Joe Arrington remembers when Rockbridge Road was not continually under siege by bureaucrats.
Today, road planners want to enlarge the residential road that runs through DeKalb County, making it a major arterial, and they’re in for a fight. Some 60 neighborhoods–about 4,000 homeowners–have formed the Rockbridge Coalition to oppose the project.
“Twenty years ago there weren’t many perceived threats to our quality of life,” Arrington said. “But as time goes on, more and more neighborhoods are feeling threatened by zoning decisions and the impact of roads. Traffic, congestion, the arrogant abuse of power by the (Department of Transportation) has given neighborhoods something to rally around.”
The sleeping giant is waking, says George Nowack. A partner in the Atlanta firm of Weissman, Nowack, Curry & Zaleon, Nowack is a past president of the national Community Associations Institute, based in Washington. During his term, he traveled more 70,000 miles meeting homeowner association members. “They have not realized their power yet,” says Nowack. “When they do, they will be a political force.”
In metro Atlanta, the giant is awake and at work. In the north metro area, large community groups like the Dunwoody Homeowners Association have had influence on development since the late 1970s. An umbrella organization, DHA represents about 15,000 residents and their local homeowner associations.
“Dunwoody has a McDonald’s without golden arches, a Pizza Hut without a red roof,” says Bill Grossman, a DHA board member. They are just a couple of the many conditions the association has been able to negotiate in rezonings, he said. “We often are not able to stop a project, but we are always able to get some conditions attached to it.”
Last year, Dunwoody homeowners extended their range beyond local zoning. The DHA took on the state, persuading officials not to sell Brook Run, a state residential center for the handicapped. The facility is on 98 park-like acres–the largest tract of undeveloped land in Dunwoody. Instead, part of the land will be leased, while 35 percent will remain wooded.
“Organizations DHA’s size are realizing their political strength is their numbers, and they are combining in a force that will become a player at the table,” says Grossman, who is doing more than talking about the future.
For six months, he has been working with leaders of the large organizations in the metro area–umbrella groups representing thousands of residents in Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett Counties. What they have helped create is the Federation of Georgia Homeowners.
“One unified voice stands a better chance of being listened to,” says Prescott Eaton, federation president, who runs the group out of his home in Cumming. “We want to make our presence known to politicians. We want to be treated as bargainers at the table, equal to developers and builders. We want to be part of the solutions.”
Unlike the neighborhood and umbrella associations that rarely go beyond local bounds, the federation intends to become involved at the regional, state and federal levels on a wide range of growth and development issues, including transportation, land use and the environment.
“We believe that change must come at a high level if real change is to be made in striking a balance between homeowners and developers,” said Eaton.
