City sets town hall meeting on billboards

Johns Creek city officials have called a town hall meeting in February to talk about billboards.

Mayor Mike Bodker and City Council members will participate in the meeting, to start at 7 p.m. Feb. 9, at City Hall, 12000 Findley Road. A prior town hall on the subject was held in December.

Johns Creek was an unsuccessful litigant in a lawsuit filed by billboard companies over Fulton County’s denial of 75 billboard sign permit applications. The Georgia Supreme Court declared Fulton’s sign ordinance unconstitutional and said the companies were entitled to up to 75 billboards, including 31 signs at 27 locations in Johns Creek.

The city negotiated an agreement with the billboard companies to erect 10 billboards in 10 locations. As of Dec. 12, seven of the 10 signs had gone up.

The three remaining billboards can be erected in five potential locations: the east or west side of State Bridge Road from Kimball Bridge to Morton roads; the north side of State Bridge near Medlock Bridge Road/Ga. 141; the west side of Medlock Bridge at Abbotts Bridge Road, and along McGinnis Ferry Road.

Information: bit.ly/2knWlOK

Commission alters district plan

What some county officials think was Forsyth County’s first master-planned district got a recent makeover by county commissioners.

The commission OK’d revised plans for a nearly 100-acre tract near Ga. 369 and Bannister Road, at the behest of developer Lennar Georgia. When originally approved in 2005, the plan had 374 units. That’s now been dropped to 211 units, the majority of them single-family detached homes. The density of the units has been decreased from 3.92 to 2.22 units per acre.

Commissioner Cindy Jones Mills says the decrease in density and units, plus upgraded landscaping and other standards will make the to-be-developed property a truer master-planned district, with amenities such as common areas and walking trails.