GAINESVILLE – Despite receiving a unanimous “recommendation to deny” from the Hall County Planning Commission the rezoning application of Forestar (USA) Real Estate Group, Inc., will continue its trek forward, hoping to find a better outcome when it comes before the Hall County Commission on January 27, 2022.
Thirteen years ago, in September of 2008, the 347.23-acre site on the north side of Gillsville Highway at Evergreen Holloway Drive was rezoned by Hall County to allow for a maximum of 275 building lots but the economic downturn that gripped the nation at that time kept the plan from going forward.
Monday evening Forestar came before the Hall County Planning Commission with a plan to construct 292 single-family detached homes and 107 single-family townhomes on the sprawling site. And while 399 housing units on 347 acres is a spacious ratio, Planning Commission members saw two significant reasons why the plan as presented is unacceptable.
First, the developer wants to provide only one point of common access into the property, that off of Gillsville Highway, State Route 323.
Forestar’s requested rezoning to PRD (Planned Residential Development) requires that when more than 150 units are planned in a PRD community a second entrance must be provided; when 400 units are planned a third entrance be constructed.
“The issue of the second entrance, which is a primary concern, it (the zoning requirement) was put in there for a reason. It comes close to almost meeting the threshold for a third entrance,” Planning Commission Chairman Chris Braswell said.
While the site plan shows a second access point into the development off Joe Parker Road, the developer wants that access point to be gated and limited to emergency use only.
“To gate an entrance with almost 400 homes in it for emergency access affects the health, welfare and safety of the public and citizens that live in it and around it,” Braswell added.
The second challenge facing the application that concerned Planning Commission members had to do with confusion over sewer service. According to the applicant the City of Gainesville would provide the community with sewer service, but Assistant Hall County Administrator Marty Nix says that is not necessarily the case.
When staff members were asked about Gainesville’s offer to provide sewer connection, Nix responded, “I can clarify. A letter was sent from the City of Gainesville, but the City of Gainesville…the stipulation was that that allocation would come from Hall County’s allocation, and we’re not in agreement with that.”
Hall County purchases from the City of Gainesville the right for future sewer service and has plans for the allocation in that area of the county - plans which don’t include Forestar’s development application.
Braswell then turned to Hall County Attorney Van Stephens and asked, “I’d like a recommendation whether we should go forward with this until we can clarify that or not.”
Stephens responded, “I think it’s appropriate to act on this (rezoning application) today if the commission wishes to do so.”
“But I think that Marty (Nix) has stated the fact as he knows it, that Gainesville has stated that the sewer capacity would come out of Hall County’s allocation and Hall County is not willing to do that,” Stephens said.
“It’s got to come from somewhere and it’s not coming from Hall County,” Braswell said and asked for a motion regarding the rezoning application.
A motion to recommend denial was offered and approved unanimously. “There’s still a lot of questions,” Braswell said to the developer upon completion of the vote.
Members of Forestar’s team said after the meeting that they intended to take their application to the next step in the process and present their case before the Hall County Commission on January 27, 2022, and seek a different result.
