ATLANTA — Georgia Power wants to remove some 100-year-old homes in the historic Old Fourth Ward neighborhood in order to expand a substation; it could use eminent domain to do it.
The company has been quietly trying to acquire a number of single-family homes in order to implement an upgrade plan it said is still incomplete.
"I’ve lived in this property since 1993," said Derek Martory. He said his house on Wabash Ave. NE is 102 years old.
It’s not for sale, but he said Georgia Power really wants to buy it.
"They’ve offered the fair market value of the house," which he said he has declined.
Adjacent to Martory’s house, there’s a Georgia Power substation. The power company has said it wants to expand the footprint of the substation in order to modernize it.
"We absolutely need to make sure that our infrastructure remains modernized and remains reliable," said Misty Fernandez, Georgia Power's regional director for Atlanta and Metro South.
Fernandez said the plan to upgrade the substation is still a work in progress.
While the Old Fourth Ward is a neighborhood full of historic homes, it's also home to Ponce City Market and the wildly popular eastside BeltLine.
"There is a lot of community here in the Old Fourth Ward. And I think it’s wrong for Georgia Power to bulldoze single-family residences," Martory said.
If he sold his house on Wabash Ave., Martory said skyrocketing real estate prices would preclude him from buying a replacement property nearby.
"I’d have to move out. That’s just the way it is," Martory said.
He said a Georgia Power attorney reminded him that Georgia Power can use the power of eminent domain to take his home without his agreement.
Fernandez said the utility wants to avoid that.
"That has not been part of the conversation or part of the planning so far," she said.
"We have a legacy of working with our customers, with our communities to minimize those impacts and work with them in a way that is sensitive to their needs," Fernandez said.
The upgrade Georgia Power is talking about in the Old Fourth Ward would take place in two years – and the utility said it will keep the neighborhood in the loop once the plans are finalized.