Can Tree Commission Save DeKalb Ave. Park?
Decatur Metro | February 8, 2008A late effort by residents in the Lake Claire/Candler Park neighborhoods to save a half-acre of greenspace on DeKalb Ave is reportedly going before the Atlanta Tree Commission. Thomas Wheatley is good enough to alert us to his lastest posting on the matter.
It remains to be seen whether this last ditch effort by residents can save the area for cyclists that need a moment to regroup after seeing their lives flash before their eyes after trying to pedal down DeKalb Ave. Personally, I don’t think that any sort of bicycling should be promoted on that road unless it is entirely redesigned. It’s just too damn unsafe. Stick to McClendon instead.
Wheatley also reports that neighbors are on 24-hour watch to make sure that nothing sneaky occurs before the Tree Commission has its say. Seriously, where were all these passionate folks all the years this property sat vacant with a “For Sale” sign on it?
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Guess I’m one of “these passionate folks”so I’ll venture a reply
We have been right here(shop since ’85,house since ’90)next to what you refer to as “this property with a for sale sign on it”.It has not had the for sale sign and been”vacant” for most of those years :it has had trees,birds,racoons,dogs and a community garden on it over the years.
If you consider the bulbouts and parked cars of McClendon “safer than Dekalb”I’m sure you’re seeing the world though very different eyes than mine.
Try Dekalb some time other than rush hour,by means of something other than a car -and you will find lots of cyclists,walkers and dogs.It can be a nice place of itself and not something to be walled off from.If you consider Ponce and the impact the Olmstead parks have on it something good why would you want to turn Dekalb into a walled off corridor?Lots of people spend a good bit of there lives on this road-shouldn’t the city work to make it nicer instead of turning it into a tunnel? Should the city policy be only to ‘look at parcels of land over 2 acres”and not consider areas of this type because they are “too noisy”?
Peter, thanks for the comment. Good to get some input from someone in the neighborhood.
I certainly support and sympathize with your desire to keep the land the way it is. However, though this land hasn’t had a for sale sign as long as it has had trees, I’m pretty sure that the for sale sign has been there for over a year. And if the developer has already drawn up plans to develop it, I can imagine that he/she has owned it for a few months already.
So the only thing I question about this initiative is its timing. While I almost always support greenspace over development, this late push approaches being unfair to the developer. If the neighborhood really had a desire to save the land, why didn’t they push the city to buy it while it was for sale, or checked in with the new owner once it was purchased to see what the plans included? At this point, someone has presumably invested thousands of dollars in a project that has rather suddenly appalled the community.
In regards to biking/walking DeKalb Ave., I have walked it on the weekends in the past and don’t recommend it. We scurried back into Inman Park as soon as we had the chance. I do acknowledge the danger of blubouts and parked cars on McClendon, but I’d still pick it over DeKalb Ave as a route due to the lack of a bike lane or buffer of any kind between the speeding cars and the curb.
Decaturite,
Thanks for the reply ,support and sympathy.You are correct the “For Sale”sign has been up for a while,perhaps a year.The previous owner drew up a similar development plan and brought it to the neighborhood in 1/06 with a request to rezone it to MR3.The neighborhood voted against it and the city denied the request.In 1/07 the owner applied for a variance which would allow the setback between the properties to be eliminated.The neighborhood and the NPU voted against this but it was granted anyway.
Application has been made at least once to the city to have it considered for purchase,the rejection letter is the source of my quotes on the city’s policies as to what land is considered for purchase.I know someone was appointed to try to negotiate with the developer and the land IS still for sale-in short none of this is sudden or unexpected for the developer or the neighborhood though I realize it’s just come on to the radar for everyone else.
Given the financial state of the city I think they are unlikely to purchase this land unless there is a HUGE push for them to do it.I do think this particular plan is not appropriate for this site because ,unlike sites farther towards town, it is not a redevelopment of an abandoned building but a development of land which is in a rare (for Atlanta)state of mature forest.It also has no commercial or industrial development adjacent to it(my tiny shop is separated from it by my house);there are single family houses and a duplex or two on the street.
I am not opposed to development of this property(though who would not want a park created next door to them?)but I think the house directly across Gordon is a perfect example of the type development that would fit into the neighborhood-a duplex nestled between the trees with some buffer left between it and the next house.
It is pertinent to note that had the city rezoned the property to MR3 the percent of trees cut on the site would be limited to 70% instead of the 90% which is currently approved because the zoning is still for ‘neighborhood commercial ‘.This is a residential development and I feel it should be held to the standards for that as such in spite of the ‘relic zoning’.The Tree Commission will hear this case on 2/20-next Wednesday-at 6:30 so if you support 30% of this site being left green come on down and show your support.It will probably be kind of like the biking on Dekalb in that it will be bumpy and at times intimidating but perhaps there will be some reward also -kind of like the mural up at Arizona if you’ve had the pleasure of seeing that.At the least it should help flesh out the powers ,weaknesses and uses of the Tree Ordinance.As a city in an area that ,according to the Sierra Club site,has ” lost over 100 million mature trees during the last 10 years”that should be useful.Thanks for putting up this site -and allowing me to post-lots of interesting stuff here-Peter
Ah…now that’s exactly the info I was looking for. Thanks Peter.
All info we’ve heard until this point made it sound like this initiative came from out of the blue. Honestly, I was a bit suspicious that this was in fact the case, as most intown neighborhoods have close-knit and active communities, but until I heard otherwise I had to operate under that impression.
Good luck at the tree commission meeting. I would try attend but my sadomasochistic schedule has me occupied on Wednesday evenings. Please let me know how it goes. I’ll make sure to post on it.
P.S. I absolutely love that mural and see it as a tribute to the power of art that it hasn’t really been defaced since it was first created.
Decaturite,
Sorry to be so slow in posting what happened but I am still trying to figure out what happened at the ‘tree commission meeting’-it was certainly more bumpy and intimidating than I had anticipated. The format is strange in that the person appealing the permit (and supporters)get 15 minutes total to state ‘errors of fact and misapplications of law’ ,the owners’ representative gets 15 minutes ,then the appellant gets a 5 minute rebuttal .All the ‘errors of fact and misapplications of law have to be submitted with the appeal two weeks before the meeting(with 8 copies so each member of the commission can have one).
I spoke in support of the appeal and pointed out that the permit did not show all the trees (a ten foot circumference Tulip Poplar was missing !)and showed others located incorrectly .I had included a photo of the Poplar in the appeal packets .The Arborist was asked about the Poplar and he stated he had returned to the site and verified that it did exist but that it was hollow and that he was unable to tell if it was alive as there were no leaves on it! I am no expert on trees but I can tell a dead one from a live one by the presence of twigs, buds, and green under the bark-and who would even look for leaves on a Poplar in February? He went on to state that he had not used the computer program to do the calculations because it was set up to calculate one lot at a time (as the ordinance states should be done)and he was merging these lots. After this sworn testimony we got to witness the deliberations of the Commission but were not allowed to speak. The commissioners speculated on whether these two lots had been merged and one commissioner suggested that they could approve one permit and deny the other but the acting chairman refused to consider that because there was only one appeal.
They then held a vote and were split 3/3 on granting the permit. They then voted on delaying the permit for one month while the neighbors tried to raise one million dollars to purchase the lot. This passed and that ended it .
Park Pride http://www.parkpride.org/ has agreed to set up an account to accept donations and has 501(c) status so that they are tax deductible. There have been stories in the AJC
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/02/21/tree_0222.html?cxntnid=amn022208e
and The Champion
http://championnewspaper.com/granmaw_gordon.html
about this effort as well as stories on TV(Channels 2 and 46).
I certainly support this effort and think this would make a great pocket park, I don’t know if a ‘White Knight” can be found to pony up the million (or 1.2 million that the owner now says is his price)but I will give what I can and hope for the best.
I was shocked by the actions of the Tree Commission and am going to try and get a copy of the minutes of the meeting as I find it hard to believe my memory of the whole thing.
I have lived in this city for 50 years and thought that I had seen it all as far as FUBAR services(when I called the local police precinct to report a banner in support of the park effort stolen I was told to call 911,they told me to go to the precinct, they told me to call 911-and this time I demanded an officer come out-who did apologize for the run around and actually make a report).It’s all like Alice in Wonderland but I’m having a hard time figuring out if the sign by the cake says “let them eat cake” or “eat me” or what exactly they mean by that?
Thanks for letting me vent/ramble on this site ,if you can give to help make a park here I think you will be helping to make this a better place. I’m painting a sign on my building to ask for support for this effort (I have to paint out the graffiti out there often anyway and they can’t steal paint as easily as they can a banner)and I have to somehow fix a few cars today also so I’d better end this -enjoy the coming spring-Peter