City Sneaks in Last-Minute Proposed Draft of Updated Comprehensive Plan
Holding Public Hearing on Thursday, November 30 at 7:30 PM.
A proposed draft of the updated Sugar Hill Comprehensive Land Use Plan produced by the City’s Envision 100 initiative is now available for resident review. The City will conduct a public hearing on the document Thursday, November 30 at 7:30 PM in the Community Room at City Hall.
City of Sugar Hill Planning Director Kaipo Awana verbally announced the City’s intent to release the draft at the November City Council Meeting on November 13. By the time it was announced, most of the meeting attendees had departed after the City’s awards presentations.
The actual release of the draft was not accompanied by an announcement on the City’s Facebook page or the front page of the website. Expecting an announcement that never came, I finally became curious and started looking for it. It is located four levels deep on the City’s website, on a page off of the City’s Planning page.
Someone from the Planning Department sent out emails regarding the hearing this afternoon shortly after 4 PM.
This document largely comes across as a marketing piece, and parts of it are pretty vague although it is supposed to be used as the foundation for the City’s future planning and zoning decisions.
The City begins by trying to detail the community involvement for Envision 100. In reality, the poorly publicized unveiling of this comprehensive plan draft was indicative of the way they handled much of the entire process.
In addition to the “Community Involvement” chapter, there are also chapters with analyses of the City’s demographics, available housing stock, transportation, and green space.
However, the chapter typically of greatest to residents is the one discussing future land use.
What’s New in This Plan?
The City admits that the future land use map is largely unchanged from the 2019 comprehensive plan currently in effect. They did make some administrative changes in the document, such as consolidating the “Neighborhood” categories and renaming the “Downtown” to “Town Center” and “Chattahoochee River District” to “Riverlands.”
Apartments
First of all, the City of Sugar Hill seems to be engaged in a very creative marketing initiative in its description of its “Downtown”, claiming the area is “a vibrant activity center with a mix of uses including retail, service commercial, professional office, medium to high-density residential, civic, and institutional uses” seeming to imply that it’s an equal mix. It also cites the "community greenspaces in this area" and says the “Downtown” is "both aesthetically attractive and functional".
They apparently think they built Avalon or Halcyon, or are well on their way.
The City addresses its buildup of “Downtown” by saying that few properties in the area were zoned for single-family residential and that most properties were zoned at least partially as Industrial, Light Manufacturing, General Business, Highway Service Business, Office Institutional, and Residential Multi-Family prior to their buildup of the area. They chose not to indicate specifically how much of the property was in each zoning classification, and why so much of it seems to have changed from commercial zoning to residential multi-family zoning in recent years.
In this draft comprehensive plan, the City suggests that the idea of more apartments in ‘Downtown” is out, but also makes some vague statements that suggest they might not be.
It notes that a “distaste for apartments was highlighted in the survey and in some roundtables.” Then, it recommends monitoring how well the existing apartments and apartments under construction “mesh with our community” and says that, “In the meantime, the City should discourage new large apartments.”
The City immediately continues that, "this ensures a land use program that encourages smart development of housing in the City center while preserving our neighborhoods across the entire community.” The City is not specific about what they consider to be “smart development,” but the entire statement seems to be an allusion to Sugar Hill’s current hive-mind commentary that politicians put all these apartment complexes in “Downtown” so they wouldn't have to put them behind your house.
The City also says that appropriate land uses for the area are General Business (BG), Office-Institutional (OI), and Highway Service Business District (HSB), which would accommodate increased business development in the area. But, in its final statement on appropriate land uses for “Downtown”, it vaguely says that, "uses and forms permitted by the Central Business District and Town Center Overlays" are an appropriate land use. Considering that apartments were considered an appropriate use before, this statement suggests that they might not completely rule them out in the future.
The only thing residents can safely bet on is that if an apartment complex comes before the politicians currently sitting on the City Council, there’s a strong likelihood they’ll vote as a block to approve it.
Townhouses
The description for the Commercial Nodes character area lists the traditional commercial zonings you'd expect as appropriate land uses. And, the Neighborhoods character area description lists the traditional residential zonings you would expect as appropriate land uses there.
Both Commercial Nodes and Neighborhoods also have the City's relatively new R36 (medium-density mixed residential) as an appropriate land use, saying that it encourages "mixed typologies" such as duplexes and triplexes, etc. "where appropriate given the character of the surrounding area."
Since its creation in late 2020, the R36 zoning has been approved in conjunction with one "cottage court" residential development, and several townhouse developments.
Annexation
The draft of the new comprehensive plan indicates that the City may pursue “strategic annexation” of surrounding areas. The City last tried to annex a large number of parcels through legislation in the Georgia General Assembly with HB 687 in 2019.
Riverlands
The City refers to the approximately 155 acres of City-owned land near the Chattahoochee River as "The Riverlands."
At the beginning of the Riverlands section in the comprehensive plan draft, the City says that the area is "predominantly undeveloped and should remain largely as such," but then mentions anticipated development multiple times. It goes on to say that "a limited area will be useable for commercial, institutional, or outdoor recreation uses." It does not provide specific examples of what that will entail.
Mostly, the draft comprehensive plan defers to "The Riverlands Authority," a new development authority with seven members appointed by City Council members. In November 2022, they were officially sworn in.
The newly assembled Authority began regular meetings this year (without letting anyone know initially). These meetings are poorly attended by the general public, perhaps owing partially to their timing at 5:30 PM on the second Wednesday of the month.
In August, the Riverlands hosted a presentation from a private company with detailed ideas for the area. The Riverlands Authority is currently considering plans for the property, but public discussion of those plans is almost non-existent.
Future Land Use Chapter of the City’s Comprehensive Plan Draft
