School board appears in favor of east Decatur development
Though no vote was taken, during a May 15 special-called meeting Decatur’s school board appears to support a proposed mixed-use development on 9.78 acres between North Arcadia Drive and East Ponce de Leon.
The city commission’s scheduled to vote on the project during its May 21 meeting, 7:30 p.m. at City Hall, 509 N. McDonough St. It’s a complicated vote requiring, among others, the commission’s approval of annexing about eight acres into the city before final approval of the master plan.
The school board probably won’t directly state approval of both the annexation and subsequent development. But it plans on drafting a letter to commissioners prior to next Monday’s meeting saying the project should have a positive financial impact on City Schools Decatur.
Superintendent David Dude told the AJC the letter will also “encourage the city to include a special provision” requesting that developer Alliance Realty not add more than the projected “101 apartments” with two or more bedrooms.
On May 15 Dude presented several pages of metrics including an evaluation of the most recent apartment developments within Decatur. These numbers show that most school-age children come from units with two or more bedrooms, or specifically an average .5 students per 2 plus bedroom apartment.
Based on this, North Arcadia/East Ponce projects 45 to 56 school-aged children. But accounting for anticipated growth over the next five years, Dude says, that number could swell to 75.
This translates into having to build three more classrooms costing roughly $2.2 million. Nevertheless Dude believes the system can handle even the high-end projection of 75.
The figures show the school system can expect, with this development, additional revenue of $750,000 annually. Plus, given that all housing units are apartments, no resident will qualify for the senior homestead exemption.
As of now the project calls for 289 apartments total, two retail buildings totaling 12,000 square feet and a 50,000 square foot grocery long rumored to be Publix. In February Alliance gave the apartment breakdown as 70 percent one-bedroom and 30 percent two or more, or roughly 86 apartments, well below Dude’s figure of 101.
