Parkwood Annexation Public Hearing and Tree Ordinance Update This Evening
Decatur Metro | April 7, 2014 | 10:23 amThe Decatur City Commission has scheduled its public hearing regarding the Parkwood neighborhood’s request for annexation during this evening’s meeting.
The commission recently completed and made public a report that estimated the cost of annexing the neighborhood over the next 5 years. While the city’s costs were minimal in comparison to tax revenue, the school system projections showed increases in student populations over the first 5 years. The report estimates that initially 14 new students would be added to the school system with the annexation, though those projections rise in subsequent years.
The commission also has a “tree ordinance update” on the agenda during a 5:30p work session. UPDATE: City Planner Amanda Thompson tells us that the city will present the Commission with the revised tree ordinance based on the feedback given by the Commission in March.
And the agenda includes petitions for the annexation of 33 residential parcels in addition to the Parkwoods.
Just saw that & commented on another thread. 27 of those are on Derrydown Way, so the kids in those houses would be zoned to go to Winona Park, wouldn’t they?
I would think so, at least until we have to re-draw the maps in 2 or 3 years.
Curious…what were the results for the annexation requests last night? notes are not yet available online.
why don’t we do the annexation thing like the trees? for every parcel annexed we dis-annex one.
I say we impose an annexation “fee” for every new household with kinder. (Yep–pokin’ the bear. 😉 )
I’d appreciate knowing if the 5:30 tree ordinance update work session will be available online (Mother Nature permitting).
Heard back– City’s planning to stream the work session.
No annexation , no growth results , no future for the city.. This ares should be
approved immediately along with other area annexations , Do we grow or become stagnant?
Why does better have to mean bigger?
is growth not possible without annexation?
is a future not possible without growth?
i’m all for annexation, but i don’t think annex or die is a reality.
Sloganeering is not an argument. Any whiff of stagnation around here? This city has tremendous assets that it is already building on with great success — downtown, county seat, marta, CSD, it’s sense of community, and yes it’s small size. Briarcliff and Lakeside will never have assets like Decatur’s. Let’s build on and strengthen the assets we have, some of which annexation actually makes more vulnerable.
I was wondering about that statement–grow or stagnate. Somehow that has an air of manifest destiny or the Cold War domino theory. We are talking about our small City of Decatur, population 20,000, 4 square miles in 2014, not 1814. We are supposed to keep growing and growing to survive? For how long? Up to what border? Up to how many school children in what buildings?
My caution does not mean that I am against the Parkwood annexation; I just don’t think that the need to grow is necessarily a good rationale. The best rationale IMHO is that Parkwood residents are already part of our community geographically, socially, commercially, so it makes sense. But all decisions have negative effects that must be considered. The impact on CSD must be acknowledged, not downplayed. And my heart goes out to the family mentioned in the Decaturish report–their son will be a senior next year and would like to finish up at Druid Hills High School. I would hope that there would be a compassionate arrangement for him (since we also learned that COD is now a “international compassionate city”). Either Druid Hills could make a residency exception for him (after all, his family didn’t choose to move, the city line moved on them!) or perhaps CSD could pay Druid Hills High whatever per student cost he would incur at DHS. Or maybe a city border could temporarily zig and zag around his home for one year only? Is there such a thing as deferred annexation?!
Don’t feed the troll. No one could possibly think all annexation requests should be blindly accepted without first evaluating the merits of each request.
So, are they just presenting the revised Tree Ordinance during the work session and we all get a chance to digest it before a vote in the future? Or is there a possibility that a vote to adopt could happen tonight? Not trying to be overly suspicious, but springing a vote during the week of Spring Break is vaguely reminiscent of springing the first version right before MLK weekend.
It’s just a work session, meaning they’ll review and discuss what staff is presently working on. At some point thereafter there’ll be a completed draft which will be released to the public for review and comment. Based on those comments, there’d typically be revisions incorporated and then a final recommendation presented to the Commission for consideration in one of their usual meetings. That would be the final opportunity for people to comment.
Over on Decaturish an update about today’s work session RE: the tree ordinance process.
http://www.decaturish.com/2014/04/tree-ordinance-2-the-revisiting/