Organizing The Land Owners
In the nine years we had owned the Farmhouse property and as full time residents in retirement for six years, we became acquainted with many neighbors up and down Hutcheson Ferry Road. The conversations at the Peek’s kitchen table lead to other kitchens, barns and and backyards. When it was time to organize, neighbors stepped forward to lead the various groups. It sorted out like this with these neighbors leading each group:
2.5 acres or less - Larry Keith lived on Hutcheson Ferry with his wife Monica where they raised two sons. Larry passed away several years ago and Monica eventually moved.
2.5 - 5 acres - Elizabeth Dean & Gene Griffith, who have Wilkerson Mill Gardens.
5 - 8 acres - Bettina Brown, who now serves as the attorney for many home closings in Serenbe and who lives on Vernon Grove with her medical doctor/cattle farmer husband George where they raised their three children.
8-15 acres - Ned & Janice Peek & and their son Rodney Peek who are next door neighbors to Serenbe and their family has been on this land for generations. In the years that followed, Rodney was elected to the original Chattahoochee Hills city council and now serves on the planning board.
15 - 50 acres - Maggie Stokes who planted all the blueberry bushes on the farm now owned by the Aldridge family following the Stokes' move to Florida.
50- 180 acres - Dave McMurrain lives east of Serenbe off of Hutcheson Ferry & Capps Ferry with his wife Deana
180 acres + - Steve Nygren
Meetings were held in homes and church community rooms. Fresh baked goods and hot coffee were part of the host responsibilities. This was the day before power point so we had slides to prompt discussions regarding the sprawl that had been replacing the rolling hills, forests and fields with asphalt and traffic jams in the seventeen county area of metro Atlanta. In those areas the generational land owners were generally forced out by high taxes or the disappointing loss of the rural area they had known. Did we have options was the question?
I shared images of the rural English country side where the majority of the population lives in dense hamlets, villages and towns thus keeping the country, country. This clustering and the regulation that buildings can not follow the road out of town are the result of good land law regulation following World War II to prevent sprawl in England - the island was only so big and they foresaw the threat that the automobile would bring.
Randall Arendt’s work and publication of Rural by Design provided wonderful thought provoking images of what might be. In the images below, there are the same number of houses in the traditional practices of development image and the balanced development possibility image. This pointed out the value of clustering and is exactly how towns were formed 100 years ago. Arendt’s second book published years later has a full section on Serenbe as an example of what can be.
Some thought nothing would happen here, because as metro Atlanta grew, the southern tip of Fulton County stood still for decades. The gathering of neighbors for conversations over coffee and home baked goodies were the foundation that lead to future public meetings. Next I will share the challenge of coordinating the 36 landowner who owned 180 acres or more.
