by Alicia Newton
Kennesaw Mayor Mark Mathews has criticized an unnamed landowner for shady practices towards tenants. Residents are in limbo and Kennesaw is on the eve of a huge retail development deal, said Kennesaw mayor who addressed a group of graduating journalism students at Kennesaw State University March 19.
“The mobile home residents are just being lied to everyday by the seller who is more interested in keeping his monthly cash flow,” Mayor Mark Mathews said. “What the owner is doing is borderline unethical in my opinion.” He said residents don’t know where they will relocate to.
Mayor of Kennesaw Mark Mathews discussing the city of Kennesaw with journalism students.
Mathews explained the Castle Lake landowner is selling the mobile home park to Fuqua Development. He said Fuqua plans to develop a 450,000 square foot retail development anchored by Whole Foods. He said this is great for the city of Kennesaw but bad for the mostly Hispanic tenants in the trailer park who don’t understand they are getting ready to get kicked out of their homes.
“He is having his managers tell the tenants the land is not sold, which technically it is not, so he is continuing to rent to unsuspecting tenants never bothering to tell them they may have to be gone by June of this year,” Mathews said.
He said the buyer is willing to help the tenants relocate; however their hands are tied because the deal has not been closed yet. “Why would the buyer spend money before he owns the land?” Mathews said. “The way the seller is acting the whole deal could fall apart.”
He said this has been a huge challenge to the city and that they are receiving calls everyday. The mayor said the way tenants found out they would have to leave was when he announced the development during his state of the city address in January. “I was immediately called by the elementary, middle and high schools because resident count impacts upcoming teacher contracts,” the mayor said. He explained that teacher contracts go from June to June and that if everything goes according to plan the kids won’t be there when school starts. “If the deal goes through those students will not be there in the fall and those teachers will be laid off.”
“It’s pitiful, taking something super positive and it gets undermined by the residents not even knowing they are about to be put out,” Mathews said.
Mathews said the development is at the corner of Barrett Parkway and highway 41. The mayor explained how some of the red tape around a project of this size was eliminated with the addition of 30 residential units. He said classifying this project as mixed use eliminated Georgia Regional Transportation Authority requirements, which included expensive in-depth traffic studies.
Another reason the city annexed the property is because the project design creates access to Old 41. “It provides 3 access points to that overall tract of land which is very important to traffic flow,” the mayor said.
It’s a major commercial growth piece for the city and a major annexation, Mathews said, pointing out that there will also be a major regional sporting goods store. “The rumor is its between Academy or Gander Mountain,” Mathews said. “Even though we are being dragged into the middle of the mess it is going to be a fantastic project.”
capstonequarterly 