Earlier this week Avondale Estates’ Architectural Review Board and Planning & Zoning Board declined recommending a proposed development that’s stirred city emotions for months. The ARB vote was 5-0 against, the PZB 4-1 against the 4.3-acre project on North Avondale Road
These were two more blows for the Trammel Crow’s “Alexan Gateway,” which calls for 281 apartments and 5,000 square feet of retail over a total 101,000 square feet.
The first came as a petition, originally submitted in June, essentially opposing the development in its current guise. The petition’s primary complaint is that the city’s zoning calls for a maximum building footprint of only 30,000 square feet, and 40 units per acre (Trammel Crow’s proposed residential density is 72 units per acre).
Currently 653 (or 20 percent of the city’s population) signed the petition, 453 of them registered voters.
“I would say some of the people who signed our petition are totally against [the Trammel Crow project],” said Lyda Steadman, one of the petition’s five authors. “But most of us want to work with Trammel Crow. We just want something closer to the city’s master plan.”
Most observers generally concur that that most if not all commissioners favor the project as it stands. The commission can overrule any vote by an advisory committee.
Further intrigue was added August 9 when John Pomberg, a member of the Planning & Zoning Board, submitted an ethics complaint against the five commissioners.
In the complaint, Pomberg cites the commissioners allegedly “failing to uphold Georgia’s Open Meeting Law when they requested improvements valued at $175,000.00 to city owned property from Trammell Crow Residential in a forum not open to public attendance or by other means of formal or informal communication not open to public attendance or available for review by the public.”
The “city-owned property” is four acres on North Avondale several blocks east of the Trammel Crow site. The complaint doesn’t specify what “improvements” are expected of the developer or what the city will give in return. When reached by phone Pomberg wouldn’t elaborate.
“I believe the mayor and commissioners made a decision without going public and I’m not saying anything further,” Pomberg said.
The ethics board meets on August 20, and the commission is scheduled for a final vote on the Trammel Crow project August 27.
Meantime, the city’s self-declared official spokesperson Mayor Jonathan Elmore is not speaking.
Or at least not to the AJC, having not returned phone calls or texts in the last two weeks. In a convoluted sequence on August 9, the AJC asked Communications Manager Rebecca Long to have Elmore contact a reporter. Elmore than texted the reporter saying he had “no comment at this time,” adding, “Please contact Rebecca Long for info [on Trammel Crow”].”
Also on August 9 Trammell Crow development associate Justin Adams said he wasn’t sure how the Architectural and Planning & Zoning decisions affect the development’s future.
“We are putting together a game plan,” he said. “We are planning on coming [August 27, for the final vote]. I don’t know if we’ll come before or if further discussions will help.”
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