Westside Communities Alliance

A partnership between Atlanta's westside communities and institutions of higher education.

Westside Future Fund’s First Land Use Action Plan

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On April 1st, 2016, at the Transform Westside Summit, the Westside Future Fund’s hired architecture group Thadani + Associates unveiled their first of six Land Use Action Plans for the westside. The previous Tuesday at Higher Ground Empowerment Center in Vine City, the group, led by Dhiru Thadani of Washington D.C. introduced their plans for the coming months and hosted the public engagement meeting for the Joseph E. Boone/Mims Park area.

Notes from the public engagement meeting can be found here: Boone/Mims Park Meeting: Westside Future Fund. 

On Friday, only 59 hours after meeting with the community, Mr. Thadani presented the “draft” plan for this section of this community, noting that he finished some of the drawings mere hours before producing the slideshow. The length of the presentation prevented many people from asking questions but common areas of concern were the lack of community input into the plan (few ideas from the community seemingly made it into the suggestions), and lack of education/schools in the plan.

All official information from Westside Future Fund and Thadani + Associates can be found at: www.PlanWestside.com

WCA Launches Data Dashboard

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The Westside Communities Alliance introduced a comprehensive interactive Data Dashboard for Atlanta on February 11th.

The WCA Data Dashboard serves as a one-stop shop for key data that is accessible to community stakeholders, researchers, local government agencies, and relevant foundations interested in sustainable Westside community development.

“We believe that this tool has the potential to encourage greater data-driven decision-making at the neighborhood and Neighborhood Planning Unit (NPU) level in addition to supporting research and policymaking that addresses significant challenges in areas of education, economic development, transit and mobility, and public safety,” said WCA Associate Director Mackenzie Madden.

In its current form, the dashboard offers resources in seven categories:  1) Community Profiles, 2) Economic Development, 3) Education, 4) Public Safety, 5) All Data, 6) Historical Data, and 7) Resource Library.

Presently, the dashboard displays information for NPU’s K, L, and T – the three NPUs connected to the WCA – as compared to the City of Atlanta.

The dashboard is a user-friendly tool that:  1) draws upon available quantitative and qualitative data, 2) stores data collected for current and future research initiatives, 3) provides metrics for assessing the success of diverse engagement and intervention models, and 4) develops comprehensive reports to identify the impact of “anchor institutions” such as Georgia Tech on neighboring communities to highlight knowledge gaps.

The Data Dashboard project began in 2011 as a static Westside neighborhoods asset map created in conjunction with faculty in the Georgia Tech College of Architecture. Under the leadership of Dean Royster and her WCA leadership team, the first virtual tool was created in Fall 2013 by a group of graduate students in Dr. John Stasko’s Data Visualization class. That iteration mapped transit and walkability in the city. The platform also provided a heat map of census data that has since been transformed into the Big Data tool available today. Graduate Research Assistants in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts continued building the dashboard into its present form.

Katie O’Connell, MCRP 2015, was hired as the Project Manager for the Data Dashboard in Summer 2014. She began by researching similar platforms across the country and collecting relevant data for the city of Atlanta. During an Online Tools session of the WCA’s 2014 Community Studio, O’Connell was able to determine the basic pros and cons of existing resources such as the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Neighborhood Nexus, the U.S. EPA’s Enviromapper, and the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Several focus groups with Westside residents and stakeholders were held as various portals were designed to garner feedback on the usability of the dashboard.

The WCA staff has presented the dashboard at various conferences and symposia including The Center for Community Progress’ Vacant Properties Conference in 2015, Atlanta Studies Symposium, TEDx Atlanta, and the Georgia Tech Center for Urban Innovation.

The WCA Data Dashboard has been made possible through various stages of development in collaboration with entities at Georgia Tech including College of Architecture, College of Computing, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, the Center for Geographic Information Systems, and with funding from the Ford Foundation.

Please visit wcadatadashboard.iac.gatech.edu to explore the platform. Please use the hashtag #WCADataDashboard in social media settings, when referencing the tool.

Washington Park – LCI Meeting

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Washington Park Neighborhood At Work

On Tuesday October 21st, around 30 Washington Park residents gathered at KIPP Ways School on Temple St. to discuss the Livable Centers Initiative grant from the Atlanta Regional Commission. The event was hosted by Christi Jackson, Executive Director of The Conservancy at Historic Washington Park and supported by Allison Duncan of the ARC, and Carlos Perez and Wesley Brooks of Perez Planning + Design.

Dr. Pearlie Dove, a long-time resident of Washington Park, gave a warm welcome and call to action, starting the meeting with a great quote from Henry Ford: “Coming together is the beginning, working together is progress, staying together will result in success.”

The Livable Centers Initiative comes out of the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Community Choices program. The purpose of this meeting was to create a vision for the neighborhood with input from the residents. Once a report has been created, the group will identify strategies and sources for implementation.

ARC conducted an interactive survey using clicker remotes. Sample poll questions included: “What gives the community its character?”, “Why do you live in this community?”, “The community needs more…” etc. Following the survey, the attendees broke up into tables and discussed three questions:

1) What is it that you love about the neighborhood and do not want to see changed?

2) What is it that you do not like about the neighborhood that you would like to see changed?

3) What specific ideas and recommendations do you have about maintaining the things you love and/or changing the things you do not like?

The next meeting will report on the synthesis of the groups’ responses to the survey and discussion questions. It will take place on Monday, November 10th, 2015 at 6:30 pm at HAGAR Palace, located at 19 Joseph E. Lowey Blvd (the intersection of Lowery and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive).

 

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Friendship Baptist Church Demolition Hearing

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On April 2nd, 2014, the Georgia World Congress Center published a notice of a public hearing in the Daily Report in accordance with OCGA 12-16-5. The public had previously been told to look at the GWCC website for any updates on important meetings. On Friday, May 1st at 2 pm, the GWCC website was updated with a notice of the public hearing regarding the demolition of Friendship Baptist Church for the New Stadium Project. WCA Staff attended the meeting. As of 6:30 pm on Monday May 5th (the day and start time of the public hearing), all doors to Building C were locked, until GWCC security was called to open the doors. The meeting was not video-taped and the only way people will hear about the comments made are via Kevin Duvall and Frank Smith of the Georgia World Congress Center Authority and State Properties Commission respectively. Below, find the Environmental Effects Report produced for the site, the notice of the hearing, the construction/demolition schedule, and the public comments as recorded by WCA Staff.

Public Hearing Notification

Environmental Effects Report

Demolition/Construction Schedule

FriendshipDemo_PublicComment

Update from NPU-D

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NPU-D is located in Northwest Atlanta, encompassing the neighborhoods of Berkeley Park, Blandtown, Underwood Hills, Hills Park, Bolton, Riverside, and Whittier Mill Village. Over the last few months, WCA Activities Coordinator Carly Queen has been attending these meeting to take notes and report on the proceedings. Due to the winter weather in January the NPU-D meeting was postponed. Due to pressing matters in City Council, the meeting was rescheduled to February 11, which is normally the NPU-D Executive Committee Meeting. This meeting was announced, but at the meeting a concerned citizen expressed that the meeting was not properly advertised. The meeting and voting took place regardless of this concern. At the February 25 meeting a resolution was proposed to endorse actions taken at the February 11 meeting in response to the concern of improper advertisement, which was possibly in violation of the open meetings act. The concerned citizen proposed voting on each matter from the February 11 meeting again individually at the March meeting, so this was the process for endorsing the past actions. At the March 25 meeting all actions previously taken at the February 11 meeting were again approved. Other than resolving this controversy, the last few NPU-D meetings have served to disseminate information and allow NPU members to vote on a variety of important matters, listed below.

NPU D Minutes February 11

NPU D Minutes February 25

TopGolf Driving Range with Restaurant and Bar planned for a currently vacant lot off of Ellsworth Industrial Boulevard Top Golf

Riverwalk Atlanta is doing a feasibility study for a linear park along the Chattahoochee River, including the old incinerator site Riverwalk

Not in NPU-D, but here is some information on the Collier Village Rezoning Collier Village Redevelopment

FACTS Academy Charter School has been proposed for a site on Marietta Blvd, which will focus on fine arts, chess, and technology education FACTS

Capital Improvements Program and Community Work Program 2015-2019 CIP and CWP 2015 to 2019

Please direct any questions to: carlyqueen@gatech.edu