Objections by local residents and officials failed to sway the Atlanta Housing Authority board, which on Wednesday moved to turn over riverside property in West Atlanta to the city to use as a school bus depot.
AHA voted unanimously to seek approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to either sell or exchange the 10-acre property on the Chattahoochee, previously the site of Bankhead Courts public housing, which was demolished in 2011.
“Why [are we] giving up this incredible resource that we have on the river … to develop a bus barn? It just doesn’t make sense,” said Suzannah Mayo, a resident of nearby Moores Mill Road. “The people who live there now have worked so hard to make that a viable place to live.”
Mayo was one of about half a dozen people turned out to speak against the proposal, including Atlanta City Councilwoman Felicia Moore and Cobb County Commissioner Lisa Cupid, who also delivered a letter signed by the rest of the Cobb Board of Commissioners calling on the authority to reject the deal.
AHA Board Chair Daniel Halpern said the bus depot proposal is still under discussion. He added that the 10 acres represented only a portion of the original 45-acre lot, and that the board intended to fast-track discussions about the fate of the remaining 35 acres.
“People have legitimate concerns but I think the board, led by staff, has carefully vetted the matter,” Halpurn said after the vote was taken. He called the deal a “collaborative” effort between the housing authority, the city, the school board and the Beltline.
Councilwoman Moore vowed to keep fighting the project, which must receive HUD approval before going forward.
“I believe that if it ends up being a bus terminal, that what we’re going to do is make the rest of the property less suitable for some other use,” Moore said.
The letter from the Cobb Board of Commissioners pointed out that Bankhead Courts had been identified in a 2009 study commissioned jointly by Cobb County and the City of Atlanta as a potential site for mixed-use, mixed-income community development.
“In recent years, adjoining areas in west Atlanta and south Cobb County have experience some economic improvement as a result of public and private investment,” the letter reads. “We are concerned that a use such as that being proposed by [Atlanta Public Schools] would impact future development potential in a way that would be detrimental to the lives of area residents on both sides of the Chattahoochee River.”
Residents who spoke at Wednesday’s meeting said they would like to see Bankhead Court replaced with a park or housing.
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