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CITY PA GES
Developer Jimmy Bernstein makes his cave to the Planning Commission.
DOUBTING THE GREENBELT
Logan wonders if land use plan too ambitious
For the most part, local environmental
types have been getting the serious warm
fuzzies in recent months over the county’s
proposed land use plan.
The state requires that local governments
come up with a plan to guide development
every five years. From a green perspective,
much of what’s been proposed thus far
sounds promising, from increased setbacks
on rivers to the most prominent anti-sprawl
feature — a fat rural preservation area
around the outer part of the county totaling
25.673 acres that would only allow an
average of one unit per 10 acres.
In the Planning Commission public input
session of Wednesday, Jan. 13. Burt Sparer,
who heads up the Federation of
Neighborhoods, praised the plans, saying
Athens could become the only city in
Georgia with a real greenbelt to prevent
sprawl. “This plan is a gift to us that we’re
purchasing at a very high price." Sparer said.
For some, that price seems too high. A'
that same meeting. Beth Thurmond, a resi
dent of 670 Jefferson River Rd.. said she
appreciated the rural nature of her neighbor
hood. But said she and her husband had
always hoped that they could give their two
sons the option of buiiding homes on their
property, an option she fears would be scut
tled by the proposed lOacre rule.
Jimmy Bernstein told the Commission
that the rule was unfair to residents like him
who’d bought affected land with the idea of
building on it. “These guys have wonderful
and beautiful dreams, but I can’t afford their
dreams." he said.
In perhaps the most forceful testimony.
Frank Fleming, an Athens farmer, said the
burden of city-level taxes made rural pur
suits like working the land unprofitable. If he
and his family can’t sell their land to devel
opers, he said, “we’re sunk."
In the middle of all of this — almost liter
ally — is the fact that the plan currently
makes room for an east-west connector, a
perimeter-style road beyond the current
Athens Perimeter that would allegedly make
east-west traffic less of a hassle. Planning
consulvant John Fregonese, the architect of
the plan, said his traffic studies found ’hat
building the connector would not signifi
cantly reduce traffic on Atlanta Highway or
US 129, and recommended that the govern
ment simply buy the land and set it aside for
20 years in case future generations decided
that it was needed.
But even this is a controversial idea that
many residents spoke out against at the
meeting. Stephanie Brown of the Athens
Land Trust said buying the right-of-way was
a message for future governments that the
connector should be built, and many others
said they feared the concept of a rural
preservation area would be ruined by new
development along such a road: as Doug
Haines of the Georgia Center for Law in the
Public Interest put it. the connector would
create a “Field of Dreams" scenario: “If you
build it," he told the Planning Commission,
“they will come."
For years, the leading proponent of the
connector has been Hugh Logan, the District
5 commissioner. In an interview with
Flagpole Monday, it became clear why fears
like Haines’ don’t matter much to him — he
doesn’t have much faith In the rural preser
vation area anyway.
“I think you’re going to have some growth
out there regardless of who’s in office and
who’s out of office," Logan said. With the
current proposal, he said, “There’d be a lot
of 10 acres with [an average of] one house
on it. It might hold initially, but you have
elections every two years."
Logan said he sees two competing groups
vying for supremacy right now. those in
favor of “no growth" and those favoring
"controlled growth."
“I learned this in the [state] legislature:
over time, one group has trouble holding the
other group." he said.
Logan says he’s interested in building a
segment of the east-west connector from
Jefferson Road to Atlanta Highway to relieve
a traffic bottleneck by the mall.
At a Thursday work session, Logan’s
ideas were supported by Commissioner
Marilyn Farmer, and opposed by Ken Jordan
and John Barrow. Barrow said the county
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