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All right. Good evening. | 00:00:06 | |
And welcome to. | 00:00:10 | |
The dissent meeting of the Wattsville City Council. We have world and this is your call order and we'll start with Pledge of | 00:00:12 | |
Allegiance and we have so many young guests here tonight. I was hoping our Palm Fairy kids and others would stand up and lead us | 00:00:16 | |
in the Pledge of Allegiance. How about that guy? Stand up and let's hear. | 00:00:21 | |
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, | 00:00:27 | |
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:00:33 | |
So when every crowd. | 00:00:41 | |
We're going to start with the gingerbread houses. | 00:01:50 | |
It's a joint. Assembled Ginger browsers arrive in every remarks. How great it tells it's a wonderful nutrition. That's what I | 00:01:53 | |
think is our set year. Is that right? Having the Red House at City Hall? I didn't. If you'd be willing to step forward, you'll | 00:01:58 | |
miss me and share a little bit about Project less and we will do some photos with. | 00:02:02 | |
Well, good evening. I've ever doing well this evening. My name is Lynn Shore and this is Becky. We're by teachers at Home Ferry | 00:02:09 | |
Elementary School and my ears become enough to allow us to share the hard work of these students for the last two years. So this | 00:02:15 | |
project began a few years ago with Mary and Check media specialist that time and she's a different position. And so Missy and I | 00:02:22 | |
have taken this on as a project we do each year. So I don't know if you're aware, the Colonery is a certified school and part of | 00:02:28 | |
that is in certification. | 00:02:35 | |
Requires or encourages us to do things called PLS which is project based learning. So this project started with a question and the | 00:02:42 | |
question was how can we as engineers create Gingerbread Watkins L to display at City Hall and that's where the students started. | 00:02:49 | |
They bring stores tons of questions that they would need to answer in order to accomplish this goal and then they researched SO. | 00:02:56 | |
Awesome, wonderful work and it means so much. I'll choose to after Wattsville and every year I'm just impressed with the | 00:04:09 | |
creativity. I know we had all the switches out there, we have a little tail swift reference someone, we have clothes hangers, we | 00:04:14 | |
have people landscape detailed on these things. When you really get up close to the the work that this instead becomes super | 00:04:19 | |
evidence. So we have a little bit in a minute everybody wants to check these things out close. For now why don't we get a picture | 00:04:24 | |
and we have a special gift for our team. | 00:04:29 | |
All right, now if you'll send by your house, I'm going around, we have just a few Wattsville Christmas tree and we have some for | 00:05:07 | |
our students this year. So those who haven't seen this is MA by local artist, so, so studio. So we're going to those of you who | 00:05:15 | |
are paragraphs are also going to get some of these special limits. | 00:05:23 | |
For those who couldn't be denied, we will send send. | 00:05:32 | |
We'll send up with teachers. | 00:05:41 | |
Real quick and then we'll if anyone wants to get a picture with us, they can, we'll. | 00:05:50 | |
So we have to formally that will order for them. We're grateful for this year's grand Marshall was Martin Nunley and we're | 00:06:30 | |
thankful for Marvin. He's a wonderful community. Leaders got a me dollar smile as you can see there and as long Tompkinsville | 00:06:37 | |
resident the department is so studious only hundred of those made every year. Julie Lewis and her team did a job here. | 00:06:44 | |
I think she's here, OK, and the sponsors and judges up there, so because I said earlier it takes a lot of people at the parade | 00:06:51 | |
together a year, we're grateful to everybody comes together and does that. | 00:06:56 | |
Aloft says reps up there, but tone cars were putting the putting the stage up with a great group of judges. Again, it takes takes | 00:07:01 | |
the entire community to pull it off and have all the thousands of people coming out of the city safely and have their time. So | 00:07:06 | |
grateful. Everybody who helped in our planning committee, we recognize them. | 00:07:11 | |
Sharon. | 00:07:17 | |
That's our planning committee and I mentioned our employees work on this. It's a great effort every year by them in the melody | 00:07:20 | |
Adams is our chief volunteer, so we're grateful for Melanie that will do the awards. | 00:07:25 | |
If you're here, I would call you up first up for use of themes Briarwood kids have anybody from? | 00:07:31 | |
Next up we have Children's Artistic. | 00:07:48 | |
And best flow for children's BSPAC? | 00:08:03 | |
All right, when are adults wasn't to auto best use of theme? | 00:08:18 | |
Thank you. | 00:08:27 | |
All right. | 00:08:33 | |
All right. | 00:08:37 | |
Literally, people say this could be amazing. | 00:08:44 | |
All right, adult, best load. I'm following up friends there in the blue. | 00:08:48 | |
To be Nathan around here, all right. | 00:09:17 | |
Best tractor is the Shot family. | 00:09:29 | |
Oh my gosh. | 00:09:43 | |
I. | 00:09:48 | |
All right, best easy car of any collision. | 00:09:52 | |
And this last award is and after maybe Mary Williams it's all award and Mary D the bridge was was shoveling for years to watch | 00:10:18 | |
them still married herself to take her to the first only Mary Williams hand and turn it into a turned into the iconic event that | 00:10:23 | |
is today. I'm really ejected a lot of energy and passionate and we're always grateful to Miss Mary for what we did to add a lot of | 00:10:29 | |
parade. So this big award. | 00:10:35 | |
Calhoun's Polar Express. | 00:10:42 | |
Yeah. | 00:13:22 | |
Yeah. | 00:13:26 | |
June. | 00:15:37 | |
Thank you. Thank you so much. | 00:16:47 | |
All right. | 00:17:13 | |
And when we go. | 00:17:15 | |
Should we get? I know you never put it down, right, So we're going to keep on. OK, Council, you've had the minutes and you've had | 00:17:18 | |
an opportunity to review them. I'll enter the motion. That's only for November 15th minutes. Please make a motion to approve the | 00:17:21 | |
number of minutes. | 00:17:25 | |
Do a second any. | 00:17:29 | |
Hearing none all in favor. | 00:17:32 | |
Any opposed motion carries unanimously. We'll move on to the approval agenda council the changes that like to make the agenda. | 00:17:35 | |
Hearing No entertainment to approve. | 00:17:43 | |
Also that we do have a public hearing or two on the agenda tonight. We'll have opportunities for public to specifically address | 00:18:16 | |
those matters at that point. With that we'll move on to the financial reports introduction. Please make your. | 00:18:20 | |
So everybody should have received all sheet. The general fund expense and revenues tracking with that should be around 40% and on | 00:18:26 | |
expenses were 38 and then revenues were 43. So we're doing fairly well on that on. | 00:18:32 | |
This last two port that report actually be looked out this month. He had a little bit of leftover from. | 00:18:39 | |
From interest and so we're using that money to close that. We had some expenses on the Petunka right fields will be closing that | 00:18:46 | |
out this month. So next month maybe we'll residual left there, but we will have that cleared out and then we'll down to just three | 00:18:52 | |
and three. Most of our senses on this right now are centered around park and the one improvements the green space at Thomas Farms | 00:18:58 | |
will be there that we use roads and then some signage updates in the city. | 00:19:04 | |
Just seeing this one at 8.63% of the Oakland County sales tax and we are about 4.4% over last year we're averaging. | 00:19:11 | |
We're averaging 80,000 a month on that. | 00:19:20 | |
On teeth lost, this one just started in April and it's at 7.77%, so a little bit less. We're averaging about 69,000. We do | 00:19:25 | |
anticipate by the time we do the five years of this, it will be closer to 78, hopefully more, which has been the the protection. | 00:19:33 | |
And then this is mostly sidewalks to the national sidewalk, the industrial Blvd. Sidewalk need it's encumbered and resurfacing and | 00:19:40 | |
parking on 2nd St. around rocket those defenses we had to date. | 00:19:47 | |
We will become four this next year with requests to use somewhere that money. We've got balance of just under 300,000. | 00:19:55 | |
You'll see that you can see it's a how it fluctuates depending on if we don't compare. Last year we didn't have it, but we're | 00:20:03 | |
doing pretty well. Any questions on slaughter? | 00:20:07 | |
All right. And in the last American Rescue Plan Act money that is certainly frozen because we have to do the in fiscal year. So we | 00:20:12 | |
trigger a little audit. We used a good that money for the purchase of 100 acre Thomas family farm. | 00:20:19 | |
And so council, I want you guys can start using that money again, correcting us to use it. | 00:20:26 | |
Any questions on those? | 00:20:33 | |
On economic development, we've got business. Lexus are coming in several. They've got renewals on alcohol licenses as well. | 00:20:36 | |
And then on SRS tax, I can remember the tax is selected. We don't get the previous month till the end of the month. So that's why | 00:20:44 | |
you see all that money in November yet. But those are tracking higher than what we did. So that's good. | 00:20:49 | |
And on building permits, we had we six points out five different projects. | 00:20:56 | |
Still some work going on over at Wire Park and some work there. 71 N Main is the is the instructional support Center for the | 00:21:01 | |
school. | 00:21:05 | |
Any questions? Only does. | 00:21:10 | |
All right. Member Tim Tucker would have an update on Downtown Development Authority. Yes. So as we have said, the City of | 00:21:14 | |
Wattsville, we see the rural zone ignition, which means we have access to our citizens and owners have access to some good tax | 00:21:20 | |
sensitives in order to help create more jobs in Watkinsville, which would include some investment property rehabilitation and | 00:21:27 | |
property or just tax credit if you start business that does have at least two employees. | 00:21:34 | |
Kate Patterson and I went to a train late November and so in January we are having some more informational meetings on that, what | 00:21:42 | |
that means, what it looks like and how it can just help spark some great things in our community. Also we head downtown bingo on a | 00:21:49 | |
Small Business Saturday and it was a great success. Business owners were said that they a lot more traffic and so we hope to | 00:21:57 | |
continue that trend and then so we have several new and or. | 00:22:04 | |
Parks in Wattsville. | 00:22:12 | |
We have this one by Eagle Town with new Adirondack chairs and so just as I don't know if with Waterville from Connect Me, we want | 00:22:14 | |
to have lots of gathering spaces for our community, our community members. So having these old pocket parks is another way to do | 00:22:21 | |
that. So there's this one here on Main Street and then also this one Main Street and this one was primarily funded by the grant | 00:22:29 | |
that we received that put on the the event at Rockfield in October that created a public art at UC there that the businesses. | 00:22:36 | |
Sponsored and so we hope that. | 00:22:44 | |
The committee will start using the space, so also thanks to Public Works for their hard work to get this set up and set in a way | 00:22:46 | |
that it's going to be easier to maintain and so I appreciate their attention to detail without that. | 00:22:51 | |
All right. Thank you, Mayor. It's Tim. And I think everybody probably notes point, but I think that last part you know with the | 00:22:59 | |
return of Debbie's due downtown and I will talk about that in Adobe's building. | 00:23:05 | |
Given the interest I think it'll be it'll be nice to have a space next to where people want outsider way they can can do that. So | 00:23:12 | |
Jack I know you'll enjoy having that there. Thank you for your leadership on getting that done. Christina team all right Police | 00:23:17 | |
Department report and while chief judgment comes forward come on up. | 00:23:23 | |
We want to make a few remarks and of gratitude Durham Sutterton, who stepped forward. | 00:23:29 | |
And our pretty chief Shambock was able to continue his duties and had to retire. | 00:23:36 | |
Chief led with I guess no. Just what I've been so impressed with is a real combination of. | 00:23:41 | |
Capacity to get things done, but just wonderful way treating everybody with dignity and respect. You know, if has long | 00:23:48 | |
conversations about challenging. | 00:23:51 | |
Challenging situations. And I guess what really stuck with me is how thoughtful you are about all the parties who were involved, | 00:23:55 | |
those who impact negatively, those who might make poor decisions. | 00:23:59 | |
And just your consideration. | 00:24:04 | |
Into the law. | 00:24:08 | |
They just blew me away. Some of those situations in the wishing with extra mile and another challenging situation find I'm fine. | 00:24:09 | |
So new is the best one again. | 00:24:13 | |
You didn't have to do that. You need to. You need to take those steps to go above and beyond, do what you had. But I could just | 00:24:17 | |
shows your heart for the people I can build, for your profession, for what you. | 00:24:22 | |
From the start, you embrace role strong leaders. | 00:24:28 | |
Manage the festival Miss Chris Braid Manage. | 00:24:30 | |
Trick or treat Main St. in everywhere situations. We had thousand people on foot, hundreds of people, hundreds of vehicles, all | 00:24:34 | |
kinds of opportunities for mishaps and wouldn't a single one. So it was doing all this bit of police work or biggest, biggest. | 00:24:40 | |
Events that we have in Watkinsville Minister Mall Exceptional. So I just want to say before you set back how grateful we are for | 00:24:47 | |
you and everything. You've got Watkinsville and for stepping up when we needed you and we appreciate you and we're thankful so. | 00:24:54 | |
Good evening, Mayor. Council, for what we're putting my last report in front of our foreseeable future, I'm going to tell you | 00:25:10 | |
about what we did throughout the month of December. | 00:25:14 | |
Inside packet first page the author activity we responded 19139 calls for service 30 period. Keep my some of the leads over into | 00:25:18 | |
the short period of time and number after your last meeting. | 00:25:23 | |
But it's 30 day. | 00:25:28 | |
We conducted all over 1200 security checks of homes or businesses within city prevent anything happening on the board. | 00:25:30 | |
And we issued 155 excitations. | 00:25:37 | |
On the transportation is a large portion of job officers who everybody knows become difficult at times, especially last. | 00:25:40 | |
Last Sunday we had an asset with a county and we round a lot of traffic Downing St. which prompted a lot of problems on Main | 00:25:48 | |
Street but also remember the street disease, over a million cars in each direction. | 00:25:53 | |
Over 1. | 00:25:58 | |
National cars 2 lane. | 00:26:00 | |
So on traffic 155. | 00:26:02 | |
Nature warnings. | 00:26:05 | |
Once being a citation, 61 warnings. Good. Mixed both I think. | 00:26:07 | |
And then on fixed out cameras we have money to open what it means. Dissertations an issue are unpaid at this time and 38 pitting | 00:26:11 | |
which are sections that have to be approved to be sent out. | 00:26:16 | |
On the second page. | 00:26:22 | |
There's a substantial battery and the last one was alerting and playing in a truck law enforcement officer and three of them were | 00:26:54 | |
criminal criminal. One of those was no driver's license. | 00:26:58 | |
The second was a novel driver's license. Generally this means as a person has never had a driver's license, they just drive that | 00:27:02 | |
one. They never bothered to take the test or have an issue not to confuse. Our third tread was a person who was driving after the | 00:27:07 | |
state of Georgia removed their villages by suspending revoking license. | 00:27:12 | |
So there's a cap the numbers underneath. | 00:27:19 | |
And your last age to the community as we. | 00:27:22 | |
We ended that in traffic checkpoints where we join our fellow officers for our train, a mule and a DUI checkpoint. We traveled. | 00:27:25 | |
How much do that? November 17th. | 00:27:29 | |
We had our first and cops it soups. We stood out 94 ice cream cones and I was funded by our 1C3 and we did that on a Saturday. | 00:27:33 | |
Look like we are and I apologize. I don't know what happened. | 00:28:03 | |
I didn't touch anything. | 00:28:08 | |
I do want to introduce that we're not going to do an official swearing in or anything for our new Chief, but Courtney Gale is is | 00:28:12 | |
here tonight. Give her just a brief moment. I know the Mayor may want to say something to you, but just to introduce her, she'll | 00:28:18 | |
be starting on January the 8th. She'll be sworn in on the 17th, so. | 00:28:23 | |
Courtney, welcome, welcome back to Oconee County. We're, we're glad to have you. Here's our Chief and I'm excited to continue the | 00:28:30 | |
work that Chief Brock and Chief Tetherton have done and just grateful to have you here in Watkinsville and part of our team | 00:28:36 | |
welcome home. | 00:28:42 | |
Yep, Yep, Yep. | 00:28:49 | |
OK. That's the Police Department. Next up on the agenda, we have consent. We don't vote on these individually, but I do want to | 00:28:52 | |
just touch on, just provide a little bit of context because there's some big numbers in there. | 00:28:58 | |
What that's about is we are just moving some money around from buckets to buckets. If you guys remember, we had encumbered funds | 00:29:06 | |
in several different ways. Item number seven, we had anticipated potentially utilizing AG dot. | 00:29:12 | |
TAP Grant to help us fund assignment and bridge sidewalk. As you recall, last month we decided that was not wise. We realized we | 00:29:19 | |
were going to have to probably invest just as much money. | 00:29:23 | |
As we would if we built it ourselves into a matching grant to the federal government that would take five to six years to get that | 00:29:29 | |
project done. So again, we're just moving that money back to where we can use it and where it's not in a match situation. | 00:29:34 | |
Item 8 is actually similar. We had that money allocated in case we won a state grant to kick off work at Harris Shoals. We did not | 00:29:40 | |
get that grant. I think we all agree we want to prioritize and emphasize getting the work started at Harris SHO. | 00:29:47 | |
So at this point we're going to move that money back, you know the reprogram that money so that we can get started on that work, | 00:29:54 | |
which I think will begin with some paving work, repaving the parking area and resetting some of that so we can do some of the | 00:30:00 | |
other work down there that we want to around the green spaces, the old ball field and all that kind of stuff get that improved. | 00:30:05 | |
Aligned with our master. | 00:30:12 | |
Item 9 is also similar. This is where we're going to reprogram. We're going to reprogram some T spots money once again, so we can | 00:30:14 | |
continue to potentially put funds towards the Simonton Bridge. | 00:30:20 | |
Mulberry St. Sidewalk Connection, which is going to be a complicated project, but we think it's really important. | 00:30:27 | |
Get the sidewalk to the new park and out on Simonton Bridge Rd. The other things is just to reappoint you to the library board and | 00:30:32 | |
the budget amendment for tourism art sponsorship. So hearing that, can I have an amendment, Excuse me, a motion to approve the | 00:30:39 | |
consent agenda. Make a motion to approve the consent agenda. All right and a second, second any discussion. | 00:30:47 | |
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. | 00:30:54 | |
Any opposed motion carries unanimously. | 00:30:58 | |
Now, time for public hearing. We have two items to variance request. One is at Simonton Bridge Rd. The other is at Jacob Drive. | 00:31:02 | |
The way these go, for those of you haven't been here before, 10 minutes per side. Per zoning procedures laws, comments should be | 00:31:08 | |
made only directly relating to these agenda items. Speak from the podium. 4 minutes per person. Refrain from debate. Argument. | 00:31:14 | |
Personal attacks are irrelevant. Discussion. | 00:31:19 | |
Address only the merits of the pending matter and address remarks directly to council, not to the audience. Council won't speak to | 00:31:25 | |
potential litigation, attorney-client privilege or personnel matters. First item up is variance, the variance for 51 and 55 | 00:31:33 | |
Simonton Bridge Rd. Parcel WO 6021 JW York Properties. We'll start with the public hearing. We'll hear from both sides. | 00:31:40 | |
Request to reduce the side set back from the 30 foot code requirement to 10 feet. If you can go to the next slide to give you an | 00:32:52 | |
idea of where these you know. You may not know where 51 and 55 Simonton Bridge Rd. Are located because there's not structures | 00:32:59 | |
currently on those two undeveloped lots. So you can see there the properties at 61 Simonton Bridge Road and the properties at 47 | 00:33:07 | |
Simonton Bridge Rd. that are on either side. So the subject property specifically where the variance is being requested. | 00:33:14 | |
JW has ownership of the two lots, but the one that was highlighted there. | 00:33:23 | |
The applicant also submitted a reference from Platbook. | 00:33:28 | |
In Oconee County. So anytime you see things on Platt, book one that has a little age to it that the date on this is 1947 and it | 00:33:32 | |
shows right in the middle of that page. There are lots, four and five would be the the subject lots that are before you tonight. | 00:33:40 | |
If you go to the next slide, so this is that same image that you have in front of you with a lot more information and some colors | 00:33:49 | |
I might add. These are some things you'd see in a in a CAD drawing or a CAD design as it was presented, but the the image you have | 00:33:55 | |
in front of you is actually. | 00:34:01 | |
The same house location, the same lot location, but probably a lot less information to be a lot more concise. Let me say it that | 00:34:08 | |
way. | 00:34:12 | |
Go back. | 00:34:17 | |
OK, so. | 00:34:18 | |
In this image. | 00:34:21 | |
They're showing Sept. | 00:34:23 | |
Correct, correct. | 00:34:25 | |
So behind the two proposed structures again will you know left and right 5155 there is, I believe that is the in blue. | 00:34:30 | |
A primary drain. | 00:34:43 | |
And then there's also room for a repair drain field in green. | 00:34:45 | |
It's the other way around, OK. I had a 5050 shot on that. So those are the lines and subject drain fields have to generally follow | 00:34:49 | |
the contour lines within a property and so that that's what you would see there's contour lines that. | 00:34:56 | |
If you will, around or behind that, those contour lines have the labels on those, but that is what is shown on that drawing. | 00:35:03 | |
Again, lot of information, they're there, soils information, there's other things. The request isn't specifically related to any | 00:35:09 | |
of that, that's just contextual information. The request is specifically. | 00:35:15 | |
For the lot line of what you see on the screen there for you the lot that would be on the left, it would be 51 Simonton Bridge Rd. | 00:35:21 | |
The 30 foot side set back that's interior to the lot at 55. That is again the reduction being requested from 30 feet to 10 feet. | 00:35:30 | |
Is that helpful? | 00:35:39 | |
Thank you. | 00:35:41 | |
Correct. | 00:35:50 | |
Subjects in the front yard, The primary, yes. And again, I apologize if I said it wrong the first time, so. | 00:35:52 | |
So that is the view of the property from Simonton Bridge Rd. That's kind of looking back West, away from the Creek back towards | 00:36:00 | |
Rocket Field downtown. | 00:36:05 | |
So this is again the request that's in front of you. The variance request is from Article 52-D. | 00:36:10 | |
To D1 and it says in there the size yard set back shall be a minimum of 30 feet. | 00:36:17 | |
And within the Simonton Bridge scenic Corridor and the applicant has reduced it that requested that that be reduced and they are | 00:36:22 | |
indicating on site septic system for the drain field. | 00:36:29 | |
Because they've indicated they do not have direct access to public sanitary sewer. | 00:36:35 | |
Be happy to answer any other questions you might have. | 00:36:41 | |
All right, we've heard from engineer Campbell, attorney Reitman, anything you want to add here? | 00:36:44 | |
OK. Thank you. | 00:37:25 | |
All right. Thank you. Because that does seem to have a factor with some of these setbacks. All right. Thank you. OK, We've heard | 00:37:28 | |
from the engineer. We've heard from the attorney. Now it's time to hear from the applicant. If you could step forward, give us | 00:37:34 | |
your name and address and and any additional context. My name is Gary Ray. I'm with Baseline Survey Engineering. I did the design | 00:37:40 | |
on this. | 00:37:46 | |
There's not a lot to say, Mark, I already said. | 00:37:54 | |
Applying for the set back, in order to adhere to the side entrance garage, we would need a wider house and that's what we're | 00:37:56 | |
needing a set back for. One thing I would add that Martin had is in doing the development of this, we're going to do Jared's going | 00:38:03 | |
to add sidewalks as well, which helps you with the scenic corridor sidewalks. | 00:38:09 | |
So we're gonna do that. | 00:38:17 | |
Yeah, I'm. I kind of laid it out pretty well for me, so. | 00:38:20 | |
OK, All right. Why don't you stay up there for a minute and see if council has any questions for you before we go to a public | 00:38:26 | |
hearing. | 00:38:29 | |
Before we invite other members. | 00:38:33 | |
Council questions for the applicant. I don't have any questions, but I do want to voice my concern when they start. | 00:38:37 | |
Bringing in large trucks of supplies, that's going to be dangerous on that section of that road. | 00:38:46 | |
OK. | 00:38:54 | |
So I'm wondering if your your need for this variance. I know some of it has to do with the you know the other codes that | 00:38:59 | |
Walkinsville has with the side entrance garage. | 00:39:04 | |
But also I know the intent is on the scenic corridor for it, for the homes to have a historic character. | 00:39:10 | |
And so. | 00:39:21 | |
It's hard, you know, we just have lines here. I don't know if y'all are at the phase where you actually kind of know what the | 00:39:23 | |
facades will look like, what the different things would look like, because I'm I'm wondering if a home has a historic character. | 00:39:30 | |
If you'd like to look at them. | 00:39:38 | |
So they haven't been adjusted yet because they haven't approved, but they'll be discount plan with a side entrance garage, so the | 00:39:45 | |
garage door should be there. | 00:39:48 | |
So it'll be the same House plan for both of them. So we're not actually, oh, that's right, that ones that just. | 00:39:54 | |
But the just so I'm clear, the variance would not apply to the setbacks on any of the other. | 00:40:06 | |
Borders other than the one that is central to the two lots that Mister York controls, correct? So you could not. | 00:40:12 | |
You couldn't get closer than 30 feet and Mark, this may be a question for you, They would. That set back is only impacting the set | 00:40:18 | |
back between the two homes, right? Not they couldn't get, they couldn't get closer than 30 feet. | 00:40:25 | |
To the home, to the north or to the West is right. So again, I appreciate manager Dickerson going back. So so they've actually not | 00:40:32 | |
requested any variances on the lot to the right, if you will. So it's only on the lot that's highlighted and I'll call that cyan | 00:40:39 | |
color on that aerial and it's only on what I would say is the right hand side of that lot. So if there's there's actually not a | 00:40:47 | |
request for a set back variance on what I'll call 55 Simonton Bridge Rd. that's not highlighted. | 00:40:54 | |
But they do have a House plan shown for context where that would be that meets the set back variances. But their request is for. | 00:41:01 | |
Besides, set back between what is proposed at 51 and what is proposed at 55, but only on the 51 side if that makes sense. And | 00:41:09 | |
what's the distance of the structure to the property line on 51. So what he's showing on the plan currently is approximately, I'll | 00:41:17 | |
say 13 feet. It may have a fractional number there, 13 point 113.7, but they have requested the variance down to 10 feet. | 00:41:24 | |
That's in case of an error in building. If we don't want to overlap the building, set back line. | 00:41:35 | |
OK, the other questions for the applicant. | 00:41:44 | |
Question about the sidewalks. | 00:41:48 | |
Would they be in line with what we're going to be looking to do? I actually spoke with Miss Sharon and Jared and we discussed and | 00:41:50 | |
he he agreed to put in sidewalks as approval of the variance. Well, he's required to put in the sidewalks for our transportation | 00:41:56 | |
plan. So it's not he's not agreeing to put him in, he's got to put him in, I mean per the per the code. | 00:42:02 | |
Yeah. Now I appreciate the appreciate him doing it, but it's it's required. | 00:42:11 | |
Any other questions before the applicant? If not, we may have him back up depending on what questions or comments we get from. | 00:42:17 | |
The public. So if we want to reserve that time, remind me again of your name. I apologize, OK. If you want to just have a seat, we | 00:42:23 | |
may have you come back up. We have any members of the public who would like to speak to this. I will. | 00:42:30 | |
Remind council we've received e-mail opposition from Missus Garrett, Miss Purcell, and from Kane Cruz and his wife, who are both | 00:42:36 | |
adjacent. Everybody should have read those but. | 00:42:44 | |
Mr. Purcell or Miss Garrett, if you want to offer any further comments, feel free. | 00:42:52 | |
Hi, I'm Samantha Purcell and I live on 47 Simonton Bridge Rd. which is to the left of the green rectangle. | 00:42:59 | |
So I don't think we have enough information in front of us to give them a variance. I read their hardship. | 00:43:11 | |
Application and the only thing in their hardship application said the property is too narrow. | 00:43:19 | |
So if I'm buying a piece of property and I read the ordinances and I, you know, know what I'm purchasing. | 00:43:25 | |
Then the properties too narrow is really not very good argument for me. I think as a retired teacher you your habitats you have to | 00:43:33 | |
pass the test here that here's your rubric. | 00:43:41 | |
And you have to build a house. It's a blank slate, so you can do whatever you want. There are lots of plans for houses that are | 00:43:48 | |
narrow, that can fit into those two little rectangles. | 00:43:54 | |
You could have the garage in the back. | 00:44:00 | |
There are lots of creative things you can do. We really want to see a small footprint and I think lessen the environmental impact. | 00:44:03 | |
Not everyone wants to live in a Mcmansion or a big house if you look at the square footage of the houses around. | 00:44:11 | |
It's small. We lived in a 900 square foot house for 20 something years and added on and we had a big hardship. We had a sewer | 00:44:19 | |
easement going through the back of our property so we couldn't build back which we would have. | 00:44:26 | |
But we had to build out to the side because that was a real hardship. But for this property, it's a blank slate. | 00:44:34 | |
To me, if I'm buying a property and I'm an architect, a builder, I would look at that and say, OK, I'm going to have to go by | 00:44:42 | |
their ordinances. That's why you have them. That's where they're in place. | 00:44:48 | |
For a reason. So I think if you look at it, not know how much you guys studied this, but Kane Cruz, the other person that wrote | 00:44:55 | |
your letter, he and I went out and measured. | 00:45:00 | |
And I think there's 50 something feet wide. | 00:45:05 | |
For the house to be and if that's pretty darn wide for a house and. | 00:45:09 | |
So I think you can be creative and build a nice home that would not be, you know, this is a big footprint. | 00:45:16 | |
And and I think that's 10 feet they're asking, but that's five on each property, right? | 00:45:25 | |
Fight or. It's. | 00:45:32 | |
On each property or. | 00:45:35 | |
I think it. I think it was 5 on each. | 00:45:37 | |
I was confused about the same thing, but it sounds like there's you know that it'll be a. Basically they'll be 17. | 00:45:41 | |
Feet closer to the right side of the property, but there'll be no impact on the side. | 00:45:47 | |
Towards you, you and Mr. Cruz, Right. So they would. | 00:45:51 | |
It would be. They'd be closer together and squished in and the the plans they gave, it doesn't show what kind of house it's going | 00:45:55 | |
to be. I mean it. | 00:46:00 | |
We didn't get to see that. | 00:46:06 | |
So but. | 00:46:08 | |
We would really like to see something more cottage. | 00:46:10 | |
And. | 00:46:13 | |
Something creative that you could, I mean, you have green space around the house and not put a big old footprint on the property. | 00:46:15 | |
So we're real concerned and like Mark Campbell said, you haven't seen anything developed because there's no land. | 00:46:25 | |
There, in the scenic corridor, they did build a house a long time ago, but that would be on the in the historic district. They put | 00:46:35 | |
their garage in the back next to Connie. | 00:46:40 | |
So it can. | 00:46:46 | |
And Kane? He sent me a floor plan of something that was narrow. | 00:46:49 | |
And looked really good. You can just punch in house, you know, and pop this one up on the Internet. So I think if you're buying a | 00:46:56 | |
piece of property and such a great spot, real important, that corridor is like you're coming into Watkinsville. I just don't want | 00:47:03 | |
to see. | 00:47:09 | |
Like these two houses close together and then you need some space and and then maybe they wouldn't cut us down. Down as many | 00:47:17 | |
trees. Smaller house. Not everyone needs to live in a gigantic home. | 00:47:23 | |
Nowadays. And then the other thing you guys really need to read is their height requirements. | 00:47:30 | |
If you look at the property, it slopes from the road up and it's there's a lot of drainage that goes across that property. | 00:47:35 | |
But there are height requirements for. | 00:47:44 | |
And I don't know if the builders have looked at that, but. | 00:47:47 | |
From the sidewalk, I think, or the road if you look, there's a real specific pipe requirement, so. | 00:47:50 | |
That's another thing to consider. So that's all I have to say. Thank you for our consideration. Thank you. | 00:47:58 | |
Any other members of the public. | 00:48:07 | |
Wish to address the matter and. | 00:48:10 | |
All right. I'm going to close the public hearing and bring it back to council for any further questions or discussion. We can | 00:48:13 | |
certainly ask questions of the engineer. We can bring the applicant back. Sounds like the applicant wants to come forward again. | 00:48:17 | |
You have time left. Go ahead. | 00:48:22 | |
Thank you Miss Purcell. She was talking of the building set back but her house is over the 30 foot building set back and she has a | 00:48:28 | |
front facing garage. | 00:48:33 | |
So her house would be 60 foot away from the proposed home if they they weren't encroaching on the property line. | 00:48:38 | |
So that. | 00:48:46 | |
Kind of on her. And then secondly, I actually did a site plan with a long, narrow house, but with the nature of the garage having | 00:48:47 | |
to be in the rear. She'd walk out her back door and see a garage. | 00:48:53 | |
So really the variance is to also help her. It'll keep the houses in line. It'll make it where her backyard, she can still see | 00:48:59 | |
those trees in the rear instead of cutting them down for a garage. Well, I think what you may need to think about then, and I | 00:49:04 | |
appreciate that, but what may be a healthy conversation would be. | 00:49:10 | |
If Mr. York hasn't already to have that sort of conversation with Miss Purcell and Miss Garrett around, if if he's willing to have | 00:49:17 | |
that sort of conversation, I think it could be healthy. So, but thank you for pointing that out. We did. | 00:49:23 | |
Miss Purcell, Miss Garrett did go through the variance process several years ago and we've walked through that. So and we we did | 00:49:30 | |
feel locate her house and show approximately how far over it is. So we're not asking for anything more than they already have. I | 00:49:34 | |
understand. OK, let's, let's. | 00:49:39 | |
Let's come back behind the rail. You have any questions? Anybody have questions for the applicant? | 00:49:44 | |
I have. | 00:49:48 | |
Kind of a more of a statement I guess. | 00:49:50 | |
I don't see the hardship as far as need. | 00:49:55 | |
For the variance, I think if you build a narrower house you reference 17 Simonton Bridge that was built in 2008. | 00:49:58 | |
That you would have no idea. It was built in 2008, driving by it. And that's the beauty of it. I looked at the houses. | 00:50:07 | |
All the houses around there 1920191519331920190919561922 and 2008. Those are the ages of the houses all around these two lots. | 00:50:15 | |
I I think it's great to build a couple houses on these lots. I'm for that. | 00:50:30 | |
I'm all I also love 17 Simonton Bridge because it blends into this, all these. | 00:50:34 | |
Historic homes that are. | 00:50:41 | |
100 years old that the. | 00:50:43 | |
And it's a fantastic thing for a builder to do and it enhances our community. | 00:50:45 | |
I think if you were to build two homes. | 00:50:51 | |
That looked like they were built in 20. | 00:50:54 | |
For I think. | 00:50:57 | |
Takes away from that stretch of historic. | 00:51:00 | |
I think 17 Simonton Bridge did a fantastic job. It improved Watkinsville, the Moores on South Main when they built their house. | 00:51:03 | |
It looks like it was built in 1920. It enhances our community. | 00:51:13 | |
I think the houses that JW York built on Colin Ferry are all nice, they go together. But I think if you take two of those homes | 00:51:17 | |
and pop them, if you will, on these two lots, that style home does not fit that historic stretch of homes. | 00:51:25 | |
That's my opinion. I mean, you do great work. I would love to see the extra effort. | 00:51:34 | |
Taken to build something that blends in and 17 Simonton Bridge is a perfect example. Look at they put a garage in the back, it's a | 00:51:40 | |
narrow lot. | 00:51:45 | |
You know, that's that's my opinion. | 00:51:50 | |
I say. | 00:51:54 | |
Other comments. | 00:51:56 | |
And and I will note, I mean you know we don't see a lot of building in this district, but there are some specific, there is | 00:51:59 | |
specific guidance in the code as to how the homes should look. | 00:52:04 | |
And how they should be treated and there's a reason that there's an overlay. When we did the land use project years ago and it was | 00:52:08 | |
because eventually. | 00:52:12 | |
Even though not much is built, there's four or five lots, even that was before that house. There were there's four or five lots | 00:52:15 | |
along that quarter that eventually we knew would be built on. And we do want the design to be responsive to the history of our | 00:52:22 | |
community. And that was our citizens demanded that just like they did on South Main and just like they have around Rocket Field. | 00:52:28 | |
That's what the overlay is for, so I haven't seen the design. | 00:52:34 | |
Of the homes, I don't think we need to get into the design tonight. | 00:52:38 | |
But. | 00:52:41 | |
I think my thought is that we may need to table this conversation until we can. | 00:52:44 | |
Have a deeper look. | 00:52:49 | |
At the design and what's going on with that, But again, that's council's determination. | 00:52:52 | |
In terms of where you all want to go, but that's my thinking at this point based on the conversation and because we had a set of | 00:52:57 | |
plans dropped in front of two of us tonight and that's bound to affect how people feel about this. And the rest of council has not | 00:53:01 | |
had an opportunity to look at those. | 00:53:05 | |
Yeah, I agree. | 00:53:10 | |
Can I go ahead and make a motion to table it? I make a motion to table. | 00:53:12 | |
To next month. | 00:53:17 | |
Any further discussion? | 00:53:19 | |
All in favor, aye. Any opposed? | 00:53:21 | |
All right, motion to table carries. | 00:53:25 | |
Thank you for coming in. | 00:53:27 | |
All right. | 00:53:30 | |
All right. We're going to follow the, we're going to follow the same process for. | 00:53:37 | |
For the next one that's coming up, that's Mr. Raleigh Garrett. That's 1181 Jacob Dr. Parcel, BO6LO2D. | 00:53:43 | |
We will have same process. Engineer Campbell. Engineer Campbell will OfferUp the staff, report Attorney Reitman for an illegal. | 00:54:01 | |
And then we'll have the applicant step forward and then we'll have the public hearing. | 00:54:10 | |
Engineer Campbell, Thank you, Mayor. So this is a variance request at. | 00:54:13 | |
I'll say 1181 Jacob Drive, this is within the Christian Lake subdivision and so the the lot is a corner lot, it's a little bit | 00:54:18 | |
less than an acre and it is zoned detached residential. And so the proposed request it's two variances, it's for an encroachment | 00:54:25 | |
into the 10 foot side set back. | 00:54:33 | |
I said 10 foot not 30 foot because this is not seven to bridge city corridor so that the code requires a 10 foot side set back. | 00:54:41 | |
They're asking for an encroachment and then for a front facing garage. | 00:54:46 | |
So again if you see there and that includes topography, hopefully those additional lines from the from the tax assessor are not | 00:54:53 | |
confusing. But it it shows the the house as it sits currently is on what I would consider the higher portion of the lot as you | 00:55:01 | |
move towards Felton and away from the existing house you go to the South and then that's at a lower elevation if you will. | 00:55:10 | |
So again, here's a reference to a plat that would have been recorded back in 2002 as part of phase one of the Christian Lake | 00:55:20 | |
subdivision. You can see the the subject partial that's highlighted there in yellow that was at the edge of that particular sheet | 00:55:25 | |
that was from Platbook 34. | 00:55:29 | |
And here's a view of the existing driveway in that existing structure there at 1181 Jacob Drive. And so the the proposed variance | 00:55:36 | |
request would be for a garage that is front facing at that location and then it would be within 5 feet of what it would be on the | 00:55:44 | |
right hand side of that picture of the property line. That's not flagged or marked, but it kind of gives you an idea instead of at | 00:55:52 | |
least 10 feet away from that. So there's currently a garage with this house that is attached. | 00:56:00 | |
That is not front facing its access to via this concrete driveway. The request is for a detached front facing garage. Hopefully | 00:56:08 | |
that's helpful. | 00:56:12 | |
Again, it's the next slide. There's there's two code sections, they're they're both within 502, but there's different letters and | 00:56:18 | |
numbers associated with those on this as you can see. | 00:56:22 | |
There's a lot of information about garages in Watkinsville if you've been to enough meetings. We've talked about garages before, | 00:56:27 | |
but the the details of what those specific code sections are are included and again the side set back variance that's being | 00:56:34 | |
requested as well. The applicants also indicated that the existing septic facilities. | 00:56:41 | |
Do create a hardship on this lot. Again, a portion of Christian Lake is not on septic, but this portion was and I believe the | 00:56:49 | |
applicant also submitted information from the Department of Public Health related to the existing septic facilities. | 00:56:57 | |
Be happy to answer any questions. | 00:57:07 | |
Thank you, Engineer Campbell, Attorney Reitman. Any further comments, Again, same criteria apply as we discussed in the previous | 00:57:10 | |
one, just to confirm. | 00:57:14 | |
This is detached residential and there is no overlay district. Is that correct for example? Thank you Sir. | 00:57:19 | |
Thank you. Do we have any pictures of where the garage is going on the lot? | 00:57:26 | |
That would have been part of your application package, but unfortunately the quality of those pictures was not very good at all. | 00:57:36 | |
They were not color pictures. | 00:57:40 | |
So. | 00:57:45 | |
Yeah, I tried looking on my yeah, it was it was a box, right? So it was a black box on a black and white. | 00:57:46 | |
Picture. So unfortunately it was not an engineer drawing, but it's a why don't we let Mr. Garrett come forward at this point and | 00:57:53 | |
maybe go back to the picture showing the front view of the house And then between the maybe Mr. Garrett, if you want to come up, | 00:58:00 | |
introduce yourself tell us your address tell us a little bit about. | 00:58:07 | |
Your need for the structure and how it's going to fit. | 00:58:14 | |
You know both and why both variances are necessary in your opinion. Yeah. Thanks so much, Mayor. So I'm Raleigh Garrett. I live at | 00:58:19 | |
1181 Jacob Drive. My wife and I and our little daughter have lived there since 2016. We have a little boy that will be here in | 00:58:27 | |
March. And so we are asking for a variance to build an additional garage for storage space. We may use a portion of a space above | 00:58:34 | |
for an office because the baby boy is getting my current Home Office. I work from home a day or so a week. | 00:58:41 | |
The current location where we're wanting to put it, so there's a parking pad at the end of that driveway right there before the | 00:58:50 | |
fence that you can kind of see and I apologize for black and white picture, but so there's a fence that's about. | 00:58:56 | |
12 feet past the concrete. What we're wanting to do is put that garage from the fence. | 00:59:05 | |
To where that concrete pad currently locates. So we're adding about an additional 12 feet of concrete onto our existing driveway | 00:59:11 | |
and then putting the garage there. So the garage would be 10 feet off of the house and then it's about 8.9 feet from the property | 00:59:17 | |
line. We're asking for five feet just like that. They kind of mentioned the building error or a overhang or anything that we're | 00:59:23 | |
not positive on, so. | 00:59:29 | |
And Lisa, the neighbor next door, I spoke with her. I have a text that was in the application that she said I have no | 00:59:36 | |
reservations. I fully I'm OK with you doing this as well. | 00:59:41 | |
The like structure of the house to you. I can show some kind of rough things that we're thinking of doing, but it will match the | 00:59:51 | |
roof line of the current garage. | 00:59:54 | |
Colors on mad shutters will match. They'll be gasoline. There's more than likely I'll let it to match the front door I. | 00:59:59 | |
Peculiar about wanting it to look like it's always been. | 01:00:06 | |
Council. | 01:00:12 | |
Yes, at this point we open a public hearing unless council has any questions for the applicant. | 01:00:15 | |
All right, public hearing is open. Anyone want to speak in favor or in opposition to the variance request? | 01:00:21 | |
All right, we'll close the public hearing council questions for staff or for the applicant. | 01:00:29 | |
I don't know if this is so much a question. | 01:00:36 | |
I think for me where I'm really struggling with this is not only is it a set back issue but it is also the front facing. | 01:00:41 | |
Garage. | 01:00:48 | |
Which again, there's reasons why we have these different. | 01:00:51 | |
Ordinances I I do understand. | 01:00:56 | |
I mean, looking at the overview of your lot, you have a lot of. Most of your lot is on one side of your property and I understand | 01:00:59 | |
not wanting to add a bunch of concrete. | 01:01:03 | |
Over there I'm guessing. And then when it's a corner lot to like, then what's front facing, what side fit, you know, all of those | 01:01:08 | |
things. | 01:01:12 | |
That, that is our backup drain field over there. Yeah, I'm sorry, hang on. You need to get the, you need to get the mic. That's | 01:01:17 | |
all so people can hear. Thank you. So we looked at putting it on that side because there is a ton of green space over there and | 01:01:22 | |
like you mentioned, we would have to obviously disturb a ton of that with a driveway and then all of our utilities currently come | 01:01:28 | |
in on that side of the house. So the cost. | 01:01:34 | |
Hardship would be extreme. To move every gas power, all the HVAC would have to move. | 01:01:40 | |
And then like you mentioned is what's faced its front facing the Felton at that point. | 01:01:46 | |
But the main thing is in that letter from the Department of Health is that is our backup drain field. Our septic tank is currently | 01:01:52 | |
in our backyard with field. | 01:01:56 | |
The backup failure field. | 01:02:01 | |
Is what we would cover. | 01:02:03 | |
So so a thought that I have because. | 01:02:06 | |
You know, every time we allow a variance, it continues opening up a door. | 01:02:10 | |
Erodes our codes when I'm hearing your need. I understand you have a growing family. You work more from home. I mean things that | 01:02:15 | |
have changed since 2016 when you bought the property. I'm sure you want to hold on to your current interest rate as well. | 01:02:23 | |
But I'm wondering if. | 01:02:32 | |
Some kind of an addition that isn't a garage. | 01:02:34 | |
Might be something that would meet your needs without having to have a variance, and so I met with two builders about that. | 01:02:38 | |
And the cost would be? | 01:02:49 | |
Considerably higher and from what they're saying it would add the addition would need to be on that. | 01:02:53 | |
Felt inside so all utilities would move. We would have to demo a current bathroom to then add that way. | 01:03:00 | |
But would there be anything? And I asked. I'm staring at Engineer Campbell here as I asked this. Or whoever might have, you know, | 01:03:09 | |
thoroughly studied our codes to have a Is it against our code to have a free standing structure that doesn't have to be as large | 01:03:15 | |
as a garage? | 01:03:21 | |
That essentially you could have the downstairs be storage, so not fully finished out, have an upstairs office, just not having a | 01:03:28 | |
garage door to the front and not having it so big. I mean you're so close to the set back that if it was a slightly smaller not A2 | 01:03:34 | |
car garage size. | 01:03:40 | |
I I don't see how that expense would be more. | 01:03:47 | |
Then I mean, I understand if you're like attaching it and you have to move doors and windows and all of that, but couldn't have | 01:03:50 | |
did, I mean do we have, are we, do we allow we, I think we allow detached. | 01:03:56 | |
Accessory we do allow, but I think one of the challenges, it looks like you're going to be blocking the entrance to your current | 01:04:01 | |
garage with the new structure, right? Potentially so it won't block the current entrance, we will not will. It will still remain a | 01:04:06 | |
garage. There has been a discussion that we may shrink the door from 16 to 12 to put a walkout door so that door doesn't have to | 01:04:11 | |
come each time. | 01:04:16 | |
But no, it will still be accessible for coming in. It will OK so that one with the black box then. | 01:04:22 | |
That's not accurate. Then it should because there's a there's a lot of house. The garage is not at the back corner. 35 feet of | 01:04:28 | |
house past the garage, I see OK. | 01:04:32 | |
All right. | 01:04:37 | |
So the garage then will not be all the way. It will not be parallel with the front. The front. | 01:04:42 | |
Of the house. | 01:04:49 | |
Interesting. OK. | 01:04:51 | |
Right, Council, other questions. | 01:04:53 | |
Would a, let's say, single car wide? | 01:04:57 | |
For the single car wide structure. | 01:05:02 | |
With an upstairs. | 01:05:06 | |
Suit your needs if you said you're not using it for a garage. | 01:05:08 | |
OK, I thought you said storage. | 01:05:12 | |
Upstairs and storage. | 01:05:18 | |
So I just want to speak as the former HOA president of the neighborhood. I do want to speak to the the sewers, especially so all | 01:05:29 | |
of Jacob has septic tanks in the back lot in the backyard and half of the yards. | 01:05:37 | |
Now are going through remodels because all the septic tanks. | 01:05:45 | |
Failing in down through Jacob just just for y'all consideration. Whoever installed them didn't do them correctly. The tanks are | 01:05:51 | |
too small, the drain lines are too small, and so they are failing, and so I know of at least eight that are have had to be redone | 01:05:56 | |
in the last. | 01:06:02 | |
It's a few years just for y'all. | 01:06:09 | |
Knowledge. | 01:06:11 | |
Then Brett, don't bring up what the HL, I've submitted all this to HOA and they've they have no questions they said because this | 01:06:15 | |
would be the only front facing garage in Christian Lake. Correct. So that's I'm actually looking at the first one on the right, | 01:06:20 | |
the Connolly's or second one on the right The Connolly's have one. | 01:06:24 | |
Adrian Adrian Connelly, when you come in off. | 01:06:31 | |
Article she. | 01:06:36 | |
No issues with the HOA. They've approved this. | 01:06:38 | |
Council, this is with you. I'm, I'm. I've never been a big. | 01:06:51 | |
Front facing garages, as you guys know and yeah. | 01:06:55 | |
But this is a pretty. | 01:07:00 | |
Set of circumstances here that I don't know, I totally understood until Mr. Garrett explained them to me in terms of what's going | 01:07:02 | |
on here, so. | 01:07:05 | |
You. | 01:07:09 | |
I don't vote so. | 01:07:10 | |
Yeah, I struggle with it because we have ordinances. | 01:07:14 | |
You know, for a reason. | 01:07:17 | |
And I thought, well, when I first was reading, I didn't know the location of the building. I thought, well, if it's set way back. | 01:07:21 | |
Then you know, seeing the garage isn't going to be as right there, but it's. | 01:07:28 | |
Parallel with the back of the house, it sounds like. | 01:07:34 | |
From the rear. From the rear, the back of the garage will be at the same depth as the house coming forward, so it's Rd. | 01:07:38 | |
Close to the existing garage or other garage door will be. | 01:07:45 | |
It's like somebody I could look at the plan. I think it's, yeah, it's probably 8 to 10 feet back from the current garage door. | 01:07:49 | |
That's just what I struggle with. But then I'm also like, well, if the the homeowners association doesn't have a problem with. | 01:07:56 | |
And there it's like I'm on the Q public right now. There are three other This would be the third home in the neighborhood. | 01:08:04 | |
Now, but with those others that have a front, are they the only garage? | 01:08:15 | |
Councilman Thomas, make sure you use your mic, please. No, they're not. They're additional garages. | 01:08:21 | |
Are they all double? | 01:08:28 | |
They are. | 01:08:29 | |
I think that yes. I think the question then becomes. | 01:08:32 | |
You know, and there's two sides to it, right? You know, like accessory structures. | 01:08:38 | |
It's a way to keep things affordable. It's a way to have an affordable secondary housing opportunity, garage apartments, things | 01:08:43 | |
like that, and our. | 01:08:46 | |
Anticipated those, but just the design of Christian Lake in the home, a lot of the homes there is. | 01:08:50 | |
This will not be the last of these that we get. | 01:08:55 | |
Now so codes there for a reason. | 01:08:59 | |
Good reason, but we kind of have a little bit of a conflict in terms of priorities here because there's these do create some other | 01:09:02 | |
opportunities in terms of. | 01:09:05 | |
In terms of housing, property value appreciation and other things, so you know, but not everyone, I don't think it's going to be | 01:09:09 | |
nearly as constrained as what Mr. Garrett's situation is here. So there. I don't know that this is a viable option, but there's | 01:09:14 | |
part of me that wants. | 01:09:20 | |
To basically throw this back into the Christian Lake Homeowners Association and say I mean. | 01:09:25 | |
I'm just speaking off the cup here because I don't want. | 01:09:33 | |
I don't want to open up variances. I mean, what's a hardship? I mean, do you need to park your car? But you know, in the scope of | 01:09:38 | |
life, no, that is not a hardship. And you have a two car garage. | 01:09:44 | |
I We have very few actual neighborhoods in our. | 01:09:53 | |
City, I mean not very few, but we don't have, we have the scenic corridors. We have kind of the historic communities and then we | 01:09:59 | |
have a smattering of neighborhoods and there's part of me that thinks if a neighborhood as it's being built and if we I don't know | 01:10:05 | |
what I'm even saying here. | 01:10:12 | |
I just, I don't want to open up a can of worms, not only. | 01:10:21 | |
For the city of Watkinsville, but also for Christian Lake, because. | 01:10:26 | |
It's not a neighborhood that was built for everyone to have three and four car garages. That isn't what this neighborhood is and. | 01:10:31 | |
So I don't know. I'm I'm, I'm torn. I understand where you're coming from. I understand your need and desire for more space. But I | 01:10:41 | |
think there. | 01:10:46 | |
A creative way, and I understand why you can't use half of your yard like I get all of that, but I'm not real excited about saying | 01:10:51 | |
yes to a front. | 01:10:56 | |
Facing garage, Two car garage that is not only a front facing garage. | 01:11:00 | |
But also is messing with the. | 01:11:06 | |
The set back. | 01:11:10 | |
So I am inclined. | 01:11:13 | |
To I'm inclined to say no, or to table it, to go back to the drawing board to get more input, maybe for more community members. I | 01:11:16 | |
don't know it, you know, it's it's hard for me when we have people who specifically say. | 01:11:24 | |
We are affected by this. We live next door to this. We do not want this and this is a code. | 01:11:33 | |
That definitely inclines me to hear that. | 01:11:40 | |
And we're not hearing that in your case, but we haven't heard from the across the street neighbor honestly that might affect them | 01:11:45 | |
as much as it's going to affect the person next door, so. | 01:11:49 | |
Other people's thoughts here. | 01:11:55 | |
All right, Council, we can have thoughts or we can have a motion and we can go a lot of directions here. So we've got four of you. | 01:11:58 | |
We we, we know Christine's position. | 01:12:02 | |
But happy to, happy to have a motion in a conversation at this point. Unless you have other questions for applicant. But again, | 01:12:07 | |
once you make a motion in a second, then we can dive into deeper conversation. How about that? | 01:12:13 | |
So the only my counter argument I guess would be that there are there is already a precedence in the neighborhood. | 01:12:21 | |
And to to have been approved at some point. | 01:12:31 | |
And and I get. I don't know if we could go back and search when that was, but. | 01:12:37 | |
I have the addresses, but two have been approved at some point. They built without permits. | 01:12:41 | |
All right, let's we're that we're going to run a rabbit there come with this meeting in a decent hour tonight. Can we have | 01:12:47 | |
somebody make a motion, somebody make a second, we'll have some more conversation. Otherwise we're going to move on down the road. | 01:12:53 | |
I'll make a motion. We approve. All right, We have a motion to approve. Do we have a second? We have a second. | 01:13:02 | |
All right, discussion. Any further discussion? | 01:13:07 | |
All right. I don't have any further discussion. I'm just concerned it's 2 variances. | 01:13:12 | |
Versus some of them have just been one variance request we got the side yard set back which. | 01:13:18 | |
I was not excited about the other person who came before. | 01:13:26 | |
However many months ago that. | 01:13:31 | |
Because even though the neighbors OK with it, I'm thinking well down the road. Boy that I've got this big two car garage real | 01:13:34 | |
close to my property line. | 01:13:38 | |
So it's it's that variance which. | 01:13:43 | |
Not happy, excited about. And then the second variance is a is a forward facing garage, so it's asking for. | 01:13:46 | |
And does it meet all the? | 01:13:55 | |
The hardship and everything else I don't. | 01:13:57 | |
All right. So Jeff's concerned about that. That's good. Any further discussion, legal counsel is going to have. Legal counsel | 01:14:00 | |
going to have some thoughts in a second. But Connie, let's get you well. If they have a homeowners association, they should talk | 01:14:06 | |
with them and they should talk with all the neighbors and get their approval. | 01:14:11 | |
Before we. | 01:14:17 | |
All right. Mr. Garrett, have you talked to any other neighbors besides the one directly affected by the? | 01:14:19 | |
I've talked to the one to the rear judge on. | 01:14:24 | |
OK, so Judge Hun Singer at rear somebody else to the right across the street is the I think we. | 01:14:28 | |
Miser's major TMS. I've not spoken to Imagine. Yeah, OK Could I ask a question if could the homeowners association change their | 01:14:37 | |
bylaws saying that we're going to allow this if the city of Watkinsville will allow us? | 01:14:46 | |
To allow. | 01:14:55 | |
Four, facing garages in our community only. So I can speak to that also because I did rewrite the bylaws, but I first took over as | 01:14:58 | |
HOA president and it does take quite a it's quite an undertaking to rewrite the bylaws. We have to have a 70% vote. I have 149 | 01:15:05 | |
homes inside of that in there and trying to get. | 01:15:12 | |
70% of the vote is incredibly difficult. | 01:15:20 | |
But I would, I would actually say that first if if this precedent is being set. | 01:15:25 | |
Then I think it would need to be a 70% vote in the neighborhood. So I'm going to make a motion. If there's already a motion, | 01:15:31 | |
there's a motion on the floor and there's a second, so we've got to stop. Can I? | 01:15:37 | |
Can I ask you to withdraw the motion? Let's hear from the attorney and then we can see if we want to withdraw, if we want to vote. | 01:15:45 | |
If the vote fails, then you know we'll come back with the other. But let's hear from the attorney and see what he has to see | 01:15:51 | |
earlier. A reference to applicable standards and criteria, one of them states specifically in granting A variance. Mayor and | 01:15:57 | |
council may impose any other conditions necessary to further the goals of this ordinance. So as always, you have the option to | 01:16:03 | |
approve, deny or table. | 01:16:09 | |
So I think my recommendation would probably be to at least have a discussion about whether somebody wants to make a motion to | 01:16:52 | |
table. | 01:16:55 | |
So we have a motion on the floor. We have a second. We've had discussion. | 01:16:59 | |
Is there any inclination to withdraw the motion with potential consideration for a table? | 01:17:04 | |
That's your call, Mr. Thomas. | 01:17:10 | |
Sure, absolutely. I would draw my motion right. The motion is withdrawn. Is there interest in somebody making a motion to table? I | 01:17:12 | |
make a motion that we table. | 01:17:16 | |
Before we make, before we vote on that, I want to ask Mr. Garrett is there is a is a one month delay potentially going to impact | 01:17:22 | |
you in a material way? | 01:17:25 | |
Pretty severely. OK, why don't you tell us about that? Our babies do the end of March and so we're trying to have this completed | 01:17:29 | |
before we have a newborn. | 01:17:33 | |
We have. | 01:17:38 | |
That could potentially said they could finish this in three months and so about delaying it a month, it does severely change our | 01:17:39 | |
timeline. | 01:17:43 | |
Let me ask another question, Mr. Garrett the. | 01:17:48 | |
You what if the? | 01:17:51 | |
Could the structure be moved further back to the edge of your concrete where your fence is shown? | 01:17:54 | |
It so it's already there. It's touching the fence now and so it's it's could the front be at the fence is what I'm asking. That's | 01:18:00 | |
on top of the septic tank that is where the septic tank is. So it's back in the fence. OK. At the end of the fence, OK. All right. | 01:18:05 | |
Thank you. We've had other front facing garages that are further or not garages but there. | 01:18:11 | |
They have doors, but they're not. It's not garage doors and they're further back, OK? | 01:18:17 | |
I do not know. So we are 10 feet from the house at this point. I mean if and I think from where we are measured and look at it, | 01:18:22 | |
we're something Farca is going to require us to be. | 01:18:27 | |
But so then I guess the only point there would be to have to shrink the actual width of the garage. | 01:18:33 | |
So it's to me. | 01:18:40 | |
And I want, I want as much for the city to be beautiful. We love this neighborhood and we want to continue to increase and look | 01:18:42 | |
beautiful. We want to be a prize of the city. | 01:18:47 | |
So the only thing is, if we go to shrinking the garage, we. | 01:18:55 | |
Be more likely to have to. | 01:18:59 | |
Single garage door. Whereas if we can leave it at the width where we're at now, it does allow us to have that dressed up look that | 01:19:01 | |
looks. | 01:19:05 | |
Beautiful versus just a flat wall and that's that's our intention is that it's not going to be a flat wall and look. | 01:19:09 | |
Look like an eyesore, right? | 01:19:16 | |
OK. All right. So it sounds like Mr. Garrett would like a vote tonight one way or another. Is that accurate? | 01:19:19 | |
So I mean, that's a dangerous question I guess. I don't know if it is denied. Is there another option? | 01:19:27 | |
That point. | 01:19:34 | |
So can I think, I think you have to wait six months, don't you if you get done denial unless the new request is for something | 01:19:37 | |
different IE you alluded earlier to the accessory structure option. I did research very recently for another client, their | 01:19:45 | |
ordinance said up to an 800 foot accessory structure kind of like a mother-in-law situation that may serve your needs of storage | 01:19:52 | |
plus Home Office but not necessarily automobile parking. | 01:19:59 | |
That is an option you could come back with if they deny tonight, but again, that may not suit your needs. So, and I don't recall | 01:20:07 | |
specifically what Howard it says about accessory structures. I don't want to speak out of term. | 01:20:13 | |
This is by the Department of Health. This is going to be an attached structure. The foundations will connect so that if we wanted | 01:20:21 | |
to add a connected to the septic field, that is a possibility. So they said it needs to be connected via. | 01:20:29 | |
A extension of the extension, correct. So that extension of the crawlspace. OK, yeah, if I can interject two things. First of all, | 01:20:38 | |
we didn't get a second that I know of on this table. I didn't hear Julie and. | 01:20:44 | |
Wait here a second. So we're having a discussion without a second. So we need to probably have a second for her. Well, let's | 01:20:50 | |
motion draw the table for a second. Let's just draw the table. Let's just keep talking. And you know, again, sometimes given the | 01:20:56 | |
timing here, I'm not a big fan of trying to solve problems at a meeting. But given all the things tonight, we're going to try to | 01:21:01 | |
do that. So thought. So it looks like you got something you want to say. It looks like it looks like you already have a. | 01:21:07 | |
Kind of A1 car sucks. I mean it's hard to tell from a picture on Q Public, but where is this and what is that is in our that's in | 01:21:13 | |
the backyard and that's my wife's office. | 01:21:19 | |
OK, so you already do have OK, that to me that's relevant information that you already have an accessory structure. | 01:21:25 | |
On the property. So that's not shown in this aerial or is it behind the house? I don't it's hard to see anything, I just have the | 01:21:32 | |
picture. | 01:21:37 | |
So is that like a? Is that a garage with roll up door? Is that a? | 01:21:48 | |
More like a child's Playhouse. OK, So what? This picture is not accurate. | 01:21:53 | |
Mayor, just to answer Joe's question, so. | 01:22:00 | |
It looks like you can have an attached or detached dwelling with 12 minimum for Arab 1200 square feet. | 01:22:04 | |
If you're doing a detached or attached. | 01:22:11 | |
That's where the dwelling not structure, and this is not a dwelling, right? We're not trying to change the septic or add anything | 01:22:14 | |
else. | 01:22:17 | |
OK. And so this is we are deep diving to try to, I mean I think if so, if we want to try to do you have a bonus room? | 01:22:23 | |
It is above the garage as a playroom, yes. So you do have a the finished space Someone's heart sell from Cuba like so finished | 01:22:32 | |
room. There's no closet bathroom. OK, so you do have a finished. | 01:22:37 | |
Room there. That is a playroom, yes. | 01:22:42 | |
And you have one daughter, so you have 3 bedrooms, bonus room, it looks like just under 2000 square feet. Your wife already has a | 01:22:45 | |
detached office. | 01:22:49 | |
I totally understand the desire and you, you know, you've got the ball rolling. | 01:22:55 | |
But. | 01:23:01 | |
I just think we've got to do this well and right. I mean, I have. | 01:23:04 | |
Still hold? | 01:23:09 | |
The tabling of this, but I'm not making a motion because we're still discussing but. | 01:23:13 | |
Discuss. | 01:23:18 | |
All right. Any other comments from council? | 01:23:21 | |
All right, well, let's play the motion game again and see where we get so. | 01:23:26 | |
Open to entertain wherever people want to take this. | 01:23:30 | |
I make a motion to table. | 01:23:34 | |
Right. Christine has a motion to table. Do we have a second? | 01:23:36 | |
We have a second from Councilman Campbell all in any discussion of the table. | 01:23:40 | |
We understand. | 01:23:45 | |
Until January, we understand, you know, Mr. Garrett. | 01:23:47 | |
Situation. | 01:23:50 | |
But we do have a motion to table and we have a second so. | 01:23:52 | |
No further discussion. All in favor of the table. Say aye. | 01:23:55 | |
All right. Let's say by voice, because I only heard a couple, is that we have Christine. | 01:23:59 | |
Jeff Connie. | 01:24:04 | |
Chuck no. Right now, Motion to Table carries 3. | 01:24:06 | |
OK. Thank you. | 01:24:10 | |
Definitely check with all the neighbors. Yeah. There's like, there's something that, you know, like we're to be discussed or we | 01:24:13 | |
can talk after the meeting. Well, if you don't, yeah. If you you're welcome to wait around and talk after the meeting might be | 01:24:19 | |
helpful. If you understand if you have other commitments. If you need to, then you can certainly reach out to the council members | 01:24:25 | |
individually or contact the manager or me. And we're happy to talk with you. We're happy to try to figure it out, OK. | 01:24:31 | |
All right. Thanks everyone for that. We're up to appearances and we have urban forest plan and wastewater capacity allocation | 01:24:39 | |
request for. | 01:24:44 | |
1080 Experiment Station Road. I think that's you, Mr. Bars. So we will have Councilman Thomas, our engineer Campbell, do the staff | 01:24:50 | |
report on the urban forest plan, Manager Dickerson on wastewater, and then we'll have you come up Mr. Bars, OK. | 01:24:57 | |
So who's taking care of Urban Forest? I got it. OK. Am I still on? Yes. All right, so. | 01:25:06 | |
1080 Experiment Station Rd. | 01:25:12 | |
Has to All larger projects have to go before the Urban Forestry Board. We did meet and and so our ordinance does require that | 01:25:16 | |
specific guidelines be met to meet the green area associated with this project and you must maintain a 25 unit per acre. | 01:25:24 | |
The guidelines do allow for the remaining of trees, which it looks like you existing of 87 units existing. | 01:25:33 | |
And that can be qualified exceeded and a unit capacity. We give them the size of the trees, diameter, height. So it is a. | 01:25:41 | |
You total area was 2 1/2, two and a quarter acres. | 01:25:50 | |
The site density requirement was 25 units an acre. | 01:25:54 | |
The existing density factor was 87 units. | 01:25:59 | |
Umm, And. | 01:26:02 | |
The replacement density factor was 18 units, so for a total site density of 78 units. So the Urban Forest board did approve. | 01:26:05 | |
Does recommended approval? We did have some. | 01:26:17 | |
Recommendations though there were four of them, the first one being try to get a shade tree on the South side of the townhomes. | 01:26:22 | |
The second was take out both China berries as they are noxious trees. | 01:26:30 | |
Third was a plan later that shows the existing tree locations. | 01:26:36 | |
The IT didn't didn't really look like we had exact tree locations for for that and then work with the Board of Education to plant | 01:26:42 | |
more shade trees on the West side. | 01:26:47 | |
So those are the recommendations from the Urban Forest Board. But council, we did recommend approval this. | 01:26:52 | |
All right. So that. | 01:27:01 | |
Do we need to take this one at a time? We don't usually do urban forests and wastewater together, so I guess what I would note is | 01:27:03 | |
our recommendation, say try to on #1. | 01:27:08 | |
#4 that's a probably a try to as well or #2 and three requirements to move it forward. Do we need they are not requirements. So | 01:27:13 | |
the China Berry trees were on our list of noxious trees that we when we updated the course board. So it is. | 01:27:21 | |
An undesirable tree. All right. OK. Mr. Bars, if you want to come on up and just let us know. I think obviously the BOE, you know, | 01:27:29 | |
I think it would probably fall to us to make that request to see if they might consider. | 01:27:35 | |
Doing anything with their plans, and we're happy to do that. Unless you want to, unless you want to speak to someone. If you do, | 01:27:41 | |
that's fine. | 01:27:44 | |
That's number four. | 01:27:49 | |
#2 Would you be fine taking down China Berry trees? Yeah, I'm good with it. Played with them as a youngster. I'm very familiar | 01:27:52 | |
with them and we can take them down. I'm I'm a little confused on the West side. | 01:27:58 | |
Are they referring to the West side of the Board of Education's space? Yes, So, so the common line is that that what that's the | 01:28:04 | |
question. | 01:28:08 | |
Just trying to put a barrier between the BOE. | 01:28:14 | |
And I have to reflect to the site plan, see how much space is in between there, you know? | 01:28:18 | |
Yeah. My recollection is we probably have to ask the beat you've got. I think you've got. | 01:28:25 | |
Conifers. Buffering. If not conifers. Evergreen plants buffering. Sound on the South side next to a small house that's existing in | 01:28:29 | |
between US and the Board of Education, but OK. | 01:28:35 | |
OK, Yeah. All right. So these are requests, not requirements. Mr. Barr, is there anything else you want to add about? | 01:28:41 | |
Urban forest. | 01:28:48 | |
Well, I'm a forester by trade. | 01:28:50 | |
At, you know, trees and. | 01:28:53 | |
That, you know, landscape is very important to us and it is our. | 01:28:55 | |
If we see something that's unhealthy or we don't feel. | 01:28:59 | |
Can maintain the shade and the comfort of the area and the aesthetics that we would like the opportunity to replace that with an | 01:29:02 | |
equal or better. | 01:29:06 | |
Specimen. So yeah, we absolutely, it's a focus of ours in the development to have plenty of trees. | 01:29:10 | |
And plenty of thoughtful landscaping in condition with the neighbors, yeah. | 01:29:17 | |
OK. | 01:29:23 | |
All right, Council. | 01:29:25 | |
Comments on the Urban forest? I'll entertain a motion. | 01:29:26 | |
Mr. Thomas, I'll make a motion. We approve. We have a motion. | 01:29:32 | |
Mr. Thomas and his committee, I mean, again, there's recommendations. Mr. Thomas made it clear those aren't requirements. Mr. | 01:29:35 | |
Bars, if you could take those under advisement and we'd appreciate it. | 01:29:40 | |
Honor those. But since they weren't requirements, they are recommendations. And do we have a second? All right, we have a second. | 01:29:47 | |
Any discussion hearing? None. All in favor? Say aye. All right, We'll move to wastewater capacity. Mr. Bars, You may just want to | 01:29:54 | |
stay there. Manager Dickerson. | 01:29:58 | |
Not going to try to make Y'all's eyes hurt tonight, but I have a pretty large master tracking worksheet for our wastewater | 01:30:04 | |
capacity. Just a little background. Remember that we amended in 2019 the 1991 Water and sewer agreement with Oconee County, which | 01:30:12 | |
in in that amendment granted the city 100,000 gallons per day of wastewater capacity up to the at the current. | 01:30:20 | |
Facility capacity that the the county has when they expand to 3,000,000 gallons, the city will receive another 100,000 gallons per | 01:30:30 | |
day which we anticipate based on what they've told us could be January, February of 2025. With that said, what you see in front of | 01:30:39 | |
you is the latter part of the of the larger worksheet which you should have had in your packet and so to date the council has has. | 01:30:47 | |
Granted capacity. | 01:30:57 | |
Of a little bit more than. | 01:30:59 | |
90,000. | 01:31:01 | |
Of wastewater capacity. This is not just commercial, but residential. | 01:31:03 | |
And. | 01:31:06 | |
The current site, the current old library site, the Oconee Water resources granted 260 gallons per day of credit because they're | 01:31:08 | |
currently you know on sewer. And so the difference that the that this development needs is around 2080 gallons per day. And so if | 01:31:17 | |
you look at and then like I said it's really small, But the allocation that if you approve this allocation you would end up with a | 01:31:26 | |
total capacity granted for all of the uses to date of 93,408 gallons per day. | 01:31:34 | |
Which leaves you with a balance of 6592. I mean it's you know at this point I'm not sure what 6592 would you know do other than | 01:31:43 | |
maybe a couple of houses or maybe a small small retail, but so. | 01:31:50 | |
I I don't know that it's significant to deny or you know deny this because you're only talking 2000 gallons a day. It's certainly | 01:31:58 | |
something you can you can manage. I think larger projects are going to be coming down the pipe are going to be a little more | 01:32:03 | |
challenging for Y'all to to discuss because we don't have that other capacity. But this is certainly something that you know you | 01:32:07 | |
can manage. | 01:32:12 | |
All right, you've heard the report from the manager. Any questions for her? | 01:32:18 | |
Mr. Bars, anything you want to? | 01:32:25 | |
No Sir, OK. | 01:32:27 | |
Miss Tucker. | 01:32:30 | |
I just want to make sure and this would be a question for you Joe, that as I look through the checklist of all the things. | 01:32:32 | |
It is OK that they have not yet closed, right. Even like that was one of the checklist items. But it doesn't say close. It just | 01:32:40 | |
says in it was kind of a nebulous term that it could be under contract for. And I just want to make sure that we're fine with | 01:32:46 | |
granting it to someone who's assuming they do have it under contract. They're a stakeholder, so to speak. And it would have | 01:32:52 | |
standing to make the request. Yes. Thank you. | 01:32:59 | |
All right. Other questions from council, just for clarification, I know we just, we've seen this a few times. So it was here for | 01:33:06 | |
rezoning, it was here for a site plan. But the current owner of the property is the Board of Commissioners and we, the city did | 01:33:11 | |
receive a document from John Daniel indicating that this applicant is is scheduled to close on the property. So we do have that | 01:33:16 | |
documentation. | 01:33:21 | |
Thank you, engineer. | 01:33:27 | |
Other quest? | 01:33:29 | |
Any other comments? | 01:33:31 | |
All right, here. None. I'll entertain a motion. I make a motion to approve. Do we have a second? | 01:33:33 | |
All right, Councilman Campbell, any further? | 01:33:38 | |
Discussion. | 01:33:42 | |
Hearing none. All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? | 01:33:43 | |
Motion Carries 50 Thank You Mr. Bars, when we see you again. Or is it off to the races at this point? | 01:33:48 | |
Is that the fight? Is this the final? | 01:33:53 | |
Meeting for Mr. Bars. OK. Right. All right. Good. Happy New Year. Merry Christmas. Thank you. OK. | 01:33:55 | |
All right. We have 1260 Greensboro Highway. The Bishop family has a site development plan. Engineer Campbell will give us the | 01:34:02 | |
report on that and then we will move to hearing from the applicant. | 01:34:08 | |
OK. So this property currently has an address of 1260 Greensboro Highway, but that may be subject to change based on some of the | 01:34:17 | |
new buildings that are proposed here. But that's what you would know it as. The total acreage is about 4.3. The proposed disturbed | 01:34:24 | |
area for both phases of what the applicant has submitted and that's what the city asked them to do, was to submit everything that | 01:34:31 | |
they were trying to do so that we could see that in totality as a little over 3 acres, the existing zoning is corridor commercial. | 01:34:38 | |
The area that is subject to this is currently undeveloped with the exception of the the access from Hwy. 15 to some of the rear | 01:34:46 | |
properties where there's existing structures or existing properties. The site development plan does indicate 2 phases of | 01:34:52 | |
development. We can get into that a little bit more, but again it is zoned corridor commercial so this is the the location of the | 01:34:58 | |
property. So if you're familiar with the classic City Eats or or maybe a former Fastenal building, this would be just to the north | 01:35:04 | |
and West of that it's across from. | 01:35:10 | |
The, the green building, green roofed building of the County Annex, so that is the, the location you can see as it relates to to | 01:35:17 | |
Hwy. 15 and Morrison St. Industrial Blvd. some of those things there. And then this is, this is the view of that. One of the | 01:35:25 | |
tenants I think existing is Core Blend, which would be a kind of workout facility. Go to the next slide, you can see one of the | 01:35:32 | |
features on this existing property. Is there an existing existing pond. So you may have had to stop on Hwy. 15 before with geese. | 01:35:40 | |
Traveling between ponds from from the South side to the Northside. | 01:35:47 | |
Of Hwy. 15, but that is an existing feature. Again, you can see in the background back right of that picture the existing Classic | 01:35:52 | |
city eats. | 01:35:55 | |
Location, so site plan, again there are a lot of lines on the plan. To give you an idea, a phase one shows a proposed building | 01:35:59 | |
that does meet the 30 foot minimum build to line is actually much closer than that 30 feet that's required by code. So there's not | 01:36:07 | |
a variance with associated with that because the code encourages building closer to Hwy. 15 as is shown on the plan that is a | 01:36:15 | |
proposed 2 story building and phase one with associated access and parking there. | 01:36:23 | |
Phase two would include additional construction around the pond area and they've submitted plans that would include. | 01:36:31 | |
Site plan. | 01:37:11 | |
So this was originally discussed in 2008 as the warehouse district as as the Bishop family indicated. So it is back before you | 01:37:13 | |
again in a very different format. But this is a project that's been going on for quite some time and in some ways explain the | 01:37:19 | |
differences there between phase one and phase two, again that the phase one building would be between the existing, what I'll call | 01:37:25 | |
the core Blend building. | 01:37:32 | |
And Hwy. 15. | 01:37:38 | |
Those existing structures will stay. Access to those existing structures will stay that the applicants included that as part of | 01:37:41 | |
their detailed plans. | 01:37:46 | |
There will be utility modifications needed for these new buildings. We provided some comments related to some of those details. | 01:37:51 | |
On the on the plans and again it's more than one acre Disturbed does have water and sewer associated with it. So again there are | 01:37:59 | |
entities outside the city of Watkinsville that would also be required to approve these plans. I'm happy to answer. | 01:38:06 | |
Any additional questions you might have? | 01:38:13 | |
All right. Any questions for Mr. Campbell as the we'll go ahead and call Mr. Mr. Rear, are you speaking on behalf of the | 01:38:18 | |
applicant? We'll have you come on up, but any questions for Engineer Campbell while Mr. Greer comes forward or do we want to hear | 01:38:22 | |
from him first? | 01:38:26 | |
All right, Mr. Greer. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Justin Greer, Pitman, Greer Engineering. Appreciate Mark for such a. | 01:38:32 | |
Utilize the pond is kind of the Gray changes there. | 01:39:44 | |
We have not submitted to county, county, water resources yet. We'll kind of get through this. | 01:40:50 | |
Part of the process and then reach out to them. We've had discussions with the city about sewer capacity and things and some. | 01:40:55 | |
Of capacity that the bishops have in some other places. | 01:41:03 | |
Some agreements in there. So I don't think that'll be taken from your allocation at this time. We're still working through that. | 01:41:07 | |
And I think that's about all I have. I'd be happy to answer any questions. | 01:41:15 | |
Yeah, keep that up. So this looks very different than the other plan. And I mean I like the look of this a lot. This is great, but | 01:41:21 | |
it isn't what the plan was. So please speak to this. Yeah. So they, this was an original concept plan that was done. Luke worked | 01:41:29 | |
with an architect to have this and this was. So that plan kind of morphed into what you see before you tonight. That's a one that | 01:41:37 | |
we were trying to get renderings done of what this would be and it was going to take too long to get before council. | 01:41:45 | |
Timeline with Christmas and holidays were just really short to have them turn that around the building the up front kind of the | 01:41:54 | |
core Blend building is. | 01:41:57 | |
That was our original plan, but we've kind of changed the shape of that. And then the original thought was and this is kind of how | 01:42:01 | |
the the kind of a concrete area was to have a building up front and then some basically some smaller shops. | 01:42:09 | |
For some artists and stuff and that's not off the table. We're still you know as we kind of progress through this we may that's | 01:42:17 | |
that concrete space is is. | 01:42:21 | |
We're holding it for that. I don't want to, I didn't want to commit to that tonight. But but I think in in our discussions and | 01:42:26 | |
talks we thought that might be a good place to have some smaller shops for. You know, as people are using this outdoor place, | 01:42:32 | |
outdoor spaces and these two spaces are connected, that's another place people could come and shop and as they eat, spend a little | 01:42:37 | |
time there. | 01:42:42 | |
Yeah, I really like this. Make it this pretty please, but yours. But compared to this, you'd have an additional. You'd have an | 01:42:48 | |
additional structure on the top right of the rendering and an additional structure at the. Yeah, so basically. | 01:42:55 | |
This building here. | 01:43:02 | |
Yeah, yeah. | 01:43:04 | |
Yeah. So yeah, the building here is is we've made it a little bigger here just just to. | 01:43:09 | |
Kind of incorporate a little bit more of this area and made the made. | 01:43:15 | |
Basically, that wooden deck is comes out a little bit more. Yes, they'll be a building that sits here in a future phase, and then | 01:43:20 | |
that top building will be two stories. | 01:43:24 | |
Would be two stories. Is that correct? | 01:43:29 | |
OK. All right. Yeah, it's a little taller than what's shown here. And that's for having that second story office space. | 01:43:33 | |
And I think we included renderings and kind of what that ball brick, so it kind of matches that warehouse district. | 01:43:44 | |
Kind of make it a kind of a cohesive development and you said, I noticed the plan had trees fronting 15 the whole way. And would | 01:43:51 | |
you anticipate sidewalks connecting this to Classic City that you're just not showing it? Yeah, what we talked about, we talked | 01:43:56 | |
about two different. | 01:44:00 | |
I'm sorry, you need to take it the mic with you if you're going to just pinch pinch it, pinch it on one side and pull it out. | 01:44:05 | |
There you go. Thank you. Got people listening. Yes, we talked about two different locations either through kind of meandering | 01:44:11 | |
through this kind of green space because that's what we anticipate and you see the trees on our plan. | 01:44:17 | |
Fronting, there's a sewer easement that runs up 15, so we'll do some smaller trees on that side, bigger trees on the inside, and | 01:44:24 | |
whether that sidewalk meanders through here or connects back on this side. | 01:44:30 | |
We're going to try to connect at one of the two places and maybe both. | 01:44:38 | |
Hold that. | 01:44:42 | |
All right, so council, we've got a site development plan here. | 01:44:47 | |
For the bishops sounds like. | 01:44:52 | |
Other things are thinking about adding to the site plan, so Mark, walk us through. | 01:44:56 | |
Would we give a conditional approval tonight with you know? | 01:45:01 | |
You know plans to be submitted that show the sidewalks and the other things or what are what are sort of paths forward here | 01:45:06 | |
tonight. Yes. So I think I'll maybe summarize a little bit. I think it would be an approval with conditions because we do have | 01:45:11 | |
some some details like I said and some other things to workout but. | 01:45:17 | |
Most of the question marks, in my opinion, are on phase two. | 01:45:22 | |
So I don't think that there's any red flags tonight in general terms there. There's a few details to work out, but there wouldn't | 01:45:28 | |
be anything that would hinder the construction or moving forward specifically with Phase one and the infrastructure that would be | 01:45:34 | |
needed to be constructed as part of Phase one. | 01:45:39 | |
While they work out the details within phase two, hopefully I've made that clear. You cannot speak that I think that's exactly | 01:45:46 | |
what we would want. And I think that that works best for us as as user, as our end users, we figure that out. And as people, you | 01:45:52 | |
know, as we talk to different people, the Bishop talks to different people that want to come as you know they're expanding. | 01:45:59 | |
That will be the driver of some of the you know, the amenities that are provided as part of that design and. | 01:46:06 | |
I think it would be best to come back before you with a modified site plan as that changes, rather than a full set of plans as you | 01:46:12 | |
know you're talking about. | 01:46:16 | |
So, Mayor Council, I think we also need to point out. | 01:46:20 | |
Depending on what the use is. So they're intending, I think to move. Corbin may move to the front building. So there may be a wash | 01:46:23 | |
on their quote their wastewater, but. | 01:46:27 | |
You know, we don't yet know what their needs are. What I can speak to is that they do have an agreement to guarantee a guaranteed | 01:46:33 | |
50,000 gallons per day from Oconee. We have a letter that Mister Bishop had given to us a couple years ago. And so you just have | 01:46:39 | |
to keep in mind that I don't know if they're talking about a restaurant. It could be 25 or 30,000 gallons a day. And then what's | 01:46:46 | |
the remainder going to be used on? So you're not really. | 01:46:52 | |
You do need to keep in mind that they're going to need wastewater capacity. At some point. They may exceed what they've got | 01:46:59 | |
depending on what they put there. So you just have to keep that in mind because normally you'd have a site plan and you'd have | 01:47:05 | |
like 1080 came back tonight, you'd have the urban forest and the wastewater. On the heels of that, the next meeting doesn't sound | 01:47:10 | |
like we're going to be in that position. So you need to keep in mind as this comes forward as it as it evolves. | 01:47:15 | |
All right. But Mr. Bishop was here, Mr. Greer, and they kind of know what they've got to work with on wastewater. | 01:47:21 | |
In terms of you got 50 and if you get lucky and you get 2 restaurants and some heavy users and you you know then you're going to | 01:47:26 | |
have to you know that may we may not be able to help you for a while there. | 01:47:31 | |
If you know so OK, any let's see where are. | 01:47:37 | |
We need to move it on down the road. OK, so any further discussion from council? I feel like we haven't talked a lot about this, | 01:47:42 | |
but I like the. | 01:47:45 | |
Potentially phase one site plan approval. | 01:47:50 | |
And then coming back for a phase two, yeah, OK. | 01:47:52 | |
So I make a motion that we approve phase one with conditions. | 01:47:56 | |
OK, we've got a motion to approve phase one with conditions 2nd, 2nd. | 01:48:03 | |
All right. Applicants, that's what you that's OK with you guys, right? Not putting any handcuffs on you, right. OK. All right. Any | 01:48:08 | |
further discussion? | 01:48:12 | |
All right, all in favor. Say aye. Any opposed motion carries 5. | 01:48:17 | |
All right. Looks like we've lost Mr. | 01:48:25 | |
Land as we move on to the pouring beer, wine, spirits license. I don't know that we need him here to approve that he he | 01:48:29 | |
apologized. He sent me a text that he had to go make a delivery to the UJ basketball team. | 01:48:35 | |
Food is a post game meal. Maybe men's or women, I don't know. He had to go deliver. | 01:48:43 | |
Food. And he apologized for not being here. OK, outstanding. Well, I don't know if they won, but I heard at least one guy got a. | 01:48:47 | |
Season high end points. So that's. | 01:48:54 | |
All right, so we are all excited that Wing House is coming back to Watkins for at least the vast mass of the public is. So what do | 01:48:59 | |
we need to do here? We've got the beer and wine distilled licenses, everything in order, Clerk. | 01:49:05 | |
Yes, Sir. The only thing we're waiting for are the fingerprinting, but that's because it's a new program that they've implemented | 01:49:12 | |
and everything's been submitted. We're just waiting for them to give him the go ahead to go over there. So I would need it with | 01:49:18 | |
condition of looking for a conditional approving, conditional approval of the BM wine and distilled spirits license for Wing House | 01:49:24 | |
Grill LLC. So moved. | 01:49:29 | |
2nd. | 01:49:36 | |
All right. Any discussion? | 01:49:38 | |
Hearing none. All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? | 01:49:40 | |
Motion carries 5 O. We have no old business under New Business. | 01:49:44 | |
We've got a couple items we're going to work to keep these, keep these pretty quick, so manager Dickerson, if you could tackle the | 01:49:50 | |
first one. | 01:49:53 | |
Thank you. | 01:49:57 | |
So we're asking tonight to submit our FY24 local maintenance improvement grant application to include a school St. which you may | 01:49:58 | |
recall was on this year's but we couldn't do because we didn't have enough money and Simonson way that is going to require all of | 01:50:05 | |
our element funding, our match as well as about $40,000 in Tea Sloss money. I'll walk you through it fairly quickly. You may | 01:50:11 | |
recall that a couple years ago. | 01:50:18 | |
We. We. | 01:50:26 | |
Let's see what else you need to know. Those those are things all right. So the top 6 streets following the top 6 streets that are | 01:51:03 | |
on the list are Durham and then calls. Creek has 2. Simonson Way, Niagara and Stone Shoals. Durham Street is. | 01:51:10 | |
A whole different animal. Obviously, we have a new development that's going to be going in. It's going to require basically an | 01:51:19 | |
entire construction. This is probably not a good estimate. I have no idea what what that's going to run. But at the time, the full | 01:51:25 | |
depth reconstruction of that site of that road was going to be around 1/4 of $1,000,000. | 01:51:31 | |
So that's not something we can really tackle right now. We probably need to give an opportunity for Water St. and the development | 01:51:39 | |
of Water St. to start developing and we can work together with them to maybe get that in the next. | 01:51:45 | |
You know, as soon as that, as soon as that development occurs, so. | 01:51:51 | |
To get to be able to use this money, we need to move forward within the next year on a project. So Calls Creek Circle and Calls | 01:51:56 | |
Creek Dr. are both. | 01:52:00 | |
At some point you're just going to have to, you know. | 01:52:39 | |
Ahead and start paving these it'd be it'd be great if we could pave all the roads and signs in place all the roads and you know | 01:52:41 | |
Bishops Vineyard it's not going to happen. We we don't have that kind of money So my my recommendation is we go ahead and add | 01:52:46 | |
Simonson way and like I said we're not going to have enough money just with the Elmig money or the match from SPLOST. So we're | 01:52:50 | |
going to need a. | 01:52:55 | |
And it's crazy, it's going to cost that much, but we're going to need another 40,000 or so I'm estimating and I I use this year's | 01:53:01 | |
numbers and bump them about two and a half 3% just to get a number. We won't know for sure and we'll have to come back to you for | 01:53:06 | |
those awards of contracts. But I'd like to go ahead and get approval to submit this. Hopefully the state will approve it will will | 01:53:11 | |
then go out for request for proposal and come back with the and ask for the award of those contracts. Hopefully we'll be able to | 01:53:16 | |
do both of these. | 01:53:21 | |
With the project, you know with the monies that are allotted so. | 01:53:28 | |
Again request is to submit for school St. Simonson Way and appropriate the LMG funding from the state the 19,000 squashed match | 01:53:31 | |
and 40,000 from T SPLOST. | 01:53:37 | |
All right, you've heard the heard the report from the manager. Any questions? | 01:53:45 | |
For her. | 01:53:49 | |
School St. we would Will we be able to adjust some of the water, water flow and and retain all the parking on School St. | 01:53:52 | |
Yes, thank you. She wanted to be sure. | 01:54:01 | |
All right. Entertain a motion. | 01:54:06 | |
I can't make it. | 01:54:13 | |
Garden Associates is is doing a great job. You can see flooring is in, lighting is in. | 01:54:47 | |
What I would consider the fun part of the project which can also be challenging, which is that part in the last 10% or so that is | 01:54:54 | |
near the end. But but everybody's been great. Duke Gibbs has been great to work with at Wire Park. There's some coordination items | 01:55:00 | |
that are some responsibilities that are outside the walls of of the library itself. But then there's some outdoor areas the | 01:55:06 | |
libraries order some outdoor furniture. There's some some things that are behind that lovely chain link fence with the the vinyl | 01:55:12 | |
screening on it that are going to. | 01:55:19 | |
To allow that to continue to be a cohesive space. So if you're not aware since the last time that this council met, the existing | 01:55:25 | |
facility is closed. | 01:55:30 | |
And I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. | 01:56:15 | |
Questions. | 01:56:20 | |
For the chair of the library board. | 01:56:22 | |
Can you tell us what we're seeing like where? Absolutely. So I will do my best in the upper left hand corner. That's actually some | 01:56:24 | |
areas that you won't visit as much, but you will see because that's kind of a transition to where some staff area are and it's, | 01:56:31 | |
it's open and it's also where that staff would be able to to interact with with the public as as you consider there. So that back | 01:56:39 | |
wall, that back window you see there, it actually kind of opens up to the what's considered now the alley space between. | 01:56:46 | |
Where the library structure is and the yard structure is and and while parks actually working to try to beautify some of that | 01:56:54 | |
space as well because they're encouraged by some of the things the library is doing on the upper right hand portion those are some | 01:57:00 | |
study rooms which is always important. Even though a library is is a semi quiet space, sometimes it's important to have a little | 01:57:06 | |
bit more quiet space. We do have glass in those rooms because we want them to be study rooms and not too private in nature with | 01:57:12 | |
maybe some teenagers or teen adults. | 01:57:18 | |
The the lower left hand is the meeting room space and one of the things you'll notice there's a big header, there's a big it's a | 01:57:25 | |
piece of steel because there's a divider that's going in that meeting room space to make it multifunctional so that it can be | 01:57:30 | |
divided into two meeting room spaces if you don't need the entirety of that. That was one of the ad alternates that the library | 01:57:36 | |
was able to provide based on additional funding that was provided through the state and some of those other things and then again | 01:57:42 | |
that that lower right hand picture. | 01:57:48 | |
I believe is. I was trying not to get too much construction information there in some of those pictures, but that's that's leading | 01:57:54 | |
out to the windows. | 01:57:58 | |
That that face towards Barnett Shoals Rd. | 01:58:03 | |
Thank you. | 01:58:34 | |
Looks really great. I'm excited to see it to come to fruition. | 01:58:36 | |
All right, we're going to let Mr. Campbell put his other hat on and give us our stormwater update. | 01:58:41 | |
Stormwater safely along our roadways and and through the city public property. Again, I'm happy to answer any questions you might | 02:00:33 | |
have. | 02:00:38 | |
Questions on storm water? | 02:00:43 | |
All right. Thank you, Sir. | 02:00:47 | |
All right, you're in bonuses for city employees manager Dickerson. | 02:00:51 | |
Thank you, Mayor. | 02:00:55 | |
So for the last at least five years I've been here, the city has done a year in bonus for city employees. | 02:00:58 | |
That equals one week's pay. And so in November I submitted a report to the chair and Co chair of the Personnel and Finance | 02:01:03 | |
Committee asking that they consider doing that again. That would be excluding me. Only those employees that have employed, been | 02:01:10 | |
employed full time for the for at least 12 months will be eligible. Those that are not have been struck through on that, and so | 02:01:16 | |
the request is for $14,659.70. | 02:01:23 | |
All right, you've heard the recommendation from the manager. Does the committee have anything it wants to add? | 02:01:31 | |
I would like to, let's see, let us hear from the committee. I think, I think that's is that Connie and Chuck, is that the | 02:01:40 | |
personnel and personnel committee, is that correct? That's correct. Thank you. | 02:01:45 | |
We have talked to everybody and we think that everybody should get a bonus, including. | 02:01:52 | |
Miss Dickerson. | 02:02:00 | |
OK, so were you suggesting the same? | 02:02:04 | |
The same, the same, the same ratio there. One week salad, one week's pay. Is that correct? | 02:02:08 | |
OK. And then you said everybody, would there be anything for people who have not been employed for a year? Well, I think that we | 02:02:14 | |
should show our appreciation for the good work they have done and maybe we should give them. | 02:02:20 | |
$50 and tell them to take their self out to lunch or dinner. | 02:02:28 | |
OK, we've had. We've got a. | 02:02:36 | |
Recommendation from is that a committee recommendation, Chuck? So we've got a committee recommendation that we would include. | 02:02:38 | |
Miss Dickerson at the same same ratio there with the one week pay as well as folks who haven't been here. | 02:02:44 | |
For a year to have a $50.50 dollar discretionary bonus, it sounds like any other. | 02:02:54 | |
Any other thoughts? | 02:03:02 | |
Manager Dickerson Can we accommodate those additions in the budget? | 02:03:06 | |
I believe so. I mean this will this requires because this isn't budgeted this is this requires a general fund and then you know | 02:03:10 | |
amendment from the fund balance. | 02:03:14 | |
We don't budget for. | 02:03:18 | |
So. | 02:03:20 | |
All right, Council, any further discussion, comments? | 02:03:24 | |
As a reminder, because we're taking all this into account together, we aren't required to go into executive session, nor are we | 02:03:28 | |
discussing anybody's individual performance. We are merely making recommendations for the year end bonuses for city employees. | 02:03:34 | |
Can I? | 02:03:40 | |
Suggest that we modify for the employees who've been here less than a year $100 instead of 50. Is that? | 02:03:42 | |
Does that, I mean, that's an extra Connie, are you OK modifying your motion? | 02:03:50 | |
Yes, I'm fine with that. All right. And Chuck, fine with that. All right. So that's 100 for the folks who've been here for less | 02:03:55 | |
than a year. | 02:03:58 | |
So we have that as a motion to 2nd. A suggestion. | 02:04:02 | |
The motion is amended. | 02:04:05 | |
Any further discussions or suggestions? | 02:04:07 | |
Hearing none. All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? | 02:04:11 | |
All right. Motion carries 50. Thank you. | 02:04:15 | |
All right, public comments. | 02:04:19 | |
For all those who have bravely waited. | 02:04:21 | |
Any member of the public have anything to say? | 02:04:25 | |
Anything submitted in writing Court, Klein? Yes, Sir. All right then. We're going to move quickly through council reports and the | 02:04:29 | |
mayor's report. | 02:04:32 | |
Just far away here. OK Oconee schools if you haven't been by there lately. Very impressive structure going up quickly. Interior | 02:04:37 | |
framing is nearing completion. Roofing. | 02:04:42 | |
Is underway and the brick is progressing. So they're they're moving quickly. I think their goal is to be in. | 02:04:47 | |
I think by the start of the next school year, as I recall, Is that right, Mark? So they're moving quickly. | 02:04:54 | |
Welcome back, Wing House. We talked about that, but a lot of excitement around having Wing House back in Watkinsville and having | 02:05:01 | |
all of our dining spaces full again. But there's a lot of a lot of excited folks in the community. | 02:05:08 | |
Because Wing House is back, and it'll be a great welcome addition to the dining scene in Watkinsville. | 02:05:16 | |
We opened up the officially opened up our patok area on Saturday. That was a lot of fun. Connie, thanks for coming out and. | 02:05:22 | |
There could not be a more French looking guy than the guy in that green. Look at that green sweater. | 02:05:33 | |
But, but it was actually a lot of fun and I learned a lot. My son joined and my daughter joined and we had we had a fun time out | 02:05:39 | |
there with people who are experts and we had several people. | 02:05:44 | |
I think we had 20 to 25 people, several who had never played before and just came and. | 02:05:50 | |
Learned about the sport and the people who were experts really were complimentary of how nice our facility was compared to some of | 02:05:54 | |
the parking lots and other places they've been using. So it's nice to see folks out there. | 02:05:59 | |
Scoreboard is up at Rocket Field and looks great. Saint Mary's made that contribution and made that possible. We're grateful for | 02:06:06 | |
that. | 02:06:09 | |
Net Climber installation is. | 02:06:13 | |
I think this week, so that should be up by our next meeting. Christmas at Wire Park was two nights this year. | 02:06:17 | |
Another great success. Always excited to see the progress of Wire Park with Christmas Tree recycling available at the locations | 02:06:25 | |
outlined there, including Hair Shoals Park on Saturday, January 6th. | 02:06:30 | |
Just a reminder that we have a lot of great retailers in Watkinsville and would really encourage, encourage folks it's too late to | 02:06:37 | |
get stuff online at this point. So if you're like me and you've waited till the last minute, go shop locally, OK? There's a lot of | 02:06:43 | |
great choices in Watkinsville and Oconee County. | 02:06:48 | |
We did have Water St. shut all week last week and we had some folks who are hustling out there. | 02:06:56 | |
Mysterious utilities emerge. All kinds of challenges happen when you open up a really Old Street and they opened up a really Old | 02:07:03 | |
Street. And I can't tell you how impressed I'm with our staff and with our contractor for managing to get all that, you know, 98% | 02:07:09 | |
done by Saturday afternoon and then wrapped it up. It looked like Monday morning. Mark is that accurate? And and it looks good | 02:07:15 | |
over there. They had to remove a few trees in order to put in that new drain pipe. But we've been. | 02:07:21 | |
Battling. | 02:07:28 | |
From Simonton Bridge to Main Street and out of Water St. and we're hopeful that this will resolve, resolve that challenge. | 02:07:29 | |
City staff did some entry landscaping and dressed up our new signs. As you know, winter is the time for planting, so you have to | 02:07:36 | |
water much less. | 02:07:40 | |
The rest of the year. So thank you to Mark and team for doing that. That looks great. | 02:07:45 | |
And then just an update on Thomas, the Thomas Farm property January 4th will have a meeting of our steering committee. The | 02:07:49 | |
public's invited to that. | 02:07:53 | |
We'll share out that plan, hope to make any revisions over the next two weeks, and then have a have a refined concept plan for | 02:07:58 | |
council's comments, review and hopefully approval. | 02:08:03 | |
And on January 17th at our meeting then. | 02:08:09 | |
Many thanks to Councilman Campbell and Mayor Pro Tem Tucker for leaning in and doing that work. | 02:08:12 | |
And just a reminder that on New Year's Day at Bethel Baptist, they're having their annual Emancipation Proclamation observance. | 02:08:18 | |
It's always an inspiring event. They're focused on the arts this year. | 02:08:23 | |
The community is invited and I just want to make sure everybody was aware of that on Monday, January 1st before the football | 02:08:29 | |
begins. Go celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation in the Pioneer Awards. Always a great event. | 02:08:37 | |
That's all I have and we will move on to Chuck Garrett. Anything to report. | 02:08:45 | |
County Massey Anything? | 02:08:50 | |
But Thomas, I just want to remind everybody how blessed we are to live in such a wonderful community and just go out and enjoy the | 02:08:52 | |
Christmas time. So it is a wonderful time to reflect on how wonderful of a community, absolutely. | 02:08:59 | |
Mayor Pro Tem Tucker. | 02:09:07 | |
Art walk update so. | 02:09:11 | |
Here are the it's getting close. We have one of our sculptures is Outback. I don't know if any of y'all have played around with | 02:09:17 | |
the. | 02:09:21 | |
Learning about some of our natural flora and fauna in a really beautiful and interesting way. And then these, this is what you can | 02:09:27 | |
see in the back of the turtle. It's not as done but these are the two other pieces that are going to be going on the pathway | 02:09:35 | |
between the playground of possibilities and then down to the main part of Paris Shoals Park and so. | 02:09:43 | |
The goal was to have some interesting structures that honor our. | 02:09:52 | |
Local flora and fauna that children can interact with or adults so very excited and the artists are really excited too, so. | 02:09:59 | |
And then also. | 02:10:09 | |
Contractors and work with us to make sure while they're there to go ahead and get that stuff out as well. So hopefully the weather | 02:10:45 | |
permits will be able to maybe see some paving in January. Just have to wait and see. | 02:10:51 | |
All right, Councilman Campbell. | 02:11:03 | |
Nothing, nothing to report. And so I don't think we have a need for an executive session. | 02:11:05 | |
So with that, I will say I make a motion to adjourn. I will say happy holidays, Merry Christmas, and I will entertain a motion to | 02:11:12 | |
adjourn. Second. All right, we have a motion. We have a second. All in favor, say aye. All right. | 02:11:17 |
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All right. Good evening. | 00:00:06 | |
And welcome to. | 00:00:10 | |
The dissent meeting of the Wattsville City Council. We have world and this is your call order and we'll start with Pledge of | 00:00:12 | |
Allegiance and we have so many young guests here tonight. I was hoping our Palm Fairy kids and others would stand up and lead us | 00:00:16 | |
in the Pledge of Allegiance. How about that guy? Stand up and let's hear. | 00:00:21 | |
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, | 00:00:27 | |
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | 00:00:33 | |
So when every crowd. | 00:00:41 | |
We're going to start with the gingerbread houses. | 00:01:50 | |
It's a joint. Assembled Ginger browsers arrive in every remarks. How great it tells it's a wonderful nutrition. That's what I | 00:01:53 | |
think is our set year. Is that right? Having the Red House at City Hall? I didn't. If you'd be willing to step forward, you'll | 00:01:58 | |
miss me and share a little bit about Project less and we will do some photos with. | 00:02:02 | |
Well, good evening. I've ever doing well this evening. My name is Lynn Shore and this is Becky. We're by teachers at Home Ferry | 00:02:09 | |
Elementary School and my ears become enough to allow us to share the hard work of these students for the last two years. So this | 00:02:15 | |
project began a few years ago with Mary and Check media specialist that time and she's a different position. And so Missy and I | 00:02:22 | |
have taken this on as a project we do each year. So I don't know if you're aware, the Colonery is a certified school and part of | 00:02:28 | |
that is in certification. | 00:02:35 | |
Requires or encourages us to do things called PLS which is project based learning. So this project started with a question and the | 00:02:42 | |
question was how can we as engineers create Gingerbread Watkins L to display at City Hall and that's where the students started. | 00:02:49 | |
They bring stores tons of questions that they would need to answer in order to accomplish this goal and then they researched SO. | 00:02:56 | |
Awesome, wonderful work and it means so much. I'll choose to after Wattsville and every year I'm just impressed with the | 00:04:09 | |
creativity. I know we had all the switches out there, we have a little tail swift reference someone, we have clothes hangers, we | 00:04:14 | |
have people landscape detailed on these things. When you really get up close to the the work that this instead becomes super | 00:04:19 | |
evidence. So we have a little bit in a minute everybody wants to check these things out close. For now why don't we get a picture | 00:04:24 | |
and we have a special gift for our team. | 00:04:29 | |
All right, now if you'll send by your house, I'm going around, we have just a few Wattsville Christmas tree and we have some for | 00:05:07 | |
our students this year. So those who haven't seen this is MA by local artist, so, so studio. So we're going to those of you who | 00:05:15 | |
are paragraphs are also going to get some of these special limits. | 00:05:23 | |
For those who couldn't be denied, we will send send. | 00:05:32 | |
We'll send up with teachers. | 00:05:41 | |
Real quick and then we'll if anyone wants to get a picture with us, they can, we'll. | 00:05:50 | |
So we have to formally that will order for them. We're grateful for this year's grand Marshall was Martin Nunley and we're | 00:06:30 | |
thankful for Marvin. He's a wonderful community. Leaders got a me dollar smile as you can see there and as long Tompkinsville | 00:06:37 | |
resident the department is so studious only hundred of those made every year. Julie Lewis and her team did a job here. | 00:06:44 | |
I think she's here, OK, and the sponsors and judges up there, so because I said earlier it takes a lot of people at the parade | 00:06:51 | |
together a year, we're grateful to everybody comes together and does that. | 00:06:56 | |
Aloft says reps up there, but tone cars were putting the putting the stage up with a great group of judges. Again, it takes takes | 00:07:01 | |
the entire community to pull it off and have all the thousands of people coming out of the city safely and have their time. So | 00:07:06 | |
grateful. Everybody who helped in our planning committee, we recognize them. | 00:07:11 | |
Sharon. | 00:07:17 | |
That's our planning committee and I mentioned our employees work on this. It's a great effort every year by them in the melody | 00:07:20 | |
Adams is our chief volunteer, so we're grateful for Melanie that will do the awards. | 00:07:25 | |
If you're here, I would call you up first up for use of themes Briarwood kids have anybody from? | 00:07:31 | |
Next up we have Children's Artistic. | 00:07:48 | |
And best flow for children's BSPAC? | 00:08:03 | |
All right, when are adults wasn't to auto best use of theme? | 00:08:18 | |
Thank you. | 00:08:27 | |
All right. | 00:08:33 | |
All right. | 00:08:37 | |
Literally, people say this could be amazing. | 00:08:44 | |
All right, adult, best load. I'm following up friends there in the blue. | 00:08:48 | |
To be Nathan around here, all right. | 00:09:17 | |
Best tractor is the Shot family. | 00:09:29 | |
Oh my gosh. | 00:09:43 | |
I. | 00:09:48 | |
All right, best easy car of any collision. | 00:09:52 | |
And this last award is and after maybe Mary Williams it's all award and Mary D the bridge was was shoveling for years to watch | 00:10:18 | |
them still married herself to take her to the first only Mary Williams hand and turn it into a turned into the iconic event that | 00:10:23 | |
is today. I'm really ejected a lot of energy and passionate and we're always grateful to Miss Mary for what we did to add a lot of | 00:10:29 | |
parade. So this big award. | 00:10:35 | |
Calhoun's Polar Express. | 00:10:42 | |
Yeah. | 00:13:22 | |
Yeah. | 00:13:26 | |
June. | 00:15:37 | |
Thank you. Thank you so much. | 00:16:47 | |
All right. | 00:17:13 | |
And when we go. | 00:17:15 | |
Should we get? I know you never put it down, right, So we're going to keep on. OK, Council, you've had the minutes and you've had | 00:17:18 | |
an opportunity to review them. I'll enter the motion. That's only for November 15th minutes. Please make a motion to approve the | 00:17:21 | |
number of minutes. | 00:17:25 | |
Do a second any. | 00:17:29 | |
Hearing none all in favor. | 00:17:32 | |
Any opposed motion carries unanimously. We'll move on to the approval agenda council the changes that like to make the agenda. | 00:17:35 | |
Hearing No entertainment to approve. | 00:17:43 | |
Also that we do have a public hearing or two on the agenda tonight. We'll have opportunities for public to specifically address | 00:18:16 | |
those matters at that point. With that we'll move on to the financial reports introduction. Please make your. | 00:18:20 | |
So everybody should have received all sheet. The general fund expense and revenues tracking with that should be around 40% and on | 00:18:26 | |
expenses were 38 and then revenues were 43. So we're doing fairly well on that on. | 00:18:32 | |
This last two port that report actually be looked out this month. He had a little bit of leftover from. | 00:18:39 | |
From interest and so we're using that money to close that. We had some expenses on the Petunka right fields will be closing that | 00:18:46 | |
out this month. So next month maybe we'll residual left there, but we will have that cleared out and then we'll down to just three | 00:18:52 | |
and three. Most of our senses on this right now are centered around park and the one improvements the green space at Thomas Farms | 00:18:58 | |
will be there that we use roads and then some signage updates in the city. | 00:19:04 | |
Just seeing this one at 8.63% of the Oakland County sales tax and we are about 4.4% over last year we're averaging. | 00:19:11 | |
We're averaging 80,000 a month on that. | 00:19:20 | |
On teeth lost, this one just started in April and it's at 7.77%, so a little bit less. We're averaging about 69,000. We do | 00:19:25 | |
anticipate by the time we do the five years of this, it will be closer to 78, hopefully more, which has been the the protection. | 00:19:33 | |
And then this is mostly sidewalks to the national sidewalk, the industrial Blvd. Sidewalk need it's encumbered and resurfacing and | 00:19:40 | |
parking on 2nd St. around rocket those defenses we had to date. | 00:19:47 | |
We will become four this next year with requests to use somewhere that money. We've got balance of just under 300,000. | 00:19:55 | |
You'll see that you can see it's a how it fluctuates depending on if we don't compare. Last year we didn't have it, but we're | 00:20:03 | |
doing pretty well. Any questions on slaughter? | 00:20:07 | |
All right. And in the last American Rescue Plan Act money that is certainly frozen because we have to do the in fiscal year. So we | 00:20:12 | |
trigger a little audit. We used a good that money for the purchase of 100 acre Thomas family farm. | 00:20:19 | |
And so council, I want you guys can start using that money again, correcting us to use it. | 00:20:26 | |
Any questions on those? | 00:20:33 | |
On economic development, we've got business. Lexus are coming in several. They've got renewals on alcohol licenses as well. | 00:20:36 | |
And then on SRS tax, I can remember the tax is selected. We don't get the previous month till the end of the month. So that's why | 00:20:44 | |
you see all that money in November yet. But those are tracking higher than what we did. So that's good. | 00:20:49 | |
And on building permits, we had we six points out five different projects. | 00:20:56 | |
Still some work going on over at Wire Park and some work there. 71 N Main is the is the instructional support Center for the | 00:21:01 | |
school. | 00:21:05 | |
Any questions? Only does. | 00:21:10 | |
All right. Member Tim Tucker would have an update on Downtown Development Authority. Yes. So as we have said, the City of | 00:21:14 | |
Wattsville, we see the rural zone ignition, which means we have access to our citizens and owners have access to some good tax | 00:21:20 | |
sensitives in order to help create more jobs in Watkinsville, which would include some investment property rehabilitation and | 00:21:27 | |
property or just tax credit if you start business that does have at least two employees. | 00:21:34 | |
Kate Patterson and I went to a train late November and so in January we are having some more informational meetings on that, what | 00:21:42 | |
that means, what it looks like and how it can just help spark some great things in our community. Also we head downtown bingo on a | 00:21:49 | |
Small Business Saturday and it was a great success. Business owners were said that they a lot more traffic and so we hope to | 00:21:57 | |
continue that trend and then so we have several new and or. | 00:22:04 | |
Parks in Wattsville. | 00:22:12 | |
We have this one by Eagle Town with new Adirondack chairs and so just as I don't know if with Waterville from Connect Me, we want | 00:22:14 | |
to have lots of gathering spaces for our community, our community members. So having these old pocket parks is another way to do | 00:22:21 | |
that. So there's this one here on Main Street and then also this one Main Street and this one was primarily funded by the grant | 00:22:29 | |
that we received that put on the the event at Rockfield in October that created a public art at UC there that the businesses. | 00:22:36 | |
Sponsored and so we hope that. | 00:22:44 | |
The committee will start using the space, so also thanks to Public Works for their hard work to get this set up and set in a way | 00:22:46 | |
that it's going to be easier to maintain and so I appreciate their attention to detail without that. | 00:22:51 | |
All right. Thank you, Mayor. It's Tim. And I think everybody probably notes point, but I think that last part you know with the | 00:22:59 | |
return of Debbie's due downtown and I will talk about that in Adobe's building. | 00:23:05 | |
Given the interest I think it'll be it'll be nice to have a space next to where people want outsider way they can can do that. So | 00:23:12 | |
Jack I know you'll enjoy having that there. Thank you for your leadership on getting that done. Christina team all right Police | 00:23:17 | |
Department report and while chief judgment comes forward come on up. | 00:23:23 | |
We want to make a few remarks and of gratitude Durham Sutterton, who stepped forward. | 00:23:29 | |
And our pretty chief Shambock was able to continue his duties and had to retire. | 00:23:36 | |
Chief led with I guess no. Just what I've been so impressed with is a real combination of. | 00:23:41 | |
Capacity to get things done, but just wonderful way treating everybody with dignity and respect. You know, if has long | 00:23:48 | |
conversations about challenging. | 00:23:51 | |
Challenging situations. And I guess what really stuck with me is how thoughtful you are about all the parties who were involved, | 00:23:55 | |
those who impact negatively, those who might make poor decisions. | 00:23:59 | |
And just your consideration. | 00:24:04 | |
Into the law. | 00:24:08 | |
They just blew me away. Some of those situations in the wishing with extra mile and another challenging situation find I'm fine. | 00:24:09 | |
So new is the best one again. | 00:24:13 | |
You didn't have to do that. You need to. You need to take those steps to go above and beyond, do what you had. But I could just | 00:24:17 | |
shows your heart for the people I can build, for your profession, for what you. | 00:24:22 | |
From the start, you embrace role strong leaders. | 00:24:28 | |
Manage the festival Miss Chris Braid Manage. | 00:24:30 | |
Trick or treat Main St. in everywhere situations. We had thousand people on foot, hundreds of people, hundreds of vehicles, all | 00:24:34 | |
kinds of opportunities for mishaps and wouldn't a single one. So it was doing all this bit of police work or biggest, biggest. | 00:24:40 | |
Events that we have in Watkinsville Minister Mall Exceptional. So I just want to say before you set back how grateful we are for | 00:24:47 | |
you and everything. You've got Watkinsville and for stepping up when we needed you and we appreciate you and we're thankful so. | 00:24:54 | |
Good evening, Mayor. Council, for what we're putting my last report in front of our foreseeable future, I'm going to tell you | 00:25:10 | |
about what we did throughout the month of December. | 00:25:14 | |
Inside packet first page the author activity we responded 19139 calls for service 30 period. Keep my some of the leads over into | 00:25:18 | |
the short period of time and number after your last meeting. | 00:25:23 | |
But it's 30 day. | 00:25:28 | |
We conducted all over 1200 security checks of homes or businesses within city prevent anything happening on the board. | 00:25:30 | |
And we issued 155 excitations. | 00:25:37 | |
On the transportation is a large portion of job officers who everybody knows become difficult at times, especially last. | 00:25:40 | |
Last Sunday we had an asset with a county and we round a lot of traffic Downing St. which prompted a lot of problems on Main | 00:25:48 | |
Street but also remember the street disease, over a million cars in each direction. | 00:25:53 | |
Over 1. | 00:25:58 | |
National cars 2 lane. | 00:26:00 | |
So on traffic 155. | 00:26:02 | |
Nature warnings. | 00:26:05 | |
Once being a citation, 61 warnings. Good. Mixed both I think. | 00:26:07 | |
And then on fixed out cameras we have money to open what it means. Dissertations an issue are unpaid at this time and 38 pitting | 00:26:11 | |
which are sections that have to be approved to be sent out. | 00:26:16 | |
On the second page. | 00:26:22 | |
There's a substantial battery and the last one was alerting and playing in a truck law enforcement officer and three of them were | 00:26:54 | |
criminal criminal. One of those was no driver's license. | 00:26:58 | |
The second was a novel driver's license. Generally this means as a person has never had a driver's license, they just drive that | 00:27:02 | |
one. They never bothered to take the test or have an issue not to confuse. Our third tread was a person who was driving after the | 00:27:07 | |
state of Georgia removed their villages by suspending revoking license. | 00:27:12 | |
So there's a cap the numbers underneath. | 00:27:19 | |
And your last age to the community as we. | 00:27:22 | |
We ended that in traffic checkpoints where we join our fellow officers for our train, a mule and a DUI checkpoint. We traveled. | 00:27:25 | |
How much do that? November 17th. | 00:27:29 | |
We had our first and cops it soups. We stood out 94 ice cream cones and I was funded by our 1C3 and we did that on a Saturday. | 00:27:33 | |
Look like we are and I apologize. I don't know what happened. | 00:28:03 | |
I didn't touch anything. | 00:28:08 | |
I do want to introduce that we're not going to do an official swearing in or anything for our new Chief, but Courtney Gale is is | 00:28:12 | |
here tonight. Give her just a brief moment. I know the Mayor may want to say something to you, but just to introduce her, she'll | 00:28:18 | |
be starting on January the 8th. She'll be sworn in on the 17th, so. | 00:28:23 | |
Courtney, welcome, welcome back to Oconee County. We're, we're glad to have you. Here's our Chief and I'm excited to continue the | 00:28:30 | |
work that Chief Brock and Chief Tetherton have done and just grateful to have you here in Watkinsville and part of our team | 00:28:36 | |
welcome home. | 00:28:42 | |
Yep, Yep, Yep. | 00:28:49 | |
OK. That's the Police Department. Next up on the agenda, we have consent. We don't vote on these individually, but I do want to | 00:28:52 | |
just touch on, just provide a little bit of context because there's some big numbers in there. | 00:28:58 | |
What that's about is we are just moving some money around from buckets to buckets. If you guys remember, we had encumbered funds | 00:29:06 | |
in several different ways. Item number seven, we had anticipated potentially utilizing AG dot. | 00:29:12 | |
TAP Grant to help us fund assignment and bridge sidewalk. As you recall, last month we decided that was not wise. We realized we | 00:29:19 | |
were going to have to probably invest just as much money. | 00:29:23 | |
As we would if we built it ourselves into a matching grant to the federal government that would take five to six years to get that | 00:29:29 | |
project done. So again, we're just moving that money back to where we can use it and where it's not in a match situation. | 00:29:34 | |
Item 8 is actually similar. We had that money allocated in case we won a state grant to kick off work at Harris Shoals. We did not | 00:29:40 | |
get that grant. I think we all agree we want to prioritize and emphasize getting the work started at Harris SHO. | 00:29:47 | |
So at this point we're going to move that money back, you know the reprogram that money so that we can get started on that work, | 00:29:54 | |
which I think will begin with some paving work, repaving the parking area and resetting some of that so we can do some of the | 00:30:00 | |
other work down there that we want to around the green spaces, the old ball field and all that kind of stuff get that improved. | 00:30:05 | |
Aligned with our master. | 00:30:12 | |
Item 9 is also similar. This is where we're going to reprogram. We're going to reprogram some T spots money once again, so we can | 00:30:14 | |
continue to potentially put funds towards the Simonton Bridge. | 00:30:20 | |
Mulberry St. Sidewalk Connection, which is going to be a complicated project, but we think it's really important. | 00:30:27 | |
Get the sidewalk to the new park and out on Simonton Bridge Rd. The other things is just to reappoint you to the library board and | 00:30:32 | |
the budget amendment for tourism art sponsorship. So hearing that, can I have an amendment, Excuse me, a motion to approve the | 00:30:39 | |
consent agenda. Make a motion to approve the consent agenda. All right and a second, second any discussion. | 00:30:47 | |
Hearing none all in favor, say aye. | 00:30:54 | |
Any opposed motion carries unanimously. | 00:30:58 | |
Now, time for public hearing. We have two items to variance request. One is at Simonton Bridge Rd. The other is at Jacob Drive. | 00:31:02 | |
The way these go, for those of you haven't been here before, 10 minutes per side. Per zoning procedures laws, comments should be | 00:31:08 | |
made only directly relating to these agenda items. Speak from the podium. 4 minutes per person. Refrain from debate. Argument. | 00:31:14 | |
Personal attacks are irrelevant. Discussion. | 00:31:19 | |
Address only the merits of the pending matter and address remarks directly to council, not to the audience. Council won't speak to | 00:31:25 | |
potential litigation, attorney-client privilege or personnel matters. First item up is variance, the variance for 51 and 55 | 00:31:33 | |
Simonton Bridge Rd. Parcel WO 6021 JW York Properties. We'll start with the public hearing. We'll hear from both sides. | 00:31:40 | |
Request to reduce the side set back from the 30 foot code requirement to 10 feet. If you can go to the next slide to give you an | 00:32:52 | |
idea of where these you know. You may not know where 51 and 55 Simonton Bridge Rd. Are located because there's not structures | 00:32:59 | |
currently on those two undeveloped lots. So you can see there the properties at 61 Simonton Bridge Road and the properties at 47 | 00:33:07 | |
Simonton Bridge Rd. that are on either side. So the subject property specifically where the variance is being requested. | 00:33:14 | |
JW has ownership of the two lots, but the one that was highlighted there. | 00:33:23 | |
The applicant also submitted a reference from Platbook. | 00:33:28 | |
In Oconee County. So anytime you see things on Platt, book one that has a little age to it that the date on this is 1947 and it | 00:33:32 | |
shows right in the middle of that page. There are lots, four and five would be the the subject lots that are before you tonight. | 00:33:40 | |
If you go to the next slide, so this is that same image that you have in front of you with a lot more information and some colors | 00:33:49 | |
I might add. These are some things you'd see in a in a CAD drawing or a CAD design as it was presented, but the the image you have | 00:33:55 | |
in front of you is actually. | 00:34:01 | |
The same house location, the same lot location, but probably a lot less information to be a lot more concise. Let me say it that | 00:34:08 | |
way. | 00:34:12 | |
Go back. | 00:34:17 | |
OK, so. | 00:34:18 | |
In this image. | 00:34:21 | |
They're showing Sept. | 00:34:23 | |
Correct, correct. | 00:34:25 | |
So behind the two proposed structures again will you know left and right 5155 there is, I believe that is the in blue. | 00:34:30 | |
A primary drain. | 00:34:43 | |
And then there's also room for a repair drain field in green. | 00:34:45 | |
It's the other way around, OK. I had a 5050 shot on that. So those are the lines and subject drain fields have to generally follow | 00:34:49 | |
the contour lines within a property and so that that's what you would see there's contour lines that. | 00:34:56 | |
If you will, around or behind that, those contour lines have the labels on those, but that is what is shown on that drawing. | 00:35:03 | |
Again, lot of information, they're there, soils information, there's other things. The request isn't specifically related to any | 00:35:09 | |
of that, that's just contextual information. The request is specifically. | 00:35:15 | |
For the lot line of what you see on the screen there for you the lot that would be on the left, it would be 51 Simonton Bridge Rd. | 00:35:21 | |
The 30 foot side set back that's interior to the lot at 55. That is again the reduction being requested from 30 feet to 10 feet. | 00:35:30 | |
Is that helpful? | 00:35:39 | |
Thank you. | 00:35:41 | |
Correct. | 00:35:50 | |
Subjects in the front yard, The primary, yes. And again, I apologize if I said it wrong the first time, so. | 00:35:52 | |
So that is the view of the property from Simonton Bridge Rd. That's kind of looking back West, away from the Creek back towards | 00:36:00 | |
Rocket Field downtown. | 00:36:05 | |
So this is again the request that's in front of you. The variance request is from Article 52-D. | 00:36:10 | |
To D1 and it says in there the size yard set back shall be a minimum of 30 feet. | 00:36:17 | |
And within the Simonton Bridge scenic Corridor and the applicant has reduced it that requested that that be reduced and they are | 00:36:22 | |
indicating on site septic system for the drain field. | 00:36:29 | |
Because they've indicated they do not have direct access to public sanitary sewer. | 00:36:35 | |
Be happy to answer any other questions you might have. | 00:36:41 | |
All right, we've heard from engineer Campbell, attorney Reitman, anything you want to add here? | 00:36:44 | |
OK. Thank you. | 00:37:25 | |
All right. Thank you. Because that does seem to have a factor with some of these setbacks. All right. Thank you. OK, We've heard | 00:37:28 | |
from the engineer. We've heard from the attorney. Now it's time to hear from the applicant. If you could step forward, give us | 00:37:34 | |
your name and address and and any additional context. My name is Gary Ray. I'm with Baseline Survey Engineering. I did the design | 00:37:40 | |
on this. | 00:37:46 | |
There's not a lot to say, Mark, I already said. | 00:37:54 | |
Applying for the set back, in order to adhere to the side entrance garage, we would need a wider house and that's what we're | 00:37:56 | |
needing a set back for. One thing I would add that Martin had is in doing the development of this, we're going to do Jared's going | 00:38:03 | |
to add sidewalks as well, which helps you with the scenic corridor sidewalks. | 00:38:09 | |
So we're gonna do that. | 00:38:17 | |
Yeah, I'm. I kind of laid it out pretty well for me, so. | 00:38:20 | |
OK, All right. Why don't you stay up there for a minute and see if council has any questions for you before we go to a public | 00:38:26 | |
hearing. | 00:38:29 | |
Before we invite other members. | 00:38:33 | |
Council questions for the applicant. I don't have any questions, but I do want to voice my concern when they start. | 00:38:37 | |
Bringing in large trucks of supplies, that's going to be dangerous on that section of that road. | 00:38:46 | |
OK. | 00:38:54 | |
So I'm wondering if your your need for this variance. I know some of it has to do with the you know the other codes that | 00:38:59 | |
Walkinsville has with the side entrance garage. | 00:39:04 | |
But also I know the intent is on the scenic corridor for it, for the homes to have a historic character. | 00:39:10 | |
And so. | 00:39:21 | |
It's hard, you know, we just have lines here. I don't know if y'all are at the phase where you actually kind of know what the | 00:39:23 | |
facades will look like, what the different things would look like, because I'm I'm wondering if a home has a historic character. | 00:39:30 | |
If you'd like to look at them. | 00:39:38 | |
So they haven't been adjusted yet because they haven't approved, but they'll be discount plan with a side entrance garage, so the | 00:39:45 | |
garage door should be there. | 00:39:48 | |
So it'll be the same House plan for both of them. So we're not actually, oh, that's right, that ones that just. | 00:39:54 | |
But the just so I'm clear, the variance would not apply to the setbacks on any of the other. | 00:40:06 | |
Borders other than the one that is central to the two lots that Mister York controls, correct? So you could not. | 00:40:12 | |
You couldn't get closer than 30 feet and Mark, this may be a question for you, They would. That set back is only impacting the set | 00:40:18 | |
back between the two homes, right? Not they couldn't get, they couldn't get closer than 30 feet. | 00:40:25 | |
To the home, to the north or to the West is right. So again, I appreciate manager Dickerson going back. So so they've actually not | 00:40:32 | |
requested any variances on the lot to the right, if you will. So it's only on the lot that's highlighted and I'll call that cyan | 00:40:39 | |
color on that aerial and it's only on what I would say is the right hand side of that lot. So if there's there's actually not a | 00:40:47 | |
request for a set back variance on what I'll call 55 Simonton Bridge Rd. that's not highlighted. | 00:40:54 | |
But they do have a House plan shown for context where that would be that meets the set back variances. But their request is for. | 00:41:01 | |
Besides, set back between what is proposed at 51 and what is proposed at 55, but only on the 51 side if that makes sense. And | 00:41:09 | |
what's the distance of the structure to the property line on 51. So what he's showing on the plan currently is approximately, I'll | 00:41:17 | |
say 13 feet. It may have a fractional number there, 13 point 113.7, but they have requested the variance down to 10 feet. | 00:41:24 | |
That's in case of an error in building. If we don't want to overlap the building, set back line. | 00:41:35 | |
OK, the other questions for the applicant. | 00:41:44 | |
Question about the sidewalks. | 00:41:48 | |
Would they be in line with what we're going to be looking to do? I actually spoke with Miss Sharon and Jared and we discussed and | 00:41:50 | |
he he agreed to put in sidewalks as approval of the variance. Well, he's required to put in the sidewalks for our transportation | 00:41:56 | |
plan. So it's not he's not agreeing to put him in, he's got to put him in, I mean per the per the code. | 00:42:02 | |
Yeah. Now I appreciate the appreciate him doing it, but it's it's required. | 00:42:11 | |
Any other questions before the applicant? If not, we may have him back up depending on what questions or comments we get from. | 00:42:17 | |
The public. So if we want to reserve that time, remind me again of your name. I apologize, OK. If you want to just have a seat, we | 00:42:23 | |
may have you come back up. We have any members of the public who would like to speak to this. I will. | 00:42:30 | |
Remind council we've received e-mail opposition from Missus Garrett, Miss Purcell, and from Kane Cruz and his wife, who are both | 00:42:36 | |
adjacent. Everybody should have read those but. | 00:42:44 | |
Mr. Purcell or Miss Garrett, if you want to offer any further comments, feel free. | 00:42:52 | |
Hi, I'm Samantha Purcell and I live on 47 Simonton Bridge Rd. which is to the left of the green rectangle. | 00:42:59 | |
So I don't think we have enough information in front of us to give them a variance. I read their hardship. | 00:43:11 | |
Application and the only thing in their hardship application said the property is too narrow. | 00:43:19 | |
So if I'm buying a piece of property and I read the ordinances and I, you know, know what I'm purchasing. | 00:43:25 | |
Then the properties too narrow is really not very good argument for me. I think as a retired teacher you your habitats you have to | 00:43:33 | |
pass the test here that here's your rubric. | 00:43:41 | |
And you have to build a house. It's a blank slate, so you can do whatever you want. There are lots of plans for houses that are | 00:43:48 | |
narrow, that can fit into those two little rectangles. | 00:43:54 | |
You could have the garage in the back. | 00:44:00 | |
There are lots of creative things you can do. We really want to see a small footprint and I think lessen the environmental impact. | 00:44:03 | |
Not everyone wants to live in a Mcmansion or a big house if you look at the square footage of the houses around. | 00:44:11 | |
It's small. We lived in a 900 square foot house for 20 something years and added on and we had a big hardship. We had a sewer | 00:44:19 | |
easement going through the back of our property so we couldn't build back which we would have. | 00:44:26 | |
But we had to build out to the side because that was a real hardship. But for this property, it's a blank slate. | 00:44:34 | |
To me, if I'm buying a property and I'm an architect, a builder, I would look at that and say, OK, I'm going to have to go by | 00:44:42 | |
their ordinances. That's why you have them. That's where they're in place. | 00:44:48 | |
For a reason. So I think if you look at it, not know how much you guys studied this, but Kane Cruz, the other person that wrote | 00:44:55 | |
your letter, he and I went out and measured. | 00:45:00 | |
And I think there's 50 something feet wide. | 00:45:05 | |
For the house to be and if that's pretty darn wide for a house and. | 00:45:09 | |
So I think you can be creative and build a nice home that would not be, you know, this is a big footprint. | 00:45:16 | |
And and I think that's 10 feet they're asking, but that's five on each property, right? | 00:45:25 | |
Fight or. It's. | 00:45:32 | |
On each property or. | 00:45:35 | |
I think it. I think it was 5 on each. | 00:45:37 | |
I was confused about the same thing, but it sounds like there's you know that it'll be a. Basically they'll be 17. | 00:45:41 | |
Feet closer to the right side of the property, but there'll be no impact on the side. | 00:45:47 | |
Towards you, you and Mr. Cruz, Right. So they would. | 00:45:51 | |
It would be. They'd be closer together and squished in and the the plans they gave, it doesn't show what kind of house it's going | 00:45:55 | |
to be. I mean it. | 00:46:00 | |
We didn't get to see that. | 00:46:06 | |
So but. | 00:46:08 | |
We would really like to see something more cottage. | 00:46:10 | |
And. | 00:46:13 | |
Something creative that you could, I mean, you have green space around the house and not put a big old footprint on the property. | 00:46:15 | |
So we're real concerned and like Mark Campbell said, you haven't seen anything developed because there's no land. | 00:46:25 | |
There, in the scenic corridor, they did build a house a long time ago, but that would be on the in the historic district. They put | 00:46:35 | |
their garage in the back next to Connie. | 00:46:40 | |
So it can. | 00:46:46 | |
And Kane? He sent me a floor plan of something that was narrow. | 00:46:49 | |
And looked really good. You can just punch in house, you know, and pop this one up on the Internet. So I think if you're buying a | 00:46:56 | |
piece of property and such a great spot, real important, that corridor is like you're coming into Watkinsville. I just don't want | 00:47:03 | |
to see. | 00:47:09 | |
Like these two houses close together and then you need some space and and then maybe they wouldn't cut us down. Down as many | 00:47:17 | |
trees. Smaller house. Not everyone needs to live in a gigantic home. | 00:47:23 | |
Nowadays. And then the other thing you guys really need to read is their height requirements. | 00:47:30 | |
If you look at the property, it slopes from the road up and it's there's a lot of drainage that goes across that property. | 00:47:35 | |
But there are height requirements for. | 00:47:44 | |
And I don't know if the builders have looked at that, but. | 00:47:47 | |
From the sidewalk, I think, or the road if you look, there's a real specific pipe requirement, so. | 00:47:50 | |