I’ve been meaning to post this ever since the Decatur City Commission meeting in late May when Commissioner Fred Boykin asked Planning Director Amanda Thompson about the status of the project.  Looks like Ralph beat me to it!

Tonight, the Decatur Planning Commission will consider rezoning the south parking lot at Avondale MARTA station as Mixed Use, under the 2009 changes to the zoning ordinance.  (Meeting materials HERE!)  We mentioned this revised plan back in March, in case you missed it.

MARTA and Decatur have done this dance before, resulting in the confusingly named Avondale LCI Master Plan.  According to sources a few years back, the plan was never executed because MARTA backed out, but now there’s a new MARTA-stration (MARTA + adminstration – get it?) and they have already publicly stated that they’re more aggressively pursuing transit-friendly development around existing stations.

The Patch article linked to above quotes Asst. City Manager Lyn Menne saying that there’s no current developer for the site, and that this rezoning just defines what the city “wants to see happen at the site.”

Rendering from the 2005 Avondale LCI Master Plan courtesy of the City’s Website

On tonight’s Decatur City Commission agenda…trees!  The commission is set to vote on two significant changes to the tree ordinance.

According to a letter from City Planning Director Amanda Thompson and City Arborist Ed Macie, the first change would address the issue of healthy trees “being removed from existing single family houses prior to their sale to circumvent the tree ordinance requirements that apply once a demolition permit has been issued.”

The change would apply the current requirements of the tree ordinance to “all R60 and R85 zoned properties that are pending real estate sale or title transfer or have been sold or title transferred in the past 18 months. The terms and provisions of the ordinance shall apply to all areas of a R60 and R85 zoned properties that are pending demolition or have had a dwelling on the site that has been demolished in the past 18 months.”

The second change would address the varying quality of tree preservation plans that are being prepared by builders or surveyors “who are not educated in tree protection practices” and require that all tree preservation plans “be prepared and signed by a certified arborist, landscape architect, or registered forester.”

At a commission meeting a few weeks ago, Ms. Thompson stated to the commission that a larger revision to the tree ordinance was currently being worked on, but it is still a ways off from being completed.  City Commissioner Fred Boykin had asked if there were any interim steps that could be taken now to deal with the most pressing issues.  These revisions seem to be along those lines.

One of the most talked about pre-“Great Recession” Decatur development projects is back from the dead.

The city has sent a letter to residents surrounding the 315 West Ponce 10-story office building and its giant wind tunnel parking lot stating that “An application for a building permit has been submitted for a new mixed use development at 315 West Ponce de Leon Avenue.”  The city will be hosting a meeting at city hall on Tuesday February 26th at 7pm for adjoining property owners.

CLICK HERE to view the full size site plan and the variety of elevations of this project.

As this is a new development project/plan for this site, the development must follow new downtown multiple dwelling ordinances, who’s “R60 next to C2″ components were developed in no small part with this property in mind.  And according to Planning Director Amanda Thompson, the current plan is “zoning compliant”, which was not the case the last time around when the developer desired a parking variance (under the old pre-ZOUTF revisions).  After the neighborhood meeting, the developer will likely “present to the DDA [Downtown Development Authority] in March or April depending on what changes come out of the neighborhood meeting. Then once those are finished they will submit for a permit.”, according to Ms. Thompson.

Feel free to point out other differences between this project and the previous one, but two of the most obvious ones to me are the inclusion of the sidewalk-smooching West Ponce building (“Building A” for those who lived and breathed this development debate back in 2008) and the open courtyard along Montgomery Street.

h/t: Patch

At Tuesday’s Decatur city commisison meeting, there was a brief conversation about the Trinity Triangle project (think the Dairy Queen and the accompanying rubble-y parking area), which has been on hold since the housing market tanked in 2008.

The conversation between Mayor Baskett, City Manager Merriss and Planning Director Amanda Thompson was a bit vague, so I followed up with Ms. Thompson and she clarified things.

I don’t have a date on when the project will break ground, but the site plan has been updated to incorporate the Dairy Queen in a newly built space as part of the overall building. The last adopted plan still kept Dairy Queen as a separate building. The total number of dwelling units, building height, garage location, entrances etc. have not changed so they do not need to go through a public hearing process again for this plan. They are still under the zoning ordinance adopted in 2009.

So in short, there’s no date yet on a ground-breaking, but the city has received an updated site plan, so that may be a sign of things to come.

 

Decatur Planning Director Amanda Thompson sends in this announcement…

After over a year of study and deliberation the Zoning Ordinance Update Task Force (ZTF) will be presenting their final recommendations for consideration to the Planning Commission on Tuesday, November 27, 2012 at 5:30 p.m. and to the City Commission on Monday, December 3, 2012 at 7:30 pm. The proposed recommendations can be found at http://www.decaturga.com/index.aspx?page=641

Based on the direction of the 2010 Strategic Plan the proposed recommendations encourage community gardens, allow for shared parking in commercial areas, update regulations dealing with accessory dwellings and provide new standards for transitions between residential and commercial properties.

Thank you for your past participation on Open City Hall and at the public meetings held throughout this year. The task force members encourage you to attend these final hearings to share your thoughts and if you have written comments please email them to 

We’ll likely go into more detail on these recommendations in the coming days, but for now I thought everyone would like to know the info was available for their perusal and/or intense analysis.