Dunwoody’s answer to its park problem has created an unusual outcry, with conservatives speaking for some of the poorest residents of Georgia's newest city and their opposites making the case for redevelopment.
At issue: the city’s announcement that if voters OK two bond issues in next week’s election, it will spend $19 million of the $66 million collected to buy two apartment complexes on the fringe of Dunwoody that bumps up against Doraville and Gwinnett County.
It then will tear down the 785 units in the Dunwoody Glen and Lacota complexes and fill the 42 acres with a new sports complex.
That move would displace about 2,100 people, including 560 school-age children, who live along Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, the most affordable part of a wealthy city of about 46,000.
“You’re talking about kicking out 5 percent of the population so white kids can play baseball and lacrosse,” said Bob Lundsten, a Republican fixture at City Council meetings who works for DeKalb County’s sole GOP county commissioner. “If we do this, we’re saying that ball fields for our kids are more important than your kids.”
Supporters bristle at such claims, especially when critics cite a similar situation in Smyrna that evicted thousands of poor residents. There, the city used development funds to buy an old apartment complex that officials hope can become a better gateway to their city.
Dunwoody is different, they said. Tearing down the apartments will increase services for everyone in a city where many parents must ferry their children to other communities to participate in sports leagues and activities such as gymnastics.
They envision a sports complex that fixes that problem and also levels the literal playing fields in a city where many homeowner associations run private sports facilities.
“It’s not about throwing people out of the city. It’s about more public-access parks,” said Stacey Harris, the head of the city’s Sustainability Commission, who is pushing for the new sports center. “They are citizens of Dunwoody. I would hate for them to think they’re being thrown out because of who they are.”
Yet racism, or the appearance of it, is exactly what is being debated at local shops and meetings, as well as via blogs and emails.
Many black and Latino families live in the apartments, which are 94 percent full. Residents there said they chose Dunwoody for the same reason as those who buy: good public schools, easy access to highways and MARTA, and safe streets.
They also get those benefits for rents in the $700-to-$900 range. Apartments across town near Perimeter Mall costs about twice that amount.
“It’s too expensive in the other apartments,” said Antonia Miranda, a maintenance worker who lives in Dunwoody Glen and plans to vote against the bonds. “I don’t know where I would go if I couldn’t live here.”
Mayor Ken Wright said the city will not cancel any leases or evict any residents if it buys the apartments, which would give some residents nearly a year to find new homes. It also plans to help with relocating those who need help.
Such government-funded real estate ventures can quickly become complicated, though. Smyrna bought a run-down apartment complex on Windy Hill Road last year for $9.5 million, emptying 726 units.
The city, which is using development bonds for the project, has since padlocked the 48-acre site while it prepares to spend an additional $4 million to demolish the property and peddle it to a developer.
“It’s always a mistake for government to buy land that’s generating money,” said Gordon Coplein, an attorney and conservative activist in Dunwoody. “Now we’re talking about doing just that and kicking out these quote ‘apartment people’ to boot? It’s an embarrassment.”
Critics call for killing the apartment complex proposal by rejecting the bonds, even as they acknowledge that they had previously clamored for more parks, too.
That’s because Dunwoody, a mostly developed city of 13 square miles, needs more green space. The city provides only about half the 6 acres per 1,000 residents recommended by the National Recreation and Parks Association.
In February, Dunwoody bought a 16-acre, partially developed site known as the PVC-pipe farm in the Georgetown-North Shallowford area. The $5.5 million price tag was covered using reserve funds.
Early skeptics of the bonds that will be voted on next week called for more specific projects that would be funded with that money. The city responded in August with plans to use $5.5 million of the bond money to buy 19 acres along Shallowford Road, including the 14-acre former Emory hospital site.
That land would be developed into three baseball fields that planners rejected from the city’s crown jewel, the 102-acre Brook Run Park, because of drainage concerns.
The city announced its deal with Cortland Partners last week. An attorney for Cortland did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.
Both the apartment complex deal and the hospital deal will not go through if voters reject the bonds.
“If I have to move, I will,” said Corrine Williams, a disabled grandmother and former cosmetologist who lives in Dunwoody Glen. “But I don’t know where I can find a place as convenient and comfortable as this. I hope I don’t have to go.”
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