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DeKalb resolves infill issue |
| Feb 16, 2006 |
DeKalb County residents who were abuzz Wednesday over the county's new regulations on building big houses in existing neighborhoods say the measure is the best political solution to a highly emotional debate.
Lucinda Headrick has lived for 20 years in Oak Grove, just east of I-85 near the Clairmont Road interchange. Oak Grove was one of the first areas in DeKalb to experience the infill phenomenon of tearing down smaller houses and replacing them with ones that might be three to four times larger.
"Our neighborhood has been hit very hard," Headrick said. "We're not against development, but we are against excessive height and monsters. And the developers are cutting down the trees. Three or four were knocked down [Wednesday] on a site near my home. We have to do something to protect our neighborhoods."
DeKalb's commissioners approveda zoning code Tuesday that allows neighborhoods to seek special zoning overlay district that willkeep new houses from towering over existing homes.
At least 55 percent of residents in a defined geographic area must sign a petition to come under the overlay district.
In those districts, the two-point code forbids building new houses that are higher than 28 feet, measured from the front threshold of the new house to the highest point of the roof. It also prevents raising the threshold of the new house more than two feet higher than that of the previous house.
The vote ends a two-year struggle in DeKalb to get a handle on the controversial infill issue.
Residents and elected officials in DeKalb and Atlanta have been working in concert to craft infill regulations. They have shared information and ventured down separate paths in search of a solution that would enable continuing development while protecting the appearance of neighborhoods.
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin called Monday for the city to address the infill issue by rewriting citywide zoning codes that have not been updated comprehensively since 1982. Franklin crystallized the debate in the city last month by issuing a temporary building ban on big new houses in some neighborhoods.
Atlanta Councilwoman Mary Norwood had requested the temporary moratorium as part of her broader effort to pass infill legislation.
DeKalb's Infill Task Force initially proposed a countywide infill ordinance that would provide for an orderly redevelopment of neighborhoods. New houses in existing neighborhoods could have been only somewhat larger than nearby homes. That idea ran into opposition and commissioners have been working on a compromise since September.
DeKalb County Commissioner Elaine Boyer, who fought the proposed countywide ordinance, said the new code balances the interests of neighborhoods where a majority of residents don't want tall houses with those of homeowners who may be ready to sell their homes at the kind of profits associated with selling as a tear-down.
"With a lot of throes and gnashing of teeth, we created a solution and passed something and beat Atlanta to finding a solution," Boyer said. "Once in a while we like to be leaders in DeKalb, and infill is a national issue where people are looking for solutions."
Rick Porter, a home builder who served as co-chair of the task force, said there are pros and cons to the new code.
"It's certainly good to give communities some input into how they want their communities to evolve," Porter said. "The bad news is that this could be unwieldy to administer and create a wide array of expectations. In our committee, we kept coming back to the idea that an overlay district was not the best route. But given the confusion and politics, this seems to be the only consensus."
DeKalb County Commissioner Kathie Gannon said the county can properly oversee the program, and she's glad to see something passed after the years of debate.
"This is a good compromise," Gannon said. "I was in favor of a countywide ordinance, but the political reality was that the commission was not able to get behind a countywide ordinance."
"The overlay district is an opportunity for local neighborhoods to self-impose restrictions on themselves," said Gannon, whose district covers hot real estate markets in the western half of DeKalb. "It's a rather lengthy process, a little more onerous than I would like if I were the community advocate, but it does provide for due process so everyone has a chance to know about it and express an opinion."
Norwood said Atlanta should review DeKalb's code, but she thinks the city may need several programs to address the various types of houses in Atlanta.
"They have two fact-based regulations, one on height and one on changing the grade of the site," Norwood said. "That bodes well for other jurisdictions to say that there are elements of residential development that we can decide work best for a community or don't work for the community."
Cox News Service |
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