Six months into the community input process for a multimodal study, Brookhaven is removing three potential multi-use paths after residents pointed out it would cut through 60 acres of private land.
The multimodal study is a revision of Brookhaven’s Bicycle, Pedestrian, and Trail Plan, which was adopted in 2016. Very little of the original plan has been built. The city hired Alta Planning + Design in November 2022 to execute a multimodal study and update the plan.
Brookhaven students do not currently have access to school via bike paths or bike lanes. The multimodal plan intends to expand the city’s trail system, connecting neighborhoods for pedestrians and bikers.
David Felfoldi, a resident of Silver Lake, a wooded area south of Johnson Ferry Road, found a map on Nov. 10 issued by Alta. Felfoldi, who had attended all of the community input meetings from May to November, realized the map included a path that would span one mile of woods and a 75-foot dam through Silver Lake.
“Most people don’t know about Silver Lake,” said Felfoldi of the privately owned land. “They think it’s owned by the [swim and tennis] Brittany Club.”
Felfoldi alerted the Silver Lake Civic Association, city council members, and Brookhaven mayoral candidates. A firestorm of calls and emails started between residents and the city council.
The city says the community input process is working properly.
“The reason why the suggestion [to add a path in Silver Lake] was made in the first place was because somebody at one of the meetings said, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be great if we had a trail that went this way,'” said Burke Brennan, Brookhaven communications director. “The purpose of the multimodal study is for [the contractor] to look at the former plan to come up with a framework for people to give feedback, then they make adjustments. This is an excellent example of the community input process at work.”
During the Nov. 11-12 weekend, City Councilmember Linley Jones worked with the Brittany Club, the Silver Lake Civic Association, and other neighbors. Right away, said Jones, three projects were removed from the plan: the Warren Hall extension, the Silver Lake path and the Bubbling Creek backyard path.
Jones said building out a path on private property was not intended by the mayor or city council, and that city council members were not aware of the Silver Lake path until it was brought to their attention.
“In other words, this draft came out, and that was the first we saw it,” Jones said.
At the Nov. 14 Brookhaven City Council meeting, Jones said “citizens were left with… drafts of a plan that caused them very serious concerns without me having the ability to give them really firm answers.”
Jones immediately tabled other multimodal projects and extended the study’s deadline to March 2024 for further public input.
The Brookhaven Bike Alliance (BBA) has been communicating with the city since the trail plan came out in 2016. BBA said it has repeatedly asked for bike lanes rather than shared-used paths, which the current study ignores.
The 2016 plan had a recommendation to add a bike track along Lanier Drive, which has a high volume of bicyclists. The project to add a sidewalk to one side of road and replace sharrows with cycle track on the other side of Lanier Drive was incorrectly marked as complete in a multimodal plan checklist from Brookhaven. There is only a small sidewalk on one side, and protected street parking for Lanier residents on the other.
BBA said it has recommended planning vendors, hosted the first community input session, and spread awareness to more than 700 members.
“We advocate a Complete Streets/Safe Streets approach to street design which makes streets safer for everyone — cars, bikes, and pedestrians. In many cases, this is a low-cost approach that connects communities by working within established roadways to calm traffic, provide bicyclists with a defined place to ride, and keep pedestrians safely away from fast-moving cars and bicycles alike. As such, we are disappointed that Alta’s initial plan relies so heavily on shared-use paths. While shared-use paths can be an effective approach for community connectivity in specific circumstances, such as the Peachtree Creek Greenway path, they are expensive and time-consuming to build and frequently run into land purchase and environmental objections,” the statement reads.
“We will use our experience and membership to work with Alta and the city over the next four months to make major changes to the draft multimodal plan. Cities that include places for bikes and pedestrians in their road design consistently score highest in national livability indexes, which directly translates to resident happiness, strong property values, and increased spending at local businesses. Brookhaven citizens have said in surveys that they want to live in such a city, and it is everyone’s challenge to get Brookhaven there,” the BBA statement said.
The city and Alta have held three community input meetings. The first was held on May 7 at City Hall, and the second was May 18, a pop-up at a Brookhaven Bike Alliance event.
The third community input meeting was held Nov. 2, where an Alta contractor presented a draft of the plan. Felfoldi told the Alta consultant, “You’re going to make a lot of people upset if you take the path through the woods of Silver Lake. I really encourage you to revise.”
The consultant suggested Felfoldi provide that feedback, which he did in an email on Nov. 3. “I also invited the consultant to walk the property because it seemed that he had never seen this property,” Felfoldi said.
Alta’s response was: “Unfortunately, site visits with interested parties along the extensive proposed network (with more than 300 highly conceptual projects), is beyond the scope of what we were hired to do for this study, but that does not mean we are uninterested in your perspective or analysis.”
In a fee presentation, however, Alta gave the option to Brookhaven to add a site walk-through for an additional $2,000 to $3,000.
At the Nov. 14 Brookhaven City Council meeting, Councilmember Jones issued a resolution for the protection of Silver Lake, which was created and built in 1911 near Peachtree Road. Deeded to Silver Lake Association in 1979, the land and lake are private property.
The ordinance recognizes Silver Lake as “a private property that is of great value to the community in the environment and the public health that is maintained by contributing members who donate both their money and in many instances, their time to maintain the lake, the paths around it and so forth,” said Jones. “I appreciate everyone’s support and giving me the opportunity to get this addressed and to get it taken care of.”
