100 signatures reached
To: Mayor Kelly Girtz, ACC Commissioners, W&A Engineering, Mallory & Evans LLC
Stop the Dekkle Lake Project: Unaffordable housing and environmental destruction
We, the residents of Athens-Clarke county, demand a cancellation of to the Shoals Athens project. We demand this on the following basis:
- Residents and community stakeholders were not given notice. This is a sprawling project that will impact several neighborhoods all across East Athens but homeowners and community stakeholders were not given notice that we would be facing a minimum of 1 year of loud construction or notice that our neighborhood would be drastically changed with the amount of planned noise and traffic that this project would bring. When given notice of the much smaller project of 450-460 Barnett Shoals, a proposed suburb, we, the community wholeheartedly shut down and rejected the project. That was a project less than 1/3 the size of this sprawling suburb. If we didn't want the smaller project, suffice it to say we would have completely shut down this much larger project if given our say. We were not.
- There is evidence that the lifecycle cost of this project will be passed off to Clarke county. At the time of its approval, there were still questions about whether or not the tax revenue from this project would cover the cost of the life cycle maintenance that Clarke county would be taking on for this project; that is how much the city will have to pay for road maintenance, stormwater, sewage, street lights and other infrastructure costs to make a few people wealthy and to provide more luxury housing that Athens does not need and the average Athens resident cannot afford. As we are already operating in a budget deficit, approving projects that do not benefit the health of our town and do not bring enough tax revenue to cover its cost of maintenance is not in our best interests. This was also noted in the report commissioned by W&A engineering by the NERC.(https://negrc.org/uploads/2024/07/DRI4232.FinalReport.pdf)
If this is not addressed that could lead to increased storm water fees and other fees that would have to be paid for by Clarke county residents.
- This project was approved of and formulated before the current economic situation. The jobs report was revised down to -3,200 jobs added and the "Big Beautiful Bill" impacts how many student loans a single person can take on which means the students, the PHD grads and even the professors that this project was prepared to house will not be coming to Athens. We are going to lose hundreds of acres of trees in a climate crisis for a project that will likely have to be revised down and will have empty homes. Not too far from this planned proposal is a neighborhood called Cedar Creek where empty lots of at least 6 custom homes and lots are still waiting for buyers.
- This project makes the area less climate resilient. In their own assessment, they acknowledge that they will be building on state wetlands and other vulnerable environments. The buffers that they propose around these areas are far less than the recommended buffer to maintain the health of these sensitive environments and is only the minimum required by the state.The report also makes it clear that the project as it stands does not necessarily provide full environmental protections and does need to be revised to meet those goals. Moreover, the amount of environmental destruction is not just limited to the tree cutting and clearing- building materials that close to wetlands and water will cause runoff that will impact the rest of us.
We will have less clean air, less clean water, less access to these green spaces, increased traffic, increased noise just so some people can potentially get richer. This is not a fair trade-off and we the people of Athens Clark county reject this project wholeheartedly.
We ask that the developers with consideration of the damage they will be doing to our neighborhoods, to our children's future and to Clarke County overall withdraw their plans for this financially risky and environmentally dangerous project.
We ask that our commissioners reconsider allowing this project to go forward and put in place criteria for new builds that secures our climate resiliency, our neighborhoods,their health and the health of the people who live in them.
Why is this important?
As we hurtle towards climate catastrophe and an increasingly unaffordable Athens, we cannot continue in the way that we currently are. We must approve projects that fit the criteria of providing affordable housing using already developed lands, without damaging our ecosystem, our neighborhoods or our town.
We must partner with developers who aren't just trying to make a quick buck but who are interested in creating walkable, affordable neighborhoods that benefit us all.
This project is not tailored to the current economic situation of Athens residents or even the average Georgia resident. Creating more unaffordable housing and sacrificing our clean air and climate resiliency to do so will not get us closer to our goals of an affordable Athens.
We must partner with developers who aren't just trying to make a quick buck but who are interested in creating walkable, affordable neighborhoods that benefit us all.
This project is not tailored to the current economic situation of Athens residents or even the average Georgia resident. Creating more unaffordable housing and sacrificing our clean air and climate resiliency to do so will not get us closer to our goals of an affordable Athens.
How it will be delivered
Once we reach over 1k signatures I and other concerned Athens residents will hand deliver to each of the named firms and government officials.