Smyrna Ready-Mix (SRM) has been dealt yet another setback in its years-long attempt to secure a Special Use Permit (SUP) to construct a concrete plant in the rapidly transforming Blandtown Neighborhood. SRM, who are the owners of 1521 Huber Street, and their attorney Doug Dillard failed to reach an agreement in mediation with the City of Atlanta last month, according to Fulton County court records. However, the mediation certification does specify that “an agreement may be forthcoming,” indicating that that an agreement may still be in the works.
The mediation outcome is the latest in a long series of setback for Smyrna Ready-Mix, who first applied for Special Use Permit of the Blandtown property in December of 2018 to allow for the creation of a 13-acre concrete plant immediately adjacent to residential and commercial developments, and less than a mile from the future Beltline Northwest Trail Segment 4. After a lengthy review process, which included an Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) Development of Regional Impact (DRI) Review, Atlanta City Council officially denied the request for the SUP on January 21st, 2020.
The owners are eligible to resubmit a request for a SUP after 24 months, which would be up this coming January, 2022. In the meantime, Smyrna decided to pursue litigation against the City of Atlanta on the decision, filing a lawsuit on February 20th, 2020, just a month after SUP request denied. The lawsuit is reportedly on procedural grounds related to the timeliness of the ARC DRI Review, presumably in an attempt to force the City to reconsider their SUP application sooner than January 2022. The case was ordered to mediation in May of 2021, and the first mediation meeting failed to result in an agreement last month.
The mediation process has renewed concerns among community members, who fear the opaque process may lead to the undoing of years of organizing against the plant. Since December of 2018, community groups including the Blandtown Neighborhood Association in partnership with nearby subdivision developer Brock Built have lobbied against the project, saying the development would bring dangerous truck traffic and pollution to the neighborhood. Estimates vary, but in 2018 Smyrna admitted the plant would bring upwards of 60 trips per day along Chattahoochee Avenue and Huff Road. A representative of the Blandtown Neighborhood Association cites up to 150 trips per day, much of which would take place on a newly created connection to Fairmont Avenue, which would pass directly in front of the Brock Built subdivision.
Smyrna Ready-Mix, for their part, have denied these impacts, claiming in a statement to Curbed Atlanta in 2018 that residents have wrongly conflated cement with concrete. Smyrna’s attorney Doug Dillard contended that the concrete plant would “not have any negative environmental effects upon surrounding neighborhood”. What Now Atlanta contacted SRM’s attorney Doug Dillard for comment regarding the mediation process, but have not received a response as of press time.
