Alpharetta’s City Center Project Still Spinning Its Wheels

I wrote over  a year ago about Alpharetta’s plans to redevelop “downtown” Alpharetta and build a new City Hall.  To date, not an inch of dirt has been turned due to legal battles over public financing methods and hold out landowners.  This article in The Beacon provides and updated overview of the situation:

Holding Out Hope: Alpharetta’s Quest For A New City Hall - beaconcast.com.

What I don’t get is whether Bob Miller is saint of villan.  The first paragraphs of the article states:  “[Miller] has been willing to part with [his property] as a way to contribute to the city’s vision.  This makes Miller sound pretty generous.

Later, however, the Milton Square Partnership is identied as the group of property owners who have held out, not willing to sell to enable a larger vision of the project to move forward.  And here is the point:  Miller is part of the Milton Square Partnership, along with Dockery’s Cafe.

So is Miller part of the problem or part of the solution.

Alpharetta assistant city administrator, James Drinkard, is also quoted as saying they won’t use eminent domain to take the land.  In fact, the City of Alpahretta has a resolution that says it is not their policy to use eminent domain.  “That’s just not the way we do business,” says Drinkard.

Why not?  Eminent domain exists for a reason.  That is, there are often public benefits of projects that outweight individual benefits.  It is not like the private landowners are uncompensated for their land.  They are paid a market price.

Yes, the project can be built without the adjoining Milton Square Partnership’s land.  Dispite what City Councilman David Belle Isle says, in my opinion, it won’t be as good as it could be.  You’ll wind up with inconsistent development in downtown.  The brand new City Center will be directly next door to Dockery’s Cafe, which is a typical, half-empty, strip center and Miller’s old, white clapboard house.

Miller was quoted in the article as saying, “If we could get all this together and redevelop [the land] for a city center it would be a wonderful thing for Alpharetta.”

So what about it Mr. Miller?

Alpharetta Realtor, Kevin WarmathPosted by: Kevin Warmath, September 19th, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
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