Zoning Ordinance Update

This coming Monday, May 19th, two important and contentious zoning cases will be coming before City Council.  The first affects the intersection of Old Alabama and Medlock Bridge/SR-141 road, and the second affects over 100 acres of mature hardwood forest on Rogers Bridge Road.  The Planning Commission hearings last week were held before standing room only crowds and we can anticipate the same on Monday.

There is no doubt that our zoning process frustrates homeowners and developers.  We became the city of Johns Creek in large part because of many zoning battles with the Fulton County Commission, and although we changed the decision makers and brought the meetings closer to home, we created our city zoning process by replicating the Fulton County Zoning process with its many flaws.

We now have seven years of experience as a city making zoning decisions and it is time to update our zoning ordinance.  The Mayor has appointed a Task Force, to be led by council members Brad Raffensperger and Lenny Zaprowski, to make improvements.  Problems with our zoning ordinance include having to deal with changing site plans, deferrals, and too many meetings.

A fundamental problem with our zoning process is that the community engagement with the developer occurs after a re-zoning request is submitted to the City for approval.  This forces the developer to be defensive of his submitted plans instead of being open to understanding community concerns.  Changes to the site plan to accommodate community concerns must be done under the pressures of the ordinance mandated schedule, and the city development department has to expend more resources to review multiple plans.  Deferrals to accommodate changing plans exhaust the community by requiring participation in multiple meetings.  We know from experience that the more successful zoning cases are those where the developer engages fully with the community before submitting an application to the city for review.

A straightforward fix to our zoning process is therefore to inform the developers that they should engage with the community before submitting a site plan and rezoning application, and that whatever site plan is submitted is what will be considered for review and approval by the city without the opportunity for further changes by the developer.  The developer, however, would be allowed to request that the city make changes to the submittal.  This change would avoid the need for any deferrals unless requested by the city, and for the need to review more than one site plan per application.  A developer who fails to engage with the community prior to submitting an application risks a greater likelihood of rejection because he will not have the opportunity to revise his plan later.  This will help ensure that the initial plan submitted is the best one possible from the perspective of the developer, and assures a speedy review under a fixed review process and schedule.

Having attended several Planning Commission hearings, including on these contentious cases, I am also concerned about votes taken without substantive discussion about the issues and bases for members voting as they do.  This leaves both the developers and community perplexed as to the reasons for the vote outcomes, and other than the vote tally, passes no useful information on to the City Council to assist them in their decision-making.  A second improvement to our zoning process is therefore to consider ways to increase the value added by the Planning Commission hearing and vote, and if this is not possible to consider streamlining the number of meetings and zoning approval schedule by deleting this step.

I wish the Zoning Task Force success in their endeavors, and encourage everyone to provide ideas for improvements.