Sandy Springs Residents May Sue City Over Housing Development

What they’re not happy about is developer Ashton Woods, which has gotten the city’s OK to build 980 housing units on the 75-acre property. 

Ashton Woods will sell part of the land to Mercedes-Benz to build its headquarters on.

Housing Density 

Frank Marro lives in the subdivision, the Gates at Glenridge, across the street from where 355 apartment units will be built. 

“Sandy Springs, after it was incorporated in 2005, spent about 18 months putting together a detailed land-use plan to guide development within the city,” Marro said. “Sandy Springs was created to avoid rezonings that are haphazard, and this proposed development is not consistent with the plan.” 

More than 3,000 residents from a dozen homeowners associations in Sandy Springs hired attorney Hakim Hilliard earlier this summer to represent them.

Hilliard says clients like Marro are concerned the rezoning will add too much traffic. 

“The legal term for this is a ‘manifest abuse of discretion’ for ignoring their own rules,” Hilliard said. “Most of the residential development on this project is on the parcel to the south of Abernathy Road. But what the developer has done here is they’ve taken all the acreage, even on the north tract to try to lower the density number, which is a misrepresentation of what’s really occurring.” 

Voting Yes

But Sandy Springs Councilman Gabe Sterling said he felt the application should be considered one parcel of land. 

“That’s what it came in as and the state was reviewing the application as single-use,” Sterling said. “This was owned by one family for over 100 years.”

Sterling he’s empathetic to the neighbor’s concerns, but said he voted for it because it was “the least dense option available.”

“We’re talking 13 units an acre,” Sterling said. “If this had been something that had been turned down, the next thing that would come is more high-density office.” 

Ashton Woods announced they will also build a 14-acre public park for the city at Tuesday night’s Council meeting.