CSD Requests School Property Zoning Change from City (as Requested by the City)

Why the City of Decatur was perhaps the only governmental entity left in the entire state of Georgia that still owned school property is a complicated story.  One that I tackled in all of its great detail back in late 2009.

Now you may not remember this – I sure didn’t – but in agreeing to transfer school properties to the City Schools of Decatur (mainly for funding and process reasons), the city had just one request.  If I may be allowed to quote myself (circa 2009)…

While keeping the city commission in control of school property has meant a lot more red tape for all parties over the years, it has allowed the city a final say on school development projects that have an inevitable effect on the city’s overall development pattern. So, in order to retain a voice in the development of school property, the city manager has requested that the city commission approve a zoning change from “residential” to “institutional” for the property, which would “allow the Planning Commission and City Commission in the future to hold public hearings and make recommendations and decisions about any changes to the development footprint.”

While the under-construction 5th Avenue school, along with the middle and high school, are already zoned “institutional”, the six remaining school properties are still seen as “low-density residential” in the eyes of the zoning gods.  They are: Clairemont, College Heights, Glennwood, Oakhurst, Westchester, and Winnona Park.

So, as requested back in 2009, Superintendent Phyllis Edwards will go before Decatur’s Planning Commission in a couple weeks and ask for this zoning change for these six properties.

You may have seen those lovely, scribbled white signs on planted in school lawns over the past few days and wondered what the heck they were announcing to their reading public.  Well, now you know!