Mixed Use Zoning Back on Commission Meeting Docket
Decatur Metro | April 6, 2009According to the agenda for tonight’s city commissioner’s meeting, the commission will once again take up the issue of creating a mixed-use zoning designation. As discussed here before, this zoning will be utilized to redevelop large lots that would benefit from mixed use development. Case in point, the Avondale parking lot off to E. College. The city notes it also could be used on large sites like Suburban Plaza and the DeVry Campus, if they were ever annexed into the city.
According to a note from a reader, it sounds like some residents are worried about the impact on school enrollment if the Avondale MARTA parking lot currently zoned “institutional” is changed to “mixed-use”.
Also on the docket, reallocating funds that used to be used to pay for the now paid-off Conference Center to fund the Decatur Tourism Bureau, as stipulated by state law.
And finally, 416 Oakland St. is such a mess that the city plans to hold a public hearing on the property in May.
Latest from Decaturish
Not to worry. Mixed-use doesn’t require residential; it only allows and regulates it, should a property owner choose to go down that path.
Projects must still be approved or denied on a per-project basis so, if school populations remain a concern, they can be voiced and factored into the applicable decisions as they come up.
I’m not saying anyone is suggesting this but overly restrictive, single-use, blanket zoning is cutting off the nose to spite the face. Set up a regulatory framework for the best development you can defensibly require, then judge pending projects on their individual merits (or lack thereof).
It appears that this is what the city is doing.
416 Oakland St.
What’s wrong with this property?? Sounds serious…
Went by there yesterday. Have a pic that I can post at some point.
Looks abandoned. Grass is overgrown, incomplete construction projects all over the yard.
My 2 cents on the mix-used: Scott has a good perspective on this but it is key that the CSD impact analysis be mandated for each project as part of a checklist or it CSD may slip through the cracks of a given project review. Counting on a given citizen or watch group to be at every project meeting and make this point is trusting too much to chance.
Agreed, Kim. There is no question that, over time, individual component projects are going to be proposed for the Avondale LCI area and, with each one (regardless of what the prevailing zoning is), we should address school impacts — just as we should address all external impacts.
The zoning overlay simply makes the difference between coordinated development that plugs into a larger vision and piecemeal development, rezoned one parcel at a time, which might as well be sprawl.
“Mixed use” may not require residential, I don’t know. But these discussions aren’t some formal abstraction. They have in the first place to do with the Avondale LCI, and maybe these other spots DM mentions if (a big if) annexation goes forward.
The development of the Avondale LCI involves a lot of residential, including almost 300 units at Columbia Park in the current MARTA parking lot in the first phase.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but to my knowledge there has been no study of the impact of these plans on CSD, which means no study yet of the ultimate financial impact on the Decatur tax payer.
Since it’s artificial to separate this zoning discussion from the project(s) it’s first meant to accommodate, I see nothing wrong with raising the question of ultimate financial impact of such projects as we move along. In Decatur, CSD always needs to be part of such discussions.
was it a flip gone bad?
Probably. We actually looked at this very house when buying a home here a couple years back. It needed a lot of work then and was a bit over-priced.
The city’s letter about the property stated that it was owned by a corporation of some kind, not an individual. So it could be a foreclosure that’s been repossessed and is now being passed from bank to corporation to bank, or it could just be a flip gone bad.