Milton Residents Win Key Victory In Ga. 9 Widening Project

MILTON, GA — Milton residents along Ga. 9 recently received some good news related to Georgia Department of Transportation's plans to widen the thoroughfare from Windward Parkway north to the Forsyth County line.

Citizens recently learned that the Georgia DOT will leave most of the landscaping in place along the highway as it moves forward with the improvement project. Ike Yancy, a Milton resident who lives in a community directly impacted by the widening project, said GDOT's concession is a major victory for the residents, as the agency originally planned to take a considerable chunk of right of way and landscaping to widen the state route.

“We’re very happy about the whole thing," he said.

Yancy is a member of the Coalition Against the Havoc of the Highway 9 Widening, a coalition of residents who live in the Crooked Creek, Park at Windward Village, Centennial Village, Regency at Windward Square, Haywood Commons and Orchards at Windward neighborhoods.

The organization launched in early 2018 when residents along Highway 9 received a letter from an appraiser working for GDOT on the project. The appraiser told residents how much land would be taken for the project.

Yancy said he asked the appraiser to come out and discuss the details, and he was "stunned" at the amount of land GDOT planned to gobble up for the widening plans. The original plan, he added, would have taken away playgrounds and recreation areas, and would have opened neighborhoods up to noises and dangerous traffic conditions.

“It was really going to be a pretty devastating thing," he said. "I thought, 'this was not how things are supposed to work'.”

As they say, the rest was history, as Yancy and residents of neighborhoods along the Highway 9 corridor began organizing and seeking meetings with local and state officials about the project. After months of back and forth with the state, the residents were able to save the berms and other landscaping along the highway from destruction.

“Its still not final," Yancy added. "It takes a lot of work to redraw those plans, and that’s being done right now."

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While residents can breathe a sigh of relief with these latest developments related to the Ga. 9 widening project, there is a much larger project brewing in the area that's lurking in the back of the collective minds of Milton citizens.

Orkin & Associates Investments, which recently bought the Deerfield Place shopping center along Ga. 9, has submitted concept plans that would drastically alter the landscape of the development currently anchored by Kohl's and Target.

According to concept plans submitted to the city, Orkin proposes to build a 120-unit apartment building, 112-room hotel, 750-seat theater and a 312,260 square feet of retail/office/restaurant space on the land between Target and Kohl's. Additionally, for the undeveloped parcel just north of the shopping center, Orkin is considering adding 65,420 square feet of retail/restaurant space and office space totaling 157,030 square feet.

Based on what's been the submitted to the city, the current proposal would fit existing zoning for Milton's Deerfield form-based code, which was implemented after incorporation to ensure future development met the city's design standards. In other words, the project would be permitted by right under existing zoning ordinance, and would not require any review or approval by the Milton City Council, said city spokesperson Shannon Ferguson.

"We can’t legally downgrade zoning and take away a property owner’s rights to develop their property as zoned, but we can and do utilize strategic planning tools like form-based code to help ensure that the development occurring in Milton is something that our residents can be proud of and contributes to a high quality of life," Ferguson said.

The project would go before the city's Design Review Board for consideration of a certificate of endorsement, which "ensures that the project meet the city’s design character and look and feel for the community," Ferguson added.

“While many of the land use and transportation patterns were set in place by zoning and development standards that pre-dated the city’s incorporation in 2006, the city of Milton remains committed to smart, strategic growth that properly aligns with the city’s long-term land use and comprehensive planning efforts," Ferguson added.

No date has been set for the project to go before the Design Review Board, and all committee meetings and agendas can be viewed and tracked on the city's website.

For Yancy, while the project in its current form meets the city's zoning standards, he is concerned about the amount of traffic that would be generated if Orkin's plans become a reality. He said he hopes the city will considering lowering the speed liming along Ga. 9 in that area to 30 miles per hour to promote a more pedestrian friendly area and encouraged drivers to slow down. One idea would be to build at least one or two walkways over Highway 9 from residential areas to access the new development.

"Otherwise you’ll have people walking across four-lane highways and it’s way too dangerous," he said.

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