GAINESVILLE – Almost every seat was taken at Thursday evening’s voting session as concerned neighbors, business owners and investors hoped to present their best arguments to the Hall County Commission over two (re)zoning matters in particular: the proposed 508-acre River Walk project near Braselton and the expansion of Mincey Marble Manufacturing onto a site across the highway from their current Browns Bridge Road location.
Both requests ended up being tabled; both will be reconsidered at the end of next month on August 25th.
“The applicant (Mincey Marble Manufacturing) is requesting the item to be tabled until August,” Hall County Planning Director Srikanth Yamala told commissioners and a disappointed audience.
Commissioner Billy Powell spoke to the crowd, “I know many of you came to speak and to listen to this item. I sent over 60 emails trying to warn people that it would probably be tabled. Thank you for coming.”
Powell continued, “I do know that the applicant is going to try and schedule a community meeting to where they can hear your concerns and try to address them. I encourage you to attend that.”
As Powell spoke nearly 90 attendees rose and left the meeting room.
The second thorny (re)zoning matter appeared headed toward a long-awaited decision, but that didn’t happen due to “language” the commissioners want inserted into the approval, language that holds the potential to derail the entire River Walk project according to River Walk officials.
For example, it has long been the practice of the county to require language included in plats and covenants that forewarns prospective buyers when developers construct homes in an agricultural area.
The smell of a dairy farm or newly cleaned chicken houses can impact a potential homeowner’s decision on whether or not to purchase property.
These required advisory warnings are common, but the possible “nuisance” item confronting River Walk (and leading to the unique language commissioners want to insert into the plat and covenants) is not related to agriculture or industry. Let me explain.
River Walk’s request to rezone to Planned Commercial Development (PCD) and construct 1261 residential units, 350,000-square-feet of retail space, 482,000-square-feet of office space, as many as two new hotels and a 20,000-square-feet convention center is so large in scope that it had to first pass a state required examination.
“That process was successfully completed and the state found this particular application to be in the best interest for the State of Georgia,” Yamala reported.
Further advancing the cause for River Walk, Oakwood resident Clifton McDuffie, a long-time promoter of Hall County, said that while he was not asked to endorse River Walk he felt it necessary to address the commission.
“This is a magnificent concept…I encourage you, as an economic development professional…to approve this project,” McDuffie said.
River Walk seemed well on the road to approval, except for another road – Road Atlanta.
Road Atlanta is a 2.54-mile Le Mans style race course less than a mile away; across Winder Highway from Road Atlanta is Lanier Raceplex, a 3/8-mile oval race track. Either can generate a great deal of noise.
So commissioners want language included in the final development plat and the covenants of the community informing perspective buyers that a noise-nuisance exists and should be considered when purchasing property at River Walk.
Project Engineer for River Walk, Otis Aleman, said including the warning might cause the financial backers of the project to step away. “I don’t think the applicant will accept that…and our lending has indicated that item could kill the project.”
Geoff Lee, President of Road Atlanta, said he definitely wants that warning included in the rezoning approval.
“It only takes one or two calls from people who say they never knew…and we have a nuisance,” Lee said. “Well the nuisance has been here for 45-years.”
Commissioner Jeff Stowe agreed. “We just want to make sure we don’t end up with 500 calls saying, ‘I came out there on a day when there wasn’t a race and bought this property and now what are you going to do about it?’.”
Commission Chairman Dick Mecum said he was leery of the commission over-regulating zoning requests. “We got enough big-government in Washington (DC) without it coming to Hall County,” Mecum said.
“I know we want everybody to understand what’s around them,” Mecum continued, “and people should do due-diligence on their own, but I’ve got some real problems with this.”
Aleman said that he would need to speak to his investors before proceeding with their rezoning request. Commissioners said they would try to come up with nuisance-warning language that won’t frighten away investors. The request was tabled until August 25th.
