GAINESVILLE – By a narrow 3-2 vote the Hall County Planning Commission Monday evening sent a rezoning application with a recommendation for approval on to the Hall County Commission for its final decision next month.
Atlas Development wants to combine two parcels along Union Church Road totaling 79.18-acres for the purpose of constructing 148 single-family homes under Planned Residential Development (PRD) standards. PRD standards create more flexibility in the design and development of property by allowing smaller lot sizes, decreased setbacks and greater density per acre.
In addition, Atlas is asking for variance to several of the PRD minimum standards and that concerns area residents.
Those in favor and those opposed to the application went back and forth for nearly ninety minutes Monday, and that’s after an elongated discussion on September 20th at the last Planning Commission meeting, which ended with the application being tabled to allow the developer and neighboring residents to meet and discuss their differences even further.
That meeting, however, also ended in stalemate according to Atlas’s representative, Bryan Rochester of Gainesville. “I thought we had a very good community meeting with a lot of exchange but we did not reach agreement on lot size or number of lots,” Rochester said.
Commissioner Gina Pilcher said after listening to comments from both sides of the discussion, “I don’t like the number of lots. It doesn’t fit with the area right there. That’s just way too many lots on that amount of property with that much creek.”
Pilcher was referring to Mulberry Creek which runs through the site. “The creek is the creek and that will always be the case, but it will get significantly larger if you put that much hard surface on it.”
“At some point in time if we don’t start to look at what we’re doing upstream we’re not protecting what we have already done downstream,” Pilcher stated. “And that’s where I have a real problem.”
Commissioner Johnny Varner agreed with Pilcher’s position against the project. “I don’t like it; I’m not going to put a whole lot of words on it. I’ve been over there several times and this has the characteristics of ‘spot-zoning’, and I think it’s accelerated for that neighborhood and mainly that road. I can’t agree with it.”
Pilcher and Varner ended up being the two votes in opposition to the rezoning request; Commissioners Trey Bell, Stan Hunt and Chris Braswell all voted to recommend the measure for approval.
Chairman Braswell told those in the audience following the split vote, “Folks, this is a tough one. This is probably one of the toughest ones I’ve had and I’ve been up here a long time.”
The measure will now go before the Hall County Commission on November 11th for final consideration.
