The Avondale Estates commission approved a 270-apartment project by a 4-1 vote Thursday, August 30, before an overflow crowd at city hall.
In recent weeks the proposed development has proved divisive within this town of 3200.
In delivering its approval the board rejected recommendations from the city’s Planning & Zoning Board and Architectural Review Board who opposed the development by votes of 4-1 and 5-0 respectively in early August.
“This is the right project, the right developer and the right time for our city,” Mayor Jonathan Elmore told a crowd of well over 100. “That’s where [on the city’s west side] we want density. I respect our volunteer boards, but we’re the elected officials and we have the final say.”
Perhaps, most significantly, no commissioner during the roughly two-hour meeting even mentioned a citywide petition that’s circulated for two months opposing the development. The document’s primary complaint is that the project’s footprint is too large (nearly three times bigger than what Avondale’s zoning calls for), that there are too many apartments and not enough retail.
As of this week 683 signed the document, or about 20 percent of the city’s population, including 474 identified as registered voters. That’s more votes than any current commissioner received save Lisa Shortell, who had 569 last November.
Shortell was only commissioner voting against both the development and the commission’s rejection of the Architectural Review Board decision.
“It’s clear this project has become better with passing time,” she told the audience “But it doesn’t fit our zoning, it doesn’t fit our height restrictions and our footprint. It’s too big. I’d love to vote ‘yes,’ but given this project’s scale I have serious doubts.”
She added later in the meeting, “I’m deeply concerned with the message we’re sending to our volunteer boards.”
Developer Trammell Crow Residential did present some last-hour revisions, most of which the commission hadn’t seen until Thursday night.
The number of apartments is down from 281to 270, or 68.6 unit per acre—the city’s zoning calls for 40 units per acre. Retail is up to 7,100 square feet, from 5,000, while the development’s overall footprint was cut by 2,000 square feet to 94,500 (the city’s zoning calls for 30,000 square feet). Much of the project is now three-to-four stories, with a small portion at five stories.
While most in the audience agreed that Thursday’s iteration was Trammell Crow’s best by far, several asked during public comment why these updates weren’t delivered to the Planning & Zoning and Architectural Review Boards before coming before the commission.
Following the meeting Elmore declined the AJC’s request for comment.
