Three years after passing an ordinance regulating the spacing of similar local businesses, the Stockbridge City Council considered a motion at its April 26 work session to change it but that motion was denied.

The 2019 ordinance placed a one-mile spacing/distance requirement between hair salons and barbershops; nail salons, tire shops; pawn, title lending and cash-for-title shops; vape shops; thrift stores and consignment shops; auto shops; used appliance shops; and tattoo shops. This was intended to stop over-concentration of similar businesses too close to each other.

A motion was made to reduce that distance to a half-mile but it was denied. Council member Yolanda Barber was the lone person against the denial, citing the legal opinion of the city’s unified development code legal advisor regarding the matter.

In other business, the council approved an application for permits that would allow the new police department to properly exercise speed detection on a number of city streets. The police department is required to obtain permitting from the Georgia Department of Public Safety to utilize speed detection devices in its enforcement of speed laws within the city limits, and the speed detection permit applicant requires the approval of the city governing authority prior to submission to the Georgia Department of Public Safety. The council vote to approve the measure was unanimous.

Review and approval of the design concept for the city’s proposed cultural arts center will take a little while longer. City officials reported that Tunnel-Spangler & Walsh has drafted four architectural design drawings with associated cost estimates for the proposed cultural arts center. The consensus of the council was to conduct follow-up meetings for review of the proposals and bring the matter back to the council for approval after that.

Three board and committee vacancies were approved by the council. Frangela Merritt was named to the Downtown Development Authority to fill an unexpired term through December 9, 2023. Deron Johnson and Angela Meyers Jenkins were tapped for the Ethics Committee to serve through December 31, 2025. Mayor Anthony Ford noted that his selection for that committee would be forthcoming.

An intergovernmental agreement between the city and the Downtown Development Authority was approved unanimously, as well as a resolution regarding the restatement of the DDA’s activation and clarification of its name. Council member Elton Alexander commented that with this action, the DDA will return to its official name as established in 1983 and he saw this as “a new and fresh start, and a great opportunity to differentiate from the controversies that took place a decade ago under a different administration.”