The city of Brookhaven will hold additional community information meetings regarding the Brookhaven-Peachtree Overlay District Update on Tuesday, Jan. 16, and Thursday Jan. 18, at 6 p.m. at Brookhaven City Hall at 4362 Peachtree Road.
In November, Councilmember Bates Mattison, who represents residents living in the Overlay District area, said he wanted to hold more community meetings to allow for public input, delaying a vote on the Overlay rewrite to the Jan. 23 meeting.
At the Jan. 9 City Council work session, Mattison said he needed the city’s help in organizing the meetings to solicit more community response.
City Manager Christian Sigman told Mattison it was his understanding Mattison intended to hold informal meetings without city help.
“We just lost 30 days to a certain extent,” Sigman said. “That was not our marching orders from council [to organize meetings].”
“Let me be clear, I’m going to have meetings and I’m going to have staff there,” Mattison said. “I want to allow for the option of Q&As.”
In January 2017, the City Council passed a resolution adopting the 2016 Character Area Study as a supplement to the Comprehensive Plan 2034. The Brookhaven-Peachtree Overlay District Update is the result of input received from the Character Area Study on the city’s residential areas.
Throughout several public community meetings in 2017, participants provided input about the existing zoning regulations in the Brookhaven-Peachtree Corridor Overlay and defined the community’s vision for this area with supporting regulations. The process integrated public and stakeholder involvement with technical analysis.
More information, including the latest revisions to the recommendations, can be found at http://bpou.info.
I for one am experiencing Overlay Meeting Fatigue. I attended the original series of meetings that led to the creation of the LCI Overlay, I attended the Character Area Study meeting and I’m mystified about just what new information will arise from these meetings. To me, it will be the same people saying the same things.
The cynic in me does suspect that this will be an opportunity to introduce some new concept into the Overlay that people are generally opposed to. The rationale will be along the lines of “Well, at the meetings we heard people express a desire for [fill in your own pet project]”. Of course, the Overlay process was meant to get popular sentiment into the code, but the constant revisiting to determine popular opinion is worrisome.
What has been described as a “tweak” to the Overlay should have been discharged long ago at minimal cost to the taxpayers.