A group organized by Peachtree Corners-area residents — Citizens for Simpsonwood Conservancy — to advocate for keeping Simpsonwood as green space has gathered about 2,800 signatures on a petition in favor of preserving Simpsonwood. The group will discuss its next moves at a meeting Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Christ the King Church in Peachtree Corners.
Simpsonwood is 227 wooded acres on the banks of the Chattahoochee. It’s a meeting place for church groups, and a sanctuary for many visitors.
It’s also a prime tract in the middle of suburban Peachtree Corners worth more than $100 million, and a property with a history of being too valuable to keep.
The longtime owner could no longer pay the taxes on it, so she deeded it to the Methodist church. Now, the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church can’t afford the upkeep, so it’s looking to sell. That possibility has stirred up a simmering suburban cauldron of rumors, lawsuits and public outrage centering on land few can afford to keep intact.
“I never would have imagined anything like this from the Methodist church, that they would, in effect, take this deceased lady to court who in good faith gave them 227 acres of prime land in Gwinnett County on the Chattahoochee River,” said Carl Garner, who has lived in Norcross for all of his 79 years and worshipped as a Methodist since age 12. “That property is sacred.”
For many years, Simpsonwood was the property of Norcross school teacher Ludie Simpson. Simpson loved the land, her grandnephew Bill Carroll said. She just couldn’t afford to pay the taxes on it.
In the spring of 1973, Methodist church leaders visited Simpson at home and told her if she gave the property to the church, they would preserve the land and not allow it to be "chopped into smaller parcels or exploited or despoiled," memorializing their intent in a letter to her.
Simpson deeded the land to the church conference. She died in 1975.
Now the church is paying off a mortgage on Simpsonwood and losing money on the conference center it runs on the property.
Today, much of Simpsonwood consists of wooded areas crisscrossed with trails the church allows the public to use for free.
The property also has a chapel honoring Simpson’s mother; a swimming pool; tennis, volleyball and basketball courts; and conference center housing and meeting spaces scattered among the trees. Church groups and other organizations hold retreats at Simpsonwood and the property is home to weddings and YMCA summer camps.
Peachtree Corners resident Laurie Slaff, who walked the property daily during a “health scare” several years ago, is among those who found solace at Simpsonwood.
“It was my sanctuary then and remains so to this day,” Slaff, one of 11 neighbors who went to court to stop Simpsonwood’s sale, said in court filings. “This isn’t just acres of land. It’s a fragile ecosystem that, when experienced on a regular basis, recharges my body and soul.”
A lawyer for the United Peachtree Corners Civic Association, a nonprofit civic organization, has said the entire property could be worth more than $100 million, according to court filings. Church officials declined to release their own appraisal.
But they said maintaining the property is a drain on the church’s finances.
Revenues from the conference center have declined by about 30 percent over the past seven years, tax records obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show. The North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church, which includes churches throughout the northern half of the state, subsidizes the conference center’s operations with hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
On top of that, an affiliated church foundation still owes about $5 million on a mortgage secured by the Simpsonwood property.
“It just isn’t a realistic expense to keep paying for [Simpsonwood] out of money in the offering plate,” church conference spokesperson Sybil Davidson said.
The church conference wanted to sell the land, but the 1973 deed required that the land be held intact and only be sold to an affiliated church organization that operates senior housing.
Citing a state law that says restrictions like those in the deed cannot last longer than 20 years in areas subject to zoning laws, the church successfully sought a court order last year that gave it free rein to put the land on the market.
Earlier this month, a group of 11 people living near Simpsonwood asked a Gwinnett County Superior Court judge to set aside that order. A decision is pending.
They claim the court proceedings failed to include nearby homeowners and other interested parties. And they say the order is bad public policy because it could discourage future land donors.
The church conference said in a written statement that the neighbors’ claims are “entirely without merit.”
Church officials say they want the same thing many Simpsonwood neighbors do — to maintain the area essentially as natural park land.
The church conference is scheduled to vote on a resolution putting that intent in writing later this year, said Johnny Johns, a Simpsonwood United Methodist Church member who helped organize the resolution.
Thus far the church has only offered the land to Gwinnett County and the National Park Service, said David Haddow, a real estate consultant advising the church on the property’s sale. The park service can’t afford the land, he said. But the church is in talks with Gwinnett County to buy 125 acres of woods and trails. The asking price has not been disclosed.
Gwinnett County Chairwoman Charlotte Nash declined to comment on the negotiations. But in a written statement, she called Simpsonwood “a beautiful, special place.”
“While I will not attempt to second guess the decision made by its owner to market the property, I hope that the original intentions of Ms. Ludie Simpson will be kept in mind as decisions related to its sale are considered,” Nash said.
The full church conference — about 2,800 lay members and clergy — would have to vote on any offer, church conference spokesperson Sybil Davidson said.
If the county buys part of Simpsonwood, it’s unclear what would happen to the rest of the land.
“We’re going to figure that out once we learn whether the county [deal] goes through,” Haddow said. “It could be another conference center. It could be senior housing, a residential development. It could be any number of things.”
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