A proposal to build 124 single-family homes on 40 acres of woods northeast of the intersection of Hairston Rd. and Rockbridge Rd. was rejected by DeKalb County commissioners on Thursday.
On Jan. 5, the county's Planning Commission voted 8 to 1 to recommend denial.
Amber Gibson, the President of the Hickory Hills Estates Homeowners Association, said the proposed development was "too drastic and too extreme" and incompatible with bordering neighborhoods. The developer's site plan showed numerous homes were proposed to be built inside required stream buffers, she said.
More than 1,500 neighbors signed a Change.org petition opposing the proposed development, which would have changed the zoning of the undeveloped land from R-100 (medium residential lots) to R-60 (small residential lots). The site is about a mile east of Pine Lake and two miles southwest of downtown Stone Mountain -- outside of either city's limits.
Alexander Freund of the Kenilworth subdivision said construction of the homes would cause "environmental damage of catastrophic dimensions." Clear-cutting of the forest would cause flooding and send sediment into Barbashela Creek, he said.
Attorney Kyle Williams, who filed the zoning application, said opponents were presenting a "false choice" of developing the land or leaving it as greenspace.
Williams or his law firm contributed $500 to Commissioner Larry Johnson's re-election campaign and $250 to Commissioner Robert Patrick's re-election campaign in August 2021, two months after obtaining property owners' authorization to make the rezoning application which was filed last year.
