Choose a topic or browse the available passages below.
EXPLORE THE RECORD
Recent meeting passages
73–84 of 1,847
Automatic captions
Mayor and Council Meeting (Millage Rate Public Hearing #3)
Speaker not identified in source
But I'm assuming it'll be like regular MSE, which is like stone, something that looks very presentable to the community. Okay. Uh I did notice in the pictures the tennis courts, which is uh Woodland Brooks tennis courts that backs up the property. Uh there is major concern. Uh our tennis courts there uh are very popular. We are a tennis court community. Uh so with that being said, how would that be protected? Uh so the landscape barrier um that's required by jurisdiction will have plants that for shading for uh screening purposes and I'm assuming they already have a fence around it, but that's kind of like the barrier that will kind of separate the property. Um there shouldn't be I guess from a concern like trespass and all that there shouldn't be the availability of that if that's the question that you're asking. So I think I heard uh large trees did I hear that that are yes large trees that are I guess recommended by the jurisdiction. So wherever planting wise is recommended by the jurisdiction for the best to answer your question will be planning there. Okay, that's all I got. Any other questions? Okay, thank you. Oh, you are almost out of there. Mr. Lley's got one. He waited too long. Um, so what is the timeline if approved? What is the timeline for construction? And I'll give you while you think on the answer carefully. We find ourselves approving a lot that is not being built. So I'm curious, what is the real timeline? Not what you think, but what do we expect if passed? When would dirt start moving and you expect to have for sale signs in the units? Oh, you got to be sworn in, too. Next time we swear them all in at the beginning. Yes, sir. My name is Alejandra Ganell. I'm part of the developers.
Automatic captions may contain errors. Check the recording for the exact words.
These links identify related agenda records; they do not establish an outcome or a causal connection.
Automatic captions
Mayor and Council Meeting (Millage Rate Public Hearing #3)
Speaker not identified in source
Uh our timeline for this project is around in 10 months maximum 12 months within improvement. So if approved you get started fairly quickly. Yeah. As soon as possible. Anyone else? Any more questions? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Hey Bear, real quick. I'm sorry. I know I said I was done. That's okay. I'm almost done here. All right. Since you're up here, this is shovel ready, correct? So, how will that affect the neighboring communities with the construction this far as noise and drainage all those things? Do we have contingency planans in place for that? So, to answer your question, when we're doing the plans and going through LDP, we'll have to get our erosion control methods approved. So that will show all the roads control method to make sure that none the dirt leave the site and nothing contamination or etc like that. So we have to meet a certain requirement and a certain way of handling that. That has to be approved through the jurisdiction. Okay. That means no burying of debris. Mean should have a clean street. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. This is a public hearing. Uh, I'd like to invite anybody who even thinks they're going to speak on this but want to speak or for or against to come up and be sworn in now. Anybody else out in the audience think they might want to speak? Come and get sworn in now. Yes. Everybody come and get sworn in together. I And if each speaker would uh state their name and address for the record, please. Since I'm here, uh Dylan Morgan, 4841 Claybrook Drive, Smyrna, Georgia 300082. And I'm happy to stay and speak now or I can Okay, brilliant. Um, mayor and council, I want to begin with what I'm not asking you to do.
Automatic captions may contain errors. Check the recording for the exact words.
These links identify related agenda records; they do not establish an outcome or a causal connection.
Automatic captions
Mayor and Council Meeting (Millage Rate Public Hearing #3)
Speaker not identified in source
I am not asking you to preserve obsolete commercial zoning indefinitely, and I'm not asking you to uh um and I'm not opposed to residential redevelopment of the property. I'm asking you to decide whether this particular sixunit fourstory project fits this particular parcel. This is not merely a negotiation between a developer and its nearby residents. You are exercising the city's zoning authority under standards the city has adopted to protect both the private property rights and the public welfare. Smyrna's own staff memorandum says nine factors in section 1508 must be evaluated by planning and zoning and by the mayor and council. The applicant did revise the plan after receiving public feedback. And I acknowledge that the detention facility moved, the decks moved, the elevation changed, landscaping was added, and one guest parking space was removed. But those changes did not address the central objection. The project's intensity remains unchanged. It is still six attached units, still four stories, still 5.71 units per acre, and still a single sixunit row. The record documents that the drawings changed. It does not demonstrate that it unch that the unchanged scale now fits the property. In fact, the revised plan provides some of the strongest evidence that six units do not fit naturally. To restore the normal 25- foot setback beside Woodland Brook, the applicant moved the building towards the roads and created two new deviations, a setback of only 10 ft along Camp Highland Road and 20 ft along Argo Road. One setback problem was not solved. It was relocated. The explanation is that the propertyy's constrained by an irregular shape and 20 foot sanitary sewer easement. But these constraints are not reasons to wave the standards while holding the unit count constant. They are reasons to reconsider the unit count. Four or five homes would still convert the property to a residential use and advance the future land use plan without requiring the city to compress a four-story building against both public road frontages.
Automatic captions may contain errors. Check the recording for the exact words.
These links identify related agenda records; they do not establish an outcome or a causal connection.
Automatic captions
Mayor and Council Meeting (Millage Rate Public Hearing #3)
Speaker not identified in source
Medium density residential allows up to six units per acre. Up to is a ceiling. It is it is not an entitlement to the maximum density. This site is a transition point. Town homes exist to the north, but detached homes in the Woodland Brook amenity area lie immediately to the south and the west. The appropriate question is therefore not simply whether town homes are permitted somewhere within the MEDR category. It is whether this scale, form, and placement provide a suitable transition for these actual adjoining properties. On that question, the staff analysis offers conclusions rather than evidence. It says the proposal will not adversely affect nearby commu the nearby properties. It said the building's land area and height have no negative impact, but the record identifies no property value study, no visual impact or massing analysis, and no explanation of why six four-story units are appropriate rather than five, four, or a lower scale design. Staff also acknowledges that the parcel has reasonable economic use under its current zoning. So the denial of this application does not render the property unusable, nor would denial prevent residential redevelopment. It would simply require a proposal whose intensity is supported by the site rather than one that requires site standards to yield to the desired unit count. Community engagement should not be measured by whether a plan changed somewhere. It should be measured by whether the changes addressed the principal concern. Here the arrangement changed but the density, height, attached form, and unit count did not. I respectfully ask you to deny this application. At minimum, defer and direct the applicant to return with fewer or lower scale units. Residential redevelopment can be appropriate here, but the the record before you does not establish that a six sto six six four-story town homes are appropriate use of this constrained transition parcel. Thank you. Thank you.
Automatic captions may contain errors. Check the recording for the exact words.
These links identify related agenda records; they do not establish an outcome or a causal connection.
Automatic captions
Mayor and Council Meeting (Millage Rate Public Hearing #3)
Speaker not identified in source
Give me just one second before the next speaker comes up if you don't mind. So sometimes bestlaid plans you you have what you think might be a short agenda and it becomes a little longer agenda. When you got a 5-year-old and a three-year-old that matters. So what we're going to do is say thank you. Wait, you got you got to come back up here. We got to say thank you to our honorary mayor of the day, Kelly. And I told her when we started this that she'd get to bang that gabble again. We are not ajourned, but she gonna bang that gabble again. Bang it. Bang that thing. All right. Good job. [applause] Yes, you can have that. You absolutely can. They did a great job. Excellent. Thank you all so much. [applause] And if y'all if y'all will send Christie your way, I can contact you. I'll send some of the pictures to you. Okay. All right. Thank you. Y'all wouldn't believe my my area up here. Okay. Uh, next speaker, please. Thank you and thanks for the pause. [clears throat] Robert Low, 4800 Claybrook Drive. And I'm respectfully speaking in opposition. Um, your honor, Mayor Norton, The water management is a concern amongst others. What was going to be retention which holds water but was set aside because maintenance would be required. So they went to detention. Detention slows water movement but it does not hold water. That is my understanding. I'm not a civil engineer but that is my understanding. That retention pond, I mean the detention pond, if I may correct myself, is now not at the lowest point on the property as best I know. I walked around the property and the lowest point is my understanding now is where the dog park and the playground is.
Automatic captions may contain errors. Check the recording for the exact words.
These links identify related agenda records; they do not establish an outcome or a causal connection.
Automatic captions
Mayor and Council Meeting (Millage Rate Public Hearing #3)
Speaker not identified in source
It was moved closer to Argo Road, which you could argue was not above Woodland Brook, but actually it still is because the tennis courts are right there and the parking lot and the pool. how I've never seen any drawings of all the things. Everything is always shown level on all the renderings. They always look level. That is not the case at all. Is there are parts of Argo Road is probably about a blue diamond ski slope once you get away from Camp Highland and it goes down and it's even worse as you go closer to um Claybrook Drive. I'd like to know how the playground and the dog park are going to be made level. Who wants a playground that's on a slope if they're on the steepest slope? And if you do level it, how are you going to create retention on the downward side so that water doesn't flood into our tennis courts? Yes. So the pond, that detention pond was moved closer to Argo, but again, I don't believe that's the lowest point on the property. So how would the water be directed there? And when you look at the drawing that well first of all that 1.06 acres whatever is now totally pvious meaning water can soak in throughout and I didn't do the calculations but just doing a broad view of it I would say 60% or more of the property is now going to be impervious. That's a lot of water to manage when you get a serious downpour. And I've never seen any or heard any details given on gallons per minute or volume or storage or anything. It's all been very just general talk about water management. And I'm scared to death that our property is going to be damaged in Woodland Brook. And who's going to be responsible for repairing it? Are we going the HOA that I pay into?
Automatic captions may contain errors. Check the recording for the exact words.
These links identify related agenda records; they do not establish an outcome or a causal connection.
Automatic captions
Mayor and Council Meeting (Millage Rate Public Hearing #3)
Speaker not identified in source
Are we going to be required to clean up the mud or whatever? And this sounds like an emotional appeal, but I've just never seen enough technical details to prove that they've truly managed the water management parking. They say it's adequate, but please understand that Argo Road is 30 feet wide. That is two lanes of traffic. There is not one inch for a parking spot along Argo Road. If by chance there is a need for overflow parking, again, five parking spots per unit. Those are they have multiple bedrooms. I believe three or four bedroom. I'm not sure which. Doesn't matter. That means they're families living there. It might be teenagers. How many cars are they going to have? Are the garages actually going to be used for cars? Are they going to be used for stories like many people do with their homes? So, if there is a a parking problem, how's it what are they what are the visitors going to do? They cannot park along Argo. They cannot park along Camp Highland. They should not come into Woodland Brook where we live. There is no solution for overflow parking. They're trying to squeeze too much into a oneacre plot of land. It from a water perspective, a parking perspective, it just doesn't make sense. And if I could have a few more minutes, I'd like to just make kind of an emotional aesthetic appeal. Close your eyes and imagine you're driving from East West Connector now on to Camp Highland. First thing on the left is West Westchester Commons. A beautiful little development tucked down in. You barely even know it's there. Wonderful. You go across the bridge. It goes over Silver Comet Trail. There's this patch of woodland. Very nice. Yes, it's okay to be developed. But what do you see to the left on Argo Road, you see single family dwellings.
Automatic captions may contain errors. Check the recording for the exact words.
These links identify related agenda records; they do not establish an outcome or a causal connection.
Automatic captions
Mayor and Council Meeting (Millage Rate Public Hearing #3)
Speaker not identified in source
You go a little bit further and you see a Woodland Brook, our development with 166 units. All single family homes, stucco, stone, all brick. Camp Highland Road is a delineator between us, Woodland Brook to the left, to the south, and Highlands Overlook to the right. It's a beautiful little town home community was just built a few years ago. So, there's this delineator of a road. One aesthetic look on the right, another aesthetic look on the left. Now let's put it in reverse and come off of East West Connector again onto Camp Highland Road. Only now this structure is there again. Beautifully to the left is Westchester Comets. You start coming across the bridge that goes over the Silver Comet Trail. Boom. There's the three-story building. It looks kind of like the one on the right except it's another story higher. Now, the delineation between town homes on the right and single family dwellings on the left has been destroyed. All you're going to see is this huge structure as you go across the bridge, and it just doesn't fit. It's surrounded by sing older single family homes to the left on Argo, 25 year old beautiful homes again, brick, stucco, stone to the right. They surround this big structure. And also imagine being at the bottom. That is a very, very steep slope. Claybrook Drive. I would tell you right now, which is just to the right of this property, is like a black diamond ski slope. It I wouldn't even attempt to ride my bike up. It's that steep. And I ride a bike pretty nicely. And I just don't see how this is going to be managed on such a steep slope and make it work. It I'm sorry. I just can't see it. It's out of place. It's out of character. town homes on the right, single family homes on the left, totally destroyed.
Automatic captions may contain errors. Check the recording for the exact words.
These links identify related agenda records; they do not establish an outcome or a causal connection.
Automatic captions
Mayor and Council Meeting (Millage Rate Public Hearing #3)
Speaker not identified in source
It just doesn't belong there. It's out of place, out of character. And I'll ditto everything Dylan had to say, too. Person who preceded me. So, I think that covers all that I have to say. So, I respectfully ask that you reject this development. Thank you. I I have a question of Joey. No, and Rusty. Five spaces per per unit. That seems that seems like more than we normally do. Is that is that for a unit like that? There's usually two spots. Yeah. For single family developments, code requires two two off streetet parking spaces. Okay. So, and for town home development, it's one it's a guest space for every for 25% of the development. So with respect they have two garage spaces, two driveway spaces and then they have seven guest parking spaces. So they have plus one guest space per every unit. So they from what's required with respect to code they're they're they're over park at this point. Almost double. Okay. All right. Thank you. And then if I would no I'm g what's that? Yeah. you can sign up. I want to bring the engineer back up. Can you address if you wouldn't mind? Um, we can do this at the end or we can do it now. I might as well do it now since it's fresh. Talk about the detention retention. Talk a little bit about and I know you'll grade that site and can you give a little bit of little more specificity to how you're going to deal with the water and the impervious surface? Yeah, sure. Jill or whoever, can y'all put that site plan back up there? I just just since it was mentioned on the um about storm water runoff and detention, I just want to get a clear idea of how that's being dealt with. and also u educate us on how that system works.
Automatic captions may contain errors. Check the recording for the exact words.
These links identify related agenda records; they do not establish an outcome or a causal connection.
Automatic captions
Mayor and Council Meeting (Millage Rate Public Hearing #3)
Speaker not identified in source
Doesn't have to get into we just kind of high level this how we're going to get I just want to Okay, so high level. So originally we had the storm water detention pond in the corner um closer to the tennis rack. Uh per comments per the neighbors we moved it uh so just the first concern that's always going to be the lowest point is that corner. We just made sure that storm water is further away from it. Um the second point, we had originally a retention pond, but there was a concern about mosquitoes. So to fix that solution, we switched over to a dry detention pond. So it drains out within 24 to 48 hours. So mosquitoes don't have enough time to lay their eggs. So that was the purpose of switching over to a dry tension pond from a um regular wet detention pond. So with the dry detention pond there will be certain soils compacted with certain materials that will let it infiltrate and we'll have to do some borings with geotech report but from a high level we'll have to meet the code to drain a certain infiltrate the soil at a certain rate. Um and then on top of that for the dry dry detention pond we have to make sure we take account for offsite storm water that drains onto our site. So not only at our site, we have to take account for other storm water that drains on to our site. So from that we get contours survey and we'll see from the survey and contours and elevation what actually drains to our site to treat. Hopefully that answers the question in a high level.
Automatic captions may contain errors. Check the recording for the exact words.
These links identify related agenda records; they do not establish an outcome or a causal connection.
Automatic captions
Mayor and Council Meeting (Millage Rate Public Hearing #3)
Speaker not identified in source
I just wanted I just needed a little bit more clarity about what what exactly we're talking about how much you know on huge event what how how we're dealing with that water and I thought I remember that y'all had it in a different place and then moved it and that gives me some now I know the reason and trying to work with the community on that. Okay. And then also on top of that we have to meet code through the jurisdiction. We have to go through their guidelines and checklist to make sure we meet the requirements per Georgia standards as well. We got a civil engineer as our city administrator. So I know he understands that stuff there's anything I was just going to ask um hi thank you for coming tonight. What is the uh great separation from this property in Woodland? So if I remember correctly, I think it's roughly about 10 feet, but it drains. So the high point is at the corner from the north. So like where the um crossing is at, then it drains to that side. So with the town homes and the graves, you can slope the town homes 1% to 2% because they drop stagger. That helps with the grays. And then on the dog park, depending again on the direction we go with the garage being retained or not, that helps the site out a lot as well because you're losing roughly 10 to 12 feet with the draw with retaining walls. No problem. Okay, thank you. Next speaker, please. Um, Alex Mone, 4801 Claybrook Drive. Um, I don't really have much. I know that Philip's going to come up and Dylan and Bob. Uh there's not much more I could I just want to be sure I'm here to sign this sheet in opposition to this project.
Automatic captions may contain errors. Check the recording for the exact words.
These links identify related agenda records; they do not establish an outcome or a causal connection.
Automatic captions
Mayor and Council Meeting (Millage Rate Public Hearing #3)
Speaker not identified in source
I believe that it's uh it's not an appropriate building to put in our community. I'm directly one of four homes on the west end on the border of this property of this project that is directly that excuse me that is directly affected uh and impacted by this project. We would prefer to hope to see similar uh homes built there, whether it's a culac with a four or whatever is appropriate as Dylan was expl explaining as the norm. And again, I just want to make sure I sign this. I've spoke a lot more fluently in other meetings. I'm on the board. I apologize. as I'm not as uh um prepared tonight, but uh a lot of my um my my fellow neighbor uh neighbors have spoke well. I know that our uh I've gotten some texts as I' I've been sitting here of our um HOA president, Zead, those may know who he is, and he speaks very fluently, and I know he'd be here uh beating a drum and in hopes to protect our community as well, but he's not unfortunately here today. So, I I can't speak for him, but I just There's a there's a a lot of support and we're not all here representing today, but um in in other uh planning board meetings, we were all here and we all communicate and we talk about this and um and we're very um concerned and there's a lot of answers. I'm on the west end. I'll just go as far as to say again with the drainage and and and the elevation, we're all concerned if this project were to be uh uh approved that the west end because of drainage would have to be built up and I'm not sure if that was um discussed about how much dirt would have to be pushed in and for those who have our borders and our property lines if that dirt is pushed in then there's retainment required.
Automatic captions may contain errors. Check the recording for the exact words.
These links identify related agenda records; they do not establish an outcome or a causal connection.
READ THE WORDS. CHECK THE CONTEXT.
What this search can tell you
Coverage is incomplete. This collection tracks 118 meetings. 39 have searchable transcripts and 72 have searchable minutes; a meeting may have both. 10 currently have neither. A missing passage is not evidence that a topic was never discussed.
Speech and summaries stay distinct. Transcript passages preserve the available transcript text. Minutes are labeled as summaries, not spoken quotations. Speaker identities are shown only where the source or documented attribution supports them; an unattributed speaker remains unattributed.
Relevance does not establish a connection. Topic search uses meaning and words to help you locate passages. Read adjacent passages, follow the source and inspect any agenda context before drawing a conclusion about an official’s position or a decision.
Verify a passage
Each passage links to its source, with an available page or recording time. Read the surrounding context and compare the captured text with the original public record.