Lots of people want what Milton’s got, including many residents already living in the north Fulton County town who aim to preserve their bucolic, horsey-chic lifestyle before the next wave of growth overwhelms them.
Aged landowners can’t resist developers who dangle big money and comfortable retirements in exchange for farms, pastures or woods that they transform into miles of 1-acre home sites. One stretch of Birmingham Highway offers million-dollar houses in three-, five- and 39-lot developments under construction.
Meanwhile, the hold-out farms sandwiched between upscale subdivisions look ripe for development. Nearly 900 single-family building permits have been filed this year in Milton, three times as many as last year.
But now a collective cry of “Whoa Nelly” reverberates among a sizeable portion of Milton’s horse, as well as non-horse, crowd. They fear the amenities that drew them here in the first place – green fields, tree-lined roads and good schools — are threatened by the latest surge of homebuilding and development.
Nothing less than Milton’s pastoral patrimony, they say, is at stake. Comprehensive conservation measures must be enacted, they insist, or else Milton will become another Dunwoody, Sandy Springs or Roswell.
“Nobody thinks you can you can stop growth,” said Jim Bell who owns an old farmhouse, hardwood forest and all-natural cemetery along Birmingham Road. “We just need a better way to handle it.”
Bell is a member of Preserve Rural Milton, a citizens group created this year to conserve greenspace. City officials largely support the group and are mulling a slew of tax, regulatory and planning measures to protect land and steer development.
Milton is expected to extend a moratorium on most rezonings. Many residents want officials to go further. Tax breaks for property owners who leave land undeveloped is one idea. Subdivisions that set aside half their land as greenspace is another.
Milton’s battle harkens the development-versus-preservation battles that raged across Atlanta’s northern frontier a decade ago. Then as now, a resurgent economy fueled a surge of home, strip mall and office park construction that gobbled green space. Milton, like many desireable communities, vows that won’t happen this time.
Critics decry the shut-the-barn-door mentality, especially if it prevents landowners from making top dollar on their property. Besides, they add, the city has already allowed too many subdivisions that have eroded Milton’s rural character and clogged its two-lane roads.
“It’s way too late,” said Tim Enloe, a horse owner and long-time resident who lives on two acres along Bethany Road. “A lot of those folks in the subdivisions say, ‘I love driving by horse farms and I want to protect them and my view.’ But their subdivisions were old farms not too long ago. And now they want to change the rules? That’s hypocrisy.”
Quality of life
Metro Atlanta’s reputation for car-fueled growth deep into the hinterlands is well-documented. In 2007, the region turned 55 acres of woods and pasture daily into subdivisions, roads and strip malls.
Safeguarding the region’s natural habitat wasn’t a high priority in a state that prized the rights of property owners. The state of Georgia, between 1998 and 2011, spent $303 million on land conservation, according to the Trust for Public Land. North Carolina, with a comparable population, spent $1 billion.
Conservators, though, notched some successes. Voters in Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnett and Rockdale counties passed bond referendums during the 2000s to buy green space. Paulding voters approved $15 million for a 7,000-acre tract of land along the county’s western edge in 2006.
Two years later, the Trust for Public Land secured the 135-acre Hyde Farm in Cobb County. Atlanta, Woodstock, Suwanee, Roswell, Alpharetta and other northside cities — worried about development-gone-wild — cobbled together extensive trail and park networks.
Cherokee County instituted a slew of slow-growth measures in the early 2000s. It was the first Georgia county, for example, to require developers to pay impact fees.
Milton, incorporated in 2006, vowed to parlay its small farms and equestrian heritage into a “green” community unlike any other in the region.
“It’s a very upscale community and we are trying through our development and zoning regulations to ensure that we get good, quality development so that when you drive into Milton, you know you’re in Milton,” said Kathleen Field, the city’s community development director. “We are trying to use every tool in the toolkit to save that land and maintain that quality of life.”
Most cities, for revenue reasons, seek a balance of residential and commercial growth. Milton is content to let neighboring Alpharetta, Johns Creek and Roswell welcome the office parks, strip malls, and apartment complexes.
Roughly 85 percent of Milton is zoned residential or agricultural allowing only one home per acre. And 85 percent of the the city’s acreage runs on septic tanks which inhibit growth.
Two years ago the Milton city council almost banned new gas stations and convenience stores, and turned down an upscale apartment complex along busy Deerfield Parkway; the developer filed a lawsuit to overturn the decision. The case is pending. Businesses must adhere to stringent architectural and signage rules.
A balancing act
Prodded by Preserve Rural Milton, the city ratcheted up its green efforts this year. It hired Laurel Florio, a resident and attorney, as a conservation consultant. Council members imposed a six-month moratorium on rezoning applications in various districts and is likely to extend the program next month. They also established a “rural view shed” this month prohibiting developers from chopping down trees within 40 feet of a road.
Conservation easements and transfers of development rights are two arrows in Milton’s conservation quiver.
The former permanently limits development on a piece of property and, in exchange, the willing landowner gets a tax break. The latter, already on the books, shifts development from an environmentally coveted piece of land to another, more urban section of the city while still profiting the landowner.
Milton is very interested in so-called conservation subdivisions which would allow developers to build 100 homes on 100 acres. But the houses would be clustered on 50 acres with the remaining land preserved as field or forest.
“A lot of people move into Milton and want us to shut the gates once they’re here. We can’t do that,” said Matt Kunz, a council member and financial adviser who supports the conservation measures. “One-acre lot subdivisions are not necessarily a bad thing, but we can do better. We want to make sure we preserve as much of the land as we can through the development process.”
Enloe, like other Milton skeptics, questions the legality of the city’s efforts to steer development to the Crabapple community or the Ga. 9 corridor while preserving large tracts of farmland.
“On paper, the city of Milton is a fantastic idea — a little enclave and a sort of Normal Rockwell society — but it’s failed,” said Enloe who ran unsuccessfully for city council in 2006. “The majority of landowners are my mother’s age, 75, and once they hear the (land) assemblage bell ringing, they’ll listen. Their land will be turned into subdivisions too.”
Bell’s 23 acres of pastoral beauty along Birmingham Road will never be home to 23 mini-mansions. His all-natural cemetery (no metal caskets or embalming fluids) will ensure the property remains undeveloped into perpetuity. Now, Bell says, Milton must find equally effective ways of preserving its land and identity.
“I don’t think anybody can stop growth; you just need a better way to handle it,” he said. “You have to balance nature and civilization.”
