Today, the New York Times is talking about what we’ve been discussing for months. It even quotes the Atlantic article I featured a few months back in my award-winning* “Slumming It in Your McMansion” post.

Namely, that gas prices are clearing out the ex-urbs and suburbs, and people are buying smaller homes and smaller cars closer to the city center. Atlanta even gets a special shout-out.

In Atlanta, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Minneapolis, homes beyond the urban core have been falling in value faster than those within, according to an analysis by Moody’s Economy.com.

The article goes on to interview lots of nervous people on the urban fringe that are considering the big move back into the big, bad city and cites this interesting figure…

More than three-fourths of prospective home buyers are now more inclined to live in an urban area because of fuel prices, according to a recent survey of 903 real estate agents with Coldwell Banker, the national brokerage firm.

Three-fourths?! Well then let me be the first to say “Come one, come all!” But you might need to sell that sectional sofa first. Us ITPs like our homes nice and cozy.

*Post didn’t actually win any awards. I just made that up for dramatic effect.

[Photo courtesy of the NY Times]

Yesterday, Rebecca wrote in to Decatur Metro asking what was up at the Oakhurst Fire Station. She reports that the doors are locked tight and the grass is looking a little unkempt these day. Well, due to my obsessive Decaturga.com trolling, I knew that Oakhurst was indeed getting a new, funky $1.6 mil firehouse under the bond fund projects, but wasn’t sure when and why the old one was already closed up.

Well, like he read my mind, today Carl writes in with a link to an AJC article, which reports that the Fire Station received final approval this past Monday. Aside from the fact that there was no meeting this past Monday (approval was given on the 16th), the article states “During construction, the one firefighter company will work out of the city’s main fire station downtown. The move could affect response times, though some residents shrug off the move.”

But Carl begs to differ and reiterates Rebecca’s eyewitness account…”Any idea when the station actually closed? I believe it was months ago. The article makes it sound as if only during construction will the firefighters be moved to downtown, when in reality the place has been abandoned for ages.”

So, there’s your answer Rebecca! Does anybody have an approximate date of when Station 2 actually closed?

The AJC recaps the annexation issue in Decatur and Avondale this morning, with a couple gross exaggerations and few new details.

The paper starts out framing Decatur’s annexation issue around everyone’s favorite topic…declining home values.

Dropping property values, the driving force for so much economic misery in metro Atlanta, are also reviving talk of annexation in two central DeKalb County cities.

Decatur, which put the brakes on the discussion last winter, plans several meetings later this summer to offer information and gather input on the prospect of adding more land to the city.

Alright…so let’s tackle these first two sentences.  First off, neither is quite true.  Decatur has been mulling annexation for much longer than the length of the current housing slowdown.  If I may sum up the mayor’s thoughts on this subject from late last year…Decatur’s problem is (and has been) the large percentage of residential property in relation to commercial.  Not simply “declining home values” over the last 12 months.

And while declining home values would certainly hurt the city’s coffers…its a bit unclear whether that’s the case in Decatur.  The AJC’s own report has Decatur residential land prices up 6.6% from last year, even though the the city stated that it lost $4 mil in property value last year.  (I’m a bit unclear of the discrepancy, but one is certainly that the AJC number is only residential, while the city’s figure most likely includes commercial/industrial, etc…)

Onto the second sentence.  As I’ve said previously…Decatur didn’t put the annexation issue “on hold” late last year, as the AJC asserts above.  The heavily-attended city manager’s report commission meeting was just an early preliminary step of seriously evaluating the option of annexation.  The mayor and every commissioner made it clear that this was a very preliminary step in the process and recognized that they were far from finished with this evaluation stage…especially concerning the school capacity issue.  The AJC has made this misstatement before…so I can only assume the author simply went to the AJC archives for the backstory and wrote it again.

All that said, I found two interesting little tidbits of info in this article…

The first is a strong quote from Mayor Floyd stating…

“Quite honestly, you’re talking about survival as a city, when 60 percent of our income comes from property taxes,”

In case you thought the mayor was on the fence on this issue, now you know better.

Also, it references a February meeting between Decatur and Avondale of which I hadn’t heard many details…

The two cities met in February to discuss the potential for their borders to meet at Sams Crossing on College Avenue. [emphasis mine]

Decatur considered gobbling both commercial and residential land east of its current borders, while Avondale Estates wants only the commercial strip between Sams Crossing and its current border at Maple Street.

Could be a hint of annexation plans to come…

It looks like a new coffee place called “Method Coffee Bar and Tea Lounge” is moving into the Emory Village spot most recently occupied by Inman Perk. I snapped the above pic on a recent walk by the location.  I believe the brown paper bags held by the gentleman on the left are filled with coffee beans.

I certainly hope that Method has resolved the $20k grease trap issue with the landlord that Inman Perk’s owner raised to Decatur Metro after they moved out.

Good luck Method!  May your grease be minimal and your Emory students plentiful.

Walk on up to the courthouse tomorrow if you’re itchin’ to ask any of the DeKalb CEO candidates a question. Perhaps something along the lines of “Why does the county refuse to give its cities its fair share of HOST taxes?”

From a DeKalb History Center Press Release…

The Champion Newspaper and the DeKalb History Center are hosting a DeKalb CEO Candidates Forum on Thursday, June 26. The forum is scheduled to take place from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the historic DeKalb County Courthouse, 101 E. Court Square in Decatur.

All candidates vying for the CEO position-Joe Bembry, county Commissioner Burrell Ellis, former state Sen. Steen Miles, state Rep. Stan Watson and Ann Kimbrough, chief of staff to the current CEO-have confirmed their intention to participate.

Candidates will be given the opportunity to make brief opening statements followed by a series of questions-some provided by the audience. The forum will be moderated by Gale Horton Gay, Managing Editor of ACE III Communications, Inc., publishers of The Champion.

On its first day, Decatur eLife’s new online education channel “Decatur EDtv has an excellent 9 1/2 minute summation of Decatur’s charter school journey up to the recent approval by the state. The telecast features extensive interviews with CSD Superintendent Dr. Phyllis Edwards, GA Dept of Education Charter Schools Office Director Andrew Broy, and GA Rep. Stephanie Benfield.

Even for someone like me that’s followed this process so closely, this was a very informative video. I especially appreciated the insight from the Charter Schools Director.

The next episode promises to detail the new roles within Decatur’s “Shining Star” Charter System.

How many school systems have a video channel dedicated to keeping parents and citizens informed about goings on at the public schools? I, for one, think its pretty cool.

P.S. There’s also a few other school related video’s already on Decatur EDtv’s main page if you’re interested.

Marla is good enough to point out this note on the Moxie Java website…

Closing Our Doors!

This Saturday Will Be Our Last Day!

Unfortunately, times are difficult to keep such a large place open.   Currently we are looking for someone to buy the bistro from us to keep our establishment up and running.  The economy and gas prices  has left us no choice but to pull out and take our losses.

It pains us more than you can imagine to have to lose all that we have done for the area, city of Decatur and all of our regulars that return for something new each day!  We hope that in the next few months something else will arise that will put us back on the map!

You all know how to keep in touch, so please do so!

Take care

Michael and Renee

A little unsettling to say the least.  It only opened last November!

What happened?  Was it the location or just the slowing economy?