Thursday, November 08, 2018
Call to order Welcome new residents and guests (7:38 pm)
Introduce SAND Governing Board
Announcements (5 minutes): Seeking the following positions to be filled: Woodland Hills Neighborhood Representative. Join as a SAND business member for $50/year!
Special Guests (5 minutes)
Zone 6 (5 minutes) – Lt. Crowder, Evening Watch Commander, djcrowder@atlantaga.gov| DON’T LEAVE ANYTHING IN YOUR VEHICLE. Crime is down citywide. Officers patrolling Custer Ave intersections with blue lights on. BKW Bike Lane is being used as a bike lane – body asking for enforcement.
City/State/School/Other Elected Officials (5 minutes per): Fulton County District 5 Commissioner Marvin Arrington – New Tyler Perry Studio, Porche Plant, Georgia State Stadium all in District 5. HOA Bootcamp on Saturday. Blanket Atlanta Love Drive kicking off. Millage Rate: Rate was reduced for the fourth year in a row, five-year plan developed to continue reducing the rate but cover county expenses. Certain departments budgets were cut 20% over the last four years and employees haven’t received pay raises in 10 – 20 years. Revenue-neutral rollback would have caused an increase in three years, so the county opted to not rollback all the way and roll back marginally year over year. A-Z Guide of county services is available online, includes all services the county provides.
Beautification (5 minutes) – Working with Park Pride for the EaThe Porch Press – January-February 2019stwood-Emerson Triangle.
Communications (2 minutes) – Like SAND on Facebook and follow us on Instagram. Submit any ideas for the newsletter to us.
Transportation (5 minutes) – Sidewalks continue to be a hot topic. Help us walk the sidewalks in your neighborhood so we know where there are gaps and where we need to request the city to add sidewalks. Next sidewalk meeting is on November 17 at 10am at Paul Bolster’s house, 660 Woodland Ave SE. Motion to create a comprehensive traffic plan for traffic calming/safety within SAND at the NPU-W Transportation monthly meeting. Motion carries unanimously. NPU-W Transportation meets at 6:30pm on the fourth Wednesday of the month.
Treasurer (5 minutes): Amazon Smile / Kroger Rewards. Trolleys available for $40 unpainted, $50 painted. Net income in October: +$30.
Education/Schools (5 minutes): Parkside Elementary – Zoo Tech: www.gofundme.com/5th-grade-overnight-at-zoo-tech. Need to raise $5,100, currently at $2,700. Please help send Parkside fifth graders to the zoo on Nov. 14.
Social (5 minutes): Interested in hosting a social hour for SAND at your home? Let us know! Trolley Design Contest – Think you have the best trolley? Send a picture to our FB or Instagram, most likes will win a $50 gift card to 3 Parks Wine. December 1 – The Neighborhood Jubilee 10am – 1:30pm. Join us at Ormewood Church for photos with Santa from 10 – 12 (email chelsea@redrobingroup.com). Cookie Exchange – bring two dozen cookies and compete for best tasting and most festive | Potluck lunch from 12 – 1:30; please let us know what you’ll be bringing. Motion to spend $150 for the party. Motion carries unanimously.
Land Use and Zoning (LU&Z)(5 minutes per): V-18-320 – 1274 Danner St SE – Variance to reduce the northern side yard setback from 7 feet to 3 feet to construct an addition | LUZ approved unanimously. SAND approved unanimously. V-18-349 – 627 Woodland Ave SE – Variance to reduce rear yard setback from 15 to 2 feet, reduce northern side yard setback from 7 to 2 feet to construct detached carport | LUZ approved unanimously | SAND approved unanimously. 415 Moreland Ave SE (Krystal restaurant) – Last month SAND voted to appeal the termination of the stop work notice, however, we were unable to get any aggrieved neighbors to sign on to the appeal. Without someone signing on, SAND is unable to appeal. Motion for SAND to file an Open Records Request with the city to get the information and communications used to calculate that 40.4% of the structure was intact | Motion carries unanimously. 525 Moreland Ave SE (Masonic Lodge) – Next meeting is on Nov. 17, 11am – 1pm, at Ormewood Church. Full details at www.525moreland.comincluding surveys and potential site plans. Approval of prior month meeting minutes (below). Approved conditional of the addition of comments from Councilwoman Smith about The Gulch deal. Call to close at 8:52pm.
11/8/18 Edit of prior month minutes: Carla explained that she voted against the independent audit of the Gulch Deal due to a review of that scope requiring an RFP to hire an external entity. She believes that RFP timeline would create several months to execute and combined with the time to conduct the independent audit, would be too substantial of a delay and would kill the project. She also discussed the funding mechanism utilized, the TAD, as well as state sales taxes, to fund the project. In response to a question on privatized streets, she stated that one positive is that the developer would be responsible for paying for and maintaining the sidewalks, saving the city money. In addition, she mentioned that while it might shift development from areas of the City that do pay property and sales taxes, she’s concerned about the equity standpoint of nothing developing in South Downtown, and the hole that exists within the center of the City. She also mentioned that under the agreement $12 million would be provided to the City’s economic fund, the City was being gifted two new buildings that could save the City lease payments, and a new police and fire station. She also discussed that the greater of 200 or 20% of housing developed would be set aside for affordable housing, and that they could preserve space for a future multimodal/train platform within the Gulch.
