Peachtree Corners Life
Peachtree Corners Update: Deer Overpopulation, Simpsonwood Park & Illegal Nightclubs [Podcast]
In this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, host Rico Figliolini sits down with City Manager Brian Johnson to discuss pressing local issues, including deer overpopulation and potential culling efforts, a school digital signage request, and Simpsonwood park. They also dive into the latest legislation affecting impact of tort reform on city liability, annexation, and drone regulations. Plus, hear how the city’s marshals uncovered an illegal nightclub operating under the radar. Stay informed on the latest developments shaping Peachtree Corners. Listen now!
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Timestamped Topics:
00:04:09 – Deer Overpopulation and Potential Culling Efforts
00:14:41 – Digital Signage Regulations for Community Schools
00:20:00 – Navigating Lawsuits and Tort Reform
00:30:50 – Parking Lot Slope Adjustments and Liability Concerns
00:32:31 – Navigating Legislation Impacts on Construction and Annexation
00:38:33 – Regulating Drones in Public Spaces
00:44:24 – Uncovering an Illegal Nightclub Operation
00:51:37 – Discussing City Matters Behind the Scenes
Transcript:
00:00:00 – Rico Figliolini
Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. I appreciate you joining us. We have Brian Johnson, city manager. Hey, Brian.
00:00:08 – Brian Johnson
Hey, Rico. How are you?
00:00:13 – Rico Figliolini
Good. Thanks for being with me. As usual, we’re going to be going through a bit of information about new things that we haven’t covered before. So there’s a lot of stuff going on in the city our size. Little things, big things, but everything needs attention. And everyone has an opinion. So it’s good to be able to go through this. Yeah, it’s good to go through this. But before we get there, let me just say thank you to EV Remodeling for being a sponsor of our show, as well as Vox Pop Uli, another company that is a tremendous supporter of ours as well. And you can find their information in the show notes below. But we thank them for supporting us. Both of them are businesses located here in the City of Peachtree Corners. One of them does remodeling from Design to Build, evremodelinginc.com. And the other one, voxpopuli.com, does anything that you need marketing, imprinting, object imprinting, from trade shows to vehicle wraps. Just, you know, just check them out. Links below. And if you’re watching this on YouTube or any of the other video channels like Facebook, subscribe to us. I appreciate that. So let’s get right down to it, Brian. I guess the first thing we talked about that would be on the list is something that my wife even was asking me about the other day. And I’ve had questions of it, and I’ve seen it. I mean, deer overpopulation in the city of Peachtree Corners, it’s not been like this for the longest time, I think. What are you hearing? What is allowed to be able to do? I know thinning of the herd is something that people talk about, but what is the reality of what can be done or can’t be done in a county park? Because that’s where a lot of them are.
00:02:10 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, so locally, so there’s a couple things to consider here is, you know, one, if you live anywhere in Peachtree Corners, really near the Chattahoochee River corridor, it is definitely as a protected corridor and serves really as a place for wildlife to go up and down because it’s a water source. And so, you know, a lot of people have seen deer in the past, but we have noticed that the city that we’ve had a lot more deer car interactions, if you will, in which the deer loses that battle and we end up getting a request to remove a deer. Which, you know, can also get complicated because some people have deer that die in their backyard way off the road and then they’ll call and say, can you pick it up? And we can’t go on to private property to do that because that’s, you know, a gratuity, if you will. But if it does get close to the right of way, we will take it. So, you know, even those aren’t even, you know, as cut and dry as we would like. But we have noticed that there’s been a lot more, you know, deer collisions with cars. And unbeknownst to us, but coincidentally at the same time, Gwinnett County asked the State Department of Natural Resources or State, you know, Game and Wildlife, one of the environmental, but I think it was DNR, to do a deer population study at Simpsonwood Park. And, you know, in Peachtree Corners, we have a couple of areas that are undeveloped that are even more, you know, of a great location for deer to, you know, stay around. The back of Neely Farm along the river has a big area for the residents. The back of Riverfield where the Fields Club has a really big area back there. The back of Waterside has an area along there. And then, you know, then you run into Jones Bridge Park and then a stretch where there’s not a lot of open area. And then you’ve got Simpsonwood Park. And so those areas are where a lot of deer are, you know, congregating. And so Gwinnett asked the state to do a study. The state came back and said that there is a significantly, you know, overpopulation of deer in the area. And they in turn asked, and then they provided the county with a lot of reasons why that’s not good. You know, everything from deer eating higher off the ground up, you know, onto the trees. You know, it’s got ecosystem effects, coyote attraction. Even, you know, the deer that are around, all of them aren’t as healthy as they could be. And there’s a lot of these second, third order effects. They laid out and said, hey, we do this elsewhere in the state, would like to be involved in, you know, deer overpopulation, you know, culling of the herd. And Gwinnett informed them that they can’t do it at Simpsonwood Park because the county has a policy of no hunting on county-owned property. So we didn’t know any of this was going on until then the state of Georgia approached us and said, hey, city, do you guys own any property that would be large enough for us to do, you know, set up a controlled hunt for the purposes of culling the herd? And we don’t specifically own any. You know, again, I ran through the organizations that really would be the ones that could say, yes, you could come out there or not. Neely Farm HOA, Waterside are the main ones. And so right now there is a conversation between us, the state, some of those entities of which we might end up being a facilitator of some sort. We obviously wouldn’t be doing it. It would be the state. It might be we’re merely making the introduction and then one of those property owners, if you will, says it’s okay and they coordinated with the state and we’re just communicating to the residents, could be.
00:06:55 – Rico Figliolini
It’s interesting that the county, I can understand that. I remember that rule about hunting on county property, which makes sense. You don’t want that happening. But this is a controlled thing. This is an environmental approach to something. This is something different than banning hunting because you don’t want people out there hunting. But this is something more controlled that the state would be doing, apparently. That doesn’t make sense to just say, well, we don’t allow hunting and that’s it. How many accidents, do you know how many accidents like that have occurred in the city? Are there any numbers?
00:07:32 – Brian Johnson
Oh, yeah, we have numbers. I mean, off the top of my head, I do not know. I would say within the last six months, we’re probably averaging probably one a week.
00:07:45 – Rico Figliolini
Wow, that many. Do you even know the number when they say overpopulation? How many deer are there out there that they’ve numbered in Simpsonwood? Do you know?
00:07:55 – Brian Johnson
I don’t. I didn’t see the report because, again, the only time we got involved is when the county told the state, hey, thanks for doing the study and confirming what we had already thought or what users of the park had told us. But if there’s anything that’s going to be done about it, it’s not going to be done on our property.
00:08:15 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, that’s sad because the overpopulation, I mean, they don’t have a natural predator, right, unless coyotes show up. God knows coyotes have been reported, at least on Nextdoor with pictures and stuff, not too far from here. Like, you know, Alpharetta, some other places north of us.
00:08:34 – Brian Johnson
I just saw one, Rico, with my own eyes about a month ago when I was walking my dog, because, you know, I live along the river, and I saw one on an evening, you know, probably six. I mean, it was really near sundown, and I saw a coyote running right along the…
00:08:52 – Rico Figliolini
In Peachtree Corners? Wow. Okay.
00:08:52 – Brian Johnson
It was running away from me. It wasn’t, you know, bothering, but yeah. I mean, so now there’s some other things too. Now, you know, I know mayor and council have had people approach them about this. You know, it isn’t as easy as we would like, because for all the people who are like, look, deer are posing a problem for motorists, for the ecosystem, the health of deer, you know, things like that, attracting animals like coyotes or whatever. For all of those who are like, something needs to be done, there’s the other ones that are like, no, you know, let nature take its course. There shouldn’t be any hunting, you know.
00:09:46 – Rico Figliolini
That’s the problem. Nature is not taking its course because there are no predators here.
00:09:51 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, well, but I mean, you know, what you get is, and then we also struggle with deer feeders. We don’t currently actually have a regulation prohibiting them. Some people have expressed to council that that should, you know, that they know of locations in which somebody is specifically trying to attract deer. And when you have a lot of deer, you don’t just attract one or two anymore. Now you’re attracting, I know there was a place at Waterside that I ended up talking to the resident that was nearby and was doing it. I rolled through there one weekend morning, you know, right as the sun was coming up, and there was probably 30 to 40 deer in the area, and there was a big feeder. And, you know, it’s just like, hey, this isn’t, you know, this isn’t good. And it was not too far from East Jones Bridge. So you start getting into them crossing it. So, you know, but then others are like, I enjoy the deer coming and feeding at my location. And, you know, don’t take that away. And so, you know, it’s unfortunate, but, you know, in our line of work, you know, local government management, there’s never a decision that’s just easy with you know only one side and everybody is on it so you do have some who are like don’t do it. But that is a problem and you know I wanted to bring it up just because people are talking about it. What is going to be done? We are trying to facilitate again, we don’t own property that is an area that you could do a controlled hunt. There are a few organizations that are in that position that may end up agreeing with the state for them to come out and do it once or twice during hunting season type of thing. But it does appear that Simpsonwood Park is not going to be one of those locations. So we’ll do what we need to, including if we have to facilitate the removal of the meat, you know, because the controlled hunt doesn’t just stop with, you know, there’s a deer that’s gone down, then what are you going to do with the carcass? You want to remove it. There are programs, including ones that harvest the meat and donate it to food banks and things like that. So we’re working through all of those. But we do scientifically have a deer overpopulation problem that does not have a natural way of getting better.
00:12:34 – Rico Figliolini
This is just a good argument for the city to take off over two public parks in its city property here. So from what I understand, it wouldn’t be expensive either. It’d be really cheap to buy those two pieces of property. The city could directly control everything. But I’m sure there’ll be people against that also because that’s an expansion of government. Which, you know, if you want control over some things, then you’ve got to do what you got to do. But speaking about that, let’s segue into something else too, which is a small thing necessarily, but there’s pros and cons to it too, I guess. And that is that Simpson Elementary is looking to do the same thing as Pinckneyville, a middle school house, which is a sign. I don’t know if it’s as grand as that, but they want a digital display sign possibly to go up at Simpson Elementary. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
00:13:33 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, so the Simpson Elementary principal, and I don’t know if it was based on PTA encouragement or maybe the public school system maintenance, I don’t know. But anyway, she was the point person to say, hey, we would like to take our current main sign in which they put messages up there, but they have to go out and put the individual letters in and spell it out. She was like, we would like to have a digital, you know, turn it into an LED display, a digital message board. Which functionally is, you know, just on the surface is a, you know, should be a no brainer. A school can have a sign, communicate with the community in a more, you know, really a more efficient way because, you know, on a computer you can type in the message and it automatically goes out there. You can change the messages a lot so you can put a lot more information. It makes sense. But like all things, it’s not so simple. You know, oftentimes you think signs, you know, okay, just where’s the placement and, you know, does it interfere with sight lines or cause a hazard to a motorist? And that’s the only thing you have to consider. But on LED displays, a whole different ballgame when you’re talking about something that illuminates and illuminating signage in which also there’s flashing with the fluctuations of it because things change. So it’s not just turning on a static light and then turning it off, now you have all of the different, you know, displays doing things, which, you know, also can be a distraction to motorists. So, you know, we’ve got to, you know, we’re going to help them navigate through this, but we do have, it is in a residential area with residents that live very close to that sign. And, you know, we’re going to end up having to consider the permitting of this in a way that hopefully doesn’t detract from the quality of life of the residents, but yet provides the benefit that we all know a digital message board would provide to a very important community school.
00:16:05 – Rico Figliolini
Right. So, Paul Duke High School, STEM High School has a digital sign, granted that’s on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard. Pinckneyville has their sign. And I get it. It’s kind of bright sometimes when there’s a white background to the sign versus a blue or a different color background that is way brighter. The lumens on it, it’s just so bright. I’m imagining those things can be toned down a little bit in a sign, and it doesn’t have to be as bright as that because that’s overpowering sometimes. It just depends when you come by.
00:16:42 – Brian Johnson
And, you know, this whole process went through with Pinckneyville Middle, and it wasn’t without its detractors either of the people who do live there. You know, and say that it’s going to interfere with their ability to either, you know, enjoy their back or front yard or, you know, could be a distraction to motorists. Those are things you have to consider. It can be done, you know, but you have to regulate, you know, also hours of operation. And there’s even regulation at the state and federal level on certain roadways in which how fast the signs can change. Because if things start to get to where it’s not just a transition to a new message, but things are flashing, that creates, you know, distractions from motorists and that’s considered a driving hazard. So yes, everything from how bright to how quick you can change message, to even hours in which you can have digital messages on there. All have to be discussed.
00:17:49 – Rico Figliolini
And if it’s, you know, for the school purpose, right? I mean, the great thing about digital is that you can dim the lights a little bit. You can adjust the hours on it because no one’s going to be driving to school at six o ‘clock, seven o ‘clock in the evening, unless there’s an event that night. Different, right? But even still, like at a certain hour, it can be shut off or it can be dimmed down where you have to literally be within 40 feet of it to see the sign maybe.
00:18:41 – Brian Johnson
So at the end of the day, look, I think everyone would agree having that ability, a school that’s a very important community school and being able to, it’s going to make them much more productive and efficient when it comes to communicating with the community.
00:19:01 – Rico Figliolini
Right, right.
00:19:01 – Brian Johnson
We just have to navigate this very carefully. But that process is being done. And, of course, mayor and council are very supportive of this as long as we, you know, my directive is navigate the minefield that is the local resident concerns and, you know, motorist safety.
00:19:22 – Rico Figliolini
The good part of this is that these are quality of life issues that a city can address better for its residents than a county can, I think, on a county level. One good reason for having a city is to be able to address some of these issues that, you know, really on a county level, someone voting on it from the other side of the county or something, deciding what the effects are in our city wouldn’t make sense, right? There is also, let’s, the capital is in session. Which can always be dangerous, but also good.
00:19:58 – Brian Johnson
It is always dangerous.
00:20:04 – Rico Figliolini
You never know what goes on there. And the cities that, not just people are affected, but cities are affected, right? The biggest thing is tort reform right now that Governor Kemp is looking at. Southwest Gwinnett Chamber had a big talk on tort reform recently, a few months back. And one of the things I didn’t know was that settlement of lawsuits can garner a lawyer as much as 40% of whatever is settled for. It’s not 20%, it’s not 25%, it’s like 40%. I thought that was ridiculous, that number. Not only that, but when you’re suing, some lawyer told me once that when you’re suing something on a case, you sue everyone. It doesn’t matter if you think they’re not involved, they’re involved. You sue everyone and let the judge decide who’s involved or not. Which draws in a lot of different people, right? So the city can be drawn into lawsuits that really may not be, you know, their fault per se. You know, and I always think about lawsuits as a good way of punishing those that need to be punished a little bit because money speaks, right? But sometimes it can be carried away to a crazy extent. You were sharing an example with me about Milton. So why don’t you talk about that a little bit and talk about that and about what that tort reform might look like for us.
00:21:28 – Brian Johnson
Yeah. So, you know, scenarios you just brought up, Rico, are very common for us. We get named in a lot of lawsuits. We have active, you know, local governments always have a multitude of active lawsuits at any one time at various stages of it. And yes, the shotgun approach of suing everybody and then just letting the judge figure it out is one where if it happens within our corporate limits, we’re more times than not just pulled into it. But, you know, again, the ability to sue and having legal rights and, you know, remedies is important to have.
00:22:13 – Rico Figliolini
For sure.
00:22:13 – Brian Johnson
So, you know, the dilemma is always where do you balance that against, you know, being overly litigious as many people are? And, and, you know, I could tell you horror stories of the trip and fall lawsuits we get where somebody literally just trips on, you know, the world is not flat literally or figuratively and they’ll sue us just because. Now that being said, we do have a large, call it, you know, geographical area in which we are responsible. All the public right of way. Sidewalks, streets, all of the property we own at City Hall or Town Green are all ours. And so, you know, there is some things that, you know, general liability insurance we have to carry because there are things that can happen that we do need to be protected. Now, there’s an interesting case, though, that just came up that contributed to the governor’s tort reform. That is a big case that the city of Milton had. And it was, I guess, a jury verdict not too long ago. And this is a case where before the city of Milton was created, when it was still unincorporated, was it Fulton?
00:23:47 – Brian Johnson
Right.
00:23:48 – Brian Johnson
An owner who had a driveway coming out to one of the public streets put a planter, which was a truck tire, turned on its side and filled in with dirt and made into a decorative kind of, you know, gateway piece to their driveway. It was laid, though, in what was the edge, but the public right-of-way. It still was on, kind of call it the shoulder of the road, if you will. This is a two-lane road. Well, then at some point, not too long ago, a couple years, I think, but now the City of Milton is a city, there was an individual college student who lost control of his vehicle, single vehicle accident, but hit this planter and died. I don’t know if it was the impact or his phone from the vehicle, but he died. His family sued the city of Milton, saying the city of Milton should not have let that planter be in its right of way. And prior to that, cities and counties had always been like, look, we’re regulating the travel way making sure that it’s free of obstacles, but there are impediments in the shoulder. Probably the most common one are utility poles. Georgia Power, using them as an example, is not going to want to negotiate with every single property owner to put a utility pole on their property. So what do they do? They come just inside of public right-of-way. Place it as far away from the road as they can, but it is still in public right of way. And that way they only have to negotiate with essentially one entity, a public entity that owns this stretch of. So now the lawsuit, Milton through sovereign immunity and other stuff, won the first one. And then on appeal, the family was awarded a $38 million verdict. And right now there’s, it’s being hopefully taken up by the Georgia Supreme Court because of the, you know, bigger picture impacts that this could have on any impediment in the right of way that then the city should be of, you know, should have knowledge of. And we’ve got to remove it or else we’re going to be, you know, at risk for being, you know, liable for some lawsuit. So it’s an example where, you know, again, sometimes being overly litigious ends up creating, you know, situations. And if this appeal stood, cities and counties would end up having to take a real hard look at what it permits, how it permits it, not just along the roadway, but I mean, way out of the roadway all the way to the edge of it. And then Georgia power is going to, you know, and some other utilities, you know, you have traffic cabinets and traffic signals, you know, you see the green boxes there or whatever color they are, but you know, the boxes there that are regulating the signal phase and timing of a signalized intersection. If somebody hits that. We have to bury every single one of those, which will.
00:27:18 – Rico Figliolini
But even the poles, I mean, I think there’s a pole by Peachtree Baptist Church, that intersection in the Y. It was a pole in the middle of a triangle thing, I think, at one point. I don’t know if it’s still there. But it was knocked down once. I mean, there’s plenty of those types of things where cars get out of control for whatever reason. They go slamming into a pole. It’s like one of those walk-flashing.
00:27:44 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, it was from, yeah. A pedestrian actuated crossing where you hit it and it flashes. Yeah.
00:27:49 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. So, I mean, there’s that. I remember even along the median, like Peachtree Parkway, I think at one point someone had told me that they don’t do hardwood trees anymore. They do what they call breakaway trees. Because if a car hits it, it should break away and not cause too much damage, right? But if you’re hitting a hard oak wood tree, that person’s going to die. Now, these things will happen anyway. There was an accident on Peachtree Parkway going south. I remember seeing a car. It pretty much, it was crepe myrtle trees. So those are considered breakaway, I guess. It had jumped the sidewalk and went right into that tree. It was burning. There was some, I think there might have been a fatality, certainly injuries there. That was during last summer, I think it was. These things happen all the time. But if they’re taking up tort reform, I would hope that they’re not just looking at the reward amount, because $38 million, I mean, that just seems to be overly blown. But how do you value a life? But $38 million is just for a city, for something like that. Hopefully they adjust. I know it doesn’t affect the city, but the outcome of payment to lawyers, they should really restrict the amount of money being paid out to lawyers. Is that $38 million? Without doubt is at least 30% of that is going to the lawyer, to the law firm that’s suing, which will be interesting about tort reform because apparently most of the house, most of the capital is made up of lawyers or consultants. So it’d be interesting if they actually do anything.
00:29:30 – Brian Johnson
And, you know, again, they serve a purpose, but, you know, we have had, I’ve had this in other cities I’ve managed too, an attorney will get with somebody who’s usually, has a disability that requires them to be in a wheelchair. And they’ll really, it’s not done right. It’s essentially they’ll conspire. By that, I mean, the person in a wheelchair will seek out instances in which a local government is not meeting code to the, you know, exact letter. And then they’ll, the attorney will reach out on behalf of his or her client and say, you’re in, you know, violation of American with Disabilities Act. And if you don’t do something within a certain period of time, we’re going to sue. And so then, you know, you got, now again, ADA exists for a legitimate reason.
00:30:28 – Rico Figliolini
Absolutely.
00:30:29 – Brian Johnson
And, you know, all that kind of stuff. But, you know, these would be people who I remember one of them, we had a parking lot that had the handicap spot, and then you have that hatched area next to it so that you could load a wheelchair. The slope of the parking lot was two degrees off the, you know, and required us to dig up a whole section of it just to move it two degrees.
00:30:57 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. Interesting. There’s, I think, Target and Publix redid their handicap and adjusted it. Way different than it used to be before, probably for some of the same reasons, the elevation issue and stuff. And I know the Town Green part where the Fort of Payne.
00:31:18 – Brian Johnson
Fort Payne, yeah.
00:31:20 – Rico Figliolini
Fort Payne. Fort of Payne. Fort Payne. The fencing had to go around there allows one entrance. Now there’s signage there saying, if you allow your kids in here or whoever comes in here, needs to understand that you could get hurt if you’re not, you know, doing it the right way. And the insurance company had told us, right? Had told the city that.
00:31:44 – Brian Johnson
Yeah. I mean, it was like, look, you have created an obstacle course. And it’s an advanced, it has advanced stuff. You can’t be letting, you can’t have it unsecure. So we have only one entrance. And then, you know, if you’re not with you know, a parent or over 18 years old yourself, you’re not supposed to be in there. And so if you just ignore it and get hurt, then our insurance feels like we’re, you know, we’ve mitigated our risk because we, you know, told them, hey, you know, you’re not supposed to be here without, you know, we also have instructional videos on how to do these things that you can use and everything we can do. But there’s still some people who will do it. I mean, again, we live in a litigious society. We all get it, but there are some things that we got to be careful. In this case, and obviously the city of Milton case isn’t ours, but it will impact us greatly if it is upheld.
00:32:45 – Rico Figliolini
Sure. Like a lot of legislation that goes on there that affects cities, construction material, what things can be built with, whether it’s steel or wood. And if it’s over, I mean, I remember that was a piece of legislation at one point. I think one city had that you couldn’t build something taller than three stories without using steel or metal. And that was struck down apparently.
00:33:07 – Brian Johnson
It was because the, you know, timber lobby in the state, like Georgia Pacific was like, no, no, no, no, we don’t want, we want to still be able to use wood, you know, up to, I think you can go up to four, two, four stories with wood before you have to go to steel.
00:33:27 – Rico Figliolini
Why build something that can last for 100 years?
00:33:33 – Brian Johnson
Right. And, you know, there’s even some, I mean, this session, you know, right now, procurement law in Georgia is if a project exceeds $100,000, you have to bid it no matter what. And it hasn’t been changed since 2000. And we’ve had inflation since 2000. It’s really hard for us to find projects that are less than $100,000 that are any. And so it just slows things up because then you’ve got to bid it out and you have to, you have to award it to the lowest qualified bidder. And so you run into, you know, problems sometimes where companies are underbidding to get the job with the knowledge you’re not going to be able to finish it with that amount. So they try to change order you to death.
00:34:22 – Rico Figliolini
Yes. Yes.
00:34:24 – Brian Johnson
So legislation, just real quick, is to raise that value to $250,000 before you have to bid.
00:34:31 – Rico Figliolini
That makes sense. Because I’ve seen projects where they do come in and low bid, and then you’re sort of forced to pay the rest of it because you need it done. It’s not like it goes from scratch again. We’ll hold them to it, too, because even with a bond or something, it’s just not going to happen. Some of the other legislation, I think another piece was about annexation. So in brief, how would that affect us?
00:34:56 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, so there’s still things happening at the Capitol that are removing a city’s ability to annex an area in which the people who live in that area or own property in that area want to get annexed into the city, that other parties could stop them. There’s legislation making it to where counties or in Georgia, potentially almost could get to the point where they could stop an annexation, which, you know, in a state that allows counties to charge a millage rate just to the unincorporated. In Georgia, that usually means that the county will lose a little bit of money when they lose property because they lose the ability to charge property tax to that entity. So counties are resistant. So that’s inhibiting cities to do it. Even the Gwinnett delegation themselves, you know, which are the legislators that represent a district that has some part of Gwinnett in it. They’re discussing having a rule that’s setting the Gwinnett delegation rule such that if there’s an annexation bill, you know, almost like if, say, the city of Peachtree Corners wanted to allow a area contiguous to us to vote on whether they wanted to command, say, a subdivision or something like that, that everybody in the delegation has to vote on having it move forward, not just the ones that represent the areas of affected. So, you know, we could have a legislator that barely represents Gwinnett up in, like, Brazelton or unincorporated area, and the county gets with them and they’re like, we don’t want this to happen. We’ll lose a little bit of money. And then they’re like, yeah, I don’t want it to happen.
00:36:47 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, that’s because of the trend of all these places like Mulberry, right? That’s the newest city in Gwinnett County. It’s the trend of all these cities coming into being, chopping away a little bit at that county budget. And now the county has to fight for the budget that they need. Although they have less area to cover, except for the emergency services.
00:37:14 – Brian Johnson
They do. But remember, they’re only losing a revenue stream, in this case a millage that’s charged only to unincorporated. And that’s their own doing. Like in other states that don’t allow that, say in North Carolina. Counties in North Carolina can only charge one type of tax, and that’s a property tax to everybody in the county. It’s one. They can’t then create special, you know, you know, focus taxes that only go to unincorporated. You know, in Gwinnett, Gwinnett has a countywide tax that even you and I who live in Peachtree Corners pay. And that’s for the countywide services like the courthouse, the jail, the health department. But then they charge very specific taxes just to the unincorporated area. Parks and Rec, police, you know, code enforcement, zoning administration.
00:38:15 – Rico Figliolini
That’s interesting
00:38:17 – Brian Johnson
They don’t have to do that. They chose to, oh, we’re going to. So it’s a little bit of a self-inflicted.
00:38:24 – Rico Figliolini
So the county charges for parks to the unincorporated. But we have parks here in the city. But we’re not paying for that fee.
00:38:33 – Brian Johnson
No, we’re paying. You’re paying for it.
00:38:36 – Rico Figliolini
Okay, we are paying for that.
00:38:37 – Brian Johnson
Just like police, we allowed, once we became a city, we allowed Gwinnett to keep charging that in our city limits in return for them continuing to operate the parks.
00:38:49 – Rico Figliolini
Okay. Alright. Yeah, so we should probably buy those parks and just take over the whole system.
00:38:55 – Brian Johnson
Take over the millage.
00:38:58 – Rico Figliolini
All right, so drone, drone regulation. I think you mentioned there was drone regulation. I know a lot of people that fly drones around here. And certainly there are roofing companies that will do the drone thing and check your roof and stuff and show you where the damage is and stuff like that. Building inspectors do that to some degree. So there’s also, and people, just individuals going around to Town Green and doing his own drone. And so there’s legislation up maybe, right? And part of that is probably because of all the drone stuff and the unidentified UAPs up in New Jersey that everyone went crazy on, whether it was Chinese or Americans. And now we understand the FAA allowed some of that to go on. It’s like one of the things that just came out. But who knows, right? Could it be aliens? Could it be foreign governments or our own? I mean, there’s so many conspiracy theories that we’re tracking nuclear weapon transportation into different places. And it’s just like, you could go crazy. So what’s going on with the drone legislation here in Georgia?
00:40:05 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, so this actually isn’t bad. Although, by the way, you know, you laugh about it could be anything, which in a lot of cases, you’re like, really? But you do have to give some of those like, you know, tin hat, you know, tinfoil hat crowd, some a little bit of, you know, latitude, because we did have a, what is it? What do they call it? Stratospheric.
00:40:32 – Rico Figliolini
Yes. Those balloons. Yeah. Yeah.
00:40:34 – Brian Johnson
You know, I mean, so there are some unique things.
00:40:38 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. And that one was very unique. That was a huge one from China.
00:40:41 – Brian Johnson
It was in the stratosphere purposely, you know, going across.
00:40:46 – Rico Figliolini
And they have solar panels too. They were powering with solar panels too. So it was like a whole big thing. Yeah.
00:40:53 – Brian Johnson
I mean, so, but in this case. Yes, there was a Georgia legislator who, with the whole thing that was happening up in the coast of New Jersey and everything, was like, we should give local governments better ability to control unidentified aerial vehicles. And so in this case, the bill is allowing the local government to regulate drones below 400 feet.
00:41:26 – Rico Figliolini
Well because the FAA takes care of drones of a certain weight and higher, where if you have a large drone, you have to actually get a number for that drone.
00:41:36 – Brian Johnson
And have a FAA license, a pilot.
00:41:40 – Rico Figliolini
You have to actually take a course. Correct. So me as a commercial, let’s say I wanted to fly my own drone as a business because I’m going to shoot drone shots. I want to use it for the magazine and stuff. I actually have to be licensed or use someone that’s licensed to do that.
00:41:41 – Brian Johnson
You do. And for our concerts, you know, we use a third party, you know, firm to shoot video of it. And you’ve seen some of the video we’ve had on that. The drone operator who does the filming for it, he has a license and he has to get a permit from the FAA to be able to fly it.
00:42:18 – Rico Figliolini
But only because I think it’s by the FAA does it by weight versus by height. There is a height.
00:42:24 – Brian Johnson
There is a height.
00:42:26 – Rico Figliolini
But it does buy weight versus, because most of the stuff that a person like you and me would buy is under that weight requirement. But you’re saying that that legislation would then cover even those drones?
00:42:40 – Brian Johnson
Only if they’re going to be over public spaces in which there’s a public gathering, which I believe they define it as 50 people or more that are, that plan to be around each other for more than 30 minutes. And so that would be where, alright, now we don’t want there to be unidentified drone activity. That is where you get into, because even for our concerts, Rico, even below a certain height, the FAA regulates it because there’s so many people.
00:43:16 – Rico Figliolini
Right. But if I was, and I’ve seen, lots of photographers do drones also because it’s part of that thing. They’ll go along the river, which is, it wouldn’t be a part, it’s both a public place, but there’s no people there maybe, or there are not enough people like you’re saying. So that’s a reasonable thing, I guess. That’s not covered by that probably.
00:43:37 – Brian Johnson
No, I mean, I think this is really more of public space where there’s a gathering of the public of more than, I think it was 50 people who are planning on being there for more than 30 minutes. Then, and only then would the local government be in a position to say you still need to identify who you are if you’re going to be flying below 400 feet. You’re still, above 400 feet is still out of our control.
00:44:05 – Rico Figliolini
So if it’s a private party, party in someone’s backyard and they have a drone, they want to fly it up and, you know, do that. That’s okay.
00:44:14 – Brian Johnson
That wouldn’t be because that wouldn’t be on public property.
00:44:16 – Rico Figliolini
Right. Okay. Alright. I guess that all makes sense.
00:44:21 – Brian Johnson
And again, trust me, this wasn’t our legislation. I’m just telling you the unique things. I mean, every day as I’m going through the bills that hit, you know, just to see our lobbyist is giving me, you know, a heads up on, hey, how does this affect you? I oftentimes have to tell them, hey, this wouldn’t be good. So you’re in a position to tell a legislator or the bill’s author in some cases to say, hey, can you tweak it? Whatever. We’ve had to have bills tweaked that would have inhibited our ability to have innovation get tested here in Curiosity Lab because it was a prohibition against certain activity across all sidewalks. And we were like, time out. We need to have the, you know, so we’ve had Curiosity Lab carved out of legislation before. We’ve had the bill language get tweaked before, and we’ve certainly done things to completely help a bill to its demise because it would have been harmful to us. In some cases, just us, or other cases, just all cities.
00:45:37 – Rico Figliolini
Interesting.
00:45:37 – Brian Johnson
It’s a dangerous time.
00:45:39 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, so many aspects of governing a city and what you all have to do. There is some good stuff, though, too. So let’s celebrate something as well that the sheriff department, I mean, the marshal department, sorry, sheriff marshal. The marshals did find some interesting illegal things going on in the City of Peachtree Corners.
00:46:05 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, so this is a good story that does reflect the fact that when you’re able to have more time, resources, and intimate knowledge of an area, you can oftentimes uncover things that you couldn’t or you’re not in that position. Our marshals were able to uncover what was, and I believe they only had operated it one or two times before he got involved, but an illegal nightclub. That was operating essentially like speakeasies used to operate back in the day, which is they found a location. I don’t want to get into the exact location right now because it’s, citations have been issued, but it hasn’t actually been, you know.
00:47:03 – Rico Figliolini
Because it was a commercial?
00:47:04 – Brian Johnson
Yeah, in municipal court. But found a location in which they could have a retail storefront. But then the storefront was very, call it shallow and small. And then there was a door both through the back of that and a side door in which, you know, two thirds of this lease space was actually an illegal nightclub, hookah lounge, you name it. But had not gotten anything permitted. They didn’t have plans that reflected this, so they were in violation of a building permit. They hadn’t filed for a business license. They didn’t have a license to serve alcohol, so the state’s Department of Revenue was involved. And they also, the fire code had been limited to like 60 people based on the square footage, and they were having 200 plus people, And our marshal’s intelligence, you know, network was able to then uncover the underground, you know, call it, you know, marketing that this place was doing and they were running a full on club. You know, like a black market club. And had it not been for the marshal’s ability to, you know, dig into this, you know, they probably would have kept going. And, you know, oftentimes the other and there’s no houses near this. So you didn’t have that aspect that could have come up. But the danger of these kind of clubs, whether they’re the ones that move around periodically or the ones that try to keep, you know, keep it quiet are there’s a reason that they’re trying to keep it quiet. These types of clubs generally have people that enjoy them. Well, at least maybe not a majority of them, but there are people that only like to go to clubs that are kind of secret because they’re wanting to do things that the law doesn’t allow them to. And oftentimes can end up in violence and other criminal activity. We may have averted that happening at this one. But, you know, why it was significant is there was a lot of money. This is not a open a door and then there’s this big room with some tables and chairs. This is a full-on outfitted, like remodeled nightclub. That was operating like a, in fact, the name of it was The Secret Lounge.
00:49:50 – Rico Figliolini
Amazing.
00:49:51 – Brian Johnson
And so, you know, kudos to them. There’s from the city attorney, you know, Gwinnett County PD was, supported this effort. But, you know, it was our marshal, led by our marshals, identified by our marshals. And, you know, the city was able to keep it from, you know, continuing to operate. So there are good things. We may have averted a disaster here.
00:50:16 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, it’s great that they’re doing a lot of good work out there. And all the technology that’s coming in, I mean, that certainly helps too.
00:50:26 – Brian Johnson
And, you know, and Rico, you’re talking about drones. We put up a drone to look at the traffic migration in this area to kind of help build our case, our evidence against the owner. Because we didn’t want the owner to be like, you know, what are you talking about? Or I haven’t had anybody come over here yet.
00:50:51 – Rico Figliolini
Right.
00:50:51 – Brian Johnson
So our marshals continue to use drones as a, you know, very effective law enforcement tool. So they definitely have their place.
00:51:01 – Rico Figliolini
No, for sure. And I’ve listened to some of the stuff that some of the products and tools of the trade, if you will, that they’ve investigated. Some really cutting edge stuff. So it’s all good. I think the city certainly gains by that. So you all, you know, I mean, listen, you all do a good job out there. Well, we’ve come to the end of our time. We’ve covered quite a bit. So Brian, I appreciate you doing this with me.
00:51:31 – Brian Johnson
Always my pleasure. Appreciate you providing this communication vehicle for, you know, those who listen and watch can learn about some things that aren’t necessarily always, we’re not necessarily always able to include in things like city council meetings or whatever, because this is kind of the, you know, the day-to-day type of thing that, you know, oftentimes people don’t realize goes on behind the scenes here. So I appreciate you letting, you know, our citizens have this opportunity to hear what is going on behind the scenes.
00:52:07 – Rico Figliolini
Absolutely. Love doing this. I love getting the word out. I don’t always agree with everything that goes on. But the good part is that we can talk back and forth about this and get out, you know, the facts and ask questions because I don’t know everything. So I’d like to ask lots of questions, doing this stuff. So I appreciate you doing this. Everyone else, certainly, you know, subscribe, like the page. You’ll get notified when we have more podcasts. We try to do this on a regular basis, like every month or every five weeks. Usually after a city council meeting, this way we could discuss what just happened, let’s say Tuesday of this week or the sessions like that’s going on in the capitol. So if you have questions, let me know. If you have questions for Brian, he can be reached at the city. Obviously, go to the website, PeachtreeCornersGA.gov, and you can find a way to reach that. Or put your questions in the comments. If you’re on Facebook listening to this, or X, or YouTube, our YouTube channel. And if you’re getting this off Apple or any of the other podcasts, just reach out to Peachtree Corners Magazine, Peachtree Corners Life, and we’ll answer those questions. Again, thank you for our sponsors, EV Remodeling, Inc. and Vox Populi. You’ll find their information in the show notes. So thanks again, everyone. Appreciate you being with us.
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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