Roswell's First UDC Filibuster

In one of the most obvious attempts to avoid any open public discussion pertaining to the Unified Development (rezoning) Code (UDC), Roswell’s staff and all of City Council hid in the back of the room during their first public UDC meeting held Monday night at East Roswell Park.

Meanwhile, the consultant / salesman for the proposed code filibustered to the extent of explaining, page by page, the entire text of the code document to the large public presence, even to extent of explaining the document index.

And after nearly an hour when the consultant’s presentation was over, no open question and answer period was provided that would have allowed those in attendance the opportunity to ask questions themselves or be able to listen to other’s questions and hear the city response.

And when Mayor Wood was challenged about the lack of public exchange his response was, that way no one could  “grandstand”. That is correct, Roswell’s Mayor considers any public exchange a nuisance.

The truth of the matter is that the UDC is exclusively focused on more apartments, higher density and more urban living to the benefit of developers which will further stress city services and add more traffic to our overcrowded roadways and encourage more crime in our neighborhoods, thus negatively impacting Roswell’s quality of life.

At one time there was some comfort knowing there was a well thought out, well written, and clearly defined comprehensive 2030 plan that was developed with extensive input by Roswell citizens. Yet, Roswell’s City Council headed elsewhere.

I was convinced in 2010 that combining this plan with long-term development strategies might have been a bridge too far to travel for the current Roswell City Council and, as I thought, it has been.

Yes, certainly we need a developmental authority with broad powers. Yes, we need Opportunity Zones. Yes, we need private and public partnerships to attract new businesses and help retain existing businesses. But the establishment of a Strategic Economic Development Plan, which appears to be a lobbyist group with the latest attempt to change the distribution and density of Metro-Atlanta’s population, encourages more apartments, higher density and more urban living which will further stress city services and add more traffic to our roadways negatively impacting Roswell’s quality of life. Additionally, it is a well documented fact that in the City of Roswell higher density apartment complexes result in an increase in criminal activity.

According to the City of Roswell’s website the Unified Development Code (UDC) is a single ("unified") tool that will help make Roswell become more economically competitive by increasing the certainty of the application and development process. I am sorry, but I thought the purpose of zoning was to protect property values but instead the city was decided to pick winners & losers.

The UDC public meetings that are underway are being presented utilizing the DELPHI TECHNIQUE which is an unethical method of achieving consensus on this controversial topic in a group setting. It has become an acceptable method for municipalities to give the illustration of soliciting public input with a presentation by an expert and then breakout meetings to avoid open public discourse. The UDC facilitator will resort to a long drawn out dissertation for an extensive period of time, during which time the crowd usually loses focus. The technique, which has been around since the 50’s, is an effective way of squeezing citizens out of the process and manipulating them into the desired level of consensus while neutralizing opposition.

In essence Roswell citizens are being manipulated during these UDC meetings!

I encourage you to contact Council members to express your opinions.

Lee Fleck