Goodbye Private Property Rights

Why place the entire county of Unincorporated DeKalb under the Urban Redevelopment Act?

To CEO Burrell Ellis and DeKalb Board of Commissioners:

I am writing this letter as a private property owner. I am concerned that you are placing the entire county of Unincorporated DeKalb under the Urban Redevelopment Act. One of the problems with this act is the limitations the policy place on private property rights.

The Urban Redevelopment Plan includes the following areas:

The Urban Redevelopment Area (URA) includes much of DeKalb County from its western border shared with Fulton County in the Bouldercrest area to Rockdale County at the eastern end of DeKalb County; north to Stone Mountain, and inclusive of the I-85 corridor. It does not include any of the incorporated places in DeKalb County or any of the more stable and development neighborhoods.

With the history of this county making bad policy decisions such as the following:

·         Approval of the Gasification Plant

·         Attempted approval of the Greenco Compost Plant

·         Cell Towers on school grounds

·         Landfill expansions and redevelopments

·         Over-saturation of Section 8 and Project base housing

·         Tax Allocation District to push Private-Public Partnerships with bad developments

The county leadership fails to explain the negative consequences of placing the entire county under the Urban Redevelopment Act. This limits the private property rights of many property owners. If the above developments were started after the passage of the Urban Redevelopment Plan, the private property owners’ ability to fight these bad developments would be extremely limited.

What is included in this plan to prevent private property owners from being at the mercy of big business that may want to bring bad development, particularly in South DeKalb?

Kind Regards,

Viola Davis