Leafmore-Creek Park Hills Overlay District
In 2004, Leafmore began to experience the teardown/infill trend sweeping Atlanta’s close-in neighborhoods. This occurs when a developer buys an original house, demolishes it and rebuilds a much larger house. This creates issues for adjacent homeowners, so the LCPHCA explored how we might control this trend. We determined that, architecturally, the only objection to infill houses was the incompatible height. Two stories are fine, but three stories on top of a drive-in basement are too much.
A committee of Leafmore attorneys drafted an ordinance to create the Leafmore Overlay District. It requires that all new construction be limited to a height of 28 feet, as measured from the first floor threshold of the original house to the top of the roof line of the new house. Our Leafmore Overlay District was approved by the DeKalb Board of Commissioners in late 2005. Since then, 25 other neighborhoods successfully applied for their own neighborhood overlay districts, prompting the county to amend its infill height legislation in 2007. Today, there are a number of renovated or rebuilt Leafmore homes that do not exceed 28 feet and are very compatible with surrounding houses. This brings a predictability that new homebuyers can depend on. A more detailed description of the Leafmore Overlay District will be available soon in the history section of this website.
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