growing up in that. I know nobody wants their kids growing up in that state.
00:09:54 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, of course not. Like you said, the technology allows the ability if it’s done that way, to install these things so then you don’t feel like you’re in prison. Because that’s the biggest thing. I mean, I went to a public high school in Brooklyn, and that particular high school did not have, back then, those types of metal detectors. Although there was another high school a little further away from us that did, that I visited. And you could tell the night and day. I mean, it just felt like you were in a high, you know, in almost a high maximum security prison to some degree. You know, and they had to chain the doors shut and stuff. I mean, here in Georgia today, I mean, you have kids sometimes, I won’t say which particular high school it was, public high school, but the kids would just leave the building when they pleased and would just hang out somewhere not too far from there because that’s where they can either wait until the end of the school day and then go home or do whatever they were doing, but they would leave. They’d just walk out through the parking lot, just hang out somewhere at some office park or something. And you can’t stop them. The same way you can’t stop anyone from really walking into the building either. So you’re right. Having detection would be helpful, I guess.
00:11:14 – Michael Corbin
Yeah. And to your point, we have such great technology now that we can leverage to where students don’t have to feel that way and they can still be protected. Unlike, you know, back, when I was in high school or you were in high school, if they walked those in, were those archaic looking metal detectors and you felt like you’re going you’re into prison.
00:11:36 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, for sure. So let’s stick on education a little bit and let’s talk a little bit about teacher pay, you know, specific steps about what it would mean to raise teacher pay, whether it’s a salary, a bonus, a signing bonus. What is the adequate amount? I mean, I know that sometimes these departments like the police, they have their tasks or they understand they need to hire a certain amount. They budgeted that money, and yet they cannot get enough candidates to fill the spots even. So I guess that works hand in hand. What do you see as a solution to something like that?
00:12:18 – Michael Corbin
You know, I do have to applaud Governor Kemp. He’s put a lot of emphasis on raising teacher pay. And I think that’s a great first step, but I think we need to continue doing that. And I think there’s reasonable ways to do it based off of inflation, but also just based off of certain criteria factors when it comes to really poverty level. When we’re looking at a teacher’s base salary, take my wife out of it. If she was raising our two kids and living in Peachtree Corners, well, she wouldn’t be living here. She can’t afford, she wouldn’t be able to afford it. It’s not attainable. So the problem is, you know, we don’t budget for it and we don’t feel like it’s necessary, I think as a society to pay teachers the amount of money that they’re worth. And eventually what happens in any industry is you will get unqualified people doing those jobs because people will move on to get higher paying jobs or they’ll quit. And my wife sees that all the time, especially in struggling school districts, right? We talk about, not to pivot away from teacher pay because teacher pay, there can be a, let’s just call it a path to progress kind of system put into place. We’ve got it in the corporate world. We can have it in the public service world as well when it comes to teachers. But the funny thing and is, it’s not funny, it’s teachers that teach in the hardest school districts sometimes get paid less or they still get paid the equal of teachers that are working in safer school districts with less transient families and their jobs are so much more challenging right? And we did pass the you know the voucher for the bottom 25 percent schools right you know to be able to take your child out and use that money to apply it somewhere else. And I think that’s a great thing for underperforming school districts. But the second step to that is we need to be able to pay teachers that are in those districts or attract teachers that want to be in those districts a higher wage. Otherwise, what’s going to change? If you have teachers that are not performing well today, we’re not able to incentivize those from a monetary perspective to do better or to attract people to get into a tougher situation and try to make education better in those areas, then we’re just going to be in a really bad cycle. So it kind of goes hand in hand, right? I think it depends on the school system you’re in, depends on where you’re teaching, and also depends on where that school ranks, how much you should get paid.
00:15:18 – Rico Figliolini
Right. True, for sure. And every county is not equal, right? And every district is not equal I know for example in where we live in Peachtree Corners, Simpsonwood, Simpson Elementary you know the PTA raises lots of money because of the affluence of the parents in the area and they share some of that with some sister schools so they’re not just keeping it to Simpson. But if you’re able to do that, that’s good. And if you’re in a district that can’t, then, well, that becomes a problem, right? Affordable housing is another issue. Not that I want to segue to that yet, but affordable housing for teachers that can actually live in the community that they’re teaching would be nice. You can’t do that in Peachtree Corners because there is not affordable housing here. I think housing starts, for the most part, any new housing now starts at like $400,000. Is that a starter home? Not really. Not for anyone that teaches or if there are two teachers in the family. So maybe, you know, do you see housing as being an issue as well? I mean, do you see the state looking at taking some responsibility for crafting the ability to have affordable housing in communities, but incentivizing developers to actually create affordable housing? Because they can, if they want to, if the rules are in the right place they can you’d have to restrict who buys those houses this way private companies like the biggest trend right now is is build to rent versus build to sell and things are moving that in that way because most people can’t afford to buy a house, although you’re probably paying the same in rent as you would for a mortgage, if you could get that mortgage. So it’s no different. In some cases, you’re paying even more in rent than you would for a mortgage. So do you see the state doing something along those lines economically to help? What do you think that could look like from your point of view?
00:17:23 – Michael Corbin
I would think it would be a cost of living adjustment based on where they’re teaching for housing specifically. So I wouldn’t say it would be government-owned housing or anything like that to put them in, but I think you can look at it from a cost of living adjustment. You do that in the corporate world today, right? If you move from Atlanta to New York to take a job, you get most companies will give you a cost of living adjustment to make sure that you can have the same type of lifestyle or at least similar based on where you’re coming from to where you’re going to based on housing prices, all the other different economic factors that are going to influence you. So if we’re doing that at the corporate level across many states and even countries, I’m pretty sure we can fix it here with counties and school districts. Data is not that hard to really gather. And thanks to AI, it can spit it out pretty dang quick in terms of what those adjustments probably would be. I’m not saying we’re going to use AI to do that, but it’s not rocket science. But to answer your question, yes. If you’re living in Peachtree Corners or an area that, that has a, you know, higher standard of living just to be able to get by and you don’t want to have to drive three hours to work because that’s what’s happening in a lot of cases, then there could be a cost of living adjustment that would be able to help bridge that gap when it comes to housing, whether it’s buying or renting.
00:19:02 – Rico Figliolini
And you’re right. I mean, there are people that are traveling and all sorts of things. There are a couple of people I know that work in Peachtree Corners, and they live in Sugar Hill or Beaufort, and they’re driving south here. So, yeah, because they can’t afford to live here, and yet they work in the city of Peachtree Corners. I think as many people work in the city sometimes as work outside the city is the way that it was pointed out at one point. I don’t know if that stat has changed, but with new housing coming in, new apartments, new townhomes, these things aren’t cheap. $750,000 starting. I don’t know who can afford to buy that. When I was at the Peachtree Aquinas Festival, a couple came by, a young couple. They found out that the boyfriend was a real estate agent. They’re late 20s, early 30s maybe. And they were looking at buying a townhouse on the green. You know, those things are like easy, $750, $800.
00:20:01 – Michael Corbin
Yeah. They’re like mini brownstones in New York. It’s like they, you know, put them on their beautiful townhomes list.
00:20:13 – Rico Figliolini
Oh yeah, they’re really nice townhomes. And you want to listen to the concert across the way sit out on your patio and do that.
00:20:18 – Michael Corbin
Exactly, exactly. So yeah it’s a nice area. There’s been a lot of building going around, you know at Peachtree Corners and say, hey, that’s where I want to start my life? And not many. It’s expensive.
00:20:54 – Rico Figliolini
So let’s talk a little bit like that because you’ll be representing, if you’re elected, District 97 represents more than Peachtree Corners, but Peachtree Corners is part of that representation, right? A great bit of it, yeah. And, you know, we look at ourselves as a smart city. Different cities, like Alpharetta has like 700 different tech companies, let’s say there, right? They’re probably one of the most populous of the smallest cities outside Atlanta with tech companies. What do you see the state’s responsibility in to be able to help a place like ours, like Peachtree? I want to be centric to Peachtree Corners. What could you leverage to help create jobs here or support small businesses or startups in the city of Peachtree Corners? How should the state be working with localities like us?
00:21:56 – Michael Corbin
Yeah, to me, it’s about just making it easier to do business, right? When it comes to Peachtree Corners, there’s a very specific plan. And I know that. You know, it’s, we’re a tech hub or we’re going to continue doing that with incubation of tech. And we’re going to continue attracting that type of talent here. We’re providing easy access for companies to come in here and whether that’s, you know, through some type of, want to call it a stimulus, but, you know, some sort of incentives that we can give to different cities based off of what type of industries that that city is trying to attract to their communities would be huge, right? Because cities are all in competition with each other. And yeah, so you’re trying to attract tech companies, Alpharetta is trying to attract tech companies, the city of Atlanta is, and you have to really get it specific to what those cities are trying to attract. And that’s where we’re at in our community. We’re not in an industrial community in South Georgia or a farming community. To support the businesses that want to go there long-term and that the state has the backs of those communities based on the type of business that they’re trying to cultivate within their communities. Because schools and businesses are the lifeline of communities when it comes to their success or failure, if the schools start to fail and the businesses start to fail, the people start to leave their houses, the housing market crashes and you end up with a failed city. So you have to invest in business and you have to invest in the businesses that those cities want to attract. And you have to invest in the school systems that are in those, in those areas as well.
00:24:07 – Rico Figliolini
For sure. When you go back just to the 20th century, when Ford decided to make his line of cars and stuff, how to educate the plant workers to be able to operate the systems right? So it’s no different today in a way, right? You have to have an educated workforce to be able to do things. So, for example, Intuitive Robotics, which is building their campus here in the middle of Peachtree Corners, they have 500 jobs. They look to expand to 1,200 jobs. They’re always constantly recruiting. It’s an assemblage plant, so they don’t manufacture anything, but they put things together there. The parts come from other places, but they need skilled labor to be able to do that. And they look at what they can hire local, and they don’t need, necessarily college level. If you have a kid graduating from a good STEM school that does not want to spend four years in college because they feel, I’ve learned CAD, I’ve learned 3D printing, I understand coding, they could go right out in the workforce through Melchior and be trained in that environment. Do you see, you know, I mean, we don’t have shop classes, for example. I mean, you don’t learn, unless you’re in a STEM school, you’re not able to learn any niche stuff like that, right? Do you see any changes needed in the school system to be able to accommodate the kids that don’t want to go to college at that level and be indebted $100,000 and then decide that what they went for, they’re not going to be doing that job. They’re going to be doing something else. Because that’s what’s happening for the most part. If you’re not a doctor or an accountant, you’re doing philosophy or psychology, you might not end up in the job that you think you want.
00:26:09 – Michael Corbin
Yeah, I think it needs to be identified. And there needs to be a pathway for those students. I think, you know, not everything in life is linear and maybe they change their mind. But there are kids that, you know, and students that have that aptitude and that’s what they want to do. And there needs to be curriculum that will foster that, number one. And number two, be able to identify and make sure that those students are on the right path. Because there are a lot of great programs out there. I mean, Gwinnett Tech’s one school system here in Georgia, just down the road, that does miraculous things when it comes to scholarships, to training and all kinds of different trades, and not just kids out of high school. I mean, there’s adults that can get in there, get trained and come out and be making 80, 90, and be making 120 thousand dollars with no liberal arts degree, college, no master’s degree, no nothing. And they love what they do. So I think you have to identify that. But you also have to have those classes for those students that have been identified, because I don’t think every, if you force all the students into it, some of them are just going to take up spots of people that really are serious about it. So I think you have to identify it, get them in there, cultivate it and get them on a path that will either send them to a technical college or a technical program, depending on what their decision is after high school. But I mean, we’ve got, you know, Paul Duke STEM. So I mean that is, you know every time my wife goes in there because they have training in there for her for Gwinnett county she’s like, this place is ridiculous like you should see it. I still have not seen it. You know, they just don’t, it’s hard, which it should be, it’s hard to get into a school. So I can’t just go in there. I would have to go maybe with my wife while she was going there for some training or something. But she’s like, you know, it’s amazing. So we need to be building more of those. I think we’re blessed to have that in our community so close by.
00:28:22 – Rico Figliolini
For sure. Let’s talk a little.
00:28:24 – Michael Corbin
To your point, just, yeah, sorry, go ahead.
00:28:25 – Rico Figliolini
No, go ahead.
00:28:28 – Michael Corbin
To your point, I think we are producing too many people that go into college. And there’s a high percentage of those folks that could go into the working force immediately. And businesses are looking for that talent, to your point, that we could be tapping into right here in our backyard and keeping those businesses here and keeping the talent here and helping the community. I don’t think that’s happening. I think that we can make sure that that happens by funding those programs at the public school level.
00:28:58 – Rico Figliolini
So keeping businesses here, I guess part of that, you know, so part of it’s education, part of it is taxation, part of it’s health care costs for their employees and for the company. One of the things you talk about is the continuing rise of health care. And especially for people that need specialists, you know, out of pocket becomes more expensive. Everything’s just becoming more expensive. I mean, whether you’re going shopping or wherever you’re going, healthcare is no different. Although that doesn’t really have a price that you can look at. You don’t usually see the price until way after you get the bill of the explanation of benefits all of a sudden. And you may not realize how much you’re out of pocket. How do you see your position if you were to win the seat? You know, what innovative solutions would be in mind when it comes to healthcare in the state of Georgia?
00:29:59 – Michael Corbin
Yeah, you know, there’s been a lot talked about when it comes to health care. You know, Kemp has the Pathways program that he pushes outside of, you know, expanding Medicare here in the state of Georgia. But when it comes to just having health care in general, let’s just take it back to a general statement here. You know, everybody should have access to healthcare, whether you want to, whether you want to say it’s, you know, a socialist thing, a non-socialist thing, I think it’s a human thing. But at the same time, people that can afford healthcare shouldn’t be price gouged. So there’s that balance. And I think it comes with competition in that space. Working in the corporate world for over 20 years now, I mean, I haven’t put a percentage on it, but it would have to be 50% at least higher than I probably did when I first entered the workforce after college for medical expenses. And at that time I didn’t even have a family, but you know, it’s so hard. And I’ve seen so many people that I’ve worked with get crushed in a year, literally crushed in a year financially because of the healthcare program that they have. I had a friend with hip surgery. And then his wife had multiple medical visits. And with the high deductible and premium, ate up everything, things that could have been socked away for savings for them for retirement, for their kids. And in my opinion, the insurance companies, the medical industries are ripping off and taking advantage of middle-class Americans. I think it’s a universal right to have healthcare, but I also think it’s a universal wrong to punish those that are middle-class Americans that don’t have very much choice other than to take what’s given them by their company. There’s no competition really. They go out and they shop it right? Per se, the companies do. But how can you really trust that? When they talked about price transparency, you get the statement in the mail afterwards. You see what they charge, you don’t see the cost. I don’t see what they paid. No. I would love to see their margins.
00:32:27 – Rico Figliolini
Yes. I mean, the cost and the pays. Yeah, you don’t. And even if you’re using healthcare.gov to do comparisons between plans, let’s say if you went out yourself to do it, right? There’s so many. It’s not a price per price. It’s not apples to apples. It’s like car insurance in a way. You know, someone says, well, I can get that cheaper. Sure you can. But, you know, you’re getting the same liability coverage, same comprehensive insurance. There’s too many variables to be able to say, to be able to shop it smartly. You almost need AI to actually do it for you. Because this way at least you can get a sense of what the real costs are, which is going to be also something that’s going to be happening. And I’m sure the state, the elected officials, as well as some of the insurance commissioners are going to have to look at. Now with what happened with Hurricane Helene coming through and causing billions of dollars in damage, it’s probably the most expensive hurricane in a century. I’ve seen insurance companies leave a state because they just can’t afford to insure anyone in that state. I mean, most people, I think in the state of Georgia, I think the percentage was less than 1% of the people that had huge flood damage are insured for flood damage. Most insurance doesn’t carry that. And so they’re going to be looking at FEMA, if FEMA even can help them in the short term. It can help them in the short term. Do you, there’s businesses that are affected by it too, see, just like Ingles shopping center locally, for example. Their main distribution was out of the Carolinas, completely flooded. Probably some of their servers were damaged there too. They were taking the financial charges from their stores because they’re only accepting cash at this store, for example, in Peachtree Corners. They’re not even accepting card.
00:34:28 – Michael Corbin
Yeah. Well, we shop there all the time. My wife went there on Monday or Tuesday, and they were only accepting cash. The lines were so long, she had to go up to Lidl.
00:34:36 – Rico Figliolini
Really?
00:34:40 – Michael Corbin
Yes. We never shopped there, but yeah, she didn’t have time to wait.
00:34:49 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. I mean, and I shopped there a pretty decent amount of times and, just, having seen that there almost felt like, what’s happening here, wow. But you know, that’s one store. Previlex gets most of this stuff coming out of Florida. Wasn’t as bad, I guess, as South Carolina. But how do you work with businesses then, that are being hit by insurance and how they have to provide it to their employees? Disasters like this happening, how do you cut through red tape? How do you make businesses able to survive in situations like this? Can the state do anything along those lines?
00:35:26 – Michael Corbin
The state probably can, but I also want to look at the insurance companies, those that say, we can’t afford to insure people in the state anymore. If you’re saying that you’re going to make an exit from the state, then your entrance to the state should be that much more rigorous when it comes to checking your books. If you’re going to tell me that you’re that broken when it comes your financials, then I need to see your books. If you’ve been doing business in our state for 10 years and we had one natural disaster and now you’re saying you’re going to exit, I want to see your books. So if there’s going to be laws about if you’re going to be doing business in our state as an insurer. And I don’t want to make it completely ridiculous or almost impossible, but there’s companies that want to come in and do business, insurance companies in the state of Georgia. But if you tell them, hey, here’s the guidelines, if you enter, if you try to exit, this is what we’re going to do when we look. We’re going to look at your books. We’re going to look at your profitability. We’re going to see what you guys were doing because if you were not adequately keeping enough cash on hand to be able to help out your customers to where you’re now so razor thin and you can’t survive another national disaster, then you shouldn’t probably ever been here in the first place. Or you just mismanaged your finances.
00:36:49 – Rico Figliolini
And there’s been insurance companies like health insurance companies that have left the state because they don’t want to insure here anymore to one reason or another.
00:37:00 – Michael Corbin
But I don’t think they, and I’ll have to fact check myself on this one, but I don’t think there’s penalties for them leaving.
00:37:09 – Rico Figliolini
I don’t believe so.
00:37:09 – Michael Corbin
So they get in, and we let them in because we want the business. But if you want in, what is the penalty to get out because things may have changed or maybe they didn’t change? And you just want to get out right?
00:37:28 – Rico Figliolini
That’s when you need a real strong insurance commissioner that doesn’t bend to the will of the companies. But you need the legislation in place, I think, right? To be able to… You do. You have to have the laws to hold them accountable. Yeah. Let’s move away from that a little bit. We’re obviously heading towards November. The VP debate was recent, and it was a bit of a snooze. I think most people were just like, I hear people say, well, fell asleep during part of it and stuff. I mean, they were very nice to each other, which was good. It was a little different than usual, right? I think they both spoke well, although not that I’m a Trump supporter, but J.D. Vance actually spoke better, I think, than Walz. Probably a little bit more experience, maybe. But, you know, we’re moving towards that. We’re moving towards an election where Georgia may or may not be a swing state, probably is. You know one of the things that I think you mentioned is voter and election integrity and the voting down the ballot right because do people follow down the ballot. Do they stop at some point? You know, what is, so I guess that’s the topic that will get hotter as we get closer to the elections, although early voting has already started in some states. I think it has started. I think it started in Georgia.
00:39:03 – Michael Corbin
Right. Early, 15th in Georgia, but absentee voting has already started. North Carolina has already started, I believe, early voting, yeah. That’s another major issue there because a lot of them can’t vote because they’re obviously, the disaster.
00:39:23 – Rico Figliolini
So how do you ensure what do you, you know, how do you ensure elections are going to be secure and accessible to every voter in the state of Georgia? I mean, are you comfortable with the way the system’s run at this point?
00:39:38 – Michael Corbin
So, you know, this is always one of those issues that bothers me, you know, being a Republican because you can’t make everybody happy. Like it’s, hey, are you a Kemp supporter? Are you a Trump supporter? Did you believe the election was stolen? Did you not believe it was stolen? And, you know, the past is the past. And I think, you know, we had some flaws in our election process, right? Without voter IDs, I think most, if not all states, there’s only a few, and Georgia was one of them that didn’t have that. And a lot of blame got pushed on to Raffensperger and to Kemp, but nobody foresaw COVID happening, right? Massive absentee balloting coming in. So he’s fixed it. You know, and I think there’s going to be much more secure elections. I think it’s being taken seriously. I think Kemp has been a good governor of the state. He’s got like a 60 percent approval rating, which is, you know, fantastic. I mean, even among Democrats, he’s got a pretty high approval rating. So he’s done a great thing when it comes to, he’s done a lot of great things, I think, for the state of Georgia. It’s just this internal battle between, do you think the voting is still going to be fair and secure here in Georgia? And yes, I do. From a technology perspective, people say they can or can’t be hacked. It would take a lot and those machines are pretty, I would say from a technology perspective, pretty archaic. It would be very obvious that they were. So I feel confident that the votes that are cast are going to be correct and that we’re going to have a fair election. You know, when it comes to whether people think the laws that were passed are fair or not, I think that just comes down to people wanting to win. And you know, and what is more fair and what is less fair, but, you know, most states have always had a photo ID to vote and you have to have a photo ID to prove who you are for just about anything in life. And one of the most important things that we have in our country is to vote and you should be able to prove that you are who you say you are. And that is one of the biggest things that’s going to safeguard our elections moving forward. There’s too many other hosts of conspiracy theories that I don’t entertain or get into. And as a Republican, people will gripe up and down about me because I’m not going to entertain that because I’m going to look forward and look forward to what we fix and making sure that every vote cast is one that’s going to be true and valid.
00:42:36 – Rico Figliolini
Great. I mean, I feel the same. I mean, looking forward makes sense. And voter ID, I just don’t understand why no one would want that. Because you have to, if you buy cigarettes or alcohol, you have to show an ID to be able to do those things in life. And like you said, most things you have to show some sort of identification. And to say that we don’t need that for voting, there’s no respect then for the system that so many people have died for. I mean, I just don’t get that.
00:43:17 – Michael Corbin
Yeah, I don’t get it either. And it was very disheartening back when that bill was passed and you saw even Major League Baseball go as far to take the All-Star game out of Atlanta over that. Why african-americans, not people born of the dominican or venezuela or curacao or anywhere else, african-americans that are truly from america why that’s dwindled and dwindled and dwindled and he is calling out the state of Georgia racist. He polled, I think, all five African-American players in Major League Baseball now to get their opinion in the United States, not outside of the United States, Mr. Commissioner, and taking money out of the state of Georgia over political stances. So it was very disheartening to see that you would play politics and hurt the economy of a city over something that was so simple, like you just mentioned, showing an ID.
00:44:43 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, that doesn’t, an ID being racist. Yeah, I don’t. That doesn’t mean anyone’s racist. If anything, I think what might have helped, and I don’t think the bill provided it, is that an easy pathway to get that ID. Because not everyone needs a driver’s license, right? So a state photo ID, you know, you shouldn’t have to travel 30 miles away to be able to get that. To make it as easy as possible for anyone that needs an ID to be able to get it at least the initial time in their life and then they can renew it later online or it lasts for 10 years, just like a passport lasts for 10 years, and then you have to renew a passport, right? It’s no different. I mean, if it’s just, as long as there’s no barriers to getting an ID, a photo ID, then there should be no problem with that. But I think that’s, you know, where people get into the muck and stuff.
00:45:41 – Michael Corbin
Yeah, and, you know, there could have been, you know, some provisional. You know, I would just say, flip notes to that bill of, you know, we will be building out, you know, more centers to be able to get voter IDs based on areas where they’re lacking. You know, I think that would have been something that was, would be very prudent. And saying that, hey, you know, if there are gaps, we will do an assessment and see if there are gaps when it comes to people’s accessibility to get, to being able to get to a physical location, to get an ID. And we will build that out and make sure that those are, you know, whether they’re smaller, let’s call them satellite offices and not a major DMV, way to get there and get those licenses or I call it licenses, voter ID, call it just an identification card. So I agree. I haven’t actually, being completely transparent, dug into the data to see how many centers there are based on the population, based on travel. But, you know, there’s probably some room for, or I would say opportunity for growth there.
00:46:56 – Rico Figliolini
Okay. So I have, we’re actually at a good point to start winding down on the interview. What have we not spoken about that you think that we, you want to share in the next few minutes. Any issues that you want to cover that we haven’t?
00:47:14 – Michael Corbin
I would say we’ve covered a lot of them. You know, I would just urge any voters that are, that do look this up, because voters do look it up you know when they come down to the ballot, whether it’s them standing in line, looking at their phone, being like, I saw Mike Corbin sign, let me look at his website, what the heck is he about? I mean, sometimes it takes that, and sometimes people just go up and down the ballot. What we have to, and this is starting to become a potential threat in our government at all levels, local, state, and federal, is down-the-ballot voting. And more so in state than anything because they’re often overlooked, but they’re very important. And they impact your life faster than any federal legislation. And Peachtree Corners does even quicker. So people don’t pay attention. People need to pay attention to what people like me are running for. Why I even ran, why I even care. And it’s because I love this community. I love this state. And you have to make sure that who you’re voting for has your back. And if you don’t feel like they do, then don’t vote for them. And there’s some nefarious characters out there that have now determined and have made public that they know they can get in regardless and push their own agenda and not really even care about their own party because it’s not really their party. They just will get on a ballot because they’ll get into a district where they know that down the ballot will win because it’s a Democrat or Republican district. So I just urge people to really look into the backgrounds of the candidates that are running, especially for state office, because you may end up with people in there that don’t have Georgia’s best interest, don’t have America’s best interest in mind, and eventually it will become a national security threat. So people just need to really look into that because there is a blueprint out there for people to infiltrate into our government at the state level and continue to work their way up at the federal level.
00:49:29 – Rico Figliolini
If anyone wants to find out more about Michael Corbin, where would they go?
00:49:35 – Michael Corbin
It’s www.CorbinForGA.com
00:49:41 – Rico Figliolini
All right, cool. So if anyone has any comments, you could leave it in the comments, either on here, if you’re watching it on Facebook or on YouTube. If you’re listening to this as an audio podcast or from the website, I’ll have show notes so you could find these links as well. Early voting starts the 15th, we said. And in-person voting is November 5th, if I remember that right.
00:50:07 – Michael Corbin
Yep, that’s correct. All the early voting locations are on the Secretary of State website, as well as the Gwinnett Elections website.
00:50:16 – Rico Figliolini
Excellent. And if anyone wants to reach you directly, how would they email you, or where would they email or call?
00:50:23 – Michael Corbin
You can email me directly anytime. People do all the time. I will respond right back. So it’s just michael.corbin@corbinforgeorgia.com.
00:50:35 – Rico Figliolini
Excellent. Alright Michael, I appreciate you being with me this evening and having this discussion. Everyone else that’s listening, so why don’t you hang in there for a second, but everyone else that’s listening, there’ll be other interviews over the next few weeks. Certainly look at the candidates that are representing not only, you know, in the state house, but where they’re representing, right? So the majority of District 97 is Peachtree Corners. So you should really understand who’s representing you. And like Michael said, look into the backgrounds of everyone, where they stand on certain issues and such. Whatever is important to you, and make sure that you go out and vote. Thank you, everyone.
Peachtree Corners Life
City Updates: Brian Johnson on The Forum Parking Changes, Simpsonwood Park and New Community Events
In this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, host Rico Figliolini covers a range of topics for the new year with City Manager Brian Johnson. They address misinformation circulating on the Nextdoor app, discuss updates and future plans for Simpsonwood Park and provide details on upcoming city infrastructure improvements, including gateway signage and parks.
Additionally, the episode announces new features in Peachtree Corners, such as a trail hub, an electric vehicle mobility hub, concert additions and potential park development.
Timestamp
00:00 Introduction and New Year Greetings
00:35 Sponsor Acknowledgements
01:48 Addressing Inaccuracies about The Forum Parking
12:57 Simpsonwood Park Master Plan Update
27:51 City Gateway Signage and Trail Hub Plans
36:11 Upcoming Events and Community Activities
Peachtree Corners Life
Shaping Peachtree Corners: New Vision for the Central Business District [Podcast]
A discussion on the new small area plan, seven sub-areas for guiding growth, and the city’s proactive vision for balancing residential and commercial development.
In this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, host Rico Figliolini discusses the recently concluded moratorium on residential mixed-use development in Peachtree Corners’ Central Business District with Shaun Adams, the city’s Community Development Director. They explore the creation of a small area plan, which subdivides the district into seven distinct zones, enabling tailored development strategies for each. Shaun highlights the goals of this plan: better aligning future projects with the city’s vision, enhancing placemaking, and ensuring balanced growth. They also discuss updates to the city’s 2045 Comprehensive Plan, public engagement efforts, and upcoming steps, including the December 17th City Council vote. Listen to learn how Peachtree Corners is shaping its future while preserving its unique community character.
Resources:
Peachtree Corners Website
Community Development
Upcoming City Council Meeting Tuesday, December 17
Timestamp:
00:00:00 – Residential Mixed-Use Moratorium and Central Business District Revamp
00:04:40 – Comprehensive Plan Guiding City’s 10-20 Year Vision
00:06:50 – Distinguishing Institutional and Commercial Areas in the Central Business District
00:10:17 – Differentiating Commercial and Residential Zones in City Planning
00:15:56 – Planned Roundabout and Redevelopment Opportunities
00:17:40 – Balancing Town Center Development and Traffic Concerns
00:20:30 – Flexible Zoning for Diverse Housing Options
00:25:06 – Suburban Condo Financing Challenges
00:27:22 – Suburban Density and Apartment Conversions
00:28:49 – Targeted Infill Development to Support Existing Office
00:35:42 – Envisioning Flex Office Redevelopment in Chamblee
00:38:37 – Envisioning a Balanced Suburban Density
00:40:50 – Zoning Changes Headed to City Council
Podcast Transcript
Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. We have a great guest today. We’re going to be discussing a lot of things here regarding residential, mixed use, the moratorium that recently ended on that development. Shaun Adams is with me today. Hey, Shaun. Thanks for being with me.
00:00:48 – Shaun Adams
Hey, how are you?
00:00:49 – Rico Figliolini
Good, good. So we’re going to talk, let’s set the stage a little bit about why, if you could give me a two-minute brief about why the moratorium was put in place and then what you were doing during that moratorium to start developing the ideas that we’re going to be visually showing our guests?
00:01:11 – Shaun Adams
Sure thing. So back in May, we put the moratorium in place on May 3rd. And one of the reasons that led to that is we were starting to see from the marketplace, a lot of properties in our central business district come online for sale. Office was not in great shape. They’re looking to redevelop sites in a way that didn’t necessarily align with what we felt our long-term vision of the central business district was. And when you look at the central business district, it’s a big piece of all of our office parks, including Tech Park and some of our retail nodes. And having one policy, if you will, that covered that whole area, you know, seemed to be a little broader than what we were ultimately looking for. And so we pressed pause, moratorium, and started working on a small area plan, which has now gotten to the point where we heard in planning commission a couple weeks ago, November 12th. And it’s set to go before council on December 17th. And through that process, we’ve held a couple of focus groups with brokers and owners, office owners in the central business district. We had a public engagement meeting. I’ve had some one-on-one conversations with members of the public who have reached out to me as well and provided feedback. And so we’ve taken all of that. And we actually, as a byproduct of that, we had a couple of themes that came out of those engagement sessions that spoke to more placemaking opportunities or amenitizing the Tech Park Central Business District area, taking it from an eight-hour day to a sixteen-hour day type of thought process, more gathering space where we could, a better mix of housing stock within the area. And so we also turned around and did an asset inventory, as I call it, where we put eyes on every commercial building in the Central Business District. We did a market analysis as well to determine how they were from a condition standpoint, what their occupancy rates were, what’s on the market, what’s not, what properties have kind of more underutilized space or parking than others. And as a byproduct of that, we’ve kind of set out these seven sub areas, which is probably the biggest change in the small area plan within the sub-district that allows us to get a little more granular and look at each of these areas and say, okay, what may make sense from a redevelopment standpoint or development standpoint in one area may not make sense in another. So how can we take all this information that the public and the experts have given us and, you know, mix it around and come out with all of that. So I have seven sub areas within the central business district that will be presenting to council.
00:03:50 – Rico Figliolini
And the moratorium was placed on the central business district area. So no one could apply for rezoning within that six month period that ended November 3rd, right? So during that time, you guys did what you needed to do as far as research and the inventory assets and developing these ideas. Because like you said before, from someone walking in that doesn’t know anything about this, the central business district area was governed by or ruled by one broad regulation, if you will. And now by subdividing these into seven districts, each of them will be uniquely managed, if you will, right? About what can go there or how it can be developed. So now that it ended November 3rd and city council is going to be seeing this December 17th as the last public hearing, if you will, before it’s voted on. When would it take effect?
00:04:46 – Shaun Adams
So and remember, this small area plan is essentially going to be an addendum to the 2045 comp plan. So it’ll be baked up under that. And, you know, once they vote on it in December, it’s being voted on to be adopted as a part of our comp plan. So it’ll essentially take effect right away. It is a policy document. It’s not a law document. And so it’s one of the things that we try to help people know is that the comprehensive plan is meant to guide our 10 to 20 year vision of how we see the city progressing. And, you know, some of that is, you know, proactive in nature and some of it is obviously defensive in nature. But this will plug right into that and allow us as staff when projects come through right away, we’ll be able to point to this. If it’s a project that comes in a central business district, we will immediately be able to point to this once council votes on it and says, hey, you know, this is kind of how we view this area in this property.
00:05:48 – Rico Figliolini
Right. And the comp plan gets reviewed every, was it every five years, I guess?
00:05:53 – Shaun Adams
It’s every five years from that day. The reality of the process for us is it feels like every three to four we get started on it.
00:05:59 – Rico Figliolini
Right, right. That’s true. Because by the time you finish public hearings and all that, I mean, it takes a while. So like you said, I mean, this is a guide, right? So what may be on there at least allows the city and developers to know exactly what’s expected, what’s going on. But it does give you that leeway to be able to adjust as you go. City council votes on it, planning commission votes on it. So it’s a process, right? Public hearings are done. So it’s not like all of a sudden something shows up that might be different from what would be on there all of a sudden, because it has to still go through the process of public hearings and all that. We were talking before we started this. I mean, it was interesting to me that a certain, maybe you want to pull up the map and we can start with that. Because one of the sections that is in the Central Business District, I didn’t even realize, was the G section that we talked about, the intersection of Peachtree Corner Circle and West Jones Bridge Road and Crooked Creek, where the elementary school is as well. I didn’t even realize that was in the Central Business District area. But you all have been proactive when you went through this process to make sure about a few things. So let’s start there a little bit. So what we’re seeing on here is the seven subdivided areas to our central business district. And the G, which is the green area, so the top one is the intersection of where the YMCA is, Peachtree Corners Baptist Church, and Cornerstone Christian Academy. And the one on the left side on this top map is the Crooked Creek and Peachtree Elementary School area. Correct? Yeah. So explain to us why that was pulled out separate.
00:07:56 – Shaun Adams
So, you know, as you kind of look at that area, you see they kind of stick out anyway from the core central business district. I think the reason why they are probably originally included in is because they are mostly institutional uses, which tend to lean on the commercial side versus everything around it being residential. But when, when you have a broad policy guide or policy statements like we have in the central business district before this, where, you know, the central business district in most places is where your highest intensity of development shall occur both mix of uses you know things like you see at town center and the forum you know that’s also common central business district. And so when you just say that broadly across the whole character area well that means everywhere that you see on this map right now, which includes those two sections. But we identified and understood that what may be appropriate along 141 and sub-area A probably isn’t appropriate in G. And so we wanted to try to carve that out for a couple reasons. And one is for the community to understand that we recognize there’s a difference in what might be able to go there, but also for developers to know that while it’s in the central business district, the athletic fields and parking lot of PCVC probably isn’t the place for an intense development. And so what this is called the suburban transition sub area is what G is. And the way we articulate it is that it’s the idea is that it will maintain its existing institutional character with the schools and the churches and the YMCA there. To the extent that if it were to be redeveloped in the future, it needs to take on the low intensity residential character of all the residential around it. And so if anything, it should act more like the Amberfield and Peachtree Station and everything that’s right by it and less like Central Business District. And so it kind of gives us that buffer and then now gives staff the ability if somebody were to come in and try to buy one of those pieces, we would be looking at this and saying, your development is inconsistent with our small area plan and surrounding uses. And that would give us some of the ammunition we need to be able to make a recommendation of denial in that case.
00:10:14 – Rico Figliolini
Which wasn’t in the original plan. I mean, anyone could have probably come in and bought that parking lot, if you will, across from PCBA and decided, or the YMCA, if that was ever to be sold or whatever, that someone could come in and say, well, you know, it’s a transition point. We could put townhouses there, which, you know, in a reasonable way, you might say that that could be like type of thing, type of development. But this eliminates sort of that.
00:10:58 – Shaun Adams
And townhomes are lower to medium intensity but the bigger thing is you can take that YMCA property and it’s big enough that could try and come in with a mix of uses, and even more intense. And while we can certainly from a staff standpoint leverage the fact that all the surrounding uses are lower intensity and try to use that to drive a staff report of denial, it will be harder for us to say it’s inconsistent with the comp plan when the comp plan is calling for the higher intensity use in that character area. But now this sub-area allows us to be able to point to both and say, no, that type of intense use in that area would not be appropriate.
00:11:23 – Rico Figliolini
And was this, I don’t remember now, but obviously the city’s thirteen years old. And we adopted Gwinnett County’s plans, right? I mean, when we became a city, essentially. And now that’s slowly been amended and changed over time. But would that have been allowed? I wonder if that would have been allowed during that time before we became a city.
00:11:50 – Shaun Adams
I’m not, well, I mean Gwinnett County would have had larger character areas since it was county-wide they would have certainly looked at this area along 141 and had more of a commercial node for it would be my guess. So we would have done our own comp plan before this to kind of have character specific to the city but a lot of times what happens as you see here is this is the core of our commercial and retail district and so that and then everything above it is residential and but now as we start to grow and develop you know and you start to see some of these properties in the market kind of change from what it was in the 80s and 90s, then, you know, now that becomes more at risk today than 20 years ago and mixed use wasn’t really a thing.
00:12:36 – Rico Figliolini
So city’s being proactive by doing this, obviously, and subdividing this makes sense to me too as well, as we were discussing before we started. Tell everyone what the darkened areas are. They should know from map but like the Forum, Town Center, I guess Dick’s Sporting Goods is on the south end, along with where the Chick-fil-A is, those areas. And they’re darkened because why?
00:13:04 – Shaun Adams
So they’re darkened for a couple of reasons. One, that’s really our retail entertainment sections right there, which, you know, from my perspective, really isn’t the same as the rest of the central business district, which is office focused. But also, you know, as we kind of talked before, the comp plan gets updated about every, you know, four to five years. These two areas here, our town center and the forum, they’re pretty much, from a redevelopment standpoint, they are what they are. They’re either in process or already built out. There’s not a lot of potential for change. Really, I’d say the only property grayed out would be the Ingles. But whether that’s something that would ever change in five years or not we don’t know I mean it’s a stable shopping center that’s leased up right now and so you know there hasn’t been anything of a recent note to indicate that it would be different but it is probably the only property in that area that doesn’t have that post 2000 design to it and the same thing at the bottom with Target, Dick’s Sporting Goods, LA Fitness Plaza, that’s a retail node that’s not likely to change in the next five years. And so what I would posit to you is that the next comp plan update, if anything, I could see those becoming a different character area potentially in the central business district. But in order to kind of fully flesh that out now, it would have taken another full-blown update. And so we wanted to focus on the areas that were ripe for potential redevelopment within the next four to five years, like what’s likely to change. And so that’s why you’ll notice the E section as well, where even though a lot of times that area around Peachtree Corner Circle with the Lidl DaVinci Court hexagon is often part of that downtown focus, that is an area that one has attempted redevelopment recently and probably has the potential for redevelopment in the next five years at some point in time. And so we included that and made it its own sub-area as a town center gateway because we wanted feedback from the community on that since we felt like it would likely be sought for some sort of transition over the next five years.
00:15:20 – Rico Figliolini
In that area, I know that, for example, the E part, the west side of 141 there, that’s where the day building is. I know that they applied for rezoning there. They’d like to put mixed use, a residential, I think. And then you have the E. Let’s start there. Let’s talk about that.
00:15:40 – Shaun Adams
Actually, so yeah, the west side here, my cursor is the curve that you see is the Cowart Parcel that’s not developed yet, but that’s where he has the entitlements for the 56 condos. The day building is actually over here in our commercial 4. So since it’s a little further down Peachtree Corner Circle, it kind of fell out of the gateway. Based off of our review.
00:16:05 – Rico Figliolini
So is the 50-unit condo still, that’s the one that I think butts up to the intuitive properties maybe or neither?
00:16:16 – Shaun Adams
It does. So it’s kind of the one that’s tucked in behind the QT and the creme de la creme. And then part of the intuitive campus is on the other side of it.
00:16:25 – Rico Figliolini
Okay. By the way, is that, I think the roundabout that was being planned has that been approved and going into that part with the creme de la creme and the exit from the forum is, is that, has that been approved?
00:16:40 – Shaun Adams
I believe that kind of falls more on my public work side. I believe it’s in design, but I’m going to leave that for Brian and Greg to speak more clearly to it. I believe it is still in play, but it would be aligned with the creme access where that has been discussed to be slated.
00:17:01 – Rico Figliolini
Okay. Do you foresee, I know in the E part on the south, on the east side or south side, there’s a couple of other buildings there that are being looked at, right? Is Regis one of those buildings?
00:17:14 – Shaun Adams
Regis Hexagon is one where I think half of it’s vacant right now. The Hexagon has moved out. Regis still has their side. So, you know, that’s a building, again, 50% or less occupancy, a lot of parking. So, you know, in my mind, that’s one where you could see somebody coming in and kicking tires at any point. And so it was important to make sure that was included as a part of this conversation.
00:17:44 – Rico Figliolini
Sure. Why don’t we, why don’t you start, I guess from there, I mean, that’s the town center gateway it’s called, right? And let’s work our way around to tell us a little bit about why each of these have been adjusted the way they are.
00:17:58 – Shaun Adams
Certainly. So, I mean, I guess the town center gateway, you know, what we point out here is that it is kind of a wrapping around as a part of that downtown and, you know, could provide opportunity to connect directly into the town center area to amenitize. And, you know, not only those office buildings there, but there is enough excess parking there to provide some additional body heat and residential units to further support town center and the forum. And so that’s kind of been looked at as an area, you know, for meeting the high bill for equity product. There was discussion at planning commission, you know, that I’d say the one, one concern that some of the community has expressed is with regards to our recommendation of medium to high density in the E area, largely over traffic concerns in terms of, you know, if you put a few more hundred units in that area, what will that do from a traffic standpoint? We are, you know, continuing to work to look at that and provide, you know, analysis for it in advance of council. But, you know, what I have kind of spoken to is the reason again this being a guide right, is the importance of having somewhat of a range and saying medium to high intensity is you know I’ll use da vinci as an example just because they kind of made this reference in their public hearing but they talked about the fact that they currently of the twelve plus acres they have about nine acres of it is asphalt. Four acres of I believe it, is what they said in a public is hearing, is excess. So they can maintain their four to one parking ratio that they need for their tenants and get rid of four acres. And so if they were to come back in with a proposal with residential units so that, you know, were what city and the community wanted. People generally were like, that’s a good proposal. And we’ll just, you know, for the sake of easy math, you know, it’s four acres that they came in with, you know, eighty units of townhomes and, but they did it as a whole twelve acre property. That’s less than eight units an acre, right? That’s like low end of medium, if anything, you know, in terms of density. So everybody be like, that’s great. That’s awesome. Great job. You know, it looks good. Everybody’s happy. Well, if they sold off the four acres of parking and a different, whoever bought the four acres or was contracted to buy the four acres comes in to zone eighty townhomes. Now that density is being accounted for off of four acres, not twelve. And so what was a less than seven acre, seven unit per acre project now looks like a twenty unit per acre project. And now it sounds like high density. And so the reason for having the range is saying, look, all of these properties within that gateway, in order to put one residential unit on it, they’d have to come to us for a rezoning. So we get to look at it on a case-by-case basis and say, you know what? If it’s eighty townhomes there on four acres, whether it’s all twelve acres is zoned as a mud or four acres of it is zoned, you know, residential infill or some other zoning opportunity there. The idea is that it’s eighty units for the core of that site that’s meant to serve the property. So we might look at that differently okay more supportive than 350 units on say the hexagon building or the synergy building or something right? You know so that’s still high but it’s a lot more units and so by baking in a range it allows us to contemplate those scenarios where you might have parcel carve-outs and that person comes in because maybe the office owner doesn’t want to wrap everything into a mixed use for whatever reason, but he’s okay giving a piece of the parking to add something to it. And so from a planning standpoint, we have to look at what’s the total number of units going on the ground in an area. And that’s really what’s going to come down from a traffic standpoint anyway from support. But if we just said medium and that same project came in, I mean, technically, council could look at it case by case and still say, I understand based off of the four acres, it looks like higher intensity. But, you know, totality of the circumstances, if you will, it really is more like medium and therefore we would support it they still have that ability to do it but I think it’s from a legal standpoint from a policy standpoint to have the range in there it’s easier for us to kind of defend and support on a case-by-case basis. And so that’s something that we’re looking at and trying to help articulate why the importance of the range is there.
00:22:51 – Rico Figliolini
So when equity is talked about, I mean, the only equity that I hear all the time is either homes or townhomes. I don’t hear anything about condos. So it transitions right to apartments. Like if someone came in and decided they wanted to apply for, I don’t know 180, 200 units, it’s always looked at as multifamily apartments versus an equity property like condos would be. Is that even in the plans? Does that allow for that? Or is that one of those expanded uses that could be but it’s not explicit in there?
00:23:32 – Shaun Adams
So one of the changes we made as well is instead of trying to speak to known housing product types, we spoke to intensity of the residential use. So low to medium, medium to high density. And the reason why is, we are, I think we are at a point where the residential housing community is trying to shift to find more creative housing product types to help address, you know, the fact that we have less land to develop on, the need for more attainable price points for housing. People, not everybody wants five, four in a door and there’s not opportunity to build it. And in most places anymore. And so where do our empty nesters want to go if they want to own, but downsize. And so, you know, we’re starting to see stack townhome options where it looks like a townhome, but it’s two units stacked on top of each other. They each have a garage. They still have that indoor parking, but they have flat level living once they get there. We’re seeing courtyard style homes are coming out, smaller cottages, kind of going back to that 900 to 1500 square foot single family detached on small lots. And so, you know, as what I don’t know 10 years from now, if I did, you know, I’d probably be in the construction side is what are those types of uses? You know, what does that mix a housing product type? And so what we want to be able to do is say, look, it really matters the intensity of the use. And then we’ll know when we see it, what comes in, if it’s the type of housing product type that makes sense in the area and kind of assimilates into the surrounding environment. So rather than boxing us in and saying no single family detached or no townhome, let’s do it that way. But to your point on the condo front, most people forget that a mid-rise stacked flat building can be equity or rental, right? Condos and ownership type, not a structure. But we are, I think suburban condos, if you will. Like a mid-rise condominium project doesn’t finance or pay for it in suburbia right now. And that’s why you don’t see it like you see inside the perimeter. But what does are we’re starting to see kind of like what you know waterside they have that condo component where there’s three levels with the parking deck you know that type of product works and the reason why is because if you know for condos you have to pre-sell 50 percent before you can get the financing you need to go vertical on the building. So if you take a 50 unit mid-rise, you got to sell 25 units before you start going unless you’re self-funding. And the problem with that is you’re asking people to put money down where they won’t be able to benefit from it for potentially two to three years. But if you have an eight unit kind of stacked townhome building or something like that, one, that building is a lot cheaper to build than a mid-rise. But two, you have to pre-sell four units and then you get the aggregate of the pre-sales moving forward. So once you get four units sold, you build one, you put a couple models in there. And as you sell that out, you can now build the next one. And so that tends to work better in suburbia. And we’re starting to see some of those products come in and kick around.
00:26:50 – Rico Figliolini
Right. And I can appreciate that and understand that. And they look nicer that way, too. There’s better quality of living, maybe. But I’ve also seen, and maybe this is more urban, I guess, where apartments come in, let’s say, multi-unit apartments, but they’re pre-wired, they’re set. They could be condo products. And eventually some of them do turn into that, right? Seven years later, they become condo equity property. That’s actually an easy way of doing it, right? Build the apartment, finance it that way, and then the conversion can happen later. So that’s been done before. But you’re right. Maybe the suburban area we live in right now doesn’t need to be quite that dense with those types of developments.
00:27:41 – Shaun Adams
Well, I will say on that end though, the apartment projects that are coming in, even the ones, I know a couple of them have been denied, but the proposals and Tucson Court as well, Broadstone, they are sub-metered, they are pre-wired in a way to where they could be converted. And I know that’s the difficulty. The irony is like, well, then why can’t it finance as a rental product but not an ownership product? And we can go into the legal weeds on that one. But they are being built now to have that conversion. If we ever find that people are going back towards wanting to buy like that, I could see that happening.
00:28:18 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. And it’s mainly a financial issue, right? It’s mainly the banks and what they’re willing to finance. And I’m glad that actually the city, I think it was a few years ago, started doing that, conditioning developments to be sub-wide and all that. Because that made sense. I mean, to be able to look to the future and all that. Plus, energy-wise and everything else, it just makes sense to have it done that way. Alright, let’s go into the Ds and the C area. Let’s go into the C area and why is that? And describe what business is actually there at that point.
00:28:56 – Shaun Adams
Certainly. So the C is what we’re calling targeted infill. These are typically slightly smaller lots in general, but you still have businesses and buildings where there’s some underutilized space, maybe over development, or in some cases you might have a smaller office building on a smaller site that isn’t doing so great, but you have better office around it. And so there’s the potential for maybe one property might change so that it betters the ones around it. And so with the targeted infill, you know, what we’re really looking at here is some of that medium. In some cases, you might say higher density, but again, because it’s a smaller lot. So we’re not talking a lot of units, but it might be, you know, more in that ten to fifteen unit range or, you know, fifteen to twenty unit per acre range, but still maybe only 80 to 100, 150 units, something like that. But the idea behind it is it needs to be something that’s meant to kind of help stand up and support existing and surrounding office. So we’re still focusing on that goal. Some of the areas you see here, down here at the bottom, is 20 and 22 Tech Park South. It’s already zoned as a mixed use. And then that spur right across from it is the Isaacson one that just came through, which is the office to condo conversion for 13 units. So again, this right here is an example of where this office was sacrificed, but around it these office buildings here are much better performing, a better condition, doing well. And so by adding some residential here, right on PIB, kind of in the gateway in, it’s gonna now help support some of what is around this. And so that’s kind of the idea. This section back here is research court. You’ve got Peachtree Farms down here, which already kind of has that little bit more of a residential type of character to it. But a couple of these buildings here are either fully vacant or, you know, in need of quiet repair. So there’s the opportunity to do some stuff around here that can maybe stand up some of the office within here, but also help further support, what we have at D. And then this is Spalding 141. So Goodwill Plaza here, Hapag-Lloyd, 5550 Triangle, and that’s this whole section here. And then on the other side, you have the Summit Building, Bank of America, and it’s kind of the space in front of it and the hotel. So that’s kind of a corridor area of some smaller lots where you could probably see some redevelopment occur at some point in time, which that kind of gives us the idea. D is our, we’re calling it commercial core. D is really the area where we don’t expect to see a lot of change away from office. A lot of the office and flex space or what have you in that area is doing well or conditioned well. So we don’t see substantive change. Obviously, most of this area up here is intuitive. The flex office space here, 5250 and 5390 is leasing up well. It’s performing. And so, you know, here what we say is any redevelopment here is going to be accessory in nature to the existing and surrounding office. So much lower intensity if it’s residential, odds are because it’s off the major corridors, it’s probably not going to support retail anyway. And so this is where you can amenitize it, you know, the trail heads can come through in certain places, that type of thing. And so that’s that to me is kind of like our stable base of office. And so not a lot of change.
00:32:32 – Rico Figliolini
Right.
00:32:33 – Shaun Adams
A, as you see here, we’re calling it the district hub, but it’s pretty center or central to the central business district, if you will. It’s right along 141. For context, this is engineering drive comes through right here so this kind of southeastern side of 141 is rod stone the liquor store the racetrack so that’s already is what it is. That’s built out and developed. The other side you have DR Horton back here and then this is the CarMax Plaza. There’s a little kind of right angle building tucked away that you don’t really see from the road, but overlooks the lake. So CarMax, parking right on 141, full signalized intersection, really underutilized space. And part of what we heard when people talked about amenitizing Tech Park beyond gathering spaces and trails was creating opportunities for entertainment, placemaking uses that wouldn’t pluck from town center and the Forum. Don’t want to start to compete fully with that. If there is a place to do it, it should be on a major thoroughfare. And so this is probably where your highest intensity of redevelopment would occur as it relates to additional commercial uses and residential because of its proximity and full access. And so it’s kind of the idea is that hopefully this kind of becomes your entertainment placemaking hub for the central business district.
00:34:05 – Rico Figliolini
I think part of that, wasn’t there at one point about adjusting some of the regulations for allowing recreational uses inside certain buildings that don’t exist actually at this point as far as an allowed use. Is that amended, I think, already?
00:34:16 – Shaun Adams
Yes, back in March. I think March, April timeframe, we did the social recreation facility and social hobbyist tax amendments that kind of address some of those smaller scale uses that didn’t, we didn’t really have a clean and tidy place for. But yeah, I mean, this could be the kind of thing where, you know, your fairway and socials or brewery, things like that. We’d love to see that type of anchor use come in here, something that could hopefully stabilize and make the CarMax building more, more valuable. Because it’s a pretty good shape building. If you put some stuff around it, you could foresee a situation. You’ve got 295 multifamily, 26 towns on this side, 75 towns coming on DR Horton. So you’re kind of in that 380, just shy of 400 range if out of all this you know in this area if you had a little more residential along with some entertainment uses you really have a core that can support that additional retail or entertainment use coming in so it brings a product to the city we don’t have hopefully that all of our residents up here in the shaded out area can easily pop down into and out but most anybody else coming to it is going to leverage you know the main thoroughfare 141 in the city to do it and so you know that’s we felt like if there was a place to have it that’s it okay and then I’ll hit F real quick because it should be real quick. This is really our saturn court down here. This is off of PIB. We call it flex office, but this is where most of our true kind of industrial one-story bay door flex office buildings are. Anything here is going to be more to enhance that. It shouldn’t see much in the way of true redevelopment there. It’s a pretty stable spot. And so we kind of drew those out on their own. And then the last one is B, we’re calling it district infill. Perspective wise, I mean, this is Jaybird Alley right here. So down here, you have the Comcast building down here below. This is Mary Our Queen up here. These two buildings right here are one property my understanding is this building is fully vacant most people are in this back building as you can see you look around you have a ton of underutilized parking and space an office park. And even the public engagement sector, our public engagement meeting this is where most people said hey the intensity of residential and everything if anywhere, that’s where it should be. It’s further away from town center where a lot of people feel like we already have a lot of growth going on. It’s adjacent to Holcomb Bridge Road corridor. We’re trying to do a lot to redevelop that corridor. And so this is where it makes the most sense. And so here is where we’re kind of proposing that medium to high opportunity as well for residential mix of uses. Still with a preference for built for equity products, I think there’s some opportunity because unlike C, these properties are larger. So you can take one property and do more. Where C, you might have some three to four acre sites. Here, you’ve got a lot of 12, 15 acre sites. So there could be some opportunity to do more with a mix of product types. You could potentially stabilize the office building with it, or you may have to take one to support others.
00:37:40 – Rico Figliolini
So let’s, I mean, medium to high density. So when, for example, I drove through, I think it was, what was it, Beaufort Highway? No, Peachtree Industrial Boulevard going south into the city. It was actually Chamblee I was driving through. And I hadn’t been through that part in quite a while, apparently, because all of a sudden I noticed all these buildings. Beautiful architecture, actually. Well-designed apartment buildings. Prettier looking, I’ve got to say, than Broadstone. But that’s just my take on it. Better architectural planning on that. Do we foresee that type of local development, too, maybe in that B area? Because, I mean, does that. Just so that people can sort of envision what is going to go where maybe as far as that goes.
00:38:31 – Shaun Adams
I consider that to be more of an urban higher density than a suburban higher density you know my vision for down here is there certainly may be a couple of sites where, you know, multifamily might be needed or might make some sense to be able to support the retail that’s right here. But really, when I look at this, doing some of that residential infill, you know, like a couple of zoning districts are talking about, I could see an opportunity for a mix of product types, whether it’s attached and detached townhomes with some stacked townhomes or smaller cottage homes, you know, where we can find an opportunity to do that, to bring in some more of that equity product, but it can be smaller footprints. And so it may be 15 to 20 units an acre. And, you know, in my mind, anything less than 20, you’re still kind of in that medium range. You get over 20 is when there’s a two in front of it and it starts to feel like, okay, for suburban areas, that’s probably, that’s the low end of high. You know, when you get like the Chamblee area, they’re probably 40, 50, 60 units an acre is what you’re probably seeing there. I don’t foresee that, you know, even our current regional or I say regional, but our current mixed use ordinance that we have, even with all the bonus density, you can get caps at 45. And 32 is the base. And so I don’t foresee it being Chamblee-esque, if you will. I want it to be a more efficient use of the space supporting the office. But I think my mind, when you say medium to high, I’m thinking this area is probably likely to be more in that 15 to 25 type of range and hopefully supporting as many of those office buildings as we can.
00:40:16 – Rico Figliolini
Okay. Sounds good. So this is going to be presented to the city council again on December 17th. Public comments, public hearing. People can come to that meeting and make their public comments about that plan. It’s been out there already. There’s been public focus groups, a public meeting. So it’s been out there. Just for those people that might look at this, listen to this and say, I didn’t know about it, but it’s been out there. It’s been advertised. God, it’s been ad nauseum with being out there. So finally, it’s coming to city council, and it’ll be voted on at that meeting, because it’s gone past the first reading on it. Do you foresee any additional, is there any additional things that you should share, that you want to share right now that we haven’t covered, Shaun?
00:41:07 – Shaun Adams
As far as the plan, no. I mean, I think it’s pretty well out there. I mean, this is, to me, the biggest change is what the sub-areas are allowing us to do. I mean, other than stating that we’ve got a couple of zoning districts in the works as a byproduct of this so that we can fully implement the plan. But outside of that, we do have two applications in for December Planning Commission, but they’re not really specific to these changes. So we haven’t had that rush, even thought the moratorium ended on November 3rd, of people coming in. So it’ll be interesting as people maybe flip their heads out of the sand after the holidays in January and start to kick tires again to kind of see the reaction of the development community. The first couple of times they come in on some of these properties and talk with us about it.
00:42:00 – Rico Figliolini
Sounds good. Great. So again, for those, it’s December 17th, the city council meeting. If you have any questions, what I’m going to do is in the show notes for this, I’ll have a link to the meeting. I’ll have a link. I think we could get a link to this plan as well.
00:42:18 – Shaun Adams
It’ll be in the packet.
00:42:22 – Rico Figliolini
Okay. Is there a separate PDF available on this that we can link to?
00:42:27 – Shaun Adams
I can get one set up for the full plan that’ll be shown. This was a specific presentation that doesn’t have the full plan in it that I’m sharing right now. But I can get the full plan maybe with a draft watermark on it or something and then have that so it can be shared.
00:42:45 – Rico Figliolini
Alright, that’d be great if you could do that. If anyone has comments certainly leave it in the comments email, myself or actually Shaun Adams at the city if you have any questions and sorry my cats are going crazy so just you know put your comments and we’ll see about getting answers to you before the meeting or certainly bring them to that meeting and you’ll know a little bit more about what’s going on. So Shaun, thank you. Appreciate you being with me. Hang in there for a minute while we say goodbye. In fact, if you want to take the map off, you’re fine to do that. Everyone else, thank you again. This is Peachtree Corners Life. My name is Rico Figliolini, host of this, and publisher of Peachtree Corners Magazine and Southwest Gwinnett Magazine, and Shaun Adams here. Give me your title again, Shaun, because I should remember that.
00:43:39 – Shaun Adams
Community Development Director.
00:43:41 – Rico Figliolini
There you go. So tell us all what you think. Give us some feedback in the comments. We’ll look forward to the next episode of this podcast when we talk to Shaun again, likely Brian Johnson, the City Manager, and we’ll get more information about what’s going on. There’s going to be a lot going on in 2025, that’s for sure. So thanks again. Hang in there.
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