COMMUNITY
SCENE
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MARTA has dusted off its proposal to extend service from the Mall at Stonecrest to downtown Atlanta and is gathering residents’ input. 3
“Pride and Passion: The African-American Baseball Experience” will be on exhibit at the Decatur Library from Nov. 6 to Dec. 2. 8
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will talk about her and sign memoir at the Mall at Stonecrest on Nov. 3. 8
Transit plan revisited
The making of sports history
Copyright © 2010 CrossRoadsNews, Inc.
October 30, 2010
Rice on Rice
Volume 16, Number 27
www.crossroadsnews.com
Registry won’t affect 15,500 homes By Jennifer Ffrench Parker
Community groups and individuals eagerly awaiting the implementation of DeKalb’s new Foreclosure Registry found out this week that it does not apply to the more than 15,500 properties foreclosed before Oct. 27 – its effective date. The law only requires owners of properties foreclosed after Oct. 27 to register them with the county. Brenda Pace, president of the East Lake Terrace Neighborhood As-
sociation, said that fact was kept from residents. “That was not how it was presented to us,” said Pace, who attended a number of public hearings about the ordinance Brenda Pace and was eagerly awaiting its implementation to help her neighborhood deal with more than 50 vacant foreclosed homes. “We thought this was going to take
care of the existing problem,” she said. “Here we are still sitting with thousands of foreclosures that nothing can be done about.” Gil Turman, president of the South Gil Turman DeKalb Neighborhoods Coalition, said he too thought the ordinance was to help deal with the Please see REGISTRY, page 6
DeKalb County’s new Foreclosure Registry does not apply to properties foreclosed before Oct. 27, its effective date.
Residents oppose plan for new cell tower Variance sought for a T-Mobile facility on Candler By Jennifer Ffrench Parker
A plan to erect a 154-foot-high T-Mobile cell phone tower on the Lincoln Funeral Home property on Candler Road is facing major opposition from residents who say it would be located too close to their homes in violation of existing county codes. Three J Holdings LLC, which owns the 5.1-acre Lincoln Funeral Home property at 2321 Candler Road, wants DeKalb County to reduce the distance for the telecommunications tower from a residentially zoned property to 70 and 85 feet from the required 200 feet. It also wants to waive the 10-foot landscape buffer to allow it to build the tower. Judy Jackson, who will see the tower from her kitchen window and backyard on Ousley Court, said there is a reason why the county set the buffer at 200 feet. Judy Jackson “It is to protect residents,” she said. If the variance is approved, both the property owner and T-Mobile say they will lease space to more cell phone operators. In a Sept. 1 letter accompanying the application for the variance, Lannie Greene of T-Mobile South LLC said T-Mobile plans to locate two other providers on its tower for a total of three users and that the property owner intends to lease ground outside the T-Mobile proposed fenced-in area to other wireless providers. Greene told the county that the purpose of this facility is to provide safe, reliable, uninterrupted in-building and in-car coverage in the area bounded by Second Avenue, Candler Road, McAfee Road and I-20. But residents of Ousley Manor and Toney
At least nine cell phone towers are located on or near Candler Road, including a structure at 1816 Candler, next door to the DeKalb Police South Precinct (far left), and one at 202 Candler behind the Exxon station at Memorial Drive (left). Above, signs at the structure at 1816 Candler Road seem to indicate that T-Mobile already has a tower in the area, and that proximity to the towers carries potential heatlh risks.
Valley subdivisions say that reducing the distance will literally put the tower in their backyards and be a detriment to them. “We strongly oppose the construction of such a tower in our backyard,” they said in an Oct. 5 letter to the county’s Planning/
Development Department and to the Zoning Board of Appeals. Through Thursday, 73 residents had signed a petition opposing the construction of the tower. “We believe that this project will adversely affect the health of already physically
challenged residents, endanger the health of our children and grandchildren, negatively impact our property values, and encourage the flight of younger families from the Please see TOWER, page 2