Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Allowed to have five dogs per county code.

They likely have had more than that recently. So again, this request, we reasoned for 20 dogs at a time. It shows you the same facility on the interior of it. And also the exterior showing the dog runs. And again, the dog runs themselves. And in terms of future land use, it's in a traditional neighborhood. We'll kind of get into the actual meat of this when we come back with this on the 20th. And staff recommends to postpone the request to kind of take care of that covenant issue. That includes staff recommendation.

With the owners Daniel Boyd Frazee II and Catherine Frazee or applicant Daniel Boyd Frazee would like to come forward and speak for this. Just state your name and address for the record, please.

we have been working on this for a long time. We are 5594 Harlem grovetown paperwork we essentially already have the facilities necessary to facilitate the 20 board or 20 dog boarding Business all of the renovations have already been done as stated from will we have moved forward with blacktop driveway to keep the noise and everything down so it doesn't impede or Put the other neighbors in a the noise down essentially and we' ve also done the installation in the facility as far as waste the waste is all handled there' s nothing that is sprayed out or drained out into the property everything is cleaned up by hand and it' s routinely picked up throughout the day so there' s never any leftover dog feces of any kind. If you Would review any of our agricultural inspections. All of them have came back super clean. We've never had any issues or complaints up to this point that we are aware of from our boarding facility. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Do I have any questions?

I am kind of curious about the waste removal. So basically, bring like a scoop and a broom and scoop it up and then mop the floor?

That is correct, sir. So we actually have trash disposal specifically for the boarding business. So everything is cleaned up with scoop. So the floor that we have inside is a cemented floor. So there's nothing... And the dogs are rotated routinely. They're let out late at night before curfew, of course. And then just so we're ensuring that there's no mess or anything when we come back inside. Of course, occasionally you will get the one or two, but it is cleaned up first thing. There's never anything that's left out over multiple days. So everything is cleaned up as respectfully so.

You're having some issues with your covenants, I guess, meeting the...

Letting you do this or what what seems to be the covenants issue the covenant issue Hey, did you bring the covenants with you by chance? Okay Thank you Paul I do not have a couple copy of the covenants on me, but I think it does reference something about businesses in the covenants so we did get the

Is there an HOA board or something? There's no HOA.

So, in fact, just to give you a little history and background.

It's not been really enforced heavily over the time of this existence.

In fact, when we bought the property, there has been multiple businesses that's been at the property prior to us. So, when we purchased the property, we thought that this would be a great location to facilitate our boarding facility. we had asked throughout the process of the purchase about covenants HOA which was what pushed us to move forward with the property. As we started to do the rezoning process the conversation did come up about a possible covenant that may have existed so we went to Prather which was who we thought had to develop the covenant and they were unaware of any covenant whatsoever so we were like you know we thought that okay well this was just hearsay well uh i guess later on after doing some other digging there was covenants that uh did start uh did end up developing or uh coming up that we we were unaware of this has been my experience if they don't start by the board and enforce from

without enforcement, it just gets difficult to make those rules apply now.

understood they Throughout the covenant we did read there was a thing in there where they would stay in place for 20 25 years However after that point they would have if they wasn't rescinded by the current plot holders they would just continue on for an additional 10 years until it was rescinded by the majority of the Plot holders, so that's where we are Thanks. Yes, sir. Thank you

anyone here tonight would like to come forward and speak in favor or against come forward please.

Good evening chairman members of the commission if I could it take 2 minutes, I'm going to read what I wrote to the planning commission last week to will Butler. greetings columbia county planning commission my name is ben blevins and I'm an owner within the oochee creek development I'm a retired one percent disabled combat veteran united states army and one of several original owners within the oochee creek development since 2004 located at parcel 3 my address 5590 harlem growtown road growtown georgia 30813 my address is directly next to parcel 2 who is requesting r a to s one I am humbly writing in opposition to the request to rezone parcel to 5594 Harlem grow town road from r a to s one for the purpose of operating a dog kennel business the recorded declaration of protective covenants for which a creek development book for one 6 0 pages to 76 to 77 contains several provisions that are directly relevant to this request. First, paragraph one states that the property shall be used for residential purposes only. A commercial dog boarding or kennel operation is a business use, not a residential use. Second, paragraph five states that no noxious or offensive trade or activity shall be conducted upon the lot. A kennel is a commercial trade and has the potential to create noise, odor, and increased traffic that neighboring property owners would experience. Third, paragraph four specifically provides that when there is a conflict between county zoning regulations and the restrictive covenants, the more restrictive provisions shall apply. Therefore, even if the county were to approve the rezoning, the recorded covenants remain a binding restriction on the property. These covenants were recorded to preserve the residential character of this development, and property owners have relied upon these restrictions when purchasing and improving their homes. The covenants took place from 2004, 20 years after. If there are nobody contesting, meaning four out of five of the tracks, then it automatically renews 10 years, every 10 years after that. For these reasons, I respectfully request that the planning commission recommend denial of the rezoning request for parcel two. Thank you. Respectfully, Ben Blevins. Thank you. I have any questions.

Yes, sir. You know that the, The Planning Commission doesn't get involved in covenants disputes. That's between you guys. Yes, sir. Have you all got an attorney to read your covenants, enforce your covenants? If you've got somebody, what is your attorney telling you about the effectiveness after all these years of no enforcement?

in order to proceed we' re going to have to do a civil lawsuit and it' s going to be a class action lawsuit and it' s going to involve four out of five tract owners out of the nine and I' m sorry that' s the route we have to take but I want to present this to the planning commission that as a citizen as someone that lives right next door it' s going to create a lot of noise and traffic and all me and my wife do I' ve retired from the army 20 years all we do is landscape and we garden so we spend a lot of time outdoors. And yes, I did call code enforcement because of the noise. They had more than five dogs. I have pictures of having 15 to 20 dogs. And it got to the point where they rushed me to the VA. I had mental health issues. I suffer from PTSD. And that was a trigger for me. And I did tell them that. And they just shook it off and brushed me off like, we don't care.

So, okay. Yes, sir. And your attorney says you've got a, got a chance. Cause I know I experienced this in my old neighborhood that the covenants were never enforced. And when things started going bad in the neighborhood, my attorney's like, you hadn't enforced these rules till now. Good luck. Well, I'll take your money.

the the the prior person speaking said that there were several businesses at that same location prior there was none there could have been a guy that operated out of his home as a little travel he did tile work but he did operate business from his home. Now now that there's a business that that's going to operate from five dogs to 20 yes that's that's when the issue is coming about and yes it does have to go through litigation and I know you guys are not code enforcement I just want to make my peace and my words said for the record.

Okay thank you yes sir appreciate your questions Russell anyone else would like to come forward and speak you can come forward you have to come to the podium state your name and address.

My name is Paula Boyer. I reside at 5568 Harlem Grove Town Road. My home, I have owned my property since 2004. My house was built in 2008. In regards to the covenants, I have the original covenants that a lawyer did write up, draw up that many years ago. Now to what this gentleman here said, there was no other businesses over there at that residence. I've been, I own that property since 2004. I know everybody. Okay. Yes, we have covenant rules. We are in our one zone, no businesses allowed. Let me explain a little bit more. I had a lawn scaping business right next to me that is in the city of Grove town. That business is no longer there. It took me seven years to get them in court to get the business out of there because we are one. No businesses allowed that business is no longer there. We won. He was found not guilty because he was compliant within a month. Again, we went to court. Chris Duby, even we won that case. Covenant rules matter. We, my husband and I, bought that property with the understanding, no businesses allowed. None. And it took me all this time to fight the city of Grovetown and I won. We won. Now this lady here, she has a dog business. To my recollection, she's got a license to have five dogs. I had a conversation with this woman admitting she's got 15 to 20 dogs and I'm four properties away from her. I got two and a half acres of property. We all have acreage and I hear those dogs at my house. I am asking y'all to deny the zoning request for them to have more dogs. We bought our property for a reason. The covenant rules by the lawyer that drew them up. We stick by them. Yes, I got Larry and Lionel involved in my case. And yes, they are aware of covenant rules because they sent them to Elaine Matthews, the city of administrator of Grovetown. So how can you say that they have no recollection of covenant rules when we all have them? I got my original copy. So I'm asking you to please deny this because I'm with Ben. We will get a lawyer and I'll back up a little bit more back in 2004 or covenant rules stipulates stick built homes. A real estate agent decided she wanted to come in and put in a modular home came in 4 sections. It's not stick bill it's manufactured. put it all together 3 of us landowners sued and they had to remove that House because it went against covenant rules. Covenant rules matter. My land matters. I work hard my heart and works hard. For what we have and not that something like this coming in destroy it. If y'all let this go by, what's to say the used car dealership right next to them doesn't start selling more cars when they're allowed to sell six? So if you open the door to this, you are also opening up the used car dealership right next door. And we are all R1. That's all I got to say. Do y'all have any questions for me?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else would like to come forward?

Good afternoon.

David Eastman, 5576 Harlem Grove Town Road. I own the property behind all of these people. I'm out in the yard, just like Ben is a lot, doing landscaping and working in my property. About 7, 30, 8 o'clock in the morning is when the dogs start barking. They bark for an hour, hour or so. I guess then they get put away. Then they come back out in the afternoon, more barking continues. This happens every day. That's all I have to say.

Okay, thank you. Do I have anyone else here like to speak? Gentlemen, can I get a motion?

Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to postpone file RZ260703, rezoning from R8S15594 Harlem Grove Town Road to the August 20th Planning Commission meeting.

I'll second.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor of postponing, raise your right hand. This is postponed. Next item, H1B3. This is a variance, and this is Dylan.

Yes, sir. This is an application for a variance at 228 Applecross Drive. A couple important notes from this slide are to note that this parcel is less than a tenth of an acre in size and that it is zoned apartment residential, even though the request is to build a single-family residence. We'll take a closer look at those details. This is the location of the property within the Applecross subdivision. again it is all that entire development is owned a or apartment residential. And this is the site. As you can see, it is vacant. There is a concrete slab. Here's an existing site photo. There was previously a house, single-family residence constructed on this property, again, even though it was zoned apartment residential. In scenarios like these, Columbia County Code dictates that this lot will have 10-foot setbacks in accordance with the R3A zoning district. However, again, due to the lot's size, and we saw on those couple previous slides, it has a trapezoidal shape. Those lot lines are very near to the limits of that slab that the applicant is looking to make use of to construct the newly proposed single family residence. It's impossible to make use of that slab and construct a home in keeping with what was previously there and also in keeping with the character of the other two single family residences within the development without some setback reductions. We'll take a look at a concept plan in just a second. This is a plat for the parcel. And this is that concept plan. So as you can see, the limits of the house are five feet roughly from the side setbacks. And then there is kind of that trapezoidal rear lot line that also has a 10-foot setback that the house would be at its nearest about six feet from. The only issue arising from the interdepartmental review related to this request was just that there is a 10-foot drainage and utility stormwater easement along that rear lot line with the 10-foot setback. Just with the house reaching into that easement, an easement encroachment has been required as a condition of approval. The applicant has worked with staff to get that paperwork processed as well. That request would be heard at the same time that this item would go before the Board of Commissioners. Seeing that there are no other major issues, this is in keeping again with the character of a couple other single-family residences that are already built within this property and is in keeping, as we can see here, some residential elevations that the applicant has provided. It's in keeping with what was there previously as well as what is there currently on adjacent parcels. And so the HOA is even supporting the applicant with this request. And so it seems that everybody involved is on board and all right, and there seem to be no major issues that would arise from this application. And so staff is recommending approval with the aforementioned easement encroachment agreement requirement.

Thank you, Dylan. Will the owner or applicant, Connor Poole, like to come forward and add anything? Speak.

State your name and address, please. Connor Poole and 228 Applecross. This plan, to the best of my ability, is the exact house that was there. I toured the neighbor's home, super nice lady. I measured every room, every pitch, everything to do with this house. That is as close to the original plan as I could get. The county did not have record of the original plans that were submitted. I think something to do with every 10 years they're discarded or something like that. So I didn't get what was turned in, but this was based on those original slab measurements and the neighbor's house, which was the same house as close to what originally was. Okay.

We have any questions? Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else would like to come forward and speak? Gentlemen, can I get a motion?

Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to recommend approval with conditions of file VA 26-07-02, variance to reduce the building setbacks at 228 Applecross Drive. Second.

I have a motion on the floor and a second. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion carries. I see we have no legal matters this evening. Any staff or commissioner comments? Any more public comment to add tonight? Gentlemen, can I get a motion for adjournment? Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion that this meeting be adjourned.

A second.

Motion and a second. All those in favor, raise your right hand. We are adjourned.