ZRB Rejects Amsterdam Walk Application
In a stunning 3-2 vote Thursday night before a packed City Council auditorium at City Hall, the City’s Zoning Review Board (ZRB) rejected developer Portman Holdings’ zoning and land use application for its Amsterdam Walk redevelopment plan.
The application now goes first to the City Council Zoning Committee and next to the full Atlanta City Council, whose July 1 vote will ultimately decide the fate of Portman’s plan to build nearly 250,000 square feet of retail and office space, 840 apartments, and a 1,400-space parking deck on the Amsterdam Walk site off Monroe Drive between the Virginia Highland and Morningside neighborhoods.
City of cars: 1,400 here, 1,400 there. Where does it end? Photo credit: Volkswagen AG
Neighborhood Planning Unit F voted 282-84 three weeks ago to deny the zoning and land use changes Portman Holdings is proposing for this site.
The broader implication of these votes is there may be a limit to the level of density both intown Atlanta residents and the city’s zoning review board are willing to tolerate without the promise of mass transportation.
At Thursday evening’s meeting, one of the ZRB members questioned Portman’s representative, VP of Development Mike Greene, about his opposition to the Streetcar East (SCE) project, the first scheduled leg of BeltLine light rail set to start construction in 2025.
Portman VP Mike Greene has actively lobbied against BeltLine light rail and is a founding member of Better Atlanta Transit (BAT), an interest group lobbying city officials to quash SCE, and look at scooters, bikes, and autonomous vehicles instead.
ZRB members seemed especially concerned about the number of parking spots and the traffic that would result on Monroe Drive. Several times they questioned Mike Greene about reducing the number of spots.
Here’s BRN’s blog about Amsterdam Walk from a few weeks back.
BRN supported the full scope of the Amsterdam Walk project at Thursday’s meeting but with conditions: only with the promise of BeltLine light rail and low parking maximums.
About 60 people from Better Amsterdam Walk, an advocacy group of Virginia Highland and Morningside residents interested in scaling down the project, showed up for the meeting to voice their opposition to Portman’s Amsterdam Walk redevelopment plans and link increased density with the need for transit.
Atlanta City Council still needs to weigh in, but the pushback against Amsterdam Walk may send a signal to other developers looking to build along the BeltLine that there’s little appetite for high density WITHOUT transit infrastructure on the BeltLine corridor. It also raises the question- how much more density, parking, and road traffic will people accept without the essential infrastructure of light rail transit that is the essential ingredient to make all the new growth work for everyone?
If you agree Amsterdam Walk needs to be redeveloped with a significant parking reduction and with mass transit infrastructure, please email City Council Zoning Committee Chair Matt Westmoreland and District 6 council member Alex Wan.
