Annexation Series: Can the Mitchell Road Area Be Cleaned Up?

This is part of Norcross Patch’s five-part series about the potential annexation of an area roughly along Mitchell Road into the City of Norcross. We'll re-run the series this week, in preparation for the Nov. 8 vote. In later days we'll cover the financial plan, the bottom line for home owners, the long-term vision and crime. 

Updated Oct. 17

One of the first streets outside the Norcross city limits on Mitchell Road is Everglades Trail. Squat brick duplexes are uniform but in vastly different states on the windy stretch that backs up to a field of power lines.

In one yard, an abandon dresser sat. Another house has several broken panes on the windows, while one has a sofa on the front porch. In between those, some are well-kept, modest, some would even say handsome.

Everglades Trail—and about 30 other streets like it--would be the responsibility of the city if the proposed annexation becomes law.  In a Feb. 7 vote and discussion on the issue, the council was split 3-2, with David McLeroy and Craig Newton voting against annexation. In a Special Meeting on Feb. 21, the council approved the Resolution for Annexation 4-0, sending a bill to the state capitol, where it was approved. Citizens of the area will vote on the measure at the . 

“The houses around here aren’t bad houses, they’re just in bad shape,” says John Dunleavy, a supporter of the measure and active member of the downtown community who lives in an unincorporated area not being considered for annexation. “Norcross code enforcement would be on this,” he said.

Philomena Robertson, Code Enforcement  Supervisor in Norcross, said she thinks her education- and community outreach-driven approach would bring the Mitchell Road corridor up to snuff. 

“We offer people resources,” she said. “We don’t just say, here’s the citation.” When residents have tires piled up in the yard, code enforcement would give them a list of shops that will take them in," she says. When graffiti is a problem, she said she educates people about clever places to put in shrubbery to prevent it.

“We’re not going in quoting code,” she said, “We’re doing it in layman’s terms.” For Robertson, it is all about being a translator of the 4-inch thick book of code, which many current residents perhaps couldn’t quote a sentence from.

But a question in this case could be, “In what language?” Census data is often not a reliable indicator of languages spoke in an area, so officials turn to local school stats to get a feel. Summerour Middle School Principal Dorothy Jarrett said recently that the majority of her students probably don't speak English first at home.

A few of the code enforcement materials are translated, and Robertson said further translation is something she’s working on.

For some city residents, like Terry Bowie, spending the effort and resources to clean up the area is just not worth it. Bowie used to live on Hammond Drive, inside the area being considered for annexation, but he said he moved because he was simply fed up. “People were actually running junk yards from their properties,” he said. “Next door someone was living in a utility building.”

“Until we’ve cleaned up our own city, why would we try to take on something else?” he said. Bowie proposes that we give a copy of the code to the property owners in the area in advance—when they get things up to speed, the city would consider the annex.

He said he’s mostly uncomfortable with the lack of a clear plan about how the process would work—a comment echoed at the public input meeting for the annexation last November. “It’s one thing to say I’m going to do something, and another to have specifics. Don’t tell me, yeah, we can take it on. Tell me how,” he said. “If it doesn’t work out, then what? Can you de-annex it?”

Chuck Warbington, Executive Director of Gwinnett Village CID, has some on-job training in similar efforts, as he has tried to turn around business corridors in the area by force of will. “Perception is reality,” said Warbington recently: When areas are dirty and unkempt, people treat them that way. His CID has really tackled appearance as one way to bring down crime—with double digit decreases for four years running.

“The city has been doing such a good job of revitalizing the area. They are learning that you can’t build walls around downtown,” says Warbington. “In my opinion, you just have to bring a little more focus to that area.”

He said that it’s not just straight code enforcement, but also landscaping and trash removal, that all fit into a larger plan to change the perception of an area. “But it has to be everything at once,” he said.

Many cite the problem of “absentee ownership” in the area—a high percentage of renters. The real estate agent’s rule of thumb is that if an area is 25 percent or more rental, it is time to pack your bags. The CID is 75 percent rental, according to Warbington. (The annexation area sits squarely inside the CID, which includes a larger area.)

“People’s perception is that it’s rentals. It’s true that you have to keep constantly reeducating people in rentals. But that's just perception,” said Robertson. She says home owners, renters or others, it is hard to generalize with code enforcement violations.

Regardless, according to Dunleavy, ignoring people living in an unfortunate environment is “the ultimate free enterprise system”—but it is socially irresponsible. “How can people be upwardly mobile if they are surrounded by failure?” said Dunleavy. “It is a cycle.”