The Athens-Clarke County Commission will vote next week on a new location for an aging Eastside fire station, or it could opt to start the process all over again for the third time.
Commissioner Carol Myers put forward a commission-defined option (CDO)—an alternative to the recommendation from ACC staff—to build the new fire station at the recommended site near the intersection of Morton and Old Lexington roads, but also instruct staff to abide by ACC’s lighting ordinance, use planted buffers to shield the fire station from adjacent property owners, and ensure materials and fuel are stored in an environmentally sensitive way.
A competing CDO from Commissioner Patrick Davenport would scrap the land purchase and start a new search outside the area identified by the fire department.
SPLOST 2020 includes $6 million to replace Fire Station No. 5 on Whit Davis Road, built in 1974. Fire officials are advocating moving the station further east because, in its current location, its service area overlaps with other stations, while also leading to long response times in the southeastern corner of the county.
“After all this time, it really comes down to something very simple, and that’s that it will provide better service to 800 residents,” Myers said at the commission’s Sept. 16 agenda-setting meeting. “They will have their response times reduced by three to almost six minutes, in some cases, which can make all the difference in lives lost.”
Firefighters who are cross-trained as emergency medical technicians provide onsite treatment and often arrive faster than an ambulance. For every minute treatment for cardiac arrest is delayed, the odds of survival drop by 10%, Fire Chief Nate Moss told commissioners. In addition, not moving the fire station could affect homeowners’ insurance rates for the entire county.
Some rural residents in the area have complained about the traffic and noise a fire station would generate, disrupting their peaceful lifestyle. However, Moss said Fire Station No. 5 currently receives about three calls per day, and not all of them require lights and sirens.
The complaints led the commission to reject all of the recommended sites in 2023 and start the site selection process over again with a new set of criteria. Those criteria produced a very similar result, though—the best location to serve the most people is around the intersection of Old Lexington and Morton roads. County officials then found a property owner who was willing to sell 7.2 acres for $487,000. The large lot will allow the county to place the fire station 600 feet away from the nearest home.
The site will be up for a vote at the Oct. 7 commission meeting. Two affordable housing projects are also on the agenda: the second phase of The View at NoDA and Classic City Heights, a senior housing development on Atlanta Highway.
The second phase of NoDA, on the site of what was once Bethel Midtown Village off College Avenue, will include 142 one-, two- and three-bedroom units for renters making 40–80% of the area median income, a sliding scale based on household size set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In addition to the $52 million ACC has already committed to the project, the Athens Housing Authority is asking for a $3.5 million loan. Most of the $65 million project is funded by state and federal tax credits. The first phase of 120 units opened in 2024.
The AHA is requesting a $1 million loan for Classic City Heights, also funded primarily by the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. It will include 68 one- and two-bedroom apartments for seniors 55 and up. Rents will be set based on income, with a cap of $46,270 for a single person and $52,850 for a couple.
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