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School Board Solicits Proposals for New DSA & Board of Commissioners to Hear Toco Hill SLUPs & Rezonings
Sept. 21, 2008
The DeKalb Board of Education recently put out a request for proposals to build a new DeKalb K~12 Performing Arts School. The site is to be "located either on DCSS's North Druid Hills Road property or on a new site to be procured by DCSS", with funding to come from SPLOST IV, post-2012. This could be good news for those of us who lobbied against the sale of that property to the Sembler Corp. During that fight, the position of StandUp DeKalb was constant, that the buildings could be razed or remodelled but that the school property itself along with Adams Stadium, were irreplaceable to the school system and the residents of Central DeKalb.
The feasibility study Performing Arts Center Feasibility Study of the current site vs the leading alternative site being considered by DCSS (a car dealership on Mountain Industrial) makes no mention of Adams Stadium. It could be argued that this is valid as the current DSA program has no varsity sports and makes minimal if any use of Adams. However, Adams Stadium is in definite need of renovation, with various infrastructure problems and no locker rooms. A more synergistic and possibly money-saving approach would be to use the opportunity of major design and construction efforts for a new Performing Arts Center to also design and construct improvements for Adams and the adjacent baseball field and tennis courts. This could also tie in with DeKalb County's much talked about but never implemented renovation of Kittredge Park.
The feasibility study document itself is somewhat incomplete as it gives a list of pros and cons for 3 alternative locations(old Chamblee MS, Hooper ES and the Mountain Industrial site) but fails to list any pros or cons related to building the arts center on the existing DSA site. Therefore no value is given to the closeness to Emory University and Ga. State(15 minutes via I-85) and the possibility of involving staff and students from these institutions in the arts center program of studies. Pure cost figures are compared between the Mountain Industrial site and the current location, with the Mountain Industrial site coming in at approximately $9 Million less than the current location.
One would hope that these issues are merely oversights and that this document isn't an attempt to re-justify selling off the existing DSA site. As you attend local Bd. of Ed. candidate forums between now and Election Day, these would be good issues to inquire on as well as contacting your existing BoE members about. Their contact info is on our website at www.standupdekalb.org.
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Tuesday Tuesday Tuesday !!!
This Tuesday at 6:30pm in the Maloof Audtorium in Decatur, the Board of Commissioners will hear and possibly vote on 3 major development proposals for the Toco Hill area.
However, before the Board of Commissioners can vote on any of these land use change and rezoning requests, they will need to resolve an even more urgent question that was raised at the Planning Commission hearing 2 weeks ago. When the myriad of Town Centers and Neighborhood Centers were approved by the BoC last Spring, the board had maps that were outlines of parcel level areas to show the boundaries of these various centers. Since that vote, the Planning Department, under the guise of "correcting" or "amending" these maps, has been willy nilly adding specific parcels to the already approved town and neighborhood center maps. THIS IS NOT THEIR JOB. By law, ALL adjustments to the DeKalb Land Use Plan must be vetted via public hearings and voted on by the full Board of Commissioners. Whatever changes the Planning Department has made to the various "center" maps should be thrown out and the entire process restarted. The Planning Commission wisely recognised this fact and voted to have the county Law Department give an opinion. If these changes are thrown out, there are 20~30 center's around the entire county that will need to have their official boundary maps adjusted and reapproved by the BoC, including the newly expanded Toco Hill Town Center.
At any rate, on Tuesday night, if you are opposed to/have concerns about the Williamsburg-Julian LeCraw project or the Ashkouti project or the Executive Park redevelopment project, your attendance would be greatly appreciated at the BoC hearing. Neighborhood representatives planning to speak in opposition for the impacted neighborhoods have already been arranged(we only have 10 minutes, so that type of organization is critical) but speakers always have more impact if the auditorium is packed with voters who can stand up and be seen for a headcount by our elected officials.
By the numbers(with updates):
Julian LeCraw Corp. - Due to the aforementioned improper map changes by the Planning Department that already greatly expanded the boundary of the Toco Hill Town Center, the LeCraw proposal to extend the THTC boundary became simply a request to add two parcels to the THTC. 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 Hill 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 Hill Town Center redrawn BACK to the Toco Hill side of Clairmont. There is no reasonable justification for the gerrymandered outline of this Town Center. PC voted to defer due to question about Planning Department map changes.
Ashkouti Development LLC - Proposal to extend the Toco Hill 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. PC voted to deny.
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. PC voted to defer due to current status in ARC review process. Per ARC regulations, this should not have been allowed on the agenda in the first place !. DeKalb could lose MILLIONS in funding for transportation projects if ARC rules continue to be violated.
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.
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 information to share, please let us know and we will publish as needed.