The redevelopment of Amsterdam Walk by Portman Holdings is heading to Atlanta City Council later this month, but before the council votes on April 21, community members are continuing to organize against the proposal in the hopes of thwarting a project they believe to be “massive” and “wildly unpopular.”
Members of the community organization “A Better Amsterdam Walk” are not opposed to developing the area, as Charlie Kaften, a resident of the neighborhood since 2007, explained: “Our message has been clear from the beginning: we support smart, sensible development.”
According to the organization, the size of the proposed development – nine stories with 1,100 rental units – is far too large for the nearly 11-acre site off Monroe Drive. Kaften and the organization are advocating for development that follows the Beltline Master Plan recommendations for the site: one to four stories on the edges of the property and five to nine on the interior.
“This project is so much grander in scale, when you look at the number of units per acre, than anything else around that this project will be precedent-setting in the sense that master plans will no longer have really any relevance,” Kaften said.
The organization argues the scale as well as the car-centric design – the proposal includes 1,435 parking spaces – will exacerbate already problematic traffic on Monroe Drive.
“I pick up broken pieces of cars every week, multiple times a week, from all the accidents that we have” Hernán Bello, a resident of the neighborhood since 2015, said.
Mike Greene, the Senior Vice President of Development at Portman Holdings, has publicly lobbied against Beltline rail with the Better Atlanta Transit coalition, an issue that has been raised by the community and the Morningside Lenox Park Association (MLPA) board.
“This is a developer that is against transit on the Beltline, putting a very car-centric project in our neighborhood when we are saturated with cars,” Bello said.
Due to the size and traffic concerns, residents of the neighborhood are overwhelmingly opposed to the project: 77 percent of NPU-F voted against supporting the proposal following the vote from VHCA and MLPA . While Portman Holdings has hosted several community engagement meetings, Bello and Kaften argue the developer has not expressed any interest in working with the community.
Both Virginia-Highland Civic Association (VHCA) and MLPA voted in favor of the redevelopment, but MLPA later released a statement saying, “The current proposal for Amsterdam Walk under review by City Council is not the project we negotiated with Portman Holdings nor the plans that we approved.”
Jack Halpern, the CEO and Chairman of Halpern Enterprises, the current owner of the site and an investment partner in the redevelopment, told Rough Draft that additional input was received from Atlanta Beltline, Inc., Atlanta Botanical Garden, Piedmont Park Conservancy, and various departments of the City of Atlanta, and the proposal “incorporates a public plaza and extensive pedestrian and bicycle paths, providing the surrounding neighborhoods with additional amenities and much-improved access to the Beltline itself.”
He further argued that shifting the density to residential uses would “reduce the traffic impact of redeveloping the property for commercial purposes, as currently allowed.”
“In addition, the developer has agreed to create a second connection from Amsterdam Walk to Monroe Drive, along with intersection improvements at the intersections of Monroe at Amsterdam and Monroe at Worchester (the signalized drive to the existing parking deck at the Botanical Garden) – thereby helping to mitigate concerns about traffic and safety,” Halpern added. According to A Better Amsterdam Walk, this connection is a “non-negotiable” condition mandated by the Department of City Planning.
Supporters of the development argue the project will bring necessary housing to the neighborhood. Portman Holdings touts the development as an opportunity to introduce more affordable housing to the area – an initiative in line with Mayor Andre Dickens’ goal of building or preserving 20,000 units of affordable housing across the city by 2030 – with 240 of the 1,100 units demarcated as affordable. A Better Amsterdam Walk says they are supportive of the affordable housing initiative but believe Portman Holdings should still provide affordable housing in a smaller development.
Ahead of the city council vote, Kaften, Bello, and others are hoping to schedule one-on-one meetings with council members to discuss their concerns and warn them of the potential precedent this development could set for other districts.
“The message to the other city council members is this: Do you realize what this will mean in your district?” Kaften said. “Maybe a developer will come to your district and want to put in something that’s also way, way too big and wildly unpopular with your community. Would that be okay with you?”
City council members Alex Wan, Matt Westmoreland, and Mary Norwood have publicly committed to voting against the project.
“We are for smart, sensible development,” Kaften said. “We are for affordable housing. We just need something that makes sense here, and hopefully that message will get through on April 21.”
A Better Amsterdam Walk has created a petition against the development, which currently has more than 1,800 signatures.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated and expanded to more accurately reflect the entirety of the story outside of A Better Amsterdam Walk’s perspective. We regret the oversight.
