When finished, Fuqua Development’s mixed-use project at Scott Boulevard and North Decatur Road, just outside Decatur, will include about 960 apartments. During Fuqua’s recent presentation before the Decatur Heights Neighborhood Association, many expressed concern over the anticipated traffic increase.
Some even got irritated when Davis Fox, Policy and Projects Manager for DeKalb Commissioner Kathie Gannon, countered that the additional automobiles caused by the new units would be “a drop in the bucket.”
But Fox explained that with two proposed transit stops at nearby Suburban Plaza and DeKalb Medical — neither station has yet received funding — he doesn’t believe the development will add significantly to the 60,000 cars traversing Scott daily.
“Fuqua projects tend to have a lot of large retail which doesn’t encourage walking,” said Fox, who wrote the Medline Liveable Centers Initiative Plan proposal in 2014. “But generally I like this project because you need more connections between transit and land use.
“The best places to create density are near transit stations and hospitals,” he said. “Otherwise, if you build housing in, say, Loganville, then you will have them driving through here and that will add a lot of traffic.”
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