by Jim Martin
james.martin@me.gatech.edu
The January-26 th NPU-D meeting was more chaotic than usual. We only had one zoning case on the agenda, which was the source of the confusion, so the meeting did not run beyond its designated 9:00 pm ending time. This was the third month in a row that we have been able to end on time. The rezoning application was for the Atlanta Oxygen building at 1746 Defoor Ave in Underwood Hills. The owner was seeking to rezone the site from its current R-4 residential designation to a C-1 commercial zoning. The problem with this was that no one could figure out why he really wanted to do this and he was either unable or unwilling to explain this to us. The discussion was further complicated by the fact that he had presented his application to the Underwood Hills Neighborhood the night before the NPU meeting. There, he raised several issues there that were not referred to in his application. Although the neighborhood voted to deny the application, no one had time to research the relevant facts pertaining to the new assertions between the two meetings.
The applicant, Mr. Gibson, seemed to have essentially three arguments: that the current zoning was fundamentally “incorrect”, that he wanted to put an addition onto his building, and that he wanted to have a dumpster. Exactly how or why the recurring theme of an existing “incorrectness” entered into this was unclear. His current use of the building, which we were told would continue, is legally permitted under the current zoning. The current zoning was in place when Mr. Gibson bought the building, and there does not seem to be any history of an error having been made when this zoning was assigned decades earlier.
No one could quite understand the link between the proposed construction and the proposed zoning. As it was described, the construction would have required a variance under the new zoning or a, nominally equivalent, special exception under the existing zoning. Thus, rezoning appeared to impede rather than facilitate this project.
The discussion surrounding the dumpster was the most bizarre element of all this. At the meeting, Mr. Gibson seemed to assert that he needed the rezoning in order to get a dumpster for the site, although the application made no reference to this and no one was aware of any relationship in city code that tied these two things together. I checked on this the next day and found nothing in the city code. When I followed this up with a call to Mr. Gibson, he told me that the dumpster has nothing to do with the zoning. I still do not understand why this topic consumed so much time at the meeting.
In the end we voted 9 to 7 to deny the rezoning with 6 abstentions. It was pretty clear from the discussion that most of those who abstained or voted against the denial would have preferred to defer the case because they couldn't make any sense out of it, but they suspected that there had to be some sense there. My suspicion is that the sense is tied to a desire to resell the property. That was the situation that we had with the Van Winkle property on Bellemeade several years ago. In that case, none of the arguments that were presented to the neighborhood had anything to do with the real motives for the application. This case will go to the ZRB on February 4 th . Hopefully, that discussion will be better focused on the relevant facts.
Major Browning, our new zone two police commander attended the NPU meeting. The news on crime that he presented seemed to be generally good; with the previous week having been one of the quietest that anyone could remember.
On the evening after the NPU meeting, I attended the ARC truck-route planning meeting. The folks running this spent a great deal of time explaining to us all what this planning study was not going to be about. This left me with the impression that it is probably a complete waste of time and effort. The result of the study is intended to be a set of recommendations for specific improvements to roadways that will better accommodate trucks. There is no specific funding tied to implementing these recommendations and there will not be any recommendations to restrict truck traffic elsewhere. Thus, the only way that this study could possible reduce truck traffic in our area is if funding is found to make the proposed improvements and if those improvements make alternative routes so incredibly attractive that truckers who would otherwise drive through Berkeley Park cannot resist them.
One interesting thing that I learned from speaking to a trucker at the ARC meeting was that the requiring trucks to use I-285 instead of going through town on I-75/85 adds truck traffic to our surface streets by giving trucks that are already inside the perimeter an incentive to make their way through town to get to the interstate rather than coming around I-285 and turning inward. Berkeley park gets a hefty dose of this traffic because trucks along Marietta Blvd that are headed for destinations southwest or west of the city would rather come into our neighborhood down Chattahoochee to get to I-20 west than drive around the perimeter.
