Newsletter of the Settles Bridge Homeowner’s Association, Inc.
Post Office Box 837 Suwanee, GA 30024
It has been rumored that a PMUD has been seen in Suwanee. Well, not yet, but within the year construction should begin on a ten year phased build out of a Planned Mix Use Development (PMUD) on 141 acres located south of Peachtree Industrial Boulevard and west of McGinnis Ferry Road along both sides of Scales Road. This project has obtained considerable publicity throughout the metro area over the past several months.
The developer plans to build a transit-oriented development based on a pedestrian friendly design and traditional town development principles. The project is to be constructed along an existing rail line to capitalize on a commuter rail system planned by the Georgia Passenger Rail Authority. This section will provide a link between Suwanee and Gainesville. Although subject to change, this system is expected to begin operation in 2005.
The project itself will be an integrated mixture of single-family attached, single-family detached, multi-family, commercial, and office use. Traditional architecture is planned for both commercial and residential development to create an overall theme. The design includes construction of a "Main Street" bisecting the property and running between PIB and McGinnis Ferry Rd. In addition to residential development in various locations, a "Town Commons" will be built containing multi-story buildings and residential units arranged around a central park. A "Station Center" is planned near the center of the property where the train station will be located. There will be several parks, as well as many biking and walking trails.
Increased traffic and population will continue to haunt Suwanee and its neighbors for the next several years. We must find ways to make it bearable for all involved. Self-containment (such as the development above) and connectivity (not only streets but walking and biking trails), your city council believes, will play a key role in the viability of our city in years to come. Although not the traditional approach, the above type development fits well within the guidelines of the city's new Comprehensive Plan.
Every year, we have to elect a new group of officers to the SBHA board, and this year is no exception. We are now looking for nominations for the following positions:
President
Vice President
Secretary
Treasurer
Member at Large (we need 3)
If you are interested in serving in any of these positions for the year 2000, please get your name to one of the officers. You can also submit your name (or the name of someone that you believe would be willing to serve) at the SBHA website. Here is the list of outgoing officers:
President: Rich Irvin
Vice President: David Hancock
Secretary: Diane Hawkins
Treasurer: Ron Rogers
Members At Large: John Burdges, Roger Kennedy, Paul Thompson
On the Sunday afternoon of June 11th, we will have the annual SBHA picnic - and a homeowner's association meeting at the same time. This gala event will probably be held in the same place as last year's picnic (down where Settles Point Road makes its first hard turn to the right), but we will have full details in the June newsletter. The homeowner's association will furnish the meat, buns, and iced tea, and we ask each family to bring some type of dish.
Not only will this be a great time to meet a few neighbors, it will also be the occasion of a very important meeting where we elect the 2000 officers. So put this event on your calendar as soon as possible - in fact, why don't you stop reading right now and go and write this date down. You won't regret it. We hope to see you there.
The SBHA Board has launched our year 2000 contribution drive. You will soon receive your notice in the mail along with information about a contest that will be part of this year's funding campaign. The winner will be announced at the neighborhood picnic in June. Your chances of success with the contest will depend on how quickly you mail back your contribution. We have already been receiving some contributions. But, believe it or not, some folks have still not completed their pledge from 1999.
With this much notice, we know that it will be big - really big. By sunup Saturday morning there will already be cars cruising our subdivision looking for special bargains. Although the sale won't officially start until 8:00 AM, many people just can't wait. So here are the facts:
The Settles Bridge Garage Sale will be held on Saturday, May 27 from the hours of 8:00 AM until 4:00 PM. We will again post the signs at the front entrance on Friday to announce to the traffic on Suwanee Dam Road about the sale on Saturday. There will be advertising in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Gwinnett Post. If you are participating, please tie some balloons on your mailbox. If you are not going to participate, please make sure your personal vehicles are in your driveway or parked safely due to the heavy volume of traffic.
Hard to believe but April 1st marked the 40th anniversary of TIROS I, the world's first weather satellite. Today's military satellite specifications are still classified but we do know that some of the cameras on the weather satellites can bring into focus the date stamped on the front of a quarter laying in the street. Amazing technology for a weather satellite, don't you agree?
Ever heard of WD-40 and wondered where the name came from? WD-40 stands for Water Displacement, 40th attempt! The chemist, Norm Larson, who developed WD-40 back in 1953, was attempting to create a formula to prevent corrosion, a task that is done by displacing moisture. He finally perfected the formula on the 40th try!
If you're upgrading to Windows 2000 prepare for another hardware upgrade. Chances are your present home PC isn't a Pentium Pro 200 with at least 128 MB of RAM. Users of Windows 2000 are reporting any equipment with less than these hardware minimums just do not "cut the mustard".
One of the functions of this newsletter is to make homeowners aware of issues that have been brought to the attention of your SBHA officers, and this month is no exception. We have been receiving comments and some complaints this spring about children on bicycles. Again we must remind parents to instruct their children that the proper way to ride bicycles on the street is to ride on the right side of the street and in single file. Not on the left side of the street and/or "split-style" where 2 persons riding together are on both sides of the street in parallel.
We would like to thank the parents that have encouraged children to wear safety helmets and we notice almost all of the children are abiding by this.
Another issue that was discussed at the recent Board Meeting has to do with parents reminding their children about respect for people's private property. We are receiving complaints about bicycle riders cutting across lawns, flower beds, and riding up across the street curbs onto the edge of lawns that are not their property. This has become a destructive issue since 2 residents have now complained about broken underground sprinkler heads and plumbing being cracked due to bicycle tracks across the tops of the sprinkler heads.
Please talk to your children about the serious side of respecting people's property. Some of the children involved have been identified and the next step will be to notify the parents directly if this practice continues.
Another reminder…there is a GA state law concerning the proper method for street parking. When parking on a road, street, or thoroughfare, especially in the evening hours, you (or your guests) must park with the vehicle on the right side of the street with the front of the vehicle pointed in the same direction as if the vehicle were being driven. The reason for this law is very simple - safety for other motorists. This is because all vehicles have reflective elements in the taillight that are visible to another oncoming vehicle. If you park the wrong direction then the other vehicle cannot see the parked vehicle until it may be too late.
When you must park along the street please make sure vehicles (yours and guests) are parked legally and safely. Be mindful of parking in blind areas of the street, around curves, etc. that may cause an accident for which you may be liable.
There has also been a recent report of theft from a motor vehicle in our subdivision during the evening hours. Residents are reminded again to keep a watchful eye out for suspicious activity and to always report incidents immediately to the Suwanee Police Department, no matter how trivial.
Editor's Note: This month we are happy to welcome back the 'In the Garden' section, just in time for Summer. This season, the articles will be written for our newsletter by Paul Burns, of Love's Greenhouse
Container Gardening
Container Gardening starts with selecting the pot with the right size, shape, and feel for your location. Large pots provide a big show and hold water longer, making them easy to keep watered during the summer heat.
Terra cotta clay is the classic material, but can crack in winter. Concrete pots are durable (but heavy), and can be stained and painted to give a nice look. Modern plastics can give the clay look at low cost, are lightweight, and don't crack, chip, or peel. These are available in a wide range of colors and a variety of sizes. Whiskey barrels are a classic, with lots of room for lots of color. Wooden planters and window boxes help insulate the soil from the summer heat.
The pots need good potting soil to perform best. Choose a good potting soil that absorbs and hold moisture, yet drains to provide aeration. Don't buy the cheap bags of mucky top soil or potting soil. Good quality potting soil is worth the money because you'll have better results and it will last for several seasons. Leave an inch of rim showing when you fill the pot with soil so that it will hold lots of water when you water it.
If the pot is huge, like a whiskey barrel, filling the pot halfway with large pine bark nuggets will provide bulk, lighten the container, and help with drainage.
Drainage is important in container gardening because roots require air to live. A pot without drainage will lead to over-watering, root rot, and plant death. If the pot doesn't have drain holes, try this commercial interior plantscaping trick: cut a ˝"-3/4" diameter tube or PVC pipe to fit from the bottom to the lip. Fill the bottom 2" with pea gravel, and then add the potting soil. After watering the container use a "kerosene can" siphon pump (or a turkey baster if it is a short pot) to pump off excess water.
The Conditions
Plant selection for the container depends a great deal on the conditions of the pot's location. Is it hot and sunny? Is it in a niche and remains in the shade most of the day? Is it near a hose, or is it far enough away that you need to rely on drought-tolerant plants like purslane, lantana, and vinca? Does the wind batter it, requiring short stocky plants?
The Plants
Any plant can grow in a container. Putting them together to look nice is the trick. Some plants like impatiens or begonias are bold enough to stand by themselves. Other plants work better in combination, gaining interest from the contrasting heights and textures. Plant a tall or spiky plant like one of the many salvias, angelonia, dracaenas spikes, or even iris for vertical accent. Use ivy, variegated vinca vine, ivy geranium or verbena to spill over the edge to soften the pot. Even though most people are planting "flowers", using plants with great foliage like the gray dusty miller, fluffy asparagus fern, or purple setcreasia will accentuate the flowers.
For Shady Gardens try:
Impatiens, begonias, coleus, browallia, and torenia as the main plants, with ivy and vinca vine to spill over the edge. This year a mini-flowered Impatiens is available to go with the traditional and the double-flowered. Try a different begonia from the traditional wax begonia, like tall vertical angel-winged begonia or the silver-leafed rex begonia. Add height and color with caladiums or black elephant ears.
Plant some cool perennials like tiarella, heuchera, lamium, and painted ferns for their foliage. In the fall, lift and plant them in the shady garden. You'll have much bigger plants then you started with.
For Sunny Gardens try:
Use blue fan flower (scaveola), blue daze, wave petunias, verbena, or one of the four different colored sweet potato vines to spill over the edge of the pot. Use geraniums, bronze-leafed begonias, lantana, petunias, Mexican heather, or gomphrena for the main color. Finish it off with a vertical, like a draceana spike or iris, bronze fennel, angelonia, or a salvia.
Herbs are great in a container garden. You can plant them in a collection by themselves, or mix them in with your flowers. Rosemary and lavender provide strong verticals. Thyme will cascade. Purple basil, bronze fennel, dill, and curly parsley are worth growing just for their foliage. If your backyard is too shady for a vegetable garden, put a tomato in a container on the deck with some peppers, basil and parsley for a miniature home garden.
If your deck is real sunny, plant some shade by putting up a trellis and planting vines in a pot to provide some colorful sun block. Hyacinth bean, morning glories, moonflower, black-eyed susan vine, passion vine, and cypress vines will grow like weeds to provide screening, but are annuals so you don't have to worry about trying to save them through the winter. You can switch to pansies instead to give you winter color.
Paul Burns
Love's Greenhouse
http://www.lovesgreenhouse.com
As some of you know, I was the one that set up the Settles Bridge web site (www.settlesbridge.com). To those of you who aren't on "the net" and don't care at all about the site, don't worry - your SBHA dues do not go to support this in any way. I personally donated the name registration, and I personally donate the space on the Internet to keep it active 24 hours/day. However I do get an occasional e-mail question from a Settles Bridge resident, and I got one recently that involved setting up a web site. Since it was my second one, I figured that if at least two of you had questions about the whole process, there were probably more, so I would take a little space and explain how a web site gets created.
I believe that one of the most important things is actually different from getting a site up, and that is getting a "domain name", which lets people type in something like "www.settlesbridge.com" instead of "ix@dg33m88-2.com". Once you get a domain name that you like, you need to find a physical place on the Internet where you can start putting your text and pictures. Unless you have a very fast connection to the Internet and a good bit of special equipment, you can't do this yourself, and almost nobody does. You can easily find someone to do this for you, and for a basic site it will usually cost between $15 and $25 per month. Note: If you get your own domain name, you will not be able to use the free web space that your Internet provider gives you. That page or two that you create there will always have that rather cryptic address that they assigned you.
It is usually easiest to get a domain name and a hosting location at the same time. It is always possible to move your site later, but it is not very easy. For example, if you choose Mindspring to host your site, you can go to Mindspring's home page (http://www.mindspring.com) and click on the "Get yourname.com" menu selection down on the left side of the screen. You can use this tool to see if the name that you want is available, and, if it is, you can go ahead and get the name and Mindspring will set up the space for it on one of their servers.
You "rent" these names for two years for $70, and as long as you keep paying the yearly fee nobody else can use your name. Whenever someone goes to their browser and types "www.yourname.com", for instance, their browser will be pointed to your site. Or, at least at first, what will be your site. Mindspring will give you a startup page that says something about the site being under construction, and a username and password that will allow you to put your pages up on the Internet for the world to see.
So, in summary:
1. Get a connection to the Internet
2. Get a good domain name (like "www.settlesbridge.com")
3. Find someone to "host" that domain name (you will get just a blank page)
4. Find someone to build the basic site
5. Maintain the site
To be honest, what I believe is the hardest part of any website is maintaining it. You can have a good site if you just put up a few quality pages, but to have a great site it needs to always look new, and this is done by keeping fresh material. There are some easy things that you can do to give it a current look automatically - there are items that you can put on a page that will display the current date (even show a current calendar), the current weather conditions and so forth.
If there is more interest in this topic, I will be happy to cover the basics of creating a web page in a later issue.
PS: As I said, the hardest part of a web site is the maintenance, and, I am sorry to say, I don't do a good job on our homeowner's website, www.settlesbridge.com. Therefore, if anybody out there wants to help keep the site updated and current, just contact me via e-mail at david@settlesbridge.com. Your help would be appreciated, and will help make ours a site that we can be really proud of, and hopefully use more often.
Send suggestions and comments regarding this newsletter to webmaster@settlesbridge.com