Hearing For Proposed QuikTrip Site In Ormewood Park Rescheduled

An appeals hearing connected to the controversial Ormewood Park property that QuikTrip Corp. wants to build on is being rescheduled.

Gobind L. Madan, who owns 731 Moreland Ave. at the intersection of Ormewood Avenue, planned to appeal the city's denial of his request to split the land into two separate commercial properties.

The hearing before the Atlanta Zoning Review Board, set for Sept. 1 is tentatively rescheduled for Nov. 3.

It's not immediately clear why the issue was rescheduled.

Madan, who owns the store at 731 Moreland and the Liberty Tax Service business that sits behind it, filed the appeal because the city's denial threatens to derail QuikTrip Corp.'s plans to build a 5,700-square-foot convenience store and gas station on the site.

Initially, the city approved his application to replat the property, meaning he could split it into two separate commercial tracts.

That was key to the project, because city ordinances forbid gas stations from being within 100 feet of adjacent, single-family homes.

But the way the ordinance is written, a proposed lot for a gas station would have to be directly adjacent to a a single-family residential lot in order to be in violation of the rule.

By splitting his one commercial lot into two, with the second lot technically serving as a buffer, the 100-foot rule wouldn't apply.

That fueled a maelstrom of controversy and opposition from residents in Ormewood Park, East Atlanta Village and other neighborhoods, which cried foul.

It also raised concerns that that tactic would be replicated by developers all over the city.

Ormewood Park's community group, South Atlantans for Neighborhood Development, then hired Robert Zoeckler, a land use lawyer and former Atlanta senior assistant city attorney to fight the city's original OK.

In a letter dated May 25, Charletta Wilson Jacks, director of the city's planning office, wrote the decision to split the commercial lot into two separate parcels had to be reversed because it would violate city regulations .

That ultimately led to Madan filing his appeal.