The Atlanta Botanical Garden has responded to the environmental news site which last week questioned whether the Piedmont Park, er, parking deck was as “green” as it’s been touted.
After the jump, the garden’s PR people point out what they say were factual errors in Grist’s article. They even invite the Seattle-based news service out for a tour.
Environmental news site Grist has an interesting post today questioning whether the controversial parking deck in Piedmont Park is as “green” — or LEED-certified — as its proponents have claimed.
But the pro-parking deck forces point to its green attributes, and even named it “SAGE”—for Safety Access Greenspace and Expansion. Per the Conservancy’s website, the garage was built to LEED standards, with shaded areas for cars to reduce heat island effect; increased access to the park for visitors; a “virtually invisible” structure within several years, when the potted trees finally blossom; special parking spots for hybrids and such; a top-level bike rack; and rainwater capture to irrigate the gardens.
Hm. Other than the last two ingredients, pretty much none of its touted green factors are particularly green, nor are they part of the LEED system. In fact, the U.S. Green Building Council has no record of the SAGE parking facility—it was neither registered (the first step toward certification) nor certified. And a parking garage isn’t eligible for LEED certification—a building, says Scot Horst, senior vice president of LEED, must have at least one resident to even be considered.
Foes of the parking deck weren’t mollified by the LEED claims—“Putting trees in pots on a concrete monstrosity didn’t transform the essential nature of the beast,” says [Friends of Piedmont Park board member Jack White]—but the even more troubling thing, at least to the folks who oversee LEED, is the misuse of their carefully crafted system. LEED has endured a lot of criticism in its 13-year history—for being too complex, not accounting for regional differences, costing too much to achieve, etc.—and has responded with a user-friendlier version, dubbed LEED 3.0, this year. But, says Horst, if a project isn’t officially certified, “you have no idea what [developers] mean” when they use the term. (The Piedmont conservancy did not return email requests for comment.)
1. Woodstock lawmaker hates edumacation (BJs and prostitutes and legislators — oh my.)
2. Beltline, Amtrak, GDOT maps and more! (Looks like some serious wonks are reading Fresh Loaf. Hi guys!)
3. Piedmont parking deck foe gets award (Parking decks bad. People who hate parking decks good.)
4. Homer Simpson’s worst nightmare (Everybody lusts after donuts — almost as much as they lust after … )
5. Lust List 2009: The Countdown ( … super-sexy unsung Atlantans.)
In 2005, Doug Abramson — along with an army of Midtown residents and Atlanta activists who banded together as Friends of Piedmont Park — fought tooth and nail to not only battle plans for a controversial parking deck in Piedmont Park, but also push the city and Atlanta Botanical Garden to act in a transparent manner about their plans for a project proposed on public land.
The fight split the neighborhood and the city. Signs in residents’ front yards became billboards for support or opposition. In July 2008, after much heated debate and several legal skirmishes, a Fulton County Superior Court judge said Friends of Piedmont Park must pay damages to the garden.
Nonetheless, Abramson remains involved in efforts to make government more transparent and accountable. And on Feb. 28, the Georgia First Amendment Foundation will honor Abramson for his open-government work at its awards banquet at the Commerce Club in downtown Atlanta. That night, at a reception honoring Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears, Abramson will be presented with the 2009 Open Government Hero Award.
For more information about the banquet, one which is sure to attract many of the state’s legal bigwigs and activists who are open government advocates, visit the Georgia First Amendment Foundation.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
A Fulton County Superior Court judge yesterday ruled in favor of the Atlanta Botanical Garden in its case against Friends of Piedmont Park, the nonprofit citizens’ group that fought a parking deck in the city’s iconic Midtown greenspace.
Judge T. Jackson Bedford determined two of the four claims filed by the garden against the group were “without merit” and ordered lawyers from the two sides to assess damages in the next two weeks.
The garden initially sought $290,000 in damages they say were incurred because of the contentious legal fight that erupted in 2005 when it announced plans for a 800-space parking deck inside the park. Friends of Piedmont Park and other neighborhood activists fought the project on the argument that a taxpayer-funded public space should not gift property to a private nonprofit organization without public engagement and input. The bitter dispute raged both in court documents and yard signs and divided nearby residents and the city at large.
The Atlanta City Council voted for the deck and Mayor Shirley Franklin signed its legislation later that year. The deck is scheduled to open in May and according to Mary Pat Matheson, the garden’s executive director, it will be virtually unseen, grant more access to the park, and potentially boast LEED-certification.
Matheson says she is “obviously very pleased” with Bedford’s ruling. Doug Abramson of Friends of Piedmont Park declined comment.
Friends of Piedmont Park, the nonprofit park advocacy group that was one of the most vocal opponents against the Piedmont Park parking deck, responded today to the Atlanta Botanical Garden’s claim seeking $273,000 in legal fees after last year’s bitter Open Records dispute. The nonprofit group filed an answer motion to contest the garden’s claim that the entire brouhaha was “frivolous.”
We haven’t had the chance to sift through every word of the 34-page document, but Abramson says it states why FOPP thinks it was justified for testing the garden’s refusal to open its financial records based on its private, nonprofit status.
“It explains why the standard of being ‘frivolous’ was not met,” Doug Abramson, president of FOPP, said in a phone interview. “It was anything but ‘frivolous.’”
He calls the garden’s $273,000 claim an act of vengeance and a warning to other organizations against following its example. The garden says FOPP’s lawsuit forced them to divert money from exhibit and operations budgets in order to pay its lawyers.
We’ll stay on top of it. In the meantime, click here to peruse FOPP’s 34-page response to the garden’s $273,000 “request.” (Heads-up: It’s a Word document.)
Well, that went relatively unnoticed.
On Dec. 7, 2007, the Atlanta Botanical Garden filed a $273,000 lawsuit against the Friends of Piedmont Park and Doug Abramson, the park advocacy group’s president. The garden claims that because of an earlier suit filed by Abramson seeking the garden’s financial records, it had to spend unbudgeted funds — almost $300,000, according to a garden spokesperson — on a legal defense contesting the suit.
In 2004, the garden pushed for a parking deck in Atlanta’s most iconic greenspace to accommodate more visitors. The Piedmont Park Conservancy backed the idea.
FOPP, however, along with many other voices in the community, didn’t like the sound of that, and fought the project with gusto. After a series of lawsuits and a lot of yard signs, a judge in September said it came down to this: The deck’s getting built and the garden doesn’t have to disclose its financial records — it was and is, the judge said, a private, nonprofit entity.
(For an excellent rundown and take on the parking deck debate, click here for former CL staff writer Michael Wall’s “Welcome to Piedmont Parking Deck.”)
The garden says that FOPP’s lawsuit was “frivolous” — a legal imbroglio that was a whole lotta legwork, paperwork and headache. And now FOPP is being handed a $273,000 bill for legal fees, which the garden claims it had to divert from other projects in order to pay.
Click here to read the garden’s lawsuit against FOPP.
And from Doug Abramson at FOPP’s website:
Central to the Atlanta Botanical Garden’s claim for fees is the unwarranted contention that Friends of Piedmont Park was “frivolous” in its attempt to secure a judge’s ruling that the Botanical Garden must comply with open records laws. Frivolous? Hardly. Determining whether the Atlanta Botanical Garden, as a steward of public land, should be treated as a public agency is an important policy question. An impressive group of First Amendment advocates supports our position. Before going to court, Friends of Piedmont Park sought an opinion from the Georgia Attorney General’s office on this issue. Initially the AG supported the position that the Atlanta Botanical Garden is subject to Georgia’s Sunshine Laws and should turn over documents. Later, after our suit was filed and the AG’s office consulted with Botanical Garden attorneys, the Department of Law wrote that “substantial questions remain as to whether the Garden is in fact covered by [the Georgia Open Records and Open Meetings Act].” By no stretch was it frivolous to ask a judge to resolve these “substantial questions.
A call to Doug Abramson’s residence was met by an answering machine. We’ll keep an eye on this one.
