The Hall County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Thursday to rezone a new 202-unit residential subdivision in Gainesville.
The new subdivision will be made up of both townhomes and single-family homes. It will be located just east of where Price Road and Summit Chase intersect. Commission board members all voted in favor of the development after putting several conditions in place. During Thursday evening’s voting session, there were none in attendance who spoke against the subdivision, however, there were some concerns raised by residents in the neighboring community.
One resident indicated their concerns with the location of the development's detention pond. Executive Vice President Brian Rochester with Rochester and Associates addressed the matter in a way that satisfied all parties involved.
“[The neighboring resident] voiced his concerns at the planning commission meeting,” Rochester said. “We did meet with him at his home and looked at ways to mitigate that. And we looked at potentially doing some landscaping on his side—there were some challenges with that, because of how steep the yard is in the back of his house. But we're also working with him, looking at re-changing the land plan to move a detention pond that we have on site, so that we can be a good neighbor to him.”
The development will host 60 single-family home lots and 142 townhome lots. Under the current construction plan, the townhome lots will be situated toward the northern part of the development, near a neighboring apartment complex. Rochester says this will allow a buffer between the three different styles of housing—from apartments, to townhomes, to traditional homes.
“It's zoned for townhomes and actually have apartments under construction,” Rochester said. “So we felt like that was a very good transition from the more intense development—and it has a large retail component to that as well. So we felt like that's a good transition from the joining neighborhood to the neighborhood on the other side.”
Previously, the area in question was zoned as Agricultural Residential-III, Residential-I and Vacation Cottage. With the unanimous vote from members of the commission, the 60 acres of land has been rezoned to Residential Development.
Hall County Commission Staff recommended denial of the rezoning application, while the Planning Commission gave their approval with conditions. The single entrance to the property was of particular concern. The Board of Commissioners maintained the condition that no more than 150 occupancy permits be granted without a second entrance being added.
Completion of the development is anticipated by 2025.
