Decatur Proposed Moratorium on Residential Demolition and Tree Removal Now Being Considered Separately
Decatur Metro | October 19, 2013From the city’s Decatur Minute blog…
Updated information is now available regarding the proposed temporary moratorium on single-family residential structural demolition and large tree removal as a part of construction or renovation. This proposal was initially made available on October 14, 2013 as a single ordinance. However, after public review and feedback, the two issues have been separated into individual ordinances that can be discussed and acted upon separately.
The City Commission will discuss the proposals during the work session and regular meeting on Monday, October 21, 2013 at Decatur City Hall, 509 N. McDonough St. Both meetings are open to the public.
- 6:30pm- Work Session
- 7:30pm- Regular Meeting
If either or both proposals are adopted, the properties affected would be limited to those zoned R-60 and R-85 Single Family Residential. Each moratorium would be effective through Jan. 24, 2014.
Documents
- Memo from City Manager – October 18
- Ordinance O-13-AA – Temporary moratorium on permits for structural demolitions
- Ordinance O-13-BB – Temporary moratorium on permits for large tree removals
All comments & questions should be directed to Amanda Thompson at [email protected] or 404-370-4104.
Much better. Now they can avoid crashing my house’s value without upsetting the tree huggers.
Bet you a jäger shot both moratoriums pass.
You’re on. But I’m going to need more than one if the demo moratorium passes.
Tree hugger my arse! I live in Oakhurst and the flavor of this neighborhood is absolutely being damaged by Arlene Dean and all her tear down builds. On my street she added her own personal giant personal abode.
Building these giant monstrosities on small lots where their was a simple bungalow is just greed and it looks awful next to the smaller homes. I am sure the answer is to tear down the rest of us and build more McMansions.
Funny thing is I bet the owners of those new homes think those little bungalows look awful next to their McMansions! Luckily for them, they will outnumber the bungalows in a few, short years.
just wondering what makes a “mcmansion”….sq footage? big house on a small lot? Is it cause they are new thye are mcmansions? because frankly, I look at Arlene deans website and the homes do not look much bigger than the ones on Sycamore….so is it age then that defines a mcmansion? No…must just be context then. If a big house sits next to a predominantly small house street its a mcmansion. I guess the 19th century huge house I ran by on Rogers road in Atlanta, surrounded by a ton of small bungalows is a mcmansion.
stupid capitalism….
sometimes people build big houses…frankly I’d love to have more than the 1200 sq ft I have. Neighborhoods change, its part of the fun of living in a city that has tripled in size since the 70’s. If you don’t want things to change move to Detroit.
I say good for them!
GM – a McMansion is not necessarily a new house in an old neighborhood.
Generally, it’s a cheaply made, big house built on a tree-cleared lot with a mish-mash of architectural features, with no regards for the “style” of the neighborhood.
I think in Oakhurst, the 40% surface limit, the fact that most of our lots are not clear-cut of trees, and watershed/drainage considerations has insulated us somewhat from the McMansion phenomenon.
When I moved rom my 1930’s 1,200 sqft bungalow to a 2,500 sqft new build, I actually spent less on electricity! We have old oaks, and have eradicated the kudzu and most of the ivy (the damn bamboo is a tougher invasive to get rid of.)
So, not all new builds fall under the category of “McMansion”.
As long as we have the max-40% surface req., and a zoning ordinance that prevents clear-cutting and disturbing the watertable, people should be able to build what works for them.
I live in a McMansion, our whole street is pretty much cookie-cutter 2 story craftsman style homes. The lots were clear cut to build all of these 2,500-3,000 square foot monstrosities.
Here’s a picture of what the street looked like when first built:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_oOvV-j5jZNQ/ShSzlCMWBpI/AAAAAAAAEww/bAv9_bKfh_o/s1600/dek112-85.jpg
I’ve always been told that the area where Adams, etc. are today was previously grazing lands, not woodlands, but good comedy nonetheless. I continue to be mystified by how people can characterize a newly built traditional American foursquare as some sort of newfangled abomination. Granted, there are some builders doing weak executions, but there are quite a few others doing traditional detailing (proportions, eaves, windows, etc.) every bit as competent as those you’ll find in historic working/middle class neighborhoods all across the country.
Simply put, it’s not a nuanced building type. Keep it simple and you’ll do just fine.
This is not to say that every execution is contextually sensitive, as many are not. But to call a perfectly competent foursquare a “McCraftsman” simply because it’s a contemporary house built of contemporary materials by contemporary tradesmen is just silly. Unless you’re prepared to suggest that the builders of Adams Street, who also employed materials and labor common to their day, were equally problematic.
Hah! I always wonder what those folks thought when 30 years or so later hundreds of little 1,500 sf cottages began to sprout all over town. They don’t get much more cookie cutter than our houses on Shadowmoor. Houses and Winnona Park School built on a former cotton field, by the way — not a tree in sight back in the day.
Hey TeeRuss, This is officially my favorite post of the year. Nothing better than a little perspective.
Thanks for putting it into perspective for me. Next to you personal hatred of Arlene Dean and the unabashed greed of the McMansioners, my own desire to retain the value in our <1200 sq ft post-war ranch suddenly seems so silly.
Plenty of people prefer to live with more sq. ft. in a building envelope that’s much more efficient and uses less energy than your bungalow.
I personally would rather look at the average Eric Rawlings house that Arlene builds rather than the same old same old post war anything.
And with a floor area ratio and lot coverage limit at 40% (Atlanta is 50%), Decatur doesn’t have any actual monstrosities, just perceived ones.
What is the rationale for including accessory buildings?
I call it mcmansion envy. I think many of the new builds are far better than the older homes.
so, by extension, if you’re the proud owner of a new mcmansion, and the small bungalow next door is razed, and in its place goes an extremely high quality mcpalace whose size dwarfs yours, you’re cool with that right? and if not, then you have mcpalace envy?
read my post above, what is a mcmansion!? The homes are HUGE on Sycamore and Ponce…are they mcmansions? Just because they are old are they exempt from that definition? I just don’t get the hatred for these homes.
Tolerance for others would be nice. Live and let live.
i’m only pointing out the relativity of size. on Sycamore the older homes are large, so comparably sized new construction is less disruptive.
It is scale then…hmmm…so should we then dictate scale in new development?
*all new single family homes, through teardown of an existing home, shall not exceed the square footage of said removed residence. if a new home is developed on vacant land, said house shall not exceed the square footage of the homes on either side or across the street of the new development*
Does that sound good? how else can we get the government to dictate how we live?
There are plenty of homes in old neighborhoods with a 19th century “mcmansion” sitting next to a 19th century small home. IMO scale is no reason to stop someone from developing a home that works for them. Should we not be welcoming of all people?
this anything goes, laissez faire attitude was the bane of Atlanta in the 70s and early 80s when we mindlessly surrendered lots of our historic buildings and homes for the sake of free markets and “progress”. the Fox Theatre was scheduled for demolition and replacement by a parking lot. thankfully, it was saved, and the city is culturally enriched by its historic presence. we’re trying to learn how to strike a bit of a balance between preserving our past while building into our future.
preserving neighborhood architecture, especially when it is consistently representative of a valued aesthetic, has a place in the public conversation. the Craftsman homes of Oakhurst, for example, are meaningful relics of an era, and razing them all to be replaced by all new construction would be a shame —any culture that isn’t mindful of preserving some meaningful portion of its past is poorer for that indiscretion.
i think we’re in search of how to strike a balance right now in Decatur, and the push and pull of debates like this are part of the process.
Now you are getting into another conversation….lamenting the development of “mcmansions’, their scale next to existing homes etc is a little different. I didn’t get the impression you would care if the house being torn down was replaced with a similarly scaled home. It was the large home next to a small home that was an issue I thought.
The purpose of the government, at all levels IMO, is to protect the health, safety and welfare of its citizens. Not to impose how one lives through the establishment of dictatorial law.
If you have a tree that YOU believe is dangerous, blocks a view, whatever…it should be up to YOU to make the decision to remove it. Not the city. If your 1920’s house is to small for your growing family it should be up to YOU to decide how to expand. Not the city.
I cant say I have the answer, I love history, even got one of the preserve Georgia plates and consider myself a history nerd…I’ve been a renewing member of the arbor day foundation for 5 years now. I love history and trees (except all the darn water oaks that fall apart after 80 years )
That being said, its not up to ME to decide how YOU want to live. Nor should any governing entity.
since most of the new homes being built are much larger than the ones they replaced and their older neighbors, seems to me the two issues of historic preservation and appropriate scaling are linked.
we have zoning regulations for a reason—to serve the greater good of the community as defined by its collective values. we wouldn’t allow a 40-story condo to rise in downtown Decatur because it would be out of scale and inconsistent with our goals for the city at large. should any land owner in the city be able to build any kind of building he/she wishes? of course not. should we allow a landowner to open a strip club next to a church? of course not. yes, the government has a right to express the will of the people and tell you can’t do such things even if you own the land.
at a certain point the libertarian streaks I’m seeing simply don’t make sense in actual practice. communities have collective values they seek to protect through the establishment and enforcement of regulations. not everyone will agree with them, but i wouldn’t want to live without them, and if i found them completely odious I could sell and move to an area whose values are better aligned with mine.
Interesting discussion. I very much agree with Rick’s sentiments. I moved into Decatur recently and was fortunate enough to have moved into a home in Chelsea Heights that had already been renovated. The renovations were very tastefully done and preserved the integrity of the 1950’s ranch I bought, as well as the integrity of the neighborhood as a whole. I love my home, and my neighborhood. I would be devastated if suddenly all of the homes around me were torn down and replaced with cookie cutter McMansions. I chose my neighborhood for its character, which is reflective of the character of my neighbors (after all, it isn’t really the houses that make a neighborhood – it is the people who live in those houses). I am convinced that I live in the single best neighborhood in all of Atlanta. While my neighbors take care of their homes, my neighbors are also modest and kindhearted. No one is trying to outdo the other, and everyone is very accepting and welcoming. In other words, there is no need for a McMansion in my neighborhood, because you don’t have to buy or impress your way in – you just need to be a nice person. Nice people care about their neighbors. Nice people are considerate of their neighbors. Long winded way of saying – should you be able to tear down your home and build a McMansion? Sure. But just because you CAN do something, doesn’t mean you SHOULD do something. I would suggest that being thoughtful and considerate of your neighbors should be a priority for residents of the area. As a resident you will live with the consequences of your decisions, and so for a resident I think it should be left to that person’s discretion. Developers who buy homes to tear down and rebuild, however, do not live in the homes they build. They do not live with the consequences of their choices, and the folks who buy those homes do not necessarily know or understand how the tear-down/rebuild affects their neighbors – in all likelihood the new residents did not have a personal relationship with their future neighbors beforehand. My thought would be then, that it is more appropriate to place a moratorium on demolition on homes purchased for resale than on residents who have lived there long enough to get to know their neighbors, and who intend to reside there for a period of time after the demolition and reconstruction. From a legal perspective, there could be a number of ways to accomplish this outcome.
FYI – some of those nice renovations in Chelsea Heights were new construction homes, not remodels – complete tear down and rebuilds. Six on Mockingbird, Kathryn, and Chelsea in the last 15 years, not counting the three under construction at the corner of Pope & Chelsea.
Jus’ Sayin’.
+1
This is happening to us right now. We built a relatively small new home on a large lot, and a MUCH larger home is going in next door. I am not envious at all. We have what we need/want and they are bulding what they need/want. To each his/her own, thus PRIVATE property rights. I firmly believe the city is exercising much more power than it is constitutionally entitled to, and if these pass, it will be interesting to tally the costs to defend the litigation that is already in the works to challenge these laws, “temporary” as they may be. Every dollar spent on litigation is a dollar (1) taken away from one of the fantastic services we love in Decatur or (2) that will be taken out of your pocket in terms of additional tax dollars.
I am not saying that anticipated litigation costs should dictate policy, but I am curious as to what legal advice the City Commission is provided prior to taking any formal action. Can someone fill me in?
People filing suits, like those brandishing rifles, are zealots. I have high hopes that mutually acceptable solutions to these issues will be found in the middle, on common ground, where the balanced people live.
That is easy to say, but it is amazing how almost any balanced person quickly can become a zealot when something near and dear to them (say, income, assets, personal business) is challenged or taken away.
I also hope that cooler heads will prevail and a common ground can be found, but once a law is on the books, depending on how that law is written, the damage is done. I hate to fall back on tired analogies, but you truly cannot unring a bell.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m optimistic but not delusional!
The circumstances of my lot ensure that the outcome of this process will most likely impact me in some way on both the house and tree front, so I’m not just tossing grenades from the sidelines. I just tend to live — and in observation find that a sizable portion of the city does as well — by two basic rules: 1) live and let live; and 2) we all gotta get along. Those two things are in conflict with one another, which helps keep decision making somewhere in between. I’ve lived here a good stretch of time and find the city pretty good at maneuvering this ground. They rarely seem to cave to the extremes.
So individuals/companies whose livelihood/investment have been harmed by possibly unconstitutional government regulation, and choose to sue, are zealots?
No. Those who file suits before there’s even been a hearing on the matter are zealots.
To my knowledge, noone has filed suit yet. However, if your livelihood was directely affected by this decision and you thought there was a good chance it would pass, you would be smart to have the lawsuit drafted and ready to be filed at 9AM tomorrow. If you waited to see what happened to engage counsel, you could lose several days, and the lost income could greatly exceed a few thousand in legal fees to draft a TRO. So, I don’t agree with your chacterizing these people as zealots. This is sound business practice.
No argument with your characterization of a certain individual brandishing a rifle.
I have no particular knowledge of suits either. I was just responding to Oateoateo’s mention that there were some in the works. Should they exist, we can certainly disagree on whether or not they constitute a reasonable action at this point in the game. Me no lawyer. Just a guy who believes that reasonable people, together with other reasonable people, can come up with reasonable solutions. No strong-arming necessary.
Just playing devil’s advocate, but if you were a builder and the city just enacted a measure which could/will severely limit your income for the next three months (more accurately, in the first half of next year – this won’t affect projects underway), what middle ground can possibly be reached? The city has already “listened” to your arguments and decided to shut you down. A lawsuit may be the only mechanism which levels the playing field and brings the city to the table regarding short-term solutions. You have already been strong-armed by the city, and you are forced to fight back.
That being said, I do agree with you that reasonable minds should be able to find a workable long-term solution (so long as the residents are reasonable in their position about trees and leave the guns at home).
PArt of a builder’s business model includes factoring in market risk, and part of that risk is that municipalities will change their regulation at some point.
The builder will find a new neighborhood to build if the risks and rewards become sideways. They’ve come to Oakhurst because the market demand is high right now.
We don’t owe anything to a builder, except to be fair and up-front. Every municipality has a decision to make when setting their regulations. We can see how Gwinnett dealt with theirs, and the COD will make it’s own decision weighing many different considerations. Builders are quite aware of this, and factor that into their model.
I don’t think the city will kill the golden goose on this one. As home values increase, our tax receipts increase. Bigger houses bring more school-age children, but even those huge house only have two kids on average.
All good points Arriba. My point was simply that if the builder thinks he/she has legal recourse, it would be wise to file any potential suit as soon as the action would be ripe, which in this case, is 9AM tomorrow morning.
But, even assuming for argument’s sake that we don’t owe anything to the builder (which I am not sure is entirely true), we do owe somthing to the homeowners. I am not sure how this issue has been twisted to the point where people seem to think this only effects “outside, money grubber” developers. This moratorium, and any future material restrictions on the use of property, will greatly impact the value of our homes.
I’d have to disagree. It seems the city has set this up as a single hearing with a vote immediately following. So when is the appropriate time to resort to legal solutions? Even a developer with many potential projects affected may not have standing to file for any sort of injunctive relief until the moratorium goes into effect but, if I was one of them, I’d want to have my ducks in a row and get that shit filed at 9:01 am on the day that it does.
I do have a new home in decatur but have also had a 1919 and 1923 craftsman that we totaly reasored down to the door hinges. It was more of a comment that many people would welcome more space or new fixtures. The great thing about older areas is you do get a true melting pot of styles and sizes. When I built my own home I saved more than 13000 sq. If area for trees I also only built what we wanted and needed for space but if I had wanted to build a huge house on my own land I would not want someone telling me I could not. People call style, size and ten different things into question it all comes down to opinion
The AJC reports this morning that someone (I’ll leave his name out and it doesn’t specify where in the city it happened) verbally assaulted a tree worker, then got a rifle so he could “put an end to this.”
I’m all for city government being responsive to issues raised in the community but if this degree of off-the-deep-end buffoonery is what tree advocates see as productive discourse, consider me (someone actually concerned about long-term canopy issues) camping elsewhere.
When’s the Your House is Too Big Knife Fight goin’ down? Or are we foregoing such pleasantries and jumping straight to the C4?
i love me some trees, but violence is completely off the table. ridiculous.
I have the same questions as gm – there seems to be a lot of judgment being passed around about other people’s houses, trees, etc. Do your thing, plant trees, stop insulting other homes (big, small, or whatever size) and framing this as some sort of fight. The fact that there has been a gun drawn already is horrifying. Most people in Decatur are reasonable and I’d bet we can figure this out without any moratoriums (all these issues can be studied without one) or stomping on people’s property rights.
Here is the thing. The city, whenever you’ve moved here, is going to change. People seem to want their neighborhood preserved in amber from the day they moved in. Never mind the trees that came out in the 20s or 30s or 70s when your particular house was built. Now that there is human attachment to a tree in 2013 suddenly that family/builder/developer is wrong and everyone before them is right.
I love trees and want them to stay but I would think we can build reasonable protections without vilifying anyone, including developers and the families buying new homes. I also worry that if we see storms like we did this summer, delaying anyone getting a tree removed could become a deadly scenario. Let’s trust people to own and maintain their own property (that they are paying very high taxes on) and concentrate on other ways of encouraging reasonable development along with a healthy tree canopy.
I mentioned this on FFAF, but I’ll not it here as well. I hate the pretty rampant removal of trees (and poor treatment of retained trees that often die due to feeder root disruption and soil compaction) but I would like to see a more concerted community effort at making sure that Decatur keeps its forest canopy.
The example that I mentioned was the loss of a good deal of the water oaks in the city that are nearing the end of their 90 or so year life. I would be interested in hearing if there’s interest in something akin to Trees Atlanta (e.g., Trees Decatur?) that would work towards encouraging the planting of large, long lived, native, and practical trees. Ultimately, an ordinance isn’t really going to work, and it will leave untouched large swaths of the city that are losing trees not through development, or are currently lacking in decent canopy.
Heck, I’d be happy to come plant trees on private property if there was some notion that the tree would be adequately cared for and protected.
I am sure many of us have water oak seedlings growing from acorns squirrels have planted (usually growing in a not good area like in a garden bed or close to the house) . Why not try moving them to a good tree growing site in your yard? The previous owner of my house moved such a seedling to the yard about 10 years ago and the tree is now over 12 feet tall. It’s slow growing, but we also have young tulip poplars (also grown from volunteer seedlings) that are faster growing and will provide shade while the oak matures. This may be a good time of year to dig seedlings out and move them to prime spots. It’s economical (free) and if you don’t have any seedlings because you keep a better manicured yard than I do, you could ask around your neighborhood… and if you have a bunch of volunteer trees you could offer them up to your neighbors.
The city will plant trees for free in the easement between the sidewalk and street in front of your house. Just contact the deputy city manager, Hugh Saxon, and let him know you would like one planted.
That easement planting is ill-conceived. When placed on streets where there’s an intersection and no 4-way stop they create visibility hazards at least for 20 years or so until they grow above the line of sight.
Design is everything. If someone compiled a “10 Most Loved Residential Streets” list, I can almost guarantee there wouldn’t be a single entry without a street tree canopy. Yes, safety is an important consideration, but the things that make us comfortable and content are equally so.
One of my top 10 is Lombard Street in San Francisco.
Didn’t the city of Atlanta enact a moratorium in the past decade or so? I believe it was to study the effect of tear-downs in existing single-family neighborhoods. Any idea if/how that affected the market?
When does tonight’s city commission meeting start? Does anyone know where the Moratorium votes fall on the agenda?
I don’t know what the end game is for the City. If they pass a moratorium, it will be in effect until January. At the end of the moratorium, they’d presumably have had time to study the issue and will have an idea of what they want to do in the UDO.
But the UDO will not be voted on or adopted until nine months later (Sept 2014), at best estimate, and there’s supposed to be community input on the UDO.
So, what good is it to have a moratorium for 3 months, if nothing permanent will be issued until UDO is completed? What will they do when the moratorium is over? Go back to the way things were? Extend it for 9 more months? Neither of those sound politically appealing if I were a Commissioner.
Several “could be” teardowns listed on MLS in the last couple days. Panic selling?
Ah, I was interviewed by the local Fox news on this issue! As an historian, I like to see the changes in communities and agree that what makes communities interesting are the old homes (100+ years) next to the more recent next (50+ years) to the brand-new. As a homeowner, I like my property rights. I do not live in a McMansion, but I grew up in one of the first planned communities in the country and, while I loved living there, I did not move to Decatur to re-create that. We moved here for the walkability, the schools, and the community. How Decatur looked 40 years ago is different than 80 and 120. Change makes life interesting.
Man, there were my 15 seconds of fame. I really need to say “and” less.
Boykin and Baskett voted for it and it lost.
The tree moratorium passed unanimously. The demo moratorium failed, with Boykin and Baskett voting in favor. The difference seemed to be that the staff expects to have a fully-baked tree ordinance ready within 90 days, so it made some sense to stand down until January. On the tear-down ordinance, it is clear that there’s no common vision of what the city should be doing on this issue, although everyone seems to agree it should be doing more than is. Since it will clearly take beyond January to formulate a policy and write an ordinance, the moratorium just wasn’t logical. Neither of the two commissioners voting in favor of it articulated anything like a thoughtful basis for their position — they just wanted to do something whether it would help address the problem or not. Not an inspiring display of statesmanship, IMO.