** the following details have been pulled from the social media post by the Housing Justice League **
October 29: Stop Using Eminent Domain to Displace Black Residents
Peoplestown Residents Return to Court To Prove City’s Fraudulent Use of Eminent Domain in Peoplestown
Date: Monday October 29, 2018
Time: 1:45 p.m.
Location: Fulton County Superior Court/ 185 Central Ave SW/ Atlanta, GA 30303
Peoplestown residents return to court after Judge Schwall directed the City to bring former city engineer working on the proposed park/pond project to testify as to whether the houses that have been taken by the City were necessary for the plan. Emails authored by this engineer noting “no technical data” supporting the City’s proposed project, motivated Judge Schwall at an August 5, 2018 hearing to schedule another hearing to further consider the City’s motives for taking property in Peoplestown.
Resident Tanya Washington, the subject of the hearing, and her neighbors on the block have been targeted by the City for the past 5 years to take their homes to build a park, pond, waterfall and large gazebo. The City has maintained that it needs every home on the block to address flooding in the neighborhood. However, at a previous hearing the City’s star witness, Department of Watershed engineer Todd Hill was presented with a 2013 email by an engineer from his office that communicated that the flooding could be addressed without the block. In response to a direct question from Judge Schwall about the veracity of the document, Todd Hill testified, “I don’t know.” The hearing on Oct. 29 will reveal once and for all that this property was not necessary for the proposed project. Unfortunately, the truth will be too late for the 22 homes that have been demolished and the families forced to move at the direction of the City of Atlanta.
The outcome in this case will create precedence that will either protect residents against these types of land grabs by the City using eminent domain or it will give the green light to city officials, authorizing them to steal peoples’ homes under fraudulent pretenses. Resident Washington said, “I do not intend for my name to be in the caption of a case that is used to displace people in Atlanta. Five and a half years of my life has been consumed by this fight with my neighbors to defend our property against unlawful taking by the City of Atlanta. We will fight this until the bitter end!” In light of the Atlanta’s reputation as the City with the most economic inequality between the haves and the have nots, the dearth of affordable housing in the City and the rapid gentrification of Atlanta neighborhoods, this case is particularly timely and important.