There are some potentially big changes coming to Dekalb county (and Doraville) in this next session of the state legislature. We should all be watching very closely to see what happens. Here’s an excerpt from the Sunday AJC:
The DeKalb County delegation (22 representatives; seven senators) plans to open the session with a brainstorming session with county commissioners and experts from the Georgia Municipal Association to weigh the merits of expanding cities in the county, such as Chamblee and Doraville, of creating cities, such as Dunwoody, or of making all of incorporated DeKalb the city of DeKalb.
So much of the crime and blight in Doraville is actually taking place in unincorporated Dekalb that I think it’s imperetive that the city annex some of these run down areas that the county has not been tending to. I look forward to seeing some progress on this in the 2006 legislative session.
As for the idea of a “City of Dekalb,” this terrifies me. Incorporating the county would box Doraville in, and prevent it from being able to ever consolidate some of these under-performing areas. I also think that the differences between South Dekalb and North Dekalb counties are too wide to make sense forcing them into a single city.
I hope that Doraville has much success on annexing adjacent property. I also FERVENTLY hope that much of the adjacent property that
contains some of the delapidated rentals that plaugue your area ( and the regrettable Cross Keys attendance area). Be the first Dekalb city to do right by it’s homeowners and start editing down some of your overbuilt, oversized complexes.
Once that’s accomplished, don’t automatically zone all of the property “mixed use”. Doraville could stand some nice single family
residential neighborhoods. The spoiler in the equation is the same one that spoils the rest of Dekalb’s progress- throw away a favorable
location so that the Dekalb Housing Authority can get their hands on
any stick of land that’s available.