We are very appreciative of the Planning Commission's efforts in moving Avalon along and we look forward to responding to their concerns at next week's meeting. We do, however, take issue with Commissioner Bristol's blanket statement "I think the citizens of Alpharetta have spoken very clearly that they don't want apartments". Many citizens have spoken very clearly in favor of "apartments" in the two online forums - http://tinyurl.com/c6k6vgf and http://tinyurl.com/dyj4yaq - citing the need for an amenity-rich, pedestrian oriented lifestyle that is attractive to both younger residents and downsizing empty nesters. Avalon will bring a new luxury residential experience (call it "apartments" if you must) to Alpharetta, resetting the bar and offering the City an opportunity to compete with other tech-savvy communities across the US.

Again, we applaud the extraordinary lengths that the Alpharetta Planning Commission has gone to in reviewing Avalon and look forward to our next meeting on April 5.

Mark Toro
Managing Partner
North American Properties

Mark, I'm in full agreement that Alpharetta needs this type of development & I'm also a citizen that fully supports Alpharetta not having more garden style apartments.

I'm also a developer with a 5+ year old stalled condo/lofts project in downtown Alpharetta ... And have been told over and over absolutely no way I can get approval to do my units as for rent product.

Both projects are mixed use - mine has retail/restaurant on first floor & in the downtown overlay with it's abundance of retail, restaurant, & office space.

Both have for sale residential as well... Avalon with 128, downtown with Victoria Square & others

Both projects fill a starving market need... Upscale for rent product that will most likely convert to for sale condo/lofts when the market warms.

And both projects need residents living there to truly be successful mixed use projects.

Requiring either developer to "acquire" BUY development rights from another site adds too much cost to an already expensive project.

The City and it's residents need to help both Avalon and downtown Alpharetta succeed and thrive while protecting the ratio and comp plan.

I have several ideas which may help - overlay districts, time-limited zoning, or structured parking requirements.

But for Alpharetta to prosper it must meet the demands of a changing workforce & genY wanting walk ability/urbanism, it has to find a way to encourage and assist good projects like both Avalon and downtown get off the ground.

Agree with Mr. Forrest that for this place to prosper it must meet the demands of a changing workforce and gen-Y's wanting walk-ability and urbanism.
Agree with Mr. Toro there is a gaping need for pedestrian (let me add biking to that too) friendly lifestyle with appeal to younger people.
I am around young people (compared to me) in the college age bracket to early 30's bracket a lot ....they have an interesting mindset and we would do well to consider it. Do some market studies on it.

Many young adults don't want to tie themselves down to a mortgage now. The workforce is constantly mobile and we realize that we may have to change states or even move across country to find the best opportunities. Those of us (like myself) who did tie ourselves to a mortgage are often regretting it now. Apartments have a reputation for drawing a bad element because the apartments available are aimed towards people who can't afford better. If there were better options, then that wouldn't be the case.

Alpharetta already suffers from the legacy of Fulton County allowing apartments to be built in formerly unincorporated parts of the city; these apartments developments already attract the "bad element" referenced above. The problem Avalon would create with rental units will not manifest in 1 year or even perhaps 5 years; the problem will manifest in 10 - 20 years as the units age and the nature of the renters changes. Take a drive down Holcomb Bridge Road, west of Ga. 400 and see how 20+ year old rental units affect an area.

As a 20+ year home/property owner in Alpharetta, I have no desire to see the the Comprehensive Land Use Plan be stretched and perverted in order to accomodate rental units that go against the very spirit of the Plan. The Plan was developed with citizen input, and citizens expect our government to adhere to the spirit of the Plan.

Barbara
My husband and I just returned from California, which we made a side trip to Santana Row. I cannot say enough, it was beautiful ,and so pleasant to see people enjoying the shopping, eating great food, and relaxing in the square. I know this project will be a plus for Alpharetta

Mark, Charlotte, DC, and San Jose are not Alpharetta in terms of demographics. Do Charlotte, DC, and San Jose have similar land use plans to Alpharetta? Was it necessary to gain zoning variances for those projects too? How did you say it - apples to oranges?

If the residential component is so important for realizing vertical integration of the project, convert the rental units to condos. Units of this much importance should sell with no issues.

I like the Avalon proposal with some changes. However I am very annoyed that despite all the public meetings and on-line forums, North American Properties hasn't compromised at all. NAP is balking at minor conditions, too. I am unaware of anything that NAP has changed since the first meeting. I just want Avalon to meet the minimum requirements of the zoning code and Comprehensive Plan.

Avalon could remove the apartments or buy the development rights. Alpharetta has a Comprehensive Plan goal to limit apartments to 15% of all housing units, which every Councilman promised to support. City Council reapproved this goal less than 4 months ago and has turned down more than 1,000 apartments in recent years. Currently Alpharetta has 5,500 apartments, 24% of all housing. If you include all rental units (apartments, condos, townhomes and single family homes), the 2010 Census shows that Alpharetta has the higher percentage of renters (35%) than Roswell (33%), Milton (26%) or Johns Creek (20%). If Avalon's success depends on apartments, Alpharetta already has several thousand apartments within walking distance (Northwinds and on Academy Street).

Also, the zoning code requires 10% (9 acres) as a public space amenity where people can gather. Avalon has the audacity to propose that the public space include sidewalks in front of stores, a dry retention pond, an HOA common area and the buffer along GA 400 that is required to be undisturbed anyway.

Alpharetta can do better.

I know that I have read that apartments are trending as more desirable than owning a home/condo, since the real estate market crashed in 2008. This is simply due to the risk in the market, and higher mortgage qualifications to purchase a home. My personal experience was to buy a condo in Alpharetta in 2006, just down Westside Parkway from Avalon, near the peak of the real estate market; the value of my home is considerably less than I paid. The (Luxury) Condos we paid an average of $150,000 can now be had for a foreclosure price of $80,000. There were many promises of future development, and the City of Alpharetta would develop the area around our condos and that would increase our values. We are still waiting. The risk is with developer. The land needs to be developed. I do have concerns about the business impact on North Point Mall, which is struggling, concerns about adding more movie theaters, but even with all that, I think developing the property is something that needs to get done and whether or not there are apartments should not be the holdup.

I work on Old Milton and live nearby. During the real estate boom the Old Milton/Windward area was overbuilt with condos. I pass by abandoned housing projects every day. I would say lose all of the apartments and let the home owners rent the condos as the ratio allows. I would also like to add a wish list item, I would like to see an outdoor covered food court. The area is lacking in places to eat during lunch, and even less places with a decent patio. have it closed off and heated in the winter and open in the summer. I really enjoy eating outside except for now when there is more pollen then air. Either way, I'm glad to hear something is moving forward with that land.

Mark, you are absolutely correct that the comparison of Avalon's apartments to the aging garden apts dotting Holcom Bridge Rd and North Fulton is apples to oranges. One of the issues that I always bring up is the design. At first sight, a garden apt segregated from the rest of the city by a fence and sometimes a gate is great. However, very quickly, they become places that no one really cares about.

Create a place where people want to be and they will care about it. Once you figure out how to do that, apartments will be successful. I doubt there is a single person on this comment thread or who has attended a public hearing on Avalon who has any burning desire to go visit any of the garden apt complexes in North Fulton. They are absolute voids separated by use and often demographic from the rest of the city. The only people who want to go there are the people who live there and that's usually only because their stuff is there until they can figure out how to move to a better place.

We need to start building places where people WANT to be rather than places that store human beings and their stuff. Vertically integrated mixed-use is a proven way to do that and Avalon is a great start. If you continue to get pushback, bring your $200M down to exit 7. I'm sure Roswell will be interested :)

I am a homeowner in Alpharetta in the Kimball Bridge area not far from where Avalon will be located. I fully support the project and the concept of having high end apartment units integrated into the development. As to some of the concerns voiced here about what happens as apartments "age", I do not think a fair comparison can be made between stand-alone apartment complexes and rental units of the type being considered in Avalon which will be integrated into the larger, up-scale mixed-use development. You have my 100% support.

@ Mr. Toro -
Did you not know that Alpharetta had an 85/15 single/multi family target before you bought this property? Surely someone of your calibur would check into these things before making an investment of this size? So your beef is not that you didn't know the rules but that we won't break the rules just for you? Is that it? Kind of like a playground bully?

Apartments bring in transients and transients do not care for a town the way those who have substantial long-term investments in the community. It doesn't matter whether they are living in a garden apartment or above a store. The LBJ urban renewal projects have proven that environmental surroundings do nothing to change the inside character of a person. I say this as one who has lived in apartments before.

Why can't you buy developer rights or buy up an older complex in exchange for what you want so that the net apartment gain remains at zero? Why are you so opposed to that?

Instead you have come to town strong-arming the Chamber and others to steamroll the will of the electorate while you have stood on the sidelines with your incessant name-calling of citizens on public forums. NIMBYs and whiners? Really? Is this NAP's code of professionalism?

The earlier referred to name-calling names "whiner" and "NIMBY" that Mr. Toro allegedly called a few of us Alpharettans....I'll be the first to admit I'm both of these. Lots of us are. I may have my own flavor of NIMBY ("don't put that movie theatre in my back yard!" etc. but I'm definitely a NIMBY and I suspect most of us are about something. As for whining - I can whine with the best of em. Don't know if Mr. Toro said these things and don't really care to be honest. As for NAP listening to Alpharettans comments - I'd say they've done a good job of listening, but of course the final product is what matters. On the thorny issue of luxury rentals: much more complicated to me is the quality of the management company in handling the rentals; i.e. what is their track record in rental management? do they have frequent customer complaints? Also, on the issue of luxury rentals, when the mortgage crisis finally eases up completely, can these luxury rentals be converted to "in-town" (in an Alpharetta sort of way) loft condo's for purchase? Being someone who travels to and from the mid-sized city of Knoxville, TN quite a bit, I can tell you that the strangest part of going there for me is seeing my friends leaving their home/yard mortgages in the burbs to buy lofts in old buildings on Gay Street in downtown K-ville. This is the 55 years old and up crowd. So much for only 20 year olds being candidates for loft living in Alpharetta - seems to appeal to us boomers as well.

Furthermore, we have two new Council and a mayoral candidate who campaigned on stemming the tide and preservation. They are Donald Mitchell, Jim Gilvin, and David Belle Isle. The city has spoken with their votes. We may need to remind them of their own words from less than 6 months ago.

*I doubt Mr. Toro has said everything he thinks. I know I haven't.
* "keeps us young and connected" (living among the young and energetic)----- I completely get that now that I'm an old, whiny NIMBY.
*I'm simply not qualified to speak to what Mr. Forrest wants or MetLife, or Mr. BelleIsle with regard to these matters. My pet project, love and cause is outdoor space, gardens, parks and connecting people to all these things because I know these things contribute to healthy bodies and minds. This is why I'm more concerned with the design/landscape architecture/walkability of Avalon than I am anything else.

Let me preface by saying, this thread is awesome. I don't think the Avalon plan is perfect. Like I said earlier the parking as it is definitely isn't something I like to see. In the absence of a parking deck, I hope to god there will be valet. Those parking lots look murderous. I question the lack of open gathering spaces. However, those things said, I'd sure as hell like the Avalon plan over what's there now. Also, I'd like to point out that cities grow and change. If you're 50 and expect Alpharetta to be the same as when you moved here at 30 then you've living in a dreamland. I'm far more concerned with the sheer number of foreclosures in Alpharetta than the number of apartments. Those are the things ruining property values. It'd be nice to have something that actually could increase them for once. Studies show that mixed-use and mixed-income developments have a positive impact on property values.

The presentation on youtube is great, but I do have two light questions.

1. What song is that playing?

2. Will stop signs be installed to prevent the two cars from hitting each other at 33 seconds into the video?