By Brent Brewer

Where We Want To Live, Ryan

Gravels story of the Atlanta BeltLine, is

not the blueprint for a successful

BeltLine neighborhood that you might

have hoped for. Rather, it is a detailed

tale of how Gravels vision became the

Atlanta Beltline.

To summarize the book, his vision

suggests that transportation

infrastructure does more than move

people. It builds communities, and it

constructs our way of life.

He calls his vision catalystic infrastructure.

To Gravel, spontaneous interactions

along infrastructure is just the kind of

Atlanta he wants to live in.

As West End neighbors forgo the car

and bike/walk the West End trail to the

park or grocery stores, and meet

neighbors in passing, these neighbors

create Gravels vision on the Westside.

Their experiences breath life into his

vision, making it our Atlanta BeltLine.

Our infrastructure has always linked our

neighborhoods. Shared vehicular

boulevards, bus routes traversing from

West End to Ashby MARTA stations,

and newly repaired sidewalks provide

safe passage to our common parks and

green spaces, Washington School cluster

public schools, and shared

supermarkets.

With the completion of the Westside

BeltLine Trail, historic barriers will

transform into a new public common

ground. Westside neighborhoods with

their own history, culture and politics

will be connected.

We dont have to wait for the Trails

completion to celebrate the diversity of

the Westside neighborhoods while

showing our common ground.

We can do this by sharing our stories

with each other.!

May 2016 Linking Neighbors and Celebrating Diversity Issue One

Where We Want to Live: Westside

Historic Westside News

Calling Local Reporters,

Photographers and Artists.

The Historic Westside News is back!

Bigger and better than ever, this

newspaper covers Atlanta University

Center (AUC), Ashview Heights,

Castleberry Hill, English Avenue, Vine

City, Washington Park and West End.

Our mission Linking Neighbors and

Celebrating Diversity says it all. New

school, old school or your school we are

looking for stories about your/our

communities. Submit stories and graphics

to info@historicwestsidenews.com. See

your story ideas in print and distributed

throughout the community. Deadline is

Third Monday of each month.

Inside This Issue.

Brent Brewer , a West

End resident, is the

publisher of the Our

West End Newsletter.

Westside Future

Fund Needs Community

Input

PAGE 2,3

Urban Ag

From Public Spaces to Homes

PAGE 4, 5

Historic Washington Park

Conservancy

Legacy of Mr. Perry and Mrs. Dove

PAGE 6

2 Historic Westside News May 2016

Community Input Needed on Land Use Plan

Input Schedule

A calendar with times and locations is at http://planwestside.com/events.

Mondays and Tuesdays: Face-to-face fact-finding sessions at the Westside Future Fund office. The Land-Use Action Team is holding a series of Stakeholder Meetings specific to each target area to get input on whats happening in the community, what stakeholders would like to see happen and what are their concerns. These sessions are with stakeholders grouped into similar categories such as Community Leadership, Residents, Faith-Based Organizations, Developers & Property Owners, Public Safety, Environmental Organizations, and Infrastructure Implementation. If you would like to be included in one of these groups, or have a suggestion for a Stakeholder category that should be included please contact the Westside Future Fund Director of Programs Nasim Fluker Email: nfluker@westsidefuturefund.org or Phone: 404-793-2676.

Tuesday evenings: Presentations for public input in each neighborhood. This is a series of neighborhood fact-finding sessions in the six target areas. Residents, businesses, churches, landowners and those organizations providing services in the target community are invited to take part in a series of breakout sessions following an informational presentation on the Westsides Land-Use Action Plan.

Wednesdays and Thursdays: The Land-Use Action Team will spend two days at the Westside Future Funds offices intensively taking all the input from the previous two days to create a draft design and implementation strategy.

Fridays: A draft of recommendations for each target area will be presented at the first Friday of the month at Transform Westside Summit with Q&A after. The draft will be posted online at planwestside.com later that day for review and additional feedback.

Saturdays: For English Avenue and Vine City, the Land-Use Action Plan team is presenting to the local neighborhood associations for feedback on the draft plan. These meetings are open to homeowners, landowners and renters in the specific target area.

Since 2002, over 18 land-use plans have been conceived for the Westside. Understandably some community members say they have planning fatigue and have been through this before. The biggest weakness of these previous plans was the lack of a robust implementation strategy an Action Plan! The Westside Future Fund is therefore building on the good work and extensive community feedback put into previous plans by city agencies, city council members, partners and residents to create a comprehensive, up to date Land-Use Action Plan. You can find links to the previous plans as well as an analysis of each one at http://planwestside.com/previous_westside_studies

Community input is critical to creating a Land-Use Action Plan for the Westside. As Atlantas Commissioner of Planning and Community Development, Tim Keane said at the April 1 Transform Westside Summit, To be successful,

this has to be something that the people who live here - and are invested in here - support and are a part of. The Westside Future Fund has partnered with the citys Planning and Community Development to create the Land-Use Action Plan thats headed up by Dhiru Thadani, an internationally recognized architect/urbanist and author of The Language of Towns and Cities: A Visual Dictionary and co-editor of Leon Krier: The Architecture of Community.

Thadani and his team of local and national experts are holding multiple stakeholder meetings that are followed by a Tuesday night neighborhood informational and input meeting . Other opportunities for public input include the first Friday of each month, when the Land-Use Action Plan team presents its draft recommendations to the Transform Westside Summit and a Saturday morning neighborhood presentation for additional public critique and comment . Throughout the process, all the information collected and the draft plans will be posted at

planwestside.com for review and additional feedback.

Preserving The Identity

A consistent concern in the stakeholder and public meetings on Boone Corridor was losing the areas culture and history. The Land-Use Action Team took these concerns into account for its first round of recommendations with special mention of Sunset Avenue and its historical significance, as well as identifying existing viable homes and buildings. It is precisely this history and sense of place that researcher Lauri Volk of Zimmerman/Volk Associates said will make the area attractive to the biggest demographic in the country right now - the millennials. What many of them want is to live in a walkable neighborhood thats mixed use and authentic. Authenticity is one of the most important aspects that young people are looking for today, said Volk. And I must say that authenticity can certainly be found throughout the Westside.

Focusing on market potential instead of demand, Volk said a housing program can better respond to housing preferences for the people in different life stages who are moving from one place to another - and be very successful without displacing existing residents. Theres a fear that people who live there will be driven out by the new housing, she said. That's why our methodology has been developed to encompass everyone, not just people who can afford market rate - but the people who require public housing and affordable housing because it's really important that neighborhoods be mixed income and diverse. Those are the strongest neighborhoods that will last over time. Her analysis will look at markets by income and housing preferences - which she said is a long process. We break them out by income so we can understand how much housing needs to be set aside for affordable housing, and how much housing needs to be set aside for households who don't need assistance.

continued from Page 2

Preventing Displacement

Volk said once the study is finished, she will create a housing program that goes beyond the status quo to strategically expand the housing types in each neighborhood. This increases housing choices for people already living there and for people who want to live there. It attracts new households, she said. And that's what you need to restore the vitality of the neighborhood - support existing residents, retain existing residents and attract new people. Support for the existing community is a top priority for the Westside Future Funds Executive Director John Ahmann. I want to be very clear that we're first going to focus on existing homeowners, businesses and institutions, he said. Our first focus is on wha