Top officials of Brookhaven, Dunwoody,
Chamblee and Doraville have met privately for nearly a year to work on a
potential joint planning and economic development authority called the
Peachtree Gateway Partnership.
The existence of the collaboration,
which is coordinated by the Atlanta Regional Commission, was revealed at the
Oct. 27 Brookhaven City Council meeting by Mayor Rebecca Chase Williams. She
said the four cities will start by creating a coordinated network of
pedestrian/bike trails, but have much bigger options, including forming a
nonprofit to create public-private partnerships and “a blueprint for the area.”
“The
first thing we’re going to figure out is how to connect our trails,” which will
help the cities “get used to working together,” said Dunwoody Mayor Mike Davis.
But the long-term goal is to “market
success” of the area and take a regional approach to its booming development.
“We need to be in control of it instead of letting stuff roll over us,” he
said.
The cities’ mayors requested ARC’s
help with coordinated planning, especially in response to the enormous
mixed-use redevelopment underway at the former GM plant in Doraville and the
hopes of better marketing DeKalb-Peachtree Airport on the Brookhaven/Chamblee
line.
The request is all about “trying to
coordinate their economic development goals,” said Dan Reuter, ARC’s manager of
community development, who has led the meetings. “I think we’ve got to make
ways easier for these four jurisdictions to coordinate.”
ARC suggested two large,
cross-jurisdictional, public-private partnerships as models. One is Partnership
Gwinnett in Gwinnett County.
The other is the Atlanta
Aerotropolis Alliance, a massive effort to redevelop the area around Atlanta’s
Hartsfield-Jackson International airport. Representatives of both groups have
attended Peachtree Gateway meetings. So have representatives of the GM site
redevelopment and PDK airport.
“We’re a different breed, but we can
still use that as a playbook,” PDK Interim Director Mario Evans said of the
Aerotropolis Alliance.
He added that PDK is planning more
corporate-jet hangars and is updating its master plan for the first time since
1995—though it does not plan to add runways or any other major changes.
The Buford Highway corridor is
another area that could see coordinated planning, Reuter said, adding that
Chamblee and Doraville likely need more economic development help than
Brookhaven and Dunwoody.
But first, there’s the question of
what form the partnership will take. Options range from informal talks to a
Livable Centers Initiative study to a 501(c) 6 nonprofit business league that
could create public-private partnerships with corporations. ARC prefers the
nonprofit organization model.
“They can
have meetings like they’ve done without creating a 501(c) 6 and probably do what
they want to do anyway,” Reuter said. “But I think there’s a value to bringing
big corporate partners to the table.”
However, decision time is near,
Williams said. That’s one reason she revealed the meetings, which apparently
have been kept secret even from other elected officials. She said the group met
three times last year and six times so far this year. The four mayors have
sometimes attended, and top city staff have also.
“I’m not sure the rest of the
council even knew about this,” Williams said.
“I’m surprised you even heard about
it,” Reuter said when asked about public input. “At some point, it becomes
something in the public realm,” he said, but referred only to local governments
eventually voting on the final products.
Davis and Williams will be replaced
by new mayors in January. The secrecy makes it hard to know how their
successors will respond to the details of the partnership.
Dunwoody mayor-elect Denis Shortal,
a former city councilman, said he knew nothing about the Peachtree Gateway
meetings. “I never even heard the term,” he said. “I’m going to become involved
if there is such a thing…Hopefully, come January, I will maybe be up to speed
on it.”
“Under my administration, when we
have an opportunity to work with other jurisdictions, I’m willing to do that as
long as it doesn’t negatively impact Brookhaven,” said Brookhaven mayor-elect
John Ernst. “I think there are a lot of common things we could do as neighbors,
but my main goal is making Brookhaven as best as possible.”
It also remains to be seen how
cities that formed partly out of a desire for local control respond to
regionalism-based planning.
“While it creates a lot of benefit
for local control, it then creates its own geography and the need to think
about your neighbors a little more,” Reuter said of the four cities.
“Regionalism sometimes means 10
counties or more, and sometimes it just means talking to your neighbor. In
general, we don’t want Balkanization.”
Comments
Cities
have always coordinated infrastructure maintenance at the borders, but this
doesn’t sound that simple. If planning
interconnected “trails” is a priority, I would hope that building these future
crime scenes would not be a priority.
If this 4
city cabal is a “redevelopment taxing district”, we should all object. We don’t need another appointed board selling
Bonds for crony developers. Even mini-regionalism requires a vote at the ballot
box. Regionalism is a bad idea and
should be repealed. It takes tax money
from one city or county and gives it to another without permission by the
voters. That is the Soviet System. It is dictatorial and full of corruption and
then it fails. I don’t think we need to
go there.
Our 4
cities would do well to find $4 million a year each to rebuild our rotten
asphalt roads and storm drains. I don’t
think we need to create new impenetrable bureaucratic structures. Future growth, if it is even needed, will be
cued up by applications by private investors.
Cities just need to determine if new development is appropriate and will
not result in gridlock. Our current high
density fad is suicidal.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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