Augusta Heights hearing set for Feb. 11

By John Boyanoski  

FEBRUARY 2, 2010 2:17 p.m. (0)

A small truck with a six-inch wide drill suspended off its back may have spelled the end to a fight over a proposed apartment complex on Augusta Road Tuesday morning.

The drill did eight borings into a bluff next to Augusta Heights Baptist Church that developers plan to build 37-units on and that area residents have been fighting since last spring when the project first went public.

The borings found enough dirt for Atlanta-based Prestwick Development to go forward with the project that will get state subsidies to help low-income residents live there. Final approval could be given following a public hearing at City Hall on Feb. 11.

In a public review this afternoon, though, the representatives for the developers shared the just finished drilling results, new site graphics, a traffic study and talked maintenance issues with four members of the commission.

Board members had asked for the developers to come back with the proposals during a meeting last month. Unlike the January meeting where almost 200 people jammed into two rooms at City Hall, Tuesday’s meeting was sparsely attended as the commissioners heard the report.

The borings as well as the site plans that featured artist renderings of what the L-shaped structure will look like from various nearby roads and vantage points met with tacit approval from commission members. The borings were important because there were fears the developers would clear the land, find there was too much rock to build and then abandon the project.

“You’ve come a long way,” said Brody Glenn, commission chairman.

The maintenance plan met with some question over what the city could do to make sure the apartments remains clean, the grass cut and the landscaping in tact. Prestwick will have to own and maintain the site for at least 20 years because of the government assistance, but planning members wanted to come up with more guarantees.

No decision was made.

The traffic study met with the most scrutiny. Area residents have said the added cars from the complex would create further vehicle snarls in this neighborhood that sees a lot of traffic because of nearby Blythe Academy.

Using national engineering standards for population and density, the Prestwick team said the development will create about 17 cars trying to merge into traffic during peak morning hours.

The cars would add an average 1.5 seconds of extra wait time per car at Augusta Road intersections, and as much as 71 seconds per car on some of the side streets.

Commission members said they wanted to see more of the study before next Thursday’s meeting including non-peak hour delays as well as a real-time model of what driving could look like on the road.

The development site is a roughly 2.5-acre lot that has the church’s former parsonage on it and is filled with tall Carolina Pines. The church had put the property on the market about two years ago, and Prestwick, whose principals have done about 50 such projects in the past decade, made an offer to build.

Original plans called for 48 units, but those have been scaled back to 37 in a 40,000-square-foot, two-story structure.

Comments

Add New

Leave a Comment
Comments are moderated and may not be posted immediately.
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Title:
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."