Terry, I agree with you.

Hard to say. My memory for that area doesn't serve me well, but a Google Earth search shows that, yes, there is an old apartment complex there or adjacent to that address. A residential home has also been attached to that address. So, I'm not quite sure. I hope to find out soon. And if not immediately then definitely Thursday.

Yes, that is the correct date.

Thanks for your research on the property — but the developer will surely go for denser zoning: either RA-8 (allows attached townhouses ) or maybe R-50 allowing SF homes on 50-ft wide lots. Both can produce a density of 8 units per acre compared to the 4 units per acre for most SF zones in our area. Probably can kiss the trees goodbye unless you work out a real good site plan as a zoning condition. Trouble is, you CANNOT RELY on DeKalb County, Jeff Rader, or the Burrell Ellis Administration to enforce these kinds of requirements. I can bore you with dozens of examples: the Walgreens at NoDH and Briarcliff, the Pure nightclub, the QT now being finished at Briarcliff / Clairmont, Davis Oaks townhomes on LaVista. Sorry, my hands are tired of typing.

They are seeking to change it from single family detached to single family attached. Either RA5 or RA8, 5 units per acre or 8 units per acre, townhome style.

I wish that as well. As long as it's not more apartments where more thugs can move into the neighborhood.

If clear-cutting in-town infill lots and gated communities are your idea of progress and good design — all I can say is that you are entitled to your own distorted values. The extent others share them is the reason so much of Atlanta metro development is so pathetic. Gwinnett County sounds like your kind of place. You argue that if we don't give developers a blank check, our neighborhoods will become crime zones and we are inevitably the "future downtown". You are flat wrong on the first count and you don't know what you are talking about. On the second count, we will only become the next downtown if we keep allowing the development industry to elect our local officials and buy them off. We need well-planned development that improves our areas and good design that gets enforced.

Don Broussard,
In every post I read by you (which are many on this site), you come across as a jerk and a bully who shuts down the conversation. Not everyone feels the same way you do, and it's not because we are "misinformed." Calling people stupid doesn't foster a healthy dialogue. At least you use your real name for all of us to google so we can avoid you in real life social and professional settings.

I take exception to your comment that elderly people are waiting to sell their homes for the value of the land and, as such, they defer maintenance. Has it occurred to you that many elderly persons are on fixed incomes that provide very little disposable income for such things as new roofs, house painting, replacement windows, etc.? And your comment that the trees are "ugly" is thoughtless. Maybe you don't understand the significance of trees vis-a-vis your need to breathe!

Alexia - I stand corrected. I agree that many elderly have fixed incomes. (Another reason that they cannot afford to fix up their homes and indeed should wait for the home to sell for land value.) The end is the same. Rezoning does not necessarily have to be considered the evil in these situations.

Julia McElroy, You come across as someone who can't make arguments — so you resort to name-calling. It is not "bullying" to confront false statements or toxic opinions or incorrect facts. Leigh Stewart's post is full of outrageous toxic statements: that the elderly intentionally let their homes rot; that we must give developers whatever they want or else become "crime ridden and dilapidated". Maybe you subscribe to her views, maybe not. But rather than defend them with facts or logic, you make a personal attack. Public statements have consequences. Stewart's statements are wrong, are harmful — and they are an insult to everyone who has worked to make this area of DeKalb a better community. You just consider them "part of the conversation". No one is forcing you to read my posts and my post above was not addressed to you so not sure why you are taking such offense. I'm sorry that you spend time making a list of people to avoid in social and professional settings. You may Google that.

Sadly Eric, you are 100 percent correct. The DeKalb Commission and CEO has been aware of this for years — and seem quite satisfied with this state of affairs.

Good example!

You can thank the Sagamore Hills Civic Association for working out conditions of zoning for the tree save plan and the design of Davis Oaks; to the County Planning Commission (I was a member) who recommended approval with those conditions and to Commissioner Kathy Gannon who got the conditions adopted by the County Commission. The design you (and I) like so much did not happen by Developer Magic. The first plan for the site was a train wreck with the units reversed to the streets and with no architectural standards. But a legal conditions of zoning did NOT stop the county executive branch / development department from failing to enforce three of them: the width of the driveway; a requirement for brick or wood siding on the second floor levels and not stucco; and to fill the ditch along LaVista frontage and install a uniform sidewalk and granite curb. The architects who designed the units were allowed by the "staff" to ignore these legally adopted conditions. The developer, Rick Porter, got some favors. Sagamore had no money to file an appeal to challenge this —since it was already had being sued by the owners of Club Pure for opposing the permits that were so eagerly given to them by DeKalb County (Sagamore and I won that suit and Pure is no more.) Now you know. So who is your expert, Jim Bob? Thanks for making my point for me.

Your posts jump all over the place and make it unclear whether: you want to control all land sales to prevent the buyer from doing something Don does not like, or whether you're most upset about the loss of trees.

How is your virtual bravado helping the community move forward? If you feel so strongly about it, perhaps you should be peddling your consulting services to the citizens in that proximity instead of the virtual crowd here.

The NDH area is considered far more desirable and in-town than it was 50 years ago. If the re-development is going to cause you this much agony, consider moving to a more rural area. Sometimes trees are cut down. Sometime houses on what used to be sleepy roads that are no longer so sleepy are re-zoned for other uses.

My living has no relationship to the development of land in the area or lack thereof.