Georgia Perimeter College, Dunwoody Campus is located in the sleepy
bedroom community of Dunwoody's single family residential district of
Tilly Mill and Womack. The poor planning of the placement of this
location has become evident by the steady increase of vehicular traffic
whereby our road infrastructure is overwhelmed and grid locked leading
all the way back to the interstate and beyond.
The college has just completed the demolition of the DeKalb School
property that they obtained in the swap for Dunwoody Elementary and they
are now attempting to convince the State Government and the Board of
Regents to go forward with the new construction of two academic
buildings and two separate parking structures, in two phases. If
approved by the State, GPC would like to start the first phase of
construction of the $28.6 Million dollar, four story academic building
along Womack and the adjoining 600 car parking deck in early 2011,
followed by an other similar building and another 600 car deck soon
after as the photo above shows.
When the City Council learned of
these plans we started taking immediate action by talking
to GPC and learning everything we could of their plans. Knowing
that GPC is a separate governmental agency and not subject to the
control of Dunwoody zoning ordinances; it therefore would be
difficult for us to stop their plans through our normal control
measures. That being said, numerous conversations were held with
GPC in order to determine how to correct the real issue, which is not
the expansion but instead the students cars on our crowded two lane
streets, that based on our citizens wishes, will forever be two lane
roads.
Dr. Anthony S. Tricoli, President of GPC and Council have been broaching
a number of items like limiting the number of parking permits, shuttle
buses from remote parking lots like First Baptist Church of Atlanta and
other operational improvements like the movement of driveways and egress
improvements.
Tonight's meeting on the college and the related traffic was really an
impromptu meeting leading up the the January 25th meeting where Dr.
Tricoli himself will officially present the expansion plans for the
college to the community. The city being in a hard spot as far as
forcing concessions from GPC that will have long term improvements for
the residents, the best solution may be to encourage the State of
Georgia not pass the funding mechanism to build the expansion.
After tonight's meeting expect the Mayor and City Council to be more
vocal about what they are doing about GPC instead of just attempting to
work behind the scenes with the powers that be. If we the Council
believed that our recommendation that the expansion of Georgia Perimeter
College be moved to another location in the City or possibly another
location in the suburbs (someone said Roswell would be a key place for
GPC expansion) would be effective then that would probably be the
ultimate goal of Council. Barring GPC doing what we ask, just because we
asked, what can we the city do to help alleviate the traffic woes that
the students cause to the residents. There were a number of suggestions
made at tonight's meeting and trust me that they will all be on the
table for us to contemplate.
Come early to the meeting on the 25th as I am guessing it will be tough
to find a seat by meeting time.
PS: Allow me take a shot at the first question. Dr. Tricoli, based
on the fact the first paragraph at the top right of the document states
that structures are designed to be environmentally friendly with an
emphasis on the use of mass transportation, walking, and biking.
If that is the case, why do we need 1,200 spaces for automobiles?
Georgia Perimeter College expansion plans Dunwoody Campus
