Land deals: The story so far

The story so far

Last year, Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter asked for a special-purpose grand jury to be impaneled after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a series of stories detailing five questionable purchases of parkland and one purchase that was scuttled. The stories exposed relationships between developers and commissioners and uncovered inflated appraisals that the purchases were based on.

Gwinnett County taxpayers may have overpaid millions of dollars for land that has yet to be developed into parks. Commissioner Kevin Kenerly championed two of the deals, and Commission Chairman Charles Bannister, and Commissioners Lorraine Green and Shirley Lasseter each advocated for one. In each case, the individual commissioners acknowledged connections to the developers or others involved in the deal.

The properties were:

  • Beaver Ruin Road and I-85 near Norcross, 36.79 acres at a price of $4.65 million.
  • Peachtree Industrial Boulevard in Sugar Hill, 66.6 acres at a price of $13.95 million.

  • Rabbit Hill Road and Hurricane Shoals Road in Dacula, 90.56 acres at a price of for $16.26 million.
  • Givens Road between Dacula and Grayson, 33.19 acres at a price of $2.29 million.
  • Lakes Parkway in Lawrenceville, 13.37 acres at a price of $1.16 million.

In one of the more controversial purchases, commissioners in 2007 voted to buy the land off Rabbit Hill Road to be used for a park with athletic fields. Kenerly pushed for the deal at a price of $16.26 million. Property records show that two years before, the developer, David Jenkins, had bought the land for $8.9 million. Kenerly has acknowledged that he is a friend of Jenkins'. The two men also have been involved in three business deals and have gone together on several group vacations to Las Vegas.

The grand jury investigation is expected to wrap up Friday. It will likely be Oct. 21 before the special grand jury's findings are made public. Gwinnett Superior Court Judge Michael C. Clark will review the report when he returns from vacation Monday.

A special-purpose grand jury has only been convened in Gwinnett County twice before, both times in 1989.

How we got the story

Officials began investigating the land deals in Gwinnett following stories published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution beginning in August 2009.

Working off a tip, the AJC investigated eight land purchases for parkland by Gwinnett County, eventually focusing on six of them, including one aborted deal.

The newspaper researched the history of the properties, the attempts by developers to rezone and develop the land, several related lawsuits and the county's steps to buy the land.

In doing so, the AJC reviewed dozens of files in five county departments, including those that buy parkland and run the county's parks system.

It also interviewed six current or former commissioners, reviewed all their campaign contributions over the past six years, reviewed two master plans for the parks system and watched numerous archived Board of Commissioners' meetings dating to 2004.

The AJC also solicited the help of two local appraisers to examine the appraisals involved in the deals.