Board of Zoning Appeals Meeting
Video Transcript
Duration: 16 minutes
Speakers: 4
M, I am vice chair Mark Schumacher acting as the chair to this evening, and welcome to the meeting of the Roswell Board of Zoning Appeals.
Today's date is 11/16/2025.
Board members are all residents of the City Of Roswell, appointed by the mayor and approved by the city council.
We are volunteers that serve without compensation.
Please be aware that this board is the final word of the city's review of tonight's applications.
If the applicant wishes to have the board's decision reviewed, the applicant must appeal within thirty days to Superior Court of Fulton County.
The process to review is as follows.
The city's representative will present the city's view of the application, including a recommendation.
The applicant then will make their presentation.
Next will be public comments, if any.
The applicant will be allowed time for rebuttal, if desired.
For those making a public comment, please complete a comment card prior to commenting. Keep the comment relevant to the application being heard tonight.
When addressing the board, please speak clearly in the microphone,
state your name and address,
and two minutes will be allowed for each public speaker.
Please limit comments to the relevant case at hand.
Please hold comments and questions when someone else is speaking.
The board may interject questions at any time during any of the presentations.
After all public comments have been heard, the board will move to decision making stage where no further unsolicited comments will be heard.
A motion will be made and discussed by the board.
A vote on seconded motions as amended and not withdrawn will be taken.
A simple majority of members will decide each motion.
Thank you, and let's get started with the city's presentation
on the first agenda item.
Yeah. This is Richard, City Roswell. Tonight, Osmani Ordonez will be presenting for us. He's the, engineering
manager.
Before I start, just wanna introduce a couple of people.
I'm sorry.
Yeah. Lee Smith is our new city engineer. How long have you been now city engineer, Lee? For how long? Maybe a month? Couple months?
And then we have Corinne from
EPW here in the city. She's the project manager
project right here that we're gonna talk about. So I just wanted
this city project
that we're gonna go over today.
It's a park. It's already,
sewn as a park.
Well, 80 Mission Hills Court. This is in the
past,
if you guys are familiar with the area, when you go past Bridge,
Warsaw, it's one of those neighborhoods back there.
So they're seeking,
variance for enforcement in the 100 foot city undisturbed buffer
and the one fifteen per year setback as well.
The area we're talking about, that's
the perennial stream there.
The park area.
That's the current condition of the park
on disturbed city buffer, and one fifty impervious setback.
Like I said, it's currently a park. This is only right now just an open
grassy area. It is a very sensitive area. We have the buffers,
with perennial streams.
And as you can see, all that shaded area, that's floodplain.
See here, I know it's a little hard to see on this slide, but if you see the red line over here, that's wetlands.
As
the closer view of the
property, you can see right now is a really big grassy area
that the neighbors use for recreation and playing sports there.
This is the proposed
park. There there's the city got a obtain a grant
to improve the park for the neighborhood, this undeserved area.
It would have
the area here for kids.
Anchoring help me out if I miss something. Help me out if I miss something here. So, So, so this would be a bathroom. I think it's also like a pavilion area and a bathroom.
And
Yeah. We can't actually see what you're pointing. Oh, what's that? We cannot see what you're pointing. Okay.
Sorry. So but you can see the slide. Good. We can see the slide. If you wanna describe maybe So where the bathroom is. Yeah. The brown area, that's the, play area.
And as you move
towards the street there, there's the,
bathroom building.
To the left of that, that's the enhanced well. That will be the water quality feature
that's gonna treat the stormwater for the site.
And then you can see the green area there,
with the proposed trail around it.
And my understanding is,
it went through a lot of meetings and input from the neighbors that really wanted to keep this grassy area because to play sports and for recreation.
And like I was saying, there's there's the city is on a time sensitive grant
to get this project. And then parking will be right off the street there, which is outside the buffers.
They are avoiding the wetlands. There will not be any intrusion into the wetlands or the state buffer.
The first blue line you see there, the dash blue line, that's the state buffer. So they're staying out of that state buffer.
And then there will be
significant intrusion into the undisturbed and the, impervious setback. You can see the numbers there.
What is the rust colored area that I'm seeing on that slide? What was it? Say that again? What is the rust colored area or
burnt orange area that I'm seeing on the slide?
Is that That's the playground. Gotcha. Yeah. That's the playground. And that's the,
there's no impervious, maybe a few,
like, swings and stuff like that. But really, it's mostly impervious area
for the kids to play. It's 15,000
disturbed,
impacted the undisturbed buffer and then 7,000 to the impervious setback.
We did consider an alternate plan that has no intrusion.
And there's some challenges with this.
The first one, like I like I mentioned, is,
they're really one of the grassy area. If you put the building, if you move move the buildings and the playground into the grassy area, it pretty much eliminates that
recreational area.
And also for safety concerns,
it is not visible from the street.
So there's a lot of safety concerns putting it
behind the trees and and and away from the road.
This is
the part where we do some some mitigation.
If you can see the the purple is the entire site.
The red area is the impacted area.
I don't know if it looks red on your screen, but red or orange. That's the impacted area.
Just due to the slopes of the site, most of that runoff from that area is gonna bypass,
back to the stream. So we are treating
the purple area is the it's the equivalent area that will be
Otherwise, you will have to
get beyond that red area and you'll be more into the buffers. So we're trying to avoid that there or designers are trying to avoid that.
Are trying to avoid
that. So for mitigation, they're gonna do an enhanced well,
and they're gonna treat one and a half times a required runoff.
The minimum is one inch of rainfall
for the,
previous areas and the disturbed areas.
They're gonna do one and a half times. So they're gonna do half half the time you know, half the volume more,
for mitigation to offset. And it removes a lot of the volume when you do that much runoff. It
removes a lot of the volume.
And
there's also
a lot of proposed
replanting with native species
as, also as mitigation.
They have a pretty robust,
landscape plan.
They'll be required to comply with the stormwater ordinance. Like I said, they're going to do more, 150%
of that water quality value will be provided in that enhanced well.
And they'll be required to comply with the floodplain ordinance as well.
So we'll have to do a flood study and show that, you know, they're keeping the compensatory storage in the floodplain. It's not changing
and raising the base flood more than 0.01
feet. So that's a requirement, the floodplain, so they're gonna have to abide by that,
cost. So you're saying that the mitigation that you're doing is gonna be required regardless?
Yes. The flow plane, yes. That's re required regardless. Yes.
Yeah. You're allowed to be on the flow plane, but you have to meet this they're pretty strict requirements,
requirements, to be on the floodplain. And like I said, they'll provide a landscape plan as well for replanting of native plant species. Like like I showed you earlier, there's a lot of they said a lot pretty big, grassy area there.
So a little interpretation of the string buffer code would deprive
this already wrecked zone, you know, property,
to be built for the intended purpose.
Like I said, it's a time sensitive grant and,
to get this part going for this undeserved area,
and not requesting any unlawful use of land building or structures per code.
So we, as staff, recommend approval.
Mister Yeah. This is Rob Huey.
What happens after this is built? Who maintains it?
The city. The city. Okay. Alright.
Any other questions?
Anyone from the public who wishes to be heard?
Yes, sir.
Come on up. Yep. Up to the microphone.
Please state your name and address.
Sure. My name is William Almgren.
My residence is, 10620
Worthington Hills Manor in Roswell
at Liberty Square,
where the park is going, pretty much.
I live about two blocks away, give or take, quarter less than a fifth of a mile.
I represent the Liberty Square Neighborhood Association,
the homeowners there.
A bunch
oh, let's see.
About fifteen years ago, we prevent maybe twenty. We prevented well, forty years ago, we prevented the golf course being built there in that same spot. There was gonna be a driving range.
That driving range is now located up on, Holcomb Bridge,
by the,
the police station.
The new police station. Well, relatively new on the border with Gwinnett.
And then we had a radio,
towers that were gonna be be built there about twelve years ago, thirteen years ago. And we were assured by the mayor,
mayor at the time, mayor,
Jerrod Wood, that this property would not be developed.
So I don't understand why we're spending money
on a property that really shouldn't be developed.
Isn't the city have better ways to spend its money on on a park that
quite frankly, we have 270
homes in our subdivision.
And I would say about 80 to 85%
are,
transients.
Many, Hispanic people,
that live there. And we're building a park that's
already been swept by ice.
It's come in and a lot of people are leaving,
just for simple reason.
They, going back to where they come from, Central America, South America,
Mexico.
I would estimate about 40% of the subdivision is,
has been,
vacated.
A lot of houses are empty right now.
It's just the way it is.
Situations
like I said, many people that live there
are transients. Okay. Thank you very much, sir. Your two minutes is up. Oh, okay. Thank you.
Anyone else?
Alright. Seeing no one that wishes to speak, we'll go ahead and close this meeting to the public.
Well, I do you wanna rebut
anything that was said? Okay. We'll go ahead and close this meeting of the public
for discussion among the board. Do we have a motion?
Everyone at once.
I will make a motion then to go ahead and
I guess we have two technically, two variances.
Make a motion to approve,
the request to encroach up to 75%
of the 100 foot undisturbed natural vegetation buffer
for perennial stream
and the variance request to encroach up to 100%
of the 50 foot no impervious setback
for perennial stream.
Is there a second?
I'll second.
Seconded?
Discussion before we vote?
Right. Let's vote. All in favor, raise your hand.
Five. All against,
zero. Five to nothing. Motion passes and the variances are granted.
Next item on the agenda,
the minutes from the 09/09/2025
BZA
meeting.
We have a motion to
Rob Healy. Motion to approve. Motion to approve. Do we have a second?
Second.
Alright.
All in favor?
Five. All against?
Zero.
Excuse me. The minutes from the last meeting are approved.
Any other matters the board wishes to take up?
Alright. I will move for adjournment. Any objection?
Being none, the meeting is adjourned.
Here
we go.