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on West Lake, one built in 1905, are also
going to be flattened.
For Five Points resident Dorothy
O’Niell, every for-sale sign in her neighbor
hood makes her wonder if the house will
be demolished and replaced by “another
Tyrannosaurus Rex that hogs not just phys
ical space, but also our emotional space, our
‘neighborhood space.’ I actually welcome
further change in my neighborhood, but
the enormous scale of what we are getting
is excessively intrusive.”
The ACC planning staff expects to hold
more public meetings about the issue in the
coming weeks and to have recommenda
tions for the Mayor and Commission by
summer. Planners have drawn up measures
for consideration that include:
• context-sensitive design standards to
keep infill housing in character with the
surrounding neighborhood.
• neighborhood conservation overlay
districts that let neighborhood residents
decide what features in home construction
and compatibility matter to them.
• a plans review process for single-family
residential construction.
• incentives to encourage acceptable infill
development.
“The only people all of this building
makes happy are the Realtors, the build
ers and the city of Athens, which gets the
taxes,” says John Waters, a historic pres
ervation professor in the UGA College of
Environment and
Design. “What it does
is destroy the charac
ter of a neighborhood
to the point that the
people who are sensi
tive to it leave. I tell
you, it’s unbelievable.”
Adopted in 2000,
the current zoning
regulations govern
ing height and setback have allowed the
construction of new houses that dwarf
their neighbors. They’ve let developers buy,
bulldoze, divide lots and rebuild along Park
and Yonah avenues in Normaltown. In Five
Points, many of these new houses are vastly
larger than their next-door neighbors. On
McWhorter, for example, a ranch house
seems to cower beside a massive project,
still under construction, that includes a
three-story house, attached garage and
a swimming pool. On nearby Catawba, a
small house ballooned into a four-bedroom,
two-story house, complete with a huge
garage and a sale price of half a million
dollars. That may be small potatoes for a
retired couple relocating from Chicago or
California, but it’s out of the price range of
most working families.
A study commissioned by the local
government found that only 59 percent
of those working in the county live here.
Families with children are moving to sur
rounding counties where single-family
housing is more plentiful and affordable,
and there are more choices in terms of size,
the study found. Only 22 percent of house
holds in Athens-Clarke County include chil
dren. The consultants found that the cost
of houses in Athens is higher than the state
average while incomes are lower.
“You have these intown neighborhoods
that have traditionally been affordable that
are suddenly out of the range of working
families, and that isn’t good for anyone,”
says Amy Kissane, director of the Athens
Clarke Heritage Foundation. “The design
standards need to change, and I think
there’s a way they can change that won’t
stifle people’s architectural creativity.”
Kissane is advocating for restrictions on
height, setback and lot coverage for new
houses that take into account the adjacent
properties and the entire street. If there
are two-story houses on nearby lots, then
a two-story house, in whatever style the
homeowner wants, would be fine. If all the
existing houses are set back from the street
25 feet, the new house should also sit 25
feet from the street. She also wants the
mature trees protected, materials salvaged
if there is a teardown and incentives to
build affordable housing.
The tried-and-true method of assuring
no out-of-scale housing is built is by apply
ing for designation as an historic district.
That’s what some neighbors in Five Points
did when one property owner, Chandler
Pike, asked for a demolition permit, want
ing to replace one of her traditional Five
Points cottages with a larger house. They
felt her request should be denied—includ
ing the Campbell family, who share a drive
way with Pike.
Homeowners talked to Commissioner
Mike Hamby, a nearby resident, about what
they could do to stop the teardown, and he
filed for a demolition moratorium. The ACC
Commission approved the moratorium.
Longtime residents subsequently filed a
request for much of West Rutherford Street
to become an historic district, a designation
residents had rejected
a few years before. It
would prevent any
house within the dis
trict boundaries from
being torn down.
Pike contends the
Rutherford Street
house should be
demolished because
there are problems in
it that can’t be fixed. She says if the historic
district designation is approved, she thinks
she’ll either sell the house or rent it, but she
herself won’t live in it because it’s bad for
her health.
The Rutherford Street residents who
favor a historic district were concerned
about what would replace Pike’s traditional
Five Points cottage. Two houses demolished
on West Cloverhurst and on other streets
in the neighborhood in the past few years
have been replaced by much larger build
ings. Rutherford residents didn’t want
their homes dwarfed by incompatible new
construction.
“Being allowed to build whatever you
want always makes a difference,” says Five
Points resident Carol Goerig, “but when you
do it in a neighborhood like Five Points, the
chances are good that your house is mere
feet from your neighbor’s, and the effects of
height and setback from property lines are
greatly magnified.”
The ACHF and Friends of Five Points
are hosting a forum on infill development
from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Monday, Apr. 4 at the
ACC Library. In addition, Lonnee says there
will be three days of drop-in meetings at
the planning office, a work session with the
planning commission at which the public
can listen, followed by another public work
session and a public meeting with the com
munity at large. The planning staff will then
return to the planning commission and
hold a public hearing before the recommen
dations go to the ACC Commission. Lonnee
says the commission may want to hold fur
ther meetings with constituents. ©
You have these intown
neighborhoods that have
traditionally been affordable
that are suddenly out of the
range of working families, and
that isn’t good for anyone.
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