Mountain Park area and crime? (Atlanta, Lawrenceville: apartment complexes, violent crime, houses)

[gttwirler]

Hi. We will be relocating to Atlanta around April and have been looking at the Mountain Park Area, 30047, to live. But I am hesitant because of some of the threads and word of mouth about the Lilburn area and gang related activity. Can someone tell me if this area is safe? And whether or not there is a lot of gang activity? I have been told that a lot of people are leaving Lilburn b/c of the gangs and that Gwinnett has a high concentration of gangs. Any insight is helpful.

Thanks.

[TakeAhike]

I think I would search for housing around Dacula which is about 20 minutes from Lilburn/Mt. Park.

The area from Beaver Ruin Rd/Jimmy Carter to Pleasant Hill/Duluth is not safe/stable and I would imagine that organized crime/gangs exist in this area.

Meadowview HS has been mentioned as an area to avoid.

[rackensack]

Originally Posted by TakeAhike

I think I would search for housing around Dacula which is about 20 minutes from Lilburn/Mt. Park.

The area from Beaver Ruin Rd/Jimmy Carter to Pleasant Hill/Duluth is not safe/stable and I would imagine that organized crime/gangs exist in this area.

Meadowview HS has been mentioned as an area to avoid.

"Meadowcreek", not "Meadowview".

[rackensack]

Originally Posted by gttwirler

Hi. We will be relocating to Atlanta around April and have been looking at the Mountain Park Area, 30047, to live. But I am hesitant because of some of the threads and word of mouth about the Lilburn area and gang related activity. Can someone tell me if this area is safe? And whether or not there is a lot of gang activity? I have been told that a lot of people are leaving Lilburn b/c of the gangs and that Gwinnett has a high concentration of gangs. Any insight is helpful.

Thanks.

Most of Mountain Park is still OK -- it's mostly or all in the Parkview High, Trickum Middle, and Mountain Park Elementary districts, all of which are still pretty good schools. The areas of Lilburn that are problematic are, as the other poster mentioned, closer to the Jimmy Carter Blvd/Mountain Industrial/Lawrenceville Hwy/Beaver Ruin Road areas, to the north of Mountain Park. Meadowcreek High, Lilburn Middle, and most of the elementary schools feeding into them are problematic. Ditto for Berkmar High and the schools in that cluster. Norcross and Duluth clusters are something of a mixed bag, but probably still more positive than not. Parkview and Brookwood have held up OK so far.

Gwinnett has its share of gang-related activity, and much of it is clustered along I-85, between Peachtree Industrial and Lawrenceville Highway, out to about State Bridge Road/Pleasant Hill Road. There's a dedicated gang task force within the Gwinnett Police Department. The Westside Precinct (the precinct located at I-85 at Jimmy Carter Blvd) has about half the violent crime in the county (or did a few years ago) despite being only one of five precincts in the county.

There's no guarantee that the problems that have swamped the districts north of Mountain Park won't hit there also, but I think that the downturn in the economy may actually work in favor of those areas stabilizing -- there isn't much economic incentive for developers to build lots of new apartment complexes there at the moment, and neither is there money available to do so. The people who live in the nice $350K-$550K houses in the Parkview area aren't going to be tempted to ditch them in favor of a no-money-down ARM on an brand-new $800K house farther out in Gwinnett -- if they're in it with equity, they're probably going to stick it out until the market turns or they lose their job. And the influx of new residents, both native-born and immigrant, is likely to abate somewhat if there are no jobs for all those folks, which also should help contribute to having a less transient population. I'd be more sanguine about Parkview and Brookwood's long-term prospects now than I was three years ago at the height of the boom market.

[Harrie]

I live in Lilburn near the Mountain Park Park/Lake Lucerne/Five Forks Trickum area and feel very safe here. Not saying nothing ever happens, but as I said, it feels very safe indeed. (In fact, I know of no incidents nearby at all in the almost 2 years I've lived here, though there must be some). The previous post was so good at pointing out the areas that are a problem, and I concur. I really like it here!

[gttwirler]

Thanks Rackensack, I knew not all Lilburn could be that bad, especially since the Mountain Park area is technically not really Lilburn but farther S? We're looking at the Parkview cluster. And Harrie, we've been looking online in the Lake Lucerne/Evergreen Lakes area. It looks really nice. Near a favorite pizza place we used to frequent during college - Colossus Pizza.