Planning and Zoning Training for City Council and Planning Commission Members
Friday, March 22 at 6:30 PM. Public Can Attend.
The City of Sugar Hill will hold a training session for its City Council and Planning Commission on Friday, March 22 at 6:30 PM.
There are three new Council members, but hopefully, the individuals who were on the Council last year will also attend. They need to learn more about at least trying to keep the City of Sugar Hill out of lawsuits like the one they got into last year over RZ-22-007, the proposed commercial development at Sugar Ridge Drive and Highway 20. In that case, the City Council denied a rezoning request without providing a real reason, was promptly sued in Superior Court, and told by the Court to do what the developer (and perhaps even the City Council) wanted all along.
The Sugar Hill Planning Commission (SHPC) is also gaining two new members, Mark Daniels and Brian Shebs. Daniels and Shebs were sworn in at the March City Council meeting on Monday, March 11. They are replacing Jeremy White, who had officially resigned effective 12/31/2023 (via an email to Planning Director Kaipo Awana and Mayor Brandon Hembree) and Julie Adams, who had indicated to Council Member Tayor Anderson and at the February Planning Commission Work Session that she also wished to step away.
The notice does not indicate that they will be taking questions from the public at this meeting, and they are not required to do so.
I think this is a valuable opportunity for the public to hear the City Council and SHPC discuss these issues, see how they function, and hear where their minds are right now.
It's also a valuable opportunity to hear about planning and zoning issues from a legal perspective. One thing you learn when you do this for a while is that there can be a big difference between what most people THINK the laws are, what the laws OUGHT to be, and what the laws ACTUALLY are.
