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Commission recommended approval of the project at its public hearing Jan. 31, at which resident Ravi Yeluguri and seven other residents spoke in opposition.

Yeluguri, who lives on Rockleigh Way, said the intersection of Daves Creek and Old Atlanta Roads near the development is unsafe for area residents, and he requested the commissioners improve the intersection before moving forward with the rezon-

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The organizers are grateful for the help from their well-known partner organizations, but their focus is on what young people can bring to legislator’s offices.

“Legislators don’t expect some very highly motivated … young people who are demanding change,” Ruhe said. “We just kind of seize that power.”

At 18 years old, Francesca Ruhe lobbies in between classes at Georgia State University. For the Feb. 16 lobby day, she wore business attire — except for the bright yellow Converses, covered in pictures of Woodstock from the Peanuts cartoons.

Mason Goodwin, 20, is a student at Georgia State University.

They make up a fraction of Georgia Youth Justice Coalition, which has a “student base of hundreds” according to Ruhe. At the lobby day, their nonprofit brought about 25 students to the Capitol.

“There’s an infinite number of us, and we all have the same gripes with the public education system,” Ruhe said.

At the lobby day, the coalition of students and adults focused on an “opportunity weight,” which would add funding to schools that serve students in poverty.

“It could help make up the difference (in funding) between the richer schools in the North Metro Atlanta area and the South Metro area,” Ruhe said.

The opportunity weight is part of Georgia House Bill 3, called the “Support for Students Living in Poverty Act” introduced in January.

Georgia is one of only six states with a school funding formula that does not provide additional funds to schools with low-income students. The state does provide equalization grants through the “Quality Basic Education Act,” which was passed in 1985. The grants focus on filling funding gaps for poor and ing.

Yeluguri said he first expressed concerns over the dangers as early as 2017. That February, Yeluguri said, a weeklong traffic study was performed on the intersection, and another was conducted in February 2022.

He said the most recent traffic study may have been inadequate because of more people working from home due to COVID-19.

“The traffic analysis report will not show how many people are avoiding that intersection, going and taking longer routes and stuff like that,” Yeluguri said. “That’s primarily what I want to bring to your notice.” rural areas.

Goodwin and Ruhe said their experiences in Georgia schools are fundamental to their legislative work, especially when it comes to education funding.

Ruhe said she saw educational disparity for the first time in middle school. In sixth grade she joined an organization called Page Turners, aimed at bringing books to underserved schools across Metro Atlanta.

As a volunteer, Ruhe traveled around Atlanta and interviewed authors in front of groups of kids.

“It was incredible, the disparities,” Ruhe said. “In my own personal upbringing, which I consider to be pretty privileged I had all the resources I needed to be a fluent reader.”

At an early age, Ruhe saw the impacts of economic disparity.

Mason Goodwin had a different experience growing up but a similar takeaway. He was one of the “lower income, single-parent households kids” in Atlanta public schools.

Goodwin started in the general classes, where he was the only White student. In his junior year, Goodwin got pushed into honors classes. The classrooms were full of other White students.

“You start asking the kids and they’re like ‘Yeah, I’m getting tutors for my AP classes,’” Goodwin said. “You realize they have the resources to actually push through school.”

Goodwin said that “waking moment” pushed him into activism.

Ruhe and Goodwin said the Georgia Youth Justice coalition has been involved in major efforts, from onthe-ground work to stop book bans in Forsyth County to conversations about the school to prison pipeline in Gwinnett County.

“The beauty of the coalition is that we’re made up of students, and students always have a million different issues to contend with,” Ruhe said.

Even if the students don’t win every fight, the young organizers are optimistic.

Yeluguri said those who drive the route daily know the dangers, and adding more homes will add more drivers, increasing the chances for an accident.

County Commissioner Laura Semanson said even one more home will increase traffic, but not to the extent that the commission can hold the developer responsible for improving the intersection.

“That said, we have worked with engineering to try to come up with the best possible way to route that traffic going through across from a subdivision that’s on the straightaway, rather than on the curve at Daves Creek,” Semanson said.

She said the county is working on its updated transportation plan, and she requested possible improvements and solutions for the Old Atlanta Road area.

In other matters at the Feb. 16 meeting, commissioners approved the Vine Community Church’s request to operate a foster home in a future expansion to its building.

“Seeing we have seven foster homes in our county of 265,000 now, I would say this is very needed,” Commissioner Cindy Jones Mills said.

Commissioners also unanimously approved an increase to the county hotel and motel excise tax, raising the current rate from 5 percent to 8 percent.