The Sandy Springs City Council held its annual retreat Feb. 5-6 at City Springs, discussing everything from a decrease in crime and new fire stations to housing affordability.
Some of the topics and suggestions from candidates who ran in last year’s municipal elections resurfaced during the annual planning exercise, including attainable housing and a youth recreation center.
While the 2025 elections were not a topic of conversation, a few things upon which mayoral runner-up Dontaye Carter campaigned were discussed by city leadership at the retreat. While Carter did not attend, he shared his thoughts about the retreat’s topics in an interview with Rough Draft.
“I’m encouraged to see the city advancing a conversation that’s been decades in the making,” Carter said. “Over the last two election cycles, I’ve urged the city to be more intentional about investing in recreation and family-centered infrastructure.”
Hammond Park plans
Recreation and Parks Director Brent Walker said his team brought up a project last fall to revamp Hammond Park with a new recreation facility.
“We do not have a gymnasium that we operate for our recreation programs in-house,” Walker said. “It does limit us a little bit in the types of programs that we can offer and some of the areas we would like to venture into.”
The city’s consultant designing the project laid out three options for elected officials to consider. The site plans keep the park’s existing athletic field and tennis courts while showing new amenities, like an indoor swimming pool and gymnasium.
A natatorium has operational costs that previous city councils have avoided, City Manager Eden Freeman said.
Council members indicated they wanted to pursue a recreation center and showed interest in an indoor swimming pool, which could be used by public schools that lack those facilities, but first, wanted cost estimates and a funding plan.
Mayor Rusty Paul said the city has financial constraints that make a full build-out difficult and suggested looking at citywide parks and recreation projects as part of a bond referendum. He referenced Dunwoody’s failed effort at passing a bond referendum in 2023 and potential changes to property tax revenues being considered at the state level.
“It’s gotta be a part of a larger discussion,” Paul said. “And, how far do you want to go?”
Carter shares thoughts
Carter said the conversation isn’t new, but he’s grateful to see the topic of a recreation center during a strategic planning retreat.
“It’s good to see those ideas reflected here,” Carter said. “Hammond Park makes sense given its proximity to city hall, but as we move forward, the city still has to grapple with geography, traffic, and access – especially for families on the north and south ends of Sandy Springs.”
Carter said he had a productive and candid meeting with Paul after the December runoff that saw the incumbent coast to victory. One of the topics was housing.
“We spoke at length about housing and the importance of follow-through on ideas raised during the campaign, including the concept of a focused task force,” Carter said. “We discussed the need for leadership that can responsibly manage expectations on both sides – developers who want to do business with the city and the hardworking, tax-paying residents who want to remain in the communities they call home.”
Housing market update
In 2020, consultants identified several trends for housing in Sandy Springs. The city lacks entry-level homeownership opportunities for moderate-income levels and is losing housing stock for people making less than $50,000.
During the retreat, Sandy Springs officials received an update on an ongoing housing needs assessment from Austin Amandolia, a senior analyst at HR&A Advisors.
“People are working here more, but they’re not living here,” Amandolia said. “A lot of the housing that we have seen get delivered in over the past several years has actually been the redevelopment of existing single-family homes. This suggests you’re actually replacing and upgrading existing housing, and not necessarily creating new housing.”
Elected officials asked several questions about specific citywide data and directed HR&A Advisors to come back with details about submarkets within Sandy Springs.
Paul, who worked on housing policy at the federal level, said interest rates are a factor that the city can’t control. Paul said most homeowners are locked into their low mortgage rates with no incentive to downsize and pay more.
“I think you’re going to get a lot of political pushback if you decide to take one-acre lots and cut them into four, but that’s the policy option,” Paul said. “I don’t see any other way around it. If you want to create more affordable housing in Sandy Springs, those are the choices that have to be made.”
Paul said subdividing lots in residential neighborhoods will have an impact, but did not advocate for or against it. He mentioned redeveloping older commercial areas into owner-occupied homes, as well as determining the community’s appetite for reduced lot sizes.
“The biggest problem is ownership for first-time home buyers,” Paul said. “Those are policy choices that I don’t think anybody else is going to bring you any magic wand that’s going to make it simpler or less politically challenging.”
