Perry City Council holds public hearing for ordinance clarity

Perry Mayor and City Council held their second bi-weekly meeting on April 6. Moving quickly through the agenda, notable moments included appointing a new board member for the Downtown Development Authority, a public hearing, first readings of a couple of ordinances and approvals of various resolutions.

According to a memorandum from Downtown Manager Jazmin Thomas, Downtown Development Authority Vice Chairman Tyler Medlin resigned. The board came together and chose one of their own, Kelly Gordon, to serve as the new vice chairman of the DDA. With Gordon’s new position, a vacant spot became available. The memorandum referenced a meeting on March 22 where the members of the DDA voted Curtis George to fill the vacancy. Thomas explained that George has explicitly expressed economic interest in the development of the downtown area, and he also has a business of his own, Orleans on Carroll. Thomas presented his appointment to the mayor and council, and the vote was approved unanimously.

In other business, Perry Community Development Director Bryan Wood presented a request for a special exemption from an applicant named Thomas C. Carter for Community Service Use at the property located at 510 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive in Perry. It’s a residential structure and is used to host Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings. Attendees average around eight people each night, seven days a week, and parking is available on-site on property that’s owned by Thomas Carter. 

Because of the surrounding residential community, the Planning Commission came together and recommended that usage of the site be complete by 9:00 nightly. However, because of the nature of the meetings and sometimes they tend to run longer, the Planning Commission revised their initial recommendation to allow usage until 10:30 p.m. The staff provided several conditions in accordance with the special exception and required that code requirements must be met in order to conduct use of the property. Perry Council approved the special exemption under the compliance to the requirements and codes.

Wood also presented an amendment to clarify several sections in the TEXT-214-2020 regarding residential, commercial and landscaping ordinances throughout various parts of the city.

The staff analysis from a report from the Department of Community Development reads, “Since the original adoption of the Land Management Ordinance, staff has identified several areas where clarification of standards can be made and where standards were inadvertently omitted. This amendment is intended to address these.”

The agenda stated that no action was required of the council as it was the first reading of the ordinance; however, the council expressed understanding that explicating the text will help to eliminate “cleaning up of a lot of language that we have talked about for a couple of months,” according to Walker. 

Several resolutions were passed by the council, including declaring certain real property located at 1020 Country Club Road as surplus property, appointing voting delegates in the 2021 Municipal Gas Authority of the Georgian Annual Election Committee and an opinion of probable construction cost provided by GWES, LLC for the Langston Road Regional Stormwater Detention Facility. 

For the reimbursement cost for the Perry Public Facilities Authority (PPFA), City Attorney Brooke Newby explained, “This is a resolution authorizing certain costs that are planned in conjunction with the capital projects of the expansion of the sewer on the Langston Road pond. This resolution is required by the treasury regulations so that we can reimburse the city out of the tax exempt bonds once they’re issued by the Perry Public Facilities Authority.”

The last notable approval made by the mayor and council was that of the Intergovernmental Memorandum of Agreement between Perry and Houston County regarding the Highway 127 Widening Project. With the construction of the expansion, utilities such as a city gas line, sewer and water line need to be relocated. 

Newby shared, “The county is going to be the superintendent for this county-wide project.” She went on to explain, “SPLOST funds were not programmed specifically for the relocation of the utilities for this project, so that’s something that the city, by this agreement, is going to oversee as part of that project. This provides for the vendor to bill the city directly and for us to pay those invoices to the vendor directly just for the relocation of city utilities that are affected by this road widening project.”

With another unanimous approval from the council, the meeting adjourned after final remarks.

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