BYLINE:    TY TAGAMI
DATE: October 6, 2005
PUBLICATION: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The (GA)
EDITION: Metro; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
SECTION: Metro News
PAGE: C6

The dissatisfaction with a proposal to build a six-story parking deck in Atlanta's Piedmont Park is growing, with a slight majority of the city's seven-member Urban Design Commission saying Wednesday that they opposed the idea.

"The park needs more accessibility for people," said commission member Richard Laub, one of four members against the plan. "But my feeling is, it does not need more accessibility for cars."

The deck debate has raged for a year, since the Piedmont Park Conservancy, which manages the city's main park, embraced the idea. The Atlanta Botanical Garden, which abuts the park, offered to finance the deck's construction in exchange for the land to build it.

The two groups would split the parking, with the conservancy saying it would offer its share to the general public as toll spaces.

Nearby residents have long complained about the cars that fill their streets during festivals, but many of them oppose the plan. The group Friends of Piedmont Park has been at the center of the resistance, saying the deck offers no solution for events that draw tens of thousands of people.

The group's leader, Doug Abramson, counted the commission's comments as a victory. "I'm pleased with it," he said. "It reflects a divisive issue in an area that we should be celebrating."

The commission didn't take a vote. Rather, each of the seven members commented publicly, and their opinions will be forwarded in writing to the City Council, which controls the park. The commission was reacting to divided opinions of city officials. The commission's staff issued reports last month opposing the deck, but parks Commissioner Dianne Harnell Cohen said at the meeting that she and her department "enthusiastically support" it.

Mary Pat Matheson, executive director of the Atlanta Botanical Garden, and her counterpart over the conservancy, Debbie McCown, both said they still hoped to secure approval from the council, though neither could say when they hoped to get the plan on the council's agenda.