The Hall County Board of Commissioners denied a re-zoning application that would have brought a residential development to the eastern part of the county during its Aug. 14 voting meeting.
Residential developer Cook Communities applied to rezone the lot on Yellow Creek Road from Agricultural Residential 1 to Planned Residential Development. Initially, Cook Communities had requested to build a 253 lot development on the 253.58 acres of land in the county’s Commission District 2. That number was later reduced to 191 lots. The application was tabled at the board's July 24 voting meeting. The Hall County Planning Commission had also recommended denial of the application prior to the meeting.
The Aug. 14 meeting saw a large turnout of Yellow Creek residents to oppose the development, all wearing red clothing to protest the rezoning. Community members who spoke in opposition of the development cited it was incompatible with the county’s comprehensive plan and expressed concerns for the surrounding environment.
“Yellow Creek is actually a wetland worthy of being protected,” community member Chuck Andrews said during the public hearing. “ …that wetland is a tributary to the lake that cleans the water that preserves the natural habitat… this wetlands [is] well up into the proposed development area.”
Other residents also reported concerns of increased traffic and density within the area as a result of the development.
Meanwhile, Cook Communities representative Jody Campbell argued that the residential developer proposed to protect over half of the property through a land trust.
“The [Unified Development Code] requires 30% of the development to be open space. We actually are proposing 52.4% of the property be conservation, open, preserved space that would be maintained, not developed, in a land trust in perpetuity” Campbell said. “That's 132 acres that is going to be preserved in its rural character area.”
Campbell also argued that the development would accommodate future growth projected for the area. He also said that traffic and density impact studies conducted for the developer showed schools and other infrastructure were currently operating under capacity.
Following the public hearing, commissioners ultimately denied the application.
