Fresh Loaf

Beltline officials have hit back at an all-volunteer citizen advisory group tasked with monitoring the $2.8 billion project — and have essentially accused it of trying to take control of the Beltline.

The accusation was raised after the Tax Allocation District Advisory Committee, or TADAC, recently questioned whether an upcoming bond issuance would adequately fund affordable housing and public art along the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit.

TADAC also said Beltline officials have been reluctant to disclose information that could help the group make better recommendations about how public funds are spent on the project, which will include new parks, trails and (hopefully) transit along with much-needed affordable housing and economic development incentives. (For an excellent report on TADAC’s concerns and how everyone got to this point, check out the Jim Walls article linked above. Hell, we’ll link to it again here.)

In the Sept. 10 letter to Atlanta City Council, Beltline officials said the citizen advisory group’s recommendations “propose expanding TADAC’s scope and responsibility to make it the governing and operating entity of the Beltline project.”

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Atlanta mayoral candidates Lisa Borders, Mary Norwood, Kasim Reed and Jesse Spikes will sit down on Tuesday, Sept. 29, at All Saints Episcopal Church on West Peachtree Street to give their views on the Beltline, the $2.8 billion 22-mile loop of parks, trails and (hopefully) transit.

The Beltline, which has made considerable traction in the last year, also faces difficult hurdles. Its main funding source, a tax allocation district, relies on increased development along the loop. As we all know, there’s not a whole lot of that going on at the moment. There are also neighborhood-level debates over density and concerns about equitable funding and transparency. The next mayor will sit on the Beltline board and have to weigh in on those discussions.

The forum, which is sponsored by the Atlanta Preservation Center, BeltLine Network, Citizens for Progressive Transit, Park Pride and PEDS, will be moderated by former Atlanta City Council President Cathy Woolard. Woolard, who’s now with humanitarian organization CARE, was the public-works project’s biggest cheerleader while at City Hall.

The two-hour event begins at 6 p.m. For directions to All Saints Episcopal Church, go here.

(Courtesy Atlanta Beltline Inc.)

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CL reported last month that some residents of political minefield District 6 expressed concerned over City Council candidates Liz Coyle and Alex Wan’s positions on the boards of Atlanta Beltline Inc. and the Atlanta Development Authority.

Some residents of the district — which includes Midtown, Candler Park and Virginia-Highland — thought the candidates’ service posed a potential conflict of interest. There was also confusion about the city’s rules regarding city candidates who sit on such boards. But the rules said there wasn’t a problem for either political hopeful, and that was that.

At Beltline CEO Terri Montague’s going-away party on Aug. 17 (she steps down at the end of the month), Coyle told ABI boardmembers that she was resigning from the board.

Coyle told CL at last night’s Beltline quarterly briefing that she made the decision several weeks ago so she could focus her energy on the crowded City Council race. The debate about the conflict of interest was also a factor, she said.

“While I believe it in my heart there was no conflict, [the issue] was a concern for me,” she said. “But truly the main motivation is focusing my energy on running for City Council District 6.”

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Beltline officials have proposed allowing future developers to build up to eight stories at 10th Street and Monroe Drive. (Looking northeast from Grady High School)

Some intown residents who’ve never been ones to shy away from city and developer battles say they’re none too pleased with the proposed vision of the Beltline near Piedmont Park.

According to preliminary plans for the Beltline’s segment that stretches from Ansley Park to City Hall East, future developers would be allowed to build up to eight stories at the congested corner of 10th Street and Monroe Drive.

That’s a far cry from the twin Towers of Babel that Gwinnett County developer Wayne Mason wanted to build on the same spot in 2006. But the reduction in size — and the fact that no specific development project’s been proposed — hasn’t stopped some residents from voicing concerns over what they say is an inappropriate vision for one of intown Atlanta’s most popular neighborhoods.

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The Atlanta City Council Finance and Executive Committee yesterday gave Beltline officials the green light to issue up to $267 million in bonds to fund the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit.

At a citizen advisory committee meeting on Tuesday at the East Atlanta library, Richard Lutch of Atlanta Beltline Inc. told members that project officials will issue bonds in the $145 million-$165 million range in October, a good chunk of which will go to refinance last year’s bond issuance.

Exactly how other cash raised from the issuance will be used for trails, parks and other Beltline features is still undecided. But officials have a basic idea.

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Sure, you’ve heard about the Beltline and how it’ll boast sleek streetcars, new parks and winding multi-use trails circling Atlanta’s urban core. Critics say it will never get off the ground and supporters say it’ll change the city forever. But it’s a tough bugger to grasp if if you’ve never seen the areas the $2.8 billion project will impact.

Beltline volunteer and all-around good guy Angel Poventud agreed to lead CL’s Tara-Lynne Pixley and Benjamin Vanhorn on a tour of key spots along the proposed 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit.

To read about where the project stands now, check out “The Beltline’s tipping point.”

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IMAGINE TRANSIT HERE: The path of the Beltline, seen here crossing Ponce de Leon Avenue, crosses through 45 Atlanta neighborhoods.

You can understand why Beltline officials have earmarked $10,000 in the project’s upcoming fiscal year for “crisis communications.”

Since the city embarked on its mission to build a 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit around Atlanta’s urban core — a project that officials say will transform the city from a car-dependent hodgepodge of villages to a smart-growth wonderland served by streetcar — it’s faced its share of catastrophes.

In 2008, a state Supreme Court ruling temporarily stripped the Beltline of half its funding. Later that year, a controversial payout to Gwinnett County developer Wayne Mason raised questions over decisions about how the project allocated taxpayer dollars. In January, a bitter battle over rusty railroad tracks waged by the Beltline and a partnership of Amtrak and the Georgia Department of Transportation seemed ready to cripple the project.

But in all these crises, the Beltline emerged victorious. And on July 10, project officials had more good news to report.

After weeks of negotiations, Beltline officials struck a deal for two vital segments of GDOT-owned abandoned railroad tracks in southwest and southeast Atlanta. Atlanta Beltline Inc., the agency charged with implementing the project, now controls nearly 50 percent of the right-of-way it needs to form the spine of the 22-mile transit loop.

Continue reading “The Beltline’s tipping point”

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Beltline has secured a purchase option on segments highlighted above in red

The Beltline and Georgia Department of Transportation have agreed that key railroad tracks owned by the state agency will indeed be part of the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit.

GDOT Commissioner Vance Smith and Atlanta Beltline Inc. CEO Terri Montague announced today the agencies have struck a deal over a two vital segments of railroad tracks in Southwest and Southeast Atlanta.

The set of tracks in Southwest Atlanta stretch more than three miles from Allene Avenue to Lena Street. The other segment, which is much smaller, runs from Wylie Street to Memorial Drive in Reynoldstown.

According to the agreement, Beltline officials have exclusive claim on the properties until June 30, 2012. Until then, ABI will lease the segments and prepare them for public use — think hiking tours, urban sightseeing, etc.

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Leading up to Liz Coyle’s jump into the District 6 race for Atlanta City Council, there were questions as to whether the Atkins Park resident would have to resign from her position as community representative on the Beltline board of directors.

Candidate Liz Coyle

At first Coyle planned to step down from the post, a nonpaying, citywide gig to which the Council appoints a community member. Then, at a monthly meeting of an advisory board tasked with overseeing how taxpayer dollars are spent on the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit, Coyle told members she was advised by the Atlanta Development Authority’s counsel that she didn’t have to.

Neither does Alex Wan, one of Coyle’s many opponents in the District 6 race. He serves on the ADA’s TAD and finance committees. (Here’s a list of ADA board members.)

Some residents, however, are raising questions in the politically active district (and in the comments of Fresh Loaf posts). Some of them deal with confusion over the candidates’ status on the boards, others involve concerns that candidate still serving on boards could pose a potential conflict of interest.

Can Coyle and Wan run for office and serve on the boards? Yes, they can. To understand why, you’ve gotta examine ADA’s organizational structure.

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Dave Williams of the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports that the Atlanta Development Authority has declined to hang on to the $6 million of Atlanta Public Schools funding generated from the Beltline tax allocation district.

Remember that whole deal? There was a lot of head scratching about whether the school board was in danger of violating its charter with such an arrangement. The “pay-us-back-over-10-years” thing sure as hell sounded like a loan, something cash-strapped APS isn’t allowed to do.

Well:

…on Wednesday, authority officials said potential legal complications surrounding receipt of the funds prompted them to decide not to take the money. Instead, the authority will focus on moving forward by the end of this year with a bond issue to support the Beltline project.

No word on exactly what those potential legal complications were. But it’s likely that the lawyering and research needed to iron out the kinks would’ve stressed more man hours and brain cells than the $6 million was worth.

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Liz Coyle

Loyal AJC “unpluggers” might have noticed a little morsel of newsy-ness in Sunday’s conversation between the paper’s Deborah Solomon Rosalind Bentley and Terri Montague, the Atlanta Beltline Inc. CEO who recently announced her plans to leave the $2.8 billion project come September.

[Montague]:…So I started looking at near-term changes that were going to occur: a turnover in my board that’s about to happen, the mayor leaving. I’ve got one member who hasn’t declared yet but they’re planning to run for public office.

[Bentley]: Who? You’re not being coy are you, and it’s really you?

[Montague]: (Laughs) No, I said a member of the board.

Montague was referring to Liz Coyle, a politically active Midtown resident who’s the Atlanta City Council appointment to the Beltline board. Maria Saporta recently reported Coyle’s hinted at her plans to run for the District 6 Council seat.

Councilwoman Anne Fauver, who’s represented the diverse intown district that includes the Morningside, Midtown and Druid Hills neighborhoods for two terms, won’t seek re-election. Before Coyle can jump into the race, she has to resign from her board position, which she is expected to do at its meeting this morning.

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After several months of negotiations, the Atlanta Public Schools board yesterday approved a deal with the Atlanta Development Authority that will return $18 million to the cash-strapped school system.

At issue was $18 million the ADA had already collected from the Beltline and Perry/Bolton tax allocation districts, or TADs. TADs are complex — and controversial — redevelopment tools which use property tax increases to pay for roads, sewers and other infrastructure fixes in traditionally blighted areas. (Atlantic Station and downtown’s Ivan Allen Plaza are examples of TADs.) In February 2008, the Georgia Supreme Court banned school boards from participating in the projects. In November 2008, Georgia voters approved a state Constitutional amendment that would allow school boards to participate. In April, state lawmakers passed — and Gov. Sonny Perdue signed — a bill that fine-tuned TADs and allowed schools the option not to participate in the projects.

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EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson made her first official visit to Atlanta today to award a $1 million grant that’ll help clean up toxic sites in the city and along the Beltline.

The grant, which will be used to start a revolving loan fund, will pay for clean-ups of hazardous or polluted properties along seven of the city’s redevelopment corridors: Memorial Drive, Pryor Road, Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway, Simpson Road, Campbellton Road, Jonesboro Road and Stadium Area/Summerhill.

The Beltline, the city’s proposed 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit, overlaps some of those selected areas.

After the jump, some more info about the grant — plus the requisite photo of public officials holding a giant plastic check!

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At last week’s State Transportation Board meeting in Douglas, Ga., Erik Steavens of the department’s intermodal program director briefed board members on land negotiations that are underway between GDOT and Atlanta Beltline Inc., the agency tasked with designing the planned 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit that will one day circle the city’s urban core.

GDOT owns two pieces of transit right-of-way that ABI has marked as part of the project’s “spine” — a small sliver in Southeast Atlanta and a larger one in Southwest Atlanta.

After the jump, screenshots from Steavens’ presentation to GDOT board members depicting the properties, including what kind of profit the department might see from their sale.

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No matter how green its parks, sleek its streetcars and well-maintained its bike trails, should the planned Beltline become a playground solely for the well-heeled, it will have failed at one of its core objectives.

From its beginnings, one of the most important initiatives of the $2.8 billion Beltline project has been to ensure that people of all incomes have an opportunity to live near or along the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit. And even more importantly, to prevent Atlanta from repeating the past mistake of sweeping out longstanding communities for the cause of revitalization.

With last November’s referendum to allow school systems to legally participate in redevelopment projects — and the Atlanta Public Schools’ recent decision to once again opt into the Beltline’s tax allocation district — the largest public works endeavor of its kind in the country is now moving closer to becoming a reality.

According to Beltline legislation, 15 percent of the taxpayer dollars used to fund the project — about $240 million — must be set aside for affordable housing. The goal: 5,600 affordable units distributed throughout Atlanta over the 25-year lifespan of the project’s TAD, its main funding source. The first round of that funding, totaling $8.3 million, is currently under way.

“Arguably, that’s the largest single pot of money for affordable housing in the city of Atlanta,” says Bruce Gunter, president and CEO of affordable-housing developer Progressive Redevelopment Inc., who’s pushed for mixed-income communities and work force housing for more than 20 years. “I remember when you couldn’t get diddly for affordable housing.”

But the program had the misfortune to kick off in the middle of the big real estate meltdown. And the advisory board tasked with helping guide the program was recently told of an unforeseen ethical snafu.
In December, Gunter, then chair of the Beltline Affordable Housing Advisory Board, asked Ginny Looney, the city’s ethics officer, whether he and his fellow board members would be allowed to apply for the affordable housing incentive funds.

Continue reading “Beltline’s affordable housing program starts up despite shakeup, economy”

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Atlanta Beltline Inc. President and CEO Terri Montague told CL Tuesday that no cloakroom antics were behind her announcement that she’ll leave the ambitious public-works project on September 1. Simply put, she says: Now’s a good time for her to find another challenge and ensure the $2.8 billion project doesn’t lose momentum.

“This is about a transition in leadership,” Montague said at last night’s Beltline Quarterly Briefing at the Atlanta Public Schools auditorium. “Now is better than later to think about how that looks like, who that person is, and what’s best for the next stage of [the project's development]…In the grand scheme of things, now is a good time to make that change.”

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Atlanta Beltline Inc. President and CEO Terri Montague says she’ll depart the agency tasked with designing the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit on Sept. 1.

“It has been my privilege to serve the City and the BeltLine team in this capacity and to help the project achieve its early milestones and momentum over these nearly three years,” Montague said in a press release. “BeltLine implementation has come a very long way in a very short time—thanks in part to the project’s many partners and supporters.”

Montague joined the Beltline in July 2006. ABI says she’ll assist the organization in a consulting capacity until the end of the year to help with her successor’s transition.

More to come. The full press release is after the jump.

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The new bill clamps down on what local government officials can consider a “blighted” area.

From Dave Williams at the Atlanta Business Chronicle:

Only neighborhoods truly in need of taxpayer-funded redevelopment would qualify as tax allocation districts under legislation signed this week by Gov. Sonny Perdue.

The legislation, designed to accompany a constitutional amendment ratified by Georgia voters last fall, tightens the definitions of “blighted” and “deteriorated” areas under the state’s TAD law.

…

Under the new law, only neighborhoods marked by substandard buildings, high vacancy rates and high poverty and unemployment could qualify as TADs. That way, only properties too unattractive to lure private investment could be redeveloped with TAD money.

School boards — which chip in the largest chunk of funding if they participate in a TAD — still have a choice as to whether they want to participate in the projects.

The tough economy has forced some cash-strapped school systems to renegotiate — or even rethink — their roles in TADs. Atlanta Public Schools and Atlanta Development Authority officials are in talks to split nearly $18 million that had already been generated from the Beltline TAD prior to a 2008 state Supreme Court ruling that said TADs were unconstitutional. (The school board says it still supports the Beltline, just that it wants to begin kicking in money this year.) Gainesville City Schools recently voted to opt out of a TAD in which it initially planned to participate.

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A lot of it depends on what you want to see.

As part of its environmental study, Beltline officials are soliciting public input as to how the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit should take shape. A full list of meeting dates and locations is available in this post.

Officials last week released 14 short videos that show examples of the options under consideration for the project’s parks, trails and transit components, among other thing. They’re all in the player embedded below. To view the different videos, press play and move your mouse icon to the left or right along the bottom of the screen.

UPDATE: After the jump, the Beltline “fly-through” video.

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Beltline officials on Monday will provide residents of Southeast Atlanta a chance to offer their opinion on how they want to move around the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit. Officials will also show them how they’ll move.

The meeting, the first of five Environmental Impact Study workshops, will be held at Trees Atlanta at 6:30 p.m. It will reportedly include a Google Earth animation that will take people on a virtual tour of the project’s path. Beltline officials will take citizen input on the how the trail and transit paths should be aligned, where station stops should be located, and what type of transportation — light-rail, streetcar, etc. — they think should be used.

The meeting is scheduled to end at 8:30 p.m. Click here for directions to Trees Atlanta. A list of the remaining workshops follows after the jump. To download a flyer that includes all the workshop dates and locations, click here. (Warning: PDF)

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For most of the Beltline’s history, concerns about displacement have largely focused around slowly gentrifying neighborhoods in Southeast and Southwest Atlanta. The land and homes are less expensive and ripe for the picking by a developer agog at the thought of a project near the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit.

But at Monday morning’s Atlanta City Council meeting, councilmembers heard from concerned residents who feared a plan to save a key part of the $2.8 billion project would potentially uproot them from their homes.

At yesterday’s special-called meeting, council unanimously OK’ed a deal reached by the Georgia Department of Transportation, Amtrak and Beltline officials that saved residents near the Piedmont Park the headache of high-speed trains lumbering nearby on tracks called the “Decatur Belt.” The move also saves the entire Beltline project — late last year, the city poured money into the area when it purchased the property from a Gwinnett County developer for at least $66 million.

But the vote came without some last-minute amendments thanks to Marietta Street residents who said Amtrak, GDOT and Beltline officials’ plan to save the Decatur Belt merely shifted the burden of high-speed rail on to them — and placed their homes at risk. According to rough plans presented to GDOT’s board last week, the alternate plans for high-speed rail serving Atlanta involve expanding the tracks and potentially seizing property. The buildings and lofts in which the residents could very well be some of those.

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The dispute that potentially derailed Atlanta’s smart-growth future seems to be officially coming to an end.

The Georgia Department of Transportation today ended its role in the dispute over railroad tracks in northeast Atlanta considered vital to the Beltline, the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit proposed to one day circle the city.

During its monthly meeting, the department’s board unanimously voted to remove its objection over the Beltline’s plans for the “Decatur Belt,” a 4.3-mile rail segment that stretches from Ansley Park to DeKalb Avenue.

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Beltline

The federal agency in charge of the exciting topic of “railroad abandonments” has told the Georgia Department of Transportation, Amtrak and Atlanta Beltline Inc. that it expects an update about the three agencies’ dispute over hotly contested Beltline tracks no later than March 23.

In a decision filed today, the U.S. Surface Transportation Board says it received the transportation agencies’ requests for 15 more days to resolve any remaining issues about the “Decatur Belt,” a 4.3-mile segment of rail that runs from Ansley Park to DeKalb Avenue and hugs Piedmont Park.

In late January, the local, state and federal agencies got into a nasty fight over the rail segment, which is owned by the city and planned to be a vital part of the Beltline, the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit envisioned to circle the city. Last Friday, the agencies said they’d reached a “consensus” that commuter or intercity rail did not need to run on the tracks.

(Courtesy Atlanta Beltline Inc.)

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Brown Middle School students today will plant nearly 1,000 trees and shrubs to help build the Beltline’s “arboretum.” The 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit is planned to boast one of the country’s largest “tree museums” once complete.

From the AJC:

Trees Atlanta and the Atlanta Audubon Society are working with Brown Middle School to plant fig and black walnut trees, blueberry bushes and other bird-friendly trees and shrubs at the West End school. The project was largely funded by a $42,400 grant from TogetherGreen, a National Audubon Society program sponsored by Toyota.

Trees Atlanta spokeswoman Cheryl Kortemeier said the middle school is along the first piece of the Atlanta BeltLine Arboretum, a one-mile path next to the abandoned train tracks. It is accessible from the school and Gordon White Park. Kortemeier said the arboretum’s theme for the West Connection is ethnobotany, or how trees and plants are used as medicine.

Residents who want to help out by mulching, watering and planting remaining trees can visit the work site on Saturday at 9 a.m. Contact Trees Atlanta for more information. To download the arboretum’s conceptual plans, visit the Beltline’s webpage on the project. (The plans, which are PDF files and located along the right column, are very large but incredibly resourceful if you’re a tree-loving Atlantan.)

(Image courtesy of Atlanta Beltline Inc. and Trees Atlanta)

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Happy ending for the Beltline?

Residents and transit wonks hoping for a Friday cease-fire over unused railroad tracks called the “Decatur Belt” got good news today.

Officials from the Beltline, Georgia Department of Transportation, Amtrak and other transportation agencies say they’ve reached an agreement regarding the hotly contested rail segment that stretches from Ansley Park to DeKalb Avenue.

“These parties have reached a consensus on joint actions to develop and implement a plan to accommodate commuter rail, intercity and high-speed rail service in the region that does not require the use of the Decatur Belt rail corridor,” a joint statement says.

The agencies agree that a commuter, intercity or high-speed rail line could operate along modified tracks west of the city. Beltline supporters initially proposed such a concept, but Amtrak and GDOT rejected it, calling it difficult because those tracks are busy freight routes.

A technical committee recommends a long-awaited downtown train terminal proposed near Philips Arena which would accommodate the trains be redesigned, that Amtrak consider possible stations along MARTA’s Northeast line, and that the local, state and regional transportation agencies conduct a study of freight traffic options in metro Atlanta.

In other words: It appears that, barring anything insanely out-of-the-blue, the mixed-use, light-rail Beltline vision proposed near Piedmont Park is safe.

Background and the full release from the agencies after the jump.

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