Adjacent to the Atlanta Beltline’s newest section, a low-rise community of affordable housing that’s stood for generations could be replaced by a multifamily development, peeving some neighbors who feel denser housing could wreck the area’s charms.  

As first reported on these pages in January, Boston-based Wingate Companies is in the process of purchasing the Trestletree Village Apartments communities in southeast Atlanta. The Trestletree Village North section is in Grant Park, and Trestletree Village South in Ormewood Park, counting a total of 188 units.

In Atlanta, Wingate is best known as longtime major property owners and multi-phase City Lights developers along Boulevard in Old Fourth Ward. 

According to neighborhood sources, Wingate is now planning to close on the purchase of both Trestletree parcels this summer and relocate all affordable Section 8 housing tenants to the southernmost Trestletree location in Ormewood Park. That would leave the northern Trestletree site open for redevelopment. 

Trestletree Village North—situated at 794 Ormewood Ave. and bordered by an elevated Beltline section, Ormewood Avenue, Eloise Street, and Mercer Street—would be razed and transformed, per Wingate’s tentative plans.  

The proposal calls for three-story apartment buildings to ring the site along all borders, alongside a new parking deck. Wingate’s next goal is to obtain a letter of recommendation from the Grant Park Neighborhood Association as a means of helping the company receive a $25 million Invest Atlanta grant for “the rebuilding and modification of the Section 8 housing,” according to a flyer being circulated by some Grant Park and Ormewood Park neighbors. 

Overview of the Trestletree Village North property in Grant Park, as shown when the Beltline was under construction next door. Google Maps

Tentative plans for massing at Wingate's Grant Park proposal. The Beltline's Southeast Trail runs to the right of each image, with Eloise Street forming the border at left. Submitted image

The letter urges nearby residents to reject Wingate’s plans for denser housing and keep existing mature trees and yards in place, although its authors note they don’t oppose upgrading the current Section 8 housing at Trestletree Village North. 

Among other gripes, the naysaying letter lists the following concerns with Wingate’s tentative plans: 

1. Any development MUST be in line with single-family residences/fabric/scale/density of the neighborhood, [as the] site is surrounded on all sides by single-family residences.

2. No parking garage.

3. No clear-cutting of old growth trees.

4. Retention of greenspaces and yards.

5. No zero lot line construction right up to the sidewalk/public right of way.

6. Displacement/segregation/concentration of all legacy residents/families currently residing on the north property to the south property. Making sure that the needs and voices of these residents are being heard by Wingate when they begin redevelopment plans.

7. If [Wingate’s] proposed plan/density is approved, the automobile traffic would increase exponentially at a high pedestrian/bike-trafficked artery and new intersections at the Beltline… The speeding and dangerous driving around schoolchildren biking to school/pedestrians/dog walkers/joggers that already exists will only increase exponentially.

Neighbors in opposition of Wingate’s proposal are planning to present concerns during a GPNA Land Use and Zoning Committee meeting Thursday—and they’re recruiting others to join. GPNA is scheduled to vote on whether or not to support Wingate’s plans during its July 21 meeting, per the flyer. 

A Grant Park resident in favor of the redevelopment said the “NIMBY letters” are being placed in mailboxes on nearby streets. “Figured this would be good for… neighbors to hear about so they don’t stop this much-needed development,” wrote the supporter via email.

Earlier this year, Wingate officials told Urbanize Atlanta they’d reached a purchasing deal with Trestletree Village’s out-of-state ownership group and had gone under contract just before Christmas. No current residents are expected to be displaced in the short-term or permanently as site plans come together, a Wingate executive said at the time.  

Developed between the early 1940s and 1950s, Trestletree Village consists of garden-style, one and two-story residential buildings spread across two Section 8 communities on opposite sides of the Beltline, totaling about 21 acres. 

As seen last summer, proximity of the Trestletree South community to the Southeast Trail corridor at 956 Trestletree Court SE in Ormewood Park. Urbanize Atlanta

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, current rents at Trestletree Village range between $479 and $812 monthly for qualified renters required to pay no more than 30 percent of their income. All units have two bedrooms.  

Next door to both apartment coves, the Beltline’s 1.2-mile Southeast Trail (formerly called Southside Trail Segments 4 and 5) officially opened in April, following nearly three years of construction. 

That Beltline section is key in that it provides uninterrupted connectivity between the popular Eastside Trail and the city’s southside. 

Scope and location of north and south Trestletree Village communities along the newest open section of the Atlanta Beltline. Google Maps

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