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I• limitation on the land zoned for commercial water and sewer service and, conversely, is ®Playing the or office use. As a matter of land use policy, discouraged by the lack of these items. These office zoning is limited to the area inside the are powerful tools to decide what land gets growth/no- Commerce Drive loop around the downtown developed, and local government policy can growth game is section. determine how they are used. At the entrances to Decatur from unincor- like playing porated DeKalb County on major thorough- Russian fares like Clairemont Avenue or Scott Boule- Adequate Infrastructure Ell yard, development changes from strip Anyone who reads in the newspapers about roulette. commercial to residential. In what can be water shortages and sewer tap moratoriums is seen as a modern planning and zoning mir- familiar with the importance of these utilities. acle, the Scott/Clairemont intersection, with The primary tool used in the selective growth about 25,000 cars per day traveling on both strategy in Decatur has been developing or streets, does not have a single gas station. As not developing transportation facilities. The a defensive measure, about 20 years ago gas Commerce Drive loop around downtown De- stations were removed from the zoning code catur, completed in 1973, has caused most as a permitted use in any zoning district in major development in the past 10 years to fo- Decatur. cus on this street. Tying this into the inter- Also about 20 years ago, the city commis- state system with the Church Street widening sion decided that some older residential areas should give more impetus to this area where with small single-family houses that were not development is seen as being desirable. being well maintained should be encouraged On the other hand, Decatur has vigorously to redevelop as high-density single-family fought the construction of another east-west houses—as townhomes or cluster housing. thoroughfare through the city for 25 years. Large tracts of these single-family houses Such a thoroughfare parallel to the railroad • were rezoned, and land was made available corridor along the southern edge of downtown for this type of development. Many of those would open up the southern part of the down- areas have come back strong as single-family town area to significant redevelopment. The neighborhoods, and in the past five years the powers that be will never support such a high-density single-family zoning has been re- project, however, until they are convinced moved from three major neighborhoods. that its impact on residential neighborhoods Work now being done on the future land use really would be minimal. plan is focusing on how much more of this high-density zoning should be reversed. Church Street in Decatur was recently Attractive Development and widened to improve access from the interstate Business Environment system to downtown Decatur. Before the wid- Everyone, including hard-nosed developers, ening, this street was primarily residential. wants to be wanted. A key to business reten- Pressure is now predictably on for strip com- tion is to let existing businesses know how mercial zoning along this four-lane thorough- much they are appreciated. A key to attract- fare. The first rezoning application has been ing development is to let developers know successfully denied, and the city commission they are welcome. is pledged to maintaining the residential char- One problem is that there is a lot of money acter of this street. to be made in development and it is often lo- A local government that cares to influence cal government decisions that determine just what happens in its community still has a how much profit is made. Developers tend to powerful tool to use in its zoning powers. be politically active and contribute to politi- Doom and gloom planners and the lawyers cal campaigns. They usually have their pro- for developers will try to convince you that gram together and have the resources and ac- the courts have stripped local governments of cess to sell it. Selective development calls for any real authority in this area. What the finding the fine line between making develop- courts have really done is to pin us down so ers feel welcome and letting them do what that we cannot be arbitrary and capricious. If they please. In my experience, most develop- •we do our homework, do our research, and ers feel welcome only if they are allowed to prepare our cases to demonstrate the reasons do what they please. for our decisions, we still can use zoning pow- Recent newspaper articles have focused on ers effectively. problems caused by builders' pits in Gwinnett Another important factor affecting the County and northern Fulwn County. Builders availability of land is the development of in- in these areas have been allowed to bury or- frastructure. Development is encouraged by ganic material from the construction site on the availability of good roads and adequate the site of the development. This material is