It’s just four-tenths of a mile of pavement, basically a fancy cut-through street through the heart of Dunwoody.
But a plan to reconfigure Dunwoody Village Parkway and make it the foundation of a downtown redevelopment initiative has drawn a growing chorus of protests from a band of odd bedfellows. Opponents range from fiscal conservatives to elderly women who nurtured the trees decades ago to tea party activists who see this as part of a United Nations plot to erode American liberties.
Four years ago, the residents of Dunwoody incorporated, with a goal of having local control and being able to speak to a responsive government. Lately, the citizens are speaking a lot and loudly.
“I’ve lived here 37 years and never have seen people so angry. They feel betrayed,” said James Dickson, a resident opposed to the plan.
The fracas offers a street view of just how difficult it has become for metro Atlanta communities to agree on local transportation projects. Last summer, 670,000 metro Atlanta voters fought over regional transportation referendum that promised to pump $7.2 billion into roads and transit. The referendum failed.
Dunwoody, a city of 46,000, is having a hard time finding common ground on less than a mile of pavement projected to cost $2.4 million. Where some residents see bike paths and economic development, others see extravagance and waste.
The road, which connects Mount Vernon and Chamblee Dunwoody roads, is an unremarkable stretch other than it has a tree-lined median and is a family gathering point for Dunwoody’s Fourth of July Parade.
The plan, which is strongly supported by Mayor Mike Davis and was approved by the city council, would cut the 4-lane road to two lanes, add sidewalks and bicycle paths on each side, erect park benches and classy lighting, and do away with the leafy median.
Davis said this would be a “significant first step” to giving Dunwoody something that it doesn’t have — a real downtown. The vision is that a spruced-up boulevard and stricter zoning in the area would bring new buildings closer to the road, push parking to the back and give what is now a suburban shopping area an old-timey, hometown feel.
“We either have to create a city center that looks new and improved or we look like a city that time forgot,” Davis said in an interview last week. “The developers aren’t going to improve it unless they are shown the way.”
In August, the city council reaffirmed a previous vote to go with the plan. It calls for using $1.1 million in grants from the federal government and MARTA to complete the plan, which is scheduled for construction bids next summer. The median must go, proponents say, because there is not enough easement for the road, sidewalks and bike lanes.
Since the August vote, the local newspaper, the Dunwoody Crier, has been deluged with letters disparaging the plan and opponents coming to speak at public meetings. The mayor says Dick Williams, the paper’s owner, is stoking the flames of controversy. Williams said he’s actually kind of for the plan, but has never seen an issue generate so many letters.
Last weekend, a retired woman named Judy Ford tied yellow ribbons to the 74 trees on the median. Others soon erected protest signs there. A few days later, city road crews swooped them up.
“This issue seems like it was bum-rushed through and no one had a chance to know what it was about,” said Gordon Elkins, a resident of 25 years who is now fighting the plan. “Judy and I didn’t know each other until four weeks ago. All of a sudden, we morphed into an organization.”
Last week, Ford and Elkins stood in front of an Ace Hardware on the parkway that sits across from a Goodyear tire store and a Jiffy Lube. Elkins said transforming an already thriving cluster of businesses along the road seemed far-fetched.
“What are they going to do, put a coffee shop in one of Jiffy Lube’s bays?” Elkins asked with a laugh.
Councilwoman Adrian Bonser, one of two council members who voted against the plan, said there is little incentive for redevelopment. “Property owners want to redevelop their property when they can’t rent it out,” she said. “But this is almost 100 percent developed.”
Almost everyone, pro and con, agrees that sidewalks are needed. But the proposed 5-foot-wide bike lanes have largely taken a beating from opponents.
“I’ve lived here 20 years and have never seen a bicyclist on Dunwoody Village Parkway,” she said. “I have nothing against the bike people, they can use it now. But we’re talking four-tenths of a mile of road and the council wants to spend $2.4 million for four-tenths of a mile of road!”
Bikes, trees and money seem to be the driving points of debate. Bikes especially.
Joe Seconder, a retired Army major and cycling activist, said he is excited for the plan. First, because Dunwoody has been busy installing bike lanes all over the place.
“We’ve built five miles of bike lanes in Dunwoody in the past two years,” he said. “I challenge you to find any city in Georgia that has done that.”
But more so, “It’s a down payment on revitalization. I see it as a lovely place to congregate,” Seconder said, adding other nearby cities, like Roswell and Sandy Springs, are gussying up their town centers. “We’re competing with our neighbors.”
Seconder said he is frustrated by what he calls the “CAVE” folks — “citizens against virtually everything.”
“They’re even coming out against roundabouts, even though they are the best designs,” said Seconder, referring to a plan for a roundabout defeated last week after residents filled the council chambers on that issue and the parkway.
Norb Leahy, a 29-year Dunwoody resident and tea party leader, said the roundabout and “smart-growth” plans like the parkway redevelopment are out-of-tune with a conservative citizenry.
“We see these plans as fluff, as fads, as driven by the urban planners,” said Leahy, who likened the plans to U.N. Agenda 21, which calls for “sustainable” urban growth. “They want transit villages like in Europe, rack-and-stack housing. They want to package us into urban areas. It’s a busy-body bunch who’s pushing it. That’s the rebellion here.
“Besides,” he added. “No one takes a bike to get groceries. It’s the suburbs.”
He said the anti-parkway groups will start a “ground game,” based on attending meetings and flooding the area with yard signs. “That’s how we defeated the park bonds,” referring to a referendum last year to raise more than $60 million to buy and maintain park land.
Mayor Davis, who gained support as a candidate last year when he announced he was against the park bonds, said the local homeowners association and chamber of commerce have been supportive of the parkway redevelopment. There’s a committee looking at possibly reconfiguring the design, but he’s all-systems go on making it happen.
“No question in my mind, it’s the right thing to do,” he said.
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