Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Sandy Springs City Council convened for a work session at 6:00 PM on September 15, 2026, followed by a regular meeting. The work session featured an update on "The Next Chapter" comprehensive plan and recreation and parks master plan. The regular meeting included public comments, approval of consent agenda, three public hearings (Holy Innocence Episcopal School special event permit appeal, Nubia Cafe business license revocation, CDBG CAPER), and a new business item (landscaping contract extension). The meeting concluded with an executive session for real estate and litigation.
Michele McIntosh-Ross, Sukirti Ghosh (RHI), and Carlos Perez (Perez Planning and Design) presented an update on the city's comprehensive plan and recreation and parks master plan, currently in the community engagement phase.
Engagement and Survey Results:
Community Priorities:
Next Steps:
Council Discussion:
The school appealed the city manager's denial of a special event permit for temporary lighting during the homecoming football game on October 2, 2026. The school's conditional use permit (2009) prohibits field lighting.
The city sought revocation of the business occupational tax certificate for Nubia Cafe after a shooting in the parking lot at 5:40 AM on August 15, 2026. Police found evidence of alcohol sales without a license, including witness statements, a ledger, and receipts. The business argued no alcohol was found on premises and that the shooting occurred outside their control.
The city presented the required annual report for the 2025 Community Development Block Grant allocation of $485,216. Funds supported sidewalk projects on South Roswell Road, Northwood Drive, Long Island Drive, and Hope Road. A public hearing was held on September 1, 2026, with no comments. The report was approved unanimously.
The council approved a 90-day extension (through December 2026) at a cost not to exceed $53,307 to allow time to complete a competitive procurement process for a new landscaping contract. The extension was approved unanimously.
The time for convening has arrived, so we'll start this evening series of meetings. We'll start with our work session, and the first item on the work session agenda is an update on the next chapter. This Macintosh Ross. Yes, thank you, and good evening, Mayor and City Council. I'm here to um introduce our consultant firm who will be giving you an update on our next chapter, our comprehensive plan and recreation and parks master plan. So I'd like to introduce Security Gauche with RHI and also Carlos Perez from Perez Planning and Design will also be up here to update you. So I'll introduce security. Thank you. Welcome back. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council members. Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Security Ghosh with RHI. We are working with the city on the comprehensive plan and the recreation in the Parks Master Plan. Today we are going to give you a brief update on the project progress, starting with the schedule, give you a heads up on what has been going on in the last couple of months with regards to the community engagement, and we'll dive a little bit deep into some of the focused topics that we have been hearing from the community in the last couple of months. And then we'll share with you some next steps. So where we are right now is smack in the middle of the community engagement process. The top bar you see in this slide are all of the leadership meetings. We are in the workshop session number three with you all. We'll be giving the same kind of presentation to the planning commission members tomorrow night. We also have a four-hour workshop session with the advisory committee tomorrow from 12 to 4. And then we have the next meeting, the next public meeting is going to be October 29th. So we are right in the middle of the community engagement process. So we just had public meeting number two, and it was divided into two meetings. One was for the South Side, and we had that at on August 17th at Church of the Redeemer, and then on August 20th, 2026, at the North End at the city's municipal complex. Same kind of content, different groups. We had a great participation in those, and I'll share with you some numbers pretty soon. We also have been meeting with a lot of folks out there with events and pop-ups. So we had representation on the national night out, the regular farmers market, the movies by the moonlight, and all of the events that you have in the Sandy Springs community. We are representing the next chapter in those. One is the conjoint survey for the comprehensive plan, and the other one is the recreation of the parks master plan survey. On the conjoint survey, as I mentioned before to you in the last meeting, phenomenal response. As you can see the numbers here, on the there's two parts to the conjoint survey. One was the closed part, which was the conjoint portion, which is the statistically valid portion of the survey, and then it was open to the community for their feedback. And we also had feedback from the community, and that survey closed uh September 9th. The one thing that you can see on the top right is the 6.5% response rate. That is actually really, really good because for planning purposes in this kind of studies, we generally see four and four to four and a half percent response rate. So overall, the community has been very responsive, and we went out to the community with emails, texts, postcards, phones, social media, and the city's communication department did everything in their power to spread the word out, and that was the reason for getting so much good feedback from the community. While we are analyzing the conjoint survey, I wanted to share with you a few highlights that we have been hearing from the conjoint, especially the closed version of it. So