Settlement lets DeKalb County bike path project continue

A legal fight over a bicycle and pedestrian path near Decatur has been settled, meaning DeKalb County can finish the project.

The PATH Foundation, which initiated the trail, is still embroiled in a lawsuit with neighbors, but the foundation’s executive director says he’s moving forward with plans to connect the trail to Emory University. The settlement between DeKalb and a group of neighbors calling themselves the Three Forks Heritage Alliance calls on the county to pay $45,000 in plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees and to spend $50,000 re-planting hardwood trees to screen the plaintiffs’ homes from the path and a related construction access.

The settlement also requires the county to take erosion-control steps from regrading to planting new ground cover.

And it prohibits Ed McBrayer and his PATH Foundation from working on the current phase of the project. A different contractor is finishing the elevated boardwalk and bridges that snake through wooded hills linking Medlock and Mason Mill parks.

The county has a contract with PATH to plan trails, but DeKalb Superior Court Judge Gregory Adams ruled that the county had improperly contracted with the organization for actual construction.

Fern Garber, one of the plaintiffs, said she was unsure whether she and the others would pursue their other outstanding lawsuit, filed against the foundation. Their attorney, Brian Daughdrill, said that suit involves the $600,000 the county paid to PATH for construction.

Both sides agree that McBrayer can work on later phases of the trail. When the current phase is finished, it will allow easier access to Mason Mill Park for residents to the east. Later phases will allow a trip to Emory that bypasses busy streets.

The next phase is a bridge over a CSX rail line that separates the end of the first phase from Mason Mill and from access to Clairmont Road. McBrayer said the bridge should be completed next year.

The last phase will be a trail to Emory. McBrayer said he hopes to have most of the right of way by the end of next year.

Charlie Bleau, president of the Clairmont Heights Civic Association, said residents initially were split over the path. But he said most wanted to see the construction finished after a judge issued a stop-work order earlier this year. The path currently has a gap in the last stretch, and joggers and walkers have to turn around at the dead end.

“There’ve been tons of people on it,” Bleau said. “It’s good news that it’s been settled.”

Adams signed an order Wednesday allowing the construction to continue.

Garber and her neighbors had complained the project required the destruction of too many trees and would give criminals access to their homes. Daughdrill argued the path was illegal because it strayed too near a stream, violating an environmental protection rule, and because the county never competitively bid the contract.

Adams’ order shutting down the project in August said the county failed to obtain the proper permits.