Judge sides with descendants of historic Black Buckhead community members in preservation of cemetery now next to townhomes

ATLANTA — A judge has sided with descendants of the members of a historic Black Buckhead community in a battle over preservation of a cemetery that now sits behind a townhome development.

At issue was access to and upkeep of the Piney Grove Cemetery, a burial site that was once tied to the Piney Grove Missionary Baptist Church off Canterbury Road in what is now Buckhead.

Before development turned Buckhead into Atlanta's ritziest neighborhood, it was home to what a judge's order described as a "small but vibrant Black community known as Piney Grove," which was established in the area throughout parts of the 1800s and 1900s.

Now the cemetery sits behind The Bluffs at Lenox townhomes, largely overgrown, unkempt and not clearly accessible unless you were to know it's there.

A lawsuit filed