The Medlock Area Neighborhood Association website has an excellent, extensive summary of the North Decatur Road Safety Audit presentation last week.  Cutting to the chase, here are the audit’s official recommendations…

1) a complete street conversion (“road diet”) to reduce North Decatur Road from 4 lanes to 3, by creating a center turn lane and bike lanes. Study of this option suggested.
2) create a multi-use trail to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists
3) widen the street to create a “complete street boulevard” (which includes 2 traffic lanes and a center turn lane, dedicated bike lanes on each side, and dedicated pedestrian sidewalk on each side)

But of course, funds are limited…

…the County’s resources are limited for doing necessary improvements. For example, the County has ~2,000 miles of roads but, with a $120 million resurfacing shortfall, the budget only allowed for the resurfacing of 35 miles of roads. Patrece added that road maintenance is HOST based, so, the County splits available funds with its cities.

That said, neighborhood representatives seem encouraged by the County’s willingness to address and consider these issues and there are a number of less expensive work-arounds that are mentioned throughout the post that seem much more likely to become reality.

Map courtesy of MANA from the DeKalb 2014 Transportation Plan – which deserves it’s own separate post at some point!

Medlock Area Neighborhood Association reports that Georgia Power and Dollar Tree, along with a “Downhome Kitchen” are planning to open up in North DeKalb Mall in the coming months.

They also have a list of new potential retail prospects and updates from Golden Corral, the African American History Museum and the North DeKalb Mall Community Garden.

Check it out!

Via Medlock Area Neighborhood Association, here’s a look at Fuqua’s initial plans for the Scott Boulevard Baptist Church site.  Click over for a bit more info, including site calculations and a Google Map overlay!

The Medlock Area Neighborhood Association reported yesterday that Commissioners Jeff Rader and Kathie Gannon recently met with neighborhood representatives to give a brief update on the Scott Boulevard Baptist Church location, which is being redeveloped by Fuqua Development.

Fuqua presented some “very preliminary” drawings at the meeting.  The MANA site summarized it as such…

•  As proposed, the development covers 5.5 acres.
• All ten homes on Barton Way are under contract.
• A natural food store would serve as anchor.
• The project is a mixed use development. In addition to retail, it would include 200 apartment units (5 stories high).

MANA states that they’re planning a larger community meeting about the development in July.  Jump over to the MANA site for more pics of the renderings and details.

If you’ve noticed the blue “Public Notice Board of Appeals Notice” signs surrounding Suburban Plaza recently, you may have wondered “What’s that all about?”.

Well, the Medlock Area Neighborhood Association website has the answer.  Deanne sent around a note pointing to this latest post…

MANA has received clarification on the basis of the appeal, filed January 9th by Good Growth Dekalb’s (GGD) attorney on behalf of GGD and Kristina and Abhay Mishra. The appeal states that:

1. Medlock Road is not an authorized truck route, and therefore Walmart’s use of this road violates DeKalb Code Section 17-94
2. various hydrology requirements were not met, and
3. there are various violations of the county Tree Protection Ordinance

DeKalb County thoroughly reviewed the redevelopment plan and determined that all criteria were met before granting the building permit. Selig is confident they’ve met the criteria and is prepared to address the appeal at the Feb. 13th hearing.

According to Deanne, the hearing will be held on Feb 13 at 1pm in the DeKalb County Auditorium at 1300 Commerce Dr. in Decatur.

Photo courtesy of MANA website