Business & Tech

Gassing Up For A Fight

Southeast Atlanta neighborhood group votes to hire attorney to challenge planned Ormewood Park QuikTrip project

The South Atlantans for Neighborhood Development voted Thursday to hire an attorney to challenge the planned QuikTrip development project at Moreland and Ormewood avenues in Ormewood Park.

The group, which which serves as the official neighborhood organization for several Southeast Atlanta neighborhoods including Ormewood Park, Glenwood Park and Boulevard Heights, says it's trying to address what it says are two loopholes in city zoning regulations that govern how far gas stations need to be from residential homes.

The project at 731 Moreland, would bring QuikTrip south of I-20 to a stretch of Moreland that already has an Exxon, Citgo, Shell, BP and Kroger gas retailers — all within a a couple miles of the proposed site.

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Tulsa, Okla.-based QuikTrip Corp. aims to build what it calls its  Gen-3 store, which at 5,700 square feet, is 1,200 square feet larger than what it had built in the past.

Atlanta regulations stipulate gas stations must have a 100-foot buffer between them and any abutting single-family, or R4 zoned, homes.

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The proposed QuikTrip site — the northwest quadrant of Moreland and Ormewood avenues — abuts single-family homes on Ormewood Avenue.

But Gobind L. Madan, an accountant who owns the property QuikTrip wants to lease and build on, had the property replatted to separate them into two commercial, or C1, tracts.

The first, 1.161 acres is where the QuikTrip would be built, leaving a second, 0.111-acre parcel. And because the proposed QuikTrip tract abuts that second commercial parcel and not the residential properties directly, the 100-foot buffer requirement doesn't apply.

The other issue Ormewood Park residents and SAND as a group has identified is that the city has no minimum lot size requirements for commercial properties.

The second parcel is too small to build on, SAND says, requiring that the city establish minimum lot size guidelines.

Leaving those loopholes unchallenged is raising concern that other commercial developers could use them to erect similar projects all over the city.

"The problem in QT's eyes is we have to have a 100-foot setback from any R4, which is a single-family home," Steve Norman, SAND president, said to a standing room-only crowd that gathered in Beulah Heights University's student center Thursday night. "With this, they are not abutting an R4 they're a C1 so there is not 100-foot setback required...One of the main concerns is that this replatting circumnavigates the spirit of the 100-foot setback."

SAND, which formed a committee that is scheduled to meet April 21, is hoping to identify potential lawyers to help the group challenge the zoning loopholes and block QuikTrip's building permit application.

QuikTrip has said it wants to work with the communities where it wants to build and isn't trying to sneak into the neighborhood.

"We always do everything above board; we meet with all the neighbors and affected businesses and explain what we're trying to do," QuikTrip spokesman Mike Thornbrugh said.

Ormewood Park residents aren't necessarily happy with what's on the site now — the run-down Jiffy Grocery store and the mint green-colored Liberty Tax Service Madan operates. However, many are concerned about the volume of additional traffic a QuikTrip would bring.

Madan, who filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December and owns another commercial strip a few blocks north of the controversial site, agreed it's not pretty. But Madan, who has owned the property for about 20 years, said he didn't reinvest much into it because developers were always courting him. QuikTrip, he said, had been angling for that spot for years.

He also downplayed the possibilty of motorists spilling onto side streets to avoid Moreland Avenue.

But opponents note QuickTrip's plans call for motorists to enter and exit the station not from Moreland Avenue, which doubles as U.S. Route 23. Rather, motorists will acces the station from Ormewood and Hall avenues, the two side streets that flank it. Residents are concerned QuikTrip customers will try to avoid waiting to get back onto Moreland by going through Ormewood Park's side streets.

Ultimately, opponents say the project is not in keeping with recommendations made to and adopted by the city based on a $120,000 study in 2008 study that called for more mixed-use development on that part of the Moreland Avenue corridor.

"Boy, here we are again," said Matt Podowitz, an Ormewood Park resident. "Three years ago, this community invested a $120,000 of grant money and thousands of hours in developing the Moreland LCI study and the ink was barely dry on that study before commercial property owners and developers said we're going to try and do what we want to do."

Developers, he said, view Ormewood Park as not having a strong, cohesive community, making it easy for them to build projects even if residents voice opposition.

"Where the developers have succeeded in bullying their way into Ormewood Park, to do what they want to do, is when these neighborhoods fail to come together as a community," Podowitz said. "This is not specifically about the QT station. This is about arming our neighborhood, arming our community to withstand an onslaught of of development that, as a community, when we did come together, we said we don't want."


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