Lake Spivey Community Comes Together

Lake Spivey community pulling together CNHI News Service - By Justin Boron [email protected] If there is an answer to the gridlock of Atlanta's affluent Northside, Lake Spivey residents say it is where they live. It's living on the water or a golf course. And it's relaxing in serene, well-shaded neighborhoods with big homes that are minutes away from job hubs like the Atlanta airport. Cordoned off on Clayton County's eastern edge and spilling into Henry, and away from the urban sprawl on Tara Boulevard, the affluent Lake Spivey area has been a well-kept secret for years in the metro Atlanta area, residents say. A lot of people are completely unaware, they say, that Clayton County has a close to 650-acre recreational lake, golf club, and custom homes valued in the millions of dollars. Neighborhood leaders have decided the residential gem has gone unrecognized long enough and plan to start sounding their praises a little louder. They've started by forming a community group with the expected buy-in of at least 1,200 households by this weekend, when Lake Spivey Community, Inc. elects its officers for the first time. Right now, the lake group has dues for about 894(as of today) homes, which represents 14 (as of today) of the 31 neighborhoods it wants to reach, said Michael Edmondson, the group's Treasurer. The organization officially started working together in July last year with the intent of "shepherding" about 2,500 homes into a single promotional group, said Jim Buckman, the neighborhood association's startup president. Buckman, who spearheaded a neighborhood movement in another metro Atlanta location (Gwinnett County), said he moved to Lake Spivey and noticed an unusual number of homes on the market. He said he realized the "unique lifestyle" there needed to be marketed more effectively. "Communities need attention," he said. East of Jonesboro, the geographic boundaries for the group are roughly south of Ga. Highway 138 and just over the county border into parts of Henry County and Stockbridge. The site for a theme park in the 1960s and 70s, the lake area more recently has been home to airport employees, independent business people, and "empty-nesters," Buckman said. The neighborhood also is home to several of the Clayton County's top political leaders like County Commission Chairman Eldrin Bell, Commissioner Charley Griswell, and Tax Commissioner Terry Baskin. Part of the neighborhoods' notoriety problem has been that newcomers to the metro Atlanta area have been steered toward the Northside, residents say. Buckman said he expects to change that by promoting the area's lifestyle and its convenience to the city. Having come from the Northside, he knows the pains of traffic, but he said those are relatively absent at his new home. "At off peak time . . . I've passed the Varsity (in midtown Atlanta) in 25 minutes," he said. With more than 2 million people projected to come to the Atlanta region in the next 20 years, Buckman said its Southside should anticipate part of that influx. But the Lake Spivey group, he said, isn't trying to block development. It just wants to get it right. "We're not against development per se," he said. "We're against bad development." Dr. Don McMillian, Jr., a Jonesboro veterinarian, said the group would like to see an overlay district to ensure that the remaining undeveloped property does not become another victim of spot zoning. McMillian, the community's land use committee chairman, said the neighborhood wants commercial development done "consistently nice." "If they're coming, we want it to be nice," he said. One central difficulty to the overlay is that the area straddles the jurisdictional lines of Clayton County, Henry County, and Stockbridge. While they divide local governments, that's not really the case with the actual community. "As a community, we don't necessarily see the boundary lines," McMillian said. "We'd like to see some coordination" between governments. Henry County Commissioner Elizabeth "BJ" Mathis, whose district contains the Spivey area, said she is working to help facilitate intergovernmental cooperation for the overlay. She also said Highway 138 also could be renamed to better denote the community it runs through. A large portion of undeveloped land in the Lake Spivey area is owned by Southern Regional Health Systems, which has said it plans to expand its central Riverdale location on the Highway 138 corridor. "There's nothing wrong with a bunch of doctor's offices," Edmondson said. The group also has been working to revamp the neighborhood's golf club, possibly to find a new owner. It came close recently but the sale of the property fell through, Buckman said. Already so well organized, the lake group may be in good shape to become a city on its own. But Buckman said while the organizing may put them on that path, that's definitely not the goal right now. For the sake of identity, he said that his association has asked the U.S. Postal Service to recognize officially the zip code area as Lake Spivey. Copyright © 1999-2005 cnhi, inc.