Critical Zoning Calendar for DeKalb Residents...
August 18, 2008

I apologize in advance for the length of this missive, but there are some very big plans afoot that folks need to be aware of.

This coming week, the Community Councils for DeKalb will start the cycle of hearings for several extremely important land use and ordinance changes. These hearings, followed by the Planning Commission and Board of Commissioners hearings, will largely determine the future of Druid Hills Road and whether or not we are serious about protecting the quality of life and safety of residents throughout the county.

There are 3 especially major developments on the current land use change calendar(precursor to asking for rezonings) that will impact District 2 and taken together, they have the potential to put a couple of thousand new residents and several thousand shoppers and office workers onto North Druid Hills Road daily. Additionally, the land use change that they are each seeking, "Town Center", is one of the densest possible designations possible in DeKalb County, and if they are all 3 granted, will leave the county no room to argue if any property owners in-between these developments ask for the same in a couple of years. Conceivably, in 10 or 15 years, we could have legal high-density, so-called "mixed use", from Buford Highway, all the way to North DeKalb Mall.
Don't get me wrong, true "mixed use", in the right place, makes sense. And parts of some of the plans in these 3 projects make a whole lot of sense, but a lot doesn't and we are the ones who will have to live with the results.

By the numbers:

Julian LeCraw Corp. - Proposal to extend the Toco Hills Town Center boundaries eastward to include all of the Williamsburg Apartments complex on the far side of Clairmont Road from Toco Hills. This project has the potential to generate huge amounts of additional traffic at an already overloaded intersection; it will further extend the Town Center area away from what should be its focal point at Toco Hills Shopping Center; and there are no conditions attached to the land use change request to require LeCraw to implement any of the "concepts" they have mentioned in public meetings. If the economy or the housing market changes, they could just change their minds and not implement any of the ideas they have mentioned. Nor have they said why they couldn't just go for a Neighborhood Center designation, which has a lower maximum allowed density and lower maximum building height, but would still allow a similar mix of uses as they have proposed. This request should be denied AND the Toco Hills Town Center redrawn BACK to the Toco Hills side of Clairmont. There is no reasonable justification for the gerrymandered outline of this Town Center.

Ashkouti Development LLC - Proposal to extend the Toco Hills Town Center boundaries westward from North Holly Lane along North Druid Hills Road, all the way up to the Altzheimer's care facility. This is arguably the worst proposal of the bunch. Not only are they seeking to extend the Town Center into a distinctly single family residential area, they are seeking to put off any retail or office portion of the "mixed use" plan until a "Phase 2" is built. Initially, they would 352 apartments with a few small offices on the first floor. No houses. No townhomes. No condos. Just apartments. Not anything like what the "Town Center" mixed use concept is intended for. Again, there are no binding conditions on the application to force them to build everything they have promised and there still is no justification for extending the Toco Hill Town Center designation when Neighborhood Center or even PC-2 would suffice. This is a typical apartment-centric development plan and should be denied. Period.

Executive Park - Hoo Boy, this is a Big 'Un - The owners of Executive Park are asking for their very own Town Center land use designation. They will possibly be constructing several hundred thousand sq. feet of retail, several hundred residences and end up with (in addition to existing stock) over a million square feet of office space. Again, there is nothing in their plans that couldn't be accomplished with a lower density designation but with a couple of site specific adjustments for height. Instead, they are asking for the Town Center AND in four separate and distinct land use change requests (they've divided up their holdings that way), they are asking for relaxing of the height standards based on the tallest building in each request but with nothing to bind them to only building that one structure to the new maximum height. So, they could conceivably build everything within the area of one of these requests to the maximum requested for that area, be it 8 stories or 12 stories or whatever.

This application is creative in its use of greenspace and underground parking, and the developer is to be applauded for their efforts, but NO BLANK CHECKS. This Land Use Change application should be conditioned to the "tentative" site plans they have displayed at community meetings, meaning build what they said they would or start over with the approval process. They face MAJOR hurdles with rerouting of the high-tension wires crossing the site which could force them to make huge changes to the layout and heights of buildings and open spaces. They should either wait to file their land use change requests until after they have finalized what will happen with the power lines or condition the requests to the specific buildings they have shown on their admittedly "tentative" site plans.

Any of these and perhaps all of these developers will tell you that they will still have to apply for rezonings for their individual parcels and that the rezonings may be tied to specific buildings. What happens though if the project falls through or has to be radically altered (see power lines above)? The land use will have already been changed and ready for the next developer but with no community buy-in. Don't buy their line. They MUST be forced to condition their land use change applications to their initial site plans. Tell your commissioners.

The other major issue on the zoning calendar is the "Late Nite Establishment" ordinance. Unfortunately, our county CEO has vowed to veto any bill that limits his ability to get down and party, no matter the impact on surrounding residential neighborhoods, so this one faces an uphill fight. It would be great if we could just get the closing hours pulled back to match all of the major surrounding jurisdictions at 2:30am, but as I mentioned before, the ability to further strain our over-worked police department and put drunk drivers on the road later than anybody else is very important to some people. Neighborhood groups around the county are reviewing this latest attempt and seeing if it is a version we can stand behind. Check it out at Commissioner Rader's website: http://www.commissionerrader.com/issues/issue15.html

The hearings on the above items are as follows:
Community Council 2 - Wed. August 20 - 6:30 - Mason Mill Senior Center(downstairs)
This is a smallish roo.m and each area facing projects already have designated speakers with agreed-upon speaking points, so if you want to miss a meeting, this is the one. Both the CC and the PC are advisory only, so the most critical meeting for folks (red t-shirts anybody?) to mass at is the Board of Commissioners hearing.

Planning Commission - Tues. Sept. 9 - 6:30 - Maloof Auditorium, County Govt. Building, 1300 Commerce Drive, Downtown Decatur. Numbers in the audience helps.

Board of Commissioners - Tues. Sept. 23 - 6:30 - Maloof Auditorium, County Govt. Building, 1300 Commerce Drive, Downtown Decatur. Numbers in the audience VERY helpful.

That's all for now. If you have development/traffic information to share, please let us know and we will publish as needed.

Please share this with friends and neighbors. Encourage them to sign up for our email list.

And stay tuned for updates and meeting notices.

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Previous Messages

• Protecting DeKalb's Quality of Life, Pt. 2 Special Alert
• Protecting DeKalb's Quality of Life, Pt. 1
• George Goldman - In Memoriam
• Briarcliff/North Druid Hills Quad Study Technical Advisory Committee
• Survey and Comments on Fuqua AJC Column
• School Board Voted NO !!! How Best To Thank Them ?