Tag Archives: Alpharetta

The Avalon project in Alpharetta moves forward

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Below is a statement released yesterday by the City of Alpharetta. It is a call for public input on the zoning application submitted for a new development to replace the rotting parking garage currently sitting at the doorstep of our city on Old Milton Parkway.

I encourage all of you to participate in this process. It will have an enormous impact on our community, our quality of life and our property values for years to come.

We Want To Hear From You

North American Properties, the new owner of the 80-acre site at the northwest corner of GA-400 and Old Milton Parkway that was formerly known as Prospect Park, has submitted to the City ofAlpharetta their proposed plan for developing the site. As envisioned by the owner, the project, now named “Avalon”, would be a development consisting of retail, office, hotel, and residential uses with additional outparcels set aside for future sale or development.

While the formal public hearings for the Avalon Proposal are tentatively scheduled to begin on March 1st when the proposal is presented to the Planning Commission, the City ofAlpharetta is seeking early feedback on the owner’s plans.

Please take a few moments to visit our Open City Hall online discussion about the new Avalon Proposal.  There you can view the proposed site plan for Avalon and the table comparing the uses proposed by North American Properties to those that were approved for the formerProspectPark.  Then, let us know your initial impressions, thoughts, concerns or suggestions. Your comments may be helpful to North American Properties as its plans are further refined and may also assist the Planning Commission and the City Council as they consider the proposal.

Also, please consider sharing this opportunity with your friends and neighbors.  We want to hear from all interested citizens.

Thank you for your participation.

James T. Drinkard
Assistant City Administrator, City of Alpharetta

“T-SPLOST list doesn’t spend the money where the traffic is”

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Kyle Wingfield recently had a new column about Georgia’s proposed transportation sales tax increase, the T-SPLOST. Here is an excerpt that is particularly relevant to the residents of Alpharetta:

What’s more, 46 percent of the people in the 10-county region live OTP in Cobb, North Fulton, Dunwoody and Gwinnett. Likewise, 46 percent of the T-SPLOST’s projected revenues — $2.83 billion out of $6.14 billion — come from that northern swath.

Yet, the current project list would leave this region well short of its proportional take. Even if we include some federal funding tabbed for projects in the northern suburbs, they’d get shortchanged by $150 million. And you may as well ignore another $132 million for studying future transit along 400 and 85, since those two projects would be hundreds of millions of dollars and a decade or more away from existence.

Worse, about one in four dollars devoted to the area would go to a single rail project that would barely cross into Cobb.

Still, we are only now reaching the coup de grace. That would be Ellis’ wish to suck yet another $33 million out of the 400 corridor.

Doing so would leave an area that provides almost half the population and revenues for the T-SPLOST — and way more than half of the region’s traffic congestion — with barely one-third of the proceeds.    (emphasis mine)

Transportation is one of the biggest issues facing the city of Alpharetta and we do need a regional solution. But it becomes more apparent every day that the T-SPLOST is not that solution. Before we waste any more time I hope our state legislators will realize that we need a real solution and stop wasting precious time on a proposal that is destined for failure.

I encourage you to read the whole column here.

High Density = High Traffic = High Pollution

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Common sense tells us that cramming 500  condos onto twelve acres of land will create more traffic and pollution than putting 50 single family homes on the same parcel. But common sense isn’t always the prevailing wisdom so it is nice to see this article on the newgeography.com website.

For years, regional  transportation plans, public officials, and urban planners have been seeking to  densify urban areas, using strategies referred to as “smart growth” or “livability.”  They have claimed that densifying urban areas would lead to lower levels of air  pollution, principally because it is believed to reduce travel by car. In fact,  however, EPA data show that higher population densities are strongly associated with higher  levels of automobile travel and more intense air pollution emissions from cars  and other highway vehicles. In short, higher emissions cause people to breathe  more in air pollution, which can be unhealthful. (emphasis mine)

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To put in the economic terms that appear so often in  planning literature on “urban sprawl,” more intense traffic  congestion and the consequent higher air pollution emissions are negative  externalities of smart growth and densification.

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There are myriad difficulties  with smart growth and livability policies, not least their association with  higher housing prices, a higher cost of living, muted economic growth, and decreased  mobility and access to jobs in metropolitan areas. As the EPA data show, the  densification policies of smart growth and livability also make air pollution  worse for people at risk.

Alpharetta voters should take the time to read the entire article linked above because the new Comprehensive Land Use Plan being proposed by Alpharetta’s Community Development Department calls for more of the same high density developments which exacerbate the traffic issues we already face.

“High-density Housing Reflects Dense Government Thinking”

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I see that Aussies are struggling with the same phenomenom we face here in Alpharetta:

Citizens in Australia’s major cities  are becoming increasingly unhappy about what they perceive as the escalating  deterioration in their quality of life – traffic congestion, overloaded public  transport, unaffordable housing for young people, increases in the costs of  basic services and overcrowding. There is little doubt that recent election  results and unfavourable opinion polls are partly an expression of this  dissatisfaction.

‘Save Our Suburbs’ believe that  these adverse trends are the result of high-density policies that have been  imposed onto communities by state governments. Due to the misleading  misinformation that has accompanied these policies, the public may not fully  realise the connection between these policies on the one hand and deteriorating  standard of living on the other. It is only when one sweeps the propaganda veil  aside that one realises how shallow, trivial and sometimes downright deceptive  the spin has been.

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We reiterate that we have no issue  with those of us that prefer living in a high-density area or with the free  market construction of buildings to fulfill that limited demand. What we object  to, is having draconian high density policies based on demonstrably faulty  premises forced upon the 83 per cent of people that Australian research shows  prefer to live in a free-standing home.

This is especially so when the  result is maddening traffic congestion, more greenhouse gases, a creaking and  overloaded infrastructure, the young and disadvantaged unable to afford their  own home and poorer health outcomes.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

And isn’t it fascinating that the same urban planning dictates we see in Georgia are being forced on suburban communities half a world away? I wonder how that could happen.

You can read the whole thing on newgeography.com here.

 

“The Fashionable Oxymoron of ‘Sustainable’ Development”

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A reader sent me a link to the article below and it was so powerful that I am reprinting the entire piece for my readers. It was written by University of Georgia Professor Emeritus R. Harold Brown, an Adjunct Professor with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, and permission is granted for my use of the material on their website here.

The Fashionable Oxymoron of ‘Sustainable’ Development

By Harold Brown

What is so attractive about concepts that defy definition? The concept du jour is “sustainable,” a fashionable adjective for many objectives, an umbrella for many agendas.

“Sustainable” development is the ecologist’s goal, the new urban trend, the green way to build. A “sustainable” world is the promise of salvation for future generations. The U.N. Millennium Declaration (2000) states, “The current unsustainable patterns of production and consumption must be changed in the interest of our future welfare and that of our descendants.” The U.N. 2005 World Summit Outcome contained some form of the word “sustain” 58 times in 38 pages.

Yale and Columbia university centers, which jointly rank countries for environmental “sustainability,” put the United States between Armenia and Myanmar in 2005.

But what does it mean? What are we trying to sustain?

Webster’s Collegiate dictionary has eight meanings for “sustain.” The first is “to keep in existence.” Neither this nor any of the others suit the adjective now tied to environment and development. Sustainable development is an oxymoron. A developed property is not sustained. It’s changed. Development is not meant to keep things the same.

So, is “change” the facilitator or the antagonist of sustainability? If “sustainability” means changing a practice to maintain an existing enterprise, the possibilities are endless and the concept useless. The horse and carriage were changed by eliminating the horse.
The carriage (and a way of life) was improved. Was it sustained or eliminated? That’s the problem: “Sustainability” can justify any course of action if defined carefully.

A Web site for the federal Environmental Protection Agency explains that widespread use of “sustainability” started with “Our Common Future,” a 1987 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. That report defined sustainable development as, “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

This presumptive definition requires knowledge of the needs of future generations. The notion is ridiculous that we can manage the resources of future generations. Thinkers of five generations ago would have wished for a better horse and buggy or a quieter steam engine.  Had the “sustainability” experts gone to work to forego fossil fuel to “save  the earth,” today’s world would be more impoverished than we can imagine.

Five generations ago, nothing was known  about the potential of petroleum fuels. Today, we know nothing about the fuels five generations hence. It is arrogant and pretentious to claim to know the  needs and limitations of our great-grandchildren’s grandchildren. We ought to  practice preparing this generation for the next, not by teaching and preaching  “cutting back” or “status quo.” Respect future generations enough and advocate  not fear of the future but the noble — and proven — knowledge that humans  have almost limitless potential for innovation to cope in a world of endless  opportunities and possibilities.

Hundreds of developments would be  pronounced “unsustainable” if human ingenuity and innovation were discounted. Take two old examples of coping with the sea. Today’s environmentalists would  scoff at dikes like those on the Netherlands coast begun over a thousand years  ago, but some of the best farmland and 60 percent of the population are behind  those dikes. They would be equally aghast at Venice, Italy, building on wooden  pilings in salt-marsh, beginning 1,500 to 2,000 years ago. These audacious
humans would be mocked by modern ecologists, who are convinced that the sea is  rising at its fastest rate since the last ice age. These two developments are  not “sustainable” by current usage of the word. Yet the Dutch and Venetians  have “sustained” them, securing their future by coping, not by cutting back.  And human ability to cope has advanced dramatically since the Dutch polders  were built and Venice was raised.

Global-warming alarmists stress havoc  from more and stronger hurricanes now and in the future. But 81 percent of all  U.S. deaths from hurricanes occurred before 1930. And the South Atlantic and  Gulf coastal counties’ population is almost seven times the 1930 number.

If “sustainability” is leaving  resources unused for future generations, shut down the industries now.  Thousands of generations will presumably follow. Just how much cutting back now  will satisfy them later?

Humans are infinitely better  qualified today to cope with the world because of our exploitation of resources  as opposed to cutting back, sustaining the “way of life” of previous centuries.  The “sustainability” mindset would have us “maintain” a way of life that pays a
dubious debt to the future. If sustainability means anything about providing for future generations, cutting back is not the way. The answers lie in education, freedom and the inspiration to cope.

University of Georgia Professor  Emeritus R. Harold Brown is an Adjunct Scholar with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation and author of “The Greening of Georgia: The Improvement of the Environment in the Twentieth Century.” The Georgia Public Policy Foundation is an independent think tank that proposes practical, market-oriented approaches to public policy to improve the lives of Georgians. Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before the U.S. Congress or the Georgia Legislature.

© Georgia Public Policy Foundation
(October 3, 2008). Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided the author and his affiliations are cited.

I would like to thank Professor Brown for wriitng this insightful article and allowing me to share it with my readers.

Alpharetta politics heat up

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Last night two candidates formally announced their campaigns for Alpharetta local elections this November.

City Councilman Doug Derito formally announced his campaign to run for mayor and after that Donald Mitchell, an active booster of the downtown business community, announced his intention to run for the Post 1 council seat that Mr. Derito will vacate.

Neither of these announcements comes as a surprise but it does signal the start of a lively campaign season.

Georgia Tea Party condemns racist flyer in Alpharetta

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The inflammatory flyer I found in my mailbox yesterday made the 11 o’clock news last night and there is still no confirmation that the material was distributed by anyone affiliated with the Tea Party movement or even those people opposed to the local zoning issue. As mentioned in my previous post, I smell a rat…, I find it far more likely that this material is part of a smear campaign directed at both of those groups.

The WXIA news report is here. Below is the most relevant section:

The flyer ostensibly tries to mobilize opposition to Amana Academy — a Fulton County charter school that opened in 2005. Amana offers students in kindergarten through eighth grade language classes in Arabic.

The State Coordinator of the Georgia Tea Party Patriots says the group is not officially associated or recognized by the state organization.

“We are very suspect of this flyer. No one has heard of this group and no contact information is listed,” Tea Party Spokesperson Julianne Thompson wrote in a prepared statement. “We believe it is either a group of local extremists afraid to use their own names… or it is an attempt at character assassination.”

“Either way, we strongly condemn this type of flyer, its disgusting language and intention. This group is in no way permitted to use the name of the Tea Party Patriots.”

The state Tea Party says they are focused on, “fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free markets.”

As I said in my previous post, no one with half a brain would believe the distribution of such vile material in our neighborhood could possibly help their cause. This is evidenced by the fact our residents were so disgusted  that they actually called the local TV station to report such an incident.

I hope that Alpharetta’s local authorities are able to use security camera footage from homes in this area to identify the actual perpetrators of this ridiculous stunt. If the flyer was created by someone crazy enough to believe it would help their cause the person is dangerously detached from reality and if it was done by someone so filled with rage that they would go to this extreme to smear other people as racists then they are dangerous and pathetic. Either way they need to be off the street.

I smell a rat…

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This afternoon I checked the mail and found a flyer under my mailbox that was offensive… and I smelled a rat. The flyer used repulsive and inflammatory language to describe people who are currently trying to rezone land in our neighborhood for the Amana Academy charter school.

But there is something fishy about that flyer. It doesn’t pass the sniff test. It smells like a rat.

The note is purportedly from a group identified as the “Milton County Tea Party Patriots Citizens Council”. Why would a group name themselves after a county that doesn’t exist? They wouldn’t. There is no such group.

According to Google there is not one single mention of such a group anywhere on the web and there is no such group identified on the Teapartypatriots.org website. I pay pretty close attention the political groups and figures around Alpharetta and not once has anybody ever mentioned the existence of such a group.

So what would be the purpose of distributing an inflammatory flyer and attributing it to a group that doesn’t exist? Could it be an attempt to get the attention of all the Federal Department of Justice investigators who have swarmed into Alpharetta looking for signs of prejudice after last year’s mosque case?

Perhaps. It would certainly make sense. Obama’s minions have been swarming around Alpharetta like killer bees looking for any evidence they can find to prove how racist these North Fulton conservatives are. What better way to get their attention than to distribute an offensive flyer and attribute it to the Tea Party?

I do know some people that oppose having the Amana Academy dropped on their doorstep. Some of those people also opposed the Windward Mill project, The Metlife project and the subsidized senior housing project. But none of the people I have spoken to would ever be associated with the stuff circulated in our neighborhood today. In fact the people that object to the school zoning on reasonable, legal grounds had previously expressed fear that something like this would be used to discredit them because it only serves to offend people in our community.

So that leads me to two possible conclusions.

The first possibility is that there really is a lone nutjob out there stupid enough to think name calling and making up groups would help stop the school zoning. That rules out anyone around here that has voiced opposition to the school because they know this will hurt their cause. It also rules out anyone around here smart enough to tie their own shoes because you would have to be an absolute moron to think such a flyer would help your cause in Windward. But it is possible that such a person does exist so I can’t rule it out.

On the other hand the flyer could have been distributed by a person or group of people that thought distributing such material and falsely attributing it to a Tea Party organization would achieve some other goal. Perhaps smearing legitimate zoning opponents, drawing media attention, influencing lawsuits or attracting the Justice Department.

I don’t know and probably never will know who distributed the flyer in my mailbox today. It could have been one dumb person or a conniving opportunist with a hidden agenda. But based on personal experience I’d say the conniving opportunists in Alpharetta outnumber the people dumb enough to pull a stunt like that by about 1404 to 1.

I smell a rat.

P. S. I hope that if anyone knows the real source of the flyer send me a note.

Welcome to Alpharetta, Agilysis!

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The AJC had another great piece of news for the City of Alpharetta this week. This article explains that information technology company Agilysis is relocating its corporate headquarters to Alpharetta:

Al Nash, executive director of Progress Partners of North Fulton Atlanta, an initiative of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce, said technology companies are coming to the area because of low taxes and an extensive fiber optic system.

“That’s a huge sector for us,” he said. “We have a high concentration of data centers because of our fiber optics, as well as a good quality of life and low cost of doing business.”

I’m glad to hear Mr. Nash acknowledge that Alpharetta continues to attract new businesses by providing a superior quality of life in a setting conducive to businesses. In today’s world a high quality of life and healthy business climate are more endangered than snail darters and it isn’t an accident that in Alpharetta they not only exist, they thrive.

Alpharetta has a great quality of life and an extraordinary business environment because our residents (and until recently our elected officials) realized that those two elements will give us a competitive advantage in any economic climate. When you provide a great climate for business in an environment perfect for their employees’ family you don’t need trains. You don’t need skyscrapers. You don’t need bells and you don’t need whistles. All you need is good schools (which we have), relatively low taxes (which we have) and elected officials that aren’t suckered in by every Tom, Dick and Consultant that says he has a magic green potion to make Alpharetta better (which we had).

What we offer in Alpharetta is great technology infrastructure in a fantastic place to raise a family while you build a business. That may not be enough for every corporation in the world but we don’t have anywhere to put them all anyway.

Technology, families and business are what Alpharetta does very well. If those aren’t enough then there are hordes of cities out there that offer trains, high rents and high taxes. Changing what Alpharetta already does so well would doom us to more congestion, bad schools and higher crime while forcing companies that share our values, like Agilysis, to look elsewhere. No thanks.

Welcome to Alpharetta Agilysis!

You have chosen well and we are glad to have you as a neighbor. If there is anything we can do to help you settle in just let us know.

North Fulton In Case You Missed It (ICYMI) 6/15/2011

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Councilman Jim Paine officially declared his candidacy for Mayor of Alpharetta, Georgia this week: http://bit.ly/kukRBH

Fulton County made North Fulton county’s high school redistricting plan official: http://bit.ly/jcR8B3

The North Fulton CID enlists the city of Roswell to help them expand: http://bit.ly/jOTTkt http://bit.ly/ix5QeD