Good evening, everyone.

Um, and welcome.

We'll we'll get started momentarily, but before we do, before we start the formal um before we start the formal um meeting here, we need to make a little logistical change, and I apologize for the people who are sitting on my right far extreme who may not be able to view the screen.

So, what we're gonna do, if you can, that's fine, perfectly fine.

If you can't, we're gonna ask um anyone who can't view the screen or see the screen.

You're welcome to come on this side and we'll move some of the staff people on the other side.

I just want to make sure that everybody has um appropriate visual access of the screen this evening.

Okay, all right, we good?

All right.

We'll get started in about 30 seconds.

Your agenda.

Okay.

All right.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening and welcome to the committee meetings for July 14th, 2026.

The elected body present, Mayor Mary Robichot, Councilmember Sarah Beeson, Councilmember Aaron Brumley, Councilmember Christine Hall, Councilmember Jennifer Philippi, Councilmember Alan Sells is on his way and in route who should be here shortly, and Councilmember Christopher Zach.

I am Randy Knighton, the city administrator, along with the city attorney David Davidson and our deputy city clerk, Rachel Rainey, along with uh other members of the staff here this evening.

And thank you for being here.

The purpose of committee meetings is for the city departments to convey information to the mayor and council and discuss initiatives listed on the published agenda, as well as provide updates of vital information essential to the operation of city government.

And by ordinance, the committee consists of the mayor and council, and the city administrator serves as the chair of the committee meetings.

And this is a public meeting, but it's not a public hearing, and therefore we while we certainly welcome members of the public, public comments are generally not taken during committee meetings.

Public comments are taken on the second and fourth Monday of each month in our city council meetings as well as the fifth Monday in open forum.

We do encourage residents to reach out to our city staff if you have any questions and or concerns or need any information.

We also encourage you to visit the web city web service portal to report any other issues or concerns, and also visit Roswell 365.com for a calendar of events.

The first meet item on the agenda this evening is the approval of the minutes of the June 23rd, 2026 committee meetings.

Have a motion, motion by Mayor Roboshow, second by councilmember Zach.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, all in favor.

All right, passes unanimously.

Then the next item, item number two is listed on the regular agenda, is the consideration of a resolution to apply and accept an FY2026 local law enforcement grant for enforcement for cyber crimes program department of justice.

And we have Captain Ratliff here.

Thank you for joining us, sir.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Um as he said, this is just a resolution to apply for and accept for a grant to the Department of Justice for a cyber crimes program.

This would allow us to be able to track and trace cryptocurrency, which is one of the most upcoming crimes that we're seeing.

Um both in persons crimes and property crimes, as well as our fraud schemes.

This grant does not have a match, so it would be 100% funded through the federal government for us to be able to access this technology.

All right, thank you, sir.

Do we have any questions for Captain Ratliff?

All right.

Seeing none, we'll entertain a motion to move this item forward.

Motion by Councilmember Hall, second by Councilmember Zach.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, all in favor.

All right.

Thank you, sir.

And we'll note for the record that uh council member Sillis has joined us in the meeting.

Next item on the agenda.

Item number three is listed on the agenda is thank you, sir.

Mr.

Malone.

Consideration of a resolution to apply and accept the Georgia Recreation and Parks Association in association with Georgia Department of Education for a building opportunities in out of school time or boost grant for 2026-2027 school year in an amount not to exceed 45,000.

That will be presented by Stephen Malone, the director of Recreation Parks Historic and Cultural Affairs.

Mr.

Malone.

Yes, thank you, sir.

Appreciate the opportunity tonight.

As you stated, this grant is through the Georgia Recreation Parks Association.

It is a pass-through grant through the uh Georgia Department of Education.

This is an annual grant that we apply for that helps to offset uh the cost associated with our adaptive friendship camps during the summer.

That's a seven-week program that we offer throughout the summer for all different uh types of ability levels.

And this grant goes towards buying down the cost of that camp for the participants and their families.

Happy to answer any questions you might have.

All right.

Thank you, Mr.

Malone.

Any questions for Mr.

Malone?

All right.

Seeing none, we'll entertain a motion.

Motion by Councilmember Zack.

Uh second by Mayor Mayor Robichot.

And any further discussion.

Seeing none, all in favor.

All right, that passes you that moves forward unanimously to our next agenda.

Item number four.

Consideration of the transmittal of the annual update to the capital improvement element or CIE element.

That will be presented by Deputy Director of Community Development, Miss Jackie Dybel.

Good evening.

This is the annual update to the capital improvement elements.

As you know, cities that enclect impact fees are required annually to submit the capital improvement element list.

The projects are from the three categories recreation and parks department, transportation department, and public safety, which is police and fire.

The CIE list is not a financial or budgetary commitment.

As you know, here it is.

This is what a development impact fee is a one-time payment for growth-related infrastructure.

We collect impact fees when we when people submit building permits.

Um from the list that was submitted from last year.

The Hard Scrabble Phase 2 multi-use path, Oxbow Road, the Pond Reps, and the new station fire 28.

These are the new items being added.

Transportation has one item on the intersection at State Route 9 and 120, and Rackham Parks has two, the Records Rec Center and Park Asset Improvements and the Cultural Arts Center.

All the other projects remain the same.

There are some changes on your list that show some budgetary changes, but most of everything is remaining the same.

This is just a sample of what you have in your packet showing the list.

Another page of the list.

One of the items also that the Department of Community Affairs requires is the impact fee fund financial report from fiscal year 2025, which would have been last year, the previous year is required to be submitted with this document.

Finance has provided their document for us.

And it will be submitted with the CIE.

We are looking for a motion to place this on the council agenda for July 27th so that we can transmit it to the state.

Once the state reviews it, um, the DCA and Atlanta Regional Commission have to approve it.

It comes back to this city and must be adopted by October 31st of each year so that we can stay as a qualified local government.

Do you have any questions?

Questions for Miss Dybell.

Yes, Councilmember Brumley.

Um just remind the public why those items were removed from the list.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So the items that were removed are completed.

So the multi-use trap path.

I think I just had a um the groundbreaking ceremony, or not ground breaking, the um ribbon cutting ceremony last week.

The Oxboro Road Corridor approvements are done.

The pond repair will be finished this year.

And um Fire Station 28 has changed and it will not be um included.

Some it's going into a different portion, something can't remember exactly for fire, but um that one has changed.

But that's why they are being removed.

All right, thank you for the clarification.

Any further questions or comments?

All right, we'll entertain a motion of moving this item forward.

Motion by Councilmember Beeson, second by council member sells.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, all in favor.

All right, that item will move forward unanimously.

Thank you, Miss Dibel.

All right, thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

I'm Michelle Alexander, the director of community development, and it's my privilege to get to speak with you again about the comprehensive growth plan.

It's been just about a year that the community and the stakeholder committee and you all have been sorry.

Thank you, Michelle.

I know you're anxious.

Oh, so sorry.

Okay.

I just wanted to announce it formally first, um, and we'll get right to it.

Um, item number five on the agenda is the consideration for transmittal of the 2045 comprehensive growth plan.

And that will be presented by Michelle Alexander to the director of community development.

Please, ma'am, proceed.

Yeah, yes, uh, Councilmember Hall.

Thank you.

And and um, Mr.

Knighton, I know that this is um traditionally uh the public is not allowed to comment or doesn't have the ability to comment in the committee meetings, but in the past, under uh Mayor Wood, uh Mayor Henry and Mayor Wilson, there were opportunities when there was a lot of interest uh from the public on a subject to uh comment.

And so I'd like to see if my colleagues and mayor would be amenable to that, perhaps limited to um you know, not five minutes, but you know, maybe a minute or two to um a lot of folks had indicated they're not able to attend the committee meetings.

So just wanted to put that out there to see if my council member Beeson.

Did you provide examples of any of the meetings in the past where public was allowed to comment during a committee meeting?

Uh yes, during Kurt Wilson's uh administration, uh uh Betty Price was able to come in and comment on the um uh the labyrinth, thank you very much.

It was a singular person commenting and and um and um during I think Sally McKenzie was invited to comment.

Let me let me let me interject if I can for I'm sorry, Councilmember Philippi, please.

Um I would be open to this suggestion, but I would suggest that maybe we get through all of our stuff first and then see what's lingering because I have a feeling that many of their concerns will be alleviated after they hear from us.

I I think there have been some misconceptions.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Philippi.

All right.

I I'd be amenable to at post, you know, post presentation post-discussion.

All right, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, all right.

With that, um Miss Alexander, please uh proceed.

So just a word for of uh how we got to where we are from where we started from.

So the comprehensive plan is a required policy document.

The Department of Community Affairs um sets out the parameters of how we are supposed to conduct this plan and what goes into it.

Ours was unique because we focused on the economy, the economic impact and the economic development section, which isn't always the case, and we did extra work on the marketing, real estate, and examination of strategic sites and and catalytic sites for the overall city.

The plan also um builds off of the 2040 plan.

So in the 2040 plan, that focus was really on residential.

So at that time, some of the folks I'm sure in this room participated in that, where it was more fine-tuned from the general areas we call them character areas, these geographic areas that have distinction to them and have policy associated with each area.

The ones that had to do with neighborhoods and residential were more fine-tuned so that they were protected even further.

And so this plan didn't focus on residential, assuming we're keeping those boundaries and the same types of character and the same names of all of those character areas so that they're protected, and the conversation really focused on this economic side of our goals for the city and the growth that you want to see an economic turns, not necessarily population, but that you want to see economic change and investment and redevelopment.

And the conversation really focused on this economic side of our goals for the city and the growth that you want to see an economic turn, it's not necessarily population, but that you want to see economic change and investment and redevelopment.

We've had three community meetings.

We had a survey that had around a thousand, over a thousand people participated in our survey, and thank you for all the folks who came to the meetings who came and gave input into the meetings.

We really focused on those activity centers.

And we also asked a lot of questions about the vision for those areas that have been decided that will be allowed to have some change.

And now this is only around 12, 15% of the whole entire city.

So all your eggs are in these baskets of these parcels.

So each parcel is really special.

It's really precious because you don't want it to encroach beyond these parcels, any kind of change or growth or commercial kind of development, and yet you need that growth base to have employment and to generate your property taxes and all of that that you need.

So that is the big framework picture.

That was the big picture of how the comp plan was approached.

We had a consultant and um and a subconsultant who worked on the real estate and the marketing efforts with the market study side of things.

And we compared ourselves to the our sister cities, we compared ourselves to the region.

We looked at what was what kind of industries made most sense for us to pursue.

And so resulting from all this work, along with a stakeholder committee that met not four times, not five times, but six times, and we have our chairperson, Councilman Sells, and we also have council member Hall, we're also members of that stakeholder committee.

And they I just have to applaud the work of tearing into deeply all of that data and all of the written documentation behind the work that was put together.

Um so there's a big applause.

So from all of that work, a draft was we put together a draft with the consultants, and um the draft that you all took a look at, and we distributed amongst council.

So just a word now about our process.

So the process has been we have a draft that's an internal draft that council is looking at along with the stakeholder committee and put together your list of comments, things you wanted to see edited.

You weren't you we knew it wasn't gonna be perfect.

I mean, I'm good, but I'm not perfect.

So we knew that it was gonna take everybody take having a good eye on this document and make sure we catch it and give it the importance that a policy document needs.

Now it's just a policy document.

This doesn't change anybody's zoning, this doesn't change anybody's designations.

This is a policy document about the future decisions that council may choose to make in the future.

Um so with that, we put together that document, and from that written set of edits, staff put together consolidated all of your comments along with the stakeholders, and you we distributed that to you.

Since then, we've had threes on threes, and we've had one-on-ones on some folks had individual briefings.

Um we met with all the elected officials, and from that, ta-da, we have another list, and this list is um edits to be made uh or not, as you direct us today.

And the reason for uh my um being here and taking your time today is to um solicit and check in with you and get direction from you of do we proceed with making some of these edits so that we can move forward to a public hearing for a transmittal if it's your so if you so desire a transmittal of the July 27th meeting and have a public hearing, and then it just goes to the state.

The state reviews it, it's not your adoption, but it's the it's the transmittal, the first step for its adoption.

So I hope I covered the framework of where we all are.

And I apologize if your ears are falling off listening to me already.

But the next step is looking at the actual list itself.

Yeah, Michelle, hold on.

Yes, Council Member Hall.

Thank you.

Um, just great explanation.

Thank you so much, and thank you for indicating that this is a policy document, that it dictates the policies that we're going to implement as part of this document.

And some of those are the zoning that follows this document.

Is that correct?

It does not change the zoning.

No, this does not change the zoning, but it's the policy the UDC would be updated to match the policies in this document.

The UDC will be reviewed to the to the degree that to see does it execute your vision?

Does it or does it not exit your vision?

Yes.

That just needs to be clear because there was some mischaracter or confusion around that.

So I just wanted that to be clear for the public since we're all here having this decision.

Okay, we get it.

All right.

Please, Michelle, go ahead, go forward.

Okay.

So just to highlight that's what's revised.

So since you spent enough time, I know on your own with the first document.

I'm jumping in to the where we left off and when we last spoke, and this is now the revised document that says here is revised edits.

And there's really three areas that that really sort of jumped out from the changes.

The one area that jumped out was this consensus from all of you essentially to address everything to do with housing policies.

You really wanted a detailed study that anything to do with housing needs to be on hold until we or it needs to be relegated to the fact of getting data in our hands, a needs assessment, where are we, what are our needs, and how do we define our needs for the city of Roswell.

So that was an interesting consensus that folks who who wanted to see some changes in the document landed on the same page of wanting to see a study so that we could know what it is we're we're contending with and what it is we want to decide.

You all as policymakers on the front of housing.

So there were we there were a couple of um consolidations that we recommended.

Sir Council Member would be correct.

My on.

Quick clarifying question as it relates to that.

Um it was consensus through the entirety of council that we would like to support a housing study to better understand what the needs are and how those should progress.

Um some of that was derived from the last committee meeting.

I'm not sure if anybody here knows, but Councilmember Bromley and myself had some comments about housing.

Um, but none of those comments dictated or directed any changes that are currently in the comprehensive plan that we are deliberating today.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Mayor Robichot.

And just for um general public and everyone's knowledge, even in the 2040 plan, which many we've all read, it also recommended a housing study, but unfortunately that did not occur at that point.

That's why in the 2045 plan, it's moved more into the work, what we would call the work plan with the documented date by year that we would be doing it.

So it's coming somewhat from the 2040 plan over in the 2045 plan.

Yes, it's a carryover.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Sells.

That's a good that's a good point, Mayor.

I appreciate you saying that because I I would say that there's a number of things, and I'm looking not I'm not going to jump ahead too much, but I want to say we we did agree that we were going to have a study.

We we put that in the these uh what are they called CWPs, right?

Yes, uh huh.

Uh and that's great, and we need to do that.

But we also were, as we talked about this throughout this process, we were focused on the economic development areas.

We had very we had uh very very focused and specific conversations around those.

We had no public input, no meetings, no discussion, no survey about anything regarding residential.

So I would like to propose is an overarching, following up with Mary's bringing over that uh CWP from the last one.

I would suggest that if the 2045 plan is addressing anything that's single family neighborhood policy, that staff should refer to the 2040 plan and carry that that forward to this language.

And in particular, this came from a conversation I had with David, and that is these documents stand on their own.

They are not you can't my first move was to say should we refer back to the 2040 plan where it's silent in the 2045 plan, but indeed you can't really do that because they're a standalone legal document, and and so I would like to see the staff pull all of those residential sections that we say no change on into the 2045 plan, forklift them in from the 2040 plan and put those into the 2045 plan.

That's what I would propose with regard to those that we have at the moment about anywhere so anywhere where we say don't no change that because we're saying it's either in the UDC or it's in the 2040 plan, then we need to pull that language in from the 2040 plan directly.

We we don't say that it's in the 2040 plan anywhere.

I don't say that anymore.

I get that, but we just say can you give me a specific?

I'm not sure I'm still.

I will be as we go forward.

We cut by surprise that I don't know what we're referring to that we would draw because it is from the 2040.

We took from the 2040, each of the no, there were changes, there were changes, and we we talked about some of those in the last committee meeting.

There were some changes to the 2040 language around residential.

Now what I'm saying is I'm gonna refer to specifically the text that describes what okay.

Yeah.

So this is new information to me.

I actually don't have the specific section.

Sure.

Here, let's do that.

We want to make sure that we get through the entirety of the presentation.

I'll council member Hall here.

We want to make sure we get through the entirety of the presentation.

I think that will illuminate and or um provoke some additional thoughts as well.

Councilmember Hall.

And I I think I can clarify this.

So what the uh consultant basically did in the 2045 plan when it came to the residential areas.

Each in the 2040 plan, each residential area, state residential, suburban residential, neighborhood residential, um, active residential.

Uh they basically had three pages, three pages of text and copy and protections as you call it.

Um in this current plan, they condensed it to one page, and a third of that one page is pictures, some of which some of the correct one area correct.

Uh what we're proposing is since nobody is wanting to make changes to the suburban res or to the residential areas as we've been discussing.

We move those nine pages forward or the three pages on each of them.

So leave them intact instead of the consolidated one page, because the one page has lost a lot in translation.

Actually, it's two-thirds of a page from three pages.

Is that okay?

Thank you.

That is exactly what we're talking about.

Um if you go to your 2040 plan and go to but it'd be too clear.

Yeah.

Councilmember Zet.

But it'd be too much to ask for you to bring it up as Christine talks about it so everyone publicly could see.

I don't have I don't have it to do.

We can we can we can get it.

So page, for example, a state residential starts on page 146.

Let's let's make this make sure we're clear here.

Let's make sure we're clear here.

So we'll make sure everybody's referring to the same thing.

We're talking the 2040.

Are you talking, Councilmember Hall, the 2040 plan?

The 2040 plan.

Talking about the which it currently exists, not what's being contemplated right now.

The 2040 plan.

Or doing the 2045 plan.

Correct.

Right.

Correct.

I did not get a book, so I have two in clips.

So why don't we why don't we do this?

Yeah.

Um it's on page 120 in the new plan.

I should pull this up if I get confused here.

The vision statements, the vision statements are are have changed.

I mean, the language in the vision statements has changed from the 2040 to the 2045.

And that's the consultant basically using a template.

It's similar to other cities, and and that's just one of the things that needed to be corrected.

And I just started with uh estate residential, and and and it's the same for the other suburban residential on page 122.

It's one page in 2045.

You're talking 2040.

You're talking about today.

Yes, Councilmember Philippi.

So I I don't I'm not reading a significant difference in the vision, and then one of the pages you're talking about is implementation and strategy.

So since this page, since this plan was not focusing on implementation and strike, it wasn't focusing on housing, it was focusing on economic development.

That that some of that focus is pulled away.

So I see two pages for a state residential.

The vision essentially reads the same, and then this um implementation and strategy stuff allows um is is more stuff related to that plan in particular.

So these are broad statements that I would appreciate if we could go through more specifically and really identify what the differences are because I've heard these comments and I have tried myself to really dig through, and I know that there are nuance to some of the language that um that means something to people that may not mean as much to me, and I would very much like to understand that.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Councilmember Sells.

Yeah, so uh I hear that's that's good.

The the problem we have, the fundamental problem is is that the change between 2040, these three pages or four pages or whatever it was per area to one uh two-thirds of a page here was all the consultant.

We had no conversation about that at all in any of the meetings whatsoever.

So we we as a body, I'm talking specifically about the steering committee or the public input, had no input into that change.

And so, in the absence of that, as opposed to litigating each word of the shortened version and say, well, does it cover all that?

What I'm suggesting is we literally take these three pages, put them in 2045, just as I read here for these character areas, and then we don't have to get into an editing session on a word-by-word basis for each of these character areas.

That's what I'm saying, because there was no public input on any of that.

So it's essentially Council Member Sales, if I understand you correctly, it's essentially a review of the 2040 um uh portion of the comprehensive plan that spoke to residential protection, et cetera, that you want to have incorporated into the 2045 plan.

That's correct.

Essentially verbatim.

Well, yes, specifically as we know, this was the most uh vetted, and we had more people show up for the 2040 plan than any plan.

It was during COVID, people didn't have anything to do, so they got online and they they they had the big conversation.

So all of that was pretty thoroughly discussed, and this is the work of the consultant with no public input, and I just find that really troubling.

Mayor Robishow.

And again, I I understand the deep dive, and I appreciate everyone having the time to read both policies.

It does take time and understanding.

Very quickly, and I just was able to let's all check mark what's on your implementation strategy in 2024.

Every single word is included in 2045 plan.

So I'm I'm I'm concerned.

Some of it is up in the vision statement.

I agree, but those are more the descriptive, such as development should strive to be low impact, including conservation subdivisions.

Over here it says new development will maintain an estate style residential pattern, emphasizing high quality materials, thoughtful design, and low impact approaches through a state, conservation subdivisions and compatible suburban neighborhoods.

So I'm I'm not sure where the disconnect is if we're going line item by line item because it's very specific.

Identify conservation subdivision opportunities in 2040 in 2045, identify conservation subdivision opportunities.

At least in this estate, when I've not gone through all of those, I have also compared the um zoning codes, so I I guess I'm still confused as to why the language was at least in this one, I'm assuming it for the most part in all the others who are pretty identical.

So we're go ahead.

Yeah.

So Council Marcelles.

The the essence of my my request of staff is that as opposed to us spending at least an hour going word for word from these that we are going that we that have certainly been summarized in the new plan.

Uh why don't we?

I don't think there's a shortage on uh uh bits in a PDF.

We can go just simply take this as it is in 2040 and put it in the 2045 plan in the exact same place, and we don't have to sit here and read every single one of these character areas and fly spec it.

That's what I'm saying, because we haven't had any conversation with the public about it.

Okay.

Um councilmember Brumley.

Uh I've been pretty much looking at this document for the last month from front to back, and I think you will be very unfair if you just tell me just take whatever is that and put it here because I was not afforded the opportunity to look at this in depth to compare, you know, step by step.

I was looking at this one.

So it's a leap of fate that you're telling me do a copy and paste to this, especially when the mayor has pointed out that it is the same, it's just in a different format.

Okay.

All right.

Uh councilmember Zach.

I'm gonna kind of summarize how I see this conversation, which is we we have a language in today, and as I read it as a layman, it seemed to protect the neighborhoods, but there does seem to be a desire to have stronger language.

Um, and so two things is is one I want to make clear because I'm gonna ask Michelle for something that can we focus on like one page, well, three pages in the comp plan, what that range is to one page specifically in the 2045.

So, because I'm gonna ask Michelle, is there any material difference?

Um, because I I believe the intention is to strengthen the language and to bring comfort to the residents to do so.

Um, and for me, if the 2040 language does that and is material the same, then I would agree like yeah, it makes sense.

So can we go to a specific what page to what page so we could ask for that analysis?

Councilmember Sales.

Yeah, I I you're so you're saying that that if it's similar, you should use 2040, is what you're saying?

Is that what you're saying?

Uh what I'm I pretty much.

What I'm what I'm saying is the way I read the 2040 as a layman is I believe it did protect the residentials, but there's obviously conversations and feedback from the community saying that the 2040 is stronger.

So if true and there is no subdotent difference from that perspective, I would agree we should I would go with the language that the citizens feel protection better.

And I don't think we're going to I don't know personally, but I I wasn't planning to sit here and like re-edit all of those.

What I'm not, and I'm not saying that we should either.

I'm saying that staff is quite capable of copying and pasting what was in 2040 and putting it in 2045 because that was vetted and there was no vetting of the new language by the consultant.

So I you know, I suppose we can read it all.

Yeah, but I don't think that that's part of the mandate that we had in the conversations with the problem.

Yeah, I want to make if I can very quickly clarify or see clarification, Councilmember Zach.

You mentioned that you thought that there was a degree of neighborhood preservation, community preservation, subdivision preservation in the 2045 proposed plan, but there is stronger language, as I understood you say, or perhaps more explicit language in the 2040 plan.

If in fact that is the case, that perhaps should be entertained.

Is that what I understood you said?

Okay.

All right, thank you, sir.

Uh Councilmember Beeson.

That explicit examples of what the stronger language is at this point, the conversation is purely hyperbolic.

It's just people saying, though, I feel that this is stronger.

Furthermore, this document has been available for public review for the better part of two months now.

Is that correct?

Just under two months.

Just under two months, so about seven weeks now.

We've had six public meetings.

We've had one survey, we've had uh about ten opportunities at this point for the public to weigh in on guidance.

And the reason why housing wasn't previously something that was considered during those meetings is because the previous administration's guidance was to completely ignore housing and focus on economic development while disregarding the fact that housing and economic development go hand in hand.

You cannot have one twin without the other.

So in this situation, you have a new administration coming and making sure we're addressing housing, not with any substantive changes to the document itself, but rather requesting that we have a housing study to see if we need to address any housing concerns.

And because of the hyperbolic conversation, I will now read aloud the full page for suburban residential, page 122, suburban residential vision.

This area, this is the new 2045 plan, by the way.

This area will continue to foster stable, established suburban neighborhoods with existing single family communities preserved and protected alongside smaller pockets of other housing types.

The character will reflect larger lots and a strong connection to the natural environment with limited opportunities for infill and redevelopment that are sensitively designed to match the surrounding scale and pattern.

Careful transitions will be maintained where this area meets more intense uses, and historic landmarks will be preserved as valued cultural resources.

Future development will consist primarily of single-family detached homes built with high quality materials and design and allowed aligned with the existing density.

I emphasize existing density, lot sizes, and neighborhood character, while maintaining low to medium scale building heights.

From what I can understand from the vision, albeit shorter, it is more succinct and still a summary of what was exactly in the 2040 comprehensive plan.

There is nothing in here that deviates from that vision, the original vision in 2040, to this one that would imply that there are significant changes either to policy guidance or would guide the zoning plan later in any potential zoning changes for the UDC.

Thank you.

So Councilmember Hall first.

Council Mr Hall.

Thank you.

And um I beg to differ because in the 2040 protections, infill and redevelopment opportunities are limited and sensitive to the character of single-family suburban homes.

In the 2045 plan, as you just read, along smaller pockets of other housing types, so that we're introducing a new housing type in the single family areas, and future development will consist primarily primarily.

So additional housing types and primarily so if nobody has a problem with the 2040, it's nine additional pages.

I don't know why we don't just move the 2040 forward.

Councilmember Philippi.

Um I do tend to agree with Councilmember Zach that if if this language in 2040 makes everyone happier and it is essentially the same, we can move forward, but we need some time.

We need a couple of days just to go back and review.

And and so my concern is that the perception that this change gives to the that there are significant changes between the one to the other and the credence that it's given this narrative of what is essentially trying to be done in the 2045 that is not trying to be done.

So again, what I'm saying to you is that yes, if if we do, if we give it are given a couple of days for comparison to ensure that there is nothing in the 2045 that shouldn't be carried over that we would do with agreement with one another, then we can go back to the 2040 language.

But I but the blanket statement, as as council member Beeson is saying, is hyperbolic because there are not really specific differences that are causing such alarm.

So I'm gonna ask Michelle, I'd like to ask you a question.

So obviously we I've read and compared the 2040 and the 2045 companies, and I'd like to ask you a question very specifically.

Is there anything in the 2045 comp plan draft that would allow for a plan to allow for the subdividing of lots in a single family neighborhood or any multifamily development in existing single family neighborhoods?

No, ma'am.

Thank you.

All right.

Yeah, a couple quick things.

Yeah.

First is you you are right that this process was begun under the past administration, just as the 2040 plan was done under an administration that included Mayor Laurie Henry, Willsey, Kizer.

There were a lot of, you know, so that plan was started under a and completed actually under that administration.

Uh this this group, our group, actually voted on providing an opportunity for the public to respond to a survey.

We had that in our hand to include, if we wished, any conversations about residential.

We did not choose to.

So we have not sought any input with regard to residential at any time through this process.

Because you're absolutely right, it was that was a choice, that was the design choice, clearly, it could have been changed on January 2nd if we'd wanted it to.

It wasn't.

But the reason is because people were comfortable and happy with the 2040 plan with regard to residential.

They are not happy, and they have said very clearly they're not happy, that we have 1.2 jobs per household, and Alpharetta has 3.3 jobs per household.

They are very, very clear that we need to focus on economic development.

And so we took a really hard and deep dive on that process, and that's what this was about.

And so, therefore, I would say, in the absence of a clear reason to change it, which we can't say we could get, I guess we can get that in this room, then we should take the residential areas as they were in 2040.

Thank you.

Councilmember Beeson.

So to reiterate, you did not ask any questions on the survey about housing, and then said that no one had opinions about housing.

Duh, because you didn't ask them any questions about housing, because the assumption was made, the royal we the assumption was made in this situation that everyone had a unilateral position on housing at the time.

Each of you know, too, just as much as we received emails related to well, distortions of uh conversation that was had out of context from the last meeting.

We've also received dozens of emails related to people asking where housing was in the initial draft.

So there are people who are concerned about housing.

I also will reiterate that you cannot have economic development, three point however many jobs in Roswell compared to Alpharetta without providing housing options for workers, uh young professionals, growing families.

Uh it also says in this existing comprehensive plan that we're currently looking at that Roswell has significantly more aging residents over the age of 60, which is explaining why you have one point whatever job per household because people are predominantly retired at this point in time.

So, in order to free up housing options that allows people to recruit or allows people to create a new business here or relocate their business here, housing is going to have to be a conversation that happens hand in hand.

Councilmember Sells.

Thank you.

You already sounded tired, brother.

My throat laws in general.

So, you know, once upon a time, people will all believe that fruit flies were caused by dust.

Jobs are not caused by residents, jobs are caused by employers.

Okay.

So more housing stock does not make more jobs.

We have one point, we have please allow, yeah, please please allow Council Member Sales to finish this comments.

Thanks.

We have we have fewer jobs because we have not focused on the economic areas of Roswell.

Alpharetta's comp plan has bright lines around its economic areas, and they focus on driving that and protecting their residences.

The whoever wanted to speak up about the residential, clearly a lot of residents did in 2040.

Clearly, a lot of residents did in 2040.

And I when you say I did not ask that, this body, led by Aaron Brumley, chose to pause the process and have that survey done.

That was this we did that.

Not not the first, the the second survey, the mail out survey was not uh the prior administration, it was this administration.

Councilmember Brumley.

I just want to say that that was Councilmember.

Okay.

All right.

Councilmember um Beeson.

Yes, so I understand the um the fruit fly analogy that you've provided.

Um I'm not aware of any Fortune 500, 1000, 5,000, 5 billion company that sites their headquarters based off of the demography of a city being over the age of 60 and predominantly retired.

They're typically looking for places where young professionals can grow.

I'll use Google or Microsoft as an example.

They both based their headquarters off of areas where they could increase housing to be able to accommodate younger workers that they need to recruit bringing them in, in addition to the areas where they already have a large majority of those workers that exist.

If you do not have places to house folks, then you cannot have younger workers where you would have economic development.

Um in the same sense that housing does not lead to economic development.

In that case, I'm sure there is a place in Wyoming that has a population of 30 where business is booming right now because land is super cheap and taxes are lower on businesses.

You need people to work, and people need places to live.

So JP Morgan is currently relocating their headquarters, and the two candidates are Dallas, Texas, and Alpharetta, Georgia.

And the reason is because they are uh focused on bringing those kinds of jobs to Alpharetta.

And guess what?

As I indicated, they already have more jobs in households.

We have almost a one-to-one.

So it's it's not the case that the sorry, we're literally live time data tagging you.

The average age, the average age in Alpharetta's 41 years old.

No, no, the average age in Alpharetta is 41 years old.

The average age in Roswell currently, we are benchmarked at 60, but continue.

Yeah.

Well, I'm still working.

Council Brother Randy is still working.

Please continue, sir.

But that that's not what causes jobs.

That's not what causes jobs.

What causes jobs is is employment by people starting businesses or moving businesses.

And as as we indicated, as we know from traffic studies, most of the people who live in what you would consider low the lowest cost housing in Roswell, all leave Roswell to go to work.

We have a nuts and also in the data.

Councilmember Beeson.

Since we love the 2040 comprehensive plan so much, actually the data says the exact opposite of that.

If you would refer to the mobility plan and the 2040 comprehensive plan, it shows that the lowest income houses in Roswell, oh, Zing, I should say, because multifamilies included, um, are people who are most likely to not only live and work in Roswell, but also commute via walking, bicycle, or public transportation.

I can't give you the exact page number with that off the top of my head, but it's a heat map, so you'll be able to look at that.

Um, you'll also see on there as well that folks who have the largest houses in Roswell based off of where they exist on the zoning map, are the most likely to own more than two cars and most likely to commute outside of the city.

So your point that the low-income housing are commuting across town and becoming traffic is actually not true.

All right, thank you.

Councilmember Philippi.

So I feel like we're getting a little off track here.

Um again, if we could just have a day or two to look over the 2040 language.

As I'm reviewing here, I do see it matching up fairly well.

There's uh a couple of words that I I think could be causing concern, and and so I you know, I would be immediately to that.

I would also mention that Alpharetta, as we discussed earlier, is willing to go 20 to 30 stories in their development and include significant density, um, which is going to make them a very different character than Roswell.

And I don't think that's what any of us are looking for here.

Thank you.

It's it seems I'm sorry, Mayor Robushell, please go ahead.

And I appreciate the comments, but again, if we look at the community engagement survey that was done, there are questions here related to housing that basically do what's already in here and the way in which one of which is what is the number one, which is the following issues may be preventing young professionals and young families from living in Roswell.

The number one is affordable starter housing prices.

I'm not saying one way or the other, but there were some questions asked in regards to housing in the survey from what I'm reading here, too.

So I think, and then also about um for seniors, it was housing for seniors was one of the most important to Roswell seniors are aging populations.

It's well, these are the survey responses that uh that were in the appendix also.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hall.

Thank you.

And and um just to follow up on Council Member Philippi's earlier comments about um green space and conservation.

So Alfredta uh basically their comp plan addresses the use of natural resources.

Um they talk about the tree canopy, tree canopy, stream buffers, uh, the watershed protection, stormwater capacity, heat island effects, redealt redevelopment related impervious surface, um, environmental impacts in the activity centers.

So um, and I think that there is a section in our comp plan that speaks to that toward towards the end as well.

So I just wanted to note that that is part of our plan.

No, thank you.

And it seems that um, you know, if it obviously the comments have been uh very insightful.

Um it seems that there is an underlying agreement about the protection, the character of established single family residential neighborhoods.

Right.

The issue seems to be how explicit in terms of the 2045 plan as is currently constituted versus the 2040 plan, which has obviously a more explicit, more definitive um approach to how that is conveyed and articulated.

And so what I understand from the council is if I'm understanding this correctly, is to take a look at um a view of the 2040 plan language to determine if that should be incorporated as it is currently devised and or perhaps um modified into the 2045 plan.

Is that a fair summation?

That's I'm here seeing heads nod.

Mayor Roboshow, please.

Well, so I'm gonna ask a different question, just a process question.

Because we have to submit the vote on this.

That's great.

That is correct.

On July 25th.

That's right.

27.

I'm sorry, my days.

That's right.

And then we have to submit by July 31st.

Yes.

We we don't have an option per state regulations.

Is there a way?

I think there were some questions in regards to how much of the 2040 language is definitively already in the 2045 aspects in regards to housing.

Is there a way that we as I just I mean I just said that here quickly and I could check off the wordings there for estates.

Maybe, you know, is there a very quick way that could be done?

Yes.

With a report back to I know we have to take a vote, and I'm not trying to hold up votes.

We have to take a vote on at least all of it.

Do we have to call another special committee meeting to get this done?

Because we cannot wait.

Uh I mean, I'm being brutally process oriented to say it's got to move forward one way or the other.

It is correct, yes.

Council member sell hall and then sales.

I didn't realize yes.

I thought you were getting my point.

It's all right, it's okay.

If the 2040 language is not problematic, and everybody agrees, it's nine pages.

I mean, I don't know what we're talking about why we would why we would not just bring it forward as it is instead of taking a page.

Sorry, go ahead.

Council.

I think the point being not everyone has had the chance to dive into the 2040 plan, not knowing that that would be one of the proposals because had not heard that.

Right.

And therefore giving all council members the same amount of time to go through and compare the two.

Okay, to ask that we have that certain council members have not had the opportunity to look at it as they would like to review the 2040 plan in comparison to 2045 plan, is that concept of just pick it up and drop it?

That's also not to give everyone the opportunity, is what I'm hearing that they would like to hear and look at it themselves.

I think that's a great idea.

And the only thing I'm saying is I know we're short on time, and so since the consultant is the one that condensed it in their you know, grok or whatever they used and lost some things in translation to two-thirds of a page.

What's wrong with just keeping the three pages and moving them forward?

That's that's the maps haven't changed, nothing's changed, public input because I think again we're we're saying did is that what they did?

We don't know that.

Those of us who are not on the committee don't know that that's what they did from week when we look at it, we're still trying to understand what the big what the huge differences are so far that from the two that I've just read, I don't see the difference.

The language you have bullet points versus it's in a paragraph form.

Okay.

I I'm not sure that makes that much of a difference as a policy guiding document.

I've gone through all of the zoning codes.

There is no difference except one.

There is one major difference in um the 2045 plan as compared to the 2040 plans in regards to the neighborhoods in actuality.

We increase we added in that the lot sizes actually have to be bigger, not smaller.

So that's the one zoning change that's listed in the 2045 plan specific to the different neighborhood settings when I look through it per se.

Council Member that's all I'm saying.

Council members at I'm gonna do my best to try to go some perspective to your question.

Um so kind of as I stated earlier as I read the 2045 comp plan, I thought it did do a sufficient job of protecting the neighborhoods, but part of this process is we got feedback from the community, and it sounds like they were looking for stronger language, and I think we're all amendable to that approach looking at the 2040.

Part of that though is there may be as we are looking at that language, there may be people also who want to provide feedback that there may be specific language if we're going in that direction to be able to give that feedback to give us a day or two to say, hey, this is what we're looking at, this is our direction, and although it's not ideal, um, I think I am amendable to give us that time and to give the community the feedback that we have a special called meeting to resolve this and keep the process going.

So, what I'm hearing is well, yeah, based on that, having um the potential potential.

This is of course uh as the elected body, your determination, potential of a special call committee meeting or some sort if there needs to be a reconvening uh to bring all of the um uh current comments uh to bear in terms of reviewing the 2040 plan in conjunction with the 2045 plan.

Obviously, we've we there's about um uh 13 days or so but before our next council meeting, mayor and council meeting on the 27th.

27th, yes, 27th hearing on July 27th.

Obviously, if it is a portion of the 2040 plan that can be provided to you expeditiously uh for your review and study.

Um, as Mayor Robushow indicated, and I will um reemphasize uh July 27th is the transmittal date.

We have to transmit this um document per state requirements to ensure there's adequate review by the Atlanta Regional Commission and the Department of Community Affairs.

This is the transmittal hearing, and it's a very important, the essentially the most important component of the comprehensive plan.

It is a public hearing, and once this comprehensive plan is transmitted, there is very little or no room for any modification at that point.

I want to emphasize this.

There's there's very little or no room for modification.

It will come back a few months later for adoption.

But that adoption is simply to ratify what the ARC Atlanta Regional Commission and the DCA Department of Community Affairs have reviewed and said that it's okay, and or if there's any language that may need to be modified.

And so that adoption is essentially should be a formality at that point.

There's very little or no room to make modifications or changes.

So July 26th, excuse me, July 27th, it will need to essentially be in its final form as a comprehensive plan, and then we'll be formally adopted a few months later after the um state review.

This is required as a component of compliance.

Um the city of Roswell, as long as every other jurisdiction must have a comprehensive plan.

If we do not adopt a comprehensive plan in a prescribed time frame, and are found to be compliant with our quality local or qualified local government status, we would be in jeopardy of not receiving certain grants and/or other forms of support from the state and/or federal government.

And so this is something all jurisdictions have to um adhere to and comply.

And I just want to make sure that that is something that I explicitly state again by July 27th, this needs to be in its final form to be transmitted to the State Department of Community Affairs.

All right, Mayor Robachon.

Just for obviously housing still, are there other areas of the comp plan that um as we know it also involves others that we might be going be able to go through any changes that are gonna be um proposed?

Yeah.

Mayor rubbish or I'm sorry, um, I think we're gonna be able to do that.

So that we could go through that wanted to mention uh before we move on.

Okay, sorry.

Yes, Mayor.

Michelle, would it be appropriate since you guys are giving since staff is giving us feedback on the other requested changes where some you have reported back to us, we're recommending no change here, here we're recommending change.

Would you guys also be able to compare the um the definitions of the neighborhoods between the two plans and and make sure, like give us your expert opinion on those as well?

Uh I would state that this would be arguing preference, and it just seems to be a matter of preference whether you are comfortable with the concise language, or if you're more comfortable with language that from the 2040.

So I wouldn't be able to give you a technical objective.

This you know, this matches doesn't match, or where there are gaps, um, it wouldn't be like that.

We reviewed it and observed no gaps in the big picture, and I deferred to you all the direction that the next draft needs to go.

So you're you're you're essentially saying that you you guys, when you reviewed it, felt that the two plans definitions did not change from one to another.

It was just a different format, and and one of them a little bit shorter.

That's I I mean it doesn't really look shorter to me, it looks like a different format, but um anyways, um yeah, I thought it was the it was definitely it was absolutely consolidated language.

I see that, and and so there's if there's different if there's preference that it's needs strengthening, then we will take directions from you on that.

Thank you.

Councilmember Zet.

Yeah, I guess that point um I just want to be fair to you that kind of the ask is for you to look at 2040 to 2045 and say, like what the aspect thing from Jennifer or sorry, Councilmember Philippi is hey, is there any substantial difference?

And it's okay.

I wouldn't expect you to be able to do that now because I think you'd have to go through both.

But if you are comfortable to say that that's okay, but I think it's also okay to take the time to to actually review it.

Well we have already re-reviewed it.

I mean, I I mean, as staff, we've got we we gave the consultants marching orders, the stakeholder committee got a draft of this document.

We looked at it as staff as well.

Um we consolidated people's comments that we caught things that we wanted to perfect, and when staff reviewed it, the yes, we saw I saw that it's consolidated, and so I can only repeat that I don't think this I think it is more a preference, a policy preference.

If you feel it need has specific gaps, I haven't heard specific language that says what is the opening, but I I trust the pol you all to let us know what you would like to see changed, if anything.

Mayor, did you have a comment, Mayor?

I I would agree.

I don't think it's Michelle's role.

I mean, I think this becomes the policy the elected officials to go through this.

I know it takes time to for each of you, I I believe me to go through determine from your own perspective that's what you're elected for to see.

Do you see a significant difference?

Yes or no?

That's that's really the question.

I don't think that's from my perspective to put that on staff to make that decision, suppose for us per se.

Council member Hall.

Councilmember Hall.

And again, I just go back to um more information is better to have than less condensed information because there is information that's can be inferred and um intuitive from a condensed version that is spelled out more clearly in the expanded version from 2040.

So that's that's my position.

Council member sells.

Uh just on the calendar, just want to make sure I understand the calendar.

We're we're going to this is going to come to uh the council on what day?

27th.

On the 27th, yes, sir.

And that is a public hearing.

Yes, sir.

Absolutely.

And the public can make comments.

Absolutely.

But the unfortunate reality is it will be too late to make any changes.

So the the point is that we have five-year-old language which has been well vetted and has been of service to us for the last five years.

And so now we're saying, okay, we're gonna read it, we're going to decide whether it's qualitatively better or qualitatively worse, and then the public gets to meet it on that day and comment on it, but it it's it it it's sound and fury but availeth nothing.

So I think that's probably a mistake.

Okay.

All right.

Michelle, we've got more items, right?

Is that correct?

Well, on the list we do, yes, there's um the list that was distributed about the revised edit request.

Um, in addition to some of the housing matters, there was also um uh a request to have the um develop a catalytical site strategy, and there we're just looking to consolidate so that we have all three, all five activity centers um are required that they have a strategic project to determine priorities instead of having we had an ED6 and ED7, LU 10, and those all refer to economic development and land use in the comprehensive in the community work plan in the CWP, and we're just recommending to consolidate those three um and actually have it for um require um that kind of strategy strategic um study for all five of the activity centers.

The other member hall.

I'm sorry, are you starting on page 110 or where are we starting?

Um sorry, no, this is this is um on the second page on this third page, because we went through the housing, which was on the second page, it started with page um 108-175 reference.

That's what we were we talked about.

The community oh, okay.

Uh I'm prepared to talk about each item starting from page 10, so that we can go through and make sure that we're all okay with the suggested no change or change.

Is that not what the plan is here?

Well, we were hoping, I think Jeff put it the best way when we were hoping that if you had looked at it and decided already, um, this a lot of it looks great, like if we could decide what looks fine and just focus on the ones that seem to be different that you're not comp satisfied with, and then you can give me different direction.

But we'd hope that it wouldn't be that many items that would be different, but it sounds like potentially there there is council member Beeson.

I mean, we've already gone through these one by one through our three on threes, and then the decision was ultimately the summary of the changes was going to be discussed during the committee meeting.

So is there a reason why we need to go line by line at this point?

Yep, we can jump jump the lines, but yeah, I have comments on, like, for example, the activity centers where it says no change because the UDC regulates it already.

Well, that's a circular.

That's Sarah, this is one area that you would probably like to jump into because it's really a circular um argument.

If we don't, if the UDC regulates it and it's not in the comp plan, we can change the UDC and we'll lose that protection.

So therefore, we need to have it in the comp plan so that the UDC those are not changed.

Um so those things where it says no change, we do need to have it in there.

Unless I'm misreading am I misinterpreting what no change means.

Councilmember Bson.

The conversation we had on the three on three, and then afterwards, um three on three for the public, all the electeds are briefed in groups of three so that we don't violate quorums, at least we're aware of what's going on if we have any questions before committee.

Um the discussion that we had previously was that while the UDC does regulate it, if it were to be changed in the UDC, and it still could be changed even if it is in the comprehensive plan technically, because it's a completely different guiding document, then you would have conflicts between one or the other.

So you would have uh UDC guidance that conflicts with something that's in the comprehensive plan, or conversely, you never change the UDC, and then you have something that's described in a different way in a different document that has no binding regulation like the UDC does, the unified code of development code.

So one is ordinances, one is a guidance document.

So my understanding was was that we were leaving that language in place with no change because the actual ordinance, which is the unified development code would guide it as opposed to altering the guidance document.

But correct me if that was I was misunderstanding.

Council Member Hall.

So for for example, residential units within a mixed-use activity centers may only be approved as part of a verified mixed-use development with commercial retail entertainment components either delivered concurrently or guaranteed via performance bond prior to occupancy of residential units.

So we've talked about this document as something that we want our development community to be able to look at and say this is what they want.

If it's not in this document, it can be anything in the UDC.

You can basically say, well, we want standalone apartments, so let's put apartments, you know, all over town.

The UDC can do that.

You can bring that back if the comp plan doesn't speak to it.

So the comp plan here is speaking to it, but multifamily units need to be part of a libwork play area.

Councilmember B so I think you're mistaken in the sense that it's actually inverted.

Um the UDC does not necessarily have to match verbatim with the comprehensive plan.

The comprehensive plan gives long-term guidance for where policy ultimately wants to go for future development, but until it's implemented in law through the unified development code, you could say I want everybody's yard to no longer have grass and we're gonna do tomato plants instead.

You can say whatever you want in the comprehensive plan, but until it's codified in the UDC, it's non-binding.

So with the recommendation of your guidance, the example you gave 142 to 146 residential units, that's already guidance in our UDC.

That's my understanding.

Is that correct, Miss Alexander?

Yes, yes.

Thank you.

Oh David, what would you agree with?

So to using Sarah's example, if you want a yard to become tomato plants.

If somebody came in and said, Well, I want to put all these tomato plants in my front yard, and council said no, then the developer or whoever it was that wanted to do the tomato plants would have an argument.

Notwithstanding what's in the UDC.

Correct.

No matter what's in the UDC, they would argue, well, your comp plan calls for tomato plants.

So it has a force of law, as it were, through through court action, I suppose, is what you're saying.

It would have to be turned down, but if that's what you want, you probably wouldn't turn it down.

Right.

That's I mean, there's there's supposed the UDC is uh proposed to support the comp plan.

It doesn't have to match word for word or anything like that, it just has to support, and that's why the plan is broad.

So you don't say tomato plants in the front yard.

You basically say we want stuff other than grass in the front yard.

Right.

Councilmember Beeson.

Uh to Mr.

Davidson's point, with adding this is very specific language in my opinion, residential units within mixed use activity centers may only be approved as part of verified mixed use development.

Well, my understanding so far is that this is currently in the UDC.

Is that correct, Mr.

Davidson?

Uh 142-146 line.

Uh it says it's already in the UDC, so yes.

So if it's already implementable, I guess why are we looking to change the language in a non-binding document?

Is it council member Hall?

Because this is the document that gives guidance to what we want in our city.

It's our plan.

And if we want to tell the development community this is what we want, we need to put it in there.

The UDC can be by a majority um vote of council, you can put apartments all over the place if you wanted to.

Councilmember Philippi.

Okay, just so I can follow and understand.

If we added this language to the comprehensive plan, does it further restrict us in any way since it's already in the UDC?

No.

Does so it doesn't cause an issue in any way?

And I would just say that you know, I wasn't a part of any conversation that um that um combined this list.

I only have the original items.

Um, and so I was prepared to accept those changes as well.

Yeah, our our Yeah.

Our three on three did not go through this in detail.

Okay, Councilmember Zach was um otherwise detained, and um council member cells and I decided that we would take this and and read this later, right?

So I don't know if you guys ended up having separate meetings um with Michelle, but I did not.

So the so then the combined would have only yeah, the combined would have only been from the one three on the this this was a new document that was just sent to us.

Yeah, yeah.

Combined document.

I know okay document.

Okay.

All right.

So the proposal is to to keep to keep it in the uh comp plan is that correct?

Our pro my proposal.

So instead of change it says no change, so you want me to just not be implemented.

Correct.

Like, like don't pull it out, leave it in there.

Add add it in.

And add it.

You want it like this, no changes confusing.

Oh, to not add it.

This is saying the instructions to the consultant says add to the implementation section.

And so if we do we add it or do we not?

So add it and I'm hearing is that what is that one no change means?

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

No.

No, no, no.

No.

Okay.

All right.

So how do you want to handle this as a body?

You want to go through each item?

Determine.

There's 10 on the first two pages.

And then the rest you've seen before.

These are just the revised ones.

The first the first four pages.

The first, excuse me, the first three pages are the revised, the ones you haven't seen before that we put we got after after the three and threes, and from meeting with the mayor and meeting with all of council.

So these are the revised have about 10 plus what we've already talked about with the activity centers and the housing.

So would you uh so on page one on page one is there other um concerns?

So I think on page one, based on 242, 146, and 169, um, that's all all the same.

I would propose that that's in the UDC.

And then on 164, um, I think that that is also important to have in the UDC because it establishes minimum transition zone standards that can be designed within the activity center boundaries in order to transition from the high intensity activity course to adjacent single family residential character areas.

And so this is where um this is where the UDC could be problematic if if we're relying on the UDC because it says it's on a case by case basis.

So this just gives you the protection that you're going to have transition zones.

All right, Councilmember Beeson.

I don't think the UDC necessarily says that it's inherently case by case as to what's approved.

It's if you start to establish minimum transition zone design standards within activity center boundaries.

We have five different activity centers that all function very differently.

So to begin to paint with a very wide brush would make certain regulations not applicable or awkward looking, um, that are not necessarily going to fit within that designated area, which is why it's the city projects are case by case because intensity transition and core areas are very different across the five core zones that they have.

Um not to mention if there's ever any growth anywhere else that creates a new activity core.

But is your concern that you you're saying that you want to establish the minimum transition to zone design standards to add to the unified development code?

That that would be my that would be my preference.

So my understanding is that an area would be different.

It could basically could say each each area is different and it will have a specific specified transition.

So that seems like it would be a UDC change.

Otherwise, it sounds like you're also saying case by case, um, if I'm not misunderstanding that knowledge I think well I think the broader the language there on the left, the broader language your council member Hall, you're promoting to be a part of the comprehensive plan.

Obviously, the UDC would be a step later to look at specifics or specific areas, right?

Um and so you want the broad language to be placed in the comprehensive.

Just so that there are so that so that whatever happens with the UDC that people are aware that there are going to be some minimum transition zones, whatever it is, what each area is going to be different.

Um of the activity centers may be closer to residential than others, you know, it depends on what it is.

It's just again for protection.

Council Marcells.

Yeah, this was a this was a lively and good debate in the uh steering committee was about this issue, and in particular with the activity centers and the transition, and in some of those places, like for instance, Camberly Clark, it's basically I think it's like two parcels or two or three parcels.

It's not, it's not so you had to transition within the parcel, as opposed to saying, you know, the there's a there's an area of activity and the parcel adjacent to it would be less intense, and then the parcel position to that may be mixed uh um multifamily or something like that, or townhomes or something like that, then residential.

And it we so we talked a good bit about you know, is the transition area within the economic activity zone that we're talking about, especially for these larger zones.

That was a big conversation, and and we what we were trying to get to was that the whole concept was the protection of the neighborhoods.

That was the tantamount consideration.

And then secondly, okay, we recognize that there is going to be high intensity if it's going to drive economic growth in particular job growth, things like that.

And on a property this size of a KC, or perhaps you know, some of the others that we know of, where you're talking about 40, 50, sometimes 90 acres.

Let's let's have the intensity as far as possible, practical as it fits that particular act economic opportunity for the the city and for the developer.

Let's have those high density, high-intensity areas as buffered from the adjacent residential as possible.

And this also gets to one of the things that we that passed council have done, and that is approved, particularly housing in areas that were prior prior uh previously commercial.

And so that makes a obvious conflict when you try to put actual commercial in the commercial zone that they are now has now been turned into residential.

So those those conversations were very specific and rather uh well discussed, I would say.

Councilmember Philippi.

Um so again, since we did not go through this list in detail in our three-on three, the the detailed list that we had, the original staff recommendation was to accept these updates.

So I'm not um privy to how it went from a change to no change, and unless there is advice from legal that creating the change and adding the language causes if legal is the right place to give that advice.

Um unless there is advice that it would be a problem to add the language, I would I would be in favor of adding both sets of language.

Keeping it keeping it in.

Yeah.

Okay.

Adding it in.

Yes.

Okay.

Councilmember Hall.

So just to lend some, this is on page 164.

The and it's under overall guiding policies, and it it basically this is where there where it would be is the bullet.

These guiding policies provide a framework for development and investment throughout the city.

And the other bullets be besides this one are the economic success of Russ Roswell is tied to five activity centers within the city.

These five activity centers include specific redevelopment sites that are the keys to unlocking their potential.

The city has very few undeveloped areas, therefore, redevelopment will be the primary way the city attracts the amenities and services desired by residents and needed needed to attract visitors.

Redevelopment should include appropriate transitions and buffers to protect existing neighborhoods.

And so this just adds that we establish minimum transition zones.

So it just flows into the document.

And perhaps it was in there.

I don't know if it just accidentally got out.

Some of these things were accidentally, I like I said, with the pictures.

I know there's a lot of moving pieces, so perhaps it was just dropped by a keystroke by accident.

So council member Bson.

I guess to better clarify, my only concern with being overly prescriptive with some of this language by saying that you need to have a um minimum transition zone.

What would be applicable in the highway nine zone?

Um referring to page 165, and it's the activity center's map, so pretty much what this document is focusing on for the most part.

The transition zones from northern highway nine, which goes into our industrial light district and around the hospital, are not going to look anything like the transition zones further down Holcomb Bridge Road, closer to the former Studio Movie Grill property, just because it's extremely narrow in those parcels in the way that they have bought Holcomb Bridge Road as opposed to Highway 9.

You have a lot more leeway because you have natural buffers that already exist because housing isn't very adjacent to most of those areas along the industrial side of Highway 9.

So my only concern is being overly prescriptive with how we're going to be establishing minimum transition zone design standards.

Um again, you're painting with a very wide brush for areas that are treated very differently.

Councilmember Sells.

That's a great point because it each of those are unique for sure.

And the conversation was that the guidance is to create appropriate buffer zones.

And and some of those, we we talked specifically, you know, it may be one parcel wide.

And we talked about the fact that some of these parcels, especially like you say along Highway 9 or even Crossfill, you're talking about in the broader, not in the activity centers, but in the broader economic conversation, you know, they're going to trade one parcel at a time, not the whole area, most of them.

So how do we do that?

And I think we did a CWP around this issue, did we not?

As well.

As well, yes.

So the point was to give guidance that our goal in regard to economic development was to provide buffers that are protecting the neighborhoods when within this economic intensity.

Because we, you know, speaking for myself, I'm looking forward to some economic intensity in some of these areas that relieves our tax burden.

So I'm all about that.

But at the same time, we wanted to make sure that we were providing for that, and so we added this language and a CWP, if I'm if I'm not mistaken.

L U6, yes, yeah.

To to address those issues and and give guidance to that, and also to flag to the development community that you know, for instance, uh I I checked our our uh NDA with KC is lapsed.

Am I correct about that, Mr.

Davidson?

Sorry.

Our KC KC NDA is has lapsed.

Yes.

Okay.

You know, I I understand that they have a proposal that is something like 4,000 residential units from a developer.

Okay, we want to send a clear and unequivocal message that that's not the kind of development we're looking for, and so we wanted to talk specifically about these buffer zones in that regard, and that's why this is in here.

You need the existing language, any change.

Yeah, as opposed to no change means to not add in, but the the request keep it as an edit and edit, you would like it at the edit to be made.

Yeah, whatever.

The original edit just while we're on page 164, I don't know if you have it, but on the bottom left paragraph where it says since we're talking about the activity centers, to clarify this it says promote in cell housing that is well-scale contract sensitive and appropriately designed, I believe in the activity centers is missing.

This is that area that we're talking about.

So in the activity centers that rock.

No, it's Mayor Mayor Robichau.

So I I guess if LU 6 as a work plan says we're we're going to review buffer and screening requirements to ensure proper protections for existing single stable single family areas.

And I guess I'm why would we need to add this if it's already in the UDC code?

We're saying we're going to review the buffer, the requirements already, so it's in a work plan to come up with these zones.

We don't know when we say established, it's already there.

Is this just to say we're doing it in the work plan?

That's right.

Okay, so everything that's in the work plan.

Yeah.

So everything that's in the work plan should have some sort of reference in the the rest of the plan.

I can't say that, but I can say that what we try to do, and I I think you know, uh Michelle, Jeff's not here, and he sort of spearheaded this, but he did want to tie those concepts of the policy statement with actions so that it was clear, and we had a long conversation uh and we had some feedback from the public about you know tying those together because I think you made the point earlier, the 2040 plan called for a lot of CWP that didn't get done.

And so they wanted to make sure, we wanted to make sure that to the extent we could, we move the policy ball and the work that follows it, and then whatever may come on the UDC that needs to be done, or frankly, if it's an economic development opportunity, I mean, those are such rifle shots and unique circumstances, it is highly probable that it would be an overlay at the end of the day, anyway, to make sure that we get what we want.

But that's so as a policy matter, we were trying to move those together.

That's what that was the goal.

So I'm gonna Yes, Mayor Ruppshow.

I'm gonna ask a question more of uh council Davidson.

So with language like this, when we talked about a developer of someone being able to sue the city, so when I read that establish minimum transition zone design standards, but now we're saying, but we're still gonna do it on a case-by-case basis with not a person who doesn't get the you know, if in their minimum is much larger than the person down the road for whatever reason we think it's appropriate.

Does that open that up?

Because that could again be seen as well, you've got a what of a standard?

Are we going to say it's a standard on a case by case basis?

I don't I guess I don't consider that a true standard, but so I I think the point of this is the minimum standard.

So if it is bigger, that's great.

But all we're trying to do is set the minimum on what it would be.

So if you want a 10-foot vegetative buffer, then that's what that could be.

But if somebody has a 50-foot vegetative buffer, that's great.

No, I meant it the opposite way.

So if we say in the um uptown corridor, it's a 10-foot buffer.

In the Holcomb Bridge corridor, it's a 30-foot buffer.

In the um city center area, it's a 40-foot buffer.

Can a developer come and say, well, you've done it bit by bit, that's not really a standard minimum.

Does it have to you know what I'm trying to word it?

Yeah, I see what you I could see it both ways legally.

So from my perspective, you would have to have an articulated reason on why there's a difference.

It wouldn't just be 10 here, 40 there, 20 here.

Like Sarah said, there's some very shallow lots in areas where if you put a 50 foot buffer, they wouldn't be able to put anything there.

Right?

So that would have to be smaller.

Which will have to be a product of this work program.

Right.

That that's and would that have the same binding requirements?

So when when it goes through the work prayer program, that's when you would put it into the UDC.

So then it goes back to the E Cindy document in a lot of ways, versus I mean it's right.

So the UDC is your enforcement mechanism.

That's that's really what it is.

This is this is what it's named, uh a plan.

Right.

So this is where we're striuming and go, and then this is how we're gonna force getting there as the UDC.

Thank you.

All right, shall we continue?

Yeah, okay.

Um there are other areas that I I just was um wanting um clarity on page 194 H1.

It says add to the housing study need to define what is attainable instead of workforce housing means for Roswell in include inventory of existing Stockton at and execute a strategy to address findings.

So I think an execution plan is different than a study.

So I don't know if that should be in there as part of that and execute a strategy.

And I don't know if that belongs that strategy document is in the comp plan the vision document.

That's um that's my question to the to y'all.

I think the housing study is the housing study, and then you have an execution a strategic execution document that's going to be based on where you want to go strategically.

Council member Zach.

Yeah, my general take to that is I like the idea of putting something to action with the housing uh study.

Otherwise, I don't know the point of doing the housing.

So I guess to bridge that, where do you see like that kind of hey, with this housing study, we have some level of uh requirement to to do something with that?

Council Merhal, go ahead and then we'll get Council Sell.

I see it I I I basically would see that as part of a um public public meetings and public input and surveys, and basically, you know, here's the housing study, and and these are the areas or you know, that this is kind of the the facts, and and let's let's take it out to the public and and see what the public has to say.

Council member sells it in back to council members that yeah, that that was the point.

It was so a lot of these these CWPs were specifically tasking staff to provide data back to the elected body so we could deal with those things because we've talked about what our housing shortfalls are, what are and so we said okay, well, let's look at what our neighboring cities have, let's look at how we stack up uh and come back to this body with the information and not to you know go off and execute that wasn't this this this ad is new to me.

That wasn't this this ad is new to me.

I don't I don't know that that's that this is a consolidated set from all council members.

Fair enough, fair enough.

But uh yeah, I I wouldn't that would that would trouble me much if uh staff uh like they did the housing study and then they began to pull those uh neighborhoods or something.

Yeah, what does that even mean for them to execute?

Uh fair enough.

Well and I guess just point of clarity.

I I would have taken the plan as part of this council.

Your perception is that if put in the comp plan, it gives staff the authority outside of uh council's purview to execute.

Those CWPs.

You you know that those are like can you describe the we're talking about them, but maybe everybody doesn't understand.

They're part of the comp plan, but they're not policy per se.

So would you speak to that a little bit?

Community work program.

Please go ahead.

Yeah.

Um so um it is in fact policy directives based on the policy in the document.

Um the work plan says this is what we are committing to.

Now staff uses it as our marching orders and we refer to it and check in um and we bring it to you once a year with the CIE, the um in the capital plan to check if you know that we're executing the CWP.

But we couldn't execute anything that wasn't um approved by council.

We couldn't, even though the stuff it says we need to execute a study, staff brings you the study, and you tell us, yep, we still want that.

Um so nothing on here would be executed without your directive.

That that if I may follow up on what I saw.

That's exactly right.

The execution that we're talking about, what she's talking about is actually doing the study, executing on the study.

What this implies is execution on the findings that relate or that result from the study, and that's what I'm trying to draw a bright line between.

So they're gonna come back to us with all the CWP things in the in the course or to whatever council is seated at that time and go through all that process, and they will say, hey, it's we're now ready to do the the buffer study or the housing study, I guess it's it should say.

And we've gotten bids, and here's what it's gonna take, and here's the budget, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

And you come to council and you say, we're now ready to do that one in the normal course as you describe, we say yes or no, go do that, and you then you then you execute that study.

That's what you mean.

That's not what this means, is it?

That that's not what this means.

This is this is committing the city, it's not committing staff to do it, it's saying that's committing the city will do a study, and the city then commits to execute some some action based on the findings.

So it's committing that you're committing yourself to both steps.

That they could be two separate steps or or however you'd like to define them.

Yeah.

Councilmember Beeson.

I think the reason why that language is included, it's to address your concerns about the 2040 comprehensive plan.

We had an exhaustive list of CWPs that were never actually addressed.

Also, I think it's been a fun tradition here in Roswell to create studies that we just pretty studies that go on a shelf, and I think at least in this situation, it creates binding language, not specific to what we will do to bind us to that, but that we will do something to address whatever challenges, or maybe there aren't any challenges that are identified in the study itself, but it's at least something that holds us accountable as opposed to just creating a study for kicks and giggles to go on a shelf.

Right.

And council member Zach, I apologize.

I need to go back to you.

Councilmember Zach.

I might be resolved through the the two conversation.

All right.

All right, Councilmember Hall.

I just want to be clear, we're striking the and execute a strategy to address the findings.

Okay.

Okay.

Good with striking it or leaving it.

Leaving it in.

Yes.

So we're leaving the execution of it.

But she I'm sorry, maybe I misunderstood.

Michelle uh said that we're going to do the study, we're gonna get the results of the study, and if the results tell us to do X, we're gonna do X.

My language was we bring to you a study, we also bring to you a strategy.

Nothing goes moves, staff doesn't move forward independently without bringing to you first for approval.

So even though it's on this list, this doesn't say staff grab your you know battalions.

Um, you know, we still have to come to you and let you know we're executing this and this is why we're doing it, it's because you put it on it this plan.

You're you're executing it, and we haven't even had public input.

It's it is that is it so I was saying we're bringing them to you a study, and then we would bring to you a plan, a strategy for you to execute.

They would be two separate steps, it's just combined in one CWP.

So it's including that we're as I understood council person B sent to say we are going to do a study, and we're also committing that we're going to do something with the results of that study.

So that's what this language commits to, that's all.

It doesn't commit to staff executing any housing, any rogue rogue activity um without direction from you all.

Yeah.

Council member Councilmember Z.

Yes, I'm I'm reading too much into it.

Councilmember Zet.

Yeah, it and to that, I think it really binds us.

Um, and I like that because again, there's a lot of studies that nothing happens, and to that, what an execution plan would be, it's gonna be on us.

Um, and I would prefer to still have that accountability of we commission this plan, therefore we need to come up with a plan of what to do with that data afterwards, whatever that plan may be.

Councilmember Beeson, then Mayor Robichot.

May I offer an edit to Councilmember Hall to maybe be more amenable for her, and execute a strategy to address the findings in coordination with community input Mayor Mayor Roboshow, maybe.

So I would say that would be included in a strategy.

The strategy would be.

I agree, but if it's well now words here.

Well, I'm offering words.

Well, words do matter, but obviously, you know, all strata anything like that should be the concept of community input communication moving forward, those kinds of things.

That's part of your should always be part of your strategy.

And that, and if it's no offense to our wonderful staff, if that is not included in the presented strategy from staff, that is the council and mayor's responsibility to put it into the strategy.

Right.

Correct?

Yes.

Yes, absolutely.

Comprehensive plan creed.

Yes.

Uh councilmember Hall.

And this message is for our attorney.

Uh, there's a it also says also add challenges and needs, equity concerns, and execute a strategy.

So I did work in the lending industry uh with HUD and and those agencies for some time, and there is some very um specific language when it comes to discriminatory practices, and I just want to make sure that equity that keeping those words in there as part of this housing discussion does not cross a line that we shouldn't be going towards well, honestly, it just says add challenges and needs, equity concerns, and execute a strategy.

I'm not sure where that's intended in this.

Yeah, what what does that mean and where's it intended?

And and again, my I have some HUD concerns because we're getting grants, you know.

Yeah, that was alright.

That was part of a and it's excerpted from part of the sentence that we didn't reproduce here.

I'd have to look it up to give you the specific um, but it was meanting meaning just to add um the there already exists the words challenges and needs from the study.

And we were adding problem.

I just want to make sure that it doesn't get us in trouble.

Exactly.

No, I hear it, I hear it.

Asking it.

Right.

No, I was just saying where it was located in the sentence.

Yeah, I mean I think equity.

Can you add equity to the sentence?

I mean, it depends on the context, obviously, on the sentence, and without having the full sentence, it's hard for me to do that.

Yeah, so we either need like the full context or we need to take that word out.

I think it's broad enough if it's in a broad sentence to where it wouldn't matter.

Um I you know, we're talking about a very specific type of housing or something that's different.

So it says conduct an existing housing assessment to understand housing market challenges and needs, equity concerns, and and then the rest of the sentence of um execute and execute a strategy to address um findings.

Yeah, I don't have confusions about that.

That's that's what the study would do anyway.

Okay.

Councilmember Beeson.

Uh it this is purely for this chart.

Um, your chart references 194 H1.

I think that might have been some of the initial confusion when we first started the conversation.

It's actually H2 that the sign's referring to.

Yeah, yeah, these numbers were locked down on two.

All right, thank you.

All right, we will proceed.

All right, are we good on uh we good on these items?

194 on this page.

Okay.

All right.

Strategy.

So we had um in the community work program.

We had um from pages 194 and page 196.

We had a couple of um topics.

One was an economic development item to develop a catalytic site strategy for the mansel overlook.

And then ED7 was to develop a catalytic site strategy for the East Roswell Activity Center, and then a land use item to develop a study for the Holcomb Bridge and Georgia 400 area.

And so this is just a recommendation since this since all five of the centers need to have this sort of business strategy performed by economic development for each one of the activity areas to have it as just to consolidate those items, if that makes sense.

All right, thank you.

Council member Hall.

Thank you.

And and I just wanted to really encouraged about this.

This is what kind of this was the crux of what all this was about.

So I I just wanted to say those it that's great.

It hits the nail on the head.

It was great.

All right, thank you.

Are we good with that first section?

All right.

And then the bottom section under transition and traffic standards.

This this brings us back to the set the question earlier where I was mentioning that in the in the community work program, we we bring up the transition zone standards.

So if I understood the directive from earlier, we want to keep that.

This was recommending to not have it.

This was recommending that because it's in the UDC.

But if I heard correctly from you all, go ahead and leave it in as the transition buffers for uh work program item L U6 to develop updated minimum transition stone standards for activity center edges adjacent to established neighborhood character areas.

Correct.

And that L U11 follows that as well.

Councilmember Beeson wouldn't it make more sense to in the same vein that we were looking at this is we're wanting that we're going to get a housing study.

Based off the housing study, we're going to create a plan, we are going to implement the plan.

In this situation, it just says develop updated minimum transition zone standards and uh for the activity centers, but it never says that we fully implement it in the UDC.

So shouldn't the guidance instead be something to the effect of develop minimum transition zone standards for activity centers with community input and use that as guidance for ordinance changes for the UDC?

Because otherwise it's not buying as a as a text amendment to the UD.

So the first one LU6 as a text amendment to the UDC.

Yeah, so um develop updated minimum transition zone standards for activity center edges adjacent to established neighborhood character areas based off community input, including buffer width uses height and um and uh as guidance to create text amendments to the UDC because in this situation we would as an elected body have to pass that ordinance change, otherwise it just implies that we're doing it.

Understood.

All right.

That's a great suggestion.

Thank you.

All right.

Yeah, there is one.

No, it's it says it says add.

So right below the same word in this one.

So the uh there's L U6 up on the screen is L U6, and then the next one below that is add that L E U 11.

Right within this document.

There's that's that's in the in something that hasn't been revised.

This is only the sections that were revised, revised edits.

I know.

I know Randy.

I tried yes, uh Mayor Rubbishop, sorry.

If for L U6 we're just adding or or correcting, I'm assuming there are already some existing buffers and screening requirements in these areas.

So maybe instead of just saying develop, it should be as it states here, review and review slash and improve and improve or validate whatever you want to call it, but we already have some.

We're not developing from scratch.

Good point, good point.

Okay.

All right.

And with that, or is everyone good with the items listed on the bottom?

Yes, Councilmember Hall.

I just had a question.

I think folks had a question about these, and this might have been council member Brumley talked about it, the traffic impact assessment.

Do we want to add LU 11?

Okay, yeah.

T 20 and T21.

So we're adding those.

Recommend.

Combining them and adding them.

Yes, ma'am.

Recommending we combine them.

All right, thank you.

I just remember talking about them.

All right.

So are we are we good with that?

The bottom portion of the screen here?

That concludes that concludes all of the ones that were revised.

The other the remainder of the list was the original list you saw before.

Um we've talked through them.

I don't know if you had any other comments about them and if you're good with them as you see them, or if there's anything we need to address to make sure we have our policy directive clear from you all.

Yes, ma'am.

Council Member Hall.

I'm sorry, Councilman.

Sorry.

I was trying to read Council Merho.

And then Sales.

Thank you.

Um just I there was there's one other thing, and I noticed uh I know that one of the um folks from our stakeholder committee wrote in on page 64.

Uh we need to replace the word subdivision with neighborhood because there's we don't recognize subdivisions, they're all neighborhoods it throughout the whole document refers to neighborhood.

Say it say it again, Wood Pitt page 64.

And and the chain this is a new edit that's not on the list.

Uh I think you had it as a correction from the very beginning, but it's in the very uh top paragraph where it says identifying activity centers, and this it's the one, two, three, four, about the seventh line down.

Yeah, first paragraph while protecting and maintaining existing single family residential neighborhoods instead of subdivisions.

That's the only place that that popped up by accident.

Okay.

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

And the only other thing I had on this search and replace.

Good, council.

And the only other thing I had on here was where it says population, and I know that we wanted to change, we have discussions about changing that.

Um it says remove grow the economy without growing the population to read instead grow the economy while fostering measured or intentional population growth, focusing on age distribution.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Where it says that we want to grow the economy while fostering a measured or intentional population growth focusing on age distribution.

So is there are we looking to put a number in there?

Do we want to grow with limits without limits?

How do we, you know, we can't control this?

What does it mean?

That it is that document or is that sentence clear?

Sarah, go ahead.

Council Councilmember Beeson, please.

I my only suggestion on wording would be diversified age distribution.

Because otherwise age distribution it to refer for the public for folks who are following along at home or in the audience, um, on page it's citywide demographic profile page 23.

Um age cohorts uh since between 2010 and 2025.

Um our age cohorts 85 and up has increased 33 percent, 75 through 84 has increased 104 percent, 65 and 74 has increased 75 percent, and 55 through 64 has increased 6.4 percent.

Honestly, it makes sense.

It doesn't necessarily mean folks are relocating into Roswell who are within these age demographics, it's likely folks who are aging in place.

Um however, there was significant drop-off between ages 45 to 54.

Um we've lost 3.8 of the population of the population between 35 and 44, we lost 8.4% of the population.

Between the ages of 25 and 34, we've lost almost six percent of the population.

Um so phrasing that in a way that we would like to target a more diversified age bracket.

Uh especially to support economic development.

Council member sells uh yeah, so uh games with statistics here, I'm afraid.

Uh I'm not so sure.

We haven't lost them as a percentage of the whole, they are down by 3.8.

It's not that they're we game.

Yes, they're they're not yeah, they're they're they're not soil at green or anything.

They're they're still they're still here, they're just they're just more of the others.

And as far as like the 85%, it went from you know, from nine people to 12 people.

We're talking about it's it's 18 percent, and it was 14 percent or 15 percent.

So it's not it's not that we are oh my gosh, we've got we got we're completely over indexing on over 65.

It's uh and that's all three of those.

I mean, it's you know, uh we had a small base because we were a young community uh and a new community, and so we added all of East Roswell, for instance, and all of that kind of stuff.

So I'm not so sure you can read that that way.

I do agree with with Christine that you know we either need to say what what are we trying to focus on with this age distribution?

I don't understand what that means, and how would we go about that?

What would that be as a policy?

Are we going to you know uh not sure uh what the what the uptake is as a 63-year-old.

I'm not so sure I'm down with it.

I just gotta say that I want to be uh I want to be uh focused as an age distribution uh target, I suppose, in the bad way.

Mayor rub a show.

Well, Councilmember Sells, I would say is part of that is uh concept of as we all know, and even the mixed use development, it's live work play model, which is also obviously look for more diverse distributed age distribution.

I mean it's a little bit different than you and I'm I'm older than you, so I agree with you, understand you.

But I'm saying, you know, that's that concept why these mixed use developments, they want to people younger people, um councilmember Zach's age group possibly want to you know live in live in a place where they can easily get to work and walk around and enjoy the community.

So that when we say how would we target that, I think in part of our economic strategy, we're already looking at that, and that's part of it.

Um would the possibility um council member Beeson to change the language to grow the economy while fostering a measured population growth, focusing on an um, I don't even call it appropriate, a diverse age distribution.

So we're not focused on only bringing in you know young professionals, we're not focused only on becoming a totally retirement community, we're focused on distribution appropriately, and that can always be done in a different, you know, different communities are gonna attract different populations.

Councilmember Beeson.

I realize that you can game numbers any way you want.

Page 22 also provides the share of population by cohort.

Um Roswell has uh on average four percent more senior residents compared to the rest of Fulton County as a whole.

Um, and we have uh roughly 10 percent less um early life adults, 25 to 44, which is your key young professionals compared to the rest of Fulton County.

Um so those are the two age demographics that I'm concerned with.

Um not that I want to replace the senior residents by any way, shape, or form.

I want them to continue to live here.

Um as I've continued to say, it shouldn't be that as grandma ages out of place from her house that she needs to be shown the city line.

We need to be able to provide options for live, work, and play for all of our community members.

Um hopefully less work, more play, um, as you hear near retirement age.

Um I understand what council member Hall is trying to address in terms of the diversification.

Um as council member Philippi said sitting next to me, and I don't want to put words in her mouth.

Uh is adding age something that we necessarily need to address within this phrasing, or is it just the way that the language is currently phrased?

Is that something that we need to include all together?

Council member Philippi.

Yeah, if I could just add a add a thought to that.

I think you know, we have a mission of being the number one family community, right?

And we and so I think the idea of this statement was that we want to attract families who want to keep good schools, but if the language of age is causing any kind of discomfort, then to the point maybe it's not necessary to include here.

So the intent is attract families, right?

But if it's causing heartburn, then maybe we don't need it.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm fine with that.

All right, okay.

Okay, so population growth.

Okay.

All right.

Councilmember Hall.

I got the memo.

Yes, Council.

Council member Ho.

Thank you.

Um, I just for clarity, I just want to, because this was something new to me to replace the name Founders Park, where where we're calling Founders Park where um Bullock Hall is and Mimosa Hall and the Square and Barrington, it's going to be called historic assets linear park.

And I just understand that's a place marker until we come up with another name because there are yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

There are people that are offended by calling it Founders Park.

But I do want to point out we have a founder cemetery, and I hope they don't change the name of Founder Cemetery, which is in the mill district.

Councilmember Beeson.

I think the concern there was making sure that with us adding a significantly new, really not new, they're historic, but uh in addition to our park system, allowing the community to be able to weigh in and provide guidance on what those names should be as opposed to just unilaterally dictating what the park should be.

I just wanted people to understand that it's not going to be called historic assets linear park.

Maybe it wants to be.

Well righty.

Um yes, Councilmember Hall.

And then I'm not going to address the uh from the next page in a half until we get to uh because that's residential, so we're we're covering the residential by looking at the 2040 and bringing back that language, so we don't need to talk about this or you know, potentially bringing that back.

But that's just let me make sure before we don't go further here that's okay, we're um I'm starting on the on 120.

Oh I just want to make sure that yes, before then that everybody's okay with any updates.

Or or we can go through it.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to I was just that that was part of that residential councilmember Philippi.

Generally, I I think that we're going to be okay with that.

Just ask for a brief pause to read through.

Okay.

All right, we're on the residents.

Oh 120 through 126 on the next is all about residential.

All right, we'll go further down there.

I think we should talk about it.

Okay, all right.

So we are here now.

Are there any questions or uh items here that need to be addressed?

Okay.

All right.

Let's go further.

Here's Councilmember Hall.

Thank you.

On page 148, Downtown Activity Center.

And and this is a question.

I I see that we have um economic development to include educational.

And I didn't know if educational should be in our activity centers because they're not they don't drive economic revenues or um activities.

And and I just didn't know if we should strike educational out of the activity center.

Councilmember Sales.

Yeah, I would suggest because what happens, of course, when you do that, and I would like to strike Civic from the downtown activity center as well.

Just in general, we shouldn't have civic in there.

And the reason for that is because once you do that, it removes it from the from the tax base.

And certainly the downtown activity center in particular, you know.

I mean, I can't imagine what education we're talking about.

Uh, but you know, if it's like adult learning or something like that, where it's a for-profit, as long as they're paying the rent, it's still an economic activity, but to have civic in the downtown uh activity center, I would say we strike that as well as educational.

I would I think we would specifically exclude in civic from my point of view.

Must be in the remote.

All right, Councilmember Beeson.

We're sitting in a civic building right now.

Um that's essentially the anchor for our downtown area, and that's also the largest trend for uh most city hall developments lately.

I mean, look at Alpharetta, they didn't they had an office building and they created an entirely new city hall to anchor their um most of their economic development within their area.

I realize that it's not necessarily something that firsthand provides economic development, but it does provide a sense of placemaking, which contributes to economic development.

And as for educational, we're across the street from a library and right next to the cultural arts center, we're we have a lot of field trips and people who come into town.

Um we provide a lot of bus parking here at City Hall.

Those folks do eat afterwards, they go to places before.

Um I won't name names, but I do know uh a personal friend of mine who recently is uh purchasing a townhome conveniently located right next to walking distance from the library, it's a selling point, um, as well as city hall.

So even though it's civic and educational uses, it it contributes to a sense of place and what Roswell is.

All right, thank you.

Further comments.

Okay.

So do we leave that in the educational say you leave leave it in?

I think it came from economic development to see a consensus of head nods.

Uh council member Hall.

I just I just have a question.

So the UDC would follow would follow and have that in there as well.

Is that correct, David?

Or would could there be could there be um like limited use or conditional use as part of the just says UDC.

So these are complementary uses to the economic development, so I think it's fine just leaving it the way it is in there right now, and then the UDC provides for it in the area.

I mean, in zoning, it is already zoned civic, right?

Our our entire historic areas it's civic, all of it's it's included, it's been included for years.

We're good at leaving it in.

Okay, all right.

All right.

Are we we have uh consensus to move forward from this page and move further down?

Yeah, all right.

Uh we're getting there, guys.

All right, progress.

Yeah.

I like the enthusiasm.

All right.

Um anything we see here.

Anything else?

Which one are you looking at?

Council More Hall, yes, please.

Thank you.

At the very bottom, H5194, uh, support efforts to establish a Georgia State Veterans Home in Roswell to support resources, housing, and job development.

I just I don't know if that is that's part of the work program.

I I I just don't know you know, where's the rapid for the veterans?

But I I don't know if this is the right place for it.

It this comp plan and the work plan.

Well, I would say if it's a vision for the city, I think it should be remaining there.

I know I I know we have a proposal for one.

So I mean, if this one doesn't happen, we're going to continue.

I I knew this one was something that was interesting, but is it a continued vision be beyond this one?

That's my question.

Okay.

You want to leave uh Mayor RoboShow, please.

I think it's the concept when we talk about supporting the efforts, we as the city supporting the efforts to establish um this much needed veterans home in Roswell.

I'm not sure it's going to take a year plus to you know get it done, the job development to open it, moving forward.

Um, so I'm not sure why it should not be in the plan, but if whichever way, that's good.

Okay.

All right.

I was just okay.

Uh Councilmember Sales.

Yeah, hey, can you walk me through?

I'm looking at 169.

The first bullet uh uh that you have there, you're taking the redevelopment as an economic imperative for the city and replacing it with this.

Is that what that you were saying?

So on page 169, the it current at least my copy says citywide, this is under policy to get us squared away.

Yes, the first bullet, yes, this was from the stakeholders.

You're the committee asked to um modify the bullet to talk about that so that it doesn't um have a specific you know growth, but just says that the city seeks moderate population growth.

That was the change.

Well, there's prioritizing the economic growth, yeah.

So all of that, yeah, replacing that bullet with with that statement, but that was from the stakeholder committee.

I will uh as the one who sort of gave uh language around the three reasons for economic development, it's not exactly what I said.

Okay.

Um so tax-based diversification is correct, that was one.

But the second one was quality of life, uh uh, and the third one was employment that fits our demographics, our Roswell demographics.

Meaning we're not going to start a poultry plant in Roswell.

Well, that's not the we have if you go back to page 22 and and follows the the uh the emplo the residents who live here today, we have a certain profile, and we want to try to bring employers that uh are complementary to our uh our residents.

So this that's a that's a little different than this okay yeah, okay.

Just and then uh moderate population growth.

So we we're moving from uh hey, we would like it to be under 120,000 to what was the discussion that at the committee meeting that we didn't feel that it was appropriate to pick a target out of the air.

It must have been you had you had indicated a certain percent of a two to three percent.

Um, but we didn't map that out to say look what that number yields to us.

Instead, it was well, let's just leave it at moderate growth so folks know that we're not trying to be aggressive, that we don't want population growth, but we understand we'll have some.

Okay.

Or the word intentional.

Council Member Bisa.

I'm good with the in lieu of options.

So in uh lieu of the city seeks moderate population growth, uh the city seeks intentional growth.

Um the moderate population growth, whether it's in percentage format, a dictated number, moderate, however you define it.

In this situation, I don't think that the population is the intent.

It's we're looking for intentional growth for the sake of the first half of that sentence.

Economic growth, tax-based diversification.

I think you said quality life, um, and commercial in other words, you're being intentional about that growth based off of what was previously defined in the sentence, as opposed to trying to quantify it.

Does that make sense?

You're not going to take it.

Yes, Councilmember Sales.

Yes.

Um I also would uh I don't think it was uh in 170 create new section, third line down, middle of the section A in the hole there.

Uh wage levels consistent with, not relative to, is what we were trying to drive to towards the so job quality and wage levels consistent with Roswell demographics.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

That's on 170.

Yep.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

Are we ready to move forward?

Any items there through 194.

All right.

194 through 198.

Yes, Councilmember Sales.

I do want to pause on on uh the one about data centers.

What what is it's we're leaving it as is, right?

That's what what's the difference in no change and leave as is.

I guess that would there's not a difference.

Okay.

All right.

And then on 194, we say what about today?

What's the current state of play for uh so sorry?

This was um on the 1940 develop a clear definition of data centers.

Yeah.

I just we just left it to say to to not add that language, not develop that.

Um wait, no change, excuse me.

I'm so sorry.

Excuse me, I'm confusing things worse.

Um just to yes, leave that, leave that as an action item, and that's what we're working on currently.

I don't have an ED11.

It's an addition.

You have to look at this.

The last page, the last page of the list, the last comment.

But we say no change, right?

Yes, so to no change, meaning that's okay to leave leave the change.

Okay.

Now no change has changed sides.

He's now against me.

Yes.

All right.

So just to be clear, in this particular on these pages, no change means what's to the left of it, do that.

Do that.

No change meant on the other pages was what was the left of it?

Don't do that.

Do that ad yes.

I uh sorry, yes.

So we start over again.

I'm sorry.

All right.

Are we clear about this page?

No.

The only question I have the question I have is I guess the um logistics or the mechanics of the folks who are reviewing the 2040 plan and getting feedback from those folks.

Well hold on, let me if we hold off for just one second.

Are we good with this is the bottom of the list, right?

Yes.

Okay, are we writing the public comment?

Okay, well, are we are we good with this page at the bottom of the list here?

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

I have things that I will frame for you.

They work more conversational.

All right.

I'm sorry, Michelle.

No, I was just seeking direction on the um the next steps for getting from everybody maybe if there's a deadline if we could get a sort of yes no consensus.

Is that appropriate, Mr.

Knighton?

Yes.

Uh Councilmember Sales.

May I uh because it does I'm sort of up on that, so I'm good with that default position being 2040 inserted language.

So mm I think it's just you know, two or three of you that want to do that.

I don't know that we need a special call meeting for that.

Uh yeah.

No, no, can you can we just uh you guys say that'd be great.

Can we can we say yay unless in 48 hours we tell you otherwise?

Well later, later at a later.

Instead of having a special call meeting, you can't perfect yes.

Right, just communicate it back to the staff.

Right.

Thank you.

Uh council member.

I'm good with that.

Uh also I would like to ask as part of that if we could specifically define these pages from 140 are gonna replace these pages from 245.

Um as as part of that discussion, because I think a lot of the conversation has been lost in the details, so I really want to drive to make sure that details understood.

So if I don't sure where that's to understand, excuse me, sorry.

Go ahead, Michelle.

Go to Michelle.

Um just I want to make sure the request to to be clear um provide everyone what are the page numbers associated with the 2040 plan, and as well as uh maybe a table showing the page numbers in the 2045 so people are know that they're talking about the same thing.

Okay, okay, thank you.

All right, thank you.

Councilmember Beeson.

Actually, I'm gonna go a step further.

Uh I'd like to specifically request staff to put together a PDF document um both with section A of whatever uh give me an example.

For example, as state residential, if you could give us the 25, I'm sorry, the 2045 version first, followed by the 2040 version after, and do that for each of those sections so that it's clear for us what we're comparing and contrasting.

And if that's provided to us in writing, that also allows the public to easily, if they wanted to, be able to have that on record as to what we reviewed, and then when we reply via email, it's very clear as to whose feedback was what that way it's still on record and exists.

Okay, everybody.

Yes.

Uh Mayor Robo show.

I think what you're asking for is just to take pages from 24 from the PDF cut and paste.

And then this is estate residential, this is this, in a new PDF.

So not having to recreate anything.

And I think also would be very helpful because they both have the mappings too.

Yeah.

And what's interesting is you'll see in the 2045, we're actually expanding some of these areas more so than reducing none of them are reduced, they're all expanded.

If you compare map to map, too.

I think that's we're able to cut and paste out of these PDFs, I'm assuming.

We'll figure it out.

Yeah, you're always doing the same thing.

I mean, I'm just looking at these.

Like you're looking like for this in one document.

Yeah.

We're clear staff.

That's more to do.

Yes, sir.

First thing in the morning.

Okay.

Um we have that even.

Make sure we have that, I'm sorry, for review.

And um, and then uh we'll have that feedback uh from the council.

Okay.

All right.

We good there?

Everybody good there?

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

I'll get them.

Yes.

Um that's for the that's for the elected body to decide in terms of any public comment at this point.

What is your pleasure?

Oh, council member sells.

If anyone feels like there's insufficient words have been said about this, I think it'd be a great opportunity for them to make a couple comments.

So I have to do that.

We don't we we we guess that we'll do that.

Any any other thoughts regarding public comment?

I want to make sure we have a consensus here.

Councilmember Beeson.

We do.

We do.

So wouldn't it make more sense just in terms of the floor of the meeting to move on to item six and then just table public discussion until after that?

Okay.

Well I'm I'm asking for the consensus of the group with respect to public comment at this committee meeting.

You have two who say yeah, I don't know what to do.

I think given given the conversation, it would need to be a vote per council.

So it would need to be a vote for the council.

A vote to allow public comment.

I motion that we uh take public comment now since we just completed this item before the data center item that's next, and um we can have somebody walk around with the mic and limit it to a minute or two minutes.

Yeah, yeah, this is what I'm not saying limited to two minutes first.

All right, we have we have a motion by councilmer hall.

I'll second.

Second by council member sells.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, all in favor.

All right, that is four opposed.

One uh abstaining.

Looks like two abstent abstentions.

One opposed and four.

I'm sorry.

All in favor.

All in favor of council member Hall's motion.

Um all in favor.

Okay.

All in favor.

All opposed.

One opposed.

One abstention.

So passes five, one and one.

Um Mr.

Knight.

Yes, ma'am.

I and I would like to, I just don't think that it's fair to the people that we told we were not going to give public comment.

This was posted on Facebook specifically saying that there was going to be no public comment, and now we are allowing it.

Um it is so that that is the reason for my no vote.

It's not fair for those who didn't plan to be here because they were told ahead of time that they will not be able to speak.

All right, thank you very much.

Um sorry.

I just point of order.

Um, instead of walking around through the audience because it's pretty tight through there, it probably would make the most sense if people needed to make a line at the hot seat where we can use this microphone.

Um, because these microphones also don't, they're not fun mobile, they're very finicky.

Um, but just for the point of order of logistically how we do it.

Oh, you have a mic held mic.

And for the live screen as well.

I want to make sure that's a good thing.

But people can't see there needs to be it has to be on this side of you.

I think that would be bad.

Um again, um council member uh Paul's motion was for two minutes uh for each person.

Um with respect to committee meetings, it is not um common for there for public comment.

I'm sorry, again.

Sorry, I can't.

Um, to council member Hall's motion, which was approved, was for two minutes for public comment.

It is not usual or common for public comment at committee meetings because committee meetings are not devised for that purpose.

There's a long history with committee meetings, however.

Um, the council um which comprises committee can make those decisions to allow for public comment.

I would also emphasize that there have been numerous opportunities for public comment, which has been certainly very important to this process as well, also surveys, and so we hope that there has been a broad reach for public input into the comprehensive plan process, which is significantly important.

Um and also there again is still a public hearing on the 27th, where public comment will be taken, which will be a part of that record um prior to the uh mayor and council uh determining to uh transmit the comprehensive plan.

So with that, we'll take public comment, of course.

Uh, your comments uh are important and the input is important.

We will um govern that two minutes uh as closely as we can to make sure that everyone has a fair opportunity to provide their comments, and uh so we'll hopefully do that in uh relative order here.

Um please give us some grace here.

Typically, if we um in our council meetings, it's done in the order in which it's received, but we will seek to um identify hands quickly and move people toward um the table to receive those comments, and again, I ask for your grace and consideration as we try to get through um all of the comments.

So thank you very much.

Councilmember Beeson, you want to be the first you asked, start the clock.

Um, I also would request um from the public as a whole, because this is not standard for our council meetings, um, that people be respectful of others who are speaking at the time, whether you agree, disagree, love them, hate them, let them be able to say their piece uh clearly and concisely without interruption.

Absolutely, thank you very much.

And uh certainly we want everyone to observe the um standard rules of decorum and uh respect, and uh everyone uh has an opportunity um to be heard.

Um with that, let's move forward.

Back calls, yes, ma'am.

Come on, come forward, please.

Please make sure to see you.

Um Corrine Bores.

Um my first comment is I think that the UDC and the comp plan should be uh worded word for word, so there's not room for misinterpretation, seems to have caused a lot of confusion.

Um I don't understand the difference in the documents, but I think that there's no problem that way.

The UDC and the complan are if they're word for word, there's no misunderstanding.

Secondly, I think um that the lot sizes should have an exact number for potential builders.

I don't think I know this is hard.

I've lived in Roswell for 40 years, so and I've also sold real estate, so I know that there's a lot of variance in lot sizes, but I think that we need to control the current look and feel of Roswell by establishing lot sizes, minimum size specifically for builders, using numbers.

That's one thing I've been frustrated by tonight.

A lot of discussion.

Let's use numbers to quantify things and make it very specific.

Um I think that Roswell should hire a landscape architect to adjust these five different work areas for the setback buffer.

I think that could be predetermined.

And then you tell the builder if you want to buy this lot, the setback buffer has been determined to be set at this, take it or leave it.

Uh that gives Roswell control in the visual appearance of these, if I'm calling it the right thing, activity centers.

Um the other comment I like to make is you can't really control who moves here.

That is uh I learned a lesson in selling real estate.

You never know.

Whoever shows up with the money and the capability by home has the chance to buy the home.

So you guys can't control what age group's gonna come and leave.

Um I vote for Roswell Historic Center for the Bullock Barrington Hall area.

Very simple.

No, I don't see anybody could take any issue with that.

I think that's an absolute waste of time to discuss that.

And I also think we should put a pause on data centers in our community until there's been a significant amount of education and research on how that's gonna impact our water, our air, employment, huge, huge plethora of things.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Next, yes, sir.

Please come forward.

Um I am uh keeping time here, and at one minute and thirty seconds, I'll just politely raise my hand so you'll know that 30 seconds remain I got my own sir.

My name is Dave Woodrow.

Uh first of all, I Mayor Robeshow, Council members.

Um, I appreciate the unexpected opportunity.

And um I've had an opportunity over the last two weeks to spend time with several of the council people.

I really appreciate your time, honestly.

So thoughts.

I think I heard tonight, and this has been enlightening this process.

And if there is at times misunderstanding, um about the perspective, about what each one of you is saying, what this means, think about Joe Public out there.

Um you all have really had time to digest this, and typically Joe Public has got other things going on.

So thank you for your time and good luck in uh and to staff and boiling this down to something that can move forward.

As Mr.

Knight said, uh Knighton, pardon me.

Um this is a weighty legal document.

It is the guidepost, the guidelines for possible future zoning.

And it carries weight.

So I think what I heard tonight was a bit of let's hit the pause button.

I think that that is a good idea.

If the idea of higher density is is a good, worthy idea, great.

Study it, come back to it later.

Um the city has a history of losing zoning cases.

So again, let's avoid the law of unintended consequences.

And if you all are unclear on some things, again, the public is.

I apologize for maybe this being somewhat disjointed.

Um I understand housing perhaps does go hand in hand with economic development.

Um, but um higher density will not magically spur economic development.

And I don't want to be in a position where someone has a place to live, but they have no place to work.

So Mr.

Woodrow, so thank you.

And uh uh trying to get ahead of this.

Um data centers, please.

I think that that is something that is uh needs to be studied real carefully.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir.

Yes, sir.

In the front?

Yes, sir.

And that and again, the first two speakers did uh without me being being prompted, please state your name just for the record.

Thank you so much.

Sean Wright, and I would also say thank you very much for taking the time to take uh take a listen and and just kind of uh give it a couple of more days to review uh the potential changes because it is weighty.

And I just have two questions more than comments.

One is was a land use and zoning lawyer um retained to review the potential impact on language changes between the two documents, because sometimes, you know, we think that something may say one thing, but legally it may say something totally different when you change the language.

And as far as the legal side of it, that's one.

Does anybody can anybody answer that question for me?

I don't know.

I'm s uh, you know, it is it if you if you would, sir, would you complete your comments and if you have questions, we'll try to answer those at the end.

Well, one is did we consult was a land use and zoning lawyer um consulted based on the language changes to ensure that what is in 2045's plan does match with what's in 2040 plan, even though they're different.

Okay?

That's one.

Secondly, regardless of which version is used, can residents receive a clear commitment that established single family neighborhoods will not be targeted for higher density residential development through the 2045 comprehensive plan.

No, not clearly.

Not for the people out here.

It was not answered clearly that and I think that goes back to the language of my first question.

Because if that language is different, it leaves open a loophole or a backdoor because 2045 will completely re replace 2040's plan, right?

So if residential is not mentioned specifically in 2045's plan, that leaves a backdoor.

No, no, please those are my points on those two.

40 more seconds, please.

No, I mean that's just those two questions.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thanks, sir.

Yes, ma'am, come forward, please.

Thank you.

Hey.

Yeah, Claire Snedeker.

Thank you for the chance to speak, and just a good follow-up on what Sean said.

Um, and um, because it it's about the language between the two documents, but I just wanted to start out saying um the stakeholders committee set a scope of work and a focus at stated on page five of the 2045 plan of growing jobs and expanding economic opportunities, but there's a second part to that.

While continuing to protect existing residential neighborhoods, um so I'd like to echo echo my support for reverting to the 2040 comp plan, it's exact wording to put in place of the 2045 comp plan for the existing residential sections, because that's the part that we've been talking about.

And just to add fuel to the review that's gonna happen soon, um, there's two examples I want to point out.

Uh one's for suburban residential, and I'll mention the name the the pages these are on.

In the 2040, uh page 148, it says existing single family neighborhoods are preserved and protected in their current state.

Those are the words to remember.

And then in the 2045 on page 122, existing single family communities preserved and protected alongside smaller pockets of other housing types.

And pockets is not defined.

The type of housing is not, it could be subdivided lots that are an eighth of an acre.

It could there's not a definition to it, so that's a weakening of what is said in the 2040 plan about in the current state.

And the second okay, and the second one's the neighborhood residential.

It says all new on page 145, it says all new development is limited to single family housing with density and character matching the characters overall area.

The on page 122 of the 2045, future development will consist primarily of single fetched uh single family detached homes.

And that's different.

You limit it to something, or you're primarily and primarily opens the door.

So thank you.

And I also have a question about when will the public know what the result is so that the public has time to review and get ready and send in comments or speak at the next meeting.

All right, thank you.

All right, next next speaker.

Yes, sir.

Well, thank you.

My name is Steve Walsh, and I want to thank everybody on this committee for your hard work.

I've had a uh uh instrumental uh education uh tonight.

I'm kind of new to the process.

Um but but my comments are yes related to housing.

I believe economic uh development and housing are hand in hand.

You can't separate the two.

Um we have talked about uh protecting neighborhoods.

I have been in Roswell for 40 years, and I've been in my current neighborhood for about 20 years.

And uh my neighborhood was not protected.

When I moved into my neighborhood, it was included homes that uh were available for first home buyers.

It had uh it had people that lived in those homes that uh could work uh as essential workers, and um all those homes are gone.

So those essential workers have to find homes someplace else.

If you listen to uh uh uh Well Star, um one of their five-year plans, strategic plans, they list housing.

Why do they list housing?

Because they're having difficulty recruiting and retaining nurses.

And so me living in Roswell, if I ever have to go to the hospital at North Fulton, one of the biggest employers in the city, um, I hope there's gonna be a nurse there to take care of me.

So I hope as we move forward, we will have in mind the essential worker and the resiliency that they provide to our community.

So thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Next speaker.

Yes, ma'am.

Please come forward.

Hi, I'm Amanda Newton.

Um, I spoke at the last thing about building by my house.

I teach in Fulton County.

I teach at Mountain Park Elementary School, and I used to teach at Mimosa.

Our school population is dwindling.

And yes, I love my house, and I do not want tiny homes right next to my house, and I think that needs to be intentional, and I think being able to compare these plans is important.

I love the idea of your mixed use, all those wonderful things.

I think, as you said before, we can't keep pricing people out.

My husband and I were fortunate enough to buy our townhouse by Stinky Kroger and were able to sell it, and we now live over close and right by where I teach, which is wonderful.

We could not afford our house right now.

He has a great job.

I am a public school teacher.

We can't keep pricing people out, but we need to be very intentional in how we're doing it.

And again, I was mad because I didn't want the thing that's happening by my house, which because you're adding the traffic and the density, I think it needs to be very intentional, and I think everybody's confused by what you're wanting to do, and it just needs to be very clear what you're trying to do.

Because if you do the cute little thing that's right over there by the soccer fields by the Woodstock thing with the four like four little cute things, that's fine, but it looks funny and it I don't know.

We're all afraid of change, but we also, as you said, you want we need teachers.

We don't need, yeah, I'm fortunate my husband makes more than I do.

That's great, but not everybody is that.

So we just need to be very intentional and clear.

That's all.

And oh, can do I have 30 seconds still?

When we did the comprehensive plan, the only reason I knew that it was out there is because my neighbor made her to put it on the Facebook page.

Not everybody has that.

So if there's some way that y'all can be like, hey, we're putting these things out there.

No, I'm not saying you weren't public about it, but I'm saying is like he happened to remind us to do it.

So if there's some way that you guys as council members can be like, hey, people that are coming to meetings, can y'all remind people?

You know, I don't know, maybe you do, and I don't know.

So that's all.

Thank you.

Sorry for the time.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Um, any other speakers?

Uh oh, okay.

Yes, ma'am, in the back.

Yes.

Uh good evening.

My name is Sally McKenzie.

First of all, thank you for the opportunity for us to speak for the public to speak tonight because yes, while there have been so many input opportunities and surveys and whatnot, it's rare that we get to speak directly and interact somewhat directly with council.

So thank you very much for providing us the opportunity.

Um, and just a couple things.

Um, some really good points were made from other folks in um the audience, and so I'm not gonna try not to copy.

But um, regarding the supposition that um certain kind of kinds of housing are needed for economic development and success in the city.

Um, I believe that's somewhat of a fallacy.

Um the imaginary line that creates the city of Roswell on the map does not define where we can draw uh potential employers uh to our city.

Um I don't know what the number is, but I would guess it's a 15 to 20 mile radius, and we are fortunate to be bordered uh by Sandy Springs.

Woodstock coming, Norcross, Duluth, uh Sandy Springs.

Um so we have a big pool to draw from within uh a pretty close radius.

So I don't know that we should put emphasis or any a lot of concern on the fact that uh or or where potential employers to Roswell live.

Um I do want to say that I firmly believe that we do need alternate housing types in Roswell to make a healthy city.

Um and I believe rental 30 30 seconds rental housing is important.

Um I I really believe our I'm I'm concerned about our flagging apartment inventory in our city.

Um and I would hope, I don't know if this is part of the comp plan or the CWPs, but I would hope that um exploring ways in which we can bring those apartments um back to life uh would be a priority for the city going forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, next speaker.

Uh yes, ma'am.

Ms.

And then Ms.

Rosh here.

Thank you.

I'm Karen Gilbert, and I've been in Roswell since uh 2000.

And I have a cautionary tale.

How many of you remember Vickers?

When Vickers was passed.

I was at that council meeting.

Um, and I think we've had at least six or seven mayors and councils since then or terms.

And when the vo the we were there till 11 o'clock because the council didn't want to vote in front of all the people that were there in the audience that were against Vickers.

The developer did a dog and pony show, bullied his way into the council.

He said he um needed them to approve it being apartments in case he couldn't get condos.

He couldn't fill it with condos, but that was the intent.

It was going to be built for condos.

He wanted a height variance, he got it because he was a bully, and we didn't have the wherewithal with council or attorney or whatever to fight back based on you know the way our wording reads.

We've got to be very careful how we do what struck me, I think it was 164, where this you UDC language is, you know, you've got room for somebody to argue about it.

I think the wording was, you know, based on a um vote or whatever.

You gotta close those loopholes so we can't have these developers come in and do apartments with height variants and um density variants.

Um cautionary tale for those that weren't here during Vickers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, next speaker.

In the back, yes, ma'am.

Hi, most of you guys know me here.

I'm Karen Parrish.

I have put out some information that I do think is correct.

I do think that some of the emails that sent out, not all of them.

I do think the ones who actually sent out the council people that sent out emails that were very clear and very transparent.

But this document is very important.

It is a roadmap.

It does demand at the end of the day after the studies and after all of the uh work product is finished under the LU9 and the H1 and H2 that the zoning code changes to reflect what happens in this study.

My question is the assumptions that were made that are going to be made with the study.

Are we starting in the right place?

Are we asking the right questions?

And are we listening to those survey results from the residents?

I got activated with the uh Vickers project.

I probably wouldn't be standing here if it wasn't for that.

And so you may see a lot more people with a lot of names that you haven't seen before get activated if you guys aren't very careful about what has moved forward in this document.

So it is the legal standing, and it is something in the court of law that will be argued by people who prefer or who would like to maybe capitalize and make money on higher densities.

Our neighborhoods are at risk if we don't protect them in this document.

And I I will tell you that some of the language, such as missing middle, was coined by an organization that was a city planning type organization, and industry standards with city and state industry uh companies think that the missing middle is 30 units potentially higher.

So you have to be very careful with the numbers and the terms that you use in this document.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Yes, ma'am.

Please come forward.

Yes.

I would be the missing middle.

If you look at our website today, the median income is 127,000.

If I can, ma'am, just for your your name for the record.

Oh, sorry.

I'm Courtney.

I probably just assume people know me.

Um, but I am the missing middle.

And I did live in apartments for 10 years prior to purchasing my home.

I lived here in Roswell for 10 years in apartments.

I agree that we need to take a look at our stock.

We need to take it holistically, but I also want to make the point that I've been following the plan, and that the focus of this plan has been the activity centers.

It has not been about going in and changing our neighborhoods.

Very well that we are going to now have the exact wording potentially, most likely, from the 2040 plan put into the 2045 plan, because that was the intent.

There were no material changes.

That was something that um Councilmember Zach brought up during the conversation.

Um I too have talked with council members, and that has been the consensus when I've talked to a couple of uh I did talk to two of the members was that there was no material changes.

And I also would like to point out that it this would have been an opportunity or this proposal could have come up previously if this was a concern, because both councilmember Hall and Councilmember Sells are on the stakeholder committee, and council member Sells does lead.

He was a chairperson of it.

And so I'm not quite sure why, especially if the draft was available.

I not sure when it was just posted to the site, but I'm following along the conversations is that I'm assuming that the current June version was available prior to the last meeting and um where the committee meeting where the comprehensive plan was discussed, and so that this proposal to have the exact language could have been substituted at this time.

I'm also not clear because I have not seen this and been able to read through it if there was not a request for the exact language to be put into it, because it seems like that would have been the appropriate time.

And when the three on threes were to be held, that could have been discussed then.

You could wrap up your comments, please.

Thank you.

Oh, and I think there's also been a missed opportunity to discuss the different types of housing that could go into that um activity centers, because if you look at the economic strategy plan, it's big glassy buildings.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Yeah, my name's Mark Shafani.

Appreciate everyone and the time here.

Just there's been a lot of discussion.

It's great.

Just as as the crowd, how many people would rather keep the 2040 by just a show of hands?

Okay.

Just would rather keep the 2040, just so we're protected and until we can throw the studies just to give you guys an idea of why what the majority of the folks here are saying.

So I think that's important to know that you know people showed up.

And a lot of folks did leave too that felt that way too.

Um I would um I would also say that the 2040 plan has been available for how long?

Five years?

So I did hear some council people say that tonight that y'all are talking about, well, what's the 24 2040 plan look like compared to the 2045 plan?

And I at least heard one council person said that they hadn't had a chance to read the 2040 plan.

So I think if we're gonna give certain council people a hard time for not a view reviewing the 2045 plan that just it's going out in a lot of different versions and no change mean one thing on one side, it's very hard to continue.

We need to, you know, give the other council people some grace there too.

Uh I think it's great that we're all getting together and being able to talk about this, and thank you, the council people and the mayor for letting us get up and have our piece.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further comments?

All right.

Yes.

All right.

Please come forward.

Since I haven't heard from East Roswell, my name's Joyce Cross, I'm in East Roswell.

And I just want to, I've heard it a couple of times in a million ways.

Words matter.

It's gonna matter a lot when people come to challenge these words, such as legal people and um developers who have lots of money for legal people.

And I seem to recall um a words problem uh for the East Roswell target development when words mattered and the developer came and said, I will sue you, you know, if you don't do it because your words weren't clear in the way the development uh was presented.

So I'm just gonna remind you that these words matter, and not having the words properly, not consulting attorneys that specialize in this is a huge mistake.

And I also see um no reason to have a public comment on the 27th of July if you've already made your decision and you can't change that decision.

Why come here and spin our wheels on the 27th of July?

So I'm just reiterating those things, and I thank you for your uh listening.

Thank you.

Any further comments?

All right, seeing none.

Um that would conclude any um public comment for this particular item.

I'll bring it back to council.

Any comments from council?

Yes, Councilmember Beeson.

I'm gonna awkwardly face you because otherwise you stare at the back of my head like you have the entire meeting.

Um I realize that I've received feedback from some of you, and then it was referenced as well in um some of the discussions prior to the meeting about the quarter acre, one-eighth acre comment that I made during the prior meeting.

That actually is something that protects the character areas of some of our current neighborhoods that are being invaded.

And I'll give examples such as of which I gave in the prior meeting, but I'll give them again.

Um Warsaw Road was one of the examples.

Um I believe is it David, the gentleman.

I'm sorry.

So old Canton, there's uh the North Canton area, there's also Coleman, there's North Coleman.

Um all of those areas have for the most part 1960s, early 1970s, three two ranch houses, but they're on really large parcels.

Um you also have a lot of people who have a wide variety of incomes who have lived in that area, people are able to age in place in that area because they are ranch houses.

However, that's also the target place to flip homes.

So right now, as those homes become aged, um, the house itself, not any of the residents, the house itself becomes older.

Um, they maybe haven't been maintained over time.

I know right now there's a house for sale on North Coleman Road, um, I believe was built in the 1960s.

It is going for 800,000.

Um that's mostly because it is on a really deep one-acre parcel of land.

So when I talk about subdividing acreage of property of a quarter acre or an eighth of an acre, I'm referencing or even Thompson Place is a really good example.

You have these really large homes that the majority of Roswellians, including myself cannot afford, you are pricing out members of that community and replacing them with houses with only a niche group of people can live in those houses, as opposed to allowing those lots which are half an acre to one acre that are not an established communities.

You are pricing out members of that community and replacing them with houses where only a niche group of people can live in those houses, as opposed to allowing those lots which are half an acre to one acre that are not an established communities.

And what I mean by established, I mean I know that Brookfield does has uh volunteer HOA.

Um I do not reference, I do not mean those communities.

I mean places who are the older style ranch houses.

Um, because when you're able to subdivide those properties, you are able to build slightly smaller houses on them.

I realize that that's not affordable housing, but it is significantly more affordable than a three to five million dollar mansion that is currently replacing most of those homes.

Also, it allows more options for ranch houses or smaller sized houses that would allow for more entry-level homebuyers or people who would age in place in those ranch style homes that are now being replaced.

Um it's also happening in my side of town.

I live off of hard scrabble.

Um, and also for the folks in Brookfield who I believe I spoke to most of you, but if not, um very specific was not referencing any of those types of neighborhoods.

I grew up in Brookfield, my parents still live in Brookfield.

Um, and then based off of some of the emails that were circulating, even my own parents were equally confused by some of the um narrative that got a little distorted.

So I understand if you might not agree with my views on some of those houses and some of those properties, but I wanted to make sure that I was clear in terms of the property types in the neighborhoods that I was referencing.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Any other council comments?

Councilmember Hall.

Thank you.

And I just wanted to clarify I just checked with our legal um counsel that our zoning code does not distinguish between HOA or non-HOA neighborhoods.

So that that had been brought up before.

So uh HOA or non-HOA, everybody's fair game.

All right.

Thank you.

Councilmember Sales.

Yeah, just a couple thoughts.

Uh, you know, uh subdividing that lot has an impact on the rest of the neighbors as well.

And furthermore, you know, if you think about property in Roswell at a million dollars an acre, or the example you gave, let's just say it's an acre lot, uh and they're gonna buy that house and knock it down, so they're gonna have demo costs, they're gonna have to re-do all of the uh uh water access and all that kind of stuff.

So you're talking about million dollar into that particular property as well.

So let's just say that we let them put four homes on that.

Those are not going to be four $300,000 homes.

They're going to be four million and a half dollar homes.

And so now we're trying to so we're I'm not sure what problem we're solving by that.

When we start talking about the reduction in uh the number of students in in schools in Fulton County, or specifically in Roswell.

I mean, we're we're a part of a trend that is global.

Talk to the Chinese, talk to the Japanese, where they built a lot of houses and now they're all empty.

I I think we're we should think about what is the forecast of Roswell over the next 25 years or 40 years or whatever we want to look at, how far we want to look out.

We are at a moment where there are uh people aging in place, those three twos.

That's probably somebody bought that house, like the teacher, and they're gonna stay there till they retire.

It's all on one level.

That is age in place.

They're aging in place right there.

And they don't want to have an eightplex beside them because it's an acre lot.

That's what we're talking about.

That's what we're protecting.

All right, thank you.

We'll we'll go back to each one of the council members an opportunity.

I'll come back to Councilmember Beeson.

Any other council members would like to uh comment?

All right, council member.

I'm sorry, Councilmember Zet.

I have a quick few comments.

Um Amanda, I appreciate your uh addressing communication.

That's always something we're working on.

Um, and to your point, I was Joe Schmoe, so I've been on the other end.

We've all been Joe Schmo, so we we recognize that you know there's things that we were when we were part of the public, we didn't fully understand, and that's something we want to drive for is better communication.

So I appreciate that feedback.

Um, just in case people are leaving, we're gonna talk about data centers next.

And there's kind of a broad perspective of doing the research, and just the kind of outline, kind of similar to the communication is why we're talking about data centers, is because we wanted to protect our community from them, because this process started with a recognition that our code did not um call it out and be able to put it in a way where we can ensure what was coming in would be correct for Roswell.

That said, I personally do not think there's going to be a data center in Roswell ever.

I don't think it makes sense mathematically.

I don't think the land would equate to the worthwhile nest.

But as part of this process to protect the community from data centers, we have to put language that, and you will see it is going to be very conditional and very much in a way that if one was to come, it should protect the residents.

But again, I don't suspect that this process is too to protect against data centers not to open us up to them.

Thank you, Councilmember Zach.

Any other count uh council members?

Uh Councilmember Beeson had a comment.

Just to put a punctuation, Mark, I mean I completely understand your viewpoint on it, but at this point it's my opinion versus your opinion.

And I think that's collectively why we as a counselor and elected body wanted that housing study in place, so that if we make any policy decisions that we are guided by data as opposed to anecdotal stories.

Y'all have painstakingly walked through every single edit with us over the last two hours.

It did not alter the document in any shape or form.

But that housing study will provide us with the data that we need and hopefully provide us some with some guidance as to how to address those concerns.

All right, thank you so much.

And again, uh thank you thank you to the general public here who attended tonight, who provided comment and feedback.

We very much appreciate your input, your time, your love for Roswell, obviously, that's demonstrated here this evening, and your concern for the community at large.

So we appreciate that very much.

The only other comment I would have, the gentleman asked about legal review and things of that nature.

These comprehensive plans have to go through a very rigid and rigorous process of approval, and that is along with staff and consultants who are well versed in land use law and have seen examples of other jurisdictions who have recently passed comprehensive plan and historically passed comprehensive plans.

And once it's gone on to the ARC, the Atlanta Regional Commission, there's a set of review there at the Department of Community Affairs, there's a review there.

And so there is a number of layers of review from a legal standpoint and from a planning professional standpoint that takes place.

Let me, if I may, sir, I'll finish.

And so as this process continues to matriculate and goes to a public hearing process on the 27th, there'll be an additional review.

Um between now and then and also um even beyond that.

I will say that I have my professional career has been in planning and development.

I still maintain my American Institute of Certified Planners designation for the last 20 years, which is a very rigorous process to obtain.

I've seen a number of comprehensive plans, but in hundreds, literally, probably zoning uh meetings.

Any document, any document can be challenged, right?

That's just a fact of of how um uh we operate in litigious society.

What we can do and seek to do and always desire to do is to make sure that language is explicit, it is definitive, and it is clear so that we can potentially withstand any legal challenges, and as by evidenced um uh by commentary tonight, language does matter, and so we appreciate your commentary, and as a result of that, uh we will again continue to scrutinize the language that's been brought forward in this draft and the language that we potentially go forward to the 27th for the transmital hearing.

So thank you all very much again for for your input.

It's been very important, and we appreciate um uh your demeanor and uh your um the love for the city that you've expressed tonight.

Thank you so much.

We do have one more item.

We do have one more item.

Item number six present staff findings and discussion of data center regulations.

Presented by Michelle Alexander, Director of Community Development.

Can I actually switch prices?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Knight and Mayor Council.

So recall that um in January we um you all approved a moratorium on data centers.

You identify that there were some negative aspects to it, and we recognize that the whole region and in fact the whole country has been contending with them.

And so you asked staff to take a look and bring back to you some potential regulatory framework to consider.

Um so through this process, we've done a lot of research, we did quite a bit of interviews, and we also brought um uh first um example ordinance to planning commission.

We've had a couple of hearings with planning commission, and since then we've had um additional findings that we'd like to share with you since the last time you heard um this presentation.

And since then, we've had additional findings that we'd like to share with you since the last time you heard this presentation.

We are grateful that you extended the moratorium to give us time to bring to you our findings.

And we are anticipating bringing a public another public hearing with the planning commission on the 21st.

So first of all, just a sort of orientation for everybody that these facilities are cooling that are hyper scale computing servers typically that house massive servers.

They are usually facilities with cooling equipment, and they also have backup components like alternative generators.

These are the ones that are large require constant energy, constant energy flow without disruption.

And so there's not just large cooling systems because of the servers and the energy that's being generated and used to house this the data infrastructure.

There's also backup generators or other backup type of energy systems.

And on top of that is the security system.

So it isn't just security systems.

So when we say data facilities or data centers, we're referring to a data server that has multiple mega-sized amount of activity, and also has these backup components, which include industrial sized cooling systems.

They have other names depending on the size and purpose.

Some of them are that have been called digital infrastructure, co-location providers, just like it sounds, it is a data center that allows others to rent essentially a housing in their in their facilities as a co-located facility.

Hyperscalers, massive scalable cloud operators.

Now that's the one that most of us see, or most of the sensationalism on the newspapers and some of the towns that have had negative experiences have been because of the hyperscale.

These are so large that I don't know that we even have the acreage that would house or accommodate them.

And we definitely cap everything that we're talking about.

We're recommending that you all as policymakers, if you decide to move forward with some regulation, which we recommend based on legal advice, to consider that we'd cap the even the size that it off.

So we wouldn't be we we just first and foremost want to be clear about protecting the community from any of the very large type of facilities.

Part of our research was also involved interviews.

We wanted to make sure we talked to folks in the industry as well as folks who are familiar with data centers that are not actually data centers but more like large data closets in larger facilities, and I'll talk a little bit more about that so that we could understand the scope and the things that we needed to really pay attention to as we wanted to put together our findings for you.

So we put together a white paper, it examined both a series of ordinances around the country and around the region and our sister cities.

We started with our sister cities, and we looked at a variety of literature ranging from those who were advocates of some of the environmental concerns and those who are organizing because they are recognizing the impacts on water, energy, and human impact, as well as those in the industry itself, including the Amazon Web Services, and I like to share that when we asked Amazon Web Services for feedback, it was AI that responded, and and AI was actually quite quite balanced in saying there's some negative things, and cities really need to look out for X, Y, and Z.

So we did for fortunately speak everybody else was an actual person, so we had felt higher confidence.

But just so you know the scope of the problem that this you know the country basically is dealing with, there's 11 states that passed moratoriums just than last year alone because of trying to regulate and get ahead of the negative impacts.

And our state is no different in trying to get ahead on it.

However, we had uh 21 different bills that were brought up in the legislature, four of them made it through one house or the other, one chamber or the other, but nothing passed.

So that's just saying to you that we don't have a state, the state doesn't have isn't going to help us out.

So, whatever you as policymakers see as needing to be to protect and make sure you regulate, this is going to be on us for us to define and for you to define yourself or yourselves as as a body.

Um several, yeah.

We we looked at uh lots of cities and towns and counties.

I won't go on on the whole list that we we we inventoried how others are addressing it.

But I wanted to share with you that the state does recognize that we have some issues.

So the Department of Community Affairs actually put out a brand new rule this last year in 2025, um, and it has to do with data centers, and it establishes that if you hit this threshold of having 300,000 square feet, so that's starting to be a hyper, a mega center, uh 300,000 square feet and greater.

That's not even as big as the biggest ones, but once you hit that threshold, so think in terms of size, think of three Walmarts in terms of a footprint.

It's like I usually like 180,000 square foot for one one Walmart, so two and a half Walmarts just for just pure size and volume.

Um but the DCA said, well, listen, at the very least, since we can't regulate you, and the state legislature didn't pass anything to prohibit or protect or to give us rules and regulations, at least what we can do is make sure you all are armed with information.

So if a big guy comes to our town and is it is a facility, a data center, at least DCA says, hey, you have to give us a whole set of information, and we will have a major review with state agencies, which is great, except it's not a rule, it's just information.

So you can put caveats, you can look at what they're what the impact of them they're gonna be.

So we do have those rules, but it's also at that large size.

So for our staff's findings and staff's takeaway is well, let's start with this list that they require, and let's just require that of everybody.

So we don't have to be worried about who's coming in, and that we at least are taking advantage of what the state has already started to put together in terms of some kind of a regulatory framework.

But it's not an approval process.

You can't keep them out through this process, it just gives you information.

Um another protective and um measure that has gone through is through your public service commission.

And so they especially essentially manage how Georgia Power does their business, right?

That's the board that holds them accountable.

And that board said last year in 2025, though that board recognized that the amount of energy that has been so multiplying in the massive impact and the need to create, generate more infrastructure that the this board, the PBS, the PSC, excuse me, the PSC was worried about the impacts on us as customers, that's other consumers.

So they said, look, if you're gonna be a data center and you're gonna trigger a certain amount of new energy, then you're gonna have to pay a special rate.

You as a super loader, they have a big loads of energy, as a superloader, you are going to have to start paying and paying a different type of um revenue or a different type of rate to cover the cost of the infrastructure.

And I'll talk a little bit about how this infrastructure has expanded exponentially.

So part of our task was to look at what what there's a three think of a three-legged stool of what's a good idea for the city.

So a economic engine comes in, and and who knows, is it a good engine or is it just an economic um object?

So one, does it improve your quality of life?

Two, does it generate taxes and tax revenues?

And three, do we have employment?

Does it generate employment?

Did I get them all right?

So if you figure on that front, so we can't answer that question unless we have the data.

So that was one of the first things that your staff, we had our business analysts helping us with and taking a look at giving from data that we gathered from the industry to um count make some calculations and some scenarios.

Um we we looked at the economic as well as the fiscal impact.

So, first and foremost, so we this was an assumption of an 80,000 square foot um data center, excuse me, an 80,000 square foot building.

So given this size building, so it's a pretty large building, like I said, think little smaller than a Walmart, a little smaller than a Walmart, or maybe something as big as a Kroger, a large Kroger.

So that size of a building, if it had a data center in there, the uh the permanent number of jobs that would be generated would only be 20.

This is modeling and making assumptions given square foot of employees per square foot.

If you were a warehouse, which also doesn't typically have much employment, at least you get 53 permanent employees using that space.

And if you were an office with that size, if we're 80,000 square foot building, an office use could generate around 320 permanent jobs.

And so you think of the amount of land that's being consumed by a data center, and how much as your opportunity cost, how much employment could that piece of land be generating?

So that's one leg of the stool, employment.

And this is just another way to slice and dice that to say if you were in office, um, 134,000 is just happened to be what the literature had, so I wanted to use what what was available and I could say as a source.

A number of employees versus a data center, which is only generating around 35.

So there's a large opportunity cost, at least in terms of employment.

Now, fiscal and economic on the fiscal impacts is a different story.

This was the surprise findings for us, at least for me.

I came in very um narrowly focused on the jobs.

I knew there wasn't going to be a lot of jobs, and I was really worried about how that chews up jobs land for employment, potential employment.

However, truth in advertising, this was a finding that surprised me, where the property tax revenue on data centers winds up being massive.

So, and it's because of the real property tax.

So everything that's under that hood, everything that's in that building of that facility, is worth so much, and it's so much value, and you just think of stacks and stacks and stacks of high-tech servers, and you can see how that's reasonable, that's how much value that is.

I just didn't realize it was that much of a difference.

So if you had a data center versus a warehouse, you're gonna you're getting two and a half million versus a hundred thousand dollars.

Or if it's a data center versus office, and then combining either just the 35,000 in property real tax real, excuse me, real estate, property tax, and also personal property tax, there's just no comparison.

So this helped this helped answer a question why some of these communities were were welcoming these um facilities because of that tax revenue, sort of a windfall for the tax revenue and their general funds.

So the three-legged stool, quality of life, we haven't gotten to financial looks like that the financial has a very strong reason for people to consider allowing what you get if you do allow them.

Um, and then employment, we've already seen there's a bust that we're not going to be getting employment from them.

So let me go into the resources.

One big concern was to say, well, everyone just says they use a lot of energy.

How do you quantify that?

So your white paper has a lot of examples of it, and I'm just showing you some of the highlights.

Um, Georgia Power, every year they do a seven-year estimate, and they say from seven years from now, how much more energy do we need to generate for the state?

How much more energy do we need to generate?

And in 2022, they were their estimate, their seven-year estimate was 400 megawatts.

And then just a year later, it went from 400 megawatts to 6,600 megawatts.

And in 2025, it went to 8,500 megawatts.

So within just a few years, they saw how much they're going to have to massively expand their infrastructure and building and construction and capital outlay in order to generate enough enough energy for 8,500 megawatts.

Now that's the whole product program, but what accounts, and this is from Georgia Power, what accounts for the majority of that increase is the data centers in the state.

Do they have enough load to the energy that they can deliver to the client?

Do they have enough of it to sustain it?

That's up for them to decide.

We don't really get to decide, even if we want to, even if you were interested in having policies about managing energy or managing water, it's really these other entities that have the authority over them, over those items.

But for water, just as everyone knows, it takes a lot of water to run these data centers because the heat, primarily because of the heat that's generating from the high energy and the use of the technology requires cooling systems that are sophisticated, these industrial-sized cooling systems.

And just one example was for a 33,000 square foot data center, if say that size is using about five megawatts of power, it's consuming about 6,000 gallons per of water per day per hour per water, excuse me, per hour.

And then a larger, translate that larger of 134,000 square foot facility.

Um that's enough for the water that would serve for a thousand four hundred and forty residential households.

So that's a small town.

And again, we don't um regulate the the water.

We don't know, we can only trust that Fulton County is going to look out for us and a Fulton County, at least on their water, at least on managing our water.

And what happens with Fulton County is they determine if they have the capacity.

And we don't, we don't move forward with anything unless we get a letter.

We always have to get a letter of capacity for water and sewer if it's if they're providing the water and sewer and the areas we're talking about that might be reasonable for these facilities would be in the Fulton County water.

One of the biggest nuisances, so now we're really getting into back on the quality of life for people.

One of the biggest nuisances is this noise, and it isn't just the noise, it's also the type of noise.

So indicating that we had these decibel volume, it isn't that they're so high, they're like they're actually sometimes maybe 50 decibels or 65, which we say is is is acceptable for human ears and it's acceptable to hear, but it's not acceptable when it's constant.

And so the difference and the reason it's been such a miserable experience for so many people, at least in the literature, is that it's constant and it's non-stopping.

And the other thing about the noise and vibration is that it is at a frequency that is a low frequency level, so it's not even registered and it doesn't isn't stopped, doesn't stop and by regular barriers like like trees.

It has a low frequency, goes right through that, and it people experience it without even knowing that they're here, they're not necessarily hearing it, but they're experiencing this low-level frequency.

So that's something that's also unusual and important to understand because of some of the recommendations for a regulatory framework.

Um, and then buffers, most places that we looked at um we were looking at buffers, and it was interesting to see that the noise, noise and aesthetic for it can help with some of these buffers.

And we did find that when a hundred foot um buffer can absorb a sound up to 10 decibels per 100 feet of buffers.

So we made sure we had very high buffers in the example ordinance that we're put together for you.

And then finally, um, back to the community.

So one of the things in the literature is there's a concern that they're gonna start closing down.

So they're gonna build all these you know big footprints, and then they're gonna close or they don't need it because the technology is moving so fast it's getting smaller and smaller.

So, yeah, most many of you have read more about that than I have.

And so one thing we are looking at is if we do allow, and if and when you would consider allowing them, that they would have a decommissioning plan out of the gate, so with the permitting that they would give us what is their plan for reuse or repurposing and some kind of agreement to work with the city to repurpose that building.

So recommendations.

So those were our findings.

That's the summary of um this m of the excuse me, the white paper that we did.

We have two memos that we've generated since the original white paper, um letting you know the findings on our our updated findings, and then what's different, um, what's different in the final example ordinance.

So the areas that we're recommending you consider regulating have to do with the site planning and the building, the infrastructure and utilities, environmental impacts on our community, and then life cycle governance and fire safety is the new one that I've also added.

Thank you to fire chief.

First off, first things first.

So we are we're recommending a definition for these centers so that they are the broadest and make sure that we capture everything that needs to be captured in the broadest sense of the terms for data centers, so we can say no if it needs to be no, or if it needs to go through a conditional use process, if that's the conditional use process, if that's the direction we go in, that we have a good clear definition.

I just point to you the last sentence on this slide, and that is we're looking at managing these requests.

If they ever come in to request to be here, managing them by the amount of energy they use.

So instead of the size of the building, because you could have a big size building and a small data closet, or you could have a small building and a large megawatts that you're using, and it can be really loud and disruptive.

So size in this case doesn't isn't a useful, the size of the footprint is in a useful way, so we've been looking at it based on the amount of energy that's used.

Since so many firms need very sometimes very large amounts of data, we didn't want to capture our businesses, our hospitals, our Kimberly, um Kimberly Clark.

We didn't want to get our our GM innovation centers.

We don't want to sweep everything up, and that if it's not causing a problem, if it's not a nuisance, we don't want to penalize our businesses who rely on this infrastructure.

So we are explicitly exempt, we're recommending very strongly that we explicitly exempt the smallest use, which is what we put in there as one megawatt of energy use.

So I'm leaving that definition up there, and then I'm showing you how we further looked at the tiers.

So we've recommend categorizing those that are exempt.

So if you're you don't you don't follow underneath the definition, and then if you're a hospital, you're exempt, and let me proceed a little bit on that.

Because hospitals, this was again a surprising interesting in the literature.

So hospitals might need four to five megawatts as a as a typical hospital.

And they, however, they have special requirements that are from acoustical engineering of their architecture, so that at the source, they're absorbing their sounds.

They they can't allow it to escape.

They have to internalize it, and you can imagine how expensive that must be.

So you don't have the same nuisance on your community.

Um and then tier two is those are the larger ones, and at about 15 megawatts is what I've read in the literature, is when the buzzing sound around 15 megawatts and higher is when it starts to be annoying and gets louder and emanates beyond the property boundary and needs much more regulation.

So that's the framework we're recommending we consider if you do pursue having policies over the uh having policies over data centers and putting in regulations.

So in addition to the um keeping track of just the sheer size of it, we were also talking about not um prohibiting that they are not allowed to touch residential, cannot be adjacent to residential, and not only can you not be adjacent to residential, if you're the small users, you're giving you a 200-foot buffer.

And if you're a larger user, a thousand foot distance, I said buffer, excuse me, distance from uh any residential use.

And then similarly to have planted buffers that do go a long way for absorbing sounds that are um registered by the um decibels, DC DBA decibels.

Where?

So this is a lot of this was gone through a lot of several iterations and to see what makes sense.

And the most we looked at was to really restrict the location so that it's only like things with like things, so that anything that is industrial is that's the industrial area in our town and of our city is the where area that would is really the only place that would really make sense, so because it's industrial adjacent near other industrial areas.

Um however, we are absolutely recommending that that would be a conditional use, and I would walk through the rest of the regulations that if you even consider it that it would be with a conditional use with a quite a series of requirements that may not be meanable, may not um allow them to come move forward, but that's up to them once you set and to place all the parameters to regulate them.

Um that is the tier one is that smaller use.

So between one and four, one and four, it needs to be one point four four one to four point nine nine decibels, excuse me, megawatts used of energy.

Um, one other example I had I was given was that the sound of um like a two megawatt energy user is the sound equivalent to a large grocery store, like the cooling of the of a large um grocery store, if you can imagine that.

And so you think if you have a hundred-foot buffer on that, plus a hundred foot distance plus um a two hundred-foot buffer, um, you know, that that's the intent is to contain that.

This is an attempt to visualize what we're talking about size-wise.

And I just got done telling you we're we're recommending we think about it in terms of megawatts.

Um, but we um did it wanted you to have a sense of what what it would look like to have a a hundred thousand square foot building, which might have around 20, that might be around 20, 15 to 20, 20 um megawatts to have a 200-foot buffer, and then say what it looks like next to an Aldi or a Letel, which is usually around 20,000 square feet.

We just wanted to give you a reference.

We thought people knew Aldi and Little More less the scale.

Um, it's around 20,000, so that's what it looks like in terms of the scale in relation one to another.

And then the distance is a thousand feet to distance to residential, so it would have to cross excuse me, have to cross, it's you know, and a whole other property, they wouldn't be allowed to be adjacent, and then it had to be further, it had to be a thousand feet away.

So that was just an attempt to put some scale and to help visualize the impact.

Um, other elements to um regulate, like I said, we're recommending being prohibited adjacent to any residentially zoned area.

Um, all the utilities need to go in the rear.

We um wanted to have thets of um information.

So one set of information is the water consumption and a sustainability plan.

We want to understand how they're gonna mitigate their water use.

We want to understand how much is their energy consumption going to be, and if they have any proposed mitigation, and if you're interested in that, then you also probably want to prohibit that they use evaporative water-based cooling systems.

Why?

That whole mouthful of evaporative water-based cooling system, all that is the um noisemaker is what I keep calling it the noisemaker.

So the industrial cooling systems use this specific type of technology, and that is what makes a lot of noise.

What reduce the newer technology is closed loop technology.

There's 13 different kinds of closed loop water systems that I won't be able to tell you the specifics about.

I'm just letting you know that there's that's the technology that's there, and they can use it to reduce the amount of water, and thus the amount of noise and need that they need for the energy consumption.

Um and so those would be recommended.

These are part of the things that are recommended from the DCA, where I mentioned earlier that the state was requiring items.

So those were some of the states.

So at least you get informed.

Um, and then to make sure we get a study for noise, that's the big one, and noise, not just the high decibel, but also the low frequency noise.

Make sure that the diesel backup generators that they're not testing them, that's a that's a big noise nuisance maker on their part.

Um, and then a community impact statement that lets us know what are you gonna bring to us?

What do we get from you as our community?

What's the quality of life potential impact if we um allow the data center to come to the city?

And then finally, there's a series on fire suppression and life safety that Chief put together.

Um, so plans for hazardous um emergency operations, access for emergency um and um suppress fire suppression.

And then what I had mentioned earlier about we recommend that if you pursue uh an ordinance that it has an abandonment and a decommissioning plan that we require that at permitting that they have to tell us what they're going to do if they if and when they leave town.

And so recall that at least at this at this stage, staff had recommended, and you will, as you direct us what how you prefer to manage it, but uh staff had recommended that go where you have your light industrial um properties.

So those are the green, the green properties, and this is um it's not a very nice map.

I understand it's hard to read, but at least it's the whole city.

So you can see where the green is all clustered off of a highway nine, and there's the blue, which is the OP, where I was saying that is the small size, the small size would be allowed, and that would be you know, which makes sense that at your Holcomb Bridge, um the blue here uh where um Kimberly Clark is, and then a couple other different spots, UPS, um other spots that are uh along in near near the this part of town.

Um and then I zoomed in so you could look we could look a little closer.

I know some of you are more familiar with some of the parcels than others.

Excuse me.

And this is the last slide of the with just showing where where on the map those the smaller size would be located.

So that that's where our that's our findings and a recommended example of how to frame frame your regulations if you're pursuing it.

Yes.

Oh, excuse me.

No, no, no, thank you.

Thank you so much.

No, thank you for the work that uh staff is uh it's great.

Um council members.

I have a couple questions, and hopefully I gave you the heads up that they might be coming.

Um first being uh it looks to be a gap between uh the one to four and tier one and then the five to I think twenty.

So is that something that could get addressed?

Yeah.

Yes, yes, it needs to say it needs to say to um 4.99 and then to five, five to twenty.

Is that the the integral um in integer?

Yes, so we're we're smarter and consistent, so we don't have a gap.

Um the size.

He's referring to the size of the megawatts, um, the tier system.

Sorry, thank you.

Yeah, no worries, and thank you for that.

Um, the second is it um I'm being told looks to be the case that uh originally for the tier one there was a 500 foot buffer, and now it looks to have gone to 200.

Is that true?

And if true, is there a reason?

I I saw the reason for the confusion.

So it we in our original version, we organized not by megawatts.

In our original example, we organized by it's just size, and we had a middle size that was 20,000 square foot, and that had that buffer, that was a different buffer.

And we learned that the size isn't going to tell you how much nuisance or how to manage their their impact.

Um, so it was wasn't uh helpful.

But I see where it came from because I thought I don't remember seeing that discrepancy, and then I saw it was because we had it originally uh we had another category before.

Yeah, and to close the loop on that, your finding is that 200 feet would be sufficient enough buffer that residential would not be impacted by the sound at that distance.

That as long right as but is in addition to having the distance, it has to be that distance away from them.

It can't be, yeah.

Excellent.

And then last question is um there's been a recommendation on this being in CH versus OP.

Um I'm just kind of curious if you could talk through what that um like the differences and and why that's fair.

Um well at first we were a little more expansive of the locations that might make sense because we recognize the smaller tiers, the smaller sizes are more businesses need might have the smaller sizes as within their own building.

Um and we we thought we needed to expand and you know, like be, I'll say not penalize people who aren't having a negative impact.

Um, but then looking at it further, um, and it was only for the tier one also.

We didn't look at C DH, the commercial heavy commercial for the um tier two for the larger ones.

We hadn't done that at all.

We had just looked it up at the smaller ones.

Um and so just to um keep just to keep it discreet, we wanted to start with a smaller size and let's see and make sure we're doing this slowly and and a more circumspect and reduce the amount of potential locations.

Okay, all right, Mayor Robushow and then Council Member Brumley.

This um in in your studies are our research, was there any differentiation in the buffer zone that topography might have come into play, i.e., you know, we're not a flat plan uh would those or things have any any effect.

So yes, that's a good point.

So we would have to have the landscape architect look at that carefully and and adjust accordingly because in fact, especially for um the low frequency, it was uh to have better higher terrain or berms, berms rather than trees because the way the because the sound goes through it.

So no, that's a good point.

Yeah, we need to have the landscape architect look at it.

All right.

Is that it, Mayor?

Um Councilmember Brumley.

Um so I think I brought this before, but I think we need like a tier three that is 21 and up.

Because it's not specific there.

Uh to add into it that it's not that it's prohibited.

Yeah, that we're I see.

Right.

We're leaving it, we we only show it going to 21, or excuse me, to 20.

So what's the right?

And then it's implicit, that's a good David question that it's implicit that we're only going to 20 and that there's a cap, but it's not allowed, but the right the recommendations we need to edit it so that it says 21 and up prohibited, just so it's like explicit.

That's a good idea.

Yeah, no, thank you.

Yes, you did you did, thank you.

Um and a couple of other things that we probably need to also add in the considerations.

Um if we can think about uh we're looking about energy consumption, but there's also being cases where uh the people who develop these centers come and they do their own diesel generators or solar panels or something, so they're not really you know, it's not in on the grid.

Uh so do we do we want to regulate or allow for these data centers to have their own energy sources?

Um, you know, that's something else that we need to I don't see.

So what is it how how about regulating somebody's own ownership?

So that was energy source.

Sorry, that was actually part of the discussion I had down at GMA was data centers.

So um they are looking at their own power sources now.

Yeah.

Um so that is something to consider.

Also something that has worked um in one county um was when they do the decommissioning, they are requiring a bond up front to cover the full cost of decommission.

And most people don't want to pay that.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, Councilmember Bieson.

That was uh discussed in a three and three, but not in a public meeting.

Um I had made the request of the decommissioning bond to be added as a requirement.

Okay.

Um my next point, I I saw that you put um that you're thinking about putting our levels of noise like 40 decibels.

Um, but I maybe we also need to add the water levels explicitly.

I don't know if that's something that we should see.

Well tell me tell me more.

Um what would we be regulating for?

What are we what are we?

So you're you're saying he require war and consumption, but you're not saying at what point is too much water.

Right.

So that would have to be something that is either a Fulton County, because too much water is based on the capacity, but if you had a policy statement, then you'd have we'd have to do quite a full study to say what is what for what purpose are we regulating that they have too much water.

If Fulton County says it's okay, why would we say it's too much?

Now, if it's because of environmental concerns and we uh say, well, we're we realize um incremental uh several several jurisdictions, it uh it can add up that it accumulates and creates a problem, then we've got to have a discussion through a regional entity to really address that.

It's just it's really hard for at the local level to um to see to determine what is it you want to regulate and why, and what can we regulate and and for what purpose?

But at the least we that's where I've kept in, at least we can ask them, show us how much you're going to use, let us see what you're about, and you can always ask questions, you know, not in air, you know, not just noise.

So annual testing?

Yes, yeah.

All right, thank you.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Any other comments or questions?

These obviously are the staff findings which have been brought forward for your information and consideration as we continue to move forward in this discussion of data centers at large.

And we'll have other items.

Yes, please go ahead.

Oh no, just to check in to see to test the water.

Is this the right direction?

Is there something else that you'd want to see regulated?

Or is there anything here that you're saying Michelle pull that out that doesn't belong here?

We could in the direction we're headed here.

Mayor Robichell.

I just think it's a lot of good research and giving us a lot of different facts and information.

And we know in this field of four things will change and we'll get additional, but I appreciate you also working with all the different partners and reaching out across to get all of that information.

And they're all gonna be different.

We know, but I appreciate that.

Pulling it all together for us.

Thank you.

Um Councilmember Hall.

I just wanted to know what what's the ex what are next steps?

Yeah.

And and when do you need feedback from us and and kind of right?

Yeah, so this was the discussion to see if we're we're in the even in the right direction.

We didn't want to presume and bring to you a full ordinance.

We brought to you an example ordinance.

Um so if there's if the feedback is this is the direction you go, then we're gonna come back and bring you it as a full ordinance with some of the additional items that have been raised and more details um and and go finished up through the process so that we can well we would like to do it for August.

We need to come back um and make sure we our our moratorium ends September 20th.

Um so we'll we'll bring something to you in August.

Go to planning commission or we'll it will go through planning commission, yes.

And it's been twice already, and we did three on threes with them.

So we got a lot of um exchange and um brought them in early on the whole process.

All right, thank you very much.

So it seems that we're headed in the right direction.

Obviously, there's more to come, and if you um council is elected body have any of further questions and or any research that comes your way, uh the staff will continue to work through these various items as they do continue to change, and um as new information becomes available, we certainly want to incorporate that into the discussion.

All right.

That with that, that does conclude the committee meeting committee meetings for July 14th.

We have um motion by council member Bieson of adjournment, second council member.

She has a question.

Okay.

I thought we had a motion as I all right, all right.

We have a comment, Councilmember Hall.

I just want to recognize the wonderful job that Michelle Alexander has done tonight.

I know that she stood in typically Jeff would be here, but you're hired.

Thanks, thank you.

Wow, my word.

That is so nice.

Thank you, Councilmember Hall, for that acknowledgement.

Thank you very much.

We have a motion of adjournment by Council Member Beeson, second by Mayor Robichot.

We've got uh several seconds.

Um and um all in favor?

Are all in favor?

Anybody opposed?

He can stay.

Oh, thank you so much.

Oh, thank you.

You made it so much easier.

Thank you.

You stuck with it.

You were driving.

I didn't plan for it, and I wasn't I didn't do any planning on it.

Yes.

Oh yeah, yeah, we're gonna want to just say