Letter to the Editor: Cemetery Neighbors Upset Over Decision to Rebuild Detention Pond

Arlington Memorial Park Cemetery neighbors say they are let down that Sandy Springs City Council approved the request to rebuild a detention pond on the property.

During last week’s City Council meeting, Jack Walz, whose property abuts the , asked Council members why the construction is necessary, considering there has been no major flooding in 36 years, not even during the September 2009 rains. 

Neighbor Judith Wold sent the following letter to Sandy Springs Patch:

As you no doubt noted, there was a disconnect between the "neighborhood" and the City Council. The disconnect was actually caused by the city--though it may have been a  done in collusion with Arlington. 

Arlington has a long history of doing things first and asking forgiveness later, so there is not a lot of trust between us and them. We have lived "next door" to them for 30 years.

When Sandy Springs (SS) became a city, it asked Fulton County for all of the parks and the "good stuff"--but when it came to the detention pond behind my house--SS wanted Fulton County to fix it (mind you it hasn't been maintained by ANYONE in over 30 years). 

It is actually a lovely wooded area--because all of the trees have grown back that Fulton County destroyed when they first built the pond and the dam in 1976. 

So SS sued Fulton County over the maintenance. [Sandy Springs] wanted to make this lawsuit go away and saw the chance to do this through a deal with Arlington, whereby Arlington would pay for and maintain the detention pond at no cost to the city.

To accomplish this with as little input as possible from the neighborhood, the original hearing notice that the city of SS sent out (on a post card) did not mention the detention pond at all--nor the fact that the plan called for tripling the volume of the pond. 

The issue that was put on the notice was a stream buffer variance in the cemetery. We did not pay much attention to that because we thought it only involved moving the road in the cemetery. 

I think only two people from our neighborhood (Rivershore Estates) went to the first meeting--one of them being a judge who works for the city of Sandy Springs. 

When the second notice came out for the final hearing--my husband called the cemetery and was referred to the engineer. The engineer for the cemetery then sent drawings to my husband--my husband in turn sent them out to the neighbors on Riverhill Drive and Riverwood Drive whose property abuts Arlington. 

Our property and Jack Walz' property are both heavily affected. My husband was able to get the tree replacement promise from the cemetery (only the afternoon of the hearing)--but the detention pond construction will wreak havoc on the wooded area behind our houses...it will be ugly for a long time. The long and short of this is:

1. We probably need to have the detention pond re-habilitated.  There are several creeks in the neighborhood--our end of this creek does not seem to be a huge problem though Colewood Creek  also involved with the Arlington property) further over in the neighborhood has been involved with some flooding.
2.  The city of Sandy Springs slipped this through without full disclosure to the neighborhood, so that we did not have time to respond properly.  We had heard through the grape vine just prior to this hearing that it was a "done deal."
3.  The moral of this story is to always pay attention to a variance hearing that might even remotely affect your property values and try to be proactive. 

Kind regards, Judith Wold