Woodstock City Council March 9: Downtown Playground Expansion, New Road Deal and Key Zoning Votes on Tap

The Woodstock City Council will convene for its regular session Monday, March 9, 2026, at 7 p.m. in The Chambers at City Center, 8534 Main Street. The agenda is among the more consequential of the year so far, touching on downtown recreation, neighborhood road infrastructure, park planning and the contracts that keep the city's busy warm-weather event calendar running.

The meeting opens on a celebratory note. The council will recognize Girl Scouts with a formal proclamation before turning to a milestone worth noting: Fire Battalion Chief Shane Tetterton will be honored as part of the city's annual Arbor Day Celebration, marking his 30th year of service to Woodstock. Three decades with a single municipality is a rare distinction in any profession, and Tetterton's recognition is a reminder of the institutional knowledge embedded in the city's public safety ranks.

**Downtown Playground Gets Its Second Act**

The evening's most visible action item involves the downtown playground, a fixture along Main Street that has become one of Woodstock's most-used family amenities since the city's downtown revitalization took hold. The council will consider a budget amendment, formally called a MAJBA, that would tap SPLOST VII reserves to accelerate Phase II of the playground's expansion, pulling the project forward from a later fiscal year. SPLOST, the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, is the primary funding mechanism Cherokee County and its cities use to finance capital improvements without raising property taxes, making it a familiar tool for residents who have watched Woodstock's infrastructure grow over the past decade.

If the budget amendment passes, a second vote would authorize an agreement with Earth Elements NM, LLC to handle engineering, design and construction management for the expansion. The Phase II work is intended to complete the playground by adding new play features and improving access from multiple entry points, changes that would make the space more usable for families arriving from different directions along Main Street.

Earth Elements NM, LLC is also tied to a separate agenda item: a master plan agreement for Johnston Farm Park, paired with a $33,500 budget amendment. Johnston Farm is one of Woodstock's larger park properties, and a formal master plan would give the city a long-range blueprint for how the site develops, trails, amenities, programming space and more. For residents who live near the park or use it regularly, the plan represents the first structured look at what the property could become.

**A New Road, and the Development Tied to It**

A development agreement with Beers Construction Partners, Inc. would advance one of the quieter but practically significant pieces of Woodstock's Grid Street Plan, the Goshen Lane extension south of Dupree Road. The city owns the parcel where the new road segment would run, and Beers, which has a previously approved five-unit townhome development adjacent to the site, would construct the roadway as part of that project. The arrangement is a textbook example of how Woodstock has used private development agreements to build out its street grid without shouldering the full cost alone.

Grid streets, short, interconnected blocks that give pedestrians and drivers multiple routes through a neighborhood, are central to Woodstock's long-term planning philosophy for its core. Each new segment adds to a network designed to reduce the pressure on Main Street and Highway 92 as the city grows.

Connected to that road project is a request to extend a Conditional Use Permit for the five-townhome development at 119 Dupree Road through March 9, 2027. City staff recommends the extension, noting that negotiating the Goshen Lane development agreement took time and that construction may run longer than a standard permit window allows. Granting the extension keeps the project, and the road it would build, on track.

**Consent Agenda: Restaurants, Fireworks and Wastewater**

Several items on the consent agenda, the block of routine approvals the council typically passes in a single vote, will matter directly to residents.

Sushi Bros, a new restaurant at 10029 Highway 92, Suite 180, is seeking an alcohol license for on-premise consumption of malt beverages and wine, including Sunday sales. Applicant Hui Qin Chen's request follows the standard city review process for new dining establishments along the Highway 92 corridor.

The city's July 4, 2026 celebration gets its pyrotechnics locked in through a fireworks display agreement with Pyro Productions, Inc., while a master services agreement with Titan Global Enterprises would cover security across the 2026 event season. Woodstock's summer calendar, anchored by July 4th but stretching across multiple festivals and concerts, draws crowds that regularly fill downtown, and the security and entertainment contracts that underpin those events are approved well in advance.

Less festive but more urgent: the council will consider emergency repairs at the city's wastewater treatment plant. Staff is asking to repurpose funds from a UV disinfection project to cover three submersible mixers, a two-lobe blower replacement and membrane cleaning and maintenance. The work was flagged as urgent to prevent further equipment damage, the kind of behind-the-scenes infrastructure spending that rarely draws a crowd but keeps essential services functioning.

Also on the consent agenda, ARS, Inc. has applied to operate an emergency remediation and restoration business, the kind of company called in after fires, floods or mold events, at a suite inside 105 Smokehill Lane. The site is zoned General Commercial, which makes warehouse-style operations technically nonconforming. But city staff notes the building was constructed with loading dock doors and high ceilings suited to exactly that kind of use, and the suite previously housed a nonconforming book wholesale business the council approved. Staff recommends approval.

Rounding out the consent agenda: four Police Department vehicles will be surplused and sold through local auction, and Paragon Accounting & Tax Solutions is seeking a waiver of the standard public input meeting for a variance that would allow angled parking in front of its future location at 9026 Main Street. Staff notes the angled configuration would match parking already approved at neighboring properties on that block.

**Parks Department Looks Ahead**

Under presentations and discussion, the Parks and Recreation Department will deliver a council retreat presentation, likely a look at priorities and projects for the year ahead. The council will also receive communications reports covering December 2025 and January 2026.

The meeting will include a public comment period, and the council may convene in executive session to discuss personnel, litigation or real estate matters. Hearing assistance is available upon request. The full agenda is posted at the city's Granicus portal.