Monday, August 18, 2008

Clarification to Previous Post on Zoning

I wanted to add Bob Lundsten's comments on the heels of the previous post. Bob is a past president of the Dunwoody Home Owners Association who was charged with presenting the Zoning and Land Use Task force report to all the candidates for Dunwoody city council at this past Saturday information session.

"I am not very good at this blogging stuff and apparently was not very good at presenting the Zoning and Land Use report yesterday (Saturday). The point that I was trying to make was that the new Mayor and City Council are going to have to BALANCE the wants of the community, the rights of property owners and the future success of the city when it comes to setting new policy (for) Zoning and Land Use. New zoning codes cannot be absolute restrictions nor can the be arbitrary and unreasonable. You can not just say no more apartments because you do not want any more apartments, nor can you restrict a land owner from building a high rise office building when he is in the middle of a high rise office district. It is not as easy as it appears. I just did not want any of the candidates to go into office thinking that they could stop development simply by passing a new code. EVERY code that you adopt will be scrutinized by the best land use lawyers in the state. WE can and will do better than DeKalb, not doubt about that, but we are going to need smart growth in our commercial sectors to insure the continued success of our city."
- Bob Lundsten

I appreciate Bob's comments, and if I gave the impression that the new city council would not be effective in this regard I apologize. If I didn't think I (we) could be effective, I would not be running for office. The citizens of Dunwoody cannot thank Bob enough for his efforts in making Dunwoody a great place to live.

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