SCENE
WELLNESS
YOUTH
The Ebony Stitchers’ “Fabrics of the World” quilting exhibit opens at the Porter Sanford Performing Arts Center in Decatur. 8
Fitness expert Amy Goldwater says a day at the beach offers a variety of exercise opportunities that one might not think about. 10
Nine-yearold Angela Cofer is proud of the 9-pound cabbage she grew in her grandmother’s garden. Her family has lots of plans for it. 13
Quilting par excellence
Copyright © 2011 CrossRoadsNews, Inc.
Seaside workout
July 16, 2011
Monster cabbage
Volume 17, Number 11
www.crossroadsnews.com
Citizens sue county over approval of biomass plant By Jennifer Ffrench Parker
Dr. Darren Harper and other opponents of Green Energy Partners’ proposed gasification plant held a news conference July 13 after filing a lawsuit to stop it.
be a manifest abuse of the zoning power and therefore illegal and void.” At a news conference Wednesday after filing the lawsuit, Dr. Darren Harper said they were forced to sue because the Board of Commissioners ignored the citizens’ concerns and approved the plant despite a litany of evidence and warnings from public and environmental health experts that the plant would spew tons of pollution into the air. “If this plant is allowed to be built, tons of fine particulate matter will enter the tiny air sacs in the lungs and cause rampant respiratory and heart disease throughout the region,” he said. “CHASE alleges that the
Citizens for a Healthy and Safe Environment wants the courts to overturn DeKalb County’s approval of a $60 million biomass gasification plant in Lithonia. The nonprofit group and two residents, Mildred Banks and Gerald Sanders, who live on Maddox Road near the 21-acre site of the proposed plant, filed the lawsuit on July 13 in DeKalb Superior Court. It comes a month after the DeKalb Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a special land use permit for the plant on June 14. In the lawsuit, the citizens asked the judge to declare the rezoning decision “to Please see BIOMASS, page 5
Jennifer Ffrench Parker / CrossRoadsNews
Opposition puts RaceTrac gas station on hold Residents: Enough convenience stores on Wesley Chapel By Jennifer Ffrench Parker
Charles Peagler (from left), Joel Edwards and Helen Norris discuss the proposed RaceTrac gas station that they oppose.
A $2.5 million RaceTrac gas station and convenience store planned for a blighted corner of Wesley Chapel Road in Decatur has been put on hold. In the face of growing opposition from residents, Atlanta-based RaceTrac said Wednesday that it would not file a rezoning petition on July 14 to seek approval for the project from the Board of Commissioners in September. The company was preparing to apply to the county to remove restrictions from three of the four parcels at the corner of Snapfinger Road, opposite the KFC restaurant, to build the 5,928-square-foot store. Instead, Kathy Zickert, the company’s attorney, told residents at a July 13 community meeting that RaceTrac has put its plans on hold for now. Photos by Jennifer Ffrench Parker / CrossRoadsNews “We decided to pull RaceTrac has back a little and work sented to the community at an Aug. 1 meetcontracts to with the community,” ing at the Porter Sanford III Performing Arts Kathy Zickert purchase two she said. Center. abandoned Zickert said that the company will Bobbie Sanford, president of the Wesrestaurant sites become part of the community’s Livable ley Chapel Community Overlay Coalition, near two parcels Centers Initiative. which has been spearheading the LCI effort, it already owns “We are trying to be good neighbors,” she said a gas station at the corner of Wesley at the corner of said. “We own property on the street so we Chapel and Snapfinger roads does not fit in Wesley Chapel should be a part of it.” with the plans for the area. Road and Zickert said she did not know why the “Yes, those properties are blighted, but we Snapfinger Drive. company had not been involved in the LCI are working to change that,” Sanford said. before but that it now plans to participate. When Zickert contacted her last week Residents have been working on an about RaceTrac’s plans, Sanford told her LCI for the Wesley Chapel corridor and a that the community would not support it Community Improvement District for five Commission to study the corridor and cre- district for the corridor that sets architec- because it runs contrary to their vision for years. ate a mixed-use plan to guide its redevelop- tural standards for new developments and the corridor. In 2009, it got an $80,000 Livable Centers ment. renovations. Initiative grant from the Atlanta Regional The final draft of the plan will be pre- Please see RACETRAC, page 6 The county also has approved an overlay