Dunwoody Mayor Mike Davis said Tuesday that plans to build a $425,000 concrete, multipurpose trail through Brook Run Park will proceed, now that a DeKalb County judge has lifted a restraining order that had blocked the project.
“We’re going ahead and constructing the trail as planned,” Davis said.
Opponents, however, are still fighting it. And some plan to petition city leaders at Monday’s City Council meeting to ask that the project be downsized to its original scope when it was approved more than a year ago.
On Monday, Superior Court Judge Tangela Barrie lifted an injunction she placed on the project Dec. 13, mere days before city crews were scheduled to clear 330 trees to make room for the 12-foot-wide concrete trail running three-quarters of a mile.
Nearby homeowners had sought the restraining order, arguing water runoff from the new trail would threaten their property.
But Barrie ruled they had not offered proof of the threat, merely testimony from a hydrologist.
Attorney Jenny Culler, representing 25 homeowners in the Lake View Oaks subdivision, said the judge’s ruling may not be the final word on the matter. Monday’s order, she said, merely lifted the injunction, but the judge can yet decide whether the overall project threatens the properties.
“Our case continues, obviously,” Culler said. “The judge indicated she is going to put us on some sort of a fast-track to render a final decision in the case.”
The project, which is funded in part with a $100,000 state grant, has roused opposition from hundreds of residents, including nearby property owners, naturalists and the local tea party.
A group called Friends of Brook Run Park delivered a petition with 667 names to City Hall on Monday calling on city leaders to scrap the project and go back to original plans, which called for an 8-foot-wide, asphalt and wood trail at a cost of $130,000, nearly one-third the cost of the current proposal.
“The mayor has characterized us as a tiny minority and (said) we want no development, no nothing,” Friends of Brook Run member Jeff Coghill said. “We are not advocating that.”
Coghill said the city could be using its resources to clean up what is already in place, picking up garbage, shaping trees and clearing brush. He said the group plans to spell out specific requests in the coming weeks.
The mayor said he is aware of the petition but he remains convinced the park needs amenities for all 47,000 residents, including bicyclists, the handicapped and parents with strollers.
City Manager Warren Hutmacher said the city will pick up where it left off before the injunction was issued.
“We’ve notified the contractor to commence construction as soon as they’re able to mobilize,” he said.
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