Milton Moratorium for Crabapple In The Works?

by Jason Wright / http://www.northfulton.com/ /Milton Herald

MILTON -- As the mountains of dirt and scores of new buildings can attest, Crabapple is hot.Developers want in the area, which is undergoing a transformation from sleepy, historic crossroads to live/work community. But concerns about future development, traffic and how it will all be affected by the unfinished Comprehensive Land Use Plan update are consistent topics in City Hall.

So what is the city to do with new Crabapple development plans hanging in the balance?Planning Commission thinks it has an idea -- a moratorium on any new development until the plan is finished, which could be in about six months.The idea was brought forward by Commissioner George Ragsdale at the Jan. 29 meeting. He said the series of meetings in December and January looking at updating Crabapple's existing 2005 plan saw no significant or specific changes. The consensus from those meetings was that Crabapple should be included in Milton's overall land use plan to ensure a consistent philosophy across the city. And that takes time."Things may come before us that we don't want to approve after the comprehensive plan," he said.

Commission Chairman Paul Moore agreed, saying in the past Crabapple's development decisions were rushed by Fulton County and didn't consider the larger impact on Milton. Now was the opportunity to take their time, he said."We're best served by proceeding cautiously," he said. "We're doing the community a service by taking the rush out of the equation."

Those developments affected by the rush included a number of the new buildings going up in Crabapple, which Moore said were a "direct result of going to the wire before Milton became a city."The motion passed unanimously.Ragsdale will draft a letter to City Council to be signed by all seven members of the Planning Commission. It will then be up to council to decide the moratorium's fate.In other news, Planning Commission:• Deferred the hearing on the Alpharetta Methodist Christian Academy until Feb. 26. The applicant, Monticello Real Estate Investment LLC, requested the extra time to give the community more time to educate themselves about the proposed private school development on Hopewell Road.