Atlanta NAACP Launches Tool To Hold Developers Accountable
Tasnim Shamma / WABE
Atlanta NAACP leaders said developers in the city of Atlanta have made a lot of promises to the black community and sometimes failed to deliver.
Two examples they cited were the Georgia Dome and Turner Field. The projects received public money, developers made promises about improving the mostly African-American neighborhoods around them and then didn’t deliver what was promised.
So this week the NAACP launched a new tool, a seven page annual survey called the “Compact with the Community Accountability Assessment,” to measure whether developers getting more than $5 million in public money keep their promises.
The Rev. Tim McDonald, of First Iconium Baptist Church and former president of Concerned Black Clergy, said community members want more say in several big projects, like the Atlanta BeltLine.
“The community is speaking to us, black businesses, minority businesses are talking to us and we just aren’t getting the kind of response from the largest economic effort in the city of Atlanta that we think it deserves,” McDonald said.
Henry Whitlow, a Malcolm Bridge assessor with Hudson Bridge Associates, helped design the survey, which lets the developers self-report. Respondents will then receive a grade between 1 and 100.
“You definitely don’t want three years in a row of no responses. You come to the mayor or to the NAACP and say ‘I want the black community support’,” Whitlow said. “The answer going to be: ‘You got to be kidding me. You wanted support, you don’t tell us what you’re doing and now you want more support?’”
During its trial phase, the NAACP sent surveys to MARTA, the Atlanta BeltLine, developers of the Falcons Stadium and Tyler Perry, who is building a movie studio in East Point.
Only MARTA and Perry responded.
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