A bill aimed at ending a decade-long legal fight over plans to convert about 5 acres in Druid Hills into a subdivision turned Tuesday into questions about whether the proposed change could lead to development on such revered sites as the battlefield at Kennesaw Mountain.
House Bill 474 would add two dozen words to the state’s Historic Preservation Act to explicitly allow property owners to divide or develop vacant land in historic districts statewide.
Attorney Robert Buckler has argued for that right since buying three lots off Clifton Road in 2004 and repeatedly trying to carve it into smaller lots.
The Druid Hills Civic Association, though, has long filed legal challenges to his plans to create seven residential lots from the property. It claims the subdivision will erode the character of a neighborhood partially laid out by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed New York City’s Central Park.
The House Judiciary Committee tabled the bill Tuesday — effectively killing its chances of passing the House by Crossover Day on Thursday — but the proposal could still be attached to other legislation.
Judiciary Chairman Wendell Willard, R-Sandy Springs, said his committee has held off on changing state law for two years, hoping the legal scuffles would cease. He filed the bill last week, with powerful co-sponsors, signaling that lawmakers are tired of the court cases.
But committee members weren’t sure Tuesday what the change could mean to other historic land beyond metro Atlanta.
“I am trying to figure out how what we are doing here is going to affect me,” said state Rep. Barry Fleming, a Harlem Republican whose district includes several historic areas, including parts of his hometown and the now-defunct Quaker community of Wrightsboro.
Brian Daughdrill, the attorney representing Buckler, said the proposal would affect only privately owned property in historic areas, not officially historic sites such as the Kennesaw battlefield.
The proposal also would apply to the land, he added. Any new buildings — proposed homes in Druid Hills — would still need to meet historic standards and guidelines.
Buckler is just “trying to exercise his private property rights to develop this property,” Daughdrill said.
That argument carries sway with Willard.
“It’s gotten to the point where the litigation just doesn’t stop,” Willard said. “You should be able to develop your own property.”
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