Matildas Request To Be Considered By Milton City Council

MILTON, GA — The Milton City Council on Monday will consider a use permit and several variances to accommodate the relocation of a music performance venue from Alpharetta to the northwest quadrant of the Birmingham Crossroads.

Property owner Curtis Mills has petitioned the city to grant a use permit and variances for 6.48 acres at 850 and 875 Hickory Flat Road, the former location of Wilbur & Rudy's Coffee Cafe, to open Matildas Under the Pines in Milton. The property is zoned AG-1 and C-1, and the variance would allow the applicant to move forward with plans to open an outdoor music festival venue that would be used for periodic concerts.

City leaders will consider the request at 6 p.m. Monday, June 18 in the Council chambers at Milton City Hall at 2006 Heritage Walk.

Wilbur & Rudy's closed its operations in the old Buice Store in June 2017. Matildas, a longtime staple in near downtown Alpharetta, also shuttered its facility in that city after the property owner won approval from the City Council to build townhomes at 377 South Main Street. Matildas owners are planning to open their 2018 season with concerts Saturday, June 16 at The Porch at 531 South Main Street in Alpharetta.

If approved by Milton leaders, Matildas would operate as an outdoor music venue featuring bluegrass, country, folk and blues artists during the warmer months of the year.

The variance requests submitted by Mills seek to replace an opaque fence with a four-board equestrian fence with a 10-foot landscape strip; reduce the activity zone setback from 100 to 25 feet adjacent to the western and northern property lines; allow the facility to exceed maximum sound requirements; eliminate the three-year renewal period for use permits; reduce the 75-foot undisturbed buffer and 10-foot improvement setback to a 10-foot landscape strip next to the western and northern property lines and to delete it for the remaining property lines; remove required landscape islands for the parking lot; increase the rural section building maximum setback from 20 to 430 feet; to allow the parking lot to be located in front of a building; and allow for the parking lot to be situated in one large area.

The Milton Planning Commission at its May 23 meeting recommended approval of the request.

According to a petition posted on Change.org to save Matildas, Mary Jane Potter, operator of the business, said the approval process has become a "political football in the struggle between elected officials (most all of whom support Matildas) and a few, very political, self-proclaimed citizen advocates who have never even been to Matildas."

Potter goes on to say opponents to the plans envision Matildas as bringing a Verizon Wireless Amphitheater to the rural area. She also accused those against the plan of spreading "half truths" about the business owners, the noise level and number of people attending the venue and "even about the disorderly and drunken patrons that will bring crime to the area."

"We know it sounds unbelievable, especially if you have been to Matildas," Potter added.

According to an email blast from local resident Julie Zahner Bailey, the proposed variances are "extensive and violate" what's legally required for the parcel zoned agricultural. She also notes it would set a "dangerous legal precedent" for other parcels in the city that have the same zoning classification. She also states the Planning Commission recommended approval of the project without incorporating conditions proposed by citizens or some that were recommended by city staff.

"The idea of a music venue seemed like a good idea on the surface," Bailey wrote Tuesday. "However, with more due diligence, it has become abundantly clear that such a music venue, as currently envisioned, does not fit the proposed location. This is not about saving Matildas, but instead whether a music venue, with way too many variances and too few conditions, belongs on this specific parcel in the most rural part of Milton. It is that simple."

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