Decatur’s City Commission will vote Monday on a proposed 90-day moratorium on the removal of healthy trees on private property and the demolition of single-family homes.
The vote follows recent commission meetings where a number of residents have expressed concern over a perceived escalation of “in-fills,” or the razing of smaller, older homes and replacing them with larger homes, some as tall as three stories. These “McMansions,” opponents say, are inconsistent with the city’s neighborhood feel, its aesthetics and architectural history.
“We’re continually seeing, over the last year or 18 months, more homes maximized for floor area and lot coverage,” City Planner Amanda Thompson said. “But how much more is something we have to figure out.”
City officials say that if the moratorium is approved, they’ll spend the 90 days closely examining zoning and tree ordinances while also trying to answer certain questions. Are in-fills, for instance, truly saturating the market and do they need curtailing? Are in-fills directly related to the decline in affordable housing?
Is Decatur’s tree canopy diminishing and do demolitions, as many believe, directly affect the loss of old-growth or specimen trees, which are defined as 12 inches or more in diameter? Are the city’s tree ordinances, as others believe, far too lax (developers are required to keep only 25 percent of the specimen trees on a lot)?
As far as anyone can remember, the city has never considered anything like it, and City Hall has been deluged the past couple of weeks with emails and phone calls that City Manager Peggy Merriss described as often “contentious.”
“Let us say that there have been extreme opinions on both ends,” she said.
That atmosphere is being blamed for an incident last week, when 67-year-old Barry Huffman approached a tree-removal crew and, a police report alleges, began “verbally assaulting and cursing” one of the workers.
As the crew continued working, the police report alleges that Huffman went home saying, “I’m going to put an end to this,” before returning brandishing a rifle. He was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
Merriss called it an “isolated incident [that] doesn’t reflect the issue overall.”
First-year Mayor Jim Baskett is expecting a packed City Hall on Monday night.
“We will hear from everyone on both sides of the fence,” he said. “[The commission] won’t make a decision until everyone’s been heard.”
Bill Floyd, who retired as mayor in December after 13 terms, and 21 years on the commission, doesn’t favor the moratorium largely because he believes the market will balance itself out.
“We’re at an unusual point in the market, where the market is demanding those big houses,” he said, “and I don’t think a 90-days delay will help.”
But he also said “the forces that drive the housing market today won’t be there forever.”
“I don’t see the McMansions taking over. I see a mix of large houses and smaller, older, nicely renovated bungalows,” he said. “That’s what’s happening in Kirkwood and in East Atlanta.
“It’ll happen in Decatur, too.”
About the Author
