A proposal to remove three parking spots from Triangle Plaza in East Athens caused a backlash from conspiracy-minded nearby residents and divided the Athens-Clarke County Commission last week.
Of course, the request from nonprofit Farm to Neighborhood, founded by local entrepreneur Rashe Malcolm, to replace a small chunk of asphalt with greenspace was about much more than parking or a community garden. After all, who could be against providing opportunities for youth and free, fresh produce for a low-income community in a food desert? However, it dredged up decades of resentment in the historically Black neighborhood, where longtime residents have seen Black-owned properties scooped up and converted into housing for mostly white UGA students. Emotions spilled over at the commission’s Sept. 2 meeting.
First, the proposal: Farm to Neighborhood received a nearly $1 million grant from Gov. Brian Kemp’s office in 2023 to build a community garden and teaching kitchen at Triangle Plaza, at a strip mall Malcolm owns bordered by Vine Street, Grissom Street and Nellie B Avenue. Work progressed slowly because the grant only reimbursed Farm to Neighborhood for expenses, rather than provide funding upfront—a pace that was used against Malcolm in her commission race against Stephanie Johnson, the eventual winner.
By last summer, the project was far enough along to apply to the ACC Planning Department for an amendment to a 1996 plan allowing the removal of three parking spaces to add greenspace and widen a sidewalk. Both the planning staff and the advisory planning commission signed off with no opposition from the public.
Then, somehow, rumors started to get around that what appeared to be a minor tweak was actually a stalking horse for a luxury student apartment complex in the heart of East Athens and just a block from Nellie B Homes public housing. “They can build apartments up to the sky,” East Athens resident Willa Fambrough told the commission.
“This amendment looks like a back door for something much larger—a project that includes a grocery store with student housing stacked on top of it,” said Cshanyse Allen, president of the Inner East Athens neighborhood association, which includes roughly the (still relatively ungentrified) portion of East Athens northeast of Peter Street inside the Loop. “It’s true. That is a major development, not a simple garden improvement.” Allen said she had documentation to support her assertions, but did not respond to Flagpole’s request to see it.
Binding site plans are just that, though—binding. That’s why Malcolm had to come to the commission for permission to plant a few trees. The original 1996 plan had already been amended twice, and no brick-and-tan monstrosity sprouted out of the ground.
“The proposed site plan amendment is binding. In other words, no other development—no housing, no multistory building, nothing—can change this plan without the approval of this body [the mayor and commission],” said Buck Bacon, government and community services director for W&A Engineering. “The nature of a planned development offers this body and the community that you serve the assurance to manage how this site is developed now and in the future.”
ACC officials confirmed this. “There is nothing in this request that changes the underlying zoning,” Manager Bob Cowell said. “There is nothing in this request that would allow residential development on the property.” Any future zoning change to allow residential development would have to come back before the mayor and commission, according to Cowell and Planning Director Bruce Lonnee.
Commissioner Ovita Thornton did not fully buy the explanation. “No disrespect to anybody on Rashe’s team, but I do believe there are devils who work behind the scenes,” she said. “At the end of the day, I don’t want to be the person that, when we see a student building and all the luxuries and such, I don’t want my name attached to that.”
Some residents who supported the idea of a community garden were also skeptical. “I would love to see that. I would. And I’d be a part of it, if it’s going to go that way,” Sartorius Neal said. “But if it doesn’t, I’ll be highly upset.”
The distrust, according to Commissioner Dexter Fisher, who moved to Athens in 1988, is the result of broken promises regarding economic development and utility service made during city-county unification 35 years ago. “We failed as a government not to live up to these promises,” said Fisher, who is running for mayor.
“All the issues that were brought up tonight, those are my concerns, too. That’s the reason I was elected,” said Triangle Plaza’s representative, Commissioner Tiffany Taylor, calling herself “Inner East Athens to my core.” She also defended Malcolm, recounting how she and her children had volunteered delivering food for Malcolm’s nonprofit, and saying that Malcolm “is what East Athens is.”
Malcolm, too, was saddened by the idea that she would sell out her neighborhood. “I’m getting emotional because I understand gentrification,” she said “Where I grew up doesn’t even exist anymore… I can’t go back to my home state in Connecticut and see where I was raised, and I’m talking about generations raised in the projects.”
Residents are afraid of change, fearing they might lose whatever progress the neighborhood has made since 1996, according to Isaiah Ellison, who sold the property to Malcolm in 2021. Since a grocery store recently closed, the only thriving business other than the Jamaican restaurant Rashe’s Cuisine is a package store, he said. “We all know what goes on when people hang out on the block around a liquor store,” Ellison said. “There is drug sales, drug use, gambling, prostitution, fights.” If people are looking for a place to gather, there are several parks and community centers in the area, he added.
But others wondered, what good would a community garden do when people are sleeping on the street? Some saw the proposal as condescending. “You come to us and say, ‘We want you to have a community garden and plant some vegetables, and we’re going to teach you how to cook food,’” longtime community leader Diane Dunston said. “We’re experts in gardening and cooking, so we’re good.” (Malcolm responded that her goal is to teach “soft skills” that will translate to any career; food just happens to be her area of expertise.)
Fisher, Johnson and commissioners Carol Myers and John Culpepper voted in favor of Thornton’s proposal to table the zoning request for 30 days—although with the sides seemingly dealing with different realities, it’s difficult to fathom what might have been accomplished by postponing a vote. Mayor Kelly Girtz broke the 5–5 tie by voting no, “given our understanding of the strict nature of a PD [planned development].” Culpepper and Myers then joined commissioners Patrick Davenport, Melissa Link, Allison Wright and Mike Hamby in supporting Taylor’s motion for approval, with Fisher, Johnson and Thornton opposed.
The commission did vote unanimously to table the selection of a site for a new fire station on the Eastside—the third such delay. This time, commissioners are waiting on the results of a study by the firefighters’ union. Public input on the choice, a parcel near the intersection of Old Lexington and Morton roads, has been nearly as emotionally charged as the Vine Street community, with some rural residents opposed to moving Fire Station 5 from its current location on Barnett Shoals Road. But building a new fire station further east would improve coverage for the southeastern part of the county while reducing overlap with other stations. A new concern is the cost of the land—$475,000 for a 7.5-acre parcel, well above its assessed tax value.
Continuing the theme for the evening, the commission voted unanimously to table a vote on a roundabout at Hawthorne and Oglethorpe avenues, one of the most dangerous intersections in the city. Fisher and Davenport said they want to consult a gas station owner who would lose a slice of his property.
The commission voted 7–3 to allow 70 townhouses off Macon Highway, with Fisher, Taylor and Link opposed. The county government is assessing whether some old mill houses on the property can be moved.
Fisher said he does not want any more student housing built in Athens. Culpepper, though, pointed out that students are already living on Macon Highway. “We’re just slightly increasing the density there, versus increasing the density in single-family neighborhoods,” he said.
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