Last week, Douglas Lang posted on Facebook that Villa Rica had lost a $1.75m grant from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA) that was supposed to help build the road through Cleghorn Anderson. Mr. Lang made a very good point that now it would cost city taxpayers an additional $1.7m if the road project moved forward without this funding source.

Today we learned that in a letter dated October 31, 2024 - DCA said that the grant was no longer available because Villa Rica had failed to meet the deadlines for the award.

Although it didn’t mention the community’s opposition to the project, the letter also pointed out that the project “was proposed to benefit the residents of the Cleghorn Anderson Community, a low-income minority neighborhood..”  Wonder if they have been reading that rather than benefit them, the project threatens to displace these residents.  

Hopefully we will learn soon that the project has been stopped and the city will not be moving forward. As Mr. Lang pointed out in another Facebook post - it will cost Villa Rica residents $1.75m more to move forward with a road project that the city admits was handled “poorly from the beginning.”  He clarifies, “the city had no legal right to make a commitment on property they did not own, control or manage.” He appeals to city officials to take responsibility for these mistakes and walk away from this project rather than asking “the innocent residents to cooperate and make the problems…go away.”

Last week, city officials indicated at a meeting (held before we found out that the grant funds were being rescinded) that they felt it less risky or cumbersome to press forward with the project (trying to buy or even take the land in other ways) than it would be to back out of the agreements made with developers. Here’s video from that meeting: Villa Rica Meeting.