If you drive DeKalb Avenue every morning, as I do, you may have noticed that the vacant piece of forested land across the street from Shawn Mullins’ house is showing signs of coming deforestation. What will replace the once woodsy lot? Why town homes of course!

A CL Thomas Wheatley article profiling the coming battle was recently posted on the Oakhurst Message Board. Since I can’t find it online, I’ll just post it below. If Thomas or someone else can point me to the link, I’ll gladly trackback.

DeKalb Avenue residents rally for greenspace

The fight to maintain Atlanta’s green canopy – every little inch of it – continues. Residents of Lake Claire and surrounding neighborhoods want to halt a plan to raze trees and build condos on a half-acre lot at the corner of DeKalb and Gordon Avenues – the last slice of greenspace along the bustling road that connects Decatur and
Atlanta.

Residents want the city to help them purchase the land, allow them to create a pocket park to serve cyclists, pedestrians and people waiting at the adjacent MARTA stop.

“Granmaw Gordon,” a pecan tree that has stood for more than 150 years, is one of the 35 trees planned for removal. Once cleared, a proposed10-unit condo development has been zoned for the lot. To Teri
Stewart, a resident and local art gallery owner, the project’s working title – “Greenspace Condominiums” – is particularly ironic.

Jeffrey Wren of EarthStation, the architectural firm designing the project, says that the team’s aim is to build an environmentally-sound – and perhaps even LEED-certified – project.

Stewart says residents are trying to generate funding to acquire the land. She adds that some residents have even volunteered to chain themselves to trees to block bulldozers should they start to roll.

“This is sort of an Eco-Alamo,” says Stewart. “It’s DeKalb Avenue’s last stand.”

– THOMAS WHEATLEY

Also see a neighborhood letter on the Zac Team blog.

Interesting. As I recall, this piece of land has had a big old “For Sale” sign hanging out on it since before Mullins went platinum with “Lullaby” (OK, a bit of an exaggeration, but I wanted to use the analogy). I wonder how long this fight has been going on. Hopefully, it’s not a new initiative, because if so, it seems “too little, too late”.