Commission
votes to welcome sprawl to Athens.
Tuesday evening, December 5, the Athens-Clarke County
Commission voted 6-4 to turn 26,000 acres of rural Athens land into
a one-unit-per-acre suburban zone.
- For sprawl: Ford, Kilpatrick, Logan, Sims, Carter, Farmer.
- Against sprawl: Barrow, Chasteen, Jordan, Sheats. Mayor Doc Eldridge
also argued strongly against a sprawl vote
 However,
the Commission retains the option to reconsider and the Mayor has the
option to veto. There is still time to save us from Atlanta-style
sprawl !
take
action:
- Please cover your STAY GREEN signs with a black veil.
Free black cloth for this purpose is available at Earth Fare
in Five Points and Daily Groceries on Prince Avenue.
- Please write or email thanks to Mayor Doc Eldridge
and encourage him to veto the Commission's decision. (doc@athens-insurers.com
)(530 W Cloverhurst Ave., 30605) We are grateful to him for
offering a compromise position and fully support any action
he may take to veto the option A decision. (And read the Athens
Banner Herald editorial urging the mayor to veto and the
Commissioners to reconsider.)
- Thank Commissioners Barrow,
Chasteen, Jordan and Sheats for their votes against
Option A.
- Send a letter to the editor of the Athens
Daily News and Banner Herald (P.O. Box 912, Athens,
GA 30603) as well as Flagpole
Magazine (P.O. Box 1027, Athens, GA 30603). Letters
should be short and concise.
Analysis
The decision hinged on a key amendment to the zoning
code that determined the density of the rural "greenbelt" that surrounds
Athens. Currently, a landowner in the greenbelt (technically known
as the AR Zone) is limited to subdividing one or two units every
two years. This allows rural families to provide home sites for
their children, for example, but not to build large subdivisions.
Any further development in this area requires a rezoning. The Athens
Grow Green Coalition supported maintaining this present zoning until
Athens could develop a system for using transferable development
rights to protect the greenbelt while providing economic benefits
to greenbelt property owners. Instead, the Commission voted to allow
development in the greenbelt as dense as one unit per acre.
There are several major problems with this decision:
-
First, it encourages sprawl by allowing housing
densities that are ten times the greenbelt density prescribed in
Athens' Comprehensive Plan, unanimously passed by the Commission
in 1999. Sprawl leads to lower environmental quality, a poorer quality
of life, and higher property taxes, since it is more expensive to
maintain roads, provide utilities and supply services to scattered,
unplanned development.
- Second, it encourages clustering of homes, but not true conservation
subdivisions. In a conservation subdivision, homes are grouped together
on part of the property, while the remainder is permanently protected
as open space. Under the zoning code passed by the commission, a developer
can build homes on half-acre lots on one half of a property... and
then develop the other half in the future. This means that the "greenbelt"
could ultimately reach an average density of two homes per acre-traditional
suburban sprawl of the sort that surrounds Atlanta.
- Third, it makes it very difficult to implement transferable development
rights. Transferable development rights (TDRs) allow property owners
in rural areas to sell some of their rights to develop to property
owners in areas more suited to growth. This would allow Athens to
protect a greenbelt while still providing economic benefits to those
landowners who live in the area to be preserved. With the adoption
of option A, TDRs are all but useless because there is no economic
incentive for a property owner to sell those development rights.
- Finally, it limits the options of rural landowners. We as a community
should be investigating a variety of ways to grow: perhaps with scattered
satellite villages in the greenbelt, or perhaps by protecting some
large rural areas and allowing development in others. The proposed
zoning, which treats all 26,000 greenbelt acres the same, closes the
door on many creative approaches to managing Athens' growth.
So what can we, the citizens of Athens, do about this situation? First,
we can all call Mayor Doc Eldridge and urge him to veto the zoning code.
A veto would give the Commission the opportunity to reconsider the issue,
and hopefully agree to restore the current greenbelt zoning. Secondly,
we can continue to work towards adopting a TDR ordinance in the spring.
The state legislature is expected to modify its rules to make TDRs easier
to use sometime in the next four months. When this occurs, it will be
a good opportunity to introduce TDRs in Athens and make a zoning code
that does what we, the people, want it to. We have come too far and
worked too hard to settle for a zoning code that gives us sprawl.
 A
reminder from Alfred Rucker
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