ZOUTF Task #1 – Expanding the Decatur’s “Pedestrian Zone”
Decatur Metro | July 12, 2012
ZOUTF wants your feedback!
Decatur is always hosting at least a handful of Task Forces taking on various local issues, but perhaps none is currently more influential than the 11-member Zoning Ordinance Update Task Force, comprised of members from all of Decatur’s commissions (sans the city commission) and boards, along with business, condo, adjacent-R60 reps and two Strat Plan roundtable participants.
Separately they are just mere Decatur residents. Together they are ZOUTF! (It’s pronounced “zoo-tuff”…in my head)
As we’ve no doubt discussed previously, ZOUTF has a large and multifaceted task to undertake, given to them by Decatur’s City Commission (aka the Black Lion, to take the Voltron reference too far). They are charged with updating all portions of the city’s zoning ordinances tagged for revision/inspection during the 2010 Strategic Planning process.
This brings us to the present day. ZOUTF has asked city residents for feedback on six ordinance changes they are currently considering. Each is nothing like the others, so presenting them all at once would just water them down. So we will discuss them one at a time.
First up…expanding Decatur’s “Pedestrian Zone”.
What’s Decatur’s “Pedestrian Zone”?
The 2010 Strategic Plan is glad you asked…
Existing guidelines have promoted a high quality of development on key streets downtown, but updates are now needed. Among the suggested changes are enhanced standards for the protection of historic storefronts, requirements for inter-parcel connectivity, and an expanded area. In addition, the downtown streetscape network should continue to be expanded.
Looks like ZOUTF has decided to tackle this one in pieces, expanding the zone before implementing changes to the standards.
According to ZOUTF’s presentation back in March, here are the benefits of the current Pedestrian Zone…
“New development in the Special Pedestrian Area must follow certain design guidelines including placing a building by the street, constructing sidewalks, planting street trees and installing bicycle racks. These design guidelines are important zoning regulations that make new development in Decatur attractive for walking, bicycling and support mixed use developments.”
“Great”, you say, “What’s the current Pedestrian Zone and what sort of extensions are we talking about?” Here’s the map…
Basically, they are proposing northern extensions on Clairemont Ave and Church Street and an eastern extension on Commerce. Even more interesting, they are proposing a whole new ped district on the west side that includes a western portion of Trinity, Swanton Way and all around the U.S. Post Office (i.e. Water Steet and a new piece of West Ponce). FYI: Separate from this proposal, an extension of Fairview Avenue from Ponce to Trinity has also been floated as another step in building out the western side of Decatur’s commercial district.
Insights, comments, questions? Feedback can be emailed directly to Decatur’s Planning Director Amanda Thompson at amanda.thompson@decaturga.com.
Coming up: ZOUTF Task 2: Identifying areas for light manufacturing
Latest from Decaturish
An extension of Fairview to Trinity looks like it would take out Ponce Primary Care in the little house on Ponce next to the now closed Watershed and have to “wiggle through” the apartments behind it on the way to Trinity. (Probably would lose a couple apartment buildings at least)
Cutting the apartment property in half with a through street…..hmmm, sounds like a redevelopment opportunity.
Who owns that property and who is on the ZOUTF committee?
(Oh, suspicious me…)
Here’s a 50 comment post on the Fairview extension, can case you didn’t see it.
http://www.decaturmetro.com/2010/12/20/extending-fairview-avenue/
Redevelopment is fine, in this case maybe even important. But if Decatur loses any more housing opportunities affordable to low and moderate income families, like those apartments on Trinity are designed to be, one of the few remaining rental developments for lower income families, we will be a lesser place. I could not support this, and I assume most of the people I participated with during the planning process would also agree that the affordable housing goal should trump redevelopment in cases like this..
In the long-term, the only way to provide affordable housing for Decatur workers is to build at higher density in Decatur or improve connectivity between downtown Decatur and the surrounding area. Better to keep rents low by enough good housing to meet the demand rather than by subsidizing or building more low-quality housing (e.g. the apartments on Trinity) that isn’t in high demand.
Just to clarify, there is no proposal to extend Fairview. It’s an idea that was explored during the Strategic Plan process but it has not progressed beyond that point. The ZOUTF’s charge does not cover anything related to that issue.
The last paragraph of DM’s post above: “Basically, they are proposing northern extensions on Clairemont Ave and Church Street and an eastern extension on Commerce. Even more interesting, they are proposing a whole new ped district on the west side that includes a western portion of Trinity, Swanton Way and all around the U.S. Post Office (i.e. Water Steet and a new piece of West Ponce). FYI: An extension of Fairview Avenue from Ponce to Trinity has also been proposed as another step in building out the western side of Decatur’s commercial district.”
That makes it sound like the Fairview extension is part of what ZOUTF is floating. If that is not the case, then it IMO needs to be clarified more prominently here.
I thought that’s what I was doing.
You were perfectly clear, but I was thinking your comment was deeply nested in a long thread, because I was lured into reading that old thread DM referenced. Didn’t get my bearings until after I posted that comment, now see that (1) your comment is close to the thread surface here, and (2) we haven’t stampeded up a side canyon, after all.
All right, all right…
You can find out the members of the Task Force on the City website. None of them have any financial interest in the property referenced.
What’s with Decatur and the completely unreadable maps? I’ve got better than average vision, and I can never make out any of the maps they release.
Thanks for all the comments and thank you DM for giving this task force a better name than ZTF.
This item is referring to expanding the boundaries of the Special Pedestrain Area in downtown Decatur. This is a zoning overlay that requires streetscaping (e.g. wide sidewalks, street trees, benches, bicycle parking) whenever a site is redeveloped. So when you see the word “extension” it is not referring to extending a street. It is referring to extending the zoning requirements for streetscapes.
Amanda Thompson
Planning Director
I would recommend an extension along College Ave from Commerce to Sam’s Crossing. That stretch is all business and gets quite a few pedestrians due to the proximity to the Avondale MARTA station. It could use all the help it can get to become more pedestrian friendly. Then again, if Commerce is currently part of the Pedestrian Zone, the status hasn’t helped much. I’d be happy if we just had a safe way to cross that street.
I would like to see the pedestrian zone expanded to all commercial property in Decatur. It seems like a great idea to have “streetscaping (e.g. wide sidewalks, street trees, benches, bicycle parking) whenever a site is redeveloped” on as many roads as possible
I’d like the city to clean up the trash area on Ponce by Starbucks. Why are curbies allowed to on the sidewalk anyway? Business trash needs to be removed from the sidewalk and placed into dumpsters behind the building. If it’s absolutely impossible to ban the cans, please build a fence to hide them and keep little kids from playing between and moving them and the boxes around them into the path of pedestrians.