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SPECIAL EDITION: OAK GROVE. 2009
Out by the County Line: The final item on the
Mayor and Commission agenda for the voting
meeting on Tuesday, June 2 is a whopper of
a rezone request at Oak Grove. Yes, that Oak
Grove—Athens' original development-in-the-
greenbelt and, throughout its whole history,
a flash point for local land-use issues. When
the original plan for Oak Grove was approved
on a 7-3 vote with conjecture of a mayoral
veto in November of 2000, then-Commissioner
John Barrow called it "the right thing in the
wrong place." That line of Barrow's was quoted
more than once at last week's Mayor and
Commission agenda-setting session, though it
applies less now than it did then. Today's Oak
Grove proposal—though commissioners are
rightly impressed by its quality—is, as they
admitted, a shopping center. Fully at the
mercy of the big-box national grocery store
chains, it is more like
the wrong thing in
the wrong place for
Athens.
An Ironic History: '
Oak Grove was only
ever"the right
thing" because of its
original New Urbanist
billing. But in 2004,
Athens-Clarke County
approved the addi
tion of Commercial-
Neighborhood zoning
to the single-family
zoned tract which
had (prior to
2000) been zoned
Agricultural-Rural and
Commercial-Rural.
Now, with original
"visionary" developer
Denny Hill out of the
picture, Oak Grove's
current owners want
to rezone part of it to
Commercial-General
and put in a strip
mall with a big-box
grocery store and
drive-throughs and
everything. It's a far
cry from what Athens
has said, for a decade
now, it wants to see
in its greenbelt.
According to the Planning Department
staff report, the developers' present applica
tion "states that the commercial component
of the current binding plan has proven to be
'unworkable.'" Why's that? Anything other
than big-lot surface parking would be "eco
nomically unfeasible," it says, and "National
or regional grocers do not possess a retail
product that is smaller than 35,000 square
feet." Oh, and: "The 'live over retail' scenario
currently approved is unfeasible due to the
current financial environment and the semi-
rural location of Oak Grove." The financial
environment may have changed lately, but the
location was always rural.
Banquo's Ghost: In other words, John Barrow
was prescient, as were all the many citizens
who crowded the council chamber at City Hall
on the night of Oak Grove's original approval
in 2000. There's a reason we have room for
PDs—planned developments—in our zoning
code, and it's not that we expect for the plans
to change every three or four years. That's
called spot zoning, and if the developers of
an ambitious project on a large tract that's
important to the community don't have the
foresight to actually plan for the long term,
then there's little question that we should
revert to our county's planning documents
rather than to the ever-changing developers'
ever-changing desires.
And So: To be fair, commissioners have a
tough call on their hands. David Lynn may be
right that the original vision for Oak Grove
was a "pipe dream," that in '04 he and fellow
commissioners were sold just another "bill of
goods," and that if anything commercial will
be built there, it will be a traditional shopping
center. But while it's one thing if 'the vision'
won't work in the case of a particular devel
opment, it's another thing entirely when the
well-developed vision for the entire county's
land-use plan no longer seems to apply. This
is a "gateway" property in the greenbelt—a
giant "Welcome to Athens" sign just inside
the county line—and its corridor is our last
best chance to do something different from an
Atlanta Highway redux.
Here We Are: As Lynn said at last week's meet
ing, "Well, here we are." But while it's cause
for deep reflection to consider this develop
ment's trajectory alongside that of a decade's
worth of local politics, irony is too kind a word
in this case. In the end, as we look to the
Commission vote on June 2, is it too much to
say that Oak Grove might just be a benchmark
for measuring progress in Athens over the past
decade? After all the controversy it created in
the fell of 2000, the question today is really
rather simple: How far have we come?
Ben Emanuel ben@flagpoie.com
Thanks To The Turkeys
Who Bring Us Sprawl, p.5
Also: Votes, JFK, "Scapes, Dick Dale, Corey Feldman
The Flagpole com of Nov. 22,2000—in the wake of the original Commission vote
on the first plan at Oak Grove, out in the greenbelt—said it all.
ACC Budget Set to Pass
at June 2 Meeting
It could shave $70,000 from the budget in
a tight year, but ACC Commissioners appear
unlikely to end mowing along state-owned
streets and roads. "It's one of those things
that's very visible," Commissioner Ed Robinson
said at a recent budget work session. If the
county quit mowing them, the state would
mow the rural roads only twice a year, and
some intown streets (including Milledge and
Prince avenues) wouldn't get mowed at all,
ACC Manager Alan Reddish said. That didn't sit
well with some commissioners at their final
budget work session May 19; commissioners
haven't forgotten citizens' outcry last year
when they proposed elimi
nating some streetlights.
"I'd rather keep this in our
toolbox for next year, if
we've got to cut services
again," Alice Kinman said.
Several commissioners also wanted to add
a pre-trial probation officer (perhaps funded
by an increase in probation fees, if judges
agree). That could be the only new position
created in the FY10 budget—up for a vote on
Tuesday, June 2—and several existing jobs
will be eliminated. "The pre-trial position
handles low-level cases that would benefit
from early intervention and help the proba
tioner avoid recidivism," Commissioner Kelly
Girtz told Flagpole. But others—including
Reddish—were skeptical that a fee increase
could offset the cost.
The county might also get out of the pav
ing business. Most paving is contracted out
anyway, and "those potholes will still get
fixed," Commissioner David Lynn said. (Most
potholes are patched with "cold mix," rather
than being repaved.) Commissioners must also
deride whether the county will quit maintain
ing stoplights owned by the state; that could
save $108,000 a year, but the state DOT’S
maintenance techs are spread much thinner
than Athens', Reddish said. Nor did the mayor,
manager or commissioners escape this year's
budget pen: the mayor will reduce office and
travel expenses by $2,300; commissioners will
forfeit $4,200 (over half) of their travel/train
ing budget; and the manager's office will save
$27,000 by reducing travel,
training and contract labor
support.
Also at their first-
Tuesday voting meeting on
June 2, commissioners may approve plans for
an addition to Sandy Creek Nature Center's
"ENSAT" building. They will likely raise bus
feres to $1.50; decide on criteria for siting
a planned tennis center; consider zoning
changes at the large Oak Grove development
on Jefferson Road; approve spending of the
first $395,000 in federal stimulus money to
install low-flow toilets, demolish dilapidated
houses and provide small-business "gap"
loans; and limit (to three years) the length
of time that houses can be left boarded up,
while requiring such houses to be painted and
maintained.
John Huie jphuie@athens.net
“It’s one of those things
that’s very visible.”
Progress on Trash Matters,
Commissioner Says
"I'm very positive about it. I think some
thing good is going to come out of it," ACC
Commissioner Doug Lowry says of the Solid
Waste Task Force which he co-chairs with
Commissioner Kelly Girtz. The task force, still
in an "information-gathering stage," began
meeting at the start of April, and at present
Lowry expects it to have its first short-term
recommendations ready by
the end of June.
The task force's mem
bership runs the gamut
from long-time, avid recy
clers and household corn-
posters to true neophytes
when it comes to those
practices, he says, and the range of issues it
seeks to address is no less broad. Waste reduc
tion is one big goal—with, of course, many
subsets—but it's not the whole story. The
committee will have to look at the question
of hauler franchising, which was controversial
when it briefly came to commissioners last
year; Lowry says he doesn't know yet how the
task force will treat it.
When it comes to simply increasing recy
cling rates, the task force will at least look at
“If everybody took a tour
of the landfill, you would
automatically increase
recycling.”
so-called "single-stream" recycling, in which
homeowners don't have to do any sorting.
Will committee members favor that approach?
"It's too early to tell," Lowry says. Meanwhile,
he says, "I'm really happy that most of them
understand that the hill we've got to climb—
the big nut we've got to crack in Athens-Clarke
County—is multi-femily."
Girtz and Lowry hope
to create priorities among
the group's recommenda
tions this summer. One
point is beginning to
become clear, Lowry says:
"A lot of the focus of
the group... is that the
biggest component of a successful recycling
program is PR, is education." That doesn't just
mean water-bill inserts and PSAs on Channel
7, either. The task force recently took a tour of
the ACC landfill, and one member who'd never
been there before said to Lowry: "You know
what would help recycling? If everybody took
a tour of the landfill, you would automatically
increase recycling."
Dan Cmomiol K«n^WUnr\AlA nnm
mum bmuiiuui uoii'onuypuio.vyvjm
4 FLAGPOLE.COM-MAY 27,2009