- Decatur considering purchase of Boys & Girls Club site in Oakhurst [Decaturish]
- Unique sewage recycling system opens at Emory [AJC]
- Beer Bill at half-full, but party on at Five Seasons anyway [AJC]
- Downtown Atlanta street renaming continues [CL]
- This is what your salad bar would look like without bees [Co.Exist]
- Mapping Migration in the United States [NYT]
Map courtesy of NYT
given our need for school real estate, hard for me not to imagine the B&G’s Club parcel having potential for that purpose . . .
Exactly what I said a few weeks ago on a DM post asking for ideas for a good place for a school. And I think it would be completely inappropriate to buy the property for the dog park given the city’s other much more important needs. Hopefully they are looking at the site for the former and not the latter.
Makes me wonder what you’d need to do to build a school in a FEMA floodplain. The amount of earthwork required over there to make one large, level, buildable site is pretty significant.
oh, i dunno, there’s probably enough swept dirt beneath Dekalb County’s rugs to fill it up three or four times.
The kids will already be used to going to school in trailers so I’m sure they’d be just as fine with learning on a barge. Flood the lot and float the school. Problem solved.
J_T for Mayor!
“a chicken in every pot, a jager shot in every glass”
If you’re going to flood the lot, might as well put a river boat on it and let gambling finance the school system.
You build on the high side where the B&G club is, close the road and take part of the park, if necessary.
It would be a great spot for a Trader Joe’s.
If there’s room for new condos and townhouses throughout the city, how is it that there’s no available space for a school? Or put a school where the pool and tennis courts are at Glenlake, problem solved. Surely the need to swim isn’t greater than the need for a school? 🙂
Here are the state mandates, taken from a Ga DOE paper published in 2012 — clearly not designed for an urban/small system like ours. Not sure what it takes to get a variance, perhaps someone with more familiarity with that process can comment.
Notably missing from these guidelines is any reference to Early Childhood…
The minimum useable acreage requirements of the State Board of Education are:
Elementary School Facilities
five acres plus one acre for each 100 children in FTE.
Middle School Facilities
12 acres plus one acre for each 100 children in FTE.
High School Facilities
20 acres plus one acre for each 100 students in FTE.
In developed areas, a variance of the minimum useable acreage requirements may be made by
the GaDOE Facilities Section Director when requested by the local board of education if the reduced acreage is considered appropriate and can accommodate all facility, parking, and outdoor areas as documented by an architectural plat locating all needed areas on the plat.
Although minimum useable acreages are established, large acreages are highly desirable. Also,
those responsible for selecting sites must remain aware of development limitations imposed by
certain physical factors of the acreage being considered.
It’s my understanding — and I think it’s applicable to FAVE, if not others — that the state does not treat acreage as a mandate and that getting around the standards is easy so long as certain key items such as parking and play area are addressed.
“Or put a school where the pool and tennis courts are at Glenlake, problem solved. Surely the need to swim isn’t greater than the need for a school?”
I’m almost positive Daydreamer was joking, but a lot of folk around here seem to believe that very thing, based on their nearly one-note posts. My question to those people would be, why would you think Decatur would still be a great place to live if we cover almost every spare inch of dirt with schools? Huge, sprawling school complexes are NOT the be-all, end-all necessary for a community to thrive. Parks are a big part of what makes a place enjoyable for living.
That being said, I’m not at all certain that purchasing the B&GC property just so Oakhurst residents can keep their dog park (or to expand it into one big central park) is the wisest use of resources. That’s not even including my concerns as to why we wouldn’t want to keep that fine organization here in our fair City–or is the thinking that since we’ve lost so much income diversity around here that their services aren’t needed? I hope that’s not the case–again, we don’t have a moat around the COD, & there are lots of kids in the surrounding communities that benefit from what B&GC provides.
Just my .02.
+1. And again, I’d like to know if city officials are exploring the possibility of leasing/purchasing buildings or land just outside of the city limits for school usage. If I remember correctly, it was established here that this was legally possible.
At the recent public meetings Dr. Edwards said that she was in such conversations with nearby entities. She didn’t go into detail because, like all real estate transactions, it’s smart not to negotiate, or even discuss, in public.
Yes, was definitely kidding. I love Genlake park actually
Child-free but dog owned, I would love for my tax dollars to go to maintaining the dog park. Some of us are here for a walkable community, trees, restaurants, great beer and yes, dog parks. I will likely have a dog (or two) all the days of my life in my little home, and it’s my community, too.
our dog is the third child in our family—actually, the fourth if you include me—and we go to the Oakhurst dog park all the time. i truly love it, and having it as a community resource, but when i consider the wiser use of our tax dollars, given the rather desperate straits of school overcrowding we’ll soon face, i’d personally prefer to have her stretch her legs elsewhere than to subject our community’s kids to a sub par educational experience.
Surely the only option isn’t- build on the dog park, or else every child in Decatur is doomed to a sub par education- At least I hope not.
Co-sign.
disagree, not only is the fundamental literacy of our smarter than average snowflakes at risk, but the very future of the Republic hinges on where we let our dogs sniff butts.
#drama
#llama
If you people had the emotional security necessary to choose the right pet, you wouldn’t need to have this schools v. dog parks debate to begin with.