We'll go ahead and get started.

We're here City Hall on July 21st, 2026 for two meetings this evening.

We'll first have a brief special called session with five action items, and that'll be followed by our regularly scheduled agenda setting session.

All right, so we'll go ahead and begin our special called session with a roll call from Clerk Christine Hauer.

Davenport.

Link here, Taylor, here.

Right.

President Fisher.

Johnson here.

Cole Pepper.

Here.

Myers.

Thornton.

Here.

Hambi.

Here.

We have a quorum.

All right.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

I appreciate it.

All right.

We uh we're gonna begin tonight uh with some recognitions.

It's been a busy season, and so we are really lucky to have uh a crew of fantastic public servants who are filling previously vacant seats in our administrative team.

So I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to County Manager Bob Cow to introduce some folks.

Thank you very much.

And uh yeah, I think when I joined here, the most popular job title was interim.

Um and there still are a lot of interns, and I'm so very thankful for the folks that did fill in those interim roles.

Um, but part of what we've been working on over the last several months is filling those interim positions with permanent um folks that we can um then go ahead and take those next steps as we move forward.

So um since we've got kind of a a group of them that have all come together, been hired in roughly the same time.

I wanted to formally introduce um them to you, some of whom you've already interacted with, some of you already know, some will be completely new uh new folks to you that you'll be seeing over the the course of time.

Um as we fill some of these other positions a couple months.

I will probably do this again as well.

But um I'm gonna ask the four to come up and allow them to actually introduce themselves to you all and share um a couple of uh little snippets about uh about them.

So thank you.

I said they got to choose the order they went in.

So this is the test.

Hey, good evening.

I'm Charles Mason.

Um I'm just excited to be selected as the new warden uh the Athens with Athens Clark County Correct's department.

Um we're gonna continue to um get our return to residents ready to re-enter society.

So I appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ward.

Hi, I'm Tony Adair, Animal Services Director.

Um like the word said, very happy to be here, very thankful for uh for the confidence that the manager's office and those that on the selection panel had and uh hope to do some great things.

Thank you, Tony.

Hello everyone.

My name is Pamela Long.

I am your new elections director, and I am just pleased and being honored with the management to accept me to continue to lead the elections process and and to continue to hope that we will leave it with fairness and open honesty and that we will move forward in the elections process.

Thank you.

Thank you, Pamela.

Good evening, Mayor.

Good evening, Commission.

So I'm Kimberly Zygmunt.

I'm the new Leisure Services Director.

I've been here about two months.

Um, been meeting staff, community members, and the passion and dedication I see from both sides has been so fun to be a part of.

Um so thanks for having me, and I look forward to working with you all more.

Thank you, Kimberly.

And I want to say with all of these candidates, as with the case with all of our candidates, these all came through a uh literally a national search uh that was conducted, uh, went through multiple series of interviews.

Um to get to this point, some of the folks that you've met have been long time ACC uh government employees.

Others are joining us from elsewhere in the country as well.

So very, very happy that they have decided to make Athens Clark County their home and looking very much forward to the work that they'll continue to do on your behalf.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh now is the time for public input on the five items that are on the new business calendar for the special called session.

Is there anyone here to speak to any of these new business items that are on our special called session agenda?

All right, seeing none, I'll turn to the commission.

I need a motion for suspension of rules since these are having their first hearing tonight.

So move.

Second.

All right, I've got a motion from Commissioner Taylor and a second from Commissioner Link.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Hearing none, motion carries.

All right.

Uh formality that we need to take care of is adoption of the 2026 property tax rates, current property tax diagest, and five-year history of levy.

Uh can I hear someone to place a motion on the floor, please?

So move.

Second.

All right.

I've got a motion from Commissioner Wright.

I have a second from Commissioner Fisher.

There's an ordinance associated with this, I believe.

I'll have Attorney Drake read that now.

Year 2026 and for other lawful purposes.

Uh thank you, Attorney Drake.

I appreciate it.

Any follow-up, Commissioner Wright?

No, I think this is just housekeeping kind of wrapping it up.

We're keeping between the lines here.

Commissioner Fisher.

Oh, sir.

All right.

Any others?

All right.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Hearing none, motion carries.

All right.

Uh second item tonight is an ordinance to levy and assess taxes for the Clark County School District, uh, which is part of our responsibility as a county government.

Um do I hear a motion regarding this tonight?

So move.

Second.

All right.

I've got a motion from Commissioner Wright and a second from Commissioner Link.

I believe there's an ordinance associated with this as well.

An ordinance to levy and assist taxes for the Clark County Board of Education for the Clark County School District, Athens, Clark County, Georgia for the year 2026 and for other purposes.

All right.

Thank you, Attorney Drake.

Any remarks, Commissioner Wright?

Ready to move.

Ready to vote.

Commissioner Link?

Yep.

Any others?

All right.

Hearing none.

Uh all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Motion carries unanimously.

All right.

Uh third item is our annual school resource officer agreement for the 2026 and 2027 academic year with the Clark County School District.

Can I hear a motion regarding this?

So vote.

Second.

All right.

I've got a motion from Commissioner Fisher, and I have a second from Commissioner Taylor.

All right.

Commissioner Fisher.

Um paying the full full freight for this particular program now.

Our police department is part of that program.

So I just want to make that public.

Anything, Commissioner Taylor?

No.

Any others?

I have a couple of questions.

Yeah.

Questions, Commissioner.

First, I want to point out there's a discrepancy in the number of days on page two.

In the agenda item, it says the school school resource officers will work 179 days, but in the Clark County School District's contract, it says 180.

It's just a small typo that just needs to be clarified.

Got that manager.

Yeah, 1880.

The contract will be the correct and yes, we'll make sure that's okay.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

The second thing I had a question about the total that's here 470,000.

Is it going to cover six officers' salaries and a portion of the supervisor's salary as I understand it?

I'm curious if the officers that work in the school resource officer program.

I I'm not sure if they are different ranks, but I just wanted to make sure that their salary, their salaries were covered regardless of their rank.

And the 470,000 dollars captured that.

Yes, that is that is correct.

So that and that's how that numbers arrived at in the beginning.

There are some operational costs behind the scenes, like obviously we provide vehicles and those kinds of things that are already covered in other expenses, but as far as salaries, that's covered.

Yep.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any others?

All right.

There's a motion and a second on the floor.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Hearing none, motion carries.

All right.

Uh item four is uh renewal of a small business enterprise agreement.

Uh this is an annual subscription uh that we apply to and receive every year, and uh this is just a time-sensitive matter since we didn't have a July voting meeting.

So I'll uh entertain a motion regarding this.

So moved.

Second.

All right, I've got a motion from Commissioner Wright.

I have a second from Commissioner Link.

All right.

Uh Commissioner Wright, any remarks?

I just found it very interesting.

The history of our size growing in that item.

Commissioner Link.

I'm good.

Thank you.

Any others?

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, hearing none, motion carries.

All right.

Uh final item is another one of these things that we would have taken care of had we met first Tuesday of the month.

Uh, this is the Heard Community Center Accessible Parking Improvements.

This is the bid award.

I hear a motion regarding this item.

So moved.

Second.

All right.

Have a motion from Commissioner Taylor and a second from Commissioner Link.

Is there an ordinance associated with this, Attorney Drake?

No, sir.

I didn't see more.

No, no ordinance.

All right.

Commissioner Taylor, any remarks?

Yes, just making my facility in my district safe.

Commissioner Link?

Commissioner Link, anything else?

No, thank you.

All right.

Any others?

All right.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed.

All right.

Hearing none, motion carries.

All right.

Uh can I hear a motion to adjourn the special called session?

So moved.

Second.

All right.

Motion from Commissioner Taylor, second from Commissioner Link.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Hearing none, motion carries.

All right.

We are going to move right into our agenda setting session.

We have a consent agenda, which are items one through 16.

We have count them one, two, three, four, five, six items that are recommendations from the Athens Clark County Planning Commission.

And then we have old business items, which are 23 through 30.

There will be opportunity for public input on the consent agenda.

There will be public input opportunities individually on each of the planning and zoning items.

And then there will be public input opportunity on all of our old and new business.

Yeah, um 12 and 13 just for a quick comment.

12 and 13 will move to discussion.

Any others.

Let us know your place of residence, and then you'll have three minutes to provide input.

There's a clock in front of Clerk Howard.

It will turn green when you begin speaking, yellow when you have 30 seconds remaining, and red when you're three minutes has concluded.

And we'll thank you for your time with us.

So good evening.

You know the grill.

I am Joan Roden, and I'm delighted to be here tonight, especially for this number five consent agenda item to be able to tell you once again that the Athens tutorial program is alive and well.

I was just at an event there on Saturday with parents and children who are interested in not only tutoring, but I like to call myself a personal trainer.

I like to be there to work one-on-one with the students, and if you had been there, if you could only see videos of what takes place at the Athens Tutorial Program, it's certainly worthy, and I'm delighted to see it on this agenda.

I hope that you will support it wholeheartedly and come to see us.

Uh Athens tutorial program for Tim McKinley Drive.

Uh it's at the uh uh a Miriam Moore Community Center.

And if you've never been there, please take the opportunity to go.

It's better than you could possibly imagine, and a lot of good work is going on there through the community because the community in 1981, Aaron Heard started the Athens Tutorial Program and built it up to an amazing, very uh very well-known program.

But through COVID, through the death of the founder Aaron Heard, and through uh times building back up.

It's been a climb upward, but we're there.

So come visit us sometime.

Athens tutorial program, Maryamore Community Center.

Thanks.

Thank you, Ms.

Roden.

Any other public input on any items that are on tonight's consent agenda?

Again, those are items one through sixteen with the exception of twelve and thirteen.

All right, uh next segment of the meeting.

We're gonna have presentations from our planning director Bruce Lonnie on each of those items, and again, following the presentations, there will be individual item public input and then discussion by the members of the commission.

All right, so technology is our friend tonight, and so uh planning director Lonnie is going to take us through the first of our planning and zoning recommendation items from the Athens Clark County Planning Commission.

All right, thank you very much.

The first item tonight is a rezone request that involves a future land use map change as well.

At 1490 Witt Davis Road, uh this item and the next three items were heard at the July 2nd Planning Commission meeting.

The future land use map change that's requested is to go from a single family residential future land use category to rural.

And the zoning map change is from RS-25 to AR.

RS-25 is a single family residential designation.

AR stands for agricultural residential.

The reason for the request from the applicant is there is a historic single family home on the site with some outbuildings related to its uh agricultural use.

Um there has been some evidence to show that this is one of the oldest remaining houses in Athens Clark County, and the area around it had been a farm.

They are interested in two special events per year.

Um that is not at the threshold to require a special use permit.

That is something that we could permit through a temporary special event permit, um, but that is part of their interest for the property.

To give you an understanding of where we are, this is on the east side, just south of Witt Davis Elementary School.

That is what's just out of the frame at the top edge of the photograph.

Here you see the future land use designation on the left is what it is today, single family residential, which is consistent with the surrounding area.

The light blue is for the school property, so it's shown as government.

Uh the request is to take it to rural, and that's what you see on the right-hand side.

The zoning request similarly is for that same tract of land.

Um, you will notice a very narrow connection to Whitt Davis Road.

It's enough to have an address, but not much more.

Um, there is a very single lane residential driveway there that serves the present house and property, but it is fairly narrow.

This shows the environmental areas on the property.

There's a creek with the buffer in the northwest corner of the property, but beyond that, there is really nothing else here that is environmentally sensitive.

And this is the site plan that was submitted by the applicant, um, which is the property owner.

Uh what they are interested in is retention of the existing homes.

They're in the process process right now actively of restoring the property, and um, that is part of their reason for the request.

The analysis on this uh by staff and from the planning commission is that we have a request that's partially compatible with our 2023 comprehensive plan.

It certainly encourages preservation and adaptive reuse.

It doesn't really complement or conflict with the adjacent Clark County School District property.

Um doesn't increase the supply and variety of housing units, but the lot in its present configuration would make it really difficult to be able to subdivide for more than just a few lots.

It is partially compatible with our future land use map.

It does make an isolated rural district, but it's important to understand.

Um there is historically rural character on this property.

And it is partially compatible with our zoning map.

Uh we tend to want to avoid isolated zoning districts, especially when you have development nearby that was developed under similar zoning standards.

But this is a reduction in the development yield.

So it is slightly different.

We don't often see these.

So Planning Commission's recommendation of the submittal is to approve the future land use change from single family residential to rural, and to also approve the rezone from RS-25 to AR with the following conditions.

And these conditions are largely to carry over the RS-25 character concerns that were heard during discussion and also from public comment.

First of those is property shall meet the tree canopy requirements of the RS-25 zoning district.

So row cropping is still one of those.

Property shall meet the livestock limitations of the RS 25 zoning district, which would only allow two heads of livestock per acre.

So that's consistent with the zoning around it.

And that the AR uses would be limited and would not include kennels, feedlots, slaughterhouses, or any commercial use that would otherwise be permitted in the AR zone.

That's concludes the staff presentation.

All right, thanks, Bruce.

I appreciate it.

All right.

Is there any member of the public who's here to speak to this side of if so the line of the podium at this point?

Yes, sir.

Good evening.

Good evening, uh, commissioners.

My name is Ed Lane with SPG Planners and Engineers at 1725 Electric Avenue.

I'm here also with my colleague Caitlin Kittle and our clients, the Bredalls who own and live uh this property and have been working to restore and preserve it.

Uh just in some brief remarks, want to mention just just two things.

Um question you may be asking, because I know the commission asked was you know, why why was the rezone specifically being asked here when there are other avenues for them to achieve similar goal their goals?

And um the the reason we pursued the the rezone to AR was it it it just seemed like to us the most straightforward way to achieve those goals in kind of a transparent way that here's this property, it's one house on a larger lot, it doesn't really look like RS25 and hasn't been that way for over a hundred years, and so it seemed the way to match the land use to the zoning category and would allow them to meet their goals.

There are other ways to do it, but we uh just to list what that would look like.

We because there's legal non-conforming structures, we would need to likely subdivide to three lots, request at least one variance, and then perhaps pursue some atypical conservation easement arrangements that would encumber the land in an uncomfortable way for for a primary residence.

But anyway, that's why we pursued this.

Uh the other thing I'll just quickly mention um in the beginning of this, uh I think there's a there was some misunderstandings that this would be an event venue, a commercial business that uh essentially would have have events here all the time, which obviously would be very concerning if you lived here and all of a sudden there's uh you know, every weekend there's events.

So just to clarify that that was never the request, uh wasn't part of the request.

AR zone does allow to, but um, out of an I guess an abundance of caution, the planning commission vote was even to eliminate that, uh, which the applicant is is okay with.

But uh in case you I assume you have in the record a lot of letters from the neighborhood, and if you read those in relation to the events, I just want to be clear that is would not be allowed if y'all were to uh vote in favor uh for this.

Uh last thing, uh Commissioner Davenport, I know he's not here, he suggested if it would be helpful for us to have a one-page uh informational sheet.

Uh help me out procedurally.

I don't know if there's a motion to accept this or attorney can take that from you.

Okay, there you go.

If uh there's just a one-pager commissioner Davenport said that could be helpful, so we provided that.

We're uh we're here welcome to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mr.

Lane.

Is that everybody for this side?

Right.

Uh we do have uh Commissioner Davenport telephonically, and uh so I think the clerk can operate the device.

Okay, uh Commissioner Davenport, any remarks regarding this one?

Yeah, still move on to the rest of the uh yeah, Commissioner, go right ahead.

Yes, sorry y'all.

I am in Alaska on a crane.

About to go downstairs and play bingo.

Anyway, um hopefully you guys will understand the um the applicant and please understand some of the concerns that some of the residents have about this property as well.

Um example, we spent two years doing the uh the land use process.

Essentially the agreement to spot zone is one particular parcel.

You know, um and um but you know uh and by the way that I could have preserved that property by going through the um preservation process.

Um but I believe that the project I believe that are projects that were closer to um AR zone that were denied in the past, but we're about to prove this in uh area surrounded by RS 15.

But also I'm a concern that I'm here from residents that I would like for you guys to take in consideration and look at this project holistically of what could be done by right RS15 zone versus changing it to an R AR.

Um I do have concerns about the limitation well, not the limitation, but the um noise when it comes to AR is more you can have a fine noise from an AR is a lot more than in RS 25 zone.

But um, when I get back in town, I will be able to discuss more.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Any other input from members of the body.

All right, we're gonna move on to the next item, number 18.

Next item is a special use.

Well, hello.

There we go.

Special use permit request for 357 South Millage Avenue.

This request for special use is for approval for a fraternity use at this location.

Um they're looking to have there.

We go.

All right, hold on tight.

So they're looking for 17,700 square feet total of fraternity use, but they would be adding almost 12,000 square feet to achieve that total over what presently exists.

24 bedrooms would be there for 56 on-site residents.

They are asking for two waivers.

One for a reduction in the parking lot screening, which would normally be 10 feet, they're asking to reduce to six, and two for reduction in a parking count from the 93 spaces that would be required by code to a total of 63, 33, which would be on site, and 30 would be off-site and would be executed through an off-site agreement.

Here's the location.

Uh, you see it, uh, a lot of folks know it as the Tudor Revival House that's been on a variety of lists over the years.

Um, has had some deferred maintenance, and the uh current owner is is looking to introduce a use that would allow for the property to be restored, preserved, and expanded.

Future land use designation is not to be changed, it's mixed density residential, which is compatible with the fraternity use.

Rezone, there is no change in the zoning, but you would see an indicator if approved of a little triangle that indicates the special use approval.

Special use comes with a binding site plan and binding report.

Um so here's the current condition of the property.

Um as noted, we have some deferred maintenance.

Uh the roof plan we thought was helpful because it helped it it really shows you in the darker shade what we currently have for the massing of the existing structure, and then the lighter shade to the top of the screen, the program of expansion to accommodate the use.

And here's the site plan that goes along with that in the very middle of the screen and the heavier weighted outline is the addition, and you would see um a parking field provided to the rear.

Okay.

Some architectural elevations that are quite impressive.

If we could see them uh come on now, they would be binding with the application upon approval.

Um largely what we're talking about here is restoration of the existing building.

This property is also in the Millage Avenue Historic District, so it is subject to design review by the Historic Preservation Commission.

So what you're gonna see from the planning commission is a recommendation for approval with uh the variances also approved and and not changed as requested, but with one additional condition of approval that would allow for final design to be determined by the historic preservation commission.

Um that is a practice that we've started several years ago to cut not to get into a chicken and egg argument um between the two boards.

Um but they do have the final say in many things about that design, but not the use.

And so this what this body would be making a determination about the use, and then we'd let the HBC handle design review.

So largely represented it here.

So largely represented here, we don't imagine, and the applicant is not suggested that there would be any large deviation from what you're seeing on the screen, but there could be some things that have to be done to come into compliance with design guidelines for the historic district.

And they might be minor.

We just don't know what they are yet.

All right, I'm I'm gonna hit the button.

Here we go.

All right, so as noted, the planning commission recommendation is to approve the special use permit as requested with the two variances without alteration.

So reduction in parking lot screening to six feet, reduction in required parking from 93 to 63 with the arrangement of 33 on site spaces and 30 off-site, and then that final condition to allow the HPC to handle final design review with the issuance of a certificate of appropriateness for the renovation.

That concludes the staff report.

Thank you, Bruce.

Is there any member of the public who's here to speak to this item tonight?

Just give us your name and place of residence.

Perfect.

Uh good evening.

My name is Mason Sphinx with Dove Tell Civil Design.

We are the applicant as well as the civil engineers on this project.

So if you have any questions regarding the site plan, I can answer that.

I'm actually going to turn it over to Charlie, who serves as the BYX president who can tell you a little bit more about this development.

Good evening.

My name is Charlie Nelson.

I live at 290B Pine View Drive, Athens, Georgia, 30606, right past the connector, and I currently serve as the chapter president of BYX at the University of Georgia.

I want to focus on two important aspects that make our project unique.

First, the efforts BYX has already made to be a responsible neighbor.

And second, the structure we have in place to make sure our parking plan and house rules are followed.

BYX has not approached this process casually.

We hosted a restoration round table at Miss Peggy Gallus' home on Henderson Avenue to hear directly from neighbors about the future of 357 South Millage Avenue.

We incorporated requests from that meeting, including low-intensity parking lot lighting and a left turn only exit.

We have continued seeking feedback because we understand that this house is a part of a historic neighborhood and an important Athens corridor.

We've also made clear parking commitments.

Every resident will have access to a designated space either on site or at the adjacent Butler building lot.

Non-resident members will not be permitted to park at the house.

For chapter meetings and larger events, they will use nearby UJA lots or other transportation options.

Our largest weekly event is scheduled differently for most Greek organizations.

Our chapter meeting is Sunday at 6 p.m.

rather than Monday night.

This offsets our highest regular traffic demand from the normal peak period for Greek activity and gives members access to nearby UGA lots without the same weekday conflicts.

Most importantly, this plan has a real enforcement structure behind it.

Our housing board is a working body with defined positions and responsibility for the property.

Together with our officer corps, it is written authority over parking assignments, events, neighborhood conduct, and discipline.

Our rules prohibit unauthorized parking, parking in restricted areas, blocking driveways, and creating traffic or noise problems.

Violations can lead to reddened warnings, fines, suspension, towing at the members' expense, loss of assigned parking, or other chapter discipline.

These are practical enforcement tools, not suggestions.

We also have continuity beyond student leadership.

The BYX National Office has been closely involved in this project, and two alumni from our chapter now work for the national organization.

This gives us institutional support and accountability beyond any single officer term.

We understand why transportation and public works is cautious, especially when other organizations have failed to follow parking rules.

We support enforcement of Athens Cork County laws and ask to be evaluated on our structure, commitments, and record.

We are not asking you to rely only on good intentions.

Our submitted plan is backed by assign responsibility, written rules, meaningful discipline, national support, and demonstrated engagement with our neighbors.

Additionally, we are seeking to restore an Athens landmark that faces demolition by neglect without timely action.

For those reasons, we believe this plan is practical, enforceable, and beneficial for Athens, and we respectfully ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Nelson.

Is there anyone else here to speak to this item tonight?

Good evening.

Good evening.

Commissioners.

I'm Gary Birch.

My wife and I live at 228 Henderson Avenue.

Our backyard border is just a little over 100 feet from this property.

And I want you to know that we very much favor this proposal.

We're part of the Henderson Historic District.

This is a historic home that has been neglected.

We think the young men who have this proposal and the team that they put together will do an excellent job in adding to this historic neighborhood.

So they have our full support.

Um we've met with them, we followed this carefully.

My wife and I both attended the uh evening discussion with uh six or eight members of the fraternity of Peggy Gallus' home, and um there's uh strong support for moving this uh proposal forward.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Birch.

Is there anyone else here to speak to this tonight?

Seeing none, I know this in District 4, so I'll ask Commissioner Wright to speak first.

It is.

I just want to be clear.

I inherited the dilapidated boarded up property with the redistricting mapping, and I have had to write numerous work requests for securing the property, the roofing, the tarping, and getting it into compliance, and I'm thrilled that there's a dedicated group of men that are going to take this on, and they have the strength of their national fraternity.

Charlie said it really well about their commitment.

Uh, this is a different kind of fraternity.

Um the fact that their chapter meetings are on Sunday follows their focus on spirit and the church strength that they get.

Some of the things I was impressed with.

I walked through the property, the added on, you can see on the back of it that there's a lot of added on wooden structures to it.

The the core of what's staying for the historic part is the brick part if you were to drive around and take a look at it.

So from the street front on millage, uh, that's gonna look the same, and then the modern part is in the back.

The modern part, they not as a requirement, but as an asset, they have handicap access for their members, wheelchair access for housing for members, for uh members' parents.

Um they didn't just do the minimum, they've really um focused on that being an element of inclusion for their group.

Um I support the shorter, smaller six-foot buffer between the other properties, one's a sorority, they I think um have a buffer too, and they can work within that.

And then I also think it's appropriate for a fraternity like this to have a prime locational millage where they can um increase their membership and be um and grow in that respect, and also the fact that this membership, because of their um lifestyle choices, are the type that can actually live on campus.

People talk about why don't the students stay on campus.

A lot of students they want to drink and smoke and do things that are not allowed in the campus uh housing.

But this fraternity is uh has a different way with their lifestyle, and this allows their fraternity members that don't live in the house to be on campus and therefore close, and so that's why I support to them not needing the number of parking uh spots, and then they've made arrangements like others have uh at the Butler building, and if that were to change and get a new use, then they would need to follow up on what if they can't keep the parking with what might change there that it's tied to this plan, right, Bruce.

And so I'm in full support of it, and I'll be sure to let everybody know if I hear other comments otherwise as this goes forward for our next vote.

Any others from the body?

Commissioner Link.

Yeah, I'm I'm grateful to see this property getting some stewardship.

Um this was in my district once upon a time, and I'm pretty sure I wrote a couple of those work orders too.

It's it's been a big concern for a very long time for historic preservation advocates.

So um I'm really grateful to see that it's getting rescued, and um I I look forward to seeing what the HPC thinks about the design.

I hope that it can pass with flying colors.

Anyone else?

I have a couple questions.

I well, I'll let my colleague go ahead.

I guess I um um I'm hoping this is a new era of working with UGA and the local government and the historical uh historic communities.

Uh I appreciate the energy and the presentation from the young man, and they they did their homework.

You you gotta do your homework.

You gotta go and talk to the neighbors, you gotta go figure out where the concerns are before things become come before this commission.

So it's good to hear the young and the seasonally young be supportive of this project.

I hope this is what the future of this local government is going to look like.

Uh for there's a place for everybody, but we just gotta be able to talk through folk with folk and find out where we where we can link.

I'm very impressed with the presentation and the work that you've put into the presentation.

Thanks, Commissioner.

Uh Commissioner Johnson.

Hi, thank you.

I just have quick uh three quick things, and I want to start by saying I didn't get a chance to review this.

So if it's in the packet, and if you've stated it in your presentation, um Mr.

Lani, I apologize.

The first question I have is I noticed the staff did not recommend it, but the planning commission did.

Can you speak to that?

As far as the staff analysis, we're we're always a little bit hesitant with a drastic reduction in parking that's being requested.

Um it's kind of a premium resource, especially in the Millage Avenue area, and it is available at the Butler Building, but that was our primary concern was was the off-site parking agreement and how it might be tenuous.

Okay.

I and on that point, can I can I say and I should have said this earlier, what the representative from the fraternity described about their parking management, that is in a document, and it is in your packet, and it would become binding upon approval.

And that document is especially important when it comes to enforcement.

Rather than having a verbal promise that they're gonna manage and operate a certain kind of way, they've actually committed that in writing in a way that is far more aggressive than we typically see, and will be an excellent resource should we have any cause down the line to uh do any enforcement of the parking.

Great.

That sounds wonderful.

Does that mean they have a contract with the butler building to use 30 space 30 of their spaces?

They they have one in principle.

They have not executed it yet, but they would have to prior to before permit.

And my last question is related to the variances.

You spoke to one, the other one was the reduction at screening.

Why was that supported?

The site is narrow.

Okay.

And in order to accomplish any amount of meaningful on-site parking, they would have had to have less parking on site if they were to meet the 10-foot um buffer requirement.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate the explanation.

Commissioner Hambe.

Sure.

Um, Commissioner Wright.

If uh Commissioner Wright, if I if I heard if I heard you correctly, you do not believe uh this fraternity will uh be uh some sort of animal house.

That is not their style.

Good to know.

I would say the uh the strength in their national organization speaks to um the longevity of their lifestyle, if you know what I mean.

Okay, yeah, we've got enough animal houses to come to comes to mind.

What can I address again?

You said it, you said an I the animal houses, I believe, are in your district.

That's what I didn't say that Mike.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Wright.

Thanks, Commissioner.

Yeah, nice to know that somebody's taking up the balance of the smoking and drinking.

Any others?

All right, we're gonna move on to item 19.

Next item is at 1960 Barnett Shoals Road.

This is a special use permit request for commercial parking as a primary use.

There is an existing building on site here, uh, previously occupied by built Burger King.

Um it has been acquired by the neighboring restaurant, Chick-fil-A.

Um, their proposal is to demolish that building, which would leave the only use of this property as a commercial parking lot.

In order for that to take place, there's special use approval that's required by this body.

Um the point of this would be to serve the existing restaurant, the Chick-fil-A, um, as their parking is is also a premium item.

So here's an aerial view of the subject property to the top of the screen.

You can see the Chick-fil-A restaurant, drive-through lanes, and their parking.

Uh they are presently using the Burger King property since they do own it.

They are using those spaces that exist for parking for their restaurant.

Uh it's perfectly legal, um, allowed by right.

They are not proposing any changes other than the demolition, which changes that that discussion about what is the principal use of the property.

Future land use is general business.

Zoning would remain CG, but it would get the notation of special use approval should it be approved.

The site plan associated with it.

This shows the removal of the Burger King.

So the footprint of where the building is today would be seated, uh grassed.

They would provide for some amount of outdoor seating, which you see in the lower portion of that former footprint.

Some shrubs would be planted to help control movement through the park area into the parking lot.

There was concern in in the discussion with the planning commission about especially small children moving back and forth through the parking lot and having something to direct that kind of foot traffic so that it's a little safer.

So the planning commission recommendation is to approve the special use permit with three conditions that were ultimately addressed through a plan that the applicant brought to the meeting.

So that amended site plan would be approved as part of this.

But that amended site plan addressed those three things.

One that there would be a tree island that would break up where we have a run of more than 14 contiguous spaces.

That's a code standard to get a tree island for every 14 spaces.

That interparcel access is very, very helpful.

So that amended site plan would be a part of this approval should it be approved.

That ends the staff report.

Thanks, Bruce.

Is there any member of the public here to speak to this tonight?

Good evening.

Good evening.

I'm Jill Minton.

I'm with CPH Consulting, the engineers for the sites, and also representing Chick-fil-A.

Staff said we've uh been through some prior meetings.

We've had some suggestions from planning commission.

Uh as also stated, Chick-fil-A is currently utilizing the site as parking.

They can continue to do so.

Um they'd like to remove the building, make it more aesthetically pleasing for everyone.

Um we are adding the outdoor seating, some hedges around as well.

Um we are doing the directional uh closing of uh to make the right out only for this site.

So we've been working with staff.

Um we just want to make a an a nicer, more aesthetic pleasing site for everyone to use and say um do have uh the use of the lot as parking as is.

So we are here to answer any questions anyone might have.

Thank you, Ms.

Minton.

We'll we'll we'll follow up after we did the discussion period.

Thank you.

Anyone else here to speak to this tonight?

Um we do have uh Commissioner Myers who's on the phone, it's in her district, so I'll go ahead and turn it over to her.

Hello, can you all hear me?

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, yes, yes.

Okay, great.

I'm I'm going from the other north uh east corner, the United States, um at a family gathering, but I am right focused on YouTube, YouTube, and have been following the presentation and reviewed this earlier today.

Um I just have a I'm gonna try to make my comment and question all in one to make this easier um since I'm talking into a voice here.

Um I just want to know whether or not the footprint, I think who's brought this up, but the footprint of the existing structure isn't going to be reduced or expanded replaced when it's replaced with the green space.

Um actually let me let me see if you can respond to that before I go on.

Let me let me restate your question because I may have missed some of it.

The the green space would match the existing footprint.

Is that your question, Commissioner Myers?

Yes, it's it's not being reduced or expanded.

Yeah, it it largely matches.

There may be some spots um that are being retained with some hard surface, um, and you can kind of see those in the plan.

Uh but no, it it the footprint is going to be replaced by lawn area or or plaza space.

Okay, I I um the the comment I had is usually I would not be in support of adding parking lots, and I'm I'm not totally decided on this issue yet, but I'm leaning towards supporting this.

Uh it seems that there's a large possibility that if this parcel was redeveloped at the Fisher Burger King building would be replaced anyway.

So getting rid of an abandoned building replacing it with green space seems to be a better option for the east side than leaving the abandoned building.

Um the property's already being used as an expanded drive-through and parking area for Chick-fil-A, which is very popular establishment uh on the east side and all of us.

Um that seems like it could be a better uh you know, a better optional overall.

Um any comments from east side residents who have something to say about that.

Uh you know, we'll we won't be voting on this until August 4th, so I welcome that.

And finally, just to the um Jill and developer.

If this if we do approve this, I know you talked about adding uh picnic spaces.

I request that the tables in these green space uh include shading, like the ones that outflow Chick-fil-A that has umbrellas and the concrete circular tables you see as you pass by.

Um, because I have a feeling it it will be used by the many people who go to Chick-fil-A.

Um those are all my comments on this item.

Thank you, Commissioner Myers.

Appreciate that.

No, uh Commissioner Taylor, uh I know you were interested in uh query from the developer, and then I'll get to Commissioner Link.

Oh, yeah, so um Commissioner Um Myers um question.

We had the same question.

Um I'm excited.

I I use the shopping sounding every day, so it's um I'm excited to see what the building I allowed, but they see it.

Thanks, Commissioner.

Commissioner Link.

Yeah, um I'm uh so it it appears that a building the footprint of a building is just getting replaced with lawn.

Um where are the trees?

Are there any tree requirements here?

14 for every 14 space.

Um but in but in that vast lawn area, there's I mean I think that's there will be one tree required per seven parking spaces.

We don't typically have tree management plans as part of a binding plan because the planning commission didn't require any additional trees to shade that shade was discussed.

Um there was nothing that resulted in a a condition of approval.

Um but would there would be more planting on here that's just not represented at this time?

There will be one tree per seven parking spaces.

But it's not going above the minimum requirement at all.

There is nothing conditioned to go beyond the minimum.

I mean, I would like to see, you know, considering that there is this available blank space, it would be nice to see at least a handful of of healthy native shade trees go in there for the benefit of the environment and maybe suck up some of the pollution from the cars going by.

Yeah.

So maybe Commissioner Myers and I can talk about that as a as a possible condition.

Uh any others?

Yeah.

Commissioner Wright?

Um yeah, I it on that same oh just to continue a little bit about what Commissioner Link was asking about, Bruce.

Um so with the tree per parking spot, are those needing to be within the line of the parking, or is or can they be they could be in the island?

They could be adjacent even if you have enough lawn area to plant it large canopy trees are what we look for as shade trees.

Yeah, you need a lot of soil for a large canopy tree.

So there are places on this plan where you could see plantings.

There are some trees called out along the right-hand side of the image there to the back of those parking stalls.

Okay.

There's probably some opportunity for some other plantings in the upper left corner.

And those are all things that we were going to take care of to meet the minimums during plans review.

So that's that's as far as we were gonna go.

Okay.

Yeah, and and the the eight spaces there that are in uh they're currently adjacent to a building, the building goes away.

There's an opportunity in that portion to get minimum would call for one tree.

Okay in that stretch.

Okay.

And then so um, I think you had some images that we don't have in the packet.

Can you send us as a follow-up what the two parcel current traffic flow looks like?

And then isn't didn't you say there's gonna be some improvements besides the building being gone?

Right, the for the traffic flow could the right out that arrow at the bottom left of the screen.

There's a directional flow for the through that exit.

Um, and then right now, if you go out there, you'll notice I think there are cones set up in the upper right-hand corner of the screen where they connect to Chick-fil-A.

That's a condition of approval to keep that open.

Okay, and then also going out towards over to stain.

That's correct.

So the only change in the driveways is this one down here.

Is it being eliminated?

It's being sort of reduced and directed.

Right out.

So it's a write out only, you can't take a left out of it.

And then and then this one is uh either or depending on how risky you want to draw the crossing or correct.

Okay.

Okay, well, that answers it for me.

Thank you.

Okay.

That everybody.

All right, we're gonna move on to item number 20 on 1125 Newton Bridge Road.

Okay.

I guess I better pay attention.

All right.

This request is to modify a zoning action that this body took uh a couple years ago for a project, a residential project at this address, 1125 Newton Bridge Road.

Um this is a type two request.

What does that mean?

It comes through one cycle rather than two cycles.

Um two aspects of this one is more informational that the applicant is wanting to sort of publicly recognize that this is not just 1125 Newton Bridge Road, this is the Newton Bridge crossing residential subdivision development.

The more substantive part of this request is the third bullet you see on the screen, which is to change the timing on the requirements that were in condition five of the original approval for upgrading intersections at Newton Bridge Road at two other points to the south of this project.

Um at Cathwood and one at Lavender.

Vince.

Yeah.

Yes.

Um so the the standard here would be to go to a making it happen prior to gaining a certificate of occupancy for the beginning of phase two.

When this was originally brought before the commission, there was no phasing proposed.

It was a single phase development.

Um what the developer has encountered is the need to break this into phases, and so triggering the expense of making those off-site improvements with just the number of houses built in phase one was going to be difficult.

What they're looking to do is have at least the guarantee of phase two before making those off-site improvements and completing the work.

So just a refresher on where we are.

Um, this is just north of the Holland Youth Sports Sports Complex on the same side of Newton Bridge Road.

You can see construction underway with phase one.

Single family residential is still the future land use that is not being changed.

Um then also the the zoning, it would be remain RS25.

Uh it really is just that singular condition of approval from the rezone.

Here's the environmental areas on the site.

You can see there's a creek running along the southern edge.

This is the layout associated with the subdivision.

And then these are the diagrams of the off-site improvements.

This one at Vincent, this one at Cathwood.

Um both of these are being coordinated with our transportation and public work staff.

I think we've had really good discussions with the applicant about the design and execution of this, but really what they're looking for is the ability to do this after phase one has started, but before uh after phase one is completed, but before phase two gets going.

Oh, I don't think they can.

So overall, the analysis on this found that we have a comprehensive plan issue because it's delaying the development of traffic combing features, but I think technical staff certainly understands the reasoning for it.

It is compatible with future land use map, compatible with zoning map and the ordinance overall, and it is consistent with other adopted plans by this government for the corridor.

So planning commission's recommendation is to approve with two conditions.

One, the applicant will need to provide a performance bond prior to approval of the final plat for phase one for the cost of the construction activities needed to complete the off-site improvements shown in the application.

This would be to guard against phase two never happening.

Second bullet.

The proposed improvements shall be completed prior to the issuance of a final plat approval for phase two.

So that's our trigger.

You if you want to do phase two, you've got to have this off-site work wrapped up.

Just for procedural understanding, the final plat is really the last step of the development review process.

So by the time a developer has made it to the final plat, they've come through all the engineering for that second phase at their expense with a lot of work with staff.

So this isn't just a moment in time.

This is a pretty significant um uh requirement to get to the final plat for phase two.

And that concludes the staff report.

Thanks, Bruce.

I appreciate it.

Is there any member of the public here to speak to this tonight?

Good evening.

Uh my name is uh Buck Bacon.

I'm with uh Debbie Engineering.

Our our office is located at 355 ONETA Street here in Athens, Georgia.

Uh I'm here representing four-star real estate uh group, the developer of the Newton Bridge crossing site located at 1125 Newton Bridge Road.

As Bruce said, we are requesting an amendment to condition five of the original rezoning.

The revised condition would allow our client to plat, construct, and obtain the certificate of occupancies for phase one of the project prior to completion of these off site improvements.

Those lots would be ready in the in the next month or two.

Based on uh approval of the final plat.

So this amending uh amended condition requires that a bond uh be in place prior to approval of the final plat for phase one, and that these improvements be completed and accepted prior to the final plat for phase two.

Um our client fully intends to to begin construction of these off site improvements uh as soon as these drawings or at least the revised engineer drawings are complete and approved.

And uh obviously staff have recommended approval as well as planning commission, and so we'd we'd appreciate uh support from from this body and uh representatives from four star are also here.

So I'm happy to answer any questions you have, and uh of course, four star is is also happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Bacon.

Is there anyone else here to speak to this item tonight?

Evening.

Good evening.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here.

My name is James Baikoff.

Uh I live at 224 Broadly Court, Atlanta, Georgia.

I am market leader for four-star Atlanta East Division, and we are responsible for the development at uh Newton Bridge Crossing.

We're really excited about it.

And um, I just want to reiterate what Buck said briefly.

We are committed to these off-site road improvements.

Uh, we even started them but had to pull back when we realized uh the plans need to be adjusted.

Um and so we are just asking for a little bit of time uh that will allow for the first homes to get started and uh bring much needed housing supply to the community.

Appreciate you guys, and uh we're here for any questions to be answered.

Thank you, Mr.

Bykoff.

Is there anyone else here to speak to this?

All right, we'll come for discussion.

Uh Commissioner Thornton.

Um this project I'm sorry.

This project has uh long been been been on the assembly line for a long time, and I do think giving them the additional time to make it right.

We want it to be right and not rushed through.

We don't lose anything.

We're not uh it's no money or waivers on our part.

It's just about time.

Uh this is probably the first subdivision that has been built in a long, long, long, long time.

So we struggled with um the dollar amount early on, but it is what it is.

Um I do think that they've taken in consideration the traffic studies and they've tried to work with that.

Um I see Dexter pointing at me, but uh I think that the because the districts are so close together and so connected, we want to make sure, but I don't think this changes the traffic study at all.

I mean the traffic plans, I think it's a good plan, and I I'm glad to send District 9 again.

Like I said, that's the first subdiv.

Uh Bruce, you need to um find us, find out when the last subdivision uh was built in Athens, Clark County as a homework assignment.

Got Commissioner Fisher.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

So um I appreciate the fact that we're gonna be getting uh more housing stock in that particular area.

And I'm also the improvements there because we have had probably about four fatalities there in that particular area in the danger in the section.

So I appreciate the um the um builder and developers um taking care of that from that perspective.

Um it is gonna add a little bit more traffic because right up from Calfwood is another subdivision going in about 100 plus homes.

So it is gonna add a little bit more traffic coming down Calfwood into Newton Bridge Road.

So I'm hoping again, I'm not sure what type of improvements you're gonna do at Capwood, and then so I'm hoping for a red light.

Hopefully, uh for that particular area because of what the fatalities have happened.

So I'm hoping um this means that people come down Newton Bridge Road coming over that hill.

It'll be very important.

They have a red light there.

So again, not sure what type of improvements y'all gonna do from that perspective, but I'd love to have that conversation.

And we'll always ask what's your price point on the housing that you're gonna be building um for some cost wise.

So um if I don't know that yet, it'd be good to know on what the cost of the house is gonna be um for that particular subdivision.

So I think we could address uh the question about signal if you had just covered the bike so that way we can capture it on the record.

Thanks, Mr.

So uh Commissioner Fisher, the uh the proposal here is is not for a new signal at this point, but it does provide for adequate left turn, right turn, and it's uh uh additional lanes to accommodate a signal in the future.

Okay, in the near future.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

In terms of price points, um, so we are the developer, we are not the home builder, we'll sell the lots to a home builder.

What I'd love to do is get with that home builder and see where they're planning to start the pricing and get it get that information to you.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Lane.

Yeah, um, this used to be my district once upon a time.

Um and it's long been a treacherous stretch of road.

Like I'm always sketched out going through that area.

Um so it's good to know that you know there will be some of this infrastructure going in that will certainly help calm traffic.

I'm concerned about a light.

I would love to see a light there.

I feel like that is like the main solution to um making that road safer and slowing down speeds on that road.

Um I'm wondering if Athens in motion has weighed in on this at all.

We have this citizen body tasked specifically with bike and pedestrian safety.

Um I'm just wondering if if they've had a look at this or had given given the opportunity to weigh in at all.

I feel like that would be an appropriate thing with a project like this Commissioner Thorne.

What would be more appropriate than um Athens in motion is our staff.

We have staff that is responsible for working on TPW, should have done a um uh a traffic study.

We should be looking at T Splash money for uh traffic calming.

So let's let our staff do what they get paid for.

And um I am the first one that is concerned about traffic safety, and I do not understand why we have not had a traffic light at that corner of Newton Bridge and Cathwood, maybe.

I that that don't mean make no sense to me, but maybe uh Mr.

Bob.

There are a couple of forthcoming projects that are on tax.

And so if we have a list of that, but to say that AIM has to um give us their blessing, uh you know, I I'm you know, I'm struggling with that.

Just to identify some things that y'all will see in the coming months.

Uh there will be a report either late this summer, very near very early this autumn uh about the stretch coming out of that kind of unusual intersection where um Dairy Pack, Chase, uh, and Barbara and Newton Bridge all come together and stretching outward.

Um you also have on the coming T Splush program that the voters have now approved, a roundabout that will be at Cathwood and Newton Bridge.

Uh and then uh there is in the approved plan a uh bike and pedestrian connection directly from the neighborhood to Holland Youth Sports Complex.

So just know that those are some component pieces of this as well.

You know, um Mayor, um I know when we had several accidents on 29 and Harvey Mathis, we did that R curve.

Um, which has been a tremendous uh help for people coming out on Harvey Mathis and 29.

So again, I think that I'm glad this has come up because safety should be a key issue.

Um, but all the projects that are coming down the pike, and maybe Mayor, you you could share with um the rest of us some of the things that we can be looking for.

Anyone else?

Commissioner Link.

Yeah, has our bike peg coordinator taken a look at this as part of the evaluation?

I'm done.

Yes.

Okay.

Good.

Thank you.

All right, we'll see this in a couple of weeks.

I I have a some questions.

Commissioner Johnson.

Thanks.

I noticed that the planning commission departed from the specific protection financial protection of requesting by the transportation and public works department.

Their original request was they were in support of placing money equal to a construction to the construction costs in escrow.

The Planning Commission changed changed that from cash escrow to a performance bond.

And I was wondering if someone, if you could speak to that, please.

Absolutely.

Yep.

So I think that was feedback that was given by transportation and public work staff upon consultation with the attorney's office.

The proper wording and the in the normal practice is a performance bond, uh, which which puts us in a in a much better position, um, more appropriate position in working with the developer.

So the change came after advisement from the attorney's office, which was super helpful, and transportation and public work staff agree with the change.

Okay.

The second question I have is the staff report says the request includes no design changes.

And the developer's report does not say the same thing.

Can you speak to that?

So we had two design concepts that were part of the original zoning approval.

What and this may be a good point for um the applicant's representative to also comment on.

Um what has been discovered is that the exact detail of those designs was either impossible to engineer and meet traffic engineering standards or was not necessary, and there were other methods to achieve the same level of safety.

And so what we've done is with this change, we've given some latitude to correct and do proper engineering on those design details, but I would certainly welcome the engineer to speak to that as well.

Anything further, Mr.

Bacon on that?

Yeah, that's if you're satisfied.

Yeah, I'm that's that's clear.

And my last question is this is in a TAD zone.

Um developers not requested any funding, but they have the right to they can.

Do we anticipate that down the line to supplement their costs?

I mean they they would know and what you can come to the thank you.

Thank you.

We have discussed this with the I think it's the TAD committee members.

Um Pete Dugodge, Rubeskin, and some others.

Uh we have not requested any money yet.

We're just doing it out of our pocket, but sure.

I appreciate the idea.

We're trying to coordinate with them though, is okay.

Thank you so much.

That's all.

Commissioner Thornton.

And while um, and since Commissioner Um Johnson brought up the TAD dollars, again, you have not requested anything thus far.

Uh since we're talking about this traffic light, and I do know the Newton Bridge uh TAD group has um, I think they're the only group that have come before us with a plan, which is a infrastructure.

So that might be another option if we are you know if we want to put that on our radar for that safe common state um safety on that Newton Bridge and um cat Catholic.

I hadn't thought about that.

And you'll see I believe some recommendations coming out of the analysis again late this summer, early this fall.

Anyone else?

All right.

Um we have two items that are text amendments.

You might remember early in this calendar year, the Georgia Initiative for Community Housing, which is a resident body came forward with a handful of conceptual recommendations at a work session.

Uh this body then forwarded those conceptual recommendations to the planning staff and planning commission uh to put some meat on the bone, so to speak.

And the first two of those are coming to us tonight.

Okay, so a little bit of of history, so thank you, Mayor.

Um wanted to revisit the background on on how we got here.

So on March 3rd of this year, the mayor and commission adopted a resolution that directed the planning commission to start preparing a series of housing related zoning code text amendments to address housing affordability and housing availability.

Um, the reason for that resolution was largely inspired by a presentation that was made by the GIC committee to this body on January 13th in a work session format.

And in that presentation, there were a series of topics that were recommended for study.

Those were carried forward into the resolution and they're listed on the screen.

So accessory dwelling units, single family attached units in a variety of forms, manufactured housing, minimum street frontage requirements for new residential lots, so that connection point of a new lot to a public road, smaller lot sizes, smaller home sizes, and the reduction of parking minimums as far as required parking goes.

So those are the items called out in the resolution.

So what you're what's in your packet, what you're going to see presented next are the first two text amendments that have come through this process.

The process that was put together by the planning commission included the creation of a new subcommittee that carried forward the GIC subcommittee.

So we have all those people that worked on that presentation that you saw in January.

They were part of the group that the planning commission is working with, and the planning commission appointed a four-member representative group from the planning commission.

So we now have kind of a supergroup working on these recommendations with staff support from the planning department, but also we've called in public utilities, public works, to the extent we need to.

We've we've been working with developers to kind of understand realities, but we've also got neighborhood representation on this subcommittee as well.

So tonight we have two text amendments.

One for secondary dwelling units, the other for minimum dwelling unit size.

And what we've got presently in the code is worth saying out loud.

So in the code that we have, the development code, we have the ability for guest houses.

A guest house is an accessory structure to a single family home.

There are standards to make it smaller.

There are standards to place it in a rear yard.

But one of the standards is it cannot have a fully functioning kitchen.

And by building code definition, a fully functioning kitchen is defined by a cooktop in an oven.

So presently, what we don't have are the ability for an accessory dwelling unit to be independent from the main house from the existing larger structure.

So this text amendment starts from that starting point.

Very similar to what was brought before you in 2022, that seeking to just allow for a full cooktop range and oven would accomplish the creation of secondary dwelling units to be allowed by right.

It's already allowed in the code without the cooking.

So what is being proposed is this that secondary dwelling units would fall into two types.

You would have a detached variation being called backyard cottages.

You would have an attached option, which is called a secondary suite, which would be something like a lower level of a home used as a secondary unit, or perhaps a wing that was constructed and has its own entrance.

But these would be the two subtypes of secondary dwelling units.

There would be a maximum size for these.

Commissioner Davenport, you'll appreciate this.

What we're talking about here are platted subdivisions, not the open space, unplatted areas of AR, so AR neighborhoods by definition.

In that AR neighborhood, because we have much larger lots that we're dealing with, there would not be a specified maximum square footage.

But we do have a rule for what is subordinate.

And so the wording that's being proposed is that these secondary dwelling units would be subordinate, especially as they are detached, they would be behind the front building plane of the primary structure.

So side yard rear yard.

They would be oriented toward the primary structure, so not towards the neighbors, but toward the interior of the property or toward a right-of-way.

And you would need to have if you're arranged towards the right-of-way, we're thinking about those lots that have two frontages, a corner lot, a through lot.

That would be okay to orient towards a street, but not to a neighbor.

And third, in terms of scale, the unit has to have less square footage and fewer bedrooms than the primary structure.

Parking.

This was a good bit of discussion amongst the subcommittee how to handle parking.

And this was a point of discussion in 2022.

So what they have proposed for discussion here is that secondary dwelling units can include, but aren't required to provide one additional off-street parking space.

Part of their discussion was perhaps there are other ways to address this.

Those are all the zones right now that have pretty big restrictions on residential use anyway.

So from a commentary standpoint.

I think the subcommittee was very comfortable with a good looking secondary dwelling unit.

They were less comfortable with a less than good looking secondary dwelling unit.

So the notion here is that making these attractive while keeping them attainable needs to be a priority.

And some sort of discussion with the public, maybe back through the planning commission on design requirements, could absolutely take place.

Does it have to take place in conjunction with adoption?

Maybe.

Second bullet point deals with design also.

What we recognized in doing some research into this from other communities is there's an education component about this.

I think there's a lot of legitimate concern about the unknown.

What is this going to look like?

How is it going to be built?

The communities that have sort of wrestled with that have had really good luck with a design competition.

The design competition achieves multiple goals.

One is education, so it allows kind of an opportunity for a community to come around.

It also allows for design firms to participate and create plans that respond to local character, architectural themes.

It addresses the look and the feel question and can produce a pre-approved, if that's the direction that you end up with, catalog of approved off-the-shelf designs that could have cost depraved as part of those designers participating in the competition.

That's how some other communities have looked at this.

And applicants would still be responsible for their site design compliance and associated permitting.

But it would allow for staff and the community to have a better sense of what the end product is going to look like rather than a low-style minimalist approach.

It might have something that has a little more decorative response to the local community.

Back to the parking issue.

There is an opportunity here for that to be expanded for the on-street parking permit program that would allow for a degree of enforcement that we presently have an understanding for and that would open the door for some of these lots that are otherwise very hard to get another driveway or parking pad to be able to seek some relief by using on-street parking.

Happy to answer any questions.

I do have some representative photographs.

So these are the types of things that the committee was taking into consideration when they were thinking about design.

These are not high-end by any means, but a lot of them are responsive to the type of development forms we have in town, whether they're clabored-sided or certainly something, pitched roofs, use of metal for energy efficiency for the roofing.

These would all be the types of things that they were thinking through as a design element would be what we'd want to produce out of this ordinance.

Also want to point out these walk among us.

We have secondary dwelling units throughout town, five points, boulevard, East Athens.

Um there are many, many, many properties that already have these that were either built as guest homes under our current ordinance, or they were built under prior zoning and have served a number of purposes, whether it's for student housing, whether it's for guests, whether it's for visitors or aging parents or children that are in transition.

Um we have a number of this type of form really peppered throughout our community already.

Um so this is just taking what's already allowed by code, giving it more design attention, and um removing the requirement for the cooktop and the stove.

So that's the end of the staff report.

Thanks, Bruce.

I appreciate it.

We'll go ahead and get uh public input and then commission discussion.

Any member of the public?

Uh again, uh make sure you state your name and uh place of residence and have that three minute opportunity.

Okay, then we know good evening.

Okay, um Larry Jordan and Maple Forge Drive and um Division in 2000 oh sorry in 2015.

I purchased my single family home in a neighborhood of 98 other single-family homes.

I think it's unfair that every single family homeowner that bought their property throughout the county uh to be disrupted in what they thought they had bought into.

I didn't buy into a subdivision where you could just add whatever on the backyard, and that's a concern.

I think it's gonna drop my price of my home significantly.

Uh, this outgoing mayor is trying to make the most historically drastic change to zoning in the history of Clark County, and he is doing so in a very sly way through zoning text amendments to Title IX.

This drastic change to every single family home and neighborhood is unprecedented in any county in Georgia, and this is not being done through the normal rezoning processes for such a dramatic change.

Again, it is an end around established norms so that the outgoing mayor can have his way.

No studies were done on how this affects infrastructure, such as water, sewer, police, fire.

All you all I hear is talking about parking.

Um and any other services supplied by Athens Clark County.

Never has anything on this large of a scale been attempted without all the considerations being accounted for.

It's unfair that the new administration under the future mayor Fisher and the three new commissioners will not have a say in this.

Uh I'm asking for this to be delayed until the new mayor and commissioners can get into their positions in January of next year.

If this does go forward, which I hope it doesn't, I'm hopeful that at least six commissioners will put a stop to this until at least January 2027 under the new administration.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mr.

Jordan.

I I appreciate that folks may have uh thoughts about other speakers, but if you just listen so we can move on through the through the litany.

Uh Benny Wolveson and one 20 Alboy Court City Creek.

Just have two questions.

Uh one was would it lower the value of my home price that I'm living in now?

The second question is what kind of vehicles could be parked out there?

Someone might buy one of the homes and it might be a truck driver.

So I want to know what kind of vehicles you can park out there on this week.

Thank you, Mr.

Roberson.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening, I'm Glenn Townsend, and I'm the representative for Holly Hill subdivision off of Epps Bridge.

Uh we have a concern as far as what benefit this is gonna have to residential subdivisions.

Um we're scratching our heads trying to figure out who thought of this idea, and uh we're not exactly sure that the that the people, which is the word they that was spoken of earlier, um put a whole lot of thought into this.

Uh we feel like that it's gonna affect the property taxes in our subdivision, and I'm here to say that our subdivision is voting no on this.

Um if anything, it needs to at least be tabled until further input can be uh established.

Um as a representative Holly Hill subdivision, which is about 100 homes plus, we vote no on this because we do not think this is a good idea.

Thank you, Mr.

Towns.

Good evening.

Can we start that up?

She already started and I haven't spoken a word.

I think that was the from the prior speaker, yeah.

No, she just changed it.

Okay.

I'm Linda Carke, I live at 119 Minor Street Creek Drive in Athens.

Much of what I have to say is my thinking process when trying to make sense of the Planning Commission's recommendation.

I have so many questions.

Are these amendments a response to the Planning Commission to help with affordable housing?

Is that what the idea is?

Do they consider ADUs the best avenue to increase housing?

Did a bunch of residents make requests to build them?

It just doesn't make sense to me.

And actually, I don't think that the amendments are a response to the needs of the residents of Athens Clark County.

I will venture to say, not with final proof, but with proof of coincidence, that this is simply our planning commission complying directly or indirectly with the wishes of the American Planning Association, the APA, a nationwide 501c3.

The APA held events in April and May of this year, which included topics such as inclusive planning for social change, economic trends, and transformations, housing challenges and solutions.

Think 15 minutes cities.

And now to getting the political landscape.

Yes, they even train you in how to handle opposition from residents.

The APA is behind the new 21st Century Road to Housing Act, which became law on July 11, 2026, just 10 days ago.

Since it is a federal statute of place nationwide, but its implementation impact depend on state and local actions.

The State of Georgia did propose HB 1166 on this issue, but it did not pass.

The Federal Bill has over 45 provisions, among other things, that encourages local communities to overhaul codes and systems.

They want to fix the financing to cover AUDs and other missing middle housing.

It focuses on the federal government working with local localities to increase housing production and they want to reform the system.

Well, I don't pretend to know anything about the bill if it's good or bad.

It does make me question.

If the planning department is making these amendments, you'd think they would be to benefit the residents of Athens Clark County.

But if they are such a benefit, why is everything so secretive?

I mean, changing the zoning on all single family zoned areas is a huge change.

Yet there is no transparency, two little meetings, hoping no one would notice.

If these amendments are good for the people of Athens, why not let everyone know them and place rezoning notices in all single family zones so people would be informed?

Also, I think it's curious that the language of the amendments, the term single family dwelling, is changed to principal dwelling nearly every single time.

So what's that quote?

If you want to change the law, change the language.

The APA uses the term social change, transformation, overhaul, and reform the system.

Transformational change is inherently linked to communism.

There are so so many questions.

Please don't vote for the amendments until we all gain a better understanding of the possible impacts on our community.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Johnson.

Good evening.

Good evening, Joan Roden.

They often say that people create a problem so they can sweep in then and fix it.

I think that's what's happening right now.

I'm here for those who cannot be here.

Some people are working tonight, some people don't have a clue that this is going on.

And in the interest of the audience, I have been here for eight years watching this process.

The proper way to address zoning is what we've been talking about tonight.

So we're willing to recreate the wheel because we don't have enough to do.

Well, let me tell you something.

This is a muzzle-loading firearm that's taking place tonight with this with this proposal.

For the past eight years, Athens has survived survived agendas like the one tonight, set by the outgoing mayor, who only has until December to do any ramroding of agenda items couched in flowery and hazy rhetoric.

They use the word by right.

That is not you make a decision, that is not you make a decision.

That is they change the municipal code.

So by right, anybody, anybody, according to these pro according to these specifications, can make this next door to you, and you may say, oh, my subdivision, they'll never do that.

And you may say, oh, my subdivision, they'll never do that.

People move out and people move in.

With that in mind, public trust has tragically been eroded in Clark County for the past eight years with numerous promises made and few promises kept except for the urban renewal agenda that repeatedly, repeatedly involves destroying community by clearing out rundown areas, areas repeatedly overlooked by plentiful government funds until it is too late and leads to displacing low-income residents.

Then it's called the unhoused.

Then they're homeless.

And now the homeless resolution is put on the agenda with what Jesse Hool called resolutions are nothing more than a greeting card or window dressing.

It's nothing more just to make everybody look good.

And it's hiding the total lack of determination to get the root of the problem.

Homeowners trusted the local government when they purchased their single family home, zoned home sinking hard-earned money into what they consider to be an investment based on a reliable government.

How many ADUs are they going to make?

Can you please pass that around to everybody?

Mayor please.

It's an unsigned civic uh what is it?

Civic.

Good evening.

My name is uh Fred Stevenson, and my wife Sharon and I have lived in the same single family dwelling in Sea Creek for the past 48 years.

I direct my comments to Mayor Gertz and to each of the commissioners, and especially to the tens of thousands of citizens who live in single family homes in Athens Clark County.

Two weeks two weeks from today, on August 4th, the Commission is scheduled to vote on changes to our residential zoning codes.

These are huge, not minor changes that will have the most profound and negative consequences on single family homeowners and their neighborhoods in Athens Clark County history.

It concerns me that this matter has been introduced so quietly, and that most people in our community have no idea about how the revised code will alter their lives forever.

I've studied the changes line by line.

I sent my report to Mayor Gertz and to each of the commissioners.

I asked them to read it, consider it, and put it in the record.

But it kind of tells you the difficulties we're facing that we really need to address.

So my conclusions from that report today are that the benefits you and I sought when we bought our single family homes of privacy, peacefulness, and safety are in jeopardy.

The overall effect of the zoning changes will be the end of single-family neighborhoods as we know them today, and the opening of the entire county to rental properties and short-term renters.

Our quality of life is going to change.

Our home real estate prices will be threatened.

Promises and protections by our local government will end.

The proposed zoning changes must be taken very seriously.

We need to know who's pushing these changes and why.

We want to know why the mayor is rushing this for a vote.

Policy changes always have unintended consequences that can have lasting negative impacts.

These need to be thoroughly identified and explored.

Our Athens community, this place I love and proudly call home, was built upon the bedrock of families and single-family homes.

And these proposed zoning changes will destroy that, and we cannot let that happen.

So I totally oppose the proposed measures as drafted.

The commissioners must table this until the matter is thoroughly understood, investigated and debated.

No vote should ever be made until the public has had ample opportunity to become fully informed and given more time to provide input.

And there is definitely no urgency to pass these zoning changes on August 4th.

The proponents believe these code changes are such great ideas, they will remain so six or more months from now, and the advocates should have no problem convincing the rest of us.

I urge the rest of this community to get educated immediately to the proposed changes and voice your concerns to the Commission before it is too late.

And if any of you want to read that report, I wrote, if you give me your email address, I'll send it to you.

Lastly, I am counting on Mayor Gertz and this commission to just do one thing.

Do the right thing.

God told us to do the right thing.

Thank you, Mr.

I can live with your decision, but please do the right thing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello.

My name is John.

I'm a renter in District 2, opinion shared of my own, and don't reflect those of my employer, any organization of which I'm affiliated.

Thank you for being open to considering ordinance changes that can support the growth of our housing supply.

I was hoping we could all acknowledge that housing is too expensive and our housing supply has failed to keep up, but I see that maybe that isn't a given tonight.

It's certainly a problem every city in this country is dealing with.

Just a couple weeks ago, the 21st century Road to Housing Act became law this month.

It was passed in the Senate by a vote of 85 to 5, and in the House by a vote of 358 to 32.

Laws rarely pass in the federal government without amount of bipartisan support.

In that act is language speaking to these exact types of changes, overwhelming national bipartisan support for this type of ordinance change.

Study you've all heard certainly heard me cite is called housing as a homelessness, homelessness is a housing problem.

They look at per capita homelessness across major cities in the US and use statistical modeling to see what explains the variation in per capita homeless rates from city to city.

What they find is mental illness and addiction has very little predictive power from city to city, rather housing demand or housing prices and housing supply elasticity, how quickly a city can build more housing when it's needed, explain variances and per capital homelessness in a statistically significant way.

The individual factors like addiction and mental illness and disabilities tell us who becomes homeless in a housing market that's already strapped.

Currently, someone can build a unit in their backyard that uh doesn't have typical kitchen appliances.

That sounds great for an Airbnb, but that's not something that we have really talked about wanting more of in this community.

Um but we do talk about uh wanting more housing units, so that's something to consider.

As a community, we also talk about limited land area for developments.

Um property owner wants to use part of their own property to build an additional housing unit.

I don't see why we as a community with a shortage of housing should stop them.

As a community, we also talk about infrastructure limitations to building new housing developments.

If we can legalize property owners to uh give them the ability to build additional units tied into the existing infrastructure, why stop them?

Every garden cottage that a private property owner chooses to build on their own right and hopefully rent out to another person in Athens gives another Athenian a safe place to live.

It's a chance for said private property owners to generate additional income as well.

Now as a chance to do something about our housing shortage, this ordinance will undoubtedly boost our housing supply elasticity, which the statistics suggest will have long-term impacts on reducing homelessness.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Morris.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Good evening to all of you.

Uh William James, District 6, Ms.

Stephanie Johnson, Commissioner.

Uh my wife and I moved to Athens Clark County five years ago.

We chose the location in which we now live because we liked the neighborhood and its single dwelling residential zoning.

So we vigorously oppose any plans to change our current residential voting or zoning.

So in other words, don't do it.

Just leave us alone.

If we enter this large-scale property rezoning, big tent, it'll become too easy to continue the destruction of meaningful zoning.

And from where I'm standing, this proposal does look a lot like a camel's nose.

So thank you for listening.

Thank you, Mr.

James.

Good evening.

Uh good evening, everybody.

Uh, my name is Andy Harrod, 315 Brookwood Drive.

Um, I have several things I want to say, but the long and the short of it is that although I don't have a problem with STUs in theory, I do not believe that you should allow these by right.

I think these are something that uh should go through a proper process of planning and approval by the elected body in the county.

So I've got several things I want to say here.

We'll see how far we get through them in my three minutes.

First of all, I would like you to think uh more about the impact of this on um infrastructure.

Uh will neighborhoods where these will be built or put planned to be built be able to handle increased stresses, especially on sewer and water compared to the capacity that sewer and particularly that particularly sewer had uh when the neighborhoods were first laid out.

If a neighborhood can only handle a certain amount of such SDUs, will there be a rush to build them by some neighbors to use up that capacity first?

If so, does that create inequity amongst homeowners and will that create either legal issues or pressures to install higher capacity uh infrastructure, particularly SUA?

What happens if somebody sells a house with a renter in an SDU?

Will the new owner be forced to keep the renter to the end of their lease?

What happens if the new owner does not want the renter in that unit but wants somebody else or no one will the renter be evicted?

This is also being pitched as a way to address housing availability, but I suspect that with the added rental income that can come from the STU, institutional investors will snap up properties with SDUs as they go on the market, thus exacerbating issues of people getting on the property ladder.

Equally likely some will just become Airbnbs.

Now I know you've had new regulations are coming in for Airbnbs, but we were talking about Airbnbs when I was sitting where you were many years ago.

And so the time that it takes to regulate these kinds of things means that a lot of STUs could be built and operate as as Airbnbs or short-term rentals before anything can be done about them.

I don't think that the county has the staff to address every complaint about an Airbnb and addressing them can take months, if not years, and that is a negative impingement upon the neighborhood as that happens.

The text amendment says that the SDU is, quote, designed for and occupied by one family only.

Your attorney has just left the room, but I do not believe that you can enforce that under state law, especially as you don't have probable cause to step onto a property to investigate, and people do not have to provide documentation as to relationships, again, under state law.

You can't even really enforce the unrelated individuals' law that's on the book, to be honest.

There's also finally an issue with the process.

Normally the planning department and um as on something as momental as this will go out and hold meetings with neighborhoods.

To my knowledge, this has not been done, and this is one of the biggest changes that is going to take place in Clark County if this is uh passed.

So to me, this strikes me more about ideology and um uh the opposition of certain individuals to single family neighborhoods and zoning than it does about assessing our housing problem.

Thank you, Mr.

Harris.

Good evening.

Hi.

Hi, I'm Sam Stabler.

I live on Cleveland Avenue in uh Miss Thorn's district.

Um I'm a painter.

Um I teach at the Mardod School of Art.

Um, and I have a small design build architecture firm with uh uh my wife and my partner and uh uh my kids went to Burks or in middle school at uh Central or uh Clark Middle.

Um I'm telling you all this to sort of paint the picture of who the face of pushing for this legislation is because in favor of this legislation, this reform because I am a uh person who is watching my employees uh live through an acute housing crisis, and these are the people who are left out of this conversation.

They do not have homes, they don't have places to live.

And this is an easy, simple, moderate, moderate uh amendment to our existing code, certainly compared to what's happening in other parts of the country, that would allow for homeowners to make the choice to develop a small property, a small portion of their property that would increase housing.

Like I said, I I'm a builder.

I'm gonna tell you some stories of people who came to me asking for ADUs.

In the Boulevard neighborhood, um I had a longtime resident.

Um she'd aged in her home, raised her kids in her home, was a widow.

She could not make it up and down her stairs.

She asked if she could build a structure in her backyard to live in.

She would rent the front.

She did not want to leave her home.

I said, No, you can't do that.

You're not allowed to do that.

She had to leave.

She left.

Okay.

Uh, in the normal town area where I used to live.

Um, there was a resident who's a client of mine who asked uh for a structure to be built for their daughter who was uh fleeing an abusive marriage.

And they thought it was really important for their daughter to be on their property, but for that daughter to have an autonomous space that she could live in.

I had to tell them no, you're not allowed to do that.

She is not allowed to live on your property.

Um I have another client.

Uh lives out of state.

He's on the house for a while.

Um, he rents to uh his childhood best friend.

His job situation has changed.

He has the idea of moving in to a small structure on his property, living on the same property with his best friend.

I said, no, you can't do that.

He is going to push that person out of their home.

Um I am one of the people who built a house in the contemporary era where it is so prohibitively expensive.

I would love to build a back cottage where I would be able to rent and um uh add to my income the viability of preserving my home, my ability to live in this community, and I'm not allowed to.

I I would ask you to consider the people who are left out of this conversation, who've already been pushed out, who are being moved out who are not able to speak here today.

Thank you, Mr.

Stable.

No, thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Hi, my name is Shannon Bushway.

I live at 250 Clover Street and Melissa Lynx District.

I've been a homeowner in Athens for over 20 years.

Um I actually do have a backyard cottage in my home three years ago.

I got a divorce.

And um living on my own became completely unaffordable.

Luckily, my parents stepped in and they helped me purchase a property and they built a backyard cottage where they also reside in my house.

So I do understand a lot of people here have concerns about what this looks like.

I'm a school social worker.

I work with unhoused families.

I have for 20 years.

Housing in Athens has come become completely unaffordable.

I rented a home for six months.

They sold the home when I was renting there.

It costs me more to rent a home than to purchase the home that I have now because I was able to have a backyard cottage for my family.

I wish my parents had an oven and a stove in their backyard cottage so they don't have to come into my house to cook.

It would be nice.

There are a lot of regulations already about Airbnbs.

I do rent my home on game days to offset the cost.

But there's a lot of regulations.

So I do understand that people have concerns, but we are in an unprecedented housing crisis.

Living in Athens has become completely unaffordable.

I love this town.

I lived here for over 20 years.

I want to stay here.

I feel very lucky that I'm a person whose parents helped build that cottage so that I could stay here.

I do think I understand that people are concerned about maybe what would happen.

It's a lot of work to build a cottage.

There's a lot of regulations behind it.

It was not an easy situation for us to build it.

You have to have the land, the capacity, the water, the sewer, all those things were taken into consideration when I built my property in the back.

And if you come to my property, you cannot even see it from my from the beginning from the house.

I think this is really important for Athens that we start talking about some creative and interesting ways to create dense housing for people so we can have a viable community and not just people who have lived here for a long time in single family homes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Bushwith.

Good evening.

Good evening.

I'm Gilbert Mount on 256 Hamilton Road.

That's Athens.

And I was a developer of Princeton Mill and the whole area down there, and we built different levels of housing to accommodate the needs that people had and what they wanted.

Before I did anything, uh my joining neighborhood is uh is uh I talked to all of those people to tell them what my plans were and to make sure this was not gonna be something that would be adverse to their interest either.

So uh having built the big houses on the bigger lots, and then I built the condominiums and they built the empty nest of homes too.

So we have a real good uh collection of housing that would fit people's needs.

And uh if we do away with this RS 25 as it is now, that's gonna really affect the people in these bigger houses, and I don't want to have anything like that happen at the at the uh hand of the city doing something where we went by every rule that they put in for the zoning for the different properties that we had there and took care of all of those to make sure we met all those rules and regulations, and then to have this thing changed to undermine some of these bigger properties.

Uh is just not right.

That's all there is to it.

It is just not right.

So I hope y'all will consider that because people have spent their good hard-earned money building what they wanted and they bought what they wanted and keep it stable.

Stable stable stability is the most important thing you can have in this kind of matter.

Thank you, Mr.

Miller.

Good evening.

Good evening, y'all.

My name is Danielle Gilmer.

I live at 725 Pine Forest Drive.

Um, I have something that I was about to say, but I want to echo what our friend just said about stability.

The National Association of Realtors did a survey last year, and for new um potential homeowners, the first thing that they said that they had the number one thing was stability.

They don't care about how big that house is, they don't care about where that house is, they care about being in a stable environment.

So I just wanted to say that.

Thank you for bringing that up.

So housing affordability is one of the biggest challenges facing our community here in Athens.

While there isn't one single solution, allowing for secondary dwellings and reducing the minimum square footage for a home are two practical steps we can create take to create more housing choices without changing the character of our neighborhoods.

Backyard cottages and secondary interior suites would allow homeowners to make better use of the property they already own.

They can provide housing for aging parents, adult children, caregivers, teachers, health care workers, or someone just starting their career.

They also give homeowners the opportunity to earn additional income that can help them remain in their home as housing costs continue to rise.

For many families, a backyard cottage can mean the difference between staying in Athens or being priced out.

It creates opportunities for intergenerational living, supports aging in place, and expands housing options for people across different income levels.

Backyard cottages and secondary suites fit naturally into existing neighborhoods.

They're smaller than traditional homes.

You could use existing infrastructure and increase housing gradually instead of through large-scale developments.

Local builders and small-scale developers already here in Athens would be an invaluable resource for these projects.

Creating more diverse housing choices is about rebuilding the housing ladder inside the places where people already have relationships.

It is about restoring the ability of neighborhoods to serve not just one household type, but the full spectrum of all members of our vibrant and diverse community.

Thank you for your time and your consideration.

Thank you, Ms.

Gilder.

Good evening, Commissioners.

Mayor Gertz, thank you for the opportunity to speak.

My name is Jesse Siebentrett.

I live at 327 Oglethorpe Avenue, Apartment 2 in Athens.

I've lived in Athens for 20 years.

And the housing challenge is one that affects us all.

And I've seen over the years as the you know people that went to school with me here in Clark County and want to continue to live in this community have found it more and more difficult to afford good housing options.

And I understand there's a lot of folks here tonight who have bought in to their homes at a particular time.

But I think being part of a community means that we understand evolution happens.

And that as communities grow and change, that we have to make space for neighbors and make space for growth.

And um I think this is a good idea.

I think housing affordability is ultimately a math problem.

You need a certain number of units in order to house a certain number of people.

And if we can give people who have homes and want to use their homes in a way to provide some more housing, give themselves a little more income, then uh that seems like something that they should be allowed to do.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mr.

Siebertrip.

Good evening.

Evening.

I'm Michael McClendon, 201 Hamilton Road here in Athens.

Um I want to address the elephant in the room here for a moment.

Um Frankly, if you vote to approve these changes, your name will be carved in a stone.

Recognizing the day the traditional single family home neighborhoods of the classic city disappeared.

Whenever you're reading a proposal from the planning department, and they change the words single family and replace it with principal residence, that's a red flag.

Somebody should be paying attention.

The real issue here is that the agenda for this is driven by a group of urbanists and progressives in City Hall, the planning department, the planning commission, along with advocates to impose social housing policies on the citizens in Athens.

Key elements of this doctrine include eliminating single family residential zoning, cram as many people as possible into those houses, enable duplexes, fourplexes, sixplexes, and even high-rise gulags in those neighborhoods, reduce if not eliminate parking, and force people to use mass transit and bikes.

That's the progressive Nirvana.

These zealots also take advantage of the affordable housing advocates by blaming the affordable housing crisis on single family zoning in order to reform zoning to allow denser units.

Somebody's got to tell me how many ADUs would it would it take to be able to satisfy the affordable housing crisis.

It's thousands and thousands and thousands.

So that's just ridiculous.

In reality, this is a horrible idea.

Once single family zoning is dead and ADUs are approved, houses will be marketed as multifamily with high rent and be occupied by students, and if we don't think that, we're kidding ourselves.

As a result, the property value will increase, and once sold, other property owners will see an increase in their property taxes.

We've already seen part of the manifestation of this in terms of the over 1,700 short-term rentals that we have in Athens.

Looking ahead, investors will gobble up lower price homes and third amendment student housing, further reducing the inventory of affordable homes.

Also point out there has never been a public policy debate in Athens Clark County about social housing agenda, nor have I seen any Athens-centric analysis of the consequences and impacts of what is being proposed on infrastructure, property values, real estate economics, etc.

Clearly, one goal here is to drive out long-term resident homeowners into high density housing with no consideration of the consequences.

And let me close by saying this.

I think it is very interesting that you have memorialized the loss of a single family home community called Linnintown, but here you are wanting to eliminate single family zoning across Athens.

Commissioners, you just need to kill this proposal and be done with it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

McClellan.

Good evening.

Thank you.

My name is Jack Domini.

I live at 195 Dunwoody Drive in the Cedar Creek neighborhood.

My neighbors and I are here to ask the Commission to table this proposed zoning, these proposed zoning changes until the questions and concerns that we're raising have been addressed.

Much of what I'm going to say is going to sound very familiar from what other people have already brought to you.

I'd like to preface this very briefly by saying I understand the issue that we're trying to help.

I have an adult daughter who lives in the house with me and my wife.

She has a good full-time job and cannot afford to move out.

We've identified, my neighbors and I, a number of ways that the changes in this ordinance could alter our neighborhood in ways that harm the quality of life we enjoy there.

I want to focus on one issue that is rental status.

Here's the bottom line.

Unless there's an ordinance or other legal restriction, every single family home in Athens becomes a potential two rental property.

Athens zoning restrictions on renting to unrelated individuals are applied to each single dwelling unit.

So property with a primary and secondary unit can have two families or two roommates in each.

An individual homeowner building the ADU is only the start of the story.

At first, they may rent the new cottage, which is what we all would like from what we're hearing here.

But setting aside the other issues my neighbors will highlight, this is the best situation.

Eventually, though, that homeowner will move out one way or the other.

They may, if they're simply moving away, decide to rent both the primary and secondary units.

Or if they pass away, their heirs could make that same decision, get the income from both units.

At some point, though, that property is going to be sold.

Who's going to buy it?

Well, the cost of a single-family home plus a cottage is going to be higher, potentially much higher than the home alone.

As always, those with the deeper pockets will have the advantage.

This will make our neighborhood, my neighborhood, a target, perhaps it should say a bigger target for corporate landlords.

Worse, those same corporations will realize for any property they buy, they can add a secondary unit, nearly doubling the potential revenue stream.

Over time, dual rentals will only increase homes occupied by their owners, the kinds of owners most deeply invested in the health of the neighborhood, that of Athens Clark County, will become fewer as rentals dominate.

You may say that an aging neighborhood such as Cedar Creek, that rental conversion is inevitable.

I don't necessarily agree, but I will say dual rentals, such as I've described, will make the conversion far more likely and much faster.

Over time, they can completely change and destroy is not too strong a word, existing single-family neighborhoods such as Cedar Creek.

If you must approve a secondary dwelling ordinance, it must be modified to prohibit separate rental of the primary and secondary units.

Please we ask you to send this ordinance back to the planters to address this and the other issues that my neighbors will bring out.

Thank you, Mr.

Dominic.

Good evening.

Hi.

My name's Ken Portier.

I live at 160 Spruce Valley Road, Cedar Creek neighborhood.

And I'm here to bring the discussion back down to the specific text that is before the commissioners.

We're not doing a strategic planning process here, which my neighbors are really focused on.

You guys are asked to look at a specific set of texts which are going to change the municipal ordinance code for the for the county.

I think there are a lot of deficits in that text that suggest it needs to go back to planning to look at things, and I'm going to point out a couple of things, chapter verse, just so you can kind of get a feeling for what I've done.

I've gone through and spent a lot of time looking at the ordinances.

I mean, I've I went on the web and brought down the official ordinance and then realized you guys have changed the ordinances three or four times in the last 24 months, so I had to find those because they're not on the official audience, but it it ties in.

Kind of all tie together to make this particular document inadequate.

And I'll give you an example.

So by definition of a short-term rental, an owner-occupant or a primary resident can apply for a short-term rental permit.

Owner-occupant is defined in 921.

Primary resident is not.

Resident is not defined.

So what is a resident?

English common English uses would say that a resident is the person who's living there, right?

So what's the so why is this important?

Because when you apply for a short-term rental, it's either the only the what you've defined as the owner-occupant, or there's a big R in there, a resident who shall have obtained written permission from such property owners, which shall have submitted with the application.

So this offers a way to get around the owner-occupant limitation, and it all comes back to a definition, not to your ordinance, but you just haven't defined it a very specific term.

Another thing, Section 9, 1516, item 8 states no on-street parking of business-related vehicles, including occupants of the STR shall be permitted at any time.

Item 6 states adequate off-street parking must be provided for the residents, employees, and business visitors.

Since the proposed text is not requiring off-street parking in general for accessory dwellings, does this mean that off-street parking will be required if the accessory dwelling is used for short-term rental?

We had somebody just talking about she rents it short-term and she doesn't have on-site parking.

She's in violation of your current ordinance right now.

Thank you, Mr.

Fortier.

I appreciate your time with us tonight.

Okay.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Mr.

Mayor and Commissioners.

My name's Kent Middleton.

I live at 195 Clyde Road in the Green Acres Crestwood Subdivision.

I'm president of the community association and also a member of the East Side Neighbors Group.

I agree with much of the opposition heard here tonight against the language changes that would permit the building of secondary dwelling units or ADUs by right on all residential, single-family, commercial, agricultural, multifamily, residential zone properties in Cork County.

I sent you all a letter from the board assigned by the board of the Green Acres Crestwood Community Association asking that you vote on the by right AD, that the vote on the byright ADUs be postponed.

Perhaps it should be tabled.

At any rate, we request that the process be slowed so that more citizen voices can be included in the process and that citizens can better understand the economic impacts of the changes, whether the infrastructure is adequate, and how such wide-ranging code changes will affect neighborhood character and public policy.

Greenacre's Crestwood community is mindful of the pressing need for portable housing in Clark County.

We are not opposed to code changes that would expand housing options.

We have been told that most of the 30,000 new residents expected in Clark County by 2045 will be will be accommodated along major and minor corridors and nodes, not in single family residential neighborhoods.

We believe the government's approach should be more strategic.

At a minimum, we believe the principal residents should be owner occupied as required in Quinnett County ordinances, preventing a property owner from renting both the primary residence and the ADU as investment units.

This helps preserve neighborhood character and providing opportunities for while providing opportunities for additional housing.

I also forwarded a copy of the Gwinnett County ADU to you all.

We urge you to include more community voices in the process before the vote comes before the mayor and commission.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Middleton.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name's Charlie Upchurch.

I've lived in Athens all my life.

I currently live at 145 Tillman Lane.

I've been in real estate for over 40 years in Athens.

And I'm looking at these pictures up here.

Bruce is right, Mr.

Lonnie is right, that there are a lot of these dwellings already in existence.

But over time, over these years, we've had commissioners with a lot of common sense.

And people will come in here and they'll say, hey, look, my daughter has uh just broken up from a bad marriage, and we would like to put a building in the back of the house.

And they did.

Or they've got an elderly uh parent, and they come here and they talk to them.

They tell them say, hey, look, you know, we're in a bad way, but I've got elderly parent, they need to be in a in a secondary house behind our house, and they allowed it on a case-by-case basis, not with a big swoosh of a paintbrush saying, you know, everybody's gonna be able to do this.

Yee hi, let's go.

Um, so uh I appreciate common sense with my leadership.

Um, another thing, too, is is that in 1992, Athens Clark County spent uh, I think it was around $800,000 for an outside contractor to come in here and tell us how to set up our long-range plan.

Um, it was Friganisi's group.

I don't know if y'all remember that.

I was in real estate at that time.

He came to town, uh, spent all a year doing all the opinion polls, everything else.

His plane hadn't gotten off the the runway good, and the commissioner started picking his uh program apart.

Everything that he had said, they started cherry picking it and taking different things out of that.

But when I look on this thing that we're trying to pass, it says International Property Maintenance Code, international property maintenance code, and it talks about, well, it doesn't talk about square footage.

I've got to go there and look at it.

But why do we need the international what is this?

Property maintenance code.

We're grown adults here in Athens, Georgia.

We don't need to be taking some code that was written in Washington State or some other place and telling us how to run our county here.

Why are we doing that?

I don't understand that.

I'm gonna try to go through some things that uh haven't already been talked about.

Last year we were fighting because y'all didn't want short-term rentals.

This year, y'all are fighting us saying you want rentals in every backyard.

I don't get this.

Let me tell you.

Everything's gone up in price.

100,000 is a $725,000 monthly payment over 20 years because this is a secondary home.

You're not gonna be able to get the primary financing on it.

So you're only gonna be able to finance it for 20 years.

I put this in my backyard, my taxes are gonna go up.

That's the thing that we're looking for.

This is a tax play.

We want more taxes, so my taxes go up because I've got this dwelling in my backyard that's spinning off of now a thousand dollars a month in rent.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you very much.

Good evening.

Hey, my name's Mark Graham.

I live at 315 Millage Heights.

Um five Points is a historic neighborhood.

It's a place you'd like to take people for a walk through, down the shady sidewalks, down to five points, see your neighbors.

Well, that's changing.

I'm gonna tell you a little story.

Right next door to 315 Millage Heights was another small red brick, five points kind of house that a guy from California bought, an LLC from California.

He came in and bought it and redid it and then built a monster in the back.

It's not one of these, it's a two-story brick structure.

It's huge.

We've got signs out there now saying how illegal it is.

Y'all probably see.

Well, it it's it's it's it's an abomination.

Looks right down over our backyard, screen porch and everything else.

They can do that.

It was legal now, it was to code.

But here's the thing.

It's RS 25, and they came in there and signed leases for four students already.

It's illegal.

It's illegal, mayor.

And what y'all are doing is glossing over the failure of this county and this city to enforce our existing ordinances.

You're not doing it.

You're not doing it.

And my experience has been reaching out commissioners and all, it's just a waste of time.

But you guys cannot do this.

Not in good conscience.

You cannot do this.

You just can't.

It's just not right.

People who invest in their homes and then have some out-of-town person.

The big elephant in the room is the University of Georgia students.

That's who the big elephant in the room is.

Rich parents from out of town coming and putting them up in these things.

And that's what's gonna happen.

It's happening now.

And we're fighting it.

We're gonna continue to fight it.

This thing about affordable housing and all, what a joke.

Nobody's gonna the people that need it, and I agree that there's a need for it.

They can't afford these.

They're not gonna live in these things.

It ain't gonna happen.

It ain't gonna happen.

It's just not.

You're gonna find the rich kids and and and maybe some parents and whatnot living in them.

The one that was built beside us, the extra building, was put on the market briefly.

They took it off when we started raising game.

$600,000.

$600,000 they want just for the accessory.

So I'm asking you, I'm pleading you.

People said, you know, what is right?

Do what is right.

Do what is right.

Right?

Do what is right.

Back us up.

We're paying the taxes.

We're paying for you.

So help us out.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Greg.

My name is Gordon Rogen.

I live at 340 Heather Cove.

My wife and I moved into Athens really in 1999.

We built our house, been there 27 years.

In 2012, I started coming to commission meetings.

I believe Kelly may have been a commissioner at that time.

And I remember the theme.

Homelessness.

2012.

Homelessness.

Then it comes along and it's the housing effect.

And it is.

It's a real problem.

But I had a friend who worked at the state legislator as a state legislator years ago.

And she said, if we got three calls about any subject, it kind of set up the radar.

If we got 10, we were going to the phone and finding out what's going on.

Well, you've heard from more than 10 people here tonight.

And I think most of you have gotten emails and you've heard from your constituents this week.

I'm not asking you to table this.

I'm asking you to kill this.

This does not need to come back up.

If there is the homelessness and there is the uh need for housing, our commissioners and our mayor have been elected.

The new administration's been elected.

Dadgum, it's your job.

You find a way.

But the way is not putting it on the back of people.

If I thought this was gonna help me in my retirement and I built that, and I had more income coming in, first of all, as Charlie said, the taxable issue.

Here's my question to you.

Is that income taxable?

Yes.

Of course.

That's taxable income.

So now I I'm paying more in personal income taxes.

This is a bogus plan.

I think it's Kelly's last swan song, and I ask you to do away with.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Red.

Good evening.

My name's Ross Watson.

I live at 430 Sandstone Drive in Cedar Creek.

Paradise.

My home.

Your home is paradise.

You commissioners, that's your oasis.

That's where you go to get back to the people that you love.

That's where you go to get out of reality.

I'm gonna go back to my kingdom.

I'm gonna go back to my family.

And I'm gonna relax.

You can't do that when you're driving your driveway, and you got a manufacture home just unloaded and sitting on the other side of your fence.

Oh, you do not have a fence.

Or you went ahead and put your neighbor put it in.

You're gonna eventually get tired of answering your partner or your spouse's phone calls.

You say, What you know what they're doing over there now?

You know they got a bulldog chained up there outside of there.

Do you know all this noise?

What's going on?

You don't want to go back to paradise.

That's not paradise anymore.

That's what you got to think about.

You cannot divorce yourself from this decision, and you're gonna have to live with it every day.

These people, I'm so proud of they're here.

They didn't know anything about this.

You had meetings in May, you had meetings in June, and if you read it the minutes of the meeting, it says for and against.

No for, no against.

Always showed up.

I wonder why.

One of the meetings, they had one person show up.

You know who that was?

The planning department.

Stephen Jux.

It's his job to explain what's going on.

No against, okay.

Here, you got a bunch of people show up, and you have some for, and you have a hell of a lot of them against it.

So do the right thing.

Cancel this.

If anything else, at least let the new administration be the one that makes the decision and has to live with it.

Do it right.

Do it for my family.

You took family out of the secondary dwellings every time it was there.

You scratched it.

The family, the foundation of our community.

Your family that you put the dollars there, hey, I want this for my kids so I can have them a safe place to sleep.

It's a place to come home to a place to be proud of.

You took all that away.

Literally, literally a minute.

And I'll just let my time go in silence so you can have this a time to think about it.

Thank you, Mr.

Swanson.

Watson, thank you.

And by the way, you have the people's name and address, so you can't answer their questions.

Good job.

Good evening.

Good evening.

I hope it's been a learning evening.

Um, I'm gonna start.

My name's Don Nelson, I live at 320 Million Heights.

And uh that's 30606.

Um I'm gonna start by asking Mr.

Mayor if you have the power to remove this from the agenda for August, please do it.

If you don't, I ask the commission to table it when it comes up.

But I'm gonna start.

Um I want to make one point.

There have been talk about uh people keeping their kids or their mother-in-law or mother, that sort of thing.

Um I don't think I have a problem with that.

I don't think a lot of people on the swim have a problem with that.

Um, but it should be an owner-occupied home that has a secondary unit.

So what you're proposing, and I wonder the premise for this was affordable housing.

And I can assure you, and I'll invite all of you to come down my street and look at the house across the street from us that was a single family home, had a uh young family in it, and they were moving out and they sold it for 730,000.

I think it was 1,600 square feet.

Somehow they got an ADU approved.

I'm still not sure.

I've talked to people in the permitting office, don't understand exactly why that happened.

Um they uh they built a two-port garage, and they expanded the house.

And so, and they cleared out 24 trees off the property, basically denuded the properties.

So, you talk about affordable housing.

I'm trying to figure out when they're spending more than a million, probably a million and a half dollars on this, and they're getting a loan.

What do you think they're gonna charge for those rentors or families to to live in that house?

I can tell you one, I'd tell you the main house is five thousand dollars a month.

I don't know what they're gonna do with the uh with the ADU.

And we've talked to the owner, and he said, well, he didn't know that the there was an ordinance for more than two unrelated people living together, and we've had a conversation about that.

And he said, Well, I guess I could I could rent it to them and we could do an addendum where they have to abide by these rules.

You know that's not gonna work.

Uh and then he said um he could sell it to a family.

I said, that's great, or he could rent it to only two unrelated people.

But um in the additional items to be considered, number one wording, and that was input from the public, and that's what we're asking for, is for you to uh staff and commissioners uh lead a comprehensive communication campaign to better inform the people in single family neighborhoods about this project and see what comes about.

But we need more time.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Nelson.

Good evening.

Uh my name is David Lyle.

I live uh 178 Virginia Avenue in a single family home across the street from a single family home with a uh garage apartment behind it.

I think there's another garage apartment on our block.

Uh there may be others because you can't tell from the street, and I think that's that's kind of the point.

Uh we have a housing crisis in Athens.

It's people can believe it, not believe it, it doesn't really matter.

It's true.

You when you go to rent, prices are high.

When you go to buy, prices are high.

That doesn't change because of people's opinions.

If we're ever going to do anything about it, a big part of the solution has to be letting people build things with their own money on property they own, right?

That and so if this body thinks it's going to solve that problem by constantly putting itself in the way of that and telling people no, you can't build, or we're gonna have a process where in a city of a hundred and thirty-five thousand people, if you want to build a little cottage in your backyard, you have to come and bag this body to approve it, and they have to decide well, is your is your sob story good enough?

You know, you say it's for your daughter, how just how abusive is her boyfriend?

We really need to look into this, you know, because we we are there are precedence.

What the person last month said that they got beat up now, but are you what about you, right?

We need to allow people to build on their land with their money.

This process started as an attempt to address housing costs, right?

To make housing more affordable, and so people got together and said, How can we do that?

And this is one of the things that the planning commission came up with.

That was the process.

And anything we come up with, it's not not there's gonna not gonna be any silver bullets.

So to say, well, this won't solve the problem, not no one thing is ever gonna solve the problem.

It's gonna take a lot of little things, a lot of little houses, and if people don't want to have one, there's a great answer.

Don't build one, don't build one in your backyard.

Very simple.

So I hope, although I strongly doubt that you will allow this problem process to move forward, but we're never going to address the housing crisis if the only way it's gonna happen is if no one ever complains about it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello everyone.

My name is Benny Coleman, and I'm still alive.

I want to start.

The reason that I gave that proposal to each and every one of you about 100 manufacture home is because of this reason.

That's right.

They could have their own subdivision, wouldn't have to do that.

And a lot more people will have the ability to afford a home without intervening someone else's property.

Any person who owns their own property, if they don't have over three or four acres or something like that, they should have the ability to say no.

We don't want no housework sign.

But when I bet you all to not let it get to this, you ignore me.

Now it's here.

You're gonna have to deal with it.

I see it, and I'm grateful that I seen manufacturer home, and thank you, Bruce, for looking out.

I've seen it on that, and I appreciate that.

But think about it.

People want to have home ownership, not just renters.

We are born here in Claw County, excuse me, at in Claw County, Georgia, not as in Georgia Claw County.

We all grew up with home ownership, not renters.

We have something to leave out a family minor members, not investment, not to bulldoze someone out who income is lowered and out, not to set up high on a pedestal.

We welcome people.

We brought them food and drinks to the home, but now what we're done with taking that away because of greed.

Think about it.

New subdivision for low income people home, like manufacturer home, at the kind of school system has property now.

All you all have to do is attempt to talk to them and say you want to buy this property for low income manufacture home, and they will have to let it go because they had that property over 20 plus a year and they hadn't done anything with it.

And the government said they have to do something with it.

Now they are putting fences up there to protect that because they know what I'm saying is right.

Now you all need to understand.

We all cannot live in stone bricks and everything.

We all cannot have this fancy lifestyle.

They are poor people, middle class people, black, white, yellow green, I don't care what color they are, or what race or religion are, they cannot afford what we are asking.

Please consider affordability to end this problem at a low con.

Thank you for it.

Thank you, Mr.

Coleman.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Uh I wasn't gonna speak tonight, but I guess I am.

Uh I'm Alan Jones.

I live on Xavier Drive.

And um, I want to thank the Athens GOP for getting such a good turnout tonight.

I'm really, I'm impressed.

I've never seen so many collared shirts in uh in this room in one place at one time.

Um also wanted to thank if Jesse Hool is listening, Joan Roden used you as a piece of wisdom.

But anyway, um I live off Xavier Drive.

I live in a very nice subdivision.

I have a nice yard, I have um there's a there's a little lake across the street.

It's it's fairly wooded, everybody has decent amount of space, and the thought of having an ADU pop up in one of my neighbors' yards, it's okay.

Um I would hope that they would ask, and maybe maybe it's not my right, but maybe if my neighbors are okay, then let somebody build an ADU.

I don't want to build one, but if I my next door neighbor, Ed Tully, who's gonna take the seat.

Um, if he wants an ADU and he comes by and says, hey Alan, do you mind if I build this for my grandmother?

I'm probably gonna say, yeah, sure, Ed, whatever.

If it's that type of a situation, who cares?

Who cares if that costs a hundred thousand dollars?

Who cares what that does to the person who's buying its tax bracket, if they make that choice.

You know, um, if I could go grab the American flag and wave it, I would.

I like small government.

I like freedom, I like liberty.

I like to be able to do with my land what I want to do with my land without the government telling me what I can and cannot do.

So, with that liberty, if I want to have somebody else move into something like this, if I want to help, whether it's because I want to help the affordability crisis, whether I have a grandparent, whether I've got a student, whatever.

I would like to have one of these things if if that's the choice I go with.

And if we're worried about students, students are gonna go for the hey, they can be fine with just a microwave.

They don't need the stove.

Mike's been living for years without using a stone, right?

But you don't necessarily have to be against these things just because it's progress.

Yes, I don't think that everybody in a neighborhood is immediately gonna want one of these things.

Maybe there's gonna be one in the neighborhood here, one in the neighborhood there.

Big deal.

What it's going to stop is maybe from building another neighborhood on the edge of town where there's sprawl.

Back with us, we appreciate it a great deal.

Um the commission discussion, and then we have one more planning item, and then we're gonna do old and new business.

All right.

Uh yeah, as we get going back again.

Uh I wanted to begin just to for everybody's benefit, uh, having Bruce Lonnie just explain process wise, given that this is a text amendment, and we'll come to the commission sort of by virtue of our uh natural cycle, kind of what their opportunities are at a voting meeting.

So, Bruce.

Absolutely.

So any text amendment um really it has the option for this body to approve, approve with conditions, deny, remand back to the planning commission.

Um, and and this body has done that on occasion, where you've received input, you have um some guidance that you want to provide to the process to revisit and send it back to the planning commission for further work.

Um, especially given that this is all under a resolution directing the planning commission to take this up anyway.

Um, I think that remanding back for any of these text amendments is not just appropriate, it's consistent with the resolution.

That's the body who's working on these things.

So if if that helps, mayor.

The only addition I would add to that, as always.

If there was a decision to at any point to remand it back to the planning commission to do so with specific instructions so that they would know what to do with just a point of order to make clear though, too uh this body could either remand it back or we could just deny it over time.

So thank you.

Substantive input from the body.

We end with uh Commissioner Link.

Yeah, um first of all, I just want to um ask Bruce.

Yeah, um first of all, I just want to um ask Bruce this ordinance as it stands does not distinguish between owner occupied or non-owner occupied properties.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay.

Um, and also I want to ask um if you own a home in an HOA and an HOA has a rule against ADUs, you would have to abide by your HOA's rules, correct?

This does not supersede any HOA rules.

Any any private agreement that regulates further regulates a subdivision or a condominium development or anything like that, doesn't change the rules on our books, it just supersedes those.

Okay.

And can modify those.

Um so I just I mean, this has come before us before, and the last time it came before us, I offered up a CDO that added criteria.

Um, and none of those criteria, I don't believe, have been included in this process coming back to us.

Um, and if anything, the planning commission was directed to not add complexity and conditions to this text amendment.

This is a very complex issue that definitely warrants conditions.

We also have a planning commission that um nearly half of them are absent.

So we have a five to one vote with four planning commissioners absent.

You know, if anything, this definitely needs to go back and to have that more nuanced discussion among those planning commissioners.

I was really hoping that the planning commission would give us an ordinance that had those conditions that had those criteria.

I believe personally, I believe it's perfectly reasonable for a homeowner to want to build a small cottage or build out a basement or a garage or whatever to accommodate an aging parent, a boomerang child, a caregiver, um, to move into themselves as they age so they can age in place, um, or even to rent out for a little extra income.

I have friends who are, you know, empty nester single moms living in four bedroom houses that don't want to leave their neighborhoods.

Um, I mean, my husband and I might need to put both our mothers in our backyard someday on the 750 square foot lot where our carport got taken out by a pecan tree a few years ago.

I mean, there are plenty of reasons to want to do this.

But there's also, as folks point out, there are plenty of dangers.

The last thing I want to see is a policy that will incentivize student gentrification in which more neighborhood homes are sucked up by student housing profiteers and taken off the market and made more expensive and unaffordable for permanent residents.

So you know, I've thought about this issue for a long, long time.

I live in a neighborhood where there are plenty of ADUs, there are plenty of big old houses that have been busted up into two or three or four apartments with another ADU out back.

Um, you know, I really believe in neighborhoods that have diverse housing choices, but we live in a college town, and the reality is that student market is going to creep into, especially into our in-town neighborhoods, and we've seen it happen in East Athens.

We see it happening in in Hancock where you know we have RM zoning.

Um I believe we need those criteria and those safeguards in place that will keep these on owner-occupied properties and deincentivize student housing.

When I proposed that CDO before, it would limit these ADUs to one bedroom units.

Um that would certainly deincentivize the student housing market.

Um I've come up with a long list of questions and conditions to consider.

Um, um the definition of subordinate is is very vague, subordinate structure.

Um, you know, I I feel like we do need that one bedroom minimum.

We need to be very clear about how many stories.

Um I feel like any ADU would have to be built within the buildable footprint of the of what would be allowed as a primary structure, not the typical accessory uh setback.

Um parking.

We hear about, I mean, we had the young man from the paternity talking on and on about parking.

We have two parking um items on the agenda tonight.

I hear all the time about parking issues, especially in these in town older neighborhoods with narrow streets and limited on-site parking.

At the very minimum, we you know, we should make sure that these are only allowed in properties that already have those on-site minimum parking standards met.

I would like to see an on-site parking space for a unit.

Um, stormwater management.

I repeatedly have had constituents who have a neighbor put up a garage or something, and all of a sudden the stormwater is washing out their backyard.

Um, you know, I feel like that's something that should be worked into an ordinance.

Where does that stormwater go?

Um, tree canopy.

How many of these you know student housing profiteers are gonna just rip out trees to pop pop these things up and double their income?

The entry location, like where precisely would the entry.

I think that this does address it somewhat in the orientation of the ADU, but I I think we need to make sure that you know people aren't having an entrance right outside their bedroom window or something.

Um lot size.

Maybe we want to consider a minimum lot size for something like this.

Um homestead exemption, I really believe that you know these should be limited to homestead exempted properties, topography when it comes to sewer.

Um, you know, you may not be able to tap into the sewer line if your ADU is sitting lower than your house.

Um that's something that should be considered.

I mean, these are certainly not affordable to build for for the vast majority of families, um, just the infrastructure alone.

Um, and will they be allowed to tap into the existing infrastructure, or will they be required to tap into a new line at the street?

Uh I know apparently that's the requirement now, even in those RM zones, and that makes it even more expensive.

Um do we want to come up with a special use permit for ADUs that go beyond a certain criteria?

Um trash and mail.

Does it is it a single address for trash and mail, or is it two?

I just feel like it's there's so many concerns and complexities to have some an ordinance that's this vague and broad.

I I'm just really disappointed that we're the ones that have to bring this up.

At the very least, we should have a work session about it.

Um this needs to go back to the planning commission.

I mean, only half the commissioners have even seen it.

I don't the discussion seems like it was, I didn't watch it.

I'm gonna go back and watch that meeting because it just seems like there was very little discussion of the nuances that are absolutely necessary for something like this.

Um I hope we can pass an ADU ordinance.

I really do, because I want to build one, but we really need to be very, very careful and nuanced about it, and see to it that it's just not opening the floodgates to gentrify all our neighborhoods with overpriced student housing.

Commissioner Fisher.

Yeah, thank you, thank you, Mayor.

And I think uh my colleagues' point um Commissioner Link, you know, one thing we talked about when we first started talking about our future land use, you know, two things I always wrote up with infrastructure and our zoning ordinance.

We should not be piecemealing our zoning stuff.

We're gonna do zoning.

We need to do an overall zoning for those community and what does that mean and what that doesn't look like in the future.

Um I would not vote for this.

I think we need to deny it.

I think we need to go back to the drawing board, take a look at what we got, and really understand our zone orders have not been changed in over 20 years.

And we need to start fine-tuning some stuff to Melissa Lynx, um, Commissioner Lynx point, and we can't rush this through and can't peach mill it.

So my suggestions would be we take um, I don't even want to send it back to the plan commission.

We deny it.

Um I want to see um when we take office in January, start looking at this to really understand what the impact is gonna be in the form of housing is number one.

Going around this community, that's what I've been hearing.

Housing, housing housing.

And we do need housing, we understand that.

But that's the way we need to do it.

And we can't rush this.

We got to do it right.

We can't just put a zoning stuff and just throw it out there and see what stick.

We just can't do that as a community.

And I'm not gonna support anything like that until we really do.

We take a look at it, but let our community tell us what they think our ordinance needs to look like and really have some really dialogue so we can have some good zoning ordinance as we move forward in the future and what this community's gonna look like over the next five, 10 or 15 years.

So I'll say let's deny it.

Go back to the drawing board, let's take a look at all our zones.

Oh, we have six things up there.

Not sure where they picked out two, but there's more than those those six things, that's some other stuff that we need to look at when it comes to our zoning.

So we gotta look at infrastructure, and we gotta look at how those zone is gonna impact those infrastructures as we move forward.

So that's my um opinion there.

Got uh Commissioner Thornton and then Taylor.

I um was going to save my comments for item number 25.

Um, which to me is directly related.

No, I'm not going to um support this, even though, even though I do believe that folks should have the right to do what they need to do on their property.

The reason I'm not going to support it is because I have access I have been on this commission to be inclusive in our discussions, but yet and still it seems that the meeting that's when everybody comes from whatever side um they are.

We when the project with the fraternity house, and I mentioned how they reached out, how they included people in the conversation, how people of different um ages were involved.

We don't do that.

I think uh Mr.

Lonnie said that they reached out to, I wrote it down, uh public utility.

It's the basic government groups.

It's the basic government groups.

And I keep saying this, and I can say this now because I'm up this is my last term.

I have said this a hundred times.

Every time y'all make a decision, it makes it look like the commission sealed it, you know, put the stamp of approval.

Your jobs to me is to understand what we're asking for and bring us what we asked for, what the community asks us for, and not come up with your own plan.

Yeah.

Um, so if that sounds a little rough, you wait till we get to item 25.

Yeah, I just want to make one clarifying point to that, um, which is this was presented by the GIT committee at a workshop, and I want to read specifically what the direction was from the GIT committee.

Okay, and I'm gonna clear that.

And it and it said that um what was being recommended was um our proposal is to simply change the nef definition of guest house.

That was it.

There was a whole bunch of other stuff that was background, but that's the direction that Bruce and the planning commission received from Ewell when you passed the resolution that said move this forward, move the GIC committee recommendations forward.

We're happy to take any of those other revisions and changes, but I'm not gonna let staff take the heat for crafting something that was clearly spelled out in those GIC recommendations.

I'm going to say this about what was clearly spelt out and private conversations, uh, and maybe they should have been more public.

Um let's do low-hanging fruit.

Let's work on those little things, such as um smaller lot sizes or blah blah blah.

But the second one, but I get that.

But I'm saying you took the big piece and started.

I would have assumed that we this would be a so forgive me if I misunderstood how this should have moved.

I really was excited about um changing the rezoning for manufactured homes.

You know, um Benny Coleman made a good point and said that to the committee, because guess what?

I was on the committee, so I know what I say it.

So that is part now.

You done took my thunder for 25, okay.

And again, all of all, and I don't know you know this, all of the recommendations that the GIT committee made that were in your resolution, have all gone to or are all in the process of going to the planning commission and coming forward with those.

So all of those items, I mean part of what I'm gonna ask at the end of all of this discussion, not today, but when the final when the actual vote is cast, is uh if there's not an interest in moving those other items that get recommended forward, and I'll I'll remind everyone too, there was stated opposition to some of these item items and ideas at the work session, when still the the commission directed staff to proceed, move forward on those.

So if there is not interest in moving those, I'm not interested in having staff spend their time in the planning commission having to spend their time on addressing these items.

I mean we are carrying forward what we were asked to do by the GIT committee and by the commission through the resolution.

If there is not an interest in moving forward on that, that's perfectly fine, or if there's interest in doing it in a different way, that's perfectly fine as well.

I just don't want to be in a position where it's assumed that Bruce and his staff decided to do something completely different than what was asked for, because that is not the case.

I'm gonna wait for 25.

Let me move on to Commissioner Taylor.

So a lot.

Okay, I haven't spoken a lot, so I have what to say.

Um, first off, Bruce, you're absolutely right.

Mike brought this up.

Um when Bruce presented it to us, Mike brought up all of the points that this by um this community has brought up, as well as the the reality of riding through Mike's district and my district and a part of Ovidas district is the fact that you see the reality of what ADE ADUs do in single family um residential neighborhoods, and the fact that characteristics of communities change.

Art Street, when I grew up on Art Street, we didn't even know these many houses could even go in one little small spot.

Now you have two two-story houses and an ADU and in house in a on a piece of land where my grandma house sat.

Um, and so that that's the reality, and also to the homeless point, the people in my district who are being evicted, they're not going to be able to afford ADUs because they can't afford a housing authority.

Um the fact that we do have private interest that comes into the community that buys up land and and marginalized communities at an all-time high, pushes us out, and we work here and our children go to school here.

But you're absolutely right, Bob.

We push this text amendment further, even though Mike told us not to.

But I'm also on the GIT committee, so and I have a presentation coming up, so wait for ours to decide that we don't want to do what the Git committee says.

But um, I do appreciate what um the planning department has done, and I also commend everyone who came up to this podium to speak about what this text amendment can do to their communities because I think it's very important that one blanket amendment because it will affect all of us differently.

Um, and so I won't be supporting this because I I've already see what it does to single family communities, and every one of those zonings is zonings of district three.

Um, and so if I go through with this, I will be willing, even though a lot of my um residents can't afford to build their own ADUs, a private equity company will come in and push us out and build their own.

Um, and so I just yeah, so no.

Got uh Commissioners Davenport and Myers, I believe, are on the phone, so we'll start with Commissioner Davenport.

Good, Commissioner Myers.

Y'all hear me?

Yes.

Okay, yeah.

Um, I've been listening to this uh attentively, uh you know, from uh from my little room that I'm in here, uh listening to everyone speak.

Um you know, this is what we asked the planning department to do.

So I wanted the planning commission to look at.

So this is not a surprise.

Um it is obviously something that needs more discussion, folks from the emails that we received in the comments tonight.

Um there most likely need to be more guardrails on any kind of uh new text amendment that addresses some of these, some of these issues that are that are brought up.

But I I want to make an observation.

Um I don't know the exact number, but I think there were about like 27 speak people who spoke to this item.

Okay, I am now in the senior category myself.

I am over 65.

I get a retirement, I own a home, and uh I get Medicare.

I think every single person who got up and spoke against this tonight is in the same category as they of the four people who spoke for, there were three people who were clearly younger.

Okay, I think Clark County has a course 12 percent of the population of 65 years old and older.

I would like to hear from the people who are 18 to 64 uh in the community what they want in terms of housing.

They're not all students.

We have a lot of people.

We have 60 percent of our people who are renters and who are really uh you know who are struggling because of the high rent.

As one as one uh commentator tonight mentioned, this is not an end-all, you know, it's not gonna transform a community overnight either.

But it's not it's not the answer, it's not the complete answer to affordable housing at all.

But there is not one complete answer.

There's a bunch of levers, and we have to decide which we're gonna push down.

Now, if if we don't want to push this down, we won't push it down.

There has to be six thoughts for it.

But we have to be clear that this is the levers that talked about across the nation in terms of affordability, um, and creating affordable housing.

Again, needs guardrails, needs forward, needs more public discussion, but um to this count is based on the overabundance of comments we heard tonight from people in my age demographic, but I'm not hearing from the people who are struggling for to pay their rent to find a place to live.

But I'm not hearing from the people who are struggling or to pay their rent to find a place to live.

I want to hear from those people.

So anyone who's out there listening, let us hear her.

And uh that's my comment tonight on this topic.

Um thank you.

I um appreciate the feedback because it's very strong that the people who have their place now are seeing bad examples of the current version of an accessory dwelling um in their neighborhoods, and to open, I think it would be a floodgate, but but part of the details, like Commissioner Link started off saying that the details that are missing, one of them would be that I could see that a new subdivision could be built and accessory dwellings in the description that we saw tonight in that description could be in a new unit and went a new place.

When you buy there, you know it's there, you you might have one, you might buy a unit that has it, you might buy a unit that doesn't.

It's not a a new dropped-in thing to your sanctuary backyard where everybody uh your neighbors also enjoys the not having a dwelling back there.

The parking is a major no for me that we would not require the parking on on the site to uh size and the amount.

I also don't think that the AR zoning should take the burden of this.

We don't even allow chicken coops in the front yard, so I don't understand why we would allow uh this with the spaces there, but it changes the character.

Um we had a project I think on game school didn't pass, but it had a variety of housing options within that complete development.

So if we could have accessory dwellings for new builds, not in existing zones, that sort of strategy I think would allow some versatility and affordability for people to build more housing.

Um but I do agree that um the solution um is not in this text amendment.

Uh anyone else before I return to Commissioner Link?

Uh Commissioner Johnson.

Thank you.

In September 2025 and in August 2024, the AJC reported that Athens Habitat for Humanity and Future Foundations respectively was constructing 160 square feet tiny homes.

They envisioned using the units for to address the homelessness crisis in Athens, Georgia, but the current minimum dwelling has prevented the concept from moving forward.

I'm not saying at all that habitat caused this amendment, but it is sufficiently connected, and it's worth me asking.

Was this amendment requested by Athens Area Habitat for Humanity, Future Foundations, a developer, or other specific applicant?

This amendment was requested by the commission through resolution based on the presentation by the Git Committee at work session.

Thank you.

Number two.

We don't want those communities.

We need to be able to afford where we live, and I'm comfortable in a tiny home.

That that option was never afforded to the scores of residents that came before us, at least since 2014, to my to my recollection.

Number three.

Oftentimes we don't know it until you do, and it feels like a hijack.

I think oftentimes resolutions are unclear, they're not very specific.

I have found myself the language is questionable and it's not purposeful.

I'm not going to claim that, but it speaks to a longer review process and discussion before a vote.

We shouldn't receive a resolution that didn't have a work session, receive a resolution and expect to vote because interpretation means everything.

And I think we've seen mistakes happen, and commissioners, past commissioners, say, oh, that's not what I meant.

That's not what I thought it was going to do.

And I think that's really important for us all to going forward study these recommendations from the resolutions.

I agree the amendment does not contain any affordability requirement.

I didn't see any language related to owner occupancy.

And I a guest house, I'm not sure why that was a task for the get committee.

I'm not on the get committee, and I don't attend the meetings, so I can't speak to it.

But if it doesn't speak to affordability, and trying to provide dense density that people can afford to provide more homes.

That's all I have.

Yeah, I mean, I I want to speak to the concept of ADUs within existing structures.

I I feel like that's where you can get some affordability.

You know, it's a lot more affordable to convert your basement or your garage or a couple a wing of your home into a small studio apartment.

Um building a standalone, whole new standalone structure is, you know, even if it's a teeny tiny thing like that, it's gonna cost you at least a hundred grand.

Um, you know, maybe maybe converting a shed, especially a shed that might already have plumbing or an outside garage, that that might be more affordable.

But um, you know, I feel like we should kind of treat existing structure tiny homes, and you know, within exist within existing livable structure or uh ADUs differently than new construction.

Um I mean, yeah, that like again, this is such a complex issue, and there are so many levels, and and I mean, you know, even within our neighborhoods, we have so many different lot sizes and and topography.

It's just it's it's and what we've been presented is something that's very broad brushed and vague.

And it I really I I want to see it happen.

I want to see us get an ADU ordinance.

I want people to be able to do this because there is so much need out there, and it's not even necessarily need for like affordable housing, but it's just families, like people with aging parents and caregiver needs and and you know, boomerang children, and and I mean it's there there is some definite, definite need, and they already exist, especially within our older in town neighborhoods, they already exist, and they're of no burden at all to neighbors.

But if you get them in every single backyard, and there aren't some regulations, it I I feel like you know there are profiteers out there that would really take advantage of it.

Um just needs a lot of nuance.

It needs a lot of nuance.

Um, and I know we don't like to do nuance here, but if there's ever an issue that needs it, it it's it's this.

We're talking literally about people's backyards, literally.

Commissioner uh Fisher, then Thor.

Yeah, and and um Bob, I want to respond to um your comment.

And I I most definitely don't want to throw the planning commission all the planning department under the bus, but we hear those discussion tonight from my colleagues.

So what bothers me then is we send something over to the planning commission, and they really didn't send us nothing really back to having a chief.

So I think that's a frustration of my colleagues.

What I'm hearing is, yeah, okay.

It might have been vague, but that's man, let's really take a look at this.

See what the impact is gonna be on this community, how we can come up with a really good plan.

Oh well, um, Commissioner Lincoln's talking about all these things.

We're coming up with these ideas, and that's for smart people on the planning commission.

Why not say that's seen like it was rushed?

Is that you just want to put something through there just to check a box?

Well, I'm not checking boxes.

We need to have some teeth when we come to the zoning, coming out orders, and making sure that it's gonna fit the characteristics of our neighborhoods and this community.

So I think for me, that's what I want to say.

That's why I said, you know, that's just back up.

And if we do need to give more margin orders or be real specific, I think we can do it.

There's enough smart people in this commission that can do that, can make those suggestions, but I think that's why we sent it there because they were gonna come back with some really good ideas, some really good stuff that we can really use.

We might not always agree with it, but it would be a little it need a lot more teeth.

I think it just wasn't.

And I think that that's a different set of directions than what was given.

I don't disagree with that.

I mean, actually, if the direction had simply been we need we need ADU regulations, planning commission go craft those.

It was in response to some very specific recommendations that were presented at the work session and were intentionally intended to be very limited and very fast.

I mean that that was very explicit.

All of those, um, there's I think five or six, right?

Five or six items in there.

All of those were intended to be developed in very simplistic ways and moved very quickly.

That's why I said if at the end of all of this, there's not an interest in this piece, I would suggest revisiting all of those because they may all result in the exact same outcome because what GIC was trying to do was establish fairly quick meaningful changes that would move the needle and affordable housing and routed through the planning commission to do so.

And that was the limit of the instruction.

That's very different than saying planning commission, we need you to actually originate the idea, not originate, but actually craft accessory dwelling units.

Here's some parameters that we would suggest that you know you might consider um in that development, and then they would go through that process.

That just wasn't the process we're they were reacting to.

Um so yes, I think it can be done in a completely different way if there's a desire to move in that direction.

And so just as legislative process, some of that detail can happen at the resolution stage when you say, hey, you know, these are some contours around the marching orders, or it can happen at this phase where we say, hey, you know, we we appreciate the work you've done, but you didn't hit the mark on these three items or these 14 items, Commissioner Lake.

16, I believe there's 16 on my list.

Commissioner Thornton.

Um I will be able to do that.

Again, again, uh you know, there's there has been um a former um, and we've had several, so you don't know who I'm talking about.

Uh former uh manager said when I would flip about something, well, this is what the commission said, and I'm like, no, that's not what I meant.

And so, yeah, I get it.

You know, what might have been uh uh a green light to go did not look like what I thought it was going to turn out to be.

That I guess so I want to give staff credit for at least putting you gave us something to work with.

You gave this commission and this community something to work with.

I am so concerned, I would like to see more community input.

Um, but those things that are little things, like um, whatever's a little.

Um I I thought that's what we were gonna get.

I really did.

And I thought, sure, and I've said this at the GIC meetings, we need to focus on manufactured homes.

It should not have been the fourth thing down on that list.

Manufactured homes, because you have uh people who own property, they can't even put a manufacture home up there because of our zoning.

I just assumed, and we know what assumed means.

I just assumed that was clear.

I did not know we were going to have a text amendment complexity.

I I didn't know.

So I apologize for that.

Thank you for supporting your staff, but I gotta support me right now, and the people that have come to speak to us tonight, and there were things that were said.

I'm gonna tell you, I hurt my feelings a little bit, but I'll tell you all about it later, the ones of you that are my friends.

Um were my friends.

Um I think we all want the same thing, but can we how do we get the same thing?

You some of y'all are the same folk that have come before us about homelessness.

You can't you what what are y'all what are we gonna put on the table to address homelessness?

So the ADU.

Well, I'm trying to wait to 25.

Go ahead.

I've got uh Commissioner Johnson, then Commissioner Link, then we're gonna move on to the next item on the agenda.

I was just reading the minutes from the March 3rd, 2026 meeting where the resolution states the Athens Park County Get Committee identified six areas for modification.

Is that what you were speaking about?

Yes, yes.

It says of local ordinances that could that could enhance the availability and affordability of housing, which included allowances of accessory dwelling units, greater use of single family attached units, smaller and less expensive homes, such as manufactured manufactured dwellings, reduction or elimination of minimum and street frontage requirements, smaller lot and home sizes, and reduction of parking minimums.

Some of what is in the text amendment is in this, but the affordability and increasing the housing is not, and that those are the two most important things that this commission has discussed since I've been on since last January.

And all of those items that you just read off are all parts of text amendments that are working their way their way through.

Um I do want to touch on the manufactured home one because it is in the pipeline, it will be coming forward.

And I can assure you, I'm gonna say it right now on the record.

This room will be full of people opposing what the GIC has recommended for houses for for mobile homes.

I mean, what I'm gonna read it.

It says the the GIC has recommended that the ban on manufactured homes and all residential zoning districts be removed, which means residential lots would be permitted to have manufacturing.

That's the direction that has been given to the planning commission.

And I can tell you this room will be full of people opposing that.

And I think you're right.

I'm gonna move to Commissioner Lincoln.

One more thing.

I I don't know if anybody saw um we were sent um Gwyneth's ADU ordinance.

And um, I want to encourage everyone to take a look at it.

They have about a dozen items, criteria.

I mean, I I feel like we could go, you know, two or three further than that, especially considering the pressure we have from the student market.

But um Gwinnett has an a nice straightforward ADU ordinance that has very specific criteria and limitations that I think we could we could mimic and get something that that I feel like you know, a good portion of our community could live with Bruce.

We're moving on to the encore.

Part two.

So the other text amendment on the agenda this evening deals with minimum dwelling unit size also coming out of the resolution.

Um the current code like the the entire code language of what's current and proposed is on the screen.

So I'll just leave this up here.

Um what we have had in the code as long as I've worked here, and I believe it was a carryover pre-unification, was that single family homes, RS zones with with a couple exceptions would have to have a thousand square foot um uh living area per unit.

Um we also have a diminishing of that square footage requirement when you're in more dense single family, the RS5, and in the RM districts, you can have 600 square feet of floor area per unit.

That's in our code today, and multifamily dwellings can go as small as 450 square feet um per unit.

When we started working on this, we were looking for for ways to move forward, and one of our speakers earlier referenced this text amendment in their comments.

Um what we found was in working with our our building code uh or building inspections department, rather.

Um, as we were sitting and talking about what they need, they handed me the manual that they use when they visit properties to do a code compliance check on when you have substandard housing.

So when there is housing in town that is too small, that is not functioning properly, and there's a code issue, they use what we have already adopted, which is the International Property Maintenance Code.

This has already been adopted by Athens Clark County.

This is what we work with.

So we thought, well, let's not create something new, let's use the rules that we already have, and honestly, the the rules that we're already using for code enforcement, that makes the most sense.

Um so we did, and we have stricken uh what you see on the screen, which had those numbers, and we just have a reference to this section of code.

Um happy to share this with you, and I can give you quotes from it, um, but it does provide considerable latitude when designing uh uh a living unit.

Um couple things I'll read from it.

Every living room shall contain not less than 120 square feet, every bedroom shall contain not less than 70 square feet, every bedroom occupied by more than one person shall not contain less than 50 square feet.

Um obviously that gets difficult because you don't know how many bunk beds that may appear, um, but 70 square feet per bedroom.

We can work with that.

And then it gets into distances from uh entryways and distances off of kitchen appliances for safety.

The focus here is safety.

One of the things I will point out also that as we were drafting this, we were um reinforced that our direction was correct by a recent court case of at the end of 2025 with the city of Calhoun, and there was a determination made, there was a challenge brought to the minimum square footage uh that Calhoun had in their code.

And there was a determination made, there was a challenge brought to the minimum square footage that Calhoun had in their code.

And what was found was that it was arbitrary.

And I believe it was Dodge County Superior Court.

The court finding was that you you just can't have a number that you can't support, and it's not related to health, safety, and welfare to do so.

So what we're seeing is a legal environment where these types of numbers that are in our code are being challenged successfully.

And what we need to have is a basis that falls in line with health, safety, and welfare, which is the underlying purpose of why we have zoning and home rule for having those types of regulations.

So that's what we did.

So the text amendment we have is minimum habitable floor area requirement references this code as published by the ICC, the International Code Council, and is referenced in Athens Clark County Code Section 711, which lists all of the codes that we have adopted.

What we will have with this is educational materials.

Because not everybody can afford to pay.

These aren't free.

I'll say that.

But what we'll have is if we've adopted this by reference, then we have the latitude to produce this information in educational materials so that people won't have to guess.

What we will also have are images that show how this piece of code can be applied to a layout.

Every example on the screen meets the standards that are in the International Property Maintenance Code.

So we will make sure to have this type of information available, and staff will be able to work with property owners and builders and contractors and just general applicants about how to achieve compliance should this text amendment be adopted.

So that ends a staff report.

And what this is in response to the recommendation.

We haven't said it, but it's the recommendation related to tiny homes.

I mean, what this is is this is basically responding to the recommendation, which was remove the artificial and probably not able necessarily even to be substantiated limit or minimum size of a home and instead only link it to a standard, and that standard being health safety.

And so that allows the homes to become smaller, but not so small that they're not actually meeting minimum health standards.

So that's that's what this one is in response to that request out of the proposals to enable tiny homes.

All right.

Oh, I'm sorry, we do have one opportunity for public input.

Hey everybody, John, I'm a renter in district two.

Opinions here shared on my own, and don't reflect my employer, any organization I'm affiliated with.

You heard everything I said before.

I support this ordinance amendment for a lot of the same reasons.

Uh we talked, I thank you, Commissioner Thornton, for mentioning, you know, what are we gonna do about homelessness?

Um I think the rut when the rubber hits the road, we have to make hard decisions on how we make homes for our neighbors and for people in our community.

I think that this is another text amendment that could greatly impact our ability to boost our housing supply elasticity to build more housing in the context of having limited land area to build on and limited infrastructure on which we want to build those homes.

If we want to make a dent on homelessness, we have to make a dent on our housing supply.

Uh, that also will relieve the burden that renters like myself have surviving, living here, working here uh without having to work two jobs.

Um if I want to build a house that's smaller than a thousand feet, I mean, that's that size, I guess.

I don't know who are we to say that I can't live in a small house, or to say that someone else can't live in a small house.

Now's a chance to do something about our housing shortage, uh allowing for smaller homes will undoubtedly boost our housing supply elasticity, which again the statistics suggest we'll have long-term impacts on reducing homelessness.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Morris.

All right, Commissioner Culpepper.

Never mind.

I thought this had to do with the SAT ADUs now by one of the board we're talking about that we have to figure out, but this is besides the primary residence.

Never mind.

Uh Commissioner Lincoln and Commissioner Wright.

Yeah, I mean, I hope we can move forward with this.

Um I I live in a house surrounded by sub-1,000 square feet foot homes.

I I live in a house surrounded by sub-1,000 square foot foot homes.

You know, and some of them have full families in them.

The house across the street from me has four adults and two kids in it.

This is how people lived for most of history.

I mean, you travel through the countryside and you see the little cottage and then you see the big one next to it.

Um I feel like this is a no-brainer.

Uh unlike the other item.

Commissioner Wright.

Um yeah, I also uh hope that we can move this forward because I think it aligns with um the setbacks, right?

Bruce, it would be our infill setbacks.

It already has the parameters around it, it's less uh complicated.

We have lots that um because of that minimum sizing can't be habitable, it's an empty lot.

So and we spent what 18 months on the infill details for infill housing, and this fits under it with it being a smaller one as I understand it.

So again, I I hope that we can move this one forward.

Commissioner Taylor.

How do we regulate it?

I probably how do we regulate it to make sure that it does not turn into a um short-term rental or a party house.

I I have a um red tiny house um over on Winterville.

Old winter village.

Oh, Winterville Road.

Yes.

And it's in a diggy hit by a car.

God, it is so not funny.

I'm so sorry.

But anyway, is and it is unplugged.

I I can't say that I'm against the ADUs and say that I'm um for tiny houses, but I do see one in my district.

My my major concern would be how do we ensure that tiny homes, I mean, because we can't even make sure regular size homes go to families.

So how do we, you know, because it's it could serve all of the things, it could serve missing middle, um, you know, and it could fit a small family, but when this is allowed to be built, there is a um there's already a notion in in Clark County that you know we're gonna we're gonna work the zone in so that it works so that it pays us.

And at the end of the day, families are still shut out.

And so I I you know, as we continue to explore options, we also need to ensure the enforceability of any type of middle missing, you know, middle missing housing or um hey, take it some.

I'm sorry, text amendments, you know, so that more families aren't pushed out because developers know how to use the codes that we put forth to benefit them, and because it's not enforced, we're still shooting ourselves in the foot.

And so Bruce, do you want to talk about kind of how this correlates with our SDR regulations?

So the short-term rental regulations vary by zoning districts.

So in the RS zones, the single family zones, it's only allowed as a home occupation.

Right, right?

So and there's a whole permitting process for that, and that that allows us to we just have more documentation for enforcement because we're working with a home occupation.

This minimum dwelling unit size applying across other zoning classifications like RM.

Well, in the RM zone, short-term rental doesn't have to rely on well, actually it does.

It has to rely on the home occupation permit as well.

It's only our commercial zones where you can do the non-owner occupied or non-long-term tenant occupied um short-term rental.

So that this is reducing square footage when which may, I guess, result in in units being built that are designed for short-term rental use, but those short-term rental regulations are still going to come into play as if it were any other size.

The regulations we've got right now, I think we're finding out are fairly enforceable.

Um we're early in that process, um, so our track record is growing.

Um Commissioner Taylor, I guess I'm just thinking in practical effect, you might have a 500 square foot uh home that's smaller than what current code allows, and you know, every football game weekend you decide to go stay with your sister and and rent that out.

So that would be allowed under code.

Oh, okay.

Okay, Commissioner Thornton.

Yeah, I want to uh just go on record.

Um I do like this text amendment, and um I keep thinking about um that one on the lower left places that may be built in the future um zone would require being able to build those smaller or you know the smaller size houses not and I'm not referring to ADEs or uh backyard cottages per se, but I could see where this provides housing for our vulnerable veterans for um that are unhoused.

Um maybe a small family.

It also, and again, and I'm talking about new development and new buildings.

It also probably decreases the cost of building, so builders can still make a profit, but maybe not as you know, make enough as equal to a smaller unit.

So I do like this because I'm I'm I'm I get the calls that that folk would be happy with something like this to people who are who just can't afford to live where they're living.

So um, yeah, I like this one.

Thanks, Commissioner.

All right, everybody ready to move on to old new business.

Yes.

All right.

All right, I'm gonna relocate so that we may do that.

All right, everyone.

Uh we had uh two items removed from the consent agenda to move to discussion.

Those were items 12 and 13.

So now's the time we're taking public input on 12 and 13 and 23 through 30.

So if any member of the public would like to speak to 1213 or 23 through 30, now is that time.

We just won't have the good evening.

Hello, my name is John.

I'm a runner in district two.

Opinion shared of my own and do not reflect my employer, any organization with which I am affiliated.

Three years ago in 2023, I and a few colleagues did a forum with the Athens Chamber of Commerce.

I remember specifically, I believe Mr.

Upchurch, who was here earlier, asked me directly um about data and the costs of homeless solutions.

I told that audience and Mr.

Upchurch that if anyone had a good guess on how many unhoused individuals uh are surviving in our shelters on our streets and in undeveloped parcels in the woods in our community, that it would be me and my team.

And I could assure him that there was no reliable real-time data source.

ACC chose to fund the homeless coalition to begin to gather that real-time data and an updated coordinated entry system and pursue long-term solutions.

Fast forward three years, and you have a resolution before you with that real-time data cited within it.

The Atlanta Rising Initiative in Atlanta successfully housed 490 people from homelessness over the past year because the Atlanta City government found properties to build housing on for that specific purpose.

During that time, Atlanta shut down a number of homeless encampments by helping encampment residents move into housings first.

Apologies for not having the exact numbers before me, but last year we lost over two dozen members of our unhoused community that died.

We've lost over a dozen already this year.

We've had over five dozen camps shut down in the past two years.

Those people don't have the opportunity to move into housing.

They get shuffled onto another parcel of woods where they trespass and set up shop where the same thing inevitably happens.

I love that this resolution affirms ACC's commitment to ending homelessness through compassionate, fiscally responsible and evidence-based solutions.

I love that this resolution directs staff to locate land where we as a community can consider action.

I love that this resolution asks for buy-in of institutional partners like the hospitals, educational institutions, um, and other stakeholders in Athens to get involved more meaningfully, um, which has demonstrated success in peer communities.

Asheville is one I would look towards.

I would like to see it added that ACC pursues partnerships with neighboring counties in some official legislative capacity to pursue and support Athens Cork County in solving this regional housing crisis.

Um while this is simply a resolution and not an ordinance, please show the many of us with clients and friends and family dying in our streets and in our woods that you see them and want to do something about it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Morris.

Is there anyone else here to speak to any item of old or new business tonight?

Good evening.

Hey, good evening.

Yes, again, Jesse Sephen 327 Oglethorpe Ave Apartment 2 in Athens.

And like John, I want to speak in support of item 29, the resolution for homelessness support.

Um and I don't have a a lot of policy or detail behind it like he does, but but I understand there's three key points that this would affirm a desire on behalf of the of Athens Clark County to look for opportunities to build shelter and housing to strengthen partnerships with organizations that serve people who don't have housing and affirm a commitment to prevention and reduction.

That seems like something that we ought to get behind as a community, and it's something that whenever I walk by somebody on the street who clearly doesn't have a place to live.

Um it hurts your heart a little bit.

And so I hope that we as a community can support efforts like this to um help make that not happen anymore.

Thanks.

Good night.

Thank you, Mr.

Stephen Tripp.

Is there anyone else here to speak to any item of older new business tonight?

Good evening.

Hi.

Ken Border 160 Spruce Valley Road, Athens, Cedar Creek.

I want to speak to 26, the partnership with the University of Georgia for the GOT LMIG submitment and IGA for South Millage.

I volunteer at the State Botanical Garden uh once a week, and I visit there two or three times a week.

And I have to tell you that uh South Millage at the current entrance to the State Botanical Gardens is very dangerous.

And I know the garden is moving its entrance further east to alleviate some of that concern, and the university is paying for that movement.

But we've asked specifically why they don't put a roundabout there, because that would slow the traffic down.

The traffic is 50 miles an hour in front of that area, and um I can't tell you how many minutes I've sat there behind an older visitor as they try to look over the hill and figure out if a car is coming.

50 miles an hour.

Moving it 20-30 feet, that's gonna help a little bit.

A roundabout will slow the traffic down.

They are putting a roundabout in front of the um new um track and field facility.

That's gonna slow it down, but as we all know, the minute they exit that the foot goes on the accelerator and they're off to the next roundabout at um I always forget the name of that road.

Whitehall.

Whitehall at Whitehall, and they're gonna be blasting along because there's nothing there, wide shoulders.

So I encourage you to approve that agreement.

I know there's no money unless the state comes up with the money, but I think it's a good thing for the county to do and to work with the university on that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Fortier.

Last call for older new business public input.

All right, we're gonna go ahead and come to discussion.

And Commissioner Link, you asked that items 12 and 13 be removed uh for brief comment, and so I'll hit you up for number 12.

Yeah, I I just wanted to remove it to point out that yet again we have items that deal with parking in our our older inner neighborhoods where the streets are super narrow and many homes don't have driveways.

Um, you know, this is something I hear about every other day.

Um you know it makes it necessary to yellow curb in those neighbor in those neighborhoods just so a fire truck or a bus can get through.

Um so I mean that's that's the reality of the world we live in.

People have cars, um, even if they don't drive them all the time, they have to park them somewhere.

So um just wanted to make that point and um I'm happy to put it back on the consent agenda.

Both of them.

Any other input on 12?

Everybody okay with that back on consent?

Yeah, all right.

I uh I guess that summarized your 13 input as well.

Yes, yes.

Any other comment on 13?

Everybody okay with that back on consent?

Yep.

Let's do it.

All right, moving forward to old business.

We have a couple items of old business.

Uh 23 is the off-discussed naming of the East Broad Street Bridge over the North Coney is the Weaver D's Bridge Automatic for the People.

Any input on that item?

Commissioner Wright.

Yeah, I'd I'd like to put it on consent.

Um I would also like in the follow-up email if we could get the number of uh Dexter Weaver's petition signatures.

I know it had to be the thousand threshold, but if y'all would share with me, so I suspect he got over that with the timeline that he had.

Um consent is fine.

Quick questions.

But I think an oil's name, he had a signature, right?

I think they would have to be able to do that.

Yeah, he does, but I just want to know the wow.

How many?

Because I'm he I know he had the minimum.

Okay.

But he could he might have more.

Okay.

Okay, yeah.

Being as okay, how he is.

All right, 23 said we can't.

Automatic.

All right.

Uh item 24 is an intergovernmental agreement with UGA uh regarding the North Coney Access Road.

I know there's a uh meeting of residents that's coming up regarding that.

So any input on that one?

I would rather to wait.

Can I pull it?

Well, well, well, it's already it's already pulled.

Okay, that's fine.

That's fine.

Yeah, I just wanted to share that when I uh had Bailey Street in my district.

Um the com the I had a lot of comments from the residents at that dead end.

They were concerned about things happening back there because of the dead end, the safety of it.

Um they were concerned about the coming and goins.

And um Commissioner Myers, uh, Commissioner Wright's speaking, and I'll call on you right after that.

And so um I and I'm would like to know in the follow-up, not right now, but in the follow-up email, if there's any feedback from the fire department or the police department, because it seems to me that the dead end of that point uh is the opening that up and having it to where emergency vehicles can come from uh two directions would be helpful because an emergent uh um ambulance wouldn't make it in if there was a situation.

And and also just to remind everybody that the university came forward with this idea as a solution because our bridge was down and had to be repaired to get out to college station, and so then they had people paying for parking permits, and we had to negotiate some different rerouting for our uh water reclamation facility.

Good, Commissioner Myers.

Do you hear her or she can't hear us?

Commissioner Myers.

All right, we're gonna have her follow up via email.

Yeah, uh anyone else?

All right, uh, we're gonna move on to uh item 26.

This is the uh Georgia Initiative for community housing.

Before I made a comment, I just go right ahead.

I'm here, but um I'm okay.

Um, Patrick also mentioned uh we move on.

Who's on there?

Uh Commissioner, I'm about to move on to the next item unless you want to go ahead and begin speaking.

Okay.

Yeah, go right ahead.

Okay.

So she um I'm okay.

Are you still there, Kelly?

Yeah, there's a slight delay.

So what I'm saying isn't coming through to you on YouTube at the same time.

Okay.

All right.

Sounds good.

All right.

Yeah, in addition, I'm I'm sorry, I've been trying to listen to this in two different ways so I can hear it correctly.

Um, I just wanted to follow up on the Bailey Street thing since I motioned last month to hold it.

Um, so residents could be contacted.

And I I want to um I also spent several hours with the Neely family who owned the property originally, um, and sold it to Athens Clark County about 20 years ago, and to learn a little bit more about the family property history.

But um after that, UGA did send communications to all the residents at Bailey and Grove Street in mid-July, June, and then in uh July, I followed up and knocked on the doors with a homeowners on Bailey Street and Growth Street.

Um, didn't have run into any opposition.

Um, but I do encourage anyone who uh you know does have a concern to reach out.

Uh hopefully we've done a good job.

Um I'll continue to encourage us all to or and and uh staff to allow us uh give us knowledge about what's going on as soon as we can so we can get people involved earlier.

Um I also spoke with the county manager about erecting some kind of historical mark on the property um because the Neely family history is really important to the local African American and Athens history in general.

Um so I that's something I'm also pursuing there.

Um you guys have already mentioned the the East Athens Friendship Baptist Church on um Saturday, and I believe Director Booth Bonnie will be there, perhaps someone else.

Um but anyway, I you know I'm glad we had the time to review this and to reach out to people, and uh just wanted to report in on that.

Thanks, Commissioner.

I appreciate it.

We'll leave that off consent.

Uh 25 is um uh proposal from the local Georgia Initiative for Community Housing Group that would clarify the way that uh affordable housing funds that come through the Athens Clark County's general fund uh are provided based on family size.

Uh any questions about that?

This is what I was um waiting for.

Um which I do believe indirectly or directly connects to the text um amendment, and our committee was to expand access to home ownership.

And um when we came up with the uh the banding uh income limits, that was designed that was clearly not using federal dollars, it had to be community dollars.

This looks like the way it's written that we are kind of looking at the um AMI from the federal money.

Now I just need clarification because that that AMI the way was presented is not going to be um be able to be used with uh the federal dollars.

Steph, can you clarify?

Yes, it is still only this is only applicable to those general fund dollars, not to the HUD dollars um associated with the reference to HUD is still so that we have that sort of benchmark to work off of because that adjusts periodically through there.

That way we wouldn't come back every single time to make those adjustments to the bans, but to your point, it is still only applicable to those projects that are general funded projects.

Even so then I think then when we word this, you really need to explain that needs to be clear that um we do not follow the same regulations with this with this banding AMI.

That is, and it was really um addressed because of the housing trust fund money.

That's kind of where we were looking at.

So this to me, if you want to use that as a baseline, that's fine, but yeah, if we need to make it clearer that it is for those general funded projects, we certainly can do that.

I mean, to your point, it's in the it's in the description, I think, of the stuff, but it may not necessarily be adequate in the attachments, and so we can we can certainly do that.

Okay, and so and my next point, and Mike is up here looking at all my notes.

Um we were talking about the eight ADUs and affordability, and this to me, and and that's another reason why I'm not going to support the uh that first text amendment.

Um expanding the general the people who most likely can afford or want to do ADUs, they are nine times out of ten, and I'm not putting, and I guess after tonight, I'm I'm a hundred percent sure that they will not be attracting those families that I'm concerned about.

They're not going to be attract.

So when we talk about expand, there's nothing here that I think again.

I know Bob was was being very clear with me, but there is nothing in that text amendment that really talks about home ownership and accessing the uh, and that's the committee.

That was my point when I said when I when we said one thing, and then when you keep referencing it to GIC, it seems like this is what we said, but most people who are looking for housing, nine times out of ten will not be moving into an ADU.

Yeah, and I think the way that you all structure kind of those recommendations with the gig have kind of that affordability ownership piece, if you will, kind of overlaying on top of all these items.

And so some of these items may 90% of it not check that check that box necessarily, but 10% would.

Other items might be uh the the tiny home version, for example, might be 100% of the affordable piece.

So I think it you would need to look at, I think the way you all structured it is all of these things or some version of them when they're adopted will move the needle on affordability and home ownership.

Each of the individual tools will do that differently, if that makes sense.

Well, it doesn't make that much sense to me because again, if if if ADUs are primarily primarily for renters, I I where is the connection to home ownership?

It it could be in the form of the person that actually owns the primary home actually having an ADU in the backyard that actually generates money income that allows them to stay in their homeowner, stay in a homeownership instead of having to actually leave because of that piece.

You heard a couple of examples of folks who you know, maybe they were getting older and they were on a fixed income, and a way in which they could stay in their home is to have that ADU in the back that itself would be rented.

So that's an example of how that might be.

Those are not going to be nearly as likely as the um say the tiny home example.

If somebody can build a home that they're gonna own that could be smaller, that might make it more affordable for them to buy.

And maybe that this is where I'm just like on this narrow road.

I'm thinking about the people who call me.

I'm thinking about the folk that called the homeless coalition.

I'm thinking about a mother right now who is in dog in caring for her brother because her mother died, and the young man is blind.

I don't have no place to send them other than trying to give them money each week until we so those are the folk that I don't think the group of folk are.

We're talking about almost two, three different groups of people.

And Commissioner, just so we don't belabor this, you you know, I think what you're recognizing is that you need a whole toolbox of solutions, and of course, we're gonna get to that in in just a little bit.

And the piece I would add to that is subsidized housing is an element of that conversation because to your point, there are some of those folks that outside of living in property managed by the housing authority are not going to gain access to housing.

There is no other option.

You cannot build a home affordable enough, whether it's an ADU or a tiny home or anything that they're gonna be able to afford.

So subsidized housing has to be a part of that conversation, also, which is going to be in this community predominantly driven by the housing authority.

Well, I will also say, and I know Kelly's trying to move forward.

Um I am definitely on board with uh the text amendment and this housing initiative being um addressed um next year.

I I because it's too it's too clear, it's too cloudy for me.

So I know it's cloudy for everybody else.

And I do think um you're talking about the ADUs.

I'm talking about it, oh man, because there definitely is some misunder miscommunication.

Uh and I do hope that you um and uh mayor elec will plan on having um a work session or training at the very beginning of the year, so we'll know all y'all will know, um, and we'll all be on the same page.

That's the only point.

Commissioner Lake?

Um I'm good.

Okay.

All right.

Anybody else?

I I do think also the other potential benefit of where this tool could be used is actually as you move forward and implementing the affordable housing fund, because those are general fund dollars that you'll be instructing other folks on what they can do, and this will relate directly to that.

So do you think the text amendment should include if we revisit it or whatever, should spell this out a little bit clearer or not, or is this totally different?

That's totally different.

Okay, yeah, I'm just I'm good.

Yep, I'm good.

All right, child uh 26 is um um partnership application to GDOT uh to collaborate with the University of Georgia regarding uh roundabout at the entrance to the botanical gardens.

Everybody good with consent there.

Can we put that tier um banding income on consent?

Everybody good 25 consent.

All right, we did sure.

25 and 26.

Geez it pee.

All right, uh 27, another prospects is the Jefferson River Road multi-use right of way.

Yep.

All right, long long standing SPLOS for T SWAS project.

All right.

27 is consent as well.

Appreciate that.

All right, uh 28 and 29, uh, in some ways take two different uh tools toward the same challenge of homelessness.

Uh 29, uh, excuse me, 28, we'll get to first.

Uh I want to thank uh Commissioners uh Davenport and Myers who are not here with us in the room tonight, and Commissioner Fisher, who are on the right of way committee, sometimes um you find that plans that you initially make need to be revised somewhat.

And so uh this body adopted some ordinance update language a few months ago that uh through working with the attorney's office and the police department we found out needed a little additional finessing.

Uh this would uh in ordinance language clarify that there is no place on the sidewalk or on the road bed that it is safe to lay down and uh just makes it uh clear in ordinance language.

So uh any questions about this?

I just have a comment if you don't mind.

Uh Commissioner Amby I appreciate you doing this sound like it's it's kind of moving towards uh towards uh the savannah model that we've talked about.

Uh yes.

And uh so I appreciate doing that, and you know, I've said this a few times that we've had a lot of different uh a lot of different uh um the spectrum of political ideology here tonight, and you know, in order for us to really move forward and doing some of our homeless uh population.

Uh the folks on the left need to understand that what we're doing tonight is something that's uh I think gonna help and is compassionate, but we just can't let people sleep outside on the sidewalk like that.

There's nothing compassionate about that.

And the people on the right need to understand that we're gonna have to spend some money in order to fix in order to help the folks uh that we're trying to help.

And I think your resolution is is I I'm assuming you put that resolution on here to help spell that out.

Yes, thank you.

Oh, it always uh so uh questions about 28 before we get to 29.

Uh Commissioner Wright.

Can we suspend the rules and vote on that tonight?

28?

No.

No.

Uh let's check let's give it a moment just so that everybody can absorb it.

No, I'm tired.

We'll be back here two weeks taking care of business.

That's some I just wanted to point out some safety issues with that.

Uh, do you if you guys remember uh uh we had a car fatality that went through the light where Barnett Scholes does a 90-degree turn and gains um and often a person sleeps at that corner, and we're it's very fortunate that that person was not there when this car lost control when that woman lost her life, it could have been a double tragedy.

Commissioner Taylor.

Yeah, um I I get the spirit.

I wholeheartedly get the spirit, and I um know that we have unhoused individuals that sleep downtown.

Um, and I know that it is uh situation.

Um, but I'm curious to know like where are we gonna put them in in are they gonna are they gonna go to jail?

Like are we gonna arrest them?

Okay, and the reason why I say this is because I know um that unhoused individuals end up in jail, and a lot of unhoused individuals would prefer to be there because they're safe and they don't have to worry about um being attacked or any other things that they endure out in the street, but a jail is is not the place.

That's not why we have Clark County um jail is for um our unhoused individuals, and I don't want us to get in a situation where like we're gonna pass this and and that's where we're gonna go.

I I would prefer there be like we're going we're gonna revisit Barber Street, we're gonna redo that school in Barber Street, we're gonna have wraparound services, we're gonna give our unhoused community um more options and better options than just going to jail or to the hospital because they're gonna end um right back out on the street.

Well, you're identifying commissioners uh 29, and and just to make it clear that I don't believe there's anybody from PD here, but it's my understanding that um this would not um compel initial enforcement as jailing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean like if they if they don't move because they're terrified at something that happened to them, which is why they're downtown to begin with, because that's that's literally a thing.

And so and and also another reason our unhoused people, they're not all athens residents, they're not all families that have just been evicted.

These are individuals who have mental health issues, which again to the spirit of 20 well wind.

No, um which is given to the spirit of it, but I I also don't think we should leave it up to just the non-profits to also come up with it.

And I and whether we are or aren't, I just want to make sure that we aren't.

Like I I see how like is is and it's been really hot outside.

Like I've witnessed wholeheartedly what happens to people who get dropped off in Athens, and now you know, we're gonna be moving them from downtown, and so they're gonna go to places like North Avenue where there aren't a lot of lights or um bigger vision that's gonna be moving.

So probably the parts where we're gonna lose a lot more unhoused people, and so I just want us to be responsible because I these are human that come to Athens thinking that they're gonna get resources when a lot of them are met with right, um uh drug addiction and ultimately murder.

So Commissioner Link.

Yeah, I mean, I I have a problem with the number two.

Then what is the definition of a public area?

Um I mean, I totally get you know, preventing people from laying down and sleeping on the sidewalk and and even on benches where like uh you know that are supposed to be accessible to the general public or in a build or like within the right of way and an intersection, those are can be dangerous um situations, but what is the definition of a public area?

Commissioner uh attorney Drake uh I know that Courtney's not with us tonight who worked on this, but Commissioner Link's question is uh what discerns a public area from private area emailed all a member of the mayor commission.

I mean, I I I get what I get what Commissioner Taylor is getting at.

Um I mean this is a I must say that this ordinance mirrors some of the other ones that other committees in Georgia have done.

If you got she'll answer that question, but if you have any other questions, she knows this back and forth because she's done so much work on it.

So I I mean I'm you know, is it is it okay for someone to lay down and take an afternoon nap propped up against a tree in the post office lawn, you know.

Like I I don't see why that should be a problem.

I don't think this regulates that area because we don't control the post power problem.

Let me let me since I was on the on that task force.

Let me um comment.

I think the attempt was uh to Commissioner Taylor's point is not to arrest um a homeless population uh if they have the violation.

I think we we did have our public safety um uh officials in there with us, and we had a solicitor in there because again, what the solicitors don't want to do, they want to make sure they're not just prosecuting folks coming to to them.

So I think for us, we want to be we want to be empathetic, we want to make sure that we use compassion uh when we ask the folks um to move on, but it's not the to arrest people, send people to jail.

Now, to your point, I think it's a very good point.

Matter of fact, I talked um have a conversation today with um somehow the advocate about whatever happens downtown, where do our um on the house population go?

And that's something that we gonna have to work on as a community because right now, to your point, Commissioner Taylor.

There's really no way to go.

Yeah, I mean, I just don't feel comfortable with that vague language until we do have somewhere for people to go.

Like I would prefer that we leave off that you know, very broad vague, no person shall camp in a public area until we have a clear plan on where we're gonna send people who are in these situations.

Yeah, because I guarantee you they'll go in Barber Street before they were hard to do.

Well, and I think there's like you mentioned there's a good reason that some of these folks are out in very visible area because it's safe.

Yeah, having eyes on you.

Sure.

Okay, next.

All right, so uh moving on really to kind of another facet of the same conversation.

Uh 29, uh, want to give a lot of credit to Commissioner Thornton and certainly a lot of our homeless service providers, some of whom whom have been in the room tonight and some of whom aren't here tonight, um, for recognizing that really there is this keen unmet need.

Uh to need that I know I've talked to a couple of service providers about for probably a decade or more, and that is that we don't have some of the specific kinds of spaces that we need uh to transition people into healthier lives and healthier environments, uh very specifically some congregant shelters in Athens Clark County, two of those.

Uh we have some family units in Clark County, but really we don't have much in between for that individual who might need an efficiency style apartment, but might might need some modest level of caretaking.

Um this direct staff to identify properties, either public or private, that would be optimal for these kinds of needs.

Uh also ask staff to assess the cost of those things, both in terms of construction as well as operational costs, and also says let's figure out which of our service providers are the optimal partners on these activities.

And so we've had a lot of conversations around this, and I think everybody has a similarity of spirit around these conversations, but this is very directive, uh, which we've not had, and so this is a directive for management and staff to assist us in this regard.

So turn to Commissioner Thornton because she was uh in the driver's seat from the outset.

Yeah, I um this was um this was a uh yeah this was good and it was I want to make sure I uh respond to Commissioner Taylor and Commissioner Link.

I think the concerns they raise should be a point of as if this passes, which I hope it does, that we we we address immediately, just immediately because to have the top the the earlier ones, it looks like we don't care, you know.

But when we did the homeless um study, we probably should have done a resolution right then to back up the study.

The resolution again does is not specific, but I did one of the biggest things that I I can like think that I reminded everybody.

We need to not only include faith-based groups, but also businesses, and especially when you're talking about downtown.

Um we got the downtown authority, we got the chamber.

We have business and we and and this opens the door more of um those those real significant public and private partnerships.

Instead of getting calls of complaints from businesses downtown, we should be calling them and asking them, hey, how can you help?

Or do you want to help?

And make a space for them.

So I hope that the um resolution opens those doors that we have those conversations that the resolution is just not words on a piece of paper that's going to um collect dust, but it should identify the concerns that Commissioner Link and Commissioner Taylor have mentioned.

All right, thanks everybody.

Uh Commissioner Link.

Yeah, um, I'm I'm really happy to see this because it offers a long list of very specific um steps and and situations that can be pursued.

Um particularly the adaptive reuse of existing buildings.

We've got empty buildings all over the place, plenty of them.

Athens Clark County owns.

I mean, I I remember years ago reading an article about an empty Walmart that was opened up as a camping facility, I think in some place cold like Minneapolis or something.

Um and the tiny home, this this addresses tiny homes, um, which you know, I feel like can be a you know, tiny home communities that might even have shared like bathing and kitchen facilities where folks just have a roof over their heads and a space of their own.

Um, and also this idea of bringing um additional community support and as far as like public private and other community partners.

Um what I understand, Savannah um the Savannah College of Art and Design funds the homeless day center down there in Savannah.

Um maybe we can reach out to some of the educational institutions in our community and ask them for a little extra assistance on giving these folks who are hanging out downtown that we often hear specifically from students and student parents that they don't like seeing these folks.

Maybe we can help fund a place for them to actually go and get some help and some comfort and clean up a little or whatever they need, you know, to meet their immediate needs.

Um, but yeah, we really need the whole community to start pitching in to help with this issue.

What is number 30?

Uh number 30, last item on the agenda tonight is um very different uh subject.

Waterline upgrades.

This is approval of construction plans to upgrade those water lines.

Consent.

Everybody feel comfortable with 30 on consent.

I like clean water.

Can we put the resolution on consent?

I think we can keep that all just to just sort of highlight it is what it is to highlight it.

Yeah, we have two commissioners not here.

All right, 30's on consent.

They like clean water as well.

All right, um please.

Is there a second?

Yes, second.

All right.

Motion from Commissioner Fisher, second from Commissioner Link, all in favor, please say aye.

All right, thanks everyone.