Decatur Residents
Concerned about the Development
of 315 W. Ponce De Leon Ave
The developers are insisting on 220 apartment units and shared parking. . Based upon information from the city last week the developer will file their plans with the city in July, followed by relevant meetings in August with Zoning Board, Planning Commission As a neighborhood, we believe that the density is too great—doubling our neighborhood as it now stands—and that the support for the project in terms of infrastructure is too small—there is not enough parking provided, nor adequate control of traffic. These things will be irrevocably detrimental to our neighborhood.
Additional information: In order to build the number of units Required by JLB Partners 2 things must occur: Regarding Variances:
amount of PROPOSed parking spaces by jlb partners (# based on meeting of March 15):The current C2 code requires 1 dedicated parking space per residential unit. When the proposed 220 residential units are combined with the required 329 spaces for the existing building a minimum of 549 parking spaces would be required under current code. JLb is proposing a maximum of 425 spaces for all development including the existing structure, the apartments, the proposed retail and restaurant spaces. The proposed parking is 124 spaces fewer than are currently required for the apartments and office building. The proposal discussed at the March 15th meeting did not have any provision for retail and restaurant parking. The total numberof parking spaces for all development and redevelopment of 315 W. Ponce de Leon Avenue is 425 parking spaces total. Recent development news for the City of Decatur Which may impact the availability of parking in the city. good news Devry University's decatur campus will be relocating to the One West court square building as of july 2008. Presently Devry institute in the atlanta metro area has 5000 students who can take classes at any campus in the atlanta metro area. The students and staff are a welcome influx for the retail businesses and restaurants in downtown decatur.
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Important information and facts about the proposed development: The neighborhood is not against development of the property. The neighborhood welcomes responsible and reasonable development. The property is not standard C2 property,it is C2 that abuts R60 (residential). The proposed development requires 2 conditions in order to be approved: 1. SPECIAL CONSIDERATION in order to build high density residential the developers and 2. a PARKING VARIANCE. If the developers would build to existing code the residents would not have issues with the development. The existing neighborhood consists of a total of 210 families (includes homes, apartments, condos and townhouses). The proposed development would more than double the density of the neighborhood. The impact of such an increase would severely and negatively impact the neighborhood. The neighborhood has already experienced a significantly negative impact with the drastic increase in traffic as a result of the development on W. Ponce de Leon Avenue in the last five years. The neighborhood streets are not designed to handle the volume of traffic or parking necessary for 220 ADDITIONAL residential units.
from inDECATUR Decatur Metro: Also look at the following from in Decatur: CarFree Cities and How FAR will Decatur GO (Floor area ratio) Jan 13, 2008 A meeting was held of the "City of Decatur Transitional Zoning Working Group" on Thursday, January 10, 2008. The following is a summary of the meeting from the InDecatur -About 25-30 attendees at a meeting at City Hall last evening were shocked to hear the developer* intends to build 220 "condo quality" units (averaging about 900 sq. ft.) in the current parking lot behind the old "Wachovia" building at W. Ponce and Ponce de Leon Place. The highest point is expected to be at the limit of 80 feet. UPDATE: Decatur Metro has done a great (illustrated) job of comparing this to other downtown Decatur developments. There is also a possibility there will be a hotel with a capacity of 50-70 rooms. Time wise, approval by the City is expected to be six months away, and groundbreaking as far as 18 months away. JLB says it has a general idea of what it wants to do, but no firm plans yet. While the intent is to sell the units as condos for $250-350K; JLB notes the current market may require leasing some of them for an extended period. They call it "build to lease." This means renting them as apartments. Residents of the the neighborhood around the property don't want ANY of that traffic passing through their neighborhood. Even neighbors in the Great Lakes area can imagine traffic passing through their neighborhood heading toward Scott Blvd. [See some brainstorm solutions in the continuation.] Some were under the impression the exit for the development would have to be off W. Ponce, but Lynn of the City said she was aware of no such restriction by any authority at this time. A sore point is the concept of shared parking, whereby only enough parking will be provided for peak periods, when business people and shoppers have not yet left and residents are returning home. The neighbors are concerned this will be inadequate, resulting in an overflow of cars which will park on their streets. JLB said it had hired a consultant which specialized in this concept. A resident noted the sharing of spaces between businesses and residents has not been tried in Decatur. JLB said the units would be wrapped around the parking deck, so it would not be seen from the homes of the neighborhood. JLB did not bring sketches of the proposed building, as expected. Instead, it posted images of existing developments, and asked participants to mark what they liked and didn't like using blue (for green or go) and red (for stop or no) using markers. Most residents liked those developments which looked less commercial and had some friendly streetscaping. They like the idea of offsetting the higher floors. JLB agreed to bring some sketches of alternative designs to the next meeting. GO to inDecatur and Decatur Metro for an excellent analysis of the proposed development
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Under the current municode the property is zoned C2 read more > |
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