top of page
Search

The Ansley Park Case May Be Going Back to Planning Commission. We Are Still Planning for August 24.

  • 4 days ago
  • 7 min read

Two weeks ago we published a long breakdown of what happened when the Woodstock Planning Commission took up Case A#132-26, the Weekley Homes annexation and rezoning of 200 Dupree Road. If you have not read it, read it before Monday. Everything below builds on it.



The short version: the Commission approved the annexation and the rezoning, denied the three variances, and stripped all sixteen conditions off what it approved, including the relocation condition that both Cherokee County and the city's own Development Process Committee had asked for. The recommendation that went to Council carries no unit cap, no trail obligation, no rental cap, and no protection for the roughly 130 households who live there.


On Monday night, before council even reached the announcements, that recommendation may have changed course.


What was announced


Mayor Michael Caldwell opened the work session by telling council that the developer had requested Case A#132-26 be returned to the Planning Commission, and that the request was consented to by the property owner. Staff confirmed that on the record. In the mayor's words, the applicant feels they need to go make their case to the Planning Commission.


The mayor raised it early and on purpose. A public hearing had already been advertised for August 24, and he did not want to inadvertently invite people who expected a hearing that was not going to occur. He asked whether any council member had an aversion to the case going back, or any dissenting thoughts. Nobody spoke against it.


Mayor Pro Tem Colin Ake, who represents Ward 3, explained why he supported it, and his reasoning tracks almost exactly what we wrote on August 7. He said it was frustrating that the applicant did not bring a presentation for Planning Commission, and that the message council wants to send to developers is not that you can just skip Planning Commission, because the whole point of that body is to get its input on these projects. He said the planning commissioners parse variances and conditions much more deeply than council does and spend more time on them. He said that if the case had come to council without a presentation to Planning Commission, he would have wanted to send it back for that opportunity for input anyway. His conclusion was two words: this is needed.


That is the substitute attorney with no elevations. That is Joel Larkin standing at the podium unable to produce renderings for a project asking to cut minimum lot size by more than half. It reached council, and at least one council member noticed.


The timeline the mayor laid out


If council votes Monday to send the case back, here is what the mayor said from the dais:

The advertising deadline for September has already passed, so this would not be in September. On October, he said that the way schedules are aligning, it is very likely staff will request the case go back to planning for November's schedule, meaning the November planning meeting and the November council meetings. He also said the expectation would be that Planning Commission holds yet another public hearing, and that council would hold its own public hearing when the case finally comes back.


Then he addressed the public directly. He asked that his statement be considered public notice that the public hearing scheduled for next week would likely be delayed until after Planning Commission has gone through a second public hearing and sent the case back to council, assuming council takes the vote he anticipates.


Another Planning Commission public hearing. Then a council public hearing. That is two more turns at the podium, in front of a body that has now been told by its own mayor pro tem that skipping it is not acceptable.


Why we are still asking you to come on August 24


As of this writing, the agenda for the August 24 regular meeting has not been updated. The final vote on Case A#132-26 is still showing.


Nothing has been continued. Nothing has been tabled. Nothing has been sent back. What happened Monday was a conversation at a work session where no votes are taken, and a statement of what the mayor expects. He said so himself when he described it as advance notice of a vote he anticipates council will take.


We have been at this long enough to know the difference between what a body expects to do and what a body does. Until the published agenda changes, we plan for what the published agenda says.


There is also a vote happening Monday either way. Council will act on the request to send this case back to Planning Commission. That is a real decision with real consequences for the next three months, and the room should be full for it. A packed chamber on the night a case gets sent back is how everyone in that building learns this community did not go anywhere.

And if the agenda does not change, the final vote proceeds as advertised. We are not going to be the people who stayed home the night it mattered because of something said at a work session.


Our schedule is unchanged


Both public comment prep sessions are still happening. Both are bilingual. Bring whatever you want to say and we will help you tighten it. If you have never spoken at a council meeting before, come to one of these. It is the single best hour you can spend before Monday.



If the case does go back, none of this preparation is wasted. A November schedule means a second Planning Commission hearing and then a council hearing after it. Every comment written this week is a comment that gets delivered twice, with more time to strengthen it and more neighbors standing behind it. A speaker slate built in August is a speaker slate ready in November.


What a return to Planning Commission does not do is answer any of the questions we raised on August 7. Not the self created hardship the applicant's own variance response admits. Not the density question, where the city's development standards table lists R-4 at a maximum of 4 units per acre and the applicant's engineering plans list 7.0, with no density variance requested. Not the Natural Preserve character area the county identified and the city did not carry forward under Table 9 of its own comprehensive plan. Not the contradiction between the 2,500 square foot lot size in the application and the 2,700 in the plans. And not the relocation agreement that two public bodies have now requested and nobody has produced.

More time only helps the side that uses it.


The rest of Monday's work session


Johnston Farm Passive Park. Liz Cole of Earth Elements presented the draft master plan for the roughly 17 acre property off Main Street. It stays passive: natural surface loop trails, an ADA accessible boardwalk down to the ponds, a fishing pier, restrooms, a small garden behind them, an arbor with porch swings and tire swings, and a lawn of about a quarter acre. Seventeen parallel parking spaces, one of them accessible. Estimated cost is just over $3 million including a 15 percent contingency. There is no ability to tie into a sewer line at that location, so the site will need septic. Neighbors in Woodstock Knoll asked that their property line be screened and the plan includes a fence. Council gave direction for staff to get pricing on dam inspections and percolation testing before the master plan comes back for adoption.


Worth noting for the Ansley Park file: about 28 people came to the public input meeting, the designer walked the property with neighbors who had concerns, and the plan changed to accommodate them. Ake thanked her for it, saying it means a lot that the city listens to residents and slows down instead of steamrolling forward with something already on its mind, and that they try to hear concerns and see people as people.


Fourteen people signed up in opposition on August 6. Three of them never reached the podium.


Little River kayak launch. Recommended against, and council agreed. An ADA accessible launch there would require a 95 foot ramp with walls running from one foot to ten feet, a state stream buffer variance taking about 90 days, and roughly $300,000 to $400,000 in construction, at a spot 1,125 linear feet from the parking lot on a stretch of river that is often too shallow to paddle. The $130,000 Blue Water Trail line item in the parks bond may go toward signage instead.


Elm Street Event Green. The grass is losing to its own popularity. Staff proposed artificial turf plus drainage improvements at about $155,000, paid from Parks and Recreation SPLOST, installed during a September window when nothing is scheduled. Ake pushed back, arguing the city has never actually solved the underlying drainage problem, that the last sod installation was pinned with netting instead of stakes, and that turf will carry maintenance costs of its own. Others raised heat and food debris. Consensus landed on turf, with agreement that the under drain system has to be addressed regardless of surface. A budget amendment is expected Monday. The city owns the green, leases it to the DDA, and the DDA leases it to Woodstock Arts, which the city manager noted limits how directly the city can take over maintenance.


Downtown managed parking, year one. From the July 7, 2025 launch through June 2026 there were about 254,000 transactions, roughly 48 percent of them at zero dollars under the first hour free policy. Parking revenue came to about $309,000 and citation revenue to about $168,000, for $490,000 in total revenue against $483,000 in expenses and a net of nearly $7,000. About 10,500 citations were issued, 4.2 percent of transactions, and of 1,764 appeals roughly 1,700 were reduced to warnings and 64 upheld. Downtown visits are up 6.2 percent year over year, with an average stay of 101 minutes. One detail drew attention: the city pays 15 cents to open every free session, about $18,000 a year, and council wants to revisit whether a session should be required at all for the free hour. Ake also asked whether anyone has been ticketed for parking in an accessible space without a placard. Staff did not know. The city manager asked for a report from Pivot.


Transportation. Staff reported seven projects recently completed, five under construction, seven in right of way acquisition, eleven in design, and a little over ten more waiting. Noonday Creek Trail should wrap up in the next couple of months. Dupree Road Trail is finished. Ridgewalk Parkway involves about 26 parcels, with right of way acquisition expected to take roughly a year.


Council closed in executive session to discuss litigation, personnel, and real estate. No action was taken, as work sessions are non voting.


Bottom line


Watch the agenda. We will post the moment it changes, in English and Spanish, on every channel we have.


Until it changes, Monday, August 24 at 7:00 PM at The Chambers at City Center, 8534 Main Street, is the night this gets decided. Come Saturday. Come Sunday. Come Monday. Bring a neighbor.


North Georgia Community Action Network is a volunteer led civic organizing collective serving Cherokee, Pickens, Bartow, Forsyth, Cobb, and Fulton counties.

Comments

bottom of page