Donation leads to a central park
Rather than developing the property, the Ledbetter family has decided to donate it to the city.
Members of Save Rome’s Central Park were celebrating Tuesday after the announcement that nearly 80 acres around the old duck pond and Burwell Creek would be returned to public hands.
“That is the best news I could wake up to!” Larry Madden posted on City Commissioner Wendy Davis’ Facebook page. “Now, let the greenheads go to work developing this property (gently) into an interpretive wetland park with trails that link up with Jackson Hill.”
That’s a likely scenario. Mayor Jamie Doss said there are no immediate plans for the property but that it would not be developed.
“It could be used for recreational trails. Our partners will be brought back to the table,” he said, referencing Coosa River Basin Initiative and TRED, a trails advocacy group.
Save Rome’s Central Park, led by Terrell Shaw, is a coalition of CRBI members and other organizations along with concerned residents.
It formed when the Ledbetter family — longtime local developers — announced Mayor Jamie Doss plans for a shopping center on the natural wetlands tract along Riverside Parkway at Turner McCall Boulevard.
The company spent nine years and about $1.3 million on environmental studies before paying the city $600,000 for the property a year ago. By that time, the coalition had extracted a promise to put the bulk of the land in a conservation easement and develop only about 7 acres.
Under a draft agreement unveiled by the city commission Monday, the Ledbetters plan to donate the whole property back as greenspace.
“This was a wonderful thing for them to do,” Shaw said. “But we couldn’t have done it without commissioners like Sue Lee and the people of Rome and Floyd County who came out every time.”
Lee, whose term ends Dec. 31, was recognized at Monday’s city commission meeting. Doss called her “an awesome commissioner” who has dedicated her life to serving the community.
The board presented Lee with a painting of the view from atop Myrtle Hill Cemetery, and Davis added a bottle of sparkling grape juice “to celebrate the good fight”
to preserve the Burwell Creek tract. Lee was focused on the donation.
“It needs to be Rome’s Central Park,” she said. “That’s a wonderful goodbye gift for me, and a Merry Christmas for most everyone.”
The donation agreement abates $111,669.62 in city and school property taxes owed for 2017. City Manager Sammy Rich said the company would still pay the county and state taxes that are due.
There’s also an issue of preservation to be worked out. The agreement calls for the property to be used, in perpetuity, as public greenspace — with the exception of the existing city public works facility. Rich said they’re discussing a sunset provision that could potentially allow some development in the future.
Bob Ledbetter Jr. was unavailable for comment Tuesday, so it was unclear what motivated the gift.