63: District 2 Town Hall Q&A on Growth, Rezoning, and Community Priorites

Catch the latest episode of Conversations with Ku and hear the Q&A session from the State of District 2. Get updates on current projects, upcoming initiatives, and what's happening in your community.

Commissioner Ku would love to hear from you or answer questions about District 2. Feel free to email him at Ben.Ku@GwinnettCounty.com and your question may be read on air. 

Transcript

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Hello everyone, I'm Gwinnett County District 2 Commissioner Ben Ku, and you're listening to Conversations with Ku. Welcome to Episode 63. In the last episode, we recapped my 2026 State of District 2 Town Hall, which took place in April. In this episode, we're going to recap the Q&A portion of the event where I and other Gwinnett leadership answered questions submitted during the Town Hall about planning and development, sidewalk projects, and community safety. Our residents asked some really thoughtful and important questions, and I was glad to be joined by other department leaders to help provide additional insight where needed. Take a listen. So thank you for being here tonight, and I know there's plenty to talk about. We've already received several thoughtful questions this evening. Feel free to continue to scan the QR code on screen and on your printed agenda, and continue to submit questions as we go during this discussion. Again, if we aren't able to get your question, please know we will all be available afterwards to continue the conversation with you directly. We get zoning applications all the time, constantly throughout the year at the county, and so this one is what's in the queue.- So yeah, we don't decide what rezonings private property owners submit to us. Anyone has the right to request whatever rezoning they would like on a property, but that doesn't mean that we at the staff level are going to recommend approval. It doesn't mean that the Planning Commission will recommend approval. It doesn't mean the Board of Commissioners will eventually approve it, but anyone does have the right with their property to come to Gwinnett County and say, hey, I have an idea for my property, and this is what I want to do. And then we, at the staff level, take a look at that objectively and see if it's appropriate, and then it goes through Planning Commission for a recommendation, and to the Board of Commissioners for a decision.- Kind of giving a good overview of the process. Are there any more details you can give about that process for people?- Yeah, absolutely. Just to expand on that a little bit more. So whenever we receive an application initially, the first thing that we do is make sure that all required documents are included, that they've provided property owner consent, that they have sewer capacity certification to show that if sewer is required for the project, that they do have that. For at a certain threshold, they have to provide a traffic impact study. So a lot of things that need to be included with that packet. So once we've determined that an application is complete, then we'll start writing a case report. And that's where, at the staff level, our team looks at, is this an appropriate use based on our 2045 Unified Plan, which Commissioner Koo mentioned earlier in the video, right? This is our sort of future visionary document for land use in Gwinnett County. So that's the first thing that we're going to look at, is this proposal that they're making, is it appropriate based on that future land use map and based on our 2045 Unified Plan? We'll also look at the surrounding uses and see, is this appropriate? Is this compatible with the surrounding zonings in that area? We'll take a look at what's the impact on the surrounding community generally as it relates to infrastructure. We partner with several different departments within the county, like the Department of Water Resources, the Department of Transportation. They take a look at this as well to see, okay, what's the impact on Gwinnett County infrastructure? Is there sufficient infrastructure to support that project, right? So there are a lot of different levels that we're looking at this in coming up with a recommendation on whether or not any rezoning that's proposed throughout Gwinnett County is appropriate in that location. So once we've made that determination at the staff level, we finalize that case report. It includes a recommendation. Along with that recommendation, you'll see conditions typically, and sometimes those conditions, maybe a use is appropriate, but maybe there's an issue with one part where maybe there are some conditions that are needed to mitigate the impact on some surrounding neighbors. You may see conditions where it's an added buffer next to a certain neighbor to make sure that there's a lesser impact. Maybe it's an appropriate use there, but you need a little bit more buffer between a surrounding use to lessen that impact on the neighbor. That would be one example of a potential condition. So we look at potential conditions to mitigate those surrounding impacts and finalize that case report. Once that case report's concluded, that includes a staff recommendation, that includes any recommending conditions, then it goes to a public hearing at the planning commission. At the planning commission, they will have a, as I mentioned, it's a public hearing. It's open for anybody to come and whether they're in support or opposition to a given rezoning, and each side gets 10 minutes. The applicant would get 10 minutes to talk about the project and any opposition to the project gets 10 minutes to talk about why they don't think that that's appropriate. Based on that information, the planning commission has an opportunity to ask questions and then they make a recommendation. The planning commission votes to recommend either approval or denial and then the planning commission can also attach conditions. They can either agree with staff conditions or they can modify those conditions to make them stronger or looser. From there, then it goes to a public hearing before the board of commissioners where the same type of process happens where you have that applicant getting 10 minutes, you have any opposition getting 10 minutes, and then ultimately the board of commissioners makes the final determination on whether to approve or deny the rezoning. And then again, they have the opportunity to change those conditions to either reflect what staff recommended initially for the conditions, to go with what the planning commission recommended, or to change them entirely.- Thank you. Very thorough answer. I think that covers multiple questions that we got. This one is probably good for transportation department. How do sidewalks get determined and assigned and prioritized?- So with our sidewalk projects, our sidewalk is a part of our SPLOST program, and so just kind of similar to how it was mentioned for the planning commission, when you go through the SPLOST program, we do have a SPLOST citizens committee. We look at the areas that are concerned throughout the entire county and then things are ranked based off of the funding that is available for those projects. So it is a collaboration between the citizens committee as well as the commissioners to be able to list those projects for future SPLOST or the current SPLOST that we have.- Thank you very much. Next question, back to planning, without talking about any specific zoning cases, but in general, how does staff make recommendations when it comes to a zoning case?- Definitely. Thank you. When we're taking a look at any rezoning, as I mentioned, the first thing that we're going to look at is the 2045 plan and the future development map for Gwinnett County just to see what's recommended in that area. So is the zoning that's being proposed on this property consistent with the zonings that we would typically see as reflected in our future land use plan? So that's a big piece of it. We also look at those surrounding uses to see what's immediately surrounding it. So obviously if somebody's trying to put a factory in right next to a single family home, that may be an incompatible use that we want to take a look at, right? Independent of what the unified plan says. We also want to look at the impact on infrastructure, as I mentioned, partnering with Department of Water Resources, Department of Transportation to take a look, get their feedback on how it impacts what they're looking at. And then also in one of the standards, is there an appropriate economic use of the property currently? So when they come to us, that's one of the things that they have to justify to say, is there an appropriate use? Is there an economically viable use of the property as zoned currently? And if not, does that justify this rezoning? So we have several standards that we look at as we're looking at making a recommendation to approve or deny a project.- The next question is planning one. Is there currently any discussion or plan to limit additional gas station convenience stores in Gwinnett? And so I'll actually take this one. I'm with you. I understand that there has been a proliferation of gas stations. So what we did is a few years ago, we put in an UDO update that basically required any new gas station in the county to get approval from the Board of Commissioners specifically for that use. So any new gas stations have to come before us through that zoning process that Chris so eloquently described in detail, they would have to go through that whole process. It doesn't mean that we're prohibiting it, but again, it gives us all an opportunity to weigh in, see if this actually makes sense for the community, is there economic use as currently zoned, et cetera. And so a lot of the gas stations that I know we are seeing shovels in the ground and gas stations being built, a lot of those were pushed right up under the gun right before the new UDO went into effect. And so unfortunately, they are grandfathered in and we can't just tell a business, hey, you own this property, but you can't operate here anymore. Just like any business, we couldn't just say, hey, we don't like what you're doing, move. So property owners have rights. And so hopefully, the new UDO changes will stem the tide of all these new gas stations. Next question is zoning specific, but I'm actually going to reward it a little bit. So when there are conditions placed on a zoning and approved by the Board of Commissioners, how are those conditions enforced and how can our residents help ensure that those conditions are met?- Yes, absolutely. Thank you. So there's several layers to this, right? So the first piece of it is when a property is being developed. So when they come to us, they're going to submit plans. They're going to be development plans and then they're going to be building plans. So when our team looks at it, we check those conditions of zoning and we make sure that those development plans and that those building plans comply with those conditions of zoning. And same thing with when we inspect the property. So whenever that project is being developed, we make sure that those buffers, the landscaping is in place. If there was a fence that's required, the fence is installed. If there are facades that need to be a certain percentage of brick or whatever material, we check that throughout the process. So our inspectors, our plan reviewers check for new developments to make sure that those conditions are being met. So that's the first piece of it. But the second piece of it is actually after it's building is constructed, the development opens. We need to stay on top of that too. And so that's where code enforcement gets involved. And so if there's an issue where somebody after our building inspectors, development inspectors are gone, a certificate of occupancy has been issued, the business is open, but they fundamentally change something either in how they're operating or how the landscaping is in place or whatever they may do to where it doesn't meet those conditions of zoning, then code enforcement is able to issue them a notice of violation, which is really a fancy way of saying an official warning. Or if they don't comply promptly, then we're able to issue citations to recorder's court. So those are kind of the different levels of how we check and make sure that it's in place. I will say if as a resident, if you ever see whether it's during the development phase, it's during the building construction process, or if it's after a business is open and you have concerns that what you saw during the public process and the conditions that were agreed upon by the applicant that were approved by the board of commissioners are not being met, then certainly reach out to us. So you can either go on our county's zip portal, zoning inspections and permitting portal. You can reach out to us at planning and development and we can get somebody out there and make sure that those conditions are being met.- These are great questions, you guys. This is wonderful because every time I have a podcast, I ask for people to submit your questions and feedback so we can engage and answer them. We haven't had anybody write us on the podcast, but you guys have got lots of questions here and there's some really good questions. Anyways, I'll get back to it. So this is an interesting question. How do the priorities outlined by the BOC align with community safety and crime? There's an addendum in particular. How does the Solicitor General's office stay in alignment with those priorities? And thankfully, we actually have our Solicitor General here. I'm just going to invite her up to answer this question.- Always come prepared.- Put you on the spot.- So I'm Lisa Marie Bristol, I'm your Solicitor General. It's an honor to serve you. My office is responsible for handling all of the misdemeanors, code enforcement, traffic violations, so we are very high volume. Working with the Board of Commissioners is really important. There's a couple of key things I think we've heard from Commissioner Ku throughout the evening about how they prioritize things like technology. I've heard us talk about technology and digital access. My office built a new website to make sure all of the information about how to go through the court system, how to navigate when you have a ticket, what do you do if you're the victim of a crime and you need resources. All of those can be found on our website, our gwinnettsg.com website. We also made sure that we've increased our access to justice. So what does that mean? Not only being more informative, holding more community outreach events, we go out to the high schools and talk to the young people about options for them and give them resources. That's something that's important. And being better together, which I think is one of the greater things here in Gwinnett, we work really hard to bring together agencies throughout the community. Gwinnett is a beautifully diverse community. We have so many great things happening here, but it's really easy to forget maybe what's going on in Norcross if you live up in Sugar Hill. So one of the things that my office does prioritize is bringing the different agencies together that do different things, whether it's victim services, resources, crime prevention, education, and particularly at my annual 5K, or we find opportunities to make sure we can come together under one umbrella to share that information. Because a lot of times people just don't know what their options are. I think all of these align with us having a thriving community where we can live, work, and play and make sure that everyone feels comfortable, knows if they have a problem, if they have a question, they can go to Deputy Chief Shaw. They can contact my office. Our office is always open and available, and we have a 24-hour contact option. I hope that answers the question.- I think that does, and I think the first part of the question I can answer, like it was asking about how do the priorities outlined by the BOC align with the community safety and crime, and one of our strategic priorities is public safety. It's very much in line, making sure everyone is safe and secure here. Again, I'm so happy about our 911 hold times getting down to close to two seconds now. It's just good work from all of our staff and team. We have amazing staff here at the county. The next question is, when a property is listed for sale, does the owner of the property next to it get notified of application to rezone? If not, why not?- Yes, so one of the requirements of any rezoning is to notify any property owners within 1,000 feet of that property. So if a property next to yours is applying for a rezoning, you should receive a letter, and we validate those lists of addresses through our GIS system. And so, yes, there is a notification that goes out to inform adjacent property owners, not only of the upcoming rezoning, but also if there's going to be a public participation meeting, which is typically required for rezonings at this point. So we now require the applicant to host a meeting with the public to really kind of vet out the project and get feedback on the project before it even goes through the process that we talked about earlier.- And that's new, right?- It is, absolutely. That was something that the Board of Commissioners adopted with that UDO update that Commissioner Ku was talking about earlier.- Yes, that is something that we knew that the process needed more engagement earlier on in the process when there was time to move things. And so I'm very happy that that's now a requirement at the UDO. So all cases require that public participation. Next question is, does zoning give a priority to the 2045 plan to the compatibility of local businesses?- I would say when, this is going back to the question earlier too, right? When we're taking a look at whether a proposed rezoning is appropriate, really one of the first things that we look at is the 2045 Unified Plan. And a big piece of that is looking at the appropriateness in light of surrounding uses. And so a big part of the 2045 plan is looking at, for a given area, what are the types of zonings that would be appropriate? And so what you're typically not going to see is a mix of uses that wouldn't go well together. Now, part of that, as I mentioned earlier, is also us taking a look at it, not just defaulting to the plan and saying, okay, these are all the potential zonings that are appropriate in this specific area, but also to specifically look at what's actually out there. Not just what the Unified Plan says, but what's out there, what's been constructed, and what's appropriate. So absolutely, we look at what's appropriate for a given rezoning in light of the surrounding uses, businesses, residents, whatever is out there.- Thank you. What is the process for food vendors using gas stations or other businesses' lots, parking lots to sell their items?- So we do have a process to obtain a temporary outdoor activity permit where people can come in and that's typically for sort of a short term like festival and a parking lot. If you want to have a food truck at your business, different things like that. I don't think that's what this question is asking, but I wanted to say there is a lawful way to go about it. Generally speaking, somebody selling food under a tent in a parking lot is not a permitted use in Gwinnett County. And so that would be something that code enforcement can address. We do work closely with the police department on that as well, especially in certain parts of the county where we see more of that. Really we lean into education first in that situation to talk about what's the process to be able to get licensed, what is allowed in the county. But generally speaking, I mean, it's one of those things where I'm personally very sympathetic, right? I mean, a lot of times can get good food from the tent to a gas station. But there are a lot of businesses that go through the process, right? I mean, they have their health inspections, they have their business license, they do things the right way. And when somebody sets up a pop-up tent in the parking lot, it takes business away from the people that are doing the right thing. And so again, we lean into education first to let people know what is allowed and isn't allowed. We're not trying to go out and drop the hammer on somebody trying to make a few bucks over the weekend. But if they're persistent, then that does become an enforcement issue and we follow up on it and work to bring them into compliance.- So this question, I'm not sure if it came in, when it came in, but somebody's still confused on how and when the community can formally provide input for conditions on new development. And I think from what Chris has said, the initial public meeting, that's a great time for you to get with the developer to have them voluntarily add conditions to new developments. And then all through that process from that point forward, you can submit your feedback and thoughts to staff and they will take that into consideration. You can voice it if you get engaged at a planning commission meeting or again at the board of commissioners meeting. And there was another question about...- Do you mind if I mention something real quick on that?- Please.- I did just want to touch on that briefly because I know sometimes, especially in this type of forum, people can get a little disillusioned sometimes about the process. I would say at that public input meeting with the developer, we've seen people come out of that sometimes and they come to us and they change their application because a whole lot of people show up and they say, these are our concerns. This is what we want to see from you. And they'll change their plans. It doesn't happen every time, but they do sometimes. They say, okay, we know that we're going to hit, we're going to run into a wall once this gets to the public hearing process. So we're going to go ahead and start making some concessions on that. So please, as Commissioner Koo mentioned, make sure to participate in that if you're passionate about it. If you're interested in the project, show up, express your concerns and just participate throughout the process because it can really make a difference.- So that's great if you have ideas for conditions or something concrete or tangible. What about just general outrage? If people are upset, how is that incorporated into the process at the various levels? I know there's certain things that staff has to focus on legal requirements for the thing. I think the Board of Commissioners has a little more leniency to take that into consideration. But I think at the end of the day, it's the facts and the merits, the standards that we have to go by legally.- Yes, absolutely. So definitely from a staff level, we're not considering public opinion or public input. That's not part of our process. We're explicitly looking at the facts of the case, as Commissioner Ku said. We're looking at the land use plan. We're looking at applicable law. We're looking at impacts on infrastructure. We're looking at all the standards that are in front of us. So that's our piece of it when we're writing that case report is purely objective. But it's once you get past the staff piece and you get to the Planning Commission and you get to the Board of Commissioners, that's where your feedback becomes so important and where you need to share that and where the Planning Commission and the Board of Commissioners can take that feedback and incorporate that potentially into conditions to mitigate potential impacts on you.- And I've also worked with the developers trying to find win-wins to bridge what the community wants and what the developer wants to do to make money and find those happy mediums. Most of the developers are actually quite reasonable and willing to change their plans to adapt to various needs, making different conditions, changing the product type and the mix. They're willing to self-impose certain conditions where it makes sense, where it helps the community. So most of the time, that initial developer meeting is a great opportunity to talk with that developer and get a lot of that feedback and your concerns heard in a way that actually impacts the final product and the final case. So this, I think, is a pretty simple question for transportation. Does the County plan on putting red lights at both ends of Oleander? Are there any current plans for that?- We hear about red lights a lot. So currently, we do not have plans to put red lights at both ends of Oleander, but we do have a study in that area to determine what our next traffic calming measures are going to be. And so whoever asked that question, I would be more than happy to discuss in more detail after.- Is that true of any new development when we're looking at increases of traffic and changes to situation and land use and stuff like that? How does the County address the changes in volumes of traffic effectively?- That's a good question. And so what we do is we look at our traffic studies. And so sometimes I know if a new development is brought out, we can look at what the impact is going to be. And so like Chris said, we work with Planning and Development to really be able to do those impact studies. But another thing that we do is once the development goes up, we still continue to monitor that. We wait to see once the traffic pattern stabilize. And then we do go back and do traffic studies to be able to show, okay, we do need to add other traffic calming measures or could be a traffic signal. It could be a roundabout depending on where it is. So that is something that our team continuously looks at to make sure that we have the right safety improvements that are needed to kind of go with that development.- And so that applies for any area because there's several questions that we're all like, what are you going to do without speeding on this road or this road? So there's a lot of specific questions I kind of grouped together, but feel free to reach out to my office directly to transportation if you want. We're putting together a new beta and you guys are all the first to hear about it officially. If you email district2@gwinnettcounty.com, it'll create a ticket and it'll immediately give you a reply email and you will be able to log into a website to actually see the staff's response and you can add pictures and do all sorts of stuff. And so that way you don't feel like it's just going into a black hole because I know often when we email people that we have no idea if they got it, if they're going to look at it, when we're going to hear back from them. And so this new system should give some a little bit more transparency and insight to allow people to see, okay, where are things in the process? How can we keep things moving along? And on our end, we can hand it off to different departments to reply. So I'd love for everyone to start trying to use it and if it gets too much and break the system, that's good data to have. So please bear with us if there are any issues. It is in beta, but please try that out. The next question is who is the city planner overseeing a particular development? There's also a question about what is the new development as a specific place? So how do people find out about development when people see shovels in the ground and construction equipment? For all questions, people can always reach out to my office again if they need to, but is there a way that people can find out that information for themselves about developments and permits and things that are going on?- Yeah, definitely. We do have that zoning inspections and permitting portal that I mentioned earlier where you can look up any given address or parcel ID and find out whether there's a building permit that's currently active or development permit that's currently active or rezoning case. As I mentioned, to me, searching for rezonings, it's a little bit easier to go onto that GIS browser that we have available on our website, but you can find it as well through that zip portal. One of the tricky things on it is that especially for a development permit for rezoning, a lot of times it's tied to the parcel ID, which not everybody knows. Building permits can be a little bit easier, but when in doubt, if you see something going on, you're not sure what it is. You want to know more about it. As Commissioner Koo mentioned, obviously, his office is open to receiving those inquiries, but you can reach out to our department to connect County Planning and Development online. We have our organization page. Really, any of our division directors can help out with it. I can help out with it, but our development division would be over anything development-related, building division, obviously anything building-related. We have a general customer support line, too, where you can call in and just ask for the status of what's going on with a given property, and they'll be able to help you out with that. So either calling our general line, emailing our general email, we'll get you the information that you need.- All right. This is kind of a bit of a loaded question, but is it true that school overcrowding and increased traffic congestion have no bearing or weight in rezoning requests, approvals, or denials? I mean, we have standards that we look at, including impacts on infrastructure. So we certainly do look at the impact on infrastructure, on the surrounding community, but ultimately, a lot of times it ends up being kind of a reactive process. In terms of a school, we coordinate closely with the planning department at Gwinnett County Public Schools, so they have a sense of what's coming through the rezoning process, what kind of developments are coming through, and so they're fully aware of kind of what that pipeline is, that future pipeline for schools. I do think that that rate of increase has decreased for Gwinnett County Public Schools overall over the last few years, and so I'm not sure. I know it's different in different parts of the county and has to be weighed individually based on those clusters, but I do think that that overall sort of trajectory and rate of increase has changed in recent years. Not to continue to say the same thing, but we work so closely with the Department of Transportation and we actually have even set up within our department an infrastructure planning division that is really just dedicated to making sure that we're working with all the departments in the county to ensure that as we're planning future infrastructure needs, that is informed by our land use decisions and our land use plan, so that we don't have anybody making these plans in a vacuum saying, okay, we think we need this much sewer capacity in the next 20 years, while on the other side we're looking and saying, okay, this is an area designated for significant growth because of major redevelopment project in that area. So I think the coordination right now is better than it's ever been and it's going to continue to help ensure that that future construction that's needed on infrastructure, future planning on the school side is really informed by what's actually happening on the ground. All right, we're going to do two more questions in the interest of time. There's so many good questions, but we will either bring it up on the podcast or we'll email you back if you've got an email there. And yes, thank you so much for all the great engagement. I love it. With the worsening effects of climate change, what avenues is Gwinnett County pursuing to improve the resilience of our community? Directions, including wider public transit, denser housing, passive cooling materials, light colored roof tiles, micro transit, such as programs to provide rebates for local bike purchases, et cetera. So I will start with you and then I think there's a planning piece to that.- Okay, so from looking at transportation in a transit perspective, so with the transportation perspective, we are always continuously looking at the impact. We do a comprehensive transportation study so that we can look at the future of what Gwinnett County will be. From a transit perspective, we do also look at how can we provide mobility? How can we continue to provide connectivity for the residents of Gwinnett County? The biggest answer to that is funding plays a big role. And so for transit, as we look at the future of what it could be, we did previously the board adopted a transit development plan. We are still looking at projects that are a part of that plan, just so that as funding becomes available, as more partnerships become available, grant funding becomes available, that we are able to move forward on those projects to be able to provide better connectivity.- And then what about as far as development goes, how are we encouraging more sustainable developments?- One thing that we've changed as part of that really large scale update to our unified development ordinance is really kind of getting away from, for the longest time, it was an emphasis on how much parking do you have? How much parking can you get? You see some of these areas of the county, so much parking out there. We went from really emphasizing nothing but minimums to starting to impose some maximums on parking. So that's one thing that can have a really big impact in this area, requiring EV charging stations, even bicycle parking. So those are some of the things that we're looking at, really also making it easier for people to install solar panels if they want to use that as an alternative to try to either return it to the grid or provide that electricity on site. So there are several ways that we've updated our codes to try to incentivize and make it easier to build and develop in a green way.- And then we'll end with a fairly simple question. How much time or how many days prior to the meeting do you provide when publishing those meeting dates?- The state law requirement is that it can't be closer than 15 days or further than 45 days out. And so that's when the sort of official legal notice will go out. So typically you're looking at about that timeframe where you'll officially be notified about it. But I know there's been so much interest around it, I suspect that there's going to be information put out there.- But legally we can't do it earlier than 45 days before the meeting.- Correct. Yes.- Well, that's great. And that concludes the Q&A portion for this evening. Thank you all again for your thoughtful questions and for joining us tonight. Your engagement is what keeps Gwinnett vibrantly connected and moving forward. On your way out, please visit our outreach tables if you haven't already. Voter Registrations and Elections is here. Gwinnett Safe Communities, Ride Gwinnett, Department of Water Resources, with our best tasting water in Georgia and the Tax Commissioner's Office all have good information to take home with you. Have a safe trip home and remember, stay vibrantly connected and I'll talk to you soon. If you're a long time listener, you will know that I ask for residents to submit their questions at the end of each episode, and I'm definitely not stopping now. So if you have any questions that weren't covered at the town hall or if there's a topic you'd like me to cover or someone you'd like me to interview, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at ben.ku@gwinnettcounty.com. That's ben.ku@gwinnettcounty.com for all your district needs. Thank you to our wonderful staff for helping to write, edit, produce and promote this podcast and my state of the district. And as always, stay vibrantly connected and I'll talk to you soon.