I'd like to call the November 11th, November 6th meeting of the City of John's Creek Planning Commission to order. At this time, I'd like to ask everyone to please silence or turn off your cell phone. The Planning Commission is a recommending body to the Mayor and City Council and we follow guidelines and conjunction with a public hearing to assist in formulating a recommendation. Copies of the Planning Commission procedures and staff reports are available at the entrance to the chamber. Following the agenda, the presiding officer will call cases for public hearing. First, the presiding officer shall recognize planning staff to present the case and recommendations. We will then open the public hearing. The applicant shall receive a time period of 10 minutes to present their case. Concurrent variances are granted 10 minutes each. The time is kept by planning staff. The applicant may choose to use their entire allotment or reserve a portion of their time for a bottle. Any member of the hearing body upon recognition by the presiding officer may ask questions of the applicant or agent of the application. The period of questions from the planning commission is not deducted from the applicant's time period. Opposition is granted an equal time period per application to present data, evidence, and opinions. If a large number of people wish to speak in opposition, it's advisable to designate spokesperson to make the presentation. The city is not obligated to provide the full time period to opponents if they elect not to use their time, and the opposition is not granted a rebuttal period. Any member of the hearing body upon recognition by the presiding officer may ask questions of any person giving public comment. After completing this process, the presiding officer will indicate that the public hearing is closed. Upon closing the public hearing, the planning commission can no longer be addressed by the applicant or the opposition. The planning commission will ask questions of staff at this time. Once all questions have been asked and addressed, the presiding officer will call for a motion. And if properly seconded, we'll call for a vote. The presiding officer will then state the vote in recommendation for the record. We'll start by recognizing the commissioners and attendance this evening, starting from my left. Commissioner Katson, Commissioner Non, Commissioner Sanders, Commissioner Carmwell and Commissioner Horton. First item on the agenda is approval of the August 1st meeting minutes. Is there a motion to approve it submitted or changes to the minutes? I'll move to approve the minutes I submitted. Also I could. Motion by Commissioner Sanders to approve the meeting minutes as submitted, seconded by Commissioner Horton. All in favor? Say aye, Richrayam. One abstention. So the motion passes 5-0-1. Meeting minutes are approved. First item of new business is a revitalization plan for Medlock Bridge and State Bridge Road. and state bridge road. Good evening, planning commissioners. As mentioned, this item is for the consideration of the re-ballination plan. Just as a format, there will be a presentation tonight. Just a little now. It will be a tag team process between myself and DM Murphy with the size more group, who is the consultant that assisted us with this process. Murphy with the size more group who is the consultant that assisted us with this process. Good evening. Thank you all so much for allowing us to come and present tonight. We are very excited to be nearing the end of the process. It's been a really great process with staff as well as the community. So the agenda for tonight, we wanna go over a few logistics who the team was that worked on this, that what the projects scope, the schedule and the goals were, we'll talk about some of the community engagement, and then we'll get into the recommendations. We had recommendations focusing on place making, development concepts and street scapes, and then a little background on the study area viability and the economic benefits, and then we want to talk about the implementation plan, what those next steps are. So to start with our team, we had leading the planning and community engagement efforts were size more group. I am a member of size more group, and so we had a deep team working on this process. We also had a great consultant looking at economic development and market analysis in Noel Consulting and David Lobby who is actually the lead from that team was a group here in John's Creek and his parents are residents, so he was very excited to take a deeper dive in the market here. We also worked with Kimlee Horn and CPL. They were looking at transportation and landscape architecture. They had smaller roles and I'll go over why that is especially in terms of transportation. The project scope overall was looking at these main items. We, well, I'll start with the study area. The, for our study area, we looked at the four corners of bedlock bridge at state bridge road. So you can see that pictured here. It's all four commercial properties, large commercial properties and parcels that touch that intersection. The areas that we looked at started with an existing conditions analysis so that was looking at what the existing land uses are, what the transportation concerns are, what the overall topography is, and to make sure that we had a good understanding of the existing conditions. We did the market analysis, as I mentioned, Noel Consulting coming in to do that work. And then we had a robust community engagement process, and I won't go through all the points here because I'll go over that in a moment. And then our redevelopment plan included site planning and land use considerations for all of those commercial properties. We looked at place making as a way to complement and light touches to really create a brand for the area and then connectivity was key. So if we make places that you want to be we want to make sure you get there. So we wanted to make sure that that was considered. And last but not least is what do you do after you have the plan? So we have an implementation plan and includes a 100 day action plan and we'll go over that later on in this presentation as well. Our overall schedule you can see here, we started in April of this year. We spent most of the summer doing community engagement and developing the plan recommendations and we are here today to ask for your approval of the plan which will then go on to planning her to the City Council at the end of this month. We created a series of vision and goals and this really came from our community engagement as well as our general understanding of the area. The vision is that this plan aspires to cultivate an attractive, inviting and walkable Medlock Bridge, state bridge district that serves the surrounding community while providing a vibrant gateway into the city of Johns Creek. And that was really built off the goals on the other side of this slide. We wanted to focus on walkability and bikeability. The idea of creating safe, multi-moldal transportation, as I'm sure you're aware of this site as adjacent to Johns Creek High School, and there's a lot of student traffic that comes from this area So we're on to make sure that we were creating safe access throughout. This is a gateway into the community on the southern end of John's Creek. So we wanted to make sure that this had the Vibrancy of a true gateway into this community Creating lively mixed-use pedestrian oriented destinations Green space was something that came up quite a bit more green space a lot of surface parking in the area and how do we make this more attractive and softer feeling. A sense of character was important and similarly with that understanding of the history, the Warsaw community has a strong history at this intersection so we wanted to make sure we considered that, and then improving intersections and roadways. With that, I'm going to have Ben jump in to talk a little bit about health wellness and innovation. Yeah, just to tackle this. So we had a rebranding as you all may know, we have the three sort of flags as part of our logo. The colors are now tied in with a certain initiative. So the orange ties in with the health, blue as wellness and green as innovation. And that's sort of our new tagline as a city moving forward in what we wanted to target as a vision. That stems from city council. And we want to also show the connection of this project specific to those strategic initiatives and how the connectivity place making an infill development as we mentioned in terms of pedestrian connectivity, place making, providing activated green spaces and also preserving history, ties into the health and wellness portion that it provides physical health options, the mental and social well being as well as education and social well being again from a historical standpoint. And the innovation part would be, again, moving forward with the connectivity, streetscape enhancements, and infill development. We're looking to reduce vehicle traction in the area to provide more multimodal connectivity. Tracting diverse businesses with quality infrastructure and attracting and supporting the next generation of talent, providing housing, providing the use that would be well received by young professionals in key industry. So again, that provides some sustainability from a talent standpoint for the city as well. And just want to use a slide to show how it all ties in with the overall vision of the city. Thank you. So to talk a little bit about our community engagement, we started off by interviewing property owners. With any change in an area that is private property, majority, we wanted to make sure that we were talking to that community. Who owns this property, who's managing these properties. So we had stakeholder interviews. We had about 10 of those small group meetings. We also had a specific meeting that we invited all property owners to come to. And so we got a lot of good information and feedback that way. We had three community engagement sessions. We had our first meeting was really a kickoff about visioning and understanding what the community wanted to see happen at this intersection. The second was our draft presentations. And the third was a coffee walk-in talk that Ben, you may have seen his video. He is maybe famous now in the John's Creek community. So that was about the walk and talking, really taking people to these sites and talking about what the potential is that has come out of this plan. We also had an interactive map on a program called social pinpoint where you could go and actually pinpoint ideas of what you want to see happen on specific locations. And then listed here is this meeting with you all in the planning commission and then we will also be going to the city council at the end of the month. This is an example of the social pinpoint mapping. We got a really great amount of feedback and turnout on that. So you can see a lot of little notes and then we created a word word cloud to kind of describe some of what we heard a lot of interest in creating more people spaces more connectivity safer modes of transportation to get around. So now I'm going to get into our recommendations. I want to start with this slide because to us connectivity was key. And as I mentioned earlier, the transportation component, we didn't do a deep dive into the automobile movement because it is such a big issue. It's a study of its own. It's something that the city's already been looking at. So while we had transportation consultants on our team to understand implications of what we were recommending, we ultimately did not make recommendations on intersection improvements. But what we did look at is that pedestrian and bicycle connectivity. So this map here shows the existing conditions. So everything in yellow is an existing sidewalk and in green that's the existing multi-use trail. So you can see there's some holes, there's some areas that we could enhance. And so this next slide shows you some of our recommendations there. Everything in dashed green is a proposed new multi-use trail. And so we're really looking at creating a minimum of 10 foot sidewalk or multi-use trail as we're calling it to get around this community. The advantage of that is that we're connecting to the surrounding neighborhoods so we can get people more safely in without getting in their cars. And then we're also connecting potential tunnels. So all those yellow rectangles, I think there's three of them on the map there are proposed pedestrian bike tunnels that would actually go under these roads. We want to make sure, as I said, that we're not conflicting with the automobile traffic. We're trying to create awareness of pedestrian movement, but we're ultimately trying to create safe opportunities to get around. Also on this map, you can start to see our place making recommendations. So they're numbered here one through four and I'll go or one through five. I'll go over each one of those independently but I wanted you to see them all on the context of the area because they all interact and they're all connected and that was really key to this working. So our first site, this was site number one, this is the public site on the northeast corner of the intersection. So you can see state bridge road is on the south and to the west is Medlock Bridge Road. The ultimate, ultimately we started with the connectivity and you can see that multi-use path along the rear of the property Oh I forgot about that Okay, see if I can control it So you can see on the top end there is a multi use trail that connects into the shopping center in two areas, one along this side, and then also in the center. In this area here in the center of the shopping district is an existing retention pond. And what we wanted to do is enhance that, not create a huge event space, but just more beautification around that spot, where you can actually come and maybe have lunch back here, even just coming through you have something better to look at than just a fenced off pond We also connected that straight through with a little alleyway breaking the building Creating opportunity for if for example if this becomes a restaurant in the future you could have a little cafe in the alley We can have murals, some landscaping, and really make that more attractive place. That would connect straight out to this infill opportunity here. One of the things we noted early on is the entrance into this commercial development is confusing and dangerous. So it's very wide. When you come in, you don't really know where you're supposed to turn to get into the parking lot So it causes a lot of conflict So we wanted to create a more streamlined entrance and make that a little more clear Directionally and how you get in where you go So we also have a cross road that connects you to the parking lots on either side And then start looking at infill development along that road. More of a main street feel into a retail space. We're looking at green space in there as well. So kind of in the front, western side of that new road structure would be some green space. That's an opportunity for someone who maybe goes to public and grabs something to eat, can go out and enjoy that, same much much there and be surrounded by other retail activity. We looked at some other areas for little pop-up green spaces really playing off of where there's already medians and green areas that we could incorporate art or more landscaping to really make it attractive. The tunnel that we showed before connects here to the site across the street. And it's there because of the topography. We've got a lot of opportunity here where the roadways are the high point and you drop down significantly in some areas into parking. And so we could take advantage of that so that you're at grade in the parking lot to connect into this tunnel and you're going underneath the road and you're at great again once you get to the other side. So moving across the street, we're now looking at the Target and Home Depot sites. And as I mentioned, this is that pedestrian bridge and we would come into a little plaza space with some small commercial at that corner. We're envisioning like a coffee shop where you have some outdoor cafe seating, maybe a little play area. But making kind of a place that's engaging within the front of the development. A lot of the recommendations on this site are about connectivity. There were already established a sidewalk that runs from Medlock Bridge Road straight down into the target facade. And so we wanted to mimic that to really help connect to those out parcels on the roadway down to the target and home depot. And then anyone parking has a lot safer access into the developments. Something I did not mention on the other one, but you'll see here as well. In front of the developments, we have this patterned roadway. That's the existing drive in front of the buildings, and what we are recommending as an effort to brand, but also make more safe pedestrian environments is to do some kind of fun creative painting in front. It can be the same at each site, it can be slightly different, but it allows automobiles to know that there's a pedestrian, this is a pedestrian access area, and so we're trying to make it safer overall. But it's also fun and beautiful and something that can showcase this as a gateway site. We're also showing a couple green spaces so you can see one over here near the T shop, one here on the top of the development along Menlock Bridge, and then one next to the target. And all of these are existing green spaces. We're recommending to enhance them with maybe additional landscaping or maybe in some cases just seating, benches, tables to really allow for people to have more access to the outdoors instead of just parking lots. This one connects a bridge underneath Medlock Bridge Road. This way to the Regal Site, and we'll go there next. So on the Regal Site, we'll get into some more detail about the infill development, so I'll just talk about the place making opportunities here. We looked at opportunities for green space, first and foremost. And so in front of the regal cinema, we're showing a green space where you could have pre-function events or it's just a pass of park otherwise. So a place to just go grab lunch, a place to just meet up with some friends. On the other end of that, the intersection of Medlock Bridge and State Bridge Road, we are showing another green space. This area is sunken below the roadway and so it's an opportunity to just create another area for engagement that can work with the existing retail that's sitting right here. We are also showing a connection between these two green spaces down the center and we're seeing this as more of a main street feel. One of the options for this is to make it pedestrian only so that you can have an area where you can maybe even have an open container law so that there's restaurants, other retail, and it's just a more compact space for pedestrians to engage. And again, you can see that same little ribbon in front of the retail to continue that branding and that safety element. The other thing I'll mention here is the history. We had a local resident who has done quite a bit of research on the history of the area who shared a lot of information with us. And so one of the sites, historic sites is the Redbrook House that's proposed to be noted with a Stork marker or some kind of structure on this site. This site now removing north, so we've got Medlock Bridge Road on the right here, in State Bridge Road on the south. This site is where Pike's nursery is, if you're familiar, sits right here. And so this area has a lot of small parcels, not a lot of movement with creating big place-making ideas. But what we found is that there's a lot of history here. And so this is where the Warsaw Elementary School is, and so the opportunity to create a historic walking trail that connects you to the existing John's Creek Greenway proved a really interesting opportunity. And so what we're envisioning there is just a sidewalk, maybe a six-foot sidewalk where you can have historic markers that talk about the history of the area. The oak tree is, to our understanding, is historic as well. So having some kind of idea that that is boasted upon. And then a mural potentially on some of the existing businesses to really create some idea of the history and the culture of the area. And our last place making site is really right at the intersection. We're recommending throughout, enhanced signage and landscaping, something that's consistent throughout. This could be done with design guidelines, so we are recommending that ultimately to make sure that that's consistent. And then we are recommending creative crosswalks. And so you can see those on either side of state bridge, here and here. Those are state bridge is a city owned road. And so we have the opportunity to do some kind of coloring in the sidewalk that allows for vehicles to know about the pedestrian traffic and just make it more aware and potentially safer. We cannot do that on Medlock Bridge Road as easily because it is a state route so we focused on the route that we have capabilities on. So now we'll get into the development concepts. And as I mentioned, that's really just on one site. Through our market analysis, we ultimately were given some information on the value of each property. And so you can see that's what this graph is here. So on the left side is the Home Depot and, oops, maybe the room button, Home Depot and, oops, maybe in the room button. Home Depot and Target Site, and the value of that property is high. The actual dollars per square foot, there's not a lot of room for redevelopment. Similarly with the publics, the value doesn't really warrant a redevelopment. The site that they saw the most potential for is Medlock Crossing, which is that regal site. Ultimately, the assets there are important, but there's a lot of extra land. It's actually over parked for what is required. And if you've been there, you may notice that there's a lot of empty parking all the time. So there's potential to infill that site with development. And so that's what we looked at to really understand how can we create some Infill development here to create higher and better uses. Ultimately the better we can enhance the development, it will attract better tenants, it will attract more, you know, better keeping of the property, which is all things we heard from the community. The actual demand that we heard overall is there's a lot of demand for residential, which is not surprising. I think that's anywhere in Metro Atlanta you're going to have demand for housing of all varieties, single family all the way up to multi-family. And then an additional retail of potentially $440,000 square feet. When we talked to development companies, when we talked to the owner of the property, to make their performer work, they want 250 multi-family units as part of a redevelopment. We heard very loud and clear that is not what the community wants. So we wanted to come up with some creative strategies to look at how that development could happen. So we have option A, and in an effort to, in all of this is an effort to keep densities down. So as you can see here, we've got our two pocket parks. So I'll start with where we left off, our pocket park here, and then our pocket park here and then our pocket park at the intersection with a main street connecting in between. We've kept essentially all existing retail on this site and looked at infilling with retail along that main street with housing above. And in this case to keep that number of housing the density down, we looked at the option for age-restricted rental housing. So 55 plus that ultimately those numbers are to make the performance work are generally less. And so we could get our densities down a little lower. In order to do that though, we would require parking decks. And so that is a consideration here. We've also infilled with townhomes so that we have some for sale products on the site as well to try to balance that for sale versus rental. Option B keeps a very similar configuration. We have our pocket parks on either edge and a main street down the center. This here we are showing that main street as that pedestrian only main street. And in effort to again keep the density down we looked at four sale products. So if we did condos above retail on that main street we can get our numbers down we don't need parking decks and then we're looking at stacked flats within townhome construction. So that's essentially two units per townhome, but they would be for sale product as well. So we heard that as the community wanted to see more for sale over rental, we looked at these opportunities to see how we can configure that on site in a way that a developer would be interested in moving forward. we can configure that on site in a way that a developer would be interested in moving forward. Here's the option B concept and this is that pedestrian only main street. You can see the activity of outdoor seating, potentially music playing on a fall afternoon on a Saturday and people just congregating and hanging out. Now to get into our street scape recommendations. We are going to show you three areas that we focused on state bridge road, bedlock bridge road, and bedlock crossing. As I mentioned, we didn't make transportation traffic recommendations, but we wanted to focus on what that experiences for the pedestrian and cyclist. So we looked at street scapes standards along all roadways. So this is state bridge road. The image in the upper left is the existing condition. We are not looking to reconfigure lanes or shorten lanes unless we had been told by the transportation department. That was something that was on the table. But ultimately, you can see right now that the sidewalks, let me get to my, the sidewalks are about five feet on either side and they're abutted right to the road. So working within the right of way, we can do what's pictured in the proposed section in the middle there, and that's to create a nice landscape buffer, some wider sidewalks at 10 feet, and really create a nicer pedestrian experience. In the ideal section, this would be going slightly outside of the right of way, so this would take collaboration with private property owners, but in that case, we're trying to create a bigger buffer with the landscape. If you've walked down those roads, it's fast-moving traffic, you don't want to be close to that. So we're trying to create some better buffer for the pedestrians there. Medlock Crossing Parkway. Whoops, moved here and out there. Medlock Crossing Parkway, you can see the existing conditions pictured on the left. You've got a five foot sidewalk on the left side and an eight foot sidewalk on the right side. So we're proposing, there was actually a sufficient right of way to propose our ideal cross section. And so in this case, we're recommending a 10 foot sidewalk on either side and a five foot buffer from the cars. And enhanced landscaping. side and a five foot buffer from the cars and enhanced landscape. Excuse me, enhanced landscaping to get shade and beautification of the street. And then our third recommendation is on Medlock Bridge Road. In the upper left you can see the existing condition. You have eight foot sidewalk on the left side and a five foot sidewalk on the right side with no buffer. And so again, we're trying to create some more buffer. So on the middle option is working within the existing right of way. We're proposing eight foot sidewalks on either side and a buffer and to fit in the right of way, we're only at about three feet. We're only showing street trees on the outside. Ultimately as a state road we are restricted on how close street trees can be to the actual road so we're recommending working with those private owner property owners to do some street trees. But the ideal section if we can get a good partnership with those private property owners and find the space, we're looking at a five foot buffer on either side, a 10 foot sidewalk on either side, as well as some maybe crate murals or what they call breakaway trees is something that the state does allow. So looking at enhanced landscaping there as well. I'm going to hand it back to Ben. Yeah. So a couple things in terms of the viability Related study area that I wanted to share. This is actually Placer AI data. This is data that is collected from our essentially Your phones when you travel to a particular site. And just wanted to show the existing sort of data points Here. So on the left hand side, when i'm comparing So let's just show the existing sort of data points here. So on the left hand side, what I'm comparing here or what the information that's comparing here is data from September 2023 looking at the three corners. The only corner that's emitted is the area with a pipe nursery, sort of the mix match of various uses that are there. But we're comparing midlock corners, state bridge corners and midlock crossing. So in September, so just last month, the number of visits, so publics had 120 visits, state bridge, the target home depot as we assume, they had the most amount of visits at $193,000. Regal cinema only got 95. So there is, from a market standpoint, just purely from the market data that exists today, it does show that there is less viability in that area. And when you break it down into square feet per visit, the visit per square foot for the public is 1.34 people per square foot, target home depot 0.67. Again, this has to do with the overall leaseable area as well. But again, Bellock Crossing is at 0.6 people per square foot. And now when we go down to the annual sort of data point, it reflects pretty much the same information I was shared with you. So from a period of October 1, 2022 to September 30th, publics had 1.5 million visitors. Staples targeted home depot at 2.7. And Medlock had 1.3. So obviously, Medlock has some variables also that would I would assume that would come into play, depending off there was a, I guess, like a hit movie that came out there may they expect more sort of visitors to come to that site. If you don't have as many of those types of movies that come out, you would have less. But if we break it down again, visitors per square foot, you have 16.94 visitors in the public's Hobby Lobby compared to 8.2 and regal. So you have double. It's just a public's in Hobby Lobby, right? As sort of the anchor to that area. And understanding that publics, it does serve a large neighborhood, a large number of residents in that area, because either it's publics or whole foods that you have in terms of options, but nonetheless, you could see the economy in terms of the visibility and the visitors for those two shopping sites. And one more thing to point out, publics is is only 90,000 gross leasable area, whereas MedLaw Crossing is 159. So even then, when you take that into account, they have much less number of visitors. The other thing that I wanted to do was also highlight, just sort of come up with the most comparable sort of commercial use. That is non-injons Creek, but had a movie theater in it. I didn't necessarily want to compare them to Avlon, because it's just a different piece altogether. The next closest thing that was off of 141 is Petri Corner's Marketplace. They have the NCG. This is where they have a burger thigh, a lafittness, I believe, and Chick-fil-A. The comparison is this, the size of Petric Corner's marketplace is 73.3,000, sorry, 73,000 square feet, where again, Melal Crossing is 159, right? So it essentially is double. The number of visitors per square foot for Melal Crossing is 8.22, whereas Petri corner is 20.47. So albeit they do have an active sort of gym in terms of LA fitness, the movie theater and so forth, but they do have a lot more different sort of dining options that are available there. But when we're looking at that total square feet, Melal crossing again in that time period of one year from October 2022, September 23, is at 1.3 million, where again, half the size of Regal, Petri Corner's marketplace had 1.5 million visitors come to that site. And so the other graphic that it's hard to see and I apologize for that down here is when you start comparing from the place or AI data that they collect for similar developments. Medlock crossing always falls within sort of the median, the standard deviation, right? Whereas for instance, Petri Corners marketplace, when compared with their counterparts of similar size, they're all in like the 90th percentile in terms of the visitors that come onto the site. So obviously there is that economy of visitors based upon usage. The other thing again, it's down here, is the same thing, same data that we see for the three centers. The Regal Medlock Crossing, I apologize, is the actual data point on the bottom. And again, it shows very similar data points. The other and the last graph here essentially it's, again it's number of visits during time periods. So as you can see the daytime period of visitors and the green is the regal men not crossing. You don't have much during the day. All that occurs in the evening. And again, I don't know if that also coincides possibly with WALFA House percent and the movie theater and so forth, but that may be the case, but they do have NARA, they do have RE, so again, it's more of a restaurant, nighttime occupancy versus daytime. Daytime, most of the driver is going to be Starbucks. And so that's what we found from the data that further supported sort of our own observations that we see on a daily basis. But also the place to aid AI data essentially confirm that. So just wanted to share that. The next item is in terms of how this project in itself provides economic benefit for the city. One obviously is from job creation or at least that's the hope. In terms of redevelopment coming into this area, are we able to track higher quality restaurants, retail, potentially office, and also providing a halo effect outplay off of John's Creek Town Center, and Marie Hospital along this quarter of 141. So hopefully it's the fact that it would be drawn to mixed use concept. That's what we see in the market today. It's enhanced with activated green space, open space and branding. That was the goal that we wanted to push forward in terms of the additional outdoor amenities that come along with this space. Yes, in return for the density, what you get is this activated open space for the public to use. And we also want to preserve and enhance the balance of commercial to residential when it comes to land use and also tax base. We don't like to talk about tax base but it does have an impact on us, right? When it comes to current breakdown of land use, currently it's, of our land use is total, we only have 17% of our land use of the city is dedicated to commercial use. 83% in terms of residential. I think we also wrote in the comp plan is only 7% of land use within Medlock. When we look at that from a tax based standpoint is actually 85% residential to 15% commercial. So we don't have a lot of commercial to begin with. How do we go about preserving, enhancing, sustaining and creating that viability for our land use and our tax base, and that's a key component, right? We're not, there's no room for us to essentially expand on commercial, so we have to enhance it. Just as a comparison point, Alphoretta, their tax base segmentation, 60% commercial, 40% residential, significantly different from us. So again, being able to preserve puts less burden on the residential aspect when it comes to the tax base. And then hopefully the goal is increased spending power. We talk about increased spending power. I think we heard that enough times when we did the town center when Medley came on. That is the fact we know it. But at the same time, how do we, I think, Randall Tucson with our economic development department says, how do we stop the leakage of retail, which is about $1.1 billion that goes out to other jurisdictions and that doesn't stay within John's Creek. We have to create these opportunities to provide that ability to spend within the city limits. And we hope to do that by creating trails, sidewalks, tunnels, and that connectivity as well. So our last section here is to look at the implementation plan. We have three tiers in the implementation plan based on priority and timeline. So, and then we have our 100 day action plan. Our tier one looks at updating zoning ordinances to be more agreeable with what's in this plan. Establishing design and landscape standards for the area, as well as updating the signage standard. So a lot of this is about the beautification and then in land uses. Tier 2 is focusing on that sidewalk and trail in fill. Also looking at activating the green spaces. A lot of this will be with private property owners. And then also looking at place making at the intersection specifically of state bridge and medlock bridge. And so that included those crosswalks that you saw in the imagery as well as landscaping and signage. Tier three would be to explore establishing a dedicated arts fund to help pay for some of this place-making opportunity. Looking at the tunnels underneath State Bridge Road, as well as enhancing the streetcapes throughout the area. In the next 100 days, our recommendations are to amend the comprehensive plan to be in line with this plan. Look at area branding, identifying and creating design standards for the branding mechanisms that we talked about, as well as creating site selection and broker packages. So in order to attract the type of development you want, we want to make sure that it is sold correctly into the right partner. And our next steps is ultimately here tonight with you all and then again with the council at the end of the month and so thank you so much for your time. Thank you for the presentation. Of course. Great information. At this time we will open the public hearing. So we'll start with anyone who wants to come forward and speak in favor of the revitalization plan and there will be 10 minutes for that and then we'll have 10 minutes for opposition. So I know we'd like to come forward and speak in favor of the plan. Seeing no one, we will close that portion of the public hearing. Anyone who'd like to come speak in opposition, I got one card from Mr. Reineke. So I assume you wanted to speak in opposition then. I really don't want to speak in opposition. I'm mostly first plexed by this whole thing. So I'm neither like supportive or in opposition. I'm kind of trying to understand what we're trying to accomplish here. So I watched the video, but then did a great job. A great job, Ben. That was a great video in terms of describe again. So then I really read the plan. What I did was, Ben's 40 minute internet wonder, which was nice. And I'm just trying to understand what we're sort of trying to accomplish here. I'm sort of disappointed that we don't have the property owners and the businesses here to speak in support of this plan. You know, the first ten minutes. Because I live here and I would hope that the property owners and the business owners would have come today to say, hey, this is great. We love it. We want the city to do this. And unfortunately, we didn't have that. And that's kind of a big part of this whole thing, right? For the city, just go off and do its own little thing and come up with a study is, yeah, so what? But critical to this is getting the businesses to come forth and say, hey, really, we really want to partner with the city. This is what we see. We agree with what the planners have said. We do want to improve our landscapes and all of that kind of stuff. And then we'd be all excited about that. So I'm just kind of wondering what we are sort of approving today without the participation of those critical stakeholders. Because to me, it looks like just ideas and suggestions from our consultant. And I'm open to suggestions from anybody. I'm not putting anybody's suggestions down in this process. But unless you get buy-in from the end user, where those recommendations are going to go, do these property owners really want to do this? Or do they have a different view? So what are we approving here? We don't own this property. We can have pretty pictures with trees and all that kind of stuff, but we can't plant those trees. That's not on our property. The only thing I saw in this plan so far Is the suggestion that the city might build for pedestrian tunnels and maybe plant some trees along the streets. Okay I'm not sure that's going to revitalize this intersection I'm not sure that's going to revitalize this intersection. I don't know what will revitalize this intersection. Okay, we all know that retail has its hard times. We know that current fat is mixed use in apartments. We also know that we've been told many times that we are over residential in this city. And we really don't want to give up our commercial space to more residential because that's what people want to build. You know? So I look at this plan and the original idea between the Comprehensive Land Use Plan was to get enough commercial in this area to have critical mass and have it boom so that businesses can feed off of each other. And if we give that up and we put in whether it's apartments or town halls, call it town halls, call it what you want, they eventually get rented. I don't see how that increases our property tax base, right? And that's what we're really trying to do in this city is to maintain our commercial and really vitalize it not replace it with apartments. Okay. From what I see so far, the public's foreigner is happy and they're not going to do anything. We can write this plan but nothing's going to happen there. Okay. They're going to cut down the tree and they're going to build a shake shack. And that's in the drawing. The Home Depot target intersection, nothing's going to happen there, man. We all go to Target and go, I'll go to Home Depot. So we know that by a road travel. And the one that's critical is the Regal Cinema, right? And how do we revitalize it? So what is there that's in this plan that the city is offering to revitalize that intersection? I'm not sure there's anything in there, okay? Unless we were proposed to build an art center by some of that property or something, create a public park or something like that. But I don't see that in this plan. I don't see the city volunteering to add a component to attract a crowd to that area. Okay, I see it more like, yeah, well, let's try and find the developer that will do this for us. But we're not developers. Now, first thing the developer's gonna do is take your pretty plan, throw it in developer is going to do is take your plan. Throw it in the trash, come up with his own plan. He's going to do the economics on that plan and he's going to tell you what he can build. Again, I don't know what we're quite approving. I'm not in support, I'm not against. I'm wondering what we're doing doing is the city taking on marketing? Are we going to be selling this property on the behalf of somebody? Are we being paid by regal by the owners of the regal corner to go out there and create a document and sell it to developers? Are we acting as their real estate agent? Are we going to put together representations as to what the city is going to do for this corner? I'm kind of leery about this marketing plan a little bit because we all know from experience that once we put that something down on writing, we're held to it, right? And then we're kind of committed. Also the implementation plan, you know, there's things in here like update the club, update your ordinance. Is this document that we're creating a top level document in which we are proving going ahead with those changes? Or is this the document with just suggestions that we might consider for updating the club on the ordinances, but we may not. Right? I mean, has it a fair, complete decision once you approve it that we're gonna change the club and make that apartments are allowed, town halls are allowed? That hasn't gone through the community all that much. Okay? Remember what you have here is a consultant-prepared report with citizen input. I would much prefer to see a citizen prepared report with consultant input. If we're going to change our ordinances in our club and I would really like to see much more participation by the ultimate stakeholders, the property owners and the businesses, where they're really saying, this is what we want. We see business success here. Because there's the guys with the money. There's the guys that are at risk, right? I used to be a consultant in the United. I'm sure you've been a consultant. We can say whatever to anybody because it ain't coming out of our pocket, right? And that's reality. So I'm neither in support or whatever. I'm just curious as to what's being approved tonight. Really, when you say we're approving this, what are we saying? Are you saying go ahead and implement this plan is written? Where are we just saying thank you consultant? You've given us a good number of suggestions. We'll consider that. But we need to do something a little different here. Maybe we need to see where the business owners are on this whole thing. You know, see what it is. The city really sees it's going to revitalize it. I don't think sidewalks, trees, tunnels are necessarily going to revitalize this thing. In my suggestion, I thought that what we need is some sort of theme for this thing, like an entertainment center, and maybe change the zoning ordinances to say, hey, we want bowling alleys, we want movie houses, we want bars, we want places open late at night, we want party venues so that we can have some night life at that regal cinema corner. And then we will do something to bring that night life to be. And I don't know what the city contribution will be in that regard but You know what brings a crowd together, you know At night, okay, because these are three different is corners We all go to home people we all go to target a lot I go to target and hope people a lot We all go to public a lot. I go to Target and hope people a lot. We all go to Publix a lot once a week, right? But we don't go to the movie house once a week and we don't go to a bar and all that kind of stuff and we don't have nighttime venues and all that kind of stuff. And so the flow is a little bit less there, but I would like to see more bars, more dining venues, more dining venues, more party venues, more bowling alleys, more fun parks or whatever at the regal corner. And I could see, changing the ordinance to say, well, what are the allowed uses, for example? But I didn't see anything about that in this presentation. I didn't see anything about that in this presentation. I didn't see anything about changing the allowed uses to make it more of a nighttime venue, you know. It seems like I know we're at Sleepy Town, we all roll up the sidewalks at 5 o'clock and we don't party at night here, but we need some nighttime uses in this town. We've struggled with some of the other shopping centers where we've tried to have venues and all that kind of stuff and they go bankrupt and all that kind of stuff. Maybe I'm only the party animal around here, but I think that would help revitalize that corner. It turns to suggestions. Anyway, so I'm not going to rant on forever I could but I'm struggling with this whole thing. I think we've got a report from a consultant with good ideas. I don't see anything unique or exceptional. It sounds like we can do the same thing that the forum did. We can do the same thing. We can have another mixed use facility with more daytime shops. So you can see that that's different. Excuse me, Chair. Time's up. I use all the time minutes. I didn't mean to hog it from anybody else. Thank you for your comments, Mr. Rioniki. Appreciate it. If anyone else would like to come speak in opposition, I'll free up another minute or two. No one, in that case, the public hearing is closed. We will move on to questions of staff Ben. I've got a couple of questions for you. I'd get started. Just for my own clarification, I think I know where we are in this process. And again, thank you for the detailed presentation this evening. So much like we did for city center, much like we did for land use plan updates. This is a conceptual idea. This is kind of step one in a multi-step process. So applications to this, so nothing we do tonight will impact current zoning laws or zoning ordinances. impact current zoning laws or zoning ordinances. This is just an approval of a conceptual plan to redevelop that space. It's a master plan, right? So essentially planning towards the future. If there was any development that was to come up within that four corners, this is sort of the guiding document that will be used. And that's why we would tie this document back to the comprehensive of the new plan. Right, so once, let's just say that, again, theoretically it's approved. I recommend if approval goes back through council and they approve it. Once there's an interested party or parties to come and actually complete this work, it comes back again before us. Correct, they would have to go through a zoning process. Through the whole process. Re-soning process altogether. Understood. Yes. Okay. That was my primary question. We can run down the kind of whole table who would start with Commissioner Horton this evening. Any questions? That was good to go through that, Chip. With respect to that property,, the Regal Center property. Yes. I understand the owner said in order to make it work, I need 250 multi-family units. Outside of that demand, what was the reaction otherwise to the concept of redeveloping that from the owner? So from the owner, we've only had discussions directly with the broker that's assisting the owner in that process. We spoke with them. We talked with them. Of course, they're going to always throw out the highest and best use from their standpoint. Obviously, we're in the business of trying to balance all those interests out together out from the property owner standpoint, from the residence standpoint. Obviously we're in the business of trying to balance all those interests out together from the property owner standpoint, from the resident standpoint. We did have opportunities to speak with business owners as well, because they were curious about this process. They heard rumblings from their customers and so forth. And they too know that that property is at a point where it's going to be put up for sale. It was originally put up for sale earlier this year in February of 2023. They had a couple of interests but none of the interests could work within the current sort of the zoning or the land use plan today knowing the actual cost of the land itself. The rate of return won't be the same if you were just to add on commercial. So we wanted to look at it from a balanced standpoint again, looking at it from a mixed use, well, it would be the housing type that would be most appropriate for this area. And in addition to that, how do we add more additional commercial value? I think that was what was brought up by Mr. Rannicky as well. There's 160,000 square feet, I believe, and we're looking at adding another 40,000 square feet of retail as part of this mixed-use proposal. Right. OK. Thank you. And then one other question. Again, assuming that we approve this, with respect to the residential component, there were several options that we had. There one was much more geared towards ownership. The others may be a little bit different. Where is the opportunity that we have to ensure that the residential is the right mix of ownership and and renting? Is that is that now? Is that when it comes in front of us for a request to change zoning? This was a question that was already asked by Commissioner Sanders as well. In the report in itself we provide you two options, option A, option B. From the staff standpoint we would like to push Option B versus Option A. The ownership aspect of it is more important to us. And so that will be part of the actual comprehensive land use plan update, where we would reference that specific option of Option B. One other thing just to answer is one of the questions I came up in just for those who may not be very familiar. Let's say for instance, even if it was apartments, regardless of their rental apartments, there are tax as commercial buildings, structures, properties, totally different from the way they're taxed from single family homes. So in this particular case, even if it's a condo, it would be the same thing. There would just be a condo association. There would own their individual units. But in terms of maintenance, cost that goes into upkeep and maintenance of the property it would come from that specific property. The city will never go in and have to do repaving of the driveway in any which way. So there are tax like commercial entity. Okay. Let me ask this one more and then I'll be done. When the land use plan is re-redone and the, this is given consideration again if it is approved by us and by council. Do we have the opportunity at that point to review the recommended changes in the land use plan and make sure we feel good about that ratio at the time. Yes. So just like the town center, when we do the update to the common plan, it will come to the planning commission for recommendation. And also after that, let's say that gets approved and someone's interested in developing that property, they will come again through the planning commission through the rezoning process. That's one. Good. Thank you. That's all I have. Mr. Carmel. Yeah, hi. Just want to thank you guys for doing such a wonderful job and working through different communities, doing our preaching stuff. I just have a few questions. So on this plan overall, why is the traffic being left out? Because that's a key component here, like traffic. So why is it left out? Yeah, so it's not necessarily intended for being left off. This is actually just based upon the scope that was given to us when we initially pushed this project through city council and the budgetary aspects that were given to us as part of this project. So the scope was very specific to land use and looking at from the revitalization aspect of this four corners. The other aspect to that is we do have G-DOT that has to be a partner in this so that makes it a little bit more difficult because multiple variations of traffic improvement was considered within that intersection. Nothing is really stuck with council. We did do some capacity improvement after the 2018 conference of plan where we added additional lanes on the southbound and the westbound on State Bridge Road. We do have $5 million that are set aside for this particular intersection for transportation and improvement. So it was just one of those things. We try to balance all those interests out together. What GDOT is just a little bit more difficult for us to implement what our desires are because it has to go through them as well. And at some point in the future when that, when it really takes up that project of improving this intersection, we'll have an impact on this too, right? Yes, most definitely. And the other thing was we're looking at it from the standpoint of, okay, if we cannot directly impact that aspect from improving that intersection from a, you know, vehicular standpoint, what else can we do? that aspect from improving that intersection from a vehicular standpoint. What else can we do? And that's what we push forward from the connectivity multi-modal standpoint. The other aspect that I want to point out specific to the regal cinema as it exists today, because the middle-of-crossing parkway has the two lights that provide that connection from the back end of the property. Going in and out from state bridge and middle-of-bridge is relegated to just a right and right out so there's different impacts that also come along with that as well so we took that into consideration. Okay now are we doing as part of those neighborhoods around it so are we creating new access points to the neighborhoods? No not to the neighborhoods no it's difficult it's not always going to be the trails and everything right? The trails and so forth is still difficult like for instance if I was to give you an example of the St. Ives, all those houses back up directly onto the commercial property behind publics. And so if we were to ask for someone to give us an easement in between two buildings, two homes, and highly that would be the case, so our connections are always going to be off the main roads. And so that's what we're looking at, additional sort of cross. What we essentially moving from sidewalks to greenways. And what that comes up to being is essentially the size, the width of the. So that's what we were pushing for everything going from five feet to eight feet or ten feet. And so that's that greenway where you have multi-motor you could do. You can have bicycles as well as pedestrians on the same. Yes. Also on this whole rezoning stuff, like the existing restaurants, existing businesses, let's say we go through the process, we change the codes, do they have to comply again or they are grandfathered in, so they don't have to, you know, like it's just a cost to the businesses, right? So to be honest with you, we're not looking to change any of our zoning ordinances when it comes to zoning districts to accomplish what we're recommending. In that space, right? Yeah, what they would do is if they were to apply for a mixed-use zoning district, which we already have in our zoning code today, all the uses that exist today are the C1 uses. They would be able to migrate into that mix use zoning district. So there wouldn't be any conflicts. There's just going to be additional businesses that will come up as far as possible. It gives the possibility of more businesses being able to locate into that area. And hopefully, higher quality tenants that you may be able to pull in. Another question on the metlock crossing, that area, recalls area. When we put this, this is a good trend going on right now, I have mixed use, some condos and stuff. Would it be possible to put a limit on the rentals? Like if you want to encourage ownership, could we do something there that we can say, OK, you can do only 10% rental or some? you know, it's possible. What it comes down to you, you don't want like investor buying in and running it out, right? Yeah, so I mean the challenge is you could always put conditions in. It's a matter of how do we go about enforcing that, because we're not the ones that are going to be approving the lease. Essentially that means we would have to have some type of partnership where we go in there and say, hey, you're limited to 10% rentals in terms of the number and we would have to see if they would provide us that information. But it's always a possibility. We have done that in that past and for single family districts as well. But it's just the challenge of enforcement. Also, with all this plan, I think one thing that I saw was the lighting. Are you guys doing the lighting improvements also? We could bring a lot of walkways and stuff around having if you want to promote people walking in the evenings to be planned to do a little bit more lighting the alleys and stuff. So we didn't put in lighting, per se, from Mars standpoint. I mean, that is something that falls in the realm of like public works. So we always try to work with them. It may not always be something that's actually shown on paper, especially along the right way. But when we do road enhancements like Kimber Bridge is an example that they did in terms of the widening. They did put new light posts, benches and so forth. And those are something that we try to implement as a programming aspect for any road improvement. So just one last question. What's the timeline we are looking at for this, you know? It's hard to say right now just because the market is the market in terms of interest rates going up, funding becoming much more difficult especially for these types of housing. It's not such a bad thing for us anyways. It's for us to get ahead of what development may come in and that people, whoever is interested, is aware of what we're looking at as a community, as a city for them to tailor it. And if it doesn't work that way from a financing standpoint, then so be it until we get someone that may be interested in putting in what we want to see. All right, thank you. and putting in what we want to see. All right, thank you. So I'm looking at this more as the comp plan said, no housing in this area. And this is more opening it up to, again, everything that comes forward has got to be resumed. But it's opening up to the potential of investors coming in and developers coming in because let's face it, that regal one is a dinosaur and it needs to be redeveloped. But the way that the comp plans are written right now is probably not conducive to developers coming in and saying we might be interested in doing this and then then it falls to the planning commission and the city council at that point to say Oh, hell no, we're not doing that but this at least opens it up Whereas the comp plan as it is now Basically is saying no, we're not gonna allow it so I'm I Don't see any downside to doing this because we're not changing zoning. We're just saying, hey, we're open for business. We'd be interested. So. And you'll see when we come. I know that's hard to believe that I said that. And you'll see when we come up with a language that we provide for you as part of the review of the comp plan in itself, we'll keep that element of, you know, infill housing is limited to this and that and will be very specific in a language to this particular Interception and so if we do approve this can we put a condition on it that we are approving it with option B Oh, yeah, you're welcome to do so and I'm actually that would be great because that's what we recommend as well as part of the plan Okay, that's all I got Okay, that's all I got. I'm sure. Okay. You have to question. I'm good. Great work. Really, if you have thought this through, very family with that intersection, anything will be an improvement in seeing the compactor at the back of Starbucks driving by. So definitely option B, two parking decks and then middle of that, it's just not even an option. And an option B, so I understand this is really high level, we have done this now four times at the comp plan with Medley and everything. So what we are doing today is just setting a very high level framework. City doesn't own the place, so it has to be some developer coming back with 10 separate things. And we get an opportunity to weigh in again, right? So, yeah, I'm very happy with the plan. Everything looks great. So that would be my input. Mr. Katson. Thank you. Gatzin. Thank you. Ben, question. Will the acreage that will be disturbed require a state review as well? No. We are local issuing authority. So we do all the development reviews and else. Even for the acreage that will be disturbed. Correct. Okay. My concern is the transportation side of this. I fully understand why it's not a component. Thinking towards the future, when one day this awesome idea does get the attention of a developer and a team, investors and whatnot for an opportunity to enhance this city. How can this get tied to, can this get tied to road improvements, traffic calming, those sorts of things. Or can this get a site plan, design documents, submit a permit, it gets approved without any road improvements? So I'll say this. They would have to go through the rezoning process, and as part of the rezoning process, this trigger would be beyond just a trip generation report. It would be traffic impacts that he would have to submit. So we'll be able to sort of evaluate based upon what they're proposing and the traffic associated with that at that time. Okay, and in the presentation, the slide with the data on it, I was taken by the 183% residential, 17% commercial. That's about what it was like when the city was created, isn't it? All these years and it hadn't changed much. It hasn't changed. Okay, it needs to change. Thank you. That's all. Thank you, Ben. Is there any comments or is there a motion? I'll make a motion to approve the revitalization plan of Medlec Bridge Road and State Bridge Road as presented with one condition that we would approve it with option B not option A. Also'll second that. So we have a motion by Commissioner Sanders to recommend approval of the consideration for adoption of the revitalization plan, option B, second and by Commissioner Horton. All in favor, raise your hand. Motion passes, 6 to 0. Thank you, Ben. 6 to 0. Thank you, Ben. Next time on the agenda, new business, zoning ordinance text amendment 823002. Okay. Thank you, planning commissioners. This item is related to the medical cannabis dispensaries in John's Creek and making sure that we regulate them accordingly. And this stems from recent inquiries from operators that wanted to establish a medical cannabis dispensary in John's Creek, although they didn't specify the area per se, it was just them going through the due process of understanding our regulations and when staff thought about it, we quickly found out we don't have one. So we need to go ahead and implement it. This is much like the vape and smoke shop amendment that we brought before you last year. Again, this is again stemming from the moratorium that was approved by City Council in August 22nd, and it was a three month moratorium. So we're ending that this month. And hopefully we could get this through to City Council by the 28th. I'm not going to go into all of the details from the legal end of it in terms of the house bills that were established by the state. But essentially starting in 2019, house bills were essentially legislation was adopted by the state to allow for production, manufacturing, and also dispensing of medical cannabis. And in order to qualify for medical cannabis license, you do have to get prescribed by a doctor. And once you are, you would have a card and you're able to go and purchase the required dosage for that medical need. But one thing to quickly point out though is Georgia access to medical cannabis commission. They're the ones who regulate this particular legislation related to the dispensaries. They issued two licenses for a total of nine dispensaries. One license was issued to true leave for locations in Evans, making Marietta new and in in Pula. And the second license was issued to botanical sciences, which says dispensaries in Shamblay, Marietta, Pula and Stockbridge. And as you can see within the metro area, it's shambling in Marietta at this point but they do have opportunities to locate in other areas in the city as well are in the metro land up. As mentioned we did enact at 60, sorry, 98 more toriam starting on August 22nd. This will go to planning commission as the city council on November 20, 28th. So staff reviewed five adjacent jurisdictions, Alfredo Doraville done Woody for South County and Roswell and we reached out to every one of them. We found out that for the five jurisdictions, Alfredo Doraville for South County and Roswell require conditional or special use permit, requiring Mary and council hearing and approval. Only Rawnswell allows, as a use by right, to industrial zoning districts, Alfredo opted to impose stricter distance separations. They go by the state. The state just requires only a thousand feet of separation from schools, churches, government buildings, parks, residential dwellings, et cetera. And then Doraville limited the total number of dispensaries within the city by imposing a city wine cap, it's based on per capita, and also limited the gross floor air of medical cannabis dispensaries. So again, this is just going back to the history or the research that we completed, the differences that we do find. Dunwoody is the most sort of the lenient. They did actually research for a year, maybe a year a little bit more. They did even travel to Florida to get additional data. I can put that into the budget request this time for us to go. But we're able to experience that through Dunwoody. But the main thing is this, So allowing medical marijuana dispensaries in the higher intensity C2 zoning is what we're proposing. Much like we did with the vape and smoke shops. And the reason why we do that is there's only five C2 zone properties that are available in the city today. And realistically it's more like four. And so they all have specific zoning conditions and our site plans that apply to them. There again, there's additional protections, but it doesn't necessarily limit the possibility of a medical cannabis dispensary to be located in Johns Creek. In addition to that, we'll incorporate a greater distance separation requirement from public uses, facilities, substance treatment, rehabilitation facilities, and so forth. So, we're going from 1,000 to 2,000. Oh, sorry. Going the wrong way. And so the following is what we're proposing to add into this zoning ordinance is defining medical cannabis dispensaries. And the most important thing, like I want to mention mention to you is, again, no medical cannabis dispensary shall be allowed within 2000 feet of any residential dwelling. Again, we expanded that from 2000 to 2000 and also residential substance abuse diagnostic or treatment facility, any licensed drug or alcohol, rehabilitation facility. That was a suggestion that was made from one John Screek, when we had that discussion with them before we consulted with them before bringing this to you as part of the planning commission and our recommendation. And then adding the religious institutions, the early care and education programs, public schools, colleges, government facilities, parks was another thing that was suggested by one John's Creek, so we added that. In addition to that, let's see, sorry. We had one more requirement. Trying to find out here. We also put in a requirement for distance separation between cannabis dispensaries as well as the businesses themselves. So providing all those protective aspects and when you do really greatly limits the opportunity for such a business to locate if they could find one or they would have to go through a rezoning process. And again, we just added that into the C2 zoning district as allowable use. And that's all we have and hopefully you will consider our recommendation. Thank you. Thank you, Ben. At this time, we'll open the public hearing. If anyone would like to come speak in support of adoption of the zoning ordinance text amendment. I'm going to speak in support. But I have a question, which is I'm not familiar with the four C2 zoning locations, but I wonder if the combination of the C2 zoning restriction and the distance restriction means that there is no location available in the city. And maybe the director can speak to what the combination of those two requirements actually means in terms of These are the actual locations because that's not very visual. Let's text Okay, I'd like to know where in the city all those requirements could be met maybe I'll open one, you know, but I'd like to know Thank you, Thank you mr. Ryan And mr. Ryan he filled out a card if you'd state your name and address for the record please Which is like to get it on me? Yes, please. Yeah, my name is Oli Senswell, and I'm the program director for one John's Creek I appreciate you opening the floor. Just we totally have worked with Ben and the development department and appreciate the fact that they have really thought through the health, wellness and innovation portion and how this affects our young people. So One John's Creek is a coalition and we are working to reduce substance use among youth while promoting community wellness. And so how do we do that? This is just one of those steps in preparation and advocacy. So the things that we've considered are proximity to playgrounds at schools, what that looks like, how it's accessed, limiting hours and density and population and so forth. What does that look like for us? Avertising, because as soon as we open one, the advertising will come. And also, like promotion, how is it promoted at festivals and concerts? How will this actually impact us as a city? And then also compliance checks, it's going to impact our policing as well. So I do think the zoning will impact some of those. Additionally, just some things that globally, so medical marijuana is going to be the first step for marijuana legalization. It has been in many other states. If anybody's interested, I have a 71 page report from Oregon and from Colorado from Learn About Sam, which is smart approaches to marijuana. Additionally, if you look at the production licenses allowed under Georgia law, there's 400,000 square feet from marijuana cultivation. Careful research by both Sam, which I mentioned, and GRMP, which is Georgia Responsible, marijuana, of Georgians for Responsible Marijuana Policy shows that they will have enough capability to produce THC for 800,000 patients taking 40 milligrams of THC per day per year. As of March 8th, there were 26,000 people on the medical marijuana registry. When supplies exceed demand like in California and Oregon, as mentioned before, the marijuana surplus results in both decreasing state and local tax revenue and increase in black market and cartel activities and farmers going out of business. So unlicensed dispensaries may also try and obtain business licenses here in John's Creek which we have to be aware of. As a city of health wellness and innovation some things health wise to consider people who are smoking pot in the 90s, not the hippies in the 60s, they were getting about 4% THC. That is less than the 5% THC that will be sold through the dispensaries. That is currently legal under this medical cannabis law. 5% THC is enough to cause impairment. There is no age restriction. An 18-year-old can obtain a medical card without parental knowledge, and which will give him or her access to 20 milligrams of THC per day every day. In other states, some 18-year-olds have used that to their advantage, buying the limit each day and selling it to younger teens and adolescents. There are 16 current conditions listed in the hope act, but research doesn't support using THC to treat these conditions. CBD has been approved to treat seizure disorders, epilex as a prescription form of CBD approved and tested by the FDA.ilex as a prescription form of CBD approved and tested by the FDA. Marinoids, a prescription form of cannabis, approved to treat loss of appetite and severe nausea and vomiting and patients undergoing chemo. So THC is the for many medical issues. The use of THC is also linked to many social ills such as but not limited to increased traffic incidents, crashes, fatalities, lower academic success, lower levels of motivation, and creates rates of youth use, mental health problems, including psychosis and suicide, especially among youth. So as a member of the, I actually have lived here in the city of John's Creek for 28 years. So as a citizen and as a member of one John's Creek and working to reduce substance use among youth, I just would ask you all to consider as your vote. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Enzo. No one else is here to speak on either four or against, so we will close the public hearing. I don't have any questions for staff. Does anyone have questions? Yeah, Anyone? Commissioner Katz. Thank you, Chairman. Then I do have a question about the enhancing the distance requirements. What was the impetus of heading into that? Well, one, again, feedback that we got from one John's Creek when we spoke with them. Second was looking at other jurisdictions as well in terms of what they looked into in terms of enhancements related to specific areas, again, parks, schools, residential districts. Were they at 1,000 or were they at 2,000? Most of them were at the 2,000. And I guess the minority was the 1,000 that just relied or defaulted to the state's distance requirement. So we just sort of did a combination of the suggestions and what we found in our research as part of our recommendation. Did you have a chance to do a map overlay to see if there are any properties that are outside of those restrictions? properties that are outside of those restrictions? I'm just thinking that the restrictions and the type of functions they have to be away from just seems very limiting. The key. I don't know if it's totally limiting. It is very limiting just putting in that residential dwelling separation requirement. And the reason why I say that is most, if not all, are commercial properties back up to residential uses. And so the C2 properties that I mentioned to you, those four essentially are right here, six bridges, that's the C2, but they're adjacent to an apartment complex. You have the club corner's car wash, which is at Medlock and State Bridge Road. They may be the ones that possibly can meet the 2000. Maybe not, because they back up to St. Ives. The other one, and this one has the greatest potential of them all, is the actual car wash at the corner of Kimball Bridge Road and State Bridge Road. So that's the property that may have the opportunity. At the gateway to the city. The gateway to the city. Interesting. And then the other one is the use. That's one way to promote the city. And the use card dealership on Abbott's in 141. That's the other seat too. So yes, it may be a gateway now. So if there is a company that identifies a spot they want to come into, can they apply for rezoning and go through consideration, community input. Correct. They would have to go through that entire process of rezoning. Okay. Thank you. That's right. Any other questions or is there a motion? on it. Okay. Thank you. Sir. Any other questions or is there a motion? I'll make a motion to recommend approval of zoning ordinance text amendment 823002. I'll second. Motion seconded by Commissioner Katzen. All in favor? Motion passes 6 to 0. Thank you all. Mr. Song. Yes sir. And the party dates. Yes, sir and I'm not dates. Yes, sir. I do have some sad news to share Yanchin is gonna be resigning from the city of Johns Creek affected November the 17th So next Friday would be our last day She is moving on to Gwinnett County and we're hoping the best for her and I think you Gwinnett County to Gwyneth County and we're hoping the best for her. And I think you're Gwyneth County. Yeah, and she'll be, she's very excited about that opportunity. We're happy for her as well because she's put in a lot of work for us and we're very thankful for all the hard work that she did completed for the city. The next thing is I will be sending out the 2024 meeting calendar and so that you can take a review. One thing that's gonna be interesting this time and you're going to see a lot of changes here and there is because council actually changed their meeting dates. It's actually now moved back to Mondays, but it's now based upon a three week cycle. So it starts every three weeks, I think from January 2nd, if I remember correctly. So from that point on, every three weeks is the council meeting. So some months there may be only one council meeting. Some months there may be two and what that does, that impacts planning commission unfortunately as well as the board is only appeals. And that there won't be much consistency unfortunately in terms of how we meet and when we meet. But I just wanted to share that. Yeah, so there will be Tuesdays but it will be Tuesdays because it wanted to share that. Yeah, so there will be Tuesdays but it'll be Tuesdays because it moved to Mondays but it may not be the second Tuesday of the month, you know, so it's going to change and it's going to vary because again we have that also along with the schedule of, you know, spring break, elections and so forth that all comes into play. But I'll share that with you so that you are familiar with what we're proposing. Our next meeting is not yet correct. Jim? No, you never know. Do you have an idea for me to have a shot? Yes, sir. Now I'm done with this. A revisation plan. I can open it up to having these discussions. Yes. Yes. Yes. Most of that for all. Right. Thank you, Ben. All right. Yes, sir. Nothing else. We'll move to adjourn. I'll second that. All in favor? Meeting is adjourned. Thank you all.