Strong Communities

11/17/2025

2012 and 2013 would bring a new city hall to downtown Sugar Hill as a new mayor and city manager take the leadership reins.

New story at Strong Communities.

Link in the comments.

10/28/2025

Election time is always a busy time with lots of campaign rhetoric. In this article, we go through one candidate's campaign "promises".

Link in the comments.

10/27/2025

In this article, we go back to 2019 and the Whitehead Road bridge replacement in Sugar Hill. The Gwinnett County project has been recently cited by a current mayoral candidate as the genesis of an over six year campaign against the city over the "thin" and "nonsensical" answers she got. In fact, she states that the "crazy reactions" disturbed her.

But curiously she doesn't actually show any of those reactions and answers to her questions.

So we did.

Link to the story in the comments.

10/23/2025

Mayor Brandon Hembree gives his third annual State of the City on the Strong Communities podcast!

Link in the comments or, if you subscribe, it's in your favorite podcast app!

10/15/2025

Our first podcast!

While I've done article reads for most of the articles I've written, I'm adding podcasting to the Strong Communities website as well. This will give me and guests the opportunity for more conversational discussion of local topics.

Give it a listen and let me know thoughts/questions/feedback. You should be able to find it in your podcast app and on YouTube. My article reads also will show up when you subscribe.

10/10/2025

Sugar Hill's 1998 Comprehensive Plan was wild. There would be no undeveloped property in the city by 2020. We would have 5,000 multi-family units.

And City Council passed it not once - but twice! Link in the comments.

06/17/2025

This is a deep dive into rezoning and annexation. Link in the comments.

03/13/2025

In Part 2 of Sugar Hill is Growing Slower than ever, we look at housing, permits, rezonings and annexations.

https://www.strongcommunities.net/p/part-2-sugar-hill-is-growing-slower

03/04/2025

Sugar Hill is growing slower than ever. Read about that and school enrollment trends in this Strong Communities article.

https://www.strongcommunities.net/p/sugar-hill-is-growing-slower-than

03/01/2025

In this article, Sugar Hill Mayor Brandon Hembree discusses the city's financial strength. It's also his first podcast - feel free to subscribe through your favorite podcast app by searching for Strong Communities.

https://www.strongcommunities.net/p/end-of-year-finance-update-for-the

10/02/2024

In this article, we discuss the pedestrian bridge across Highway 20. A plan for pedestrians crossing Highway 20 has been around for a couple of decades - now we can make it a reality.

We have a few road rivers in our city - Highway 20, Peachtree Industrial Boulevard and the railroad impede pedestrian access. We'll have an opportunity to bridge one in October.

08/24/2024

Denise Hoell discusses the importance of voting and how voting helps make a Strong Community!

https://www.strongcommunities.net/p/widespread-participation-in-local