Public Safety Training Center Community Stakeholder Advisory Committee
10:00PM Apr 25, +0000
Speakers:
Keywords:
question
site
committee
amy
dekalb county
key
officers
sidewalk
road
project
light
property
building
silt fence
good
inspections
trees
construction
alan
move
Good evening ladies and gents This is Allison Clark. I can't start my video just yet it won't let me but I just wanted to let you know I realize it's six o'clock but we will get started in just a couple of minutes. I believe Marshall is moving either Marshall Orion is moving everybody over as a panelist so we can get started so just bear with us for a few minutes
Hey, good afternoon everybody. hope everybody's doing well. Good see Mark. Well hello good evening. Good evening. Evening. Good evening. Thank you. Good to see your faces again. Yes. Oh, so, can you hear me? I sure can. Okay, great. I've been having some problems with my own on this computer. So I finally got my son over here to get a fix for me.
Wonderful. I'm glad I got you squared away. Yeah, I
was working with it and didn't have any results. So you came over with his knowledge and says, Oh, you got this wrong and this needs to be corrected. So hey, that's what young people have for. You help you? Yes.
You could send them over to me. I need some help.
Certainly. Well, I tell you, I was desperate. Oh my goodness.
And you've been fighting that ever since the new the new computer is
something I set up wrong over a year but it's working out. So so good. To see and hear everyone. Yes, yes,
I agree. Wow. It has it's nice to be back. Yes.
Well, and Marshall if I could bother your ear for just a moment. Do we have everybody over as a panelist or are we ready to roll?
It does look like you do. Okay. Just just looking at that participant view. Okay, good.
Good evening, everyone. If you can hear me. My video is not working. I'm trying to get it to come up. So I guess I got some technical difficulties. I'm using a new computer this evening and I'm out of town. So I guess something. Something's going on. In here, you okay, yes,
we can hear you.
Just a note, Amy. I think Ryan was trying to move you over as a panelist, but it looks like you declined. So he'll try one more time. But if you don't accept the change to panelists you will not be able to speak okay.
Okay, you're always trying to get on she's having some difficulties purely who's trying to log on? Oh, see? Oh, yeah. Thank you. I think I saw her name at one point and then it went away.
So Amy's here. How's it we'll see Amy. Okay.
Yes, I can see her
Hello. Hello, Amy. We can hear you. I can't. Can you hear us
It looks like she may have popped away again. While they go ahead and work out technical difficulties, I think it is 6:06pm. So we need to head and get moving. So with that, I just want to say a quick thank you to all of you for joining us this evening. For those of you in the audience. Thank you for joining us to witness our proceedings this evening recording CRS. It's good to see all of your faces again today. With that I will go ahead and toss to Madam Chair Miss Williams if you will conduct a roll call for us.
Absolutely. Alison Clarke. Present and Phillips. Present. Jacqueline or any President, Chief Tyus. That he was here. Sean Billingsley. President Amy Taylor. Amy was here.
She was I think that she's having some technical difficulties but I think they're working together in
Okay. Let's say she's here. Okay. Sharon Williams here. And Phillips again. You're in your twice for some reason. Okay. This double fabulous is gonna be you
know, surely Nichols here, Ophelia Lee. I know she's working on trying to get in. Okay, let's Shandra here Tori Tucker. Jerry basin
chief Macklemore Marge,
I should let you know that Jerry has a conflict this evening. She won't be joining us.
Okay, thank you. Thank you so much. I'm not going to be here but Florence Coren if she ran for Larry Johnson.
I have not seen her yet but I know she intends to join us and this is a good point to make a note Marshall if you Marshal Orion if you can look out for Florence calm for a commissioner Johnson's office.
Thank you, Dustin, tell us and call resigned. So that's our role and we have quorum.
Wonderful, thank you very much. Hey, um, hear me Can you hear me? Good. Do we have you President accounted for we saw when you came in the first time.
Okay. Yeah, I was having a heck of a time getting in with audio and video at the same time so we can hear you. Okay, thanks.
Good deal. All right, ladies and gents with that we can move forward adopting the agenda and approval of minutes. If we can take those as a package deal. I'd like to make a motion to adopt the agenda and approval. Can I get a second? Okay, cool. Okay. Are there any objections? All right. Ladies and gents, we can move forward. Our agenda is adopted, our minutes are approved. The next order of business today is addressing our meeting frequency and I want to call it we will not actually present a motion today but the motion will come forward in the coming weeks. Reason being is a resolution has already moved through the public safety and legal Administration Committee that addresses the manner in which committee members are appointed to this committee, along with the frequency with which we meet, moving from a monthly meeting to a quarterly meeting. Requirement. Again, that doesn't mean that we won't meet more frequently but the requirement moves to a quarterly meeting requirement. With that it passed unanimously yesterday and will go through full council in the coming days. And so once that outcome is known, the motion will come forward to this committee to amend the bylaws consistent with the resolution. So I want everyone to be aware that that's on the table and hopefully it makes life a little bit easier for everybody on the committee and the ability to fill vacancies as they come to us. That being said, we can move forward if there are there any questions relative to that before we move into the next item of the agenda? Alrighty, we can move forward into the infrastructure piece. This is really brought about by items we have previously discussed. We talked about necessary infrastructure improvements to support this project. And I want to make sure that we use today to follow up on those items. One of the items that we discussed prior to the LDP being or I guess, after the LDP, no, I'm sorry, prior to the LDP date being granted was the sidewalks along key road and the potential impact on specimen trees. We discussed this during one of our very recent meetings and we want to get some follow up on whether or not the specimen trees will be impacted by the sidewalk if there's an opportunity to proceed with a variance as we discussed what that picture really looks like in order to potentially protect, protect those trees but still allow for the necessary sidewalks and then the other piece that stands before us is the intersection of P road and Fayetteville road where we were looking for either a three way stop a flashing light, which Amy I would I would certainly want to hear from you and the starlight Heights community on the impact of a flashing light, if that's going to be disruptive or not, but also a three way stop a crosswalk, something that allows people to be able to move safely through that area. So with that, I will ask if the development team is able to address any of the items that I just put. Put before you all
Yes Madam Chair. Can you hear me this Alan Williams pardon me if I'm sound stuffed up because I've had these allergies for the last six weeks. I can't seem to get rid of it. But uh, it's been a tough, tough season. Just talk about the sidewalks just a little bit. During our land disturbance permit review with transportation they were required three items sort of flown the right away. street lighting, which we've got a contract with Georgia Power to put in streetlights. The second one was street trees which we've gotten designed so many things are supposed to be street trees and the third item was a sidewalk. And it consisted of two different options for what I remember. It could be a bicycle path, that a little bit of green space, and then a standard sidewalk that runs along in the right away or you have the option to use a 10 foot wide multi use path so that's what we did. We laid that out engineers laid it out and you can see going along the roadway so because you know our our property is bounded by a constitutional South fable key road on the west and kind of headed towards the north. So as we were laying the sidewalk out and take a look at it and you know, you do things and then you try to circle back and say okay, what did the committee say? What were some of their concerns with this project? And so we started thinking about that. And one of the things I remember is the buffer. Anywhere there was a residential area, they wanted a minimum 100 foot buffer, which I think masterplanning did a great job on that. And for some reason, I remember that as you're riding down the road. I think some of the committee members like the way the vegetative state looks on the banks and the buffer you know if you're right now papered over key road, you know some of these new subdivisions or whatever, you'll clean them all up and make them well with the sidewalks and the trees and kind of look planned I think some of the forgot his committee member forum and they talked about trying to leave it in its natural vegetative state. So I got a challenge to the committee. This is not a critical path item that has to be done tomorrow. But I've been on site pretty much every day for a while. And as I ride by, if you can imagine coming up from constitutional constitution road favorable right before it intersects with key road on the south side on the same amount of property. There's an there's an old house there that needs to be torn down, but there's also four specimen trees. Because actually five that four would be removed, and one would be impacted. And I think the challenge to this committee is, let's go take a look at it, and see what you guys think. And I'll help facilitate it and see if there's any way that this team can cut say those specimen trees, just because there's a requirement in DeKalb County Transportation Department that says you know, you need to be in them in the right way it needs to be here it needs to be this. If you take a look at the trees that are there, big beautiful trees, and also the grade changes in some of the grades are a two to one slope somewhere a little steeper. And then as you come on down, going, I guess we'd call east on key road where the ponds are, and we've had our Stream Buffer and pond buffers flag. There's pink ribbons there that the DeKalb County requirement is 75 feet from the bank of a stream or the pond is a buffer. The state is 25 feet so the count is three times the requirement of the state. So there's the pond. I guess you would call the northern edge of the pond or out there adjacent to key road. We got to count we got a challenge there to where our sidewalk comes in and actually gets into Stream Buffer and then everybody remembers that little parking area. The community. Our committee had requested kind of a trailhead there. We stay that there's limits to that. Parking out a while back and it's also encroach in certain areas. So think, think the challenges are the sidewalk we know it's gotta be there. We got four beautiful specimen trees. We've got a pond, the stream buffers, I like to challenge the committee and there's some there's some other slides there. The street views. Anybody wants to get involved with this and just make it a project and I'll help facilitate it. And you know, I think it's like the committee's got to take it back to the county to get some kind of bearings. But can you just get some kids Anybody got any feedback or any thoughts on that? The situation?
Well, I say Challenge accepted. In terms of getting us out there and trying to figure out how we can work around it. I think that when we all spoke about it here late it was something that most committee members jumped behind. So I would certainly love to see if others are interested in getting out there and trying to iron that out. I see Sharon, your hand is raised as well as Shawn Billingsley. So we will move in that order.
I don't think would be very interested in being in on that.
Same type Amy, the floor is Sharon's Oh, I'm sorry.
Yeah. Okay. So yeah, number one, I'd like to be part of that conversation. And then two, I think we do need to get out there whoever can I just need to be able to visualize it. And the other question I have is, the specimen trees can they be replanted? Elsewhere? Is that a viable option?
No, I mean, sharing noses? I'm sorry. Madam Chair, can I ask to answer that question? Absolutely. Okay. They're huge trees. You can't relocate them. The best thing to do is, see where they're at and try to see what other options are to walk around.
Okay, thank you.
They're huge. They're big trees. Yeah.
Fair enough. Sean, the floor is yours, sir.
Thank you, Alan. I know exactly what you're speaking of that house. And that house, I would agree with you. It needs to be kind of torn down and those trees very huge now my other question is I know you said what a crosswalks. Now is there a way with the crosswalks we can possibly bring those crosswalks down bow to Chris also Hello.
Yes, Shawn, if I can jump in. I think that there's absolutely an opportunity. But I think that's a question for DeKalb County. And so, you know, it's something that I think can should happen and that should be requested but I think that because it doesn't buffer this project.
Okay, well, we moved. Well, let me break it down. Is there a way that we can buffer like a crosswalks with the lights where we have pedestrian lights to come and down key row or constitution where we can have that portion also with the blind spots? Because we have plenty of blind spots where we're going to have citizens coming across key role or constitution. Fayetteville where we can have it where we can it'd be a safety issue where we can have it work. We have some of those issues those some of those pedestrian lights where you stop and flesh everything else other places in the city. Is there a way we can have those same lights placed up also within those areas? Because we're going to level out some points a key road and have sidewalks you know, people are going to step off one across the street. We should also have where the crossover also have those likes if if possible.
Fair enough. I think that's certainly something that we have to ask as we move through the process and perhaps as we get out there onto the site and have an opportunity to evaluate the opportunities for those crosswalks. We should but those of us living around here in particular that will be moving through. I think, Shawn, you are 100% Right. We absolutely have to advocate for opportunities to be able to safely cross the streets which is specifically why that intersection of key and Fayetteville had been brought up because that is the primary residential crossing area along key road at least but investigating constitution and ultimately boulder crest, I think has to happen.
Yes. Okay. That's all I have. Absolutely. Alan,
did you have anything to weigh in on that as well?
Well, you know, that's a good point, Shawn brought up. We're talking about the intersection of key road and fable but maybe everybody comes up with their ideas. On the entire stretch of key if able and maybe get somebody from the county and transportation to come out and try it and see what the options are for that road.
That's a good way to move. Absolutely. Amy, I know that you had a question as well and then after you Amy, we will move to Shirley Nichols. I have questions wanted to volunteer for the site visit to go out and determine how we can best protect the trees. Absolutely. Your name is written down. Thank you.
Thanks. Okay. Yeah, I want to be in on the tree conversation also. Also, I just kind of want to throw in instead of like a light or a stop at at Fayetteville. Could we possibly put in a roundabout instead because there's a lot of traffic that comes down here during you know, rush hour times in through here and I think any kind of stop action is going to back it up pretty pretty well. So I think something something along the lines is going to keep the flow going down key is going to be the best. Maybe just a stop at Fayetteville where Fayetteville comes into key might be a better idea. But just I think we need to keep keep flowing. As far as the traffic goes.
I think it's certainly something to investigate. I think the challenge and this is me as a non expert, but as someone who Pat and I have worked together on projects, including ease abouts and roundabouts in other communities and the amount of land required to do something like that will probably require, you know, it encroaches on the surrounding property. So that might be a bit of a challenge to accomplish. I think one of the big challenges is if you are on key road and you're making that left hand turn onto key road. You have Fayetteville coming up that's my south.
Yeah, that's fine.
It's very blind.
Yeah, he's got to stop there like that. You know, maybe a three way stop is the way to go. And as far as that abandoned property goes, I don't know who owns it, but maybe we need to find out who owns that property. And see, see what kind of options we get out of talking to that person. If if that person would be willing to, you know, sell it or do something with it or easement or something.
Alan, do you all already have any traction on who owns that property or what the status is there?
Is that the only corner there at a Red Cross?
Yeah, the one the one that we see in the lower right hand picture. where the where the cops like to sit?
Oh, yeah, no, I I don't know anything Marshall may know, but I don't know. Yeah.
Marshall, are you able to weigh in on that?
Yeah, here's the question. Do we know who owns that property? I do not know who is the owner of that property. And and, again, up. To my knowledge, I don't believe there's been any conversation about that particular property or who owns it or anything like that.
Well, am I mistaken and that's the property that someone was just asking about.
No, that's probably the old ranch style house. It's up on the city property AMI near the near the specimen.
Oh, okay. I'm misunderstanding. Okay. Yeah. Oh, that one? Okay. I'm sorry, my bad
No, worries. No worries. I see Miss PAC cope. You have your hand raised? Yeah,
I was just looking at this. And I think probably the roundabouts probably wouldn't be sufficient for this area because we're dealing with roundabouts similar to this and it really took us about two years to get them and they still you know, just slowly putting them in. We have two that are being worked on now. But it looks like maybe a four way stop as with blinking light or something like that will probably be adequate for that area. And would you add me to the list of just going out on the site because when you get on the site, you can probably assess it a lot better than just sort of seeing what's happening here. But the Transportation Department will be the ones that we would have to present this to and see you know how they can assess what needs to be done here.
Absolutely. You are added to the list and anyone on this committee that is interested in attending, you're more than welcome to We just need to know ahead of time so we can plot this out. And, Pat, I agree with you having an expert on site to be able to evaluate what can and cannot happen there. I think one of the key asks is actually a view Amy on this committee would be getting feedback from your community because the direct impact of a flashing light. That impact would be on your comfort at home as well. And so I don't want to get an idea of what that impact would look like for you all. Before we are by the time we get out to meet there. With that, I see Sharon, your hand is up.
Yeah, so just in addition to counting transportation, would it be helpful to have state transportation there as well? And I'm really genuinely asking I'm not sure if they would add value.
The only the only thing that I see is we're not dealing with any state route. So I don't know that there's any benefit in having them there. Then again, I'm always some someone who says more people at the table with their input is not a bad thing. But I don't think they would be able to influence it the most they will probably be able to do is provide some level of understanding of the of engineering traffic engineering.
Yeah, I was looking for traffic engineering expertise and
fair enough. Let's work the ask Amy. Your hand is raised.
Yeah, I was just gonna say you know, right off the bat I just want everybody to keep in mind that I'm fairly certain that key gets more traffic than Fayetteville does. And I really don't want to see it become a traffic clog more than it already is.
Let me ask you something really. Quickly when you're referring to key getting more traffic. Are you referring to the residential section of key Are you referring to the portion that goes down along the training center?
Yeah, the from Moreland to my to key to the training center. That's where the traffic tends to go. I almost never see anybody coming from Fayetteville
side. Sure, but if you consider now there's there's a there's a stop sign there now. So for that direction, nothing changes. It is adding a traffic or adding some traffic calming measure along Fayetteville and key on the other you know, we're Fairfield turns into key road. So now you've got two other directions also stopping that are not stopping currently.
Um, I Well, there's a there's a stop sign when you're if you're coming from Moreland to Fayetteville Correct. There's a stop sign there. So isn't Is there not a stop sign at Fayetteville where it comes into key.
People traveling along Fayetteville road do not stop traveling in the opposite direction. Because when you're coming from the opposite direction, you're on key Road, those individuals do not stop right now the only stop is on your section of key road. Right. So to the degree that we're talking about a traffic backup, that stop already exists, so it doesn't change the flow on your street.
Right. I just I don't want to see something go in that would clog it up more than it already does sometimes.
Fair enough. Well, we won't make them stop double. Thanks. But definitely I think we all need to get out there and actually evaluate that and see what that looks like. So Alan, if you are willing to help coordinate that it would be greatly appreciated. This is something that came up at one of our past meetings and did not want to allow this to slip under the radar. Make sure that we get out there and cover it
anytime I'm not there every day and I can work anybody schedule, even weekends. So I wanted to go on a weekend.
Okay, fair enough. Then I will get a doodle out to the committee and see if we can't make this work in the next couple of weeks here and get us out there. Right. Thank you. Thank you.
In the meantime, I'll try to get some input. Thank you my neighborhood.
Thank you, Amy. With that, we can move forward into the construction update. And I will talk to the development team to bring that Tony Bree.
Yes Hello everyone. I'm Bree Caldwell with DaVinci development. First of all, the design team and APO we all want to give a really big thank you to Atlas, technical consultants and long engineering for all of their amazing work that they provide on this project. They have currently concluded their work, but we appreciate their contribution. We actually all the preparation and everything they've done we really have set us up for you know, to move within very high progress and streamline this project. So they've been very valuable and they've been a great team to work with. What you're seeing now is just a very high level construction of update. As you know, there's a lot of activity on the site. We received her LDP at the end of January. We've gotten our site contractors on the site. They're currently doing clearing and grubbing right now we have been doing a lot of erosion control measures, which we'll talk about a little later. But we are working, you know on the east side of the property and starting to move to the west side. And this is again just a high level construction schedule. For you all to see.
And what's the delta, this presentation or this update versus the original timeframe?
Oh, that's a good question. Um, it has been moving a lot. We really wanted to try to get this I believe Alan, if you can correct me, but it was it was going to be earlier in 2024. And hitting this data is always going to be you know, these are always moving targets that we're trying to get, you know, trying to navigate through all of our challenges that we have. But I believe and we can look that up and I can shoot it to Allison and Marshall as well two minutes to see what our what our big change has been since any delays and any approvals that we've had on a project
the LDP John, we've got an echo coming when you're speaking with combs like I can hear you double
I'm sure that is still there. Is that better my birthday man. Anyway, I was gonna say the LDP process to cab County was extraordinarily thorough in their LDP review of us. And normally that this process takes maybe four months and I think it took us about 11. So pretty much somewhere in that six month variance that we have you know, good for them for doing their homework, and they're very careful review, but I think to answer the question,
yeah. What's it it's about six, eight months. Thank you.
Thank you for that, Sharon and thank you for the response. Barry and John. Are there any additional questions?
Alrighty, well thank you very much. With with that we can move into the development teams update. And I just want to preface it by saying that you know, we had a desire to talk about some of the best management practices as well as some of the sustainability options for the property but also something that I wanted to make sure we discussed today. Based on the feedback of this committee and having spoken with community members as well as a concern for the impact this development would have relative to nighttime lighting, dark sky, etc. And I'm hoping that it's something that's been included today. But if you would at some point during the presentation if you can touch on that as well. We greatly appreciate it. With that to the development team.
Thank you Madam Chair. I'll talk just briefly about our erosion control plan and our best management practices. Thank you, everybody that's been holding the focus of everyone on this committee and the community lately. You know, we went through a 11 month period for land disturbance permit and four different reviews. And part of that review is, you know, a very, very detailed erosion control plan and there's four phases to that plan. We're currently implementing phase one, and that includes silt fence, which a lot of it most of it is a double row steel fence, our tree save areas. We have our construction entrances, and then we have our inspections. We have an MPD s noi, and that comes with different requirements also. I think the the uniqueness of this project is we have so many feet 1000s of feet of double rope silt fence, and you know when we are clearing a lot of the invasive species as Bradford pears or whatever all ground up and most, so we actually put that most between the two rows of silt fence and then we also spread it out underneath the tree canopy. And we're trying to keep all the grindings on site for the organic material. One thing we're doing above and beyond, you'd normally expect your construction interest is daily and your other BMPs weekly and where we are doing the daily inspections on the construction entrances. But we are also doing daily inspections on all the remaining silt fence and berms. We're currently putting in berms and set up temporary sediment ponds as part of this phase one and get them inspected. So we are doing daily inspections where there are some days with an outside third party and then a lot of days I'm doing it myself and I walked up over 14,000 steps the other day so there's miles in I need I need to walk those steps. I'm not complaining I need to need to walk them but anyway, I say that our inspections are going great. And we're making any repair we need to make and our main goal is to keep any sediment from leaving our site. So that's any questions on our current program. I'll be glad to answer try to answer Alan's cardiol very, very I need to I need to any questions on our current erosion control plan?
Thank you for that. I see Miss Williams has her hand raised the floor is yours.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. And and I probably need to get out there and do this 14 steps with the 14,000 steps. But um in terms of your inspections, are there any key findings? Is there anything that you're seeing in terms of erosion? Is there anything that's had to be course corrected?
Oh, well, you know, during the protest on March 5, they came up and destroyed about 2000 feet of erosion control. And I wish I had the statement there because I took credit for it and basically said that they tore it up and they knew that it had to get repaired. So we spent about two to three days repairing that and that was mainly down in the Georgia Power easement there. So that's one thing. A 10 a great thing. About DeKalb County is mentioned earlier that the string buffer and upon buffers 75 feet and so that's that's a great buffer to have when you're doing development.
Thank you. Thank you for noting the damage I didn't realize it. They had torn down the fencing because in a lot of the conversations I've just been listening to. There was so much concern around erosion and just kind of the irony that they're the people who tore it down but thank you
well enough like to Sharon is one of our we've had probably five or six DeKalb County inspections, some on Play and some of them not not not not playing they just kind of came and inspected. And one of the inspection reports showed that there are some are silt fence was down and if you read a little further in that report that was the easement silt fence that was torn down and we waited a little while to go with what till the site got to get more secure
I understand. Thank you.
Thank you for that. Were there any additional questions?
All right, ladies and gents, Alan, thank you for that. I will Am I tossing back to you Alan or
like you talking about the architect, I believe.
Okay. You still you want to take this one well.
Good to see you again, Tony. You all
after all this time? I really appreciate the time, Madam Chair and appreciate Allen's time as well as he's not feeling well. But he has done an amazing job. So John spoke to the 11 months of the LDP, and without Alan being out there and doing all the work that he's done, we could not have gotten to this point. So I'm just going to talk a little bit today about things we probably already discussed. But I want to make sure that we understand that this process has gone on for almost a year and a half. And it has been a process of working with this committee as well as working a lot behind the scenes. And there have always been things on our mind throughout the design process and we started really early in schematics with an integrative approach. And that's basically saying that we're not just going to do this work on our own and hand it to you and say here's what you get. What we decided to do was we brought everybody to the table at the start and included the owner that included stakeholders that included our engineers, especially our lead team, kind of leading this process to make sure that we are designing with all of these things in mind. That led us to like when you look at an A item like location and transportation, transportation became integral to us. And even though DeKalb County was not requiring Evie vehicles and charging stations and future Evie on this site, it was decided we would go forward with that and we would definitely include Evie charging on the site. And also think about the future of the fire department and police department as they go forward with Evie vehicles. It was very important when we looked at the site. We've talked a lot about it in these meetings in the past how we chose certain places that happened that certain places of the site. So we did you know ordinate site assessments. We did a lot to preserve and protect what we could and in terms of light pollution. I'm glad that you asked that. Allison, we have a couple of slides to talk about it a little bit. And our thinking right from the start was to decrease light pollution. So this particular project, we have a site design currently underway with the associated help of Georgia Power working with us and I'm going to talk a little bit about things like bug grading and glare and things like that a little bit later. We did is well want to discuss innovation on this project. So we didn't want this to just be a boilerplate project that you took off the boards. So it has a lot of creative things in it with the MEP system, as well as a renewable energy source by using photovoltaics on the roof. indoor environmental control I think that is something that goes on stated and But anybody that works in an office still and goes into the office 40 hours a week or more knows that if things stink, if the air quality is not good, if the light is not good, it's a bad day. I mean, you know, some of us talk about you know, getting to Fridays and just feeling our eyes just feel worn out and that I mean that is associated with the environment that we're in. So our our indoor environmental quality, will speak to it a little bit in following slides. So if we just go ahead a little bit and we'll start by going into and delving into how we do energy overall. So energy consumption is something that we think about from the start of the project. We look at it a couple of different ways. We look at it in terms of dollars, and we look at it in terms of percentage of energy use. And our goal for the project is not to give the standard building that would be designed to whatever the MVP standards are for the day that just meets whatever the code minimums are. What we say is we want to reduce energy consumption in our buildings. We want to do it by a certain percentage, and we always have that goal in mind. We give our engineers that goal right from the start and we have them work towards it. So in the end, it's it is a win win. Some people don't think of it that way. But if you are doing these things up front, through your design process, you're saving money in the end. And this was a very, very early on energy study. I mean, this was probably in the first six months. We'll have to do another energy model like this, based on our final design, but that will be coming in the future weeks. So if you go forward, we'll talk a little bit about lighting inside the building. This was the one I just spoke of. So we know we have spaces inside of this building that we want daylight. We want natural light to be in those spaces. We also have spaces like the lecture hall in the leadership building where we didn't want a lot of natural light you're going to have a lot of screen displays projection. So this is how we studied light, light intensity and where it was going to get into the building. As you go forward in the next slide, you'll see that we also did the same thing for the leadership building. This is obviously talking about savings and also energy use reduction and always trying to hit our goals. They're difficult lofty goals. We could not get to net zero on this project. But we did our best in a lot of different areas and daylighting here was very important because this is basically the classroom building. So there are not only offices in this building, but if you look at the next slide and the second floor, we're talking about a significant floor plate that is receiving natural light into the classrooms. We wanted to make sure that we got light into all of those classrooms where we could. On the next slide, we will again talk about site assessment. We've talked about this. I went back and I think it was five meetings. We've had some assemblance of this slide up but I wanted to talk about it again and just have a general discussion about how much work went into the site analysis. We are very thankful to this group as well and talking about how we analyze a site and it obviously is reflected in what we ended up with in the final master plan. We did exhaustive studies on what the existing site was and what typography was, and we put the buildings where they made the most sense. If you go to the next slide, we have a little bit of discussion about this light pollution idea and what we've done is we have chosen specific fixtures in and around the site. Again, were in the midst of working with Georgia Power on making sure that we have fixtures that are rated properly so that we don't have these fixtures don't have any backlight I don't believe and we're trying to reduce all the glare. The goal obviously, is that you would have a better night's sky rating so that you would be able to just think of it as if you try to look up in a Target parking lot. You're not going to see a lot but we don't want that we want to be here and have light rating where you actually look up and you can see nights guys. We are in the midst of doing a photometric study for the entire property and making sure that we're not getting any light intrusion off of the property. And I think in the next slide that was a interim study that Georgia Power did on their lighting on the next slide. But we are currently in another phase of that as we have selected our fixtures now how I always know this is an interim study is that big square in the middle of the property is the skills pad. So that's a place where fire department will test their ladder trucks make sure their recruits can drive and Georgia Power put their light poles in the middle of that pad. Although that would probably be a good obstacle course for some but somebody driving a ladder truck might not appreciate that very much. So that's how I always know. So we've had them go back to the drawing board. Well, we are working on that and we'll get to a finalization in the coming months and the next slide. So what we have done in design of our landscaping is we have reduced or eliminated irrigation in all but one location. The only location that we have is the training field. And that's important because that's both a training field for the center, as well as a public field for the weekends. We knew that we didn't want to become a mud pit. We didn't want that to get knocked at any grass. But the rest of the landscaping in around the buildings is chosen for its lack of irrigation
and the next slide one of the things that we have done is we have worked with a couple of different agencies right now in the attempt to reduce our carbon footprint on this building and producing any greenhouse gas emissions. So what we've done is we have worked with a couple of companies to plan for PV on the roof. And we'll be putting our solar panels up not in this exact array but in a similar array to what you see here and producing energy for our projects. As opposed to pulling from a carbon resource. We also in terms of energy we on the next slide. We have definitely chosen to go with an Eevee solution for the property. So we have Eevee spaces sprinkled throughout the site, including a bunch of spaces in the training facility for future vehicles, although they don't have them now. And the last one I think is just the demolition, waste debris. This is something that not all of your construction sites will do you see a lot of dumpsters out there and as construction goes on, they just throw everything away take everything to the landfill. That has been something we have made a significant goal for this project is not to do that. So our non hazardous construction and demolition debris will be reduced by 50%. So less material going to the landfill. I think we may have talked about that in the past, but this is really a commitment by this development team. And Madam Chair, that is it. Appreciate your time. Thank you all so much. If you have any questions, I can certainly take those.
Absolutely. Thank you Tony for that and I appreciate that you gave consideration to the lighting and dark sky. No, I threw that out there something that has been very important to the committee and we've kind of touched on this a little bit ahead of the meeting. So I appreciate you taking the time to incorporate that this evening. I see. Amy Your hand is raised so the floor is yours.
Hi Tony. I'm so am I to understand that we're going to have training going on at night where a lot of lighting will be necessary.
I would have to direct any questions about the training to APD as I'm not familiar with what they exactly what they have planned.
Okay, so maybe another question for you then would be are you considering using lighting that's not going to interfere with the the natural resources as in bats and owls and nighttime animals?
We are considering that so that's the great thing about bug graded fixture is their amount of reduction that they have on the ground plane that they hit. The other great thing that we have going for us so we have a lot of I think we've talked about in the past. We have a lot of topography difference between Fayetteville road and like the EVA course. Which people would you actually I think this team brought to us and had a concern. But because we have that 100 foot buffer all the way along Fayetteville road, and we're not talking about just a clear cut area from the road to the the actual ebook course. But I think the overall training will have to be something that I'm not familiar enough with the VA PD with F AP forces would have to answer that. Thank you.
Amy, just to circle back real quick. Since Marshall is on the call, I don't know if you're positioned to be able to answer that or if we need to wait until we have chief Tyus available but I think we may be able to answer Amy's initial question, Marshall. Yep, cheap ties
is actually coming over from the other room right now.
Okay. Not a problem, Amy if you'll hang tight and if you're willing to repeat in just a second we can actually get you an answer. Hopefully Sure. All right. In the meantime, Miss Jacqueline Rainey The floor is yours. I wanted to know you were speaking about the material possibly being recycled. Is there a risk of you're having lead or lead paint or all wiring and stuff like that in material sometimes it takes longer to separate things like that than it does to just throw it away, haul it and throw it away.
Alan, did you want to speak to that? I mean, luckily on this particular project, we have new construction. You're not getting into that danger, but I know Allen's being the construction veteran that he is, is much more familiar with the construction debris process than I am. Okay.
Now we won't have any of those materials you know, new construction.
No, I mean, the things that you all were saying you were recycling.
Oh, well, the main the main the main areas for recycling is steel. And that's pretty much it and any any kind of crate that goes back to the to the recycler lead.
All right. And I see that, Chief Tyus is here now. So Amy, I'm going to circle back to you so that we can get your question answered. And then Sharon, I see that your hand is raised. Chief Tyus. Can you hear us?
I can't hear you. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for allowing me to join you again. Yes, Emile to ask you a question. We do have light firing. We don't have that often. The lights really will assist us during daylight saving times when it gets dark earlier at night. And we do have office hours shooting at like 6pm or 7pm in the evenings. And it's dark snowing that time but we will have some night farm because we do have really a special weapons and tactics unit. They do fire at night but that's only a few times a year so it will not be a lot of night fine.
Okay, is there going to be like other training going on at night? And if so, what like is there going to be a point like say, you know, eight, nine o'clock where operations will cease on in the training where those of us that live around here can expect to enjoy just our peace and quiet as we know it?
Absolutely. I mean 90% of our training is done in the afternoon just like you all the officers want to leave and go home in the evenings also. So most of what we have ends around five o'clock except for those few occasions when we do have evening and I'm late night training but for the most part, our training academy is really a nine to five as far as the police side of the house goes.
Okay, cool. Um, now as far as those special occasions can, is there some kind of notification we can get so we can be aware of those and and not think that someone is is, you know, civillian fire around here and we're calling 911 And, you know, things that we would normally do?
Absolutely, they will continue to go out much in the manner in which they're going out right now. We will send them to the designated leaders on well in advance and allow them to note when we're firing I think we just sent one out last week as a matter of fact, and we got some questions as to what we're doing but anytime we're firing at night, we would try to be mindful of that and we try to give you at least four to five days notice on that.
Okay, well I have not received any notice that way. So maybe we need to revisit how that happens.
I can tell you as of now for my community, our HOA receives those most of the existing
we don't have an HOA I understand
that and if you'll recall, several months back I worked through having Nicole assigned as contact for your community structure in your community right now, but when I'm out, those messages have been sent forth. I'm not seeing anything here of late but I also was prior so I think we can certainly revisit that but I also think that a new protocol would need to be established within
the default. You know, maybe I should be the one I mean up doesn't matter. I'm just saying maybe, maybe instead Nicole, maybe let me know and then I can let everybody else know.
Absolutely. I think as long as we know where these things need to go, makes it a little bit easier to share the information out and you don't have to have an organized HOA I think that the surrounding communities have always been able to receive notification so long as they signed up to do so
or my dog sounds like
that sounds like my guy just a little while ago. It's the way it goes sometimes sorry.
Buddy. Sorry. I do have some more questions. But let everybody else who's got their hand raised? Have a turn.
Yes. Let's let's give the Florida those who have not had an opportunity to speak and then we can circle back. I know Sharon, you've been waiting for a little while now. So the floor is yours.
You had some good questions though. So just to follow up and she was asking about curriculum. This was also supposed to be a community space as well. So it's conceivable that there could be community events that take place after 5pm And I was also just thinking about just for office lighting. They tend to light their buildings at night, so that they're not all dark. So that's how I was just kind of interpreting some of their night lighting efforts. And so as I was looking at some of the optimization calculations, I think they were comparing their building to like the average or maybe lower quartile. Is there a way that you can compare your let's say your you're going to your file design, you're going to calculate another lead calculation. And can we do it somehow? And quartile so we can see where we are. The last report we saw I think the lead score was silver, but I had no idea was that a high silver was it low? And how far are we from from gold?
We can definitely give you an update. We have not submitted for design review to us GBC yet, we're planning to doing that here in the next month or so. They will probably take a 30 to 60 day process to review that and then they'll come back to us with where we landed. I think right now if I remember correctly, we're right in between the in I think it's 50 to 659 points for silver and I think we were in that middle range. So I don't think we're close enough to get gold but you never know. I certainly don't think we're going to drop to a point where we would not get silver.
Okay, thank you. Yep.
Do Thank you great questions, too. Is there anyone else with any questions? Okay, Amy, it looks like it's back to you. You didn't have to raise your hand on No. Go for it. The floor is yours.
Oh, okay. Sorry. Um, question, Alan. I know there was supposed to be a supervisor appointed to the to the development. Do we know did we did we have that appointment filled and and is that person from the cab or where who where is that person spent on the site? No,
that's that's not true. Um, to to
know, nobody. That's my that's my question.
The court ordering stuff from Ken. Yeah. Voc county is just factions until the appeal and
transparency as a party to the appeal that was filed. And so as we talk about this, I want to make sure that we always in the space of transparency know that that is what's you know, part of what's at play here not to say that your question is out of line by any means, because it's not it's a question that you have, but I think that as this committee moves forward, and one thing that was brought forth by ethics is that we do need to disclose that as we move down that path if we have discussions that are relative to any of those proceedings. With that, I do see Sharon, your hand is raised. I'm going to circle back to you in just a second. Was there anyone else that had a question that has not yet had the floor? All right, Sharon The floor is yours
is a quick and appointed information. So when we were talking about the erosion strategies, we went we went into in detail, and I think I'll consult on the phone for getting into that level of detail. But one of the things I specifically asked just because of some of the misinformation that's out there is what was there anything notable in any of the inspections? And again, just iterate the only thing that was notable was that the the ego terrorists or the anarchists, whatever you want to call them. They're the ones that tore the Sultan's down, which is contrary to their goals and everything that they're talking about. So, again, I think it was Alan that that clarified for us that they put those silt fences back up once they were secure and that the officers were able to do that. So I think the daily inspections are noted, they said that they're doing them, they often have a third party that's doing them and that the only notable instance is when the the protesters or whatever you'd like to call them toward that stuff down. That's my only point of information, Madam Chair.
Okay, thank you very much for that. I appreciate that clarification. And I also will say that, to the degree that Amy if you want to discuss any of those items, I think we end up in a kind of a legal space that we can't really touch during our meeting but but I but I do understand where you're coming from. And Sharon, I also understand, you know, we've learned a little bit about the backstory in terms of what happened with the silt fencing tonight, so I appreciate both of you for raising your issues. Are there any additional questions?
Can I just reply on that? I tried to be PC about my my question, Alan didn't understand my question. So I tried not to put too fine a point on it. But in order to give him clarification, I needed to do that. So that I was trying to save everybody on that I wasn't trying to be disruptive at all. And I don't feel like we need to go into any further discussion. I think it's fully applicable to this committee that we know that the appropriate inspectors are on board and that they are in place. And that was my only question.
The question is not the challenge. It's just the disclosure. And so we have been informed that to the degree that there is any content brought to this meeting relative to any of the legal actions that have been taken that there needs to be disclosure in the interest of transparency. So that is not not to say that you cannot ask the questions. It is not enough to say that your question is wrong. It is just to say that we have to include that disclosure, which is something that was discussed prior to this meeting. So with that, do we have any questions for the development team about what was presented? Okay, with that, I think we can move forward into the security update. I believe chief Tyus will you be providing our security update today?
As always, ma'am, I sure will.
Thank you much. The floor is yours.
No worries. So I think everyone know around the middle of February, we started occupying that site 24/7. So since then, we've been in a mode of protecting the equipment as well as individuals out there. We have officers on different shifts out there. And so during the day, we have officers spread out strategically throughout the entire footprint out there. And then at night, we just kind of rally them up to a certain Rally Point. And we really go into a posture of just protecting the equipment. Since we've been out there full time. We have not had any significant issues out there at the site. We do see the occasional drone fly over by whoever. Obviously it's free airspace. There's not a lot we can do about that. But as far as individuals coming out there being disruptive, we have not seen any individuals on that site. So we continue to make good headway out there on that site and knock on wood. We haven't had any issues thus far. So are they any questions for me?
Thank you for that the floor is open for questions. Please raise your hand if you'd like to take the floor
Sharon that's a quickie. I just wanted to thank all the consultants, engineers, architects on the phone today really good content. I'm glad we're reconnecting and getting on path that progress is being made. Thank you. Have a question. For you.
So go right ahead.
Yes. My name is Shawn Billingsley. And so this is a question that I have from some from some of the police officers there that are around the site. So when some of the protesters come, officers allowed to engage with the with the officer or do they have to call the State Patrol or DeKalb County?
No, so that is a myth. Those officers out there do have the ability to engage anyone that that approaches them. As they would anywhere else in the city. We are out there with the blessings of the cap County Police Department. So we are acting under that. Hello law anytime we engage a citizen out there.
Okay, that's all I was. That's all I want to ensure that was my only question. Because I just don't want to. I just didn't want them to get out. That's not a question that I had yesterday gaming
because that site is in DeKalb. County, but prior to us putting any Atlanta police officers out there, our legal team worked through those those hurdles so they are officers are on solid flooding out there with any interaction with citizens.
Deal. Thank you, Amy. I see your hand is raised the floor is yours.
Thank you, Chief Titus. Is there a requirement or any kind of regulations or anything regarding the blue lights at night? That that the cars that are in in and around the neighborhood should have their lights on and flashing at night?
Um, so those officers generally have those lights on for two reasons, ma'am. They want the citizens to know that the police are in their neighborhood and that they are actively patrolling and also it allows the other officers to know exactly where they are in that facility. But I mean if there isn't, or the light stroking or assist a solid blue light, ma'am,
yes, I I approached it an officer sitting on the corner of Fayette and key. He had his lights on and flashing at four in the morning. I went out and I asked him to turn them off. And he did so but the fact that I had to get up at four in the morning to ask someone to turn their lights off in a residential area. I was not a happy camper.
Yeah, unfortunately, you know, when you ask them to turn them off, they're about 15 officers 15 residents that come out there and thank the officers for being out there and tell them they feel safer with the officer riding around out there with the lights on so we try to balance that so I'm thankful that the officer the you know, respect your wishes and yet and then turn the lights off at your request but just know that rather than approach those officers all the time thanking them for being out there with those lights on.
That's not what I've heard, but okay,
well, if it helps, I can speak to that. I'm one of the people that often thanks the officers, you know, for being out there. I know that members of my community have requested a higher police presence in the area in light of some of the challenges that that we've seen and I know that there are people on both sides of the fence even within my own community, some like having them there. Some don't like having them there. And I think that's that's exactly it's the split. And so, you know, I'm not sure how your community falls in that but I have seen the split split amongst my own community members, seemingly with more leaning towards, you know, favor towards having them out there in light of all of the recent activity at the site. So it does balance both ways.
And I appreciate that and everybody is totally entitled to their opinions and their feelings and I totally respect that as you and I've talked about before. I would I would request to cheap Titus if you know I don't want to bring this up in front of everybody. But I do have some issues I would like to talk with Chief Titus about if it's possible and my dog down this is why Lee
everybody
gets your cutie pie. Fair enough. If you are interested in having an offline conversation and chief types if you can help facilitate that so that the two of you can maybe talk through some of the challenges that Amy may be experiencing. That would be helpful.
Yes, by all means. If you don't have my email address, I can send it to you or Allison, if you're facilitated with giving her my email address and or my city cell phone number. I'll be more than happy to talk to Amy.
Great. Thanks to you first.
No worries. Thank you.
Wonderful, thank you both for that. Very valuable to understand the impacts on on different perspectives. throughout the community. Are there any additional questions? All righty, easy peasy. Well, thank you, chief Tyus, for your security update and for answering all of our questions.
As always, thank you all for having me and enjoy the rest of your evening. I look forward to talk to you offline. Amy
salutely Thank you.
Thank you. I appreciate I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you about this.
And Amy, if you will just get with me after the meeting. I'll make sure to connect you to an event that you don't have as information. Before we move on and adjourn the meeting. I just want to take a quick moment. Ryan, are you with us this evening? I think I see. There you are. Good evening Ryan. Good to see you. I know all of you have seen Ryan on the emails and have not necessarily been formally introduced. So Ryan Smith is with the Atlanta Police Foundation and has been an absolutely integral part in moving our committee along so just want to take a quick minute to recognize him and make sure that each of you know who he is and that He is here to help support our committee. You know, of course we have Marshall as our committee administrator and with his breadth of knowledge. working hand in hand with Ryan has been key and so we have both, both of them as excellent resources for us to lean on as we move through this. So I just want to make sure that everybody has a face to the name and you will continue to see him on the emails and please feel free to reach out to him throughout this process. Sorry, Ryan.
I should it's It's okay. I honestly should have introduced myself earlier. I was just trying to get everybody logged in and stuff and didn't want to hold up the meeting very much. But yes. Hi, I'm Ryan. If you need anything, just let me
absolutely. Thank you. Well, with that ladies and gentlemen, it has been absolutely wonderful to see your faces again. And I look forward to meeting with you all again very soon. If we don't have any objection to doing so. I would like to go ahead and make a motion to adjourn here at 7:16pm If I can get a second but wait a minute I see Sharon your hand Oh
saying yes.
I'm so I'm so tuned. into thinking that it's a question. I will take that second. Ladies and gentlemen 17 7:16pm. We are adjourned. Right? I have a great evening. recording stopped