Community Improvement District behind feasibility study

"CID top supporter of MARTA expansion"

By BEN SMITH
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/08/06

A business organization trying to reverse urban decay in and around Norcross is leading the effort to re-examine a failed plan to run MARTA trains into Gwinnett County.

So far, the group seems to stand alone.

"It's a dicey issue," said the group's leader, Chuck Warbington. "That's why Gwinnett Village CID is stepping out front on this."

Warbington's group oversees a community improvement district along the I-85 corridor in western Gwinnett.

A CID is a self-taxing entity that uses revenue collected within its boundaries to fund improvements in the area. In Gwinnett County three CIDs are dedicated to revitalizing the I-85 corridor, Gwinnett Place mall and the U.S. 78 corridor in eastern Gwinnett.

But Warbington's group is the only one expected to foot half the bill for a new $100,000 MARTA study on extending rail service from the transit agency's Doraville station to Gwinnett Place. MARTA is kicking in the other $50,000.

Wayne Shackelford, a former MARTA board member and a former commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation, said he was glad someone had picked up the idea of public transit in Gwinnett.

"Do I think a MARTA vote would be different today than in 1990? Absolutely," Shackelford said. "Do I think a majority would support it? I don't know."

Meanwhile, some county officials are weakly endorsing Warbington's effort.

"If they want to study bringing MARTA to Gwinnett, that's their prerogative," Gwinnett Commission Chairman Charles Bannister said. "It'd be all right if they want to spend their money."

Bannister's reaction, perhaps, isn't surprising in a county where MARTA has been a losing issue for politicians.

Gwinnett voters twice rejected referendums — in 1971 and 1990 — that would have extended MARTA service into the county in exchange for a 1 percent sales tax increase. But Warbington believes the political climate might have changed since Gwinnett voters rejected MARTA 2-to-1 in 1990, in part because of worsening traffic and the county's changing demographics.

Many starter homes owned by young professional newcomers from outside Georgia and the South in 1990 since have become rental properties filled with immigrants and other ethnic minorities. The area of the CID, once represented exclusively by Republican officeholders, is now served by three Democrats in the Georgia Legislature.

According to the Gwinnett Village CID, nearly half of the area's residents are Latino and nearly two-thirds of housing is inhabited by renters. Household incomes and housing values fall below the county as a whole. But it's not just the apparently growing pool of potential MARTA riders that's driving this issue, according to Warbington.

Warbington said scores of residents voiced support for MARTA or some form of mass transit at public meetings held by the CID earlier this year. "It came up at all 12 meetings," he said, and residents even mapped potential transit stops.

And Warbington argues that Gwinnett is losing opportunities to bring big companies into the county because it doesn't have rail transit. He cited one recent example of a high-tech industrial company that was shopping around for a 200,000-square-foot facility in metro Atlanta.

"Location near a transit station was in their top three list of requirements," Warbington said. "You could go ahead and mark off Gwinnett because we're 30 minutes away from the nearest transit station. Getting some form of mass transit in Gwinnett is going to be hugely importantly to revitalizing the area."

Warbington said the new study will not just focus on laying new train tracks into Gwinnett. It also will consider other options, such as creating a bus rapid transit system for the county or running commuter rail service along the existing Norfolk-Southern rail line to Gainesville.

AJC