Officials in Macon-Bibb County celebrated a trio of milestones Tuesday brought about by the demolition of dilapidated housing.
When an excavator took down the houses in a matter of minutes, it marked the demolition of the 500th home in a two-year span. It’s part of a major initiative of Macon Mayor Lester Miller to abate decaying housing.
The removal of the structures met a request of residents of the east Macon neighborhood now called the Mill Hill Arts Village, an old mill town renovated by Macon’s Urban Development Authority into affordable housing, most of which is now owner-occupied.
Bibb County Commissioner and executive director of the Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve Initiative Seth Clark said the demolition not only means taking care of residents but adding acreage to the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park, too.
“It also means taking care of 17,000 years of history, the majority of which came well before the people my grandparents, your grandparents got here,” Clark said in remarks before the excavator got to work.
The property where the houses stood will soon be deeded to the National Park Service, which will use it to expand the boundaries of the Omculgee park out by a few hundred yards.
Clark said he expects Congress to authorize what is slated to be the far larger Omculgee National Park, a long-awaited change which would establish Georgia’s first ever-national park, before the end of the year.
