During a recent meeting Decatur commissioners unanimously rejected a development that would’ve placed 43 townhomes on Church Street immediately south of Glenlake Park.
Mayor Patti Garrett said her personal issues with the plan include: storm water runoff (the townhomes would get constructed at and near the bottom of a long hill), pedestrian safety on a busy street and the developer’s reluctance to conduct a traffic study, required by Decatur’s Unified Development Ordinance.
“I was also concerned that there had been no public input [meetings],” Garrett said. “I can’t remember a project that came forward and that we approved where the developer had not done some community [outreach].”
The named developer isThe Quarters Decatur LLC.
The city’s planning commission had also rejected the plan earlier in January.
The development would cover 2.54 acres which currently has nine single-family homes, all abandoned. Quarters Decatur has all nine under contract but hasn’t yet purchased them.
Quarters Decatur is either subsidiary or falls under the larger Thrive Homes, which also wants to redevelop a 35,719 square-foot building at Park Place and East Lake Drive, currently owned by AT&T, into 34 multi-family units. Although a conditional use permit for that project was approved by city commissioners last November, an attorney representing a group called Green East Lake claimed AT&T didn’t have the “authority” to sell the land. That project remains in limbo.
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