Fresh Loaf

NEIN Residents raised powerful pink slips to show opposition to Beltline's plan for Northeast Atlanta

After months of heated meetings, sitdowns and redesigns, Neighborhood Planning Unit F members on Monday night hoisted pink Post-It notes of disapproval in the air and voted overwhelmingly to reject the  Beltline’s proposed vision for Northeast Atlanta.

Armed with legal opinions, mocked-up photos and fact sheets, residents of Morningside, Piedmont Heights and Virginia-Highland packed the Hillside Facility on Monroe Drive to exercise their Maynard-given right and weigh in on the hot-button issue.

In doing so, residents joined several other neighborhood associations in opposition to the plan. Monday night’s final vote tallied 99-7, with four residents abstaining. Beltline officials were visibly discouraged.

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On Dec. 1, an abysmally small percentage of Atlanta voters will return to the polls for the city runoffs:

Reed celebrates on election night

MAYOR

As the city saw on Nov. 3, Kasim Reed’s an expert finisher who passed Lisa Borders heading into the home stretch and now carries that momentum into the runoff.

But it won’t be easy to beat Mary Norwood, whose supporters hail from all corners of the city and arguably are more enthusiastic than Reed’s, and thus more likely to flock to the polls on Dec. 1. Last week’s results also confirmed previous polls that suggest Norwood seems to have a lock on north Atlanta’s white vote, which may convince the Reed campaign to try to peel away her strong support among black voters. If Reed decides to employ racial politics, the race could turn ugly and divisive.

“Reed has to increase his black voters, but it would be to his detriment to make an overt racial appeal,” says Emory political science professor Michael Owens. ” I suspect you’ll see his surrogates and supporters do that for him.”

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On Oct. 14, Westview and West End residents received good news about the long-overlooked L&N railroad tracks in Southwest Atlanta: the Georgia Department of Transportation finally voted to allow the PATH Foundation to move ahead with a proposed Beltline jogging and biking trail.

For more than a year, Patrick Berry and other neighborhood residents waited for glimmers of progress on the abandoned tracks.

Unfortunately, all they saw were dumped mattresses, shopping carts, and blankets of kudzu piling up.

“When people came to the neighborhood, they’d see garbage and overgrowth,” Berry, vice president of the Westview Community Organization, says. “It gives the impression that nobody cares.”

Beltline officials say they’ve inked a deal with Trees Atlanta to begin a five-year kudzu removal process. Ed McBrayer of the PATH Foundation, which will oversee construction of the the trail, says he plans to meet with GDOT officials this week to discuss the project.

Once completed, the 1.4-mile trail will connect with the West End trail along White Street.

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The organizers behind Pecha Kucha, the storytelling experiment in which speakers have seven minutes and a slide projector to convey the complexities of their lives and passions, have produced an excellent group of participants for the next event on Sunday, Oct. 18. The theme: “Open Letter(s) to the next Atlanta mayor.”

According to Alfredo Aponte, one of the event’s organizers: “We are doing an ‘Atlanta: Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve’ type of night, hearing from some Atlanta citizens who are doing their own parts, in their own ways.”

Among the list of speakers:

• Knife and Fork Editor and Publisher Christiane Lauterbach. The veteran food critic will talk about the growing popularity of food trucks — and how Atlanta’s missing out.

• Planner Paul Moore, one of the brains behind Connect Atlanta, the city’s transportation plan. Moore’s an engaging public speaker with a talent for making people-moving topics exciting.

• Georgia Tech Professor Mike Dobbins. The former Atlanta planning commissioner is one of the sharpest minds in the city when it comes to urban design — and the role citizens play in the process.

• Man-about-town and Beltline volunteer Angel Poventud. He’ll speak about the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit.

And those are just a few of the names. The full list of speakers and topics is after the jump. Facebook page is here. The event begins at 7 p.m. at Octane Coffee Lounge on Howell Mill Road. It’s free, but be a kind soul and buy an espresso or a beer.

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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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Up in New York City, residents, visitors and real estate agents are all agog over the High Line, a groundbreaking greenspace project that converted abandoned elevated railroad tracks into a breathtaking park. Take a look at photos and see for yourself.

James Corner, the visionary designer behind the High Line, will speak at the Georgia Tech College of Architecture’s inaugural Douglas C. Allen lecture on Nov. 2. Corner, who founded his firm james corner field operations in 1998, is considered one of best landscape architects of his generation.

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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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Fox 5 reports that some of Atlanta’s ne’er-do-wells have turned their sights toward pricey palm trees that were recently planted in Southwest Atlanta along the Beltline. Because copper, blue jeans and flat screens just weren’t cutting it, we suppose.

The station reports that the $450-a-pop palm trees’ roots were secured with rebar to prevent them from being removed. They were purchased with a grant provided by the Arthur Blank Foundation for the $2.8 billion project’s arboretum, or “museum of trees.”

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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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1. Beltline proposal near Piedmont Park prompts concerns about density (How dense is too dense at 10th and Monroe?)

2. Thoughts on passing of Atlanta LGBT rights leader Allen Thornell (Beloved activist, 38, dies after suffering a stroke.)

3. Letter to editor about Georgia reservoirs hilariously suburban (Second only to CL, the Marietta Daily Journal has some of the best letters to the editor.)

4. Oxendine attacks Obama on behalf of big donors (The Ox has to look out for his base — which, is, of course, big insurance companies.)

5. MARTA service cuts start Aug. 15 (Bus route 23 — which runs along Peachtree, linking Midtown to Buckhead — gets the axe.)

(Photo courtesy Atlanta Beltline Inc.)

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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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Atlanta City Councilwoman Anne Fauver recently voted against a study to help make the Peachtree Streetcar project eligible for federal stimulus funding. She says the Beltline is better positioned for federal funds, questions the streetcar’s scope, and wonders who will maintain the estimated $120 million project if it’s built.

On July 20, the Midtown and Downtown business associations offered the City a $600,000 grant to do a feasibility study on a streetcar line along Atlanta’s famed Peachtree Street and to prepare the City’s application for $300 million of stimulus money.

I voted against the legislation to accept the grant. It passed 11-3 so the feasibility study and the application for Federal money will be done. My position is based on the following:

The Franklin Administration asked for the legislation to be fast-tracked. Council had not had a work session or public hearing on the project. We never specifically endorsed the Streetcar proposal. The Streetcar is not THE top priority in Connect Atlanta, the City’s first comprehensive transportation plan either.

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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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The Natural Resources Defense Council, a well-regarded environmental nonprofit based in New York, this week released its list of the country’s most green, or sustainable, cities. Seattle received top honors, followed by San Francisco and Portland, Ore.

Compared to other cities with a population over 250,000, Atlanta ranked 33rd.

The rankings are based on, left to right: air quality, energy production and conservation, environmental standards and participation, green building, green space, recycling programs, transit, standard of living and water quality.

The ranking’s a bit disappointing when you consider how much energy the city’s invested in such initiatives as Sustainable Atlanta, the sewer overhaul and the Beltline. Those programs, however, are still far from completion. The city leads the country in the number of LEED-certified buildings, but that’ll only get you so far when you consider the programs such cities as Seattle and Chicago have launched.

Athens ranked 14th on the list of medium-sized cities. Roswell ranked 23rd among among smaller cities.

(Courtesy of NRDC)

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1. Atlanta’s doin’ it and lovin’ it, says Trojan study (We’re No. 1 in the nation for sexual satisfaction and No. 2 for frequency of sex. Yeah, right.)

2. Washington City Paper’s Marion Barry story = gold (Speaking of surprising sex stories, the City Paper’s doozie on former mayor Barry was such a hit it crashed the paper’s website. What do you expect from the headline: “He put me out in Denver ’cause I wouldn’t suck his dick”?)

3. Filthy Rich: Best of Atlanta 2009 kicks off today (There are 18 days left to vote for the city’s best bands, restaurants, galleries, music venues, artists, shops and cultural attractions.)

4. Peachtree Streetcar vision isn’t dead yet (But it ain’t exactly called desire.)

5. GDOT, Beltline strike deal on vital track segments (City now controls roughly half of the right of way along the Beltline’s 22-mile loop.)

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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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All day Sunday, a small cadre of local artists and arts lovers gathered at Eyedrum to kick off the first phase of a grassroots project to add a touch of art to the Beltline — and to make more people aware of where it is.

The project, which has been months in the making, involves creating more than 100 artful signs to designate where the 22-mile smart-growth project crosses public streets.

Angel Poventud, one of the project’s co-organizers, says WonderRoot staff spent $400 on wood on Saturday night. The next day, artists brought whatever materials they had — oils, pastels, even house paint — and got to work.

“It’s hard to believe you can pull off a project like this for less than a grand,” Poventud says. “But it’s all about the passion. And it’s here.”

The group plans to install the signs along the project sometime this week. After the jump, more photos from the event.

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WonderRoot’s hosting a good ol’ fashioned sign-makin’ party this Sunday at Eyedrum. What’s the occasion, you ask? Why the BeltLine of course. The proposed BeltLine will cross public rights-of-way at 108 different points throughout the city. To help raise awareness about the project, local artists (and anyone else who’s interested in participating) will gather at 1 p.m. this Sun., June 28 at Eyedrum (280 MLK Drive) to make art signs to place at each of the locations. “Later in the week, WonderRoot artists and volunteers will work throughout the night placing the art at each of the 108 locations,” says the e-mail from WonderRoot co-founder Chris Appleton.

More from Appleton:

“Artists, like most residents of Atlanta, are excited about the BeltLine,” said Chris Appelton, co-founder of WonderRoot. “Yet it seems that most people don’t know how transformative this project will be. It’s our hope that people will get up and go to work next week and see for themselves where the BeltLine will be. Additionally, the city will be full of original public art.”

Come one, come all!

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Beltline Arboretum

Trees Atlanta has selected local artist David Landis to create the first piece of public art for a planned arboretum, or tree museum, along the Beltline.

Once completed, the arboretum will circle the entire 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit, and be one of the largest tree museums in the United States.

Landis was selected from a field of 20 applicants. His sculpture, which will be inspired by residents’ memories of trees and the historic West End community, will represent the first of 14 tree and plant collections along the smart-growth project.

Trees Atlanta says the sculpture will be designed to be a “landscape in motion” and will be installed in the West End’s Rose Circle Park early next year. The work is made possible by a grant from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation.

Landis, who created the Butterfly Pavilion at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, has also shown work in Minneapolis, Albany, Ga., Toulose, France and throughout the metro region. A graduate of the University of Georgia and Georgia State University, he’s also taught at the latter and Dunwoody’s Spruill Center for the Arts.

Beltline and community officials will celebrate Landis’ selection on Thursday, July 9 at 7 p.m. at the Hammond House. The event is free and open to the public.

This post has been altered to fix a typo of the artist’s name.

(Screenshot courtesy of Trees Atlanta)

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A Georgia Department of Natural Resources meeting

1. Atlanta city infrastructure best in country? (The list-generating business consultants at Mercer say Atlanta has the best city infrastructure in the United States. Um, what?)

2. Blog: Rep. Bearden, R-Glock, paid by Carrollton — but for what? (Carrollton city manager told CL that the lawmaker often leads programs and initiatives and assists with some matters “you can’t talk about.” Well, that settles it.)

3. TEAM COVERAGE: Piedmont Park pool poo spill lead story on AJC.com (Atlanta’s daily newspaper: No. 1 for No. 2 news!)

4. Parking scofflaws, your free ride will soon be over (Illegally parked cars with unpaid parking tickets will soon be booted. Oh crap.)

5. Coyle makes Atlanta City Council bid official (Neighborhood activist who fought to preserve the integrity of the Beltline makes a go at politics.)

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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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