Restaurant District, More Homes, Pay Raises: Smyrna City Council

SMYRNA, GA — The creation of a restaurant district, 10 new single-family homes, hundreds of radios for Smyrna's police and fire departments, pay raises, incentive pay for public works employees and lighting on Windy Hill Boulevard.

Those were all among the items approved by Smyrna City Council last week. Here's a rundown of what happened:

1. A restaurant district now exists in Smyrna, with plans for future development.

Council members designated seven properties at the southwest corner of Spring Road and Jonquil Drive — across from Rev Coffee and the Christmas tree lot — to be known as The Quad, the city's new restaurant district.

The Woodberry Group, LLC — a commercial and residential real-estate developer — plans to add green space, a multi-use platform, a parking lot and another building into the area. Two of the existing buildings and four existing parking lots will be included in The Quad.

"I wanted a place for the community to go. It feels like the Smyrna area is lacking a gathering spot where the whole family can come, the kids can have pizza, the parents can go have tacos and margaritas and all hang out," said David Woodberry, The Woodberry Group's president, during the meeting.

Original plans for the area included a mixed-use development with apartments and retail, but city council "politely told them to go back to the drawing board," Mayor Derek Norton said during the meeting. He and other council members voiced their appreciation for the new plan.

"This is another example of the right way to do things," Norton said. "This is exactly what we need in the city of Smyrna."

Woodberry said site work will likely begin in January.

2. Pedestrian and tunnel lighting is coming to Windy Hill Boulevard.

Council approved lighting services agreements with Georgia Power for pedestrian and tunnel lighting for $767,385 and $443,926, respectively, on Windy Hill. The money is coming from 2016 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax funds.

3. More single-family homes are coming.

In two separate agenda items, council members approved rezonings for the development of four single-family detached homes on Roswell Street and Hawthorne Avenue, and six single-family detached homes on Sherwood Road.

The Roswell Street/Hawthorne Avenue homes will start in the high $500,000s or low $600,000s. Home prices for the Sherwood Road homes were not discussed during the meeting.

Council Member Susan Wilkinson voted against the Roswell Street homes.

4. The police and fire departments are getting hundreds of new radios.

As part of the SPLOST funding, council approved the $1.53 million purchase of 126 portable radios, 123 mobile radios, 15 control station radios and three desktop consolette radios for the Smyrna police and fire departments. The city received a 27 percent discount on the purchase.

5. Four percent pay grade adjustments and merit raises, as well as incentive pay for public works employees, are now implemented for Smyrna city staff.

In an effort to recruit and retain employees, merit raises will be given to all city staff effective Oct. 1, and an adjustment to the pay grades will be made to increase them by four percent, thanks to the city council vote last week.

According to city documents, the city is experiencing difficulty hiring and retaining employees "that can be tied to our pay grades and the lack of maintenance over the last several years." Annual merit raises were already planned for the fiscal year 2022 budget at $264,000, but these additional raises will cost about $422,000.

A total of $172,000 in the city's unallocated contingency fund will assist in providing the raises. The additional four-percent pay grade increase will cost another $36,000.

Additionally, council approved a pay incentive of $25 per day for any public works employee who serves as a driver or crew worker on sanitation and recycling trucks "until the city considers those departments to be back to full staff and able to operate effectively," city documents show.

With 24 personnel on the trucks, this will cost approximately $3,000 per week.

"We're at a critical stage with our residential sanitation, and this is an effort to try to fill some of those positions so we don't have to outsource this ... and provide [residents] with the service you're used to," Norton said.