A community’s vision and a developer’s plans are colliding in the Grant Park section of Atlanta, where residents are fighting a proposed big-box store development along Glenwood Avenue and a future portion of the Atlanta Beltline.
The developers behind the 20-acre proposed project say — and city planning officials agree — that their plan to convert a concrete factory into a retail destination which could feature a Walmart are within the city’s land use and zoning requirements. The property is currently owned by LaFarge Building Materials and stands to be purchased by Fuqua Development.
But residents from the area just south of I-20, and several adjacent neighborhoods, say the future strip mall is in conflict with the master plan and vision of the Atlanta Beltline they’ve long hoped would help revitalize their historic communities. The Beltline aims to turn dilapidated land into a 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit.
The conflict gained steam Tuesday when the Atlanta City Council voted to rezone the parcel, located at Glenwood Avenue and Bill Kennedy Way, from industrial to multi-family residential, an attempt to block the development from moving forward. Some councilmembers such as District 12 Councilwoman Joyce Sheperd worry the vote will draw a lawsuit against the city.
While opponents of the big-box project — loosely called Glenwood Place — cheer the zoning change brought by District 1 Councilwoman Carla Smith, an attorney for the property owner says it violates his client’s constitutional property rights.
“This legislation is about as frivolous an act by a local government as I’ve ever seen,” said Doug Dillard, speaking about the rezoning. “Our rights are vested and can’t be taken away without compensation.”
Residents such as Rick Hudson say communities south of I-20 are fighting to implement the Beltline master plan they helped create over several years. That plan calls for commercial space on the northern part of the parcel, just by I-20, and residential development along Glenwood Avenue. A portion of the Beltline trail would run alongside that development.
The fight isn’t about stores like Walmart, Hudson said, noting neighbors oppose any big-box development in the place of more housing. He believes that the parcel, located across the street from Maynard Holbrook Jackson High School and near Glenwood Park, a high-end mixed use development, would be better used for affordable and senior housing.
“If it was a Trader Joe’s, a Whole Foods, a Kroger or Publix, it would be the same fight,” said Hudson, land use and zoning chair for the Grant Park Neighborhood Association. “We want to have the development we worked so hard on the Beltline master plan for … We need the (housing) density and the rooftops.”
Fuqua Development, which has a contract to purchase the property from LaFarge, began submitting applications to develop the land roughly a year ago. The plan calls for an 144,000-square-foot anchor store widely thought by the neighborhood groups who’ve tracked the project to be a Walmart, in addition to other retail stores and restaurants.
The developer is open to a residential component, but says the project is not financially feasible without a large retail store, said Angelo Fuster, a spokesman for the project.
City officials awarded Fuqua a special administrative permit in July, a designation given to projects that meet the Beltline overlay — a set of specifications that dictate design elements such as street-scraping and lighting along the greenway project.
Residents appealed that decision, which will be taken up by a zoning appeals board in October. It could revoke the permit, let it stand or order changes.
Still, the project could move forward, the city says, despite the rezoning. Fuqua has already filed applications for land disturbance and demolition permits under the industrial zoning use.
But that’s a move residents are sure to continue fighting.
“It’s against the live-work urban design plans for that community,” said Billy Howard, who moved to Glenwood Park from Ormewood Park in recent years because of the future Beltline. “We’ve been excited about the Beltline, so to be confronted with a situation where everything we looked forward to has been sacrificed is a hard pill to swallow.”
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