Dunwoody Government and Home Business: "Rooney Eats it!"

Let's review the last six months.

December 2016:  Dunwoody's 3rd ever SLUP application to see customers is heard in the usual public proceedings.  Applicant jumps through excessive hoops to prove he respects his neighbors and the integrity of said neighborhood.

In spite of neighbor support, the usual suspects circulate petitions, trespass on the applicant's property to take photos, and lie through their teeth about the homeowner's intentions to city council to oppose the application.

January 2017:  City council lines up behind the idea that since the business itself didn't fit the "comprehensive plan" the permit should be denied.  **  The actual facts of the application were ignored in favor of a personal value judgement with a personal interpretation of a city planning document.  All city council members were unanimous in their support.

February 2017:  Community Development Director Steve Foote proposes removing ALL "Type B" home businesses and removing the application process from the municipal code.

March 2017:  Steve presents these edits to the Dunwoody Homeowners Association monthly meeting.  The proposal is received like a fart in church.

April 2017:  Planning Commission and City Council process the ratification of scaled down edits that include limiting the hours that a homeowner may see a customer and limiting the types of businesses that may bother to seek a Type B license.

During this time, the home business map is getting updated.  So far I had been keeping up with licensed businesses in a list generated by Economic Development and local business directories like the AHA Connection and NextDoor.  I added to this a systematic review of corporation records taken from the state registries.  Specifically, I looked for corporations registered to a home address.  I've only gotten to the "P"s and the number of home businesses documented (and active) has doubled.

In the mean time, there have been no complaints against home businesses filed since June 2016.  The last code violation confirmed against a home business was February 2016.

That's two complaints filed in 14 months, with only one violation.  If we were talking about animals or pets, city council would dismiss these as exceptions.

In spite of Mayor Shortal's pontificating about "protecting the community", there is apparently nothing to be protected from.  These code updates are not solving a problem.  They are a threat against anyone who would dare to submit a "Type B: application.

What makes this scenario funny is that nothing will change.  City Council passes their rules and congratulates themselves on their service.  While all ONE-THOUSAND-PLUS households in this image will continue to do whatever the hell they please because they are clearly not bothering anyone.  Including seeing customers or holding meetings.

The complete map with legend:  here

Go ahead, Rooney!  You just keep chasing Ferris.  We know how this ends.

**In a couple of weeks, the "strict interpretation of the comprehensive plan" applied to home business owners will be thrown aside so council members may enact a "pet" project.  Stay tuned.

Sermon on the Mount - 21st Century Style

I needed to see this today as I help run a political forum in the midst of hyperpartisans and other knee-jerk-reactors.  Not to mention our own city council and their contradictory decisions.

"Treat others as you would be treated".  The Golden Rule.  In Christian doctrine, it comes from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, in the gospel according to Matthew.

Every major religion has some ideal analogous to this.  Yet it always keeps getting lost.

So fresh and new for the 21st century is a new term for an ancient ideal:  Emotional Correctness

I-85 bridge collapse; DeKalb County Schools Closed

I-85 impacts the region so much that all traffic AROUND it will be snarled for months.

DeKalb just threw in the towel and cancelled the last day of classes before spring break.


My son is going to take his train set and fix the bridge tomorrow.  Don't worry, he's got this.

His sisters are pissed (Catholic school in Johns Creek)

Take care if you have to travel tomorrow.

Please Contribute to Dunwoody HS Student's Funeral Cost

A former Dunwoody HS student was killed in a collision on 400 this week.

His family has set up a GoFundMe promotion to assist with funeral expenses.

I made a contribution this morning and I encourage our community to do the same if they have the means.

This is what a community "family" is supposed to do for each other.  It's a great way to counteract the negative epithets brought to light in my previous post.

https://www.gofundme.com/mauricios-funeral-expenses

More Dunwoody Than You - The Next Generation

More of that "family" sense that Mayor Shortal was talking about during the State of the City.

This screenshot was taken from Stan Jester's blog.  The discussion is regarding questions about a new group that apparently has succeeded the old Dunwoody-Chamblee Parents Council.

In case the highlighted element isn't clear, I've added the choicest parts below: (emphases added)

Most of the Dunwoodians involved are from the far-left whack job sector, aka the east side.

I’d like for city council to reconsider the city borders and draw the line at N Peachtree or maybe more to the west. I think people over there may be happier as residents of Doraville or Chamblee.

The next time Districts 1 and 2 need support on a city initiative, or zoning, or whatever comes up (like the Dunwoody Club Forest rezoning or the Manget Way group home conflict) I'm going to whip this sucker out and remind the mouthpiece that elements of their community think the "whack job sector" isn't "really" Dunwoody....

"He makes you look like an ass, is what he does, Ed."

Second verse, same as the first.

Hundreds of home business owners are once again put under collective suspicion.  Not because of a spike in code complaints.  The last code complaint filed against a home business was more than 6 months ago.  Not because of some newsworthy disaster.  All is quiet.

No, the latest proposed edits to the Chapter 27 covering home business activity are designed specifically to further chastise a friendly, law-abiding resident who admitted that some of his visitors would seek physical therapy.  And to threaten other counselors and related practitioners already active in the community.

The original edits distributed (and saved for posterity) legally banned all customer contact for these enterprises.  Mr Foote was advised at the last DHA meeting that not only is this a significant enforcement problem, it created a perception and support problem as well.

The latest edits, released this morning, scrap the scorched earth approach and zeroes in on Mr. Roberson's application as a physical therapist.

The ordinance goes on to define what is "acceptable" use of your home.  Behind your closed doors.

None of this is new but the unwarranted scrutiny and hypocritical prejudice by our government officials is getting really old.    Home businesses and all of the activity that goes along with them are a part of Dunwoody's neighborhood fabric and have been for decades.  Even for someone like me whose home business is "acceptable" by the new definitions, I would have to spend money on a legal process, endure abuse from my local HOA, and tolerate wild speculation from residents all over town for the "right" to have people in my office.  Which could ultimately be denied for any reason or none.

So tonight let's pop some popcorn, order a growler from Empire State, and watch the circus that is Planning Commission discuss this agenda item.  Winners in the pool for individual votes and vote spread will be notified by email in the morning.  Whatever happens with this ordinance, life isn't going to change.  The more our city government tries to apply judgments to otherwise legal livelihoods, the more they end up like Principal Rooney chasing Ferris Bueller around Chicago.

The Real Hazards of Working From Home

Forget self-righteous government officials and over-zealous HOA officers.  THIS is every telecommuting or home-based entrepreneur's worst nightmare!

City Proposes Limiting Allowed Paint Colors on Private Homes

From NextDoor

The City of Doraville has on its February 21 Council agenda a discussion of setting limits on allowed paint colors on private homes.

From the discussion via NextDoor (emphases added)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hello Doraville residents. I noticed in the agendas from the Work Session Meeting from 2/16/17 and for the upcoming Council meeting on 2/21/17, that there are proposals made by Sharon Spangler and Shannon Hillard for restricting the external colors that can be used for single home dwellings as well as restrictions for front yard gardens and the type of materials that can be used. There are no specifics listed in the agenda as to what these restrictions could be. I strongly urge anyone who does not like the idea of adding more ordinances that restrict what we can or cannot do with our private properties, our homes, please attend this meeting and let your voice be heard. I will be there since I most certainly do object to this kind of nonsense.

I do not want to see such restrictions become a part of the city's ordinance code. I made a point of not moving into an HOA and certainly do not want the entire city to become one. There are enough ordinances regarding how we maintain our homes in Doraville as it is. I find these proposed types of restrictions a violation of my property rights and freedom of expression. If I want to paint my home purple (and I almost did), then it is no one's business if I do. Don't like it? Then don't look at it. There are far more important things to consider than what color someone's house is.

If I want to use old metal drums for planters or reuse/recycle other types of containers for a front yard garden then I don't see the issue. As long as it is clean and safe, who cares? Once again, how one decorates their home via house colors and gardening styles should not be restricted with very few exceptions in regards to public safety.

The words that are the city's motto, that are on the city's website, their newsletter are the following:

Diversity, Vitality, Community

Diversity:a range of different things; variety. How much variety will exist if everyone's home has to be a neutral color? Or can only be blue, green, or yellow? How different will one home look from another if all planters must be made of a certain material and can only be a certain size?? If all the flower beds are rectangles?

Vitality: the state of being strong and active; energy. And now opinions will vary on this one, but I find nothing so dull and lifeless as a bunch of identical homes with identical lawns. Do we not gain strength and life from diversity?

Community: a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. Now this one is even trickier. Does Doraville want a community of diversity and vitality where people of different cultures, with different opinions and ideas are able to come together to live in relative harmony? Or does Doraville want a different kind of community?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This person's post is not hyperbole.  Here is the Doraville city council agenda packet for 2/21 with all of the data on this question included.

This is what happens when a city council  has the latitude to edit property rights piecemeal according to the whims of small niche groups.

DeKalb Commission Meets in Dunwoody in February

DeKalb County commissioners are trying to make themselves more accessible to the public by holding their first evening meeting.
The DeKalb Board of Commissioners will convene at Dunwoody City Hall at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, one of three evening meetings scheduled this year.

Full Article at AJC.com

30 minutes are available for public comment starting at 6:30 pm, presumably at the end of the meeting.

We're Still Proud

Thank you for a great season, Falcons!  We'll be back in the fall.

(Patrick, listen up - I want a #11 jersey for Valentine's Day)

Dunwoody Homeowners Association Annual Meeting 2017 - Video Recap

Introductory remarks by Rob Wittenstein.
Rob welcomed all of the elected officials in the audience, including our city council members.  I'm glad they didn't feel a "conflict of interest" over attending and asking questions.  Let's hope that stupidity is permanently put to bed.

   

Introduction and remarks by Chris Carr, Georgia's Attorney General.

Comments by County Commissioner Nancy Jester

GA House Representative Tom Taylor on legislation this session, including HB58 - a proposal to allow the formation of independent school districts

Business of the Year and Lifetime Achievement Award



Georgians for Local Area School Systems

The Dunwoody Home Business Map

Welcome, Dunwoody Crier readers!

The map you saw in the newspaper on January 10 is available online here:

https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=1012300#

It includes a filterable legend to the different types of operations and where confirmed complaints were noted.

Visit the original project description and current statistics.  

Some caveats:

• This map and the research going into it are not a full time job although I was a full-time database administrator at one time and that's where the skills came from.  
• The data is as accurate as I could get it but I am not making any guarantees.  Information is changing and becoming available day by day.
• Each marker has some additional information.  Commentary is my personal opinion.
• This map still only represents a fraction of the home business community.  Everything here was verified via a public record.  There are many more out there (like MLMs, self-employed neighborhood professionals, etc) who operate by word of mouth and utilize the municipal code's many loopholes to work as part and parcel of our residential community.
• Actual extent of customer contact is unknown.  Many business operators do so with the tacit blessing of each and every one of our seven city council members.  That fact was not brought out last night.  You're welcome.
• Dunwoody is not now and has never been a "bedroom community".  That vision is a fiction and is therefore - unsustainable.  Home businesses, including those with customers and employees, are a significant, organic, and vibrant part of our livable community and make significant contributions to our tax base at both municipal and county levels.

Questions are welcome.  Vitriol and denial are not.

Just Another Night at Dunwoody City Council

Communities evolve, like it or not.  Real life is not black and white. The more anyone tries to force that simplicity, the more it crumbles.  Accept the reality that enhances life.

2017 State of the Home Business Community - The Commentary

Note:  here are the maps of known home business activity in Dunwoody, broken out by type.  This is what the article below refers to.

Updated 1/8/2017 at 9 PM - 1 additional complaint found, violation NOT confirmed.  Statistics are updated below.

The home business map I created is the only compiled and graphical representation of all residential commercial activity in Dunwoody.  It is also the only entity that uses data to correlate code enforcement complaints with documented home business locations.

I find it disturbing that with all of the erratic hand-wringing and protests and petitions, as well as official judgments from our city government, no one in any official capacity has tried to document this data before.

So how are they making their decisions?  The Force?
Not exactly transparent.  Or fair.  Is it even legal?

I began this map in 2014 after the second home business SLUP applicant was dragged through a knothole in exchange for approval of a daycare for infants and toddlers.  Everyone had a judgement to make about how our "bedroom community" (sic) shouldn't be changed and everyone had a "belief" about the alleged future impact on home values.

But no one who spoke had two facts to rub together, including and especially the city council.  A legal decision was made and an honest citizen's fate decided based on - The Force.

So I made it an intensive hobby to officially request this data from the City of Dunwoody to create that correlation myself.  I had gone along with the stories that benign home business owners with customers were the exception rather than the rule and there was probably a pattern of serious problems with disturbing the neighbors.

Here are some of the processes I had to work though in the data:

The Open Records Request process is easy.  But the amount of data I got was huge.  The number of licensed businesses surpassed 500 just at a glance.  I never expected that many and definitely did not expect that it was such a large part of the overall business community.  Numbers vary from 1/5 to 1/4 depending on the year.

I was told by the person delivering my first ORR on business licenses that they are only maintained on a current, rolling list.  There was no archives of past licensed enterprises that closed or moved.  So the first map generated in June 2014 only contained licenses active for the first six months of 2014.  Any businesses that were open before that and closed or moved were not available via city records.

City licenses were only the first step.  There were also business directories (like the chamber of commerce and The AHA Connection) and the State of Georgia that registers corporations (incorporated enteprises, LLCs, LLPs, etc).  There were many registered to home addresses as the primary business location.  But without a city license.  Again, the number is huge - over 100 at any given time.  So I had to differentiate those on the map.  I used different shades of green for those without complaints.

Even with all of this research, we're still dealing with a gross underestimation of actual home business activity.  There are tutors - who will NEVER apply for the appropriate permit to see their customers after seeing the first two applicants treated so shabbily by their own representatives.  There are MLM and direct marketing reps who host parties and receive merchandise shipments.  I remember how those were excluded by city council as "not really businesses" because they didn't want to appear like they were banning Tupperware parties. (Multi-million dollar industries were declared "not really businesses".  Visualize that one!)  Then you have just hobbies-turned-cottage-industry that have no online record at all and are only known via word-of-mouth.  At the end of the day all of the data is an under-representation of reality.

The SLUPs got their own color marker as well to show they had a permit to see customers.  Those were easy.  Two.  And their addresses were in all of the application documents so they were easy to find.

So when all of the known business locations are entered in and mapped, what do we find?

Dunwoody is saturated with commercial activity in residential neighborhoods.  Single family homes, townhomes, apartments, and condos, it's everywhere.   There are no "bedroom communities" that have a wall separating "residential" and "commercial". 

Dunwoody Home Businesses are now and have always been an integral part of residential life.  Even with customer and/or employee contact.

---

What happens when we match code enforcement complaints with home businesses?  Are home business locations more likely to receive complaints?

Answer:  NO.

Most code enforcement complaints filed are related to erosion, high grass, or unpermitted construction.  There are hundreds filed every year related to residential areas.

Out of all of these complaints only 12 13 are related to home business activity.  Of these 12, 5 were "operating a business without a license" without a specific "nuisance" noted - that is, beyond the license itself, there was no mention of activity that is specifically prohibited in the municipal code.  3 4 complaints could not be verified.  Not verified = not sure if there really is a legal problem or a misunderstanding, or a a complainer with too much time on their hands.  It could be anything.

I had to broaden the range of dates for code complaints just to generate any numbers at all.
One of the "red marks" - a noise nuisance that resulted in a homeowner selling their home and relocating - was submitted before 2008's cityhood referendum.  (It's the one on Laurelwood drive, on the east end of the city)  The complaint was submitted to DeKalb County who sat on it until Dunwoody incorporated, then the county didnt' have to respond at all.

In the interest of fairness, I made sure to include that complaint because it does represent a negative impact.

But ever since, there have been no complaints filed against a home business in the SE end of Dunwoody.  Not just not confirmed, - not filed.

There is an ORR into code enforcement to get more details on the confirmed nuisance reports.  Until then, enjoy the data.  More interesting stories are in the works.

2016 Updates to Dunwoody's Home Business Dynamics

Commentary will follow soon, espcially on the four documented "nuisances".  These maps were generated with ORR's from Dunwoody city hall and analysis of state incorporation records and publicly available business directories.  Hit the "minus sign" button in the bottom right of each map to zoom out.  Click on a marker for more information and my personal commentary

The comprehensive map with all markers can be found at
https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=1012300#



ABOVE:  All home businesses with licenses issued by the City of Dunwoody AND have no record of code enforcement complaints.  Total = 570



ABOVE:  All home businesses with active business websites and/or some kind of incorporation WITHOUT a city license AND have no record of code enforcement complaints.  Total = 128

ABOVE:  All known FORMER home businesses that existed at one time in Dunwoody, but are not currently present.  Meaning, they may have closed, the homeowner moved or died, relocated out of town, or migrated to a traditional commercial space.  These also had NO record of code enforcement complaints.   Total = 268

Total number of recorded Dunwoody home businesses with NO code enforcement complaints:  969


ABOVE:  All home businesses that have had a complaint filed against them via code enforcement (licensed or not) since 2009  Yellow = complaint filed, not confirmed.  Orange = cited for operating a business without a license and no other nuisance activity noted.  Red = nuisance activity confirmed.

Total code enforcement complaints filed against a home business since Dunwoody incorporated = 13

Perspective:  the first article published documenting the first version of this map project

Welcome 2017

The new constant is change.
How we embrace it will define the future.

--Queen Elizabeth II