On Wednesday, October 15th, dignitaries, residents and children celebrated the groundbreaking for an unusual solution to the Old Fourth Ward’s water problems. The Atlanta Beltline will include a pond and a park on the low point. Runoff can fill the pond and rise safely without overburdening the sewer system.
A planned tunnel would have cost $40 million to build. The park and pond will cost $30 million, according to Water Commissioner Rob Hunter.
The Trust for Public Land bought the land for the park in 2004. The national, non profit conservation group buys land in order to preserve it. They were pioneers for the Atlanta Beltline, which will be a ring of parks, walking and biking trails, transit and development.
The Historic Old Fourth Ward Park is the first park on the Beltline to break ground. A trail in West End has also started. City Councilman Kwanza Hall said the people of the neighborhood are “being the change we want to see in the world” by working to provide the amenity for the area children. He envisions ducks in the pond; "absolutely there must be ducks."
Councilman Hall smiled as a group of kindergarten students plied shovels in potted plants to symbolize the ground breaking.
Neighborhood activist David Patton said he had moved to the Old Fourth Ward as a student, stayed for twenty years, and hoped to grow old there. He hoped the Beltline and its transformations would help the neighborhood to ‘welcome all of us, from cradle to grave, not just young singles but children and elders.”
Councilman Hall came into office in 2005, and one of the things he most hoped to achieve when he was elected was this park, he said.
The people of the neighborhood wanted to transform the ugly, neglected, quasi-industrial space and “we had to get buy in from Parks and Recreation, Atlanta Development Department, Watershed Management.”
‘They were just being good citizens’
“How could we pay for it?” some asked. Coucilman Hall said that luckily, the Trust for Public Land stepped in and bought the parcel (using their national line of credit). They were just being good citizens, and they persisted in working toward the goal even though they kept hearing no, said Hall.
The finished park will help keep citizens safe, he said. “If you ever have a hundred year flood,” the park will protect the houses in the Old Fourth Ward.
