GAINESVILLE – More acres and a lot more parking spots are on their way to the Atlanta Botanical Garden on Cleveland Highway in Gainesville.
That plan was given final approval by the Gainesville City Council Tuesday evening in a unanimous vote allowing 17-acres to be annexed into the city and 20.7-acres rezoned, increasing the size of the largest conservation nursery in the southeast while eliminating the need for shuttle bus service whenever the venue hosts a large scale event.
There was one small trade-off, however, from the original plan given a unanimous recommendation for approval by the Gainesville Planning and Appeals Board on November 9th: use of a proposed alternate access onto and off the complex from Roper Hill Road will be dropped.
Darrell Rochester of Rochester and Associates of Gainesville, speaking on behalf of his client, told city council members, “There was concern related to this parcel.” That concern was expressed to the Planning and Appeals Board by several neighbors adjacent to where the access road was proposed.
According to Rochester thinking of the applicant had changed since that evening. “The Garden is in favor of not having access; they are fine with this amendment to not allow access to Barrett Street, Riverbend Circle or Roper Hill Road, with the exception of…emergency purposes or for maintenance purposes.”
As to parking, Rochester told the council, “As you all know larger events have been a little bit of a challenge for parking at the Garden. The plan here is to have probably another 700-ish parking spaces, 700-plus, that would allow them parking for larger events.”
Recently, larger events such as concerts have necessitated a fleet of shuttle buses to take patrons back and forth from off-site parking locations to the Garden’s amphitheater.
KOCH FOODS GETS GREEN LIGHT TO CONSTRUCT NEW PROCESSING FACILITY
No one spoke in opposition Tuesday evening during a public hearing to consider a request from Koch Foods to annex and rezone property along Davis Street and construct a new and larger processing facility.
Both requests received unanimous approval from the Gainesville City Council.
