Hall County District 3 Commissioner Gregg Poole joined WDUN's "The Martha Zoller Show" Thursday morning to talk about the county's freeze on high-density zonings that was recently enacted by commissioners.
The commission voted on August 28 to suspend certain high-density zonings for a period of 180 days, running through February 25, 2026. A statement issued by the county the day after the vote said the goal of the freeze is to address citizen concerns about rapid growth in the county.
The suspension applies to any rezoning requests that involve changing the zoning of a property to anything from Residential-Two Family to Vacation Cottage. Poole said the goal of the freeze is to allow commissioners and county staff to re-examine the unified development code. Poole had previously publicly called for a moratorium on high-density rezonings in the county after multiple contested votes on the board of commissioners that led to projects in his district that he either voted to table or deny being approved by other commissioners.
Poole, who is also running as a Republican for 9th District U.S. Congress in 2026, said he hopes to see some of the housing trends the northern and eastern parts of the county have been seeing in recent years changed.
"One of the key things that I raised opposition about was setbacks from the houses, which is how close the house can go to the property line...I'm not for houses 10 foot apart anywhere in District 3. I'll be honest with you, I ain't for it nowhere," Poole said. "This was told to me by staff and other commissioners: 'Well, you can change that when it comes up in your district.' Well, you could change it if you could get somebody to vote with you."
Poole said he's concerned about the affordability of housing across Hall County.
"If you read market reports across the United States, the biggest buyer of houses since 2008 is corporations, and they have ran the costs of these houses up," Poole said. "We're not building affordable houses for anybody, any of our kids in Hall County. To me, that's unacceptable."
Poole said rezonings that have already been approved by the board of commissioners will be allowed to move forward with development, but any rezonings still yet to come to the board are being paused. He said he believes the northern and eastern ends of Hall County should focus on lower-density development due to the lack of infrastructure for higher-density developments.
"We're not against high density where high density works, and the market proves that high density only works where you have accessibility to mass transit, meaning roads, meaning sidewalks, meaning trains, meaning buses," Poole said. "We don't have none of that in District 3, so when you do that, you create mass chaos on the roads, as far as traffic and infrastructure. That's my biggest concern."
Poole said District 1 Commissioner Kathy Cooper was the commissioner who formally presented the rezoning freeze to Hall County staff. Poole said he believes the recent contested rezoning votes in District 3 led to the move.
"I really believe the reason she's done this is because we've had such, I reckon you could say, contentious meetings on zoning, especially in my district," Poole said. "She's a really good person. I really like her. I think she was trying to do this so that we could get our UDC code corrected so that it would be applicable and apply to every district according to how we want it."
Poole said that while he understands that growth will continue to come to Hall County due to its proximity to the North Georgia mountains, Lake Lanier and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, he said he feels it needs to be slowed in the northern and eastern parts of the county.
"We have around 12,000 approved zoning lots that have already been through planning and zoning in Hall County, so to say that there is no buildable lots in Hall County or subdivisions is hyperbole at best," Poole said. "I'll say about people moving in, if they're coming here to move in and then turn around and drive back the other way, I'm on record saying this, stay down yonder."
To hear more from Hall County District 3 Commissioner and candidate for 9th District U.S. Congress Gregg Poole, click play on the audio above.
