DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Piles of trash and furniture covering up a storefront in South DeKalb County are causing major concerns for people who live and work nearby.
Business owners said it keeps customers from coming into the plaza, and neighbors are worried it will lead to crime. The shopping center is located off Covington Highway, near Interstate 285.
Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes was in DeKalb County Wednesday to see what the county is doing to get rid of the trash.
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“This is not what we want in our community,” neighbor Terry Stidom said.
Stidom is just one of the neighbors in this South DeKalb community who is tired of seeing all this stuff when he drives by the Pendley Hills shopping plaza on Covington Highway in Decatur.
Neighbors told Channel 2 Action News that when a local woman bought this property and leased it out to a church called Shiloh International Ministries, it started to look like a landfill.
Pastor Margreth Samu, who is renting the space, said the stuff isn’t trash and that she’s shipping it all to people in need.
But Channel 2 Action News saw so many broken things and things ruined by rain that it’s hard to imagine that much of the items can be salvaged.
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Channel 2 Action News also saw a code enforcement officer talking to Samu on Wednesday.
Fernandes did some digging and found out that the county had cited her six times since 2019, and a couple months ago she paid a $3,000 fine.
The trash and an abandoned truck in the back of the building also belong to Samu.
Samu said she made a deal with sanitation to pick it up, but they’re not coming until she pays the fee.
“I think it’s a disservice to the citizens that live in the community. I believe that everyone wants to live in a community that they can respect,” Stidom said.
Larry Johnson, commissioner for this district, spoke to Channel 2 Action News Wednesday. He said he’s been involved and he has a zero-tolerance policy for this type of blight. He said the courts are handling this now. According to code enforcement, they’ve already started the remediation process here, which allows the county to clean up the mess.
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