City Council Approves Urban Collage to Progress Implementation of LCI Study

The City Council makes progress with implementing the 2001 LCI study by designating Urban Collage, a company that specializes in urban design services, to help the City of Norcross in the next step.  It won the nod when the Council voted 4 to 0 in the May 1st, 2006  regular Council meeting to develop a plan bridging the gap from LCI concept study to actual development.

The company specializes in providing recommendations to help cities target future efforts.  Primary goals include basic development strategy, consensus building, and marketing materials.

Before initiating the study, the company must know what property the City owns or can control. That is why the council made an effort to come to a resolution on buying the church property adjacent to the proposed Cultural Arts center site.  The LCI study envisioned that the Church property would be a Community Center.

The two properties/developments are not necessarily related, but the Urban Collage study could be more thorough if we knew the future of the Church property.    Commitment to the church purchase allows for immediate City use, especially public parking, and for some breathing room to decide plans for what comes next.

Two challenges affect the Council’s decisions:  whether to delay action until a consensus exists, and the fact that the LCI study of seven years ago is now  outdated. 

When we consider that the community has discussed The Old School House Project for three years without consensus, we are reminded that sometimes, operating the city government on consensus hinders representative government and effective decision-making. 

 Many changes have occurred since the 2000 study data was collected, so that many parts of the study’s recommendations are out of date.  For example, where a park was envisioned by the LCI study is now high density housing of the Hedgewood development.

In another example of what the Council must attempt to reconcile, if the Old School House Cultural Arts Center is implemented as currently proposed with nightly bookings, the first failure could likely be the restaurants, strangled by lack of adequate parking.  Purchasing the 4-acre church property immediately relieves the parking problem.

The present discussion of how to implement the future development plan is a technical issue, difficult for all to grasp at the same level.

The truth is, we will probably never get a consensus of the entire populace.  We believe council has done the right thing to execute a contract to purchase the church to ensure they still have choices for implementing and controlling essential downtown revitalization. 

• See Presentation of Church Purchase Plan