Voter on Alliance development gets delayed

The Decatur City Commission vote on a projected development between North dia Drive and East Ponce de Leon has delayed been for another two weeks. The vote or, more accurately, series of votes, was scheduled for the May 21 commission meeting, but developer Alliance Realty Services asked for a defer- ral until June 4. “Alliance has been working hard to revise its plans and respond to the issues raised at the (April 16) City Commission meeting,” Alliance attorney Den Webb wrote in an email to the AJC. “(Alliance submitted) revisions and new information up until (May) 17th. (Alliance has) sought a deferral to give everyone a chance to digest this new information, which it believes will be well received.” The development calls for 289 apartments, two retail buildings and a 50,000-square-foot grocery that, for the last 18 months, has been rumored to be a Publix. Precluding all this is the commission approving annexation of roughly eight of the total 9.78 acres into the city. Although the school board appeared to have given its approval last week, this proj- ect has drawn considerable contention in other quarters. In March, the city’s planning commission unanimously voted against the master plan, and three DeKalb County commissioners have consistently opposed the project. Further, several Decatur commissioners expressed reservations at the April 16 meeting. One concern, according to Mayor Patti Garrett, is with the devel- opment’s orientation; specifically, that it “is turned more inward and not outward, which is the way we want it.” Commissioner Scott Drake voted against the development April 16. “This whole thing is overwhelming to me,” Drake said. “Everything’s bundled together, the zoning changes, the master plan and annexation. These are three separate things — they need to be looked at independently and not altogether. “My prefer e nce,” he added, “is that the first step is where (the 11 property owners) get their annexation,” he said. “Now they are Decatur property owners paying Decatur taxes. At that point they can come before the city with a developer. But right now the project is driving the annexation. That’s the cart before the horse, and that’s not the way it’s done.”