'Next 10' Remains Front And Center in Sandy Springs

SANDY SPRINGS, GA -- While the timing for Wednesday's public input session for the Next 10 process was during the height of the summer vacation season, many Sandy Springs residents bypassed that temptation and opted to plan for the city's future.

More than 100 of those dedicated citizens poured into Heritage Sandy Springs on July 20 to view an overview of the draft Comprehensive Land Use Plan.

• View the draft plan here.

The city had complimentary King of Pops treats and dinner from The Varsity on hand for residents to wolf down before the business of the evening got underway.

The Next 10 initiative is designed to put into place how Sandy Spring residents would like to see the city develop over the next several years.

As with previous workshops, various work stations were set up around the room where residents could provide feedback on initial recommendations that were compiled from previous public input sessions. Each stations addressed topics such as Roswell Road, the Powers Ferry area, proposed MARTA station areas, Perimeter Center, transportation and greenspace preservation.

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Deana Rhodeside, a consultant helping the city with its process, told the audience she and her team have been greatly involved with soliciting and compiling public feedback through various methods. As of Wednesday evening, the Next 10 website has received 5,000 unique visitors and more than 1,000 comments, figures she characterized as "outstanding and spectacular."

In its plan, the team has outlined 10 action items for the city to implement over the next decade:

• Create a new development code that will define the expectations and standards for achieving high-quality development through a process that is orderly, predictable, clear and reliable, and that will focus on the protection of city neighborhoods.
• Revitalize Roswell Road into a dynamic main street, through incentivizing mixed use redevelopment of both commercial centers and aging apartment complexes.
• Transform Perimeter Center and the Medical Center area into a vibrant, human-scaled and connected live-work district that is supported by a range of feasible mobility options.
• Focus high-quality, higher-density uses around existing and future MARTA stations.
• Achieve a better housing balance, with a focus on providing a greater variety of housing types and price ranges to enable middle-income and workforce individuals to both live and work in Sandy Springs.
• Redesign Hammond Drive as an east-west connection.
• Mitigate traffic congestion through provision of a viable and attractive range of transportation options, community linkages and “last-mile” connections that encourage people to walk, bike and use alternative transit modes.
• Reduce parking requirements in new and redeveloped areas where other effective transportation options are available, and work with MARTA to create remote lots accessible to MARTA transit and intended to transport employees to and from work in the Perimeter Center area.
• Develop an expanded trail network to connect neighborhoods to green spaces and natural areas, and fund construction of at least one footbridge across the Chattahoochee River.
• Enhance and beautify the city’s public places to provide vibrancy to these places and as a demonstration of city pride and sense of place.

Speaking with Patch before the crowd settled for the presentation, Mayor Rusty Paul said the turnout wasn't a surprise to him, as there's "a tremendous amount of passion around this community."

Before incorporating in 2005, Sandy Springs residents "survived" 35 years of Fulton County land-use plans and community development decisions, and not having the precious opportunity to direct their own future. Now that it is in charge of its destiny, the city as a whole is more than happy to take charge, Paul said.

He also noted residents are appreciative of the city's transparency as well as its desire to reflect the community's will.

The biggest takeaway he's seem from community input, Paul added, has been the call by residents for the city to manage growth. When it incorporated, Sandy Springs adopted the rules and regulations of Fulton County "with the idea that we would fix them as we went through time because we knew there were flaws."

That didn't go as plan due to the recession that began in 2007. For six years, the city had no projects, so "that refining process" was put on hold. Fast forward to 2013, "somebody flipped the switch and we were inundated with a lot of proposed projects."

It was at that time the city began to understand that the rules they had on hand -- the ones they never got around to revising -- were outdated and "woefully inadequate." That's why the city implemented 3 moratoriums on development in an effort to fix things on the fly. When that turned out not to be effective, the city decided to wipe its entire process clean and start over.

Once the Comprehensive Plan is in place, the city will begin to work on policy revisions that will institutionalize what is spelled out in the document, the mayor stated.

"We want to be able to visually look at what the community reaction is and...we did that process with City Springs and we've done it with this," he said. "It allows everyone to visually see what their fellow neighbors and fellow citizens think about these different ideas and that will spark even more conversation."

One resident and native Sandy Springs citizen, Paul Brown, is a property owner on the southern tip of the city. Brown said he hopes the city will continue to come up with ideas it can implement that will keep traffic flowing in and around the city.

The metro Atlanta area will continue to grow, so it's only imperative Sandy Springs come up with best practices to move motorists and pedestrians alike efficiently with, through and around the city.

Resident Mary Sanford, who lives in Aberdeen Forest, said she believes the city is doing a "good job" with the Next 10 and Comprehensive Land Use Plan process. However, she said she wants to see the city continue its commitment to protecting established neighborhoods and prevent "encroachment" into those areas.

She also said she'd like to see Sandy Springs attract quality housing that will benefit the city as a whole.

"People need a place to live, but they need nice apartments," she added.

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Images via Kristal Dixon