Sugar Hill's Development Authority Hosts Kickoff Meeting for Riverlands Master Plan
The City of Sugar Hill Development Authority held a special-called meeting on Thursday, June 27 at 1:30 PM for a kickoff meeting to develop their Riverlands Master Plan.
The audio of the video has been boosted 100% and includes closed captions.
A full transcript is included at the end of the article.
Who Was There?
Development Authority Members Denise Hoell, Steve Graessle, Mark Gernazian, Sheri Emigh, Lexie Crowson, and Council Member/Development Authority Member Taylor Anderson attended the meeting. Development Authority Member Mark Hagen was not present, and no one appeared to be attending via speakerphone.
Three representatives from the development firm Thomas & Hutton were present.
The Planning Director, Assistant City Manager, Parks and Recreation Director, and one Planning Department employee were present.
Two residents of Sugar Hill, including your reporter and commentator from Real Deal Sugar Hill, attended the meeting.
The Chattahoochee Program Director at the Trust for Public Lands, Walt Ray, came in shortly after the meeting started. He had recently attended the May 2024 regular meeting of the Development Authority seeking information about what the City plans to do with its Riverlands property, only to be repeatedly dodged by the Authority.
A City attorney usually attends all of the meetings of the City Council, Downtown Development Authority, Planning Commission, and most of these Development Authority meetings. In fact, the City’s primary attorney is the only person who attends as many public meetings in the City as Real Deal Sugar Hill. There was no City attorney present at this meeting.
Discussion Topics
The meeting opened with the Development Authority members discussing what they wanted to see for the property. Member Mark Gernazian used most of that time to discuss mountain biking, his personal hobby, which is his primary interest in the project.
City Council and Development Authority Member Taylor Anderson said his vision for the property is, “the same thing I've said multiple times, that the mission I see for the property is conservation, recreation, and limited development that would support whatever conservation and recreation is on the property.” Currently, the property is wild and undeveloped and doesn’t entertain many human visitors. The Riverlands property is already about as well-preserved as it gets.
Anderson and Hoell both stated during the meeting that they wanted to increase human access to the property. Exactly who decided the property needed to be opened up to the public and when those individuals decided that was not disclosed.
The general public was never given the option to do nothing with the property at all. It wasn’t an option at the recent Open Houses, or any of the meetings for Envision 100 or the Parks and Rec Master Plan. So far, the City and its Development Authority have just acted as though it is a foregone conclusion that the City cannot completely conserve the land and leave it untouched.
To date, no one from the City has addressed the fact that expanding human use of the property in any way will involve some degree of land disturbance. They also seem oblivious to the fact that conservation and development are diametrically opposed goals.
Timeline
The City presented a timeline for the rest of the Riverlands Master Plan development, starting with the current meeting.
The City intends to hold two more meetings of the Development Authority, one in late July or early August and the next in September, specifically to discuss the Riverlands Master Plan with Thomas & Hutton. A Planning Department employee stated that those meetings would probably also be Special-Called Meetings. The Development Authority also seems on track to hold its regular monthly meetings.
While the City is legally required to allow the public to attend all those meetings, the timing of their regular monthly meetings (second Wednesday of each month at 5:30 PM) and this meeting (on a Thursday at 1:30 PM) suggests that they do not intend to make it easy for the public to attend.
After that, the City plans to have another “Open House” hosted by Thomas & Hutton in September or October. A representative from the City’s Planning Department has previously stated that Thomas & Hutton will present three different Riverlands Master Plans from which attendees can choose. Given the City’s history of public engagement, it’s reasonable to expect that meeting will be yet another sticker free-for-all to decide how to spend potentially millions of dollars on a $12.4 million piece of property and quite possibly incur additional debt.
Thomas & Hutton are then scheduled to finalize the plan and present that version in an Open House meeting sometime in “Fall.” A member of the Thomas & Hutton team stated during the meeting that they plan to have everything wrapped up before the holidays.
Thomas & Hutton
Development firm Thomas & Hutton was represented at the meeting by Project Manager Kyle Bowen, Regional Director of Economic Development Andy Camp, and Professional Landscape Architect Ryan Thompson. According to Thompson, they were not coming into the project with preconceived notions. They primarily requested information from the City.
Comments from the Development Authority
At the end of the meeting, the Chair opened up the floor to additional comments from the Development Authority.
Lexie Crowson stated, “We've been visualizing this and talking about it for a year and a half, at least, just excited now to have you guys on board and see where it goes.”
Hoell stated, “I think there have been some assumptions, made by some folks about the plans for the Riverlands based on the B+C Studios presentation from August, those were all very conceptualized ideas that were kind of thrown out there, so, just to state for the record that we have no, formal plans yet for the Riverlands property. The the Master Plan that's going to be drawn up by Thomas and Hutton, is going to be a reflection of everything from the community and Envision 100, and the market analysis, and that we really want input from everyone in the community, and that we don't have anything planned yet. That's what this whole process is about.”
It sounds like Hoell knows some people who need to be reading Real Deal Sugar Hill. The introductory article from Real Deal regarding the City’s plans for developing the Riverlands details everything accurately, shows video and slides from the B+C Studio presentation, and communicates what Council Member Taylor Anderson said about the presentation.
However, there are multiple discrepancies between the official City talking points and what their own documentation shows in the form of emails, contracts, and City reports. And some of the talking points just fail to line up with common sense.
As Crowson said, the “whole process” to which Hoell refers has now been underway for a year and a half, most of it behind closed doors. Emails obtained from the City clearly show that some City government members had engaged in discussions, some of them very detailed, regarding a boat ramp, tennis complex, and even Airbnb treehouses months before the public input Open Houses.
The City requested the B+C Studios presentation almost a full year before the general public was specifically asked about the Riverlands during the Open Houses in early June.
Hoell says the B+C Studios presentation consisted of “very conceptualized ideas that were kind of thrown out there.” But, it’s clear that B+C Studios put a lot of time into the presentation with direction from part of the Development Authority.
Emails from the City reveal that when the City requested the presentation, they also set up a Zoom meeting between Hoell, Graessle, Taylor Anderson, and B+C Studios. They were obviously excluding the public and most of the Development Authority. The idea that no one from the City ever mentioned the kinds of things they’d want to see on this presentation, or had an opportunity to tell B+C Studios what they absolutely would NOT want to see just strains the limits of credibility.
No one except these attendees knows for sure what was discussed at this meeting, as it was an in-person communication that was not open to the public and cannot be obtained through an Open Records Request. This discussion easily could have - and should have - taken place at one of the regular Development Authority meetings.
Given the initial secrecy, these discrepancies between the talking points and documentation (and common sense), and Hoell’s petulant attitude as she speaks, Hoell’s statement regarding B+C Studios (which is one of the few times that she speaks up so you can easily hear her) seems more like a defensive tactic than a legitimate attempt to provide information.
If the City isn’t all that serious about the B+C Studios plan, then it seems like a total waste of time at best. At worst, a deliberate obfuscation. And, maybe City honchos ought to tell Joel Bowman of B+C Studios they just aren’t that into him, or his plan.
Transparency
The City’s political operators (elected, appointed, and employed) are waging their typical campaign to label all unsanctioned reporting and discussion contrary to their narratives as misinformation. Behind the scenes, there are a lot of greedy little piggies bellying up the government feeding trough right now, waiting for the City to empty the tax dollars into it.
There still seems to be a lot of discussion of the Riverlands development taking place outside the public meetings, and the meetings themselves still offer a lot of bluster in lieu of real information. But if you watch closely, you can pick up on some interesting things.
The Connections
A few minutes before the meeting, Council Member Taylor Anderson, Development Authority Chair Denise Hoell, and Vice Chair Steve Graessle entered the room as a group walking closely together, giving the distinct appearance that they were meeting before the meeting. When Anderson entered the room and spotted Kyle Bowen of Thomas & Hutton, he approached him excitedly and hugged him.
The Sound Issues
As with most of their more recent meetings, they held them in the Community Room of the City Hall, a room with no sound system. The City has been informed of the sound issue. At this point, it is not an accident; it’s completely deliberate. And it seems to mostly be an issue with the Chair of the Development Authority and leader of the meeting, Denise Hoell.
Real Deal Sugar Hill had to use software to boost the audio by 100%, and it’s still difficult to hear everything she says. It’s not an issue with distance from the camera, because Vice Chair Steve Graessle and Planning Director Kaipo Awana were equally far from the camera, but easier to hear and record.
Interestingly, when she spoke later in the meeting to deny that the Authority had formed any plans for the Riverlands property, she was much easier to hear, clearly indicating that she has no problem speaking up when it suits her.
Real Deal Sugar Hill listened to the meeting recording multiple times and has created closed captions for the video and a transcript. There’s a lot of stammering, rambling, meaningless word salad, and people talking over one another at times, so it’s still incredibly difficult to understand everything.
It’s hard to imagine that individuals who are unwilling to be heard and legally recorded by the public in a public meeting are particularly interested in engaging with the public on the Riverlands development. And it’s hard to imagine that people who lack the problem-solving skills to move to a room with a sound system or buy an individual microphone for the hushed Hoell could successfully implement a Riverlands development plan.
The Meeting After the Meeting
The entire meeting lasted maybe 22 or 23 minutes, but after Chair Denise Hoell adjourned it, almost all the attendees remained in the room and began having sidebar conversations. Those conversations went on for about 30-35 minutes, longer than the meeting itself.
I sat in the back, taking it all in. Normally, I stop recording after the meeting adjourns because Real Deal Sugar Hill is here to record and share the City’s business, not personal business that has no impact on City policy or funds. I do listen and take notes if I detect a discussion related to City business, because those discussions really should have taken place during the meeting itself.
Taylor Anderson spoke with the team from Thomas & Hutton most of the time. Given that he hugged Kyle Bowen from the team when he first entered to room, I thought that perhaps the discussion was purely social. However, at least some of that conversation was project-related. It was difficult to hear all of it, as they clearly did not wish to be heard.
Walt Ray of the Trust for Public Lands (TPL) attended as a member of the public. At the regular May meeting, he indicated multiple times that TPL wanted to know more about the City’s plans for the property. The City did not respond to his requests during the meeting and it seems like they may not have responded since. After this Kickoff Meeting, he asked Denise Hoell for a Zoom meeting to discuss the City’s plans. He then spoke to Claire Wetherly of the City’s Planning Department to find out more about the City’s plans for the Riverlands.
Denise Hoell also fielded questions from a member of the community regarding the plans for the property and the City’s policy of requesting that people wishing to speak during public comments provide an address to everyone before speaking. She gave her now standard response of “we’re just figuring it out” and referred him to the Mayor regarding the address policy for public comments.
Toward the end of the after-meeting, Ryan Thompson, the landscape architect of the Thomas & Hutton team, approached me. He indicated that he was excited about the project. I noticed a City employee joined us fairly quickly, although prior to that, the City was clearly not the least bit interested in engaging with me.
I told Thompson that I had submitted an Open Records Request for the City’s contract with Thomas & Hutton (screenshots of the contract are included at the end of this article) and was particularly interested in the part that mentioned that Thomas & Hutton would include cost estimates for the items in the Master Plan. I wanted to get a better idea of when these estimates would be available, because that would be beneficial for residents to see when they’re evaluating the different suggestions during the next round of Open Houses. I didn’t get a specific date as to when these estimates will be complete and available, so Real Deal will be keeping an eye out for these documents, as I doubt the City intends to share them with the public. He did say that he wasn’t completely sure yet what these estimates would look like.
I also inquired about estimates of the ongoing maintenance costs. While Thompson agreed there would be maintenance costs associated with anything built there, even a parking lot, neither the contract nor his comments led me to believe that information would be supplied by Thomas & Hutton. I asked the City if that was something they would be doing and received no response.
After that, I didn’t think I would get much more useful information from anyone there, and the other attendees were heading out.
Correction (7/17/2024 11:05 AM): The original version of this story included two photographs of someone voting at the June 4 Open House meeting and incorrectly identified that individual as Joel Bowman, President of B+ C Studios. A reader informed Real Deal Sugar Hill that the person in the photograph was misidentified, and upon review, I believe the reader is correct. The photographs that misidentified the individual and the statement that Joel Bowman voted at the Open House have been removed. I apologize and regret the error.
