Friday, December 26, 2003

Unique village planned for Palmetto

By LINDSAY BIANCHI
Special to the Citizen

Whether it’s life imitating art or art imitating life, the Selborne Village being planned as part of the Serenbe community in Palmetto combines work and leisure in a unique way.

Architectural plans proposed by students at Texas A&M University take a clean and modern approach to the concepts of home and office.

The live-work complex on Hutchinson Ferry Road will house artists’ studios and galleries on the ground floor as well as living spaces above them. The culinary arts will also be a focus of the close knit community with a planned bakery in the works.

Judy Barber, who heads up the creative and cultural division for Serenbe, has been an integral part of the direction in which this select group of artists, architects and lovers of natural beauty have steered. Still just a wooded area with a simple path running through it, the final plans and preparations should be complete by May at the latest, officials said.

Weather permitting, tenants could be ready to ease into their new surroundings by this time next year.

Steve Nygren, who conceived the Serenbe and related communities, said the overall idea is to combine old restored buildings and newer structures with an “1800s look” and modern design for a “true organic look.”

Reservations for many spaces have been taken at this point. Along with the live-work spaces, townhouses and cottages have been designed into the scheme.

“We’re trying to show there’s a different way to do things,” Nygren said. 

He cited a report by The Rocky Mountain Institute which studied the golf community trend in developing subdivisions. The study said that 96 percent of the people who own lots in these neighborhoods play golf only once or twice each year. Guaranteed green space is the real attraction of these communities,the Institute said.

Nygren points out that when it comes to doing something different with land use developments it takes a little more time. He has been at work on his vision for the past three years.

“Part of the problem,” he said, “is rules and regulations that don’t allow for such amenities as granite curbs. Fulton County does not have a granite curb ordinance.”

Coming up against hurdles like this have slowed the process somewhat but has not tripped up his determination.

“Land preservation makes sense.” said Steve Nygren, chairman of the Chattahoochee Hill Country Alliance in the Serenbe Community.

One look around the neatly coifed grounds and pleasant countryside shows the attention to detail that will spill over into the Selborne community and all the other villages and hamlets yet to come in the Hill Country.