Serenbe - 25 miles southwest of the Atlanta aiport

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Written By H. Pike Oliver

The settlement of Serenbe is found in the heart of Chattahoochee Hill Country about 25 miles southwest of the Atlanta airport and about 35 miles from downtown Atlanta.  According to their website (www.serenbecommunity.com), this 40,000 acres of rural Georgia is about the size of Napa Valley in California, and is one of the last undeveloped stretches of land in the Atlanta area. The founders of Serenbe realized that there was a short window of opportunity to create a community in a new and better way.  They used their largely untouched 900 acres to create an example--clustering development, preserving large tracts of open space and fostering a high level of design execution. [gallery link="file"]

Development commenced in 2004 and by April 2009 there were about 100 residences and some commercial space in place.  The non-residential uses are mostly art galleries, small specialty shops and restaurants.  The Inn at Serenbe is also on the property.  The Urban Land Institute sponsored a tour of Serenbe on April 22, 2009. About 50 photos taken during that tour are posted at http://bit.ly/EXWAF .

 
How?
H. Pike Oliver

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, H. Pike Oliver has worked on real estate development strategies and master-planned communities since the early 1970s, including nearly eight years at the Irvine Company. He resided in the City of Irvine for five years in the 1980s and nine years in the 1990s.

As the founder and sole proprietor of URBANEXUS, Oliver works on advancing equitable and sustainable real estate development and natural lands management. He is also an affiliate instructor at the Runstad Department of Real Estate at the University of Washington.

Early in his career, Oliver worked for public agencies, including the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research where he was a principal contributor to An Urban Strategy for California. Prior to relocating to Seattle in 2013, Oliver taught real estate development at Cornell University and directed the undergraduate program in urban and regional studies. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute, the American Planning Association and a founder and emeritus member of the California Planning Roundtable.

Oliver is a graduate of the urban studies and planning program at San Francisco State University and earned a master’s degree in urban planning at UCLA.

https://urbanexus.com
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