Sandy Springs Together

Everyone Deserves a Voice

SST Blog Posts

City moves forward with shopping center plans

Are you ready for change? 

The city of Sandy Springs is moving forward with its plans to engage a private design company to come up with ideas for how three shopping centers could be redeveloped.

The three shopping centers are:

  1. the former Loehmann’s shopping center (where the Sandy Springs Diner is located); 
  2. Northridge Shopping Center (where the former Kroger’s was);
  3. North River Shopping Center (where Stars and Strikes is currently located)

Mayor Rusty Paul has said that the designs are intended to act as ideas or suggestions of what “could be” developed, and that the city could take the designs and develop the ideas someplace else in the city.

According to the Atlanta Regional Commission, rents in the metro region increased by 35 percent between 2011 – 2017, and home prices have increased 60 percent. One in three residents pays more than 30 percent of their income on housing. 

Atlanta is no longer an affordable place to live. 

And how are we doing here in Sandy Springs? 

One thing is for sure, the city has done NO study to determine the impact the desired redevelopment of shopping centers will have on the affordability of housing. And all of this talk about redevelopment is driving the cost of land and rents even higher. 

What are your thoughts about all of the proposed changes with no impact study being done? You will have a chance to share your opinions with the city soon. 

The city will conduct community input meetings in the months ahead and your voice is needed. All of the walking paths, new retail and restaurants will be great to have, but at what cost?

Stay tuned to Sandy Springs Together to learn more about how you can make a difference by letting your voice be heard at the upcoming community meetings.

North End is ‘Open for business’ but at what cost?

The city wants to send a message to developers that  the ”north end is open for business.”

This has been an objective since the formation of the North End Revitalization Task Force in July 2018.

In a step toward that goal, the city passed a resolution last week, on Tuesday, Dec. 3, to hire the design firm TSW Design Group.

By taking this action, the city has sent the first signal. 

TSW Design will offer 3 design suggestions for 4 underutilized shopping centers on the north end. 

The four shopping centers are:

  1. the former Loehmann’s shopping center (where the Sandy Springs Diner is located); 
  2. Northridge Shopping Center (where the former Kroger’s was);
  3. North River Shopping Center (where Stars and Strikes is currently located), and; 
  4. the Big Lots shopping center.

We welcome revitalization if it addresses one of the objectives of the mission of the same task force, specifically “…that (it) creates a place for the families currently living in the neighborhood”.   

These families are our workforce and our neighbors and many of them have already been priced out of the city due to rising rents and redevelopment.

Mayor Rusty Paul said, “While there’s too much rental housing in the area, we’re not interested in gentrification. I want to make that real clear.” Sandy Springs Reporter, May 25, 2018. 

We are interested in seeing how the design plans from TSW evolve and what price point the housing will come in at. Keeping housing costs affordable for both renters and homeowners is our primary concern. 

We have been advocating for the city to conduct an affordable housing impact study before development begins, and we will continue to raise awareness for this issue.

There are options available to the city to ensure that housing remains affordable —  other cities are taking steps to accomplish this. Sandy Springs can and MUST do the same. 

We are hopeful that our elected officials will not pretend that rising housing costs are “unintended consequences” of redevelopment, because that would be misleading.

Instead, we encourage them to face the challenge of encouraging redevelopment while preserving housing affordability for all income types.

Sandy Springs’ children are our future, and we must protect their opportunities

Editor’s Note: Sandy Springs Together periodically publishes letters or comments from community members who raise a concern we feel should be considered by the broader community. 

Please let us hear your thoughts. 

By RM Hoelting

Since retiring 5 years ago, I have been fortunate enough to be able to tutor at Lake Forest Elementary School.

I say fortunate because this school is filled with the most grateful, hardworking and humble children I have ever known.

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Lack of housing is heart-rendering at this time of year

Editor’s Note: Sandy Springs Together periodically publishes letters or comments from community members who raise a concern we feel should be considered by the broader community. 

Please let us hear your thoughts. 

by Peggy Stapleton

The funny thing about addressing housing issues during December is that this is the month when many of us celebrate the birth of a king, a poor king — a king who lodged who-knows-where on his birthday.

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