Eminent Domain Hearing for New Roswell School

Fulton County school officials have found a location for a new elementary school in Roswell, but not all property owners are on board. 

That's why the Fulton County Board of Education will be holding an eminent domain hearing on Thursday at 6:30 p.m., as part of its regular meeting. 

The hearing and the regular meeting will take place at Dunwoody Springs Elementary School, 8100 Roberts Drive, Sandy Springs. 

The location for the as-yet-unnamed new school, which would ease overcrowding in the Roswell area, has been identified as the area around the Charles Place neighborhood on Georgia Highway 9 (Alpharetta Street).

According to a report last week in the Roswell Neighbor, 14 residential property owners in the older community have agreed to sell, but four commercial property owners in the vicinity have not. 

Those businesses are Roswell Auto imports, located at 1197 Alpharetta Street and shops in the Kings Creek Shopping Center, 1201-1233 Alpharetta Street.

They are located just north of the Alpharetta Street intersection with Thomas Street, which would serve as the access point for the school. 

(See the attached PDF for a map and description of the properties and the condemnation process.) 

In May, a Roswell Patch blogger expressed concerns about the site and the effects the school location might have on the community.

The new school was approved by Fulton voters in a 2011 education SPLOST and is slated to open by 2015.

The school board will convene at 4 p.m., then go into an executive session and reconvene in public at 6 p.m. for recognitions. 

After the eminent domain hearing, a public comment period will take place, followed by the business agenda. 

Among the items up for action include appointing Collins Cooper Carusi Architects to design the new Roswell school, at a cost of $$765,842.

Here's a link to the full school board meeting agenda. 

School board meetings can be watched live from a computer using this link<http://portal.fultonschools.org/School_Board/Pages/Board_Videos.aspx>, and audio/video recordings of the meetings are archived to the videostreaming web site<http://portal.fultonschools.org/School_Board/Pages/Board_Videos.aspx> within 48 hours of the meeting.