A Community Meeting

It was two weeks ago that I got the email from one of the neighborhood email lists, that Park Pride was going to be hosting a meeting at Haygood the following evening to get community input on a proposal from the South Fork Conservancy that affected Herbert Taylor Park.  I’d never heard of the South Fork Conservancy, but I downloaded the plan that was under discussion and took at least a quick look at it – it’s a hundred pages long, and I didn’t read the whole thing,  but I did look at enough of it to get the basic idea.  The plan set out a vision for green space along the South Fork of Peachtree Creek, connecting existing parks and public use areas with trails.  These seemed to me to be very ambitious, and it wasn’t clear to me how trails would result in improved water quality, which I thought was the point.

So I went to the meeting.  It was in the Haygood gym, where round tables had been set up.  I got there a little late so I missed whatever welcome or instructions were given; after signing in and getting a nametag, I was escorted to a table where there was a chair available.  A facilitator was making a valiant effort to work through a list of tasks.  What would we like to see along the creeks and streams in the city?  Access points?  Signage?  Benches?  Trash cans?  Picnic tables?  Trails?  And if trails, paved or not?  The organizers had equipped each table with a large map, colored markers, stickers,  and – if we got that far – colored string and cellophane tape that we could use to lay out the trail that we wanted to see.

When I arrived, the group was discussing crime, and how long it takes the police to respond when they are called.  This puzzled me, because trails didn’t seem to me to have much to do with crime (I didn’t envision criminals making off with someone’s flatscreen television on foot).  Even though I didn’t really know the context, I spoke up and offered my opinion that people make a park safe.  There was a woman in my group who lived near the Daniel Johnson Nature Preserve who did not seem to have a single positive thing to say about anything.  Trails bring crime.  People turn their dogs loose in parks.  The sewers will not be fixed for another 14 years and who wants to walk by an open sewer?  Even if these sewers are fixed the ones upstream won’t be.  All that pavement at Emory is the problem.  The businesses at Zonolite have been adversely impacted by the park there; how can the city take their property?  The bridge in Herbert Taylor Park should be blown up to keep people out of it.  This will bring more people into our neighborhood and that’s bad.  Who would want to walk on these trails anyway?  If there’s any Federal money for anything, the ADA kicks in and any trail will have to be paved.  There are homeless people in the parks and no one does anything about it.  It’s not safe.   It will hurt our property values.  The government can’t seize our property.  This is our property and you have no right to talk about it.

The way Herbert Taylor Park was being discussed, it sounded like you were taking your life in your hands to venture into the place.  I got asked in a somewhat accusing tone if I ever went there, and I said yes.  Did I feel safe?  Yes.   What about the dogs?  Well, people should keep their dogs on their leashes and a lot of them don’t but that didn’t seem to me to constitute a crime wave.

Finally the facilitator told her that we’d heard her point of view, and other people needed to be heard.  I did ask my question about how this improves the water quality.  The answer was interesting; if more people walk along the creeks and streams, there will be less tolerance for sewer systems that dump sewage into creeks.  People will demand improvements.  I think that’s true; it is walking through the Morningside Nature Preserve and Herbert Taylor Park and following the creek in the Nature Trail behind Sunken Garden Park that got me out with Iain on a Sunday morning marking storm drains on our street, so I think I get it.

Later we had a chance to walk around the gym and see what other groups had come up with.  There were lots of people there that night from the neighborhood near the Daniel Johnson Nature Preserve and Herbert Taylor Park.  I guess I would be concerned too if I saw a map online that included a trail through the green space behind my house, on my property, even if it was just a proposal.  It didn’t matter how many times the attorney from the South Fork Conservancy told the woman at my table that no one was going to seize anyone’s property.   One group actually had managed to propose a continuous trail along the South Fork, with pink string neatly taped in place.  As we stood there admiring the map, a man who had been at my table said, “I wish I'd been at this table.”

The South Fork Conservancy has developed a long term vision that – if realized – would contribute to making the city a habitable and more walkable environment.  That would be good, and I also think it’s true that it would help increase support for fixing the sewer problems upstream.  Some parts of it may not be feasible and may never happen, and maybe some parts of it should not happen.   But I am glad someone’s thinking about it, because I am pretty sure that without the vision, none of it will happen.  Once land is developed, that’s pretty much it.  At least if there’s a vision, there may be a chance that some of it can be purchased in the future.

A few weeks ago, I was walking home from work up Old Briarcliff Road, and I paused on the bridge to look at the South Fork of Peachtree Creek.  The creekside is littered with debris and often the water is foul-smelling, even from the distance of the bridge.  But that day there was a mallard duck there in the water.  I stopped to take a picture, and another pedestrian stopped to see what I was looking at.  I pointed out the duck, and she broke into a delighted smile.  

How beautiful, she said, and how unexpected.