by Robin Kemp

4:57 p.m. CORRECTION: Reed says request will be on agenda tonight

12:31 p.m.: UPDATES with comments from BOC Chair Turner, County Attorney Reed; ADDS item to be pulled

A request to deannex two parcels near Gilbert Road in Forest Park is on the agenda at tonight’s Board of Commissioners meeting. The project is part of a Georgia Department of Transportation road-widening project. However, County Attorney Charles Reed says the item “will be pulled from the agenda as the item is not yet ready for decision.”

Gilbert Road Joint Ventures is seeking a request to deannex two parcels, 13014C D006Z and 13014C D005, totaling just over 3.75 acres, in the Mountain View Tax Allocation District. The parcels would go from the City of Forest Park’s jurisdiction to Clayton County’s and are just off Conley Road and I-285 at the former Conley Circle.

A map showing the general area of Conley Circle, Gilbert Road, Conley Road, and I-285.

A letter from OA Development to Forest Park and Clayton County is serving as the request for deannexation.

“Upon the City of Forest Park’s receipt of this Resolution and the adoption of its own legislative action to complete the deannexation, the Property shall be deannexed, the Property shall cease to constitute a part of the lands within the City of Forest Park’s city limits and an identification of the Property shall be filed by the City of Forest Park with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs,” according to the proposed ordinance.

BOC Chair Jeff Turner said the parcels are part of a plan to widen Gilbert Road “as part of our redevelopment plan for the area to accommodate future businesses.” He referred The Clayton Crescent to Reed for details.

“I believe the Development Authority is working on a bond deal that will bring a project to that area,” Reed said, “and the owner of those parcels wants to move the parcels from being a part of incorporated Forest Park to become a part of unincorporated Clayton County for ease of development.”

Earlier, Reed had said the item was to be pulled from the agenda. He later said the other item actually being pulled was “a right of way abandonment issue.”

In 2019, Gilbert Road Joint Ventures was one of four companies that sued the Board of Commissioners, claiming they had been denied due process and that the board had engaged in inverse condemnation by changing the zoning on properties they had bought for future warehouses near the airport.

The Board of Commissioners meets tonight (Tuesday, July 20) at 6:30 p.m., 112 Smith Street in Jonesboro.

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