Roswell Coasting — Downhill. Redevelopment Remains Divisive Issue
By kwarmath on August 14th, 2007
I had a fourth grade teach who used to say to all us pre-pubescent know-it-alls in the class: “The only way to coast is downhill.” As much as I hated that teacher’s proddings, I think she would be gratified to know that I still remember that singular lesson over thirty years later.
The same is true of the City of Roswell. It is coasting, and the only way to coast is downhill.
No Gripe = No Change
Roswell Mayor Jere Wood spoke at our brokerage today and essentially his message was that most Roswell citizens are content with their situation in life. Roswell has always ranked high on those magazine surveys of “Best Places to Live in the U.S.” and also boasts the 18th lowest crime rate as measured by some sort of FBI crime statistic. Roswell is one of only fifty cities in the U.S. with a AAA bond rating. But that is all marketing.
Mayor Wood recounted several anecdotal stories about the will of the citizenry. Most telling was his story of attending a neighborhood meeting regarding the Roswell East project to have the residents tell him that they liked things just they way they were. They liked the level of service they received. They liked their lifestyle. They felt safe, and they didn’t want their property to appreciate too much because they would have to pay more property tax!
Wood said that at that point he knew the Roswell East project was dead. Without some sort of civil malady, no change was going to occur. “Change is hard when people are happy with what they have.” So, Roswell coasts on.
The Mayor, for his part, is not a coaster. He recognizes that many changes need to be made to address the aging of the city. However, he seemed resigned to the fact that the citizenry is not ready for it yet. He said that eventually “market forces” would take care of it.
Perhaps things haven’t gotten bad enough yet – and there is certainly no political will on the City Council to beat the market forces to the punch. Wood stopped short, though, of throwing the City Council under the proverbial bus as much as the rifts between Council and Mayor are well publicized. Wood took the high road and simply stated that the Council merely represents the opinion of the governed and that the people of Roswell are split on what to do about growth and aging related issues.
We Ain’t Getting Any Younger, Baby!
The biggest issue, besides traffic congestion, of course, is the decline of Roswell’s apartment buildings and shopping centers. This is evident with any drive down Roswell Road (Highway 9) or Holcomb Bridge Road (Highway 92). Many of these properties are now 30+ years old and many haven’t been maintained. Many are vacant. At this point they are the home of a more transient population, which in turn puts more strain on City police services and the Fulton County School System. Ester Jackson Elementary School has a student population turnover of 50% EACH YEAR.
There is some talk of redevelopment of the Frasier Street Apartments, which are the oldest in Roswell, but that is probably a year out and the property is still being assembled. The City has a plan for Roswell Square designed by Lew Oliver, who I’ve written about before here. The plan would include an 80 room hotel, parking garage and some condos. But other than that, there is little action on the redevelopment front and never has been.
This is mainly because redevelopment would likely mean mixed use development, which people seem to want. However, to support mixed use, densities would have to be twenty units per acre and City Council is not willing to entertain that high of a density. Right now, densities are about 6–8 units per acre. The fear is that higher density equates to more traffic and congestion. The alternative is that development occurs further and further north into Cherokee, Forsyth and Dawson counties, which means – you guessed it – MORE CONGESTION.
So, Roswell continues to coast along. Sure, Roswell is a nice place to live and it certainly has the best parks and recreation system around. But Roswell does feel old now, as one of my colleagues politely pointed out to the Mayor – and not because Roswell has a nice historic district. It feels old in the bad way, particularly compared to Alpharetta, Johns Creek and Cumming where there is so much shiny and new. Roswell can continue to coast, but it will only be downhill.
hi – I agree with a large portion of this. I think that if this project had been proposed where some legitimate redevelopment would be the outcome, there would be a lot more excitement.
But getting in a car and driving from Riverside and Old Alabama up the hill, looking both sides of the road, and thinking this is where the project will be, it is just about all trees. It is a hard sell to convice people the project is “redevelopment”. I could care less about the trees themselves — the point is, it’s not legitimate redevelopment. It is just mainly “development” on raw land. The Roswell Staff Report and the AJC etc. said as much — the Mayor even pointed out it is mostly just trees.
The project would replace the one complex, King’s Bridge, and that’s it. It doesn’t address the empty and declining King’s market, Home Depot, CompUSA, etc. It doesn’t address the abandoned gas station. They are leaving all that for someone else. And we have seen over and over again in Roswell that building a bunch of new stuff on raw land next to decaying properties doesn’t boost the decaying properties — if anything it makes them worse.
What the city needs to do is ask the developer to propose the Roswell East project where it would legitimately count as redevelopment: on the Northwest Quadrant where it’s not raw land, where there are tons and tons of decaying rental units, filled with crime – probably 5 or 6 or 7 times as much as on the southeast corner. You mentioned Esther Jackson — the northwest quadrant is where almost all Esther Jackson’s apartment kids come from, not the one apartment on the southeast. Doing some version of the project in the northwest quadrant would truly count as redevelopment, would truly improve the area, would push out the crime, and would be really cool.
hi nice post, i enjoyed it