July 31, 2007, Lakeside High School Cafeteria
Notes by Beth Nathan
A Public Discussion of proposed development at the intersection of Briarcliff Road and North Druid Hills Road
Moderator: Doug Richards
Sponsored by legislators Mike Jacobs and Kevin Levitas, and by CAN, the Civic Association Network, a coalition for the purpose of inter-neighborhood communication and cooperation in central DeKalb county.
ATTENDANCE: 547 chairs were in place in the audience, mostly filled. Additional people (speakers & attendees) were standing along the walls. Over 400 sign-ins were collected, some for two people. People continued to arrive. Entrances (not exits and returns) were counted leading to an estimate of 650-675 attendees.
Ted Daniel introduced the program and noted that CAN does not take positions.
Mike Jacobs spoke on TADs (Tax Allocation Districts) that had been promoted as a funding resource at a previous meeting.
Kevin Levitas spoke.
A PowerPoint (linked here) was presented with different speakers on different sections:
PUBLIC COMMENT – names were not recorded
The process needs more Sunshine (openness).
Civic Association officers are beholden to the county for their standing.
Civic Associations should be established where none exist.
A lot of traffic backs up around CDC and Emory impacting this area; the size of the impact map being used is not realistic.
The school of the arts may be moving to facilitate its sale.
We do need to pay attention to protecting DeKalb’s power to raise money – put new development into Northlake, North DeKalb Mall, etc.
Publicly post the current zoning map for the area under discussion along with laws about tree-cutting.
We need more dialogue and a working meeting. We should be talking about the zoning we want and stopping the sale of school property. Is anyone other than a developer willing to present the benefits of this development?
This is not a done deal; we need to fight for the schools. The rest of North Druid Hills Road is going to be significantly impacted. I wouldn’t use bike paths because of air pollution and safety issues.
Where is the Adams Stadium replacement going to be? That replacement should be built before any teardown.
All public facilities in the Kittredge area that might be torn down should be replaced before teardown.
Our community is already wonderful including our uncrowded shopping areas and residences. We don’t need more “stuff”.
Mrs. Johns gift to the people of DeKalb – she’d be aghast at these plans. What happens when 10-lanes revert to 4-lanes at the beginning of the residential area? Jody Lane is already a cut-through and has needed speed bumps for a long time. Then we got sidewalks on the wrong side of the street (no one asked residents) with lightpoles and mailboxes within the sidewalk and patchy grassy areas. The media reported a resounding approval of the plans at a Garvin meeting; I didn’t see that at all.
Briarcliff – it’s already got a lot of problems.
We need a regional traffic plan. Would a public/private development mix work better? What positives are there to this development? Will it provide jobs?
Civic associations bring us together. We need to be one large voice. Nobody’s talking about how to handle construction traffic.
There was a study that found Briarcliff at North Druid Hills as one of the most dangerous intersections in the county. Does that study offer any further insight on traffic in this area?
LaVista Road is a high pedestrian area that needs sidewalks and traffic calming. Why not an Emory exit off I-85 to avoid traffic having to wind through the neighborhoods? Keep the publicly-owned low-income housing area public; make it a public park.
Commission District 2 has the least amount of park space / greenspace in DeKalb. Don’t give up an inch of Kittredge Park. Make it a park equivalent to Brook Run.
GoDeKalb.com will host a forum (discussion group) on the Sembler issue.
This development sounds good but will probably cause people to leave disrupted neighborhoods, move to Gwinnett and commute back to their jobs in DeKalb. A new stadium will be next door to someone; whose neighborhood will that disrupt? Preserve more green space; don’t just fluff what we have.
We’re not the suburbs anymore; we’ll soon see 4-laning of several roads and more neighborhood cut-throughs. Elected officials do listen. Contact mainly Commissioners Gannon and Rader. Vernon Jones doesn’t care about this part of the county.
History: Briarcliff High School was once proposed for sale to a private entity; that was stopped by the neighborhood. This development can be stopped. Board of Education has no business selling property for unneeded shopping area.
Is this proposal what we want? What is enabled by the sale of public property? Ms Joyner (Bebe Joyner, Board of Education), Jeff Rader, Kathie Gannon – what are your positions on this?
Response from Bebe Joyner (BJ): There is nothing currently in front of the Board of Education. The board authorized the superintendent to see what can be worked out. I won’t vote for it unless there is a replacement for the stadium and the international center.
Does it make sense to sell if those two conditions are met? BJ: Can’t tell yet.
Why not keep this property? BJ: The buildings are falling apart.
Is growing the community always good? There is nothing wrong with this area; it is not in need of re-development.
North DeKalb mall won’t attract redevelopers the same way as here; there wouldn’t be enough profit. Don’t assume there is a done deal here. We need to individually commit 2 to 3 hours/week to working against this project.
The Garvin process so far is all damage control, assuming that this project goes through. If the school and sidewalk problems could be fixed without this redevelopment, would you want the redevelopment? No. The pressure for this redevelopment is not coming from the people.
We have what they want – money. But their business plan is built on quicksand.
Ripple effect will come into play – if this goes in, stores and homes will be abandoned throughout the area.
What is the long-term county plan for this area? Write letters talking about keeping existing zoning, schools, traffic, greenspace.
Don’t flood with e-mail; that will feel like spam. Instead write, phone, meet face-to-face with officials.
Don’t forget the Board of Education. Go to their next meeting. Ask for a response to Open Document requests. Students are sophomores only once. Millage rates in DeKalb are high for what you’ve got; I’m a school administrator in another county.
Change is not all bad. But the public shouldn’t have to subsidize giant corporations. Let them buy land and build new schools for us.
This also impacts Tucker. The school system should not be involved in land use planning; they are geographically challenged as evidenced calling a new middle school in the Tucker area as Stone Mountain middle school.
This project keeps being compared to Sembler’s Edgewood project and its traffic increase. The traffic increase here would be 3 times that.
Just say No to 3700 residences (up from 1000) and two 20-story towers.
Contact officials. Get organized to speak as a community.
I’ve got $1000 to put toward opposing these plans.
PHOTOS in CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER (left to right):
