Results of August 15 NBCA Land Use and Zoning Committee Meeting

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About eighty neighbors, including many from Brookhaven, attended our hearing last Monday night for the Peachtree-Dunwoody project. (Applications Z-05-44 and Z-05-45)

The plan is essentially the same as was presented in our June 6 meeting. A new feature was a driveway leading from the parking deck through church property (zoned residential) over to Wieuca Road, north of the intersection with Phipps Blvd.  (See site plan below.) The neighborhood reaction varied – some neighbors near Peachtree-Dunwoody were somewhat relieved by the driveway while those along Wieuca were aghast.

Most of the discussion dealt with traffic issues. Sadly, the applicants foresee that 80% of the peak hour business traffic to/from the proposed office towers would be on residential Peachtree-Dunwoody and Wieuca Roads, both 2-lane roads; just 20% would use the Peachtree Road exit.  [8/26 Correction:  Actually, when the Peachtree Corridor project closes the Peachtree Road median, 85% of the business traffic forecast by the applicants will be using Peachtree-Dunwoody Road and Wieuca Road.]

NBCA made a point that the proposed Wieuca driveway and half the proposed parking deck violated the land use policies which we earlier litigated against Pope & Land –- the Georgia Supreme Court decided that case in 2001 in the City’s/NBCA’s favor and blocked a mixed-use project north of Phipps Blvd. If our interpretation is correct, the parking deck could not be built.

Our Land Use and Zoning Committee unanimously recommended APPROVAL of Pope & Land’s request to down-zone their 4.6 acres from PD-OC zoning to O-I. While we don’t agree with their current application, Pope & Land has held this site with high-density commercial zoning for about 20 years and has the legal right to use the land commercially, though we expect them to reduce impact on neighborhood streets. (We don’t think it is within the realm of possibility to prohibit all commercial uses of Pope & Land’s site.)

Our Committee also voted unanimously to recommend DISAPPROVAL of all applications related to 2.3 acres of church property. It should be stressed that we were not voting against the church itself – they own the land and are entitled to build a deck if they want one. But, that deck simply shouldn’t have any commercial use.

It is unfortunate that Pope & Land is asking that neighborhood property rights and livability be sacrificed just to make their project more profitable. They have rights, but so do we. Pope & Land’s original 1987 application provided more than enough parking for both church needs and the high-rises without using any church property. We think the entire project should be pushed back onto Pope & Land’s site, if it is built at all.

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