Dunwoody Crown Towers agrees to ‘voluntary impact fee’ of $760,000 for DHA support, 5/1/16, Dunwoody Reporter
The Dunwoody Homeowners Associated voted
Sunday, May 1, to support the Crown Towers development and developers’ request
that the residential units be 50 percent rental and 50 percent owner occupied
at the start of construction and then converted to 75 percent owner occupied
over five years.
As part of a negotiation for the DHA’s
support, the developers have agreed to a “voluntary impact fee” of $760,000 to
the city to use toward a park in the Perimeter.
The project and money for the city is
not a sure thing, though, and must go through city council first. The Dunwoody
City Council will consider on second and final reading the proposed mixed-use
development, including two high-rises with 380 residential units, at the former
Gold Kist site at 244 Perimeter Center Parkway at its May 9 meeting. City staff
and the Planning Commission have recommended the residential units be 75
percent owner occupied and rental units be 25 percent.
The DHA voted last month to support the
proposed Crown Towers mixed-use development only if developers promised 75
percent of residential units are owner occupied and 25 percent are rental
units. But in the ensuing weeks, DHA President Robert Wittenstein said he
negotiated with the developers to agree to a “voluntary impact fee” of $2,000
per residential unit for a total of $760,000. Last week, the developers had
agreed to just $1,000 per unit, or $380,000.
“I think this is a good deal for the
city,” Wittenstein said of the proposed development. “Five years [to convert to
75 percent owner occupied] in the life of a city is a blink of an eye.”
The idea of the Westside Connector also
came up at Sunday’s DHA meeting. The Westside Connector was conceptualized in
the 2011 Perimeter Community Improvement Districts’ 10-year plan, but the idea
it could become a reality didn’t begin until last year when the owners of Crown
Holdings, who own the Gold Kist property, offered the city 2 acres for
right-of-way.
The Westside Connector, estimated at $20
million, is a planned road coming off I-285, going under Ashford-Dunwoody Road
and connecting with Perimeter Center Parkway. The road is part of a network of
connectors planned for the area as new high-rise developments are being built.
Charlie Brown with Crown Holdings
Development, the company working to redevelop the property, said last night the
Westside Connector “is the elephant in the room” when it comes to the proposed
Crown Towers development.
The donation of the 2 acres is dependent
on the city approving rezoning of the Gold Kist property for the mixed-use
development, Brown explained.
And while the $760,000 “voluntary impact
fee” is ideally for a park, Brown said he and the developers would not “stand
in the way of the people” — such as the city and PCID — if the money were to
instead be used toward a study for the Westside Connector or possibly other
traffic improvements.
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