DeKalb Ave. greenspace gets stay of execution
February 22, 2008 at 9:01 am by Thomas Wheatley in News
News from Teri Stewart, the Lake Claire resident and gallery owner who is leading the neighborhood fight against a tree cutting and development project at the corner of DeKalb and Gordon avenues — a half-acre slice of land residents call the last greenspace along the well-traveled and busy thoroughfare.
At a city of Atlanta Tree Commission hearing Wednesday night, Stewart says, residents were given one month by the commission to raise $1 million and purchase the land. Adam Gaslowitz, the property’s owner, cannot cut down any trees in that period. The decision grants “Grandmaw Gordon,” the antique pecan tree that has stood on the land for more than 150 years, a temporary pardon. Stewart has sent letters to Gov. Sonny Perdue and the governors of Alabama and Florida, as well as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, saying that the tree, which she claims is immune to a disease that afflicts the species, could be studied to bolster pecan tree crops throughout the Southeast.
If the fundraising effort fails, residents have the option of appealing their case in Fulton County Superior Court.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
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February 22nd, 2008 at 11:43 am
I applaud the community efforts to preserve the trees on this land and hope they can raise enough money to purchase the land from the owner at a fair market price. One of the reasons I moved to my neghborhood is the beauty of the “greenspaces”.
I can’t help but think that the unintentional signal this will send to other owners of developable land is “Don’t be the last one with trees on your land. Cut them now, before anyone notices there are no other green spaces nearby so they can’t stop you later.”
Does it seem unfair to anyone that the owners of every other parcel in the area mentioned were allowed to profit from the development of their land, but this owner is not? Only because he is the last one?
I wonder why this tree has not been studied in the last 150 years? Or has it?
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Unfair?
You won’t be saying that in five years when pecan pie no longer exists because a deadly pecan tree virus wiped out the species.
You’re just a dupe for Big Pumpkin Pie. I know it.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Yep, love me some Pumpkin pie.
Unfair is the ripoff that we only celbrate the BPP on Halloween.
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Apple Pie Now! Apple Pie Tomorrow! Apple Pie Forever!
p.s. I like cherry, blueberry, blackberry and strawberry rhubarb pies, too.
October 6th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Funny… The businessmen are giving the local residents a cute little bullsh*t opportunity to save one of the few green spaces left by means of a $1,000,000.00 ransom!
Now just how the hell are hippies supposed to get $1,000,000.00 in such a short time?
Lets face it, there are WAY to many prefab condos in atlanta now, and they exist on land where forest, and houses with trees and useful yard space once existed.
If that land still exists they should start a long term demonstration that involves tunneling in and makeshift tree houses to make it difficult and expensive for the bailiffs to remove them. Now THAT would make for a far more powerful public display of defiance.
Hell, I’ve done the research on how to do that properly, so I’ll help with the planning and execution if anyone can organize some hippie help?
October 6th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Contact me at LocustsOfSteel @ Yahoo dotcom if that space still remains and you are a truly driven hippie.
Maye we can make a positive change in our comunity by saving what little wooded spaces remain.