Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call to order the November 20th, 2025 planning commission meeting. At this time, uh, please stand for the invocation given by Russell Wilder and the pledge of allegiance given by Mr. Lester.

Y'all would. My dear Lord, we want to thank you for this day. Another beautiful day in Columbia County and thank you for all the many blessings you bestow upon this community. We ask that you look over us this evening that you guide us, help us maintain professional attitudes and take with serious interest these issues before us and side in the best way we possibly can. Uh we want to please ask look over that our first responders, our law enforcement, our firefighters that are protecting us every day and putting their lives on the line. We ask that you give everyone that took the time out of their week tonight to come up and see us to have a safe journey back to their home this evening. Name we ask. Amen. We do have a quorum this evening. Gentlemen, you've got the uh the minutes. Review the minutes from the last meeting, November 6, 2025. I need our approval of those minutes.

Chairman, I make a motion to recommend approval of minutes from November 6th. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor of the minutes, raise your right hand. Motion carries. And you've reviewed the agenda for this evening. I need approval of the agenda for this evening. Chairman, I make a motion to recommend approval of tonight's agenda. Second.

I have a motion and a second on the floor. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion carries. Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to clarify that the planning commission is a recommending body to the Columbia County Board of Commissioners. The decisions made on reszoning and variance request tonight will be forwarded to the commissioners for final action on December 2nd, 2025. You wish to address the board of commissioners at their meeting, please see Miss Mixon to obtain a request to speak form. Any request with a public hearing will have a minimum of 10 minutes permitted per side for the presentation of opinions, data, and evidence by proponents or opponents of a request. The applicant will be allowed to speak first and any member of the public may speak after. Either side may seed their time during the hearing if they so desire. Okay. The first item on the agenda, we have a presentation G1 foundations for the future comprehensive plan public hearing. Mr. Sterling.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, just as a kind of a quick background on this process, this is the comprehensive plan, which is the county's vision document. It's something that we are required to provide and and update on a five-year basis uh in order to have zoning in the county. um there are state standards by which we have to adhere to. So the process will include things like public engagement but then there are elements within the plan itself that we need to address in order to maintain compliance with standards. Uh we began this process back in November of 2024. Uh Columbia County Board of Commissioners approved a contract with housing uh their subconsultant and uh engagement specialist alto together uh to help assist the county with the comprehensive plan project. That project is been underway for most of the 2025 calendar year uh culminates uh in some respects tonight with the draft plan that will be presented here momentarily by our consultants. uh give you kind of a quick overview of what we've done over the past uh 10 or so months. Um again, one of the big uh components of this process uh was the community engagement process. What we want to do and what we encourage everybody to do is participate, be a part of this process, get your voice heard. Um get your feelings um you know, good, bad, or otherwise on paper. You know, we did that participation through pop-up events throughout the county at various locations throughout the uh first half of the year primarily, but we did do some here uh recently. Um we also did online surveys, things of that nature. So, we did get a pretty good um amount of feedback. I'll let them talk a little bit more about that. But uh at this time what the plan is is to uh have them do their presentation, open it up

for a public hearing, let the public speak on it, and then um let the planning commission make a recommendation. That recommendation would be to uh forward this plan, draft plan to regional commission here locally and then also on to the Department of Community Affairs at the state for their cursory review to make sure that we're in compliance with the standards required. And once we get their sign off, then we would get that information back from state from the DCA. Then we would then schedule um hearing for the board of commissioners for their consideration and adoption of the plan. The timeline on that is approximately um we hope to have uh the approvals from DCA back probably early to mid January. So, we would schedule that public hearing or that that meeting for the board of commissioners decision somewhere in either the end of January or or the month of February. Um, regardless, the plan does need to be adopted by the end of February for us to remain compliant and eligible for state funding sources. So, at this time, I'd like to ask our consultants from How Lavine, Josh Coun, and Dale, and Gary to come up and give their presentation.

Thank [clears throat] you, Scott. And thank you to the chair and commissioners for having us here tonight. It really is an honor to be here with you um at this time at this part of the project. Do I touch the screen to uh so tonight just uh as as Scott mentioned a brief um overview of the planning process. Uh, I'm going to talk a little bit about that and then Abigail's going to talk a little bit about the outreach and engagement portion of this and then Carrie's going to give you an orientation to the plan document itself, what you can find in it uh before we take it out with next steps. Probably about 10 minutes here. So, our planning process, you might have seen this slide um earlier on if you attended one of the early meetings as part of this, but a comprehensive plan gets talked about in a lot of different ways. Um it's sometimes it's called a roadmap or a blueprint. Uh a good comprehensive plan engages the community. It identifies based on community input your long-term aspirational goals, your needs, your desires. Um addresses the issues and strengths that were uncovered during the existing conditions analysis process. And it guides a broad uh a broad range of topics at a policy level. And what I mean by that is you'll see a lot of should statements in a plan like this. um to achieve the long range vision and these actionable goals. The county should consider this, the county should do this. Um it's it's not going to act as your zoning code. You're not going to see uh you shall do this, but you'll see a lot of those should consider, should do um uh statements, recommendations for how you should uh make decisions going forward. And it is a dynamic document. Like Scott said, uh the state has some guidelines on how often it is updated. Um, this is a very important document. If this document is done right, you're

sharing your community's vision, an aspirational centerpiece to the plan that's kind of a long term points you out where you would you would want to be as a community over the next couple of decades. Um, it's used to evaluate and inform development proposals. So, uh, specifically in this room, when you all are making those tough decisions on a development and how it's going to, uh, take place in your community, you can turn to this document and have some guidance. What does it say about our residential areas, our commercial areas? Uh, what does the plan say and how does this development fit with that guidance in the plan? It sets the foundation um for the regulatory framework. So, you may find that the plan has some recommendations for new types of development or new things to consider and you want to go ahead and update your zoning to um make sure that you have those designations and those uh categories for petitioners to apply to. Uh a good plan also is going to support your capital improvements planning and budgeting. So, this won't act as the county's CIP. Um, but when you when the county gets together at the end of the year to start doing its budgeting process and think about where short-term are we going to spend the public dollar, you can turn to this plan and you can turn to the action matrix at the end of it to say um what are some of the recommendations of the comprehensive plan? What are the things that we worked on over the past year? Um what are some of these actions that we can pick off this year in an orderly manner? Uh what are we going to devote that precious public dollar to? Um, a good comprehensive plan might tee up future studies or funding opportunities. Good examples could be um like a storm water study or a a trails master plan or something like that. Again, this comprehensive plan can have some towhold language to pursue that grant funding and secure uh additional studies or projects that really help the county move the needle and go in the direction it wants to go. Um, and then

lastly, um, if you were to turn to an old older comprehensive plan, you might find a big thick document with a lot of text and one map at the back, your future land use map. Um, it would sit on the planner shelf and wouldn't be that accessible to the community. More and more of these documents live online. They should be written in plain English so that anybody can pick up and understand them and get a sense where does my community want to go? Where's the county thinking it's going to go over the next couple of decades? Uh this is all mandated um by the Georgia Planning Act. Um every state in the country has some sort of planning enabling statutes that direct cities and counties to do long range planning. Some are very short and they basically say the community should have a long range plan and that's about it. Uh Georgia is a little bit more prescriptive. There are minimum requirements for uh plan elements, uh community involvement, consideration of regional water plans and environmental planning. Um and then there's that review period by the Department of Community Affairs um before you get to the adoption process. So um I'm happy to say that this document that we've been working on with in lock step with your staff team over the past year meets all those requirements. uh not only the required uh plan elements but also the recommended plan elements and aligns with the Georgia statutes. Again over that year process we had a five-step process but really what we did through along the way was first in [snorts] the existing conditions analysis we established where we are today. Um then as we got into visioning, we started to define where we wanted to go and we crafted that a aspirational centerpiece, that um long range vision of where we want to go over the next couple of decades. And the plan that you have now in front of you is um the roadmap for how we're going to get there, the policies, the recommendations, and the actions that the county can reasonably work on and

chip away at piece by piece to start achieving that long range aspirational vision. Um I always say this about comprehensive plans. It's not just because yours is called foundations for the future. Um if you think about your comprehensive plan in just one way, I encourage uh communities to think about it as a foundation for decision making. So, um, when you come to make that development decision, if you're perhaps a new business owner who's looking to invest in the community, even somebody who's considering purchasing a home, this is that document that can u you can turn to and reasonably get a sense of where the county uh sees itself heading. Um, so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Abigail for just a minute to talk about the engagement process. Hi everyone. It's great to see some familiar faces. Um I will be short and sweet because I only have one slide, but we really want to talk about community engagement and why it was so important in this process. We are all very busy people. Not everyone has the accessibility um the resources or the time to come to workshops and have 40 boards across a room. So we want to have a diverse strategy that made sure that we were hearing from more voices than we've done in past efforts. So we really thought through this strategy thought about different scales and sizes that we could reach people. So we had to simplify it two kind of ways we did that and inperson tons of opportunities as well as digital. We had the project website which I think has over 2.2k 2K unique visitors that have visited it. There were plenty of platforms that they could submit their thoughts as well as sign up for updates. We have over 400 people that signed up for updates to just get alerts about milestones, key updates um

throughout this and ways then they can get involved. There was an interactive map that was great, map.social, social that our team put together that people were able to pinpoint opportunities and get really specific um instead of things like visioning where it's a little more broad and if they want to be like this intersection or this plot this has a lot of potential or this is something that's challenging I don't feel safe here that was something people could do too so the project website was very important as well as surveys um survey fatigue is real so we tried to make them as fun as possible for surveys we had almost a thousand responses and knowing that, you know, not everyone wants to engage digitally or has access and the ability to do so. So, we wanted to go where people were at and not just be like, all right, we're doing workshops or open houses. So, we did popup events where we were trying to be where people were at, where there was high traffic, maybe where there were new voices that haven't been heard so far. This was the first project I've ever done a popup through a drive-thru, um, which is very interesting. to Chick-fil-A in Mullen's Colony. I think that was a great opportunity where if you have ever been there during the lunch rush, it is hundreds of people. So, it was very fun to do. It was a great way to get out in front of the community and just let them know that we want to listen that we're not saying just come to us from 6:00 to 8 on a weird night that you probably already have plans or you want to eat dinner. So we were out there to get in front of people as well as there was many other opportunities like stakeholder um conversations that we had some different subgroups and working with different departments as well. But to simplify the engagement process it was kind of Josh should do those five steps with engagement. It was really where are we now? Where do we want to go and how do we get there? So that started in March, then in May, and then we are in the last phase of engagement right now of how do we get

there. So what we were doing throughout the last three days was making sure that people knew about this draft plan. We can always do better. Please spread the word. It's available on the website. We want people to look at this for that authentic feedback loop of what did I say? Were my thoughts there? Is there any ways that I can prove or is there something you want to uplift or challenge? So that is a great challenge for all of us to spread the word about the draft plan as well. I would love to take questions later if anyone has any, but I appreciate you all and I will hand it back off. Thank you and good evening. Um I just want to echo that um this is a a process that we've been through for about the last 10 months. I I've seen some of you as we've gone through this process. So I'm very pleased to be in front of you and kind of share the fruits of our labor thus far. Uh to begin with, we'd just like to give you just a highle overview of what the plan entails, what it includes right now. So this is the outline. We go into introduction, give an overview of the community, kind of giving you another recap of where we established those existing conditions for the community, how we got to the vision statement and goals. uh then pre present to you the land use and development plan uh for the community and then go into a few of these targeted areas where we take a little bit deeper dive into these uh topics and then finally we round out with implementation. So how are you going to be able to achieve some of these things that we have in the plan? We start out with the introductory chapters. This sets the stage for the rest of the plan itself. Again, where do we want to go? So it has a bit about the planning process, how to use the plan, some demographics, the regional context, and then we get into vision statements and goals. And this was something that was very important. It was drawn from all of the community feedback, the input that

we received from staff, from elected and appointed officials such as yourselves, from the steering committee, and again from the community at large. And we put together this vision statement along with a series of goals. The goals are very broad-based and that's intentional. That's to get at different types of goals and we have specific recommendations that will help you achieve those broad-based goals for the for the different uh categories that we have here. So, land use and development, housing and neighborhoods, commercial and industrial areas, uh community facilities, transportation, and then natural resources and environment. The first part is for land use and development. And what we start out with is the existing land use. Where are we right now? What are some constraints and influences? So, Columbia County, it's a large area. There are quite a few natural areas um within the county that will have an impact on what and where can be things can be developed. Uh that includes things like flood planes, its topography, its um existing uh developments, its roadways, it's um the infrastructure itself. So those are all things that we are taking into consideration as we move forward with uh evaluating land use and development. And then we end up with these character areas to help you identify where things are intended to be developed within the county over the next 5, 10, 15 years and in into the future. We really took a lot of input on these character areas, trying to develop them in a way that not only reflects the existing development patterns, but also allows for a little bit of flexibility moving forward. Um, so you will notice that we have a very specific area that is focused on Evans Town Center. We call it out as a town center because that's the way it is it's going to be developed. Uh, that's the way it's intended to be developed in the future.

The rural, residential, and agricultural areas are really reflective of how those areas have developed thus far, how they're expected and anticipated to develop into the future, which is still reflective of your current zoning requirements, and also recognizing that there are some infrastructure limitations and some areas that we want to preserve. Um, and then we go all the way into community commercial areas. Those are your areas that are serving um either neighborhoods or just the community at large. These are not necessarily intended to bring in folks from outside the county boundaries, but really to serve your your citizens here. Um regional commercial, that's just the opposite. Those are kinds of those commercial um developments that would bring in folks from the outside. And of course recognizing open space and conservation areas, areas of technology and industrial, those also include your quies. So those areas that have already been developed with certain types of industrial, but it also is more broad-based. So you have manufacturing, you have distribution, logistics, anything that could go into that all the way up into research and development. So these are the character areas. We've provided more uh descriptions within the plan itself to help you identify um what are the characteristics of these specific areas, how should they continue to be developed um and um some of the densities uh therefore and how buildings should relate to streets. All of that is per character area within the plan. Then we turn into the chapters themselves. So the content is divided into uh different categories that kind of mirrors the statutory requirements. The first is housing and neighborhoods and we break this down into a couple of areas where we get a little bit more focused. So we talk about neighborhood character providing for a different housing styles

that have different amenities within different neighborhoods. also recognizing the types of connections that can be made, but whether that's through infrastructure like sidewalks and trails or just connections within the neighborhood itself. Um, planning for new growth, we provide some strategies and recommendations for whenever you have new housing in neighborhoods that are going to be coming forward for development, what types of context sensitivity should that have, meaning what is the neighborhood surrounding it? How does that look and how does that fit in here? Um, also infill opportunities. Infill opportunities are where you have kind of a a piece of land that's within an already developed area um where you can then say this is what we want to make sure gets developed here. Also ma recognizing what the neighborhood surrounding it um has been developed. We also go into a little bit of statistical analysis here, identifying a couple of areas where there might be some policy issu u decisions that would be made regarding um housing that provides um the types of amenities, the types of styles, the types of sizes that are needed for the community as your community continues to grow. Um and what the variety of those housing options might be. and then going into quality and maintenance because we want to make sure that we're also supporting the existing neighborhoods um so that they can continue to provide that quality of housing that the community has grown to love. We then turn to commercial and industrial areas and we have a couple of different things that we talk about within this chapter specific to these types of developments. So we also identify nodes and corridors. Nodes are kind of those uh central cores of of development. You might see these things at intersections. Um we break the nodes

down into rural and urban cores. Urban cores are going to be more at your your larger intersections. So that could be something like um some commercial developments there. Maybe you have some fueling stations etc. And then uh more rural cores. Those would still be at the smaller intersections, but they would be serving those neighborhoods specifically. That could be a small grocery store, that could be a small service, uh, a doctor's office, those kinds of things. We turn to proximity based development, and that's really taking a look at where you can maximize development based on the existing services and infrastructure that you have in place. This chapter goes further into reinvestment opportunities where you can incorporate urban design and placemaking within different developments. Um then talking a little bit more about policy again workforce development. That's not necessarily that the county would be taking that on whole uh whole wholesale but supporting the workforce to continue to um bring in those tax dollars and make sure that this is a supported economy. um taking a look at the very important um aspect that quaries and mining have for for the uh the the county's uh economy. Um recognizing also that there is a large tourism uh component to the economy as well. So, uh, we take a look at where there might be some opportunities for some continued partnerships and then building on that great, um, platform that you've already developed and that goes into business development and attraction, kind of tying that all together. Within transportation, it's a lot of taking a look at what the existing network is, what the capacity is, what you've already done in terms of some roadway projects to address some issues. Um, and then providing the active transportation, your sidewalks, your trails, taking a look at how that

network integrates with the the more vehicular network. Um, what other alternative transportation options might there be? Are there improvements that could be made within the existing system? And then just recognizing that you do also have freight rail in the community. So, this is really kind of like taking stock of where you are, but that'll help you identify some projects in the future that you might want to plan for in your capital improvements projects. Um, also recognizing some of the feedback that we received and identifying where some projects might be to help you uh with those traffic concerns. Community facilities, again, taking a look at what you already have in place um and where you might be able to make some of those capital improvements in the future or plan for them in the future. There is a requirement in statute that everybody um must incorporate uh some kind of broadband component into their comprehensive plan. So we've taken a look at that as well. Um we've identified the historic and cultural resources as a major component uh to your your community that can go into a multitude of different places. You can take a look at how that affects the local economy for tourism, for business development, for establishing that culture um and that identity for the community that makes it what it is today and how to preserve those for future generations. One of the things that we heard in feedback consistently was that residents [clears throat] of the community really love your parks and your open spaces. So, we've provided some strategies for um maintenance of those uh into the future, possibly having some connections in there, and then maybe even opportunities for not only preservation, but expansion wherever that is possible. And again, taking a look at what your natural um tourism um opportunities are in this area as well. Finally, natural environment. This was another area um that was very much

spoken about when we were talking to folks um during outreach and feedback. Um everybody loves the uh natural spaces and we want to make sure that we are calling for those the preservation of those areas um not only for the environment but also for people to enjoy. Um so we're taking a look at the local g geography not only identifying where those places are but uh also recognizing the connection between those natural areas and uh some very important uh planning for for hazards. So you know we have we have water um we have water bodies that have um flood planes. So, how can we plan for a little bit better or at least anticipate some kinds of development impacts um that we might be able to avoid some flood plane um impacts to those areas? Or just what are your um existing disaster recovery and response methods and how can we continue to support those to make sure that we have a safe community um when mother nature might not be so kind to us. [clears throat] We wrapped that all up in an implementation chapter. So, we identify funding sources and opportunities to help you institute some of the recommendations within this plan. We also recognize that this is not something that the community is going to be able to do on its own. The county can't take on everything on its own. So, we identify some partners in order to um be able to implement some of these important projects in the future. And we put that into an action matrix as Josh was mentioning earlier so you can actually take stock of where you are and what things have been accomplished and what things might need a little bit more planning um either be it for infrastructure purposes, for funding purposes, what what have you. And we include also your community work plan as a statutory requirement. So it identifies certain department goals and responsibilities and how they're going to implement those things as well. Just

want to take a moment here to pause because this is a lot of information. It was a very high level overview. Um but I do want to also recognize that there this is very much a work in progress. So we would love to have your input in order to make this even better. Um this is your your plan and we want to make sure that we um make it right for you. So that feedback will be um incorporated into revisions as necessary. So again, very much a work in progress. Um, next steps though, just very quickly, uh, as Scott mentioned, this is going to be sent to the, uh, Department of Community Affairs for their review upon your recommendation. Um, once we get that feedback from them and we also get your feedback that we can incorporate into this plan, then we'll go before the board of commissioners for their adoption and ultimately this will become your plan, your road map for the future. So I want to thank you again for your input, for your participation throughout the process and I will uh be with my colleagues uh able to answer any of your questions. So thank you very much.

Thank you. [clears throat] Is there any member here um any member of the audience would like to speak for or against this? We have any uh comments or I was um really impressed the way some of this the way they gathered information, the popups. That was really clever. I thought that was a really neat idea. I want to give y'all some kudos for that. That was neat technique. Thank you.

Get a motion. Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to recommend approval of the foundations for the future comprehensive plan and forward the plan to the Central Savannah River Area Regional Commission, Georgia Department of Community Health. A second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor raise your right hand. Motion carries. Now we get into the debate agenda. New business H1 um a public hearing H1 A1 provisional home occupation for Bloom and Birch Salon. Danielle.

Yes, sir. This is a request for a provisional home occupation for Bloom and Birch Salon at 214 Old Ble Road. Uh this property is located on the south side of Old Ble Road near its intersection with GR Tucker Road and is currently zoned RA residential agricultural as is everything around it. And this shows the existing site with the existing house on the property. Um the applicant is proposing to operate a one chair hair salon. Um she would be the only employee. She does live on the property. Um hair salons up to two chairs are permitted as home occupations. So ordinarily you wouldn't even see this um except that she is proposing to use a separate building um outside of the house for the business. Um you can see the proposed shed there on the site plan in green. Um it is about a 350 foot building. Um it's well under 50% of the house area. So it does meet the provisional home occupation requirements. And again since this is typically an allowed home occupation, we don't have any concerns with the proposed use. And staff is recommending approval.

Thank you. Daniel or the owners Daniel and Heather Tanner or applicant Heather Tanner would like to come forward and speak. I have any other member here that I'd like to speak against or for or against this. I get a motion. Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to recommend the provisional home occupation for Blooming Birch Salon at 214 Old Bloodro. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor raise your right hand. Motion carries. Next item on the agenda, H1 A2, variance to section 90-135 signs on North Bell Road. Danielle.

Yes, sir. This is a request for a variance to the sign code to allow an additional wall sign on the property at 464 North Bel Air Road. This property is located at the intersection of North Bel Air and Herford Farm Road and is currently zone C1 Neighborhood Commercial. Um you can see there's quite a mix of zoning um around this area. Um couple planned unit developments, professional zoning, and additional commercial zoning as well as some residential left over in there. Uh this is an old aerial. If you've driven by this corner, it does not look like this. Um the proposal is to add an additional wall sign on the front of the building. Um if you've been by this location, it is the doctor's hospital freestanding emergency room that's under construction. Um, we have already approved their sign permit for the building signage that they are allowed on this site. Um, and they have used their whole allowance at this time. Uh, they do want to add an additional sign. It will go on that red corner you see on the front of the building. It will be the ER letters for the freestanding emergency room. Um, essentially the argument is that this is obviously a public health um, and safety use. It is a you emergency room. It needs clear signage to help people find it. Um, and it is kind of a new concept being a freestanding ER, not connected to a a hospital. Um, so making sure people can find it is a good thing and understand what it is. Um, we've used that argument uh fairly recently with the hospital complex itself as well as with the surgery center on the opposite side of Bair Road to allow some additional signage for these types of medical um, public health and safety uses. Um, and we don't see any issues with applying the same logic here. Helping people find this emergency room is a good thing. Uh, this additional sign they're asking for um is just over 21 square feet. Not overly large. It's not going to look out of scale on the building. Um, you can see that sign

there as it's proposed and staff is recommending approval. Thank you, Danielle. Were the owner of owners of Doctor's Hospital LLC or the applicant of AAA signed company would like to add anything that was just over

just state your name and address for the Kirsta AAA sign company and this is Mr. Andrew be chief operating officer. Okay. Uh appreciate the staff approval. We have any questions? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. Uhu. Do we have any other uh person here that would like to speak against? No. Can I get a motion? Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to recommend approval of file VA25-11-01 variance to increase the loud wall signage for North Bell. Second.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion carries. Next item, H1 A3, reszoning from C2 to S1. Sheriff's request for res2 to S1 at 6605 and 6611 Washington Road about 22 acres currently zone C2 request to go to S1 for proposed boat and RV storage. Location of the property on the east side of Washington Road just down from it intersection with Holy Gigon Road. Again, most property around it. You have R4 to the north, south and and east. And across street is primarily C2 which is area of the site and also the plat of Washington Road or the 6605 Washington Road and 6611 Washington Road and the side the site uh as it is today. So the overall concept for this is about 300,000 square feet max of enclosed and covered storage on this property again for RVs and boats. Uh each building is limited to 25,000 square feet in size. Uh this basically follows the three development standards have 125 foot front setback, 30 foot side and a 40 foot uh buffer on the back. I guess there are four properties. Uh this piece over here is not included in anyway that piece is hatched out is not included uh in this resoning. That's remains C2. Um some of the it'll be it'll be basically very similar to other storage uh developments. It could have like the the clean the uh the areas clean to clean your RV on it, that sort of thing. Um really not not much uh to it overall. Uh there is some concern from staff regarding the front area here, front area on the Washington Road. I used to be able to draw on. I'm sorry. And then also the interior of it being uh paved or or gravel with that. We we typically have or recently tally have had a condition requiring it to be paved. that condition is there. Also on

the front part, a 20ft buffer with a structural component. Terms of future development, this is within the community crossroads area, our character area. Again, it's a rural community crossroads. Um, this area here is intended to have this type of use in it. Again, across trees, other storage. Uh, we've had a request in the past further down Ridge Road uh that was not within this area. We did not recommend approval of that. Uh so from a future development standpoint this meets all the criteria uh for that area. Again staff approval with the final condition requiring all drives and parking areas to be paved and landscap along road be 20 ft with the structural component included staff recommendation.

Very well thank you will [clears throat] owner and applicate of defor land lllp would like to come forward and add. Thank you. I really don't have anything to add. My name is John Defor. um pretty straightforward what it is. We feel like there's a need. We currently own boat sheds and have other industries that kind of tie into this now and we feel like that it's a viable project. Okay. Thank you. We have any questions? Thank you. I appreciate it. Any other member of the audience would like to speak uh for or against?

Can I get a motion? Chairman, I make a motion to recommend approval with conditions of file RZ25-11-04 reszoning the properties at 6605 and 6611 Washington Road from C2 to S1 for boat and RV store. A second. I have a motion and a second. Can I get uh all those in favor raise your right hand? Motion carries. Four one abstain. Well, H1 A4, this is the master sign plan on 2207 William View Parkway. Danielle,

yes, sir. This is a request for a master sign plan at 2207 William Parkway. This property is at the intersection of Columbia Road and William Parkway adjacent to Patriots Park, and it is already zoned uh CC Community Commercial. Uh that zoning was approved in 2015. Uh so we're not dealing with the zoning of the property at all tonight. Uh that zoning was approved with several conditions. Um one of which required a master sign plan to be approved by the board of commissioners. Uh so this master sign plan has been submitted to comply with that condition. Uh currently it is a largely undeveloped site. Um the greenway does run along both road frontages not quite visible on the aerial. And the master sign plan covers several aspects of the signage for this development. The primary one is the principal freestanding signs for these parcels um as proposed currently. Uh this includes a combination of kind of single tenant identification signs and multi-tenant um entrance signs. Uh the entrance signs are planned to be at the driveways. Um and there is a fourth one labeled as sign I that's proposed at that northwest corner of the site. Um, that one is likely intended to be providing direction from John Adams Lane. U, but there is a buffer on the Patriots Park property and we'll see the landscape plan in just a minute. There's also a good bit of landscaping on that corner. Uh, so staff doesn't feel that sign I is really going to provide meaningful direction and it is the second sign on that road frontage on that parcel which would exceed normal county code allowance. Um, additionally, sign G just to the south is already one of those multi-tenant entrance signs. Um so we are recommending that we not include sign I with the approval. We don't think it adds anything to the the directional um information provided on this property. Um other than that sign uh the freestanding signs on the main roads essentially will meet county code and they meet the zoning condition. Uh they also have added um one of the

interesting things with developments like this is they're essentially reverse frontage lots in a lot of respects. So the buildings tend to end up, you know, closer to the main roads, but your access is from the back. Uh and in this case, they are shared driveways. They're not private roads or public roads that are providing that rear access. And one of the quirks of our county code is that normally that would not allow signs on the back of those buildings where you're actually trying to access them from. Uh so one of the things we really wanted to make sure we covered with this master sign plan was signage on those rear elevations since that is where you'll actually be coming into those out parcels from. Uh so what they have done with that is you can see all the signs that are labeled J. Those are secondary monument signs. They've provided those as an option for the tenants or uh the ability to do an additional wall sign on the back of those buildings. Um and it is an option. They get to do one or the other. Uh so that does provide some flexibility in the plan without overwhelming a number of signs on the property. Uh they've also provided the option for some internal directional signs uh just to kind of help direct to the various out parcels and addressed the building signage for the anchor tenant um which would be allowed up to 200 square feet on all four walls. It is a little bit more than would be um normally allowed especially since that that main parcel there actually doesn't have any road frontage. Uh, but they did want to make sure that that tenant was fully covered um on that parcel with no road frontage to to make sure they can get the signage they need to to be successful there. Uh, here's examples of the proposed signs. They are masonry signs in compliance with the zoning condition. Um, and they are u kind of generally smaller than what you might expect to see for commercial development of this size. Uh, they are generally um closer to 8 feet in height. um they are smaller than the normal square footage allowance. So that does help kind of keep them in more in line with the residential character in the area. Um residential signs are allowed to be 8t

tall as well. Um so the fact that these signs are close to that same height um really keeps it to the to a similar scale. And here's the landscape plan I mentioned. Um so you can see the landscaping in that northwest corner um that would kind of block that sign eye. Uh the other note we wanted to make um on the corner parcel uh the current sign locations are actually behind the landscaping proposed on that parcel. A county code would normally allow either the two signs like they've shown on the master sign plan or one on the corner which is what's shown on the landscaping plan. Um we are going to allow them either of those options even with the master sign plan. So moving forward they can kind of work with that sign location with the landscaping plan as well. Uh so staff is recommending approval with the condition that sign I is not included in the approval of the master sign plan.

Thank you Daniel. Would the owner applicant MHR LLC landlord would like to come or MHR Landlord LLC like to come forward and add anything? Any member of here would like to speak in opposition of this? if you would like to come forward and state. I'm sorry.

I'm Tom Barton Trail, 256 Laurel Drive. I'm not really clear what you're putting there. What's going to be there? Yeah. So, this wouldn't um the zoning is already in place. So, you know, whether it's a retail store, a grocery store, a restaurant of that, you know, as long as it's within compliance with the community commercial uh zoning district, um those uses could go there. This just is establishing what the sign allowances for whatever those potential users may be on those particular parcels.

Okay. I guess I just have one other comment then. Uh, you know, I'm kind of down the middle with this, but traffic out there is so bad now. It is unbelievable. Since I've moved in there 15 years ago, we've had large subdivisions down William View built. We've had more built to Patriots Park. We've got things across the street from Columbia Columbia Road that are going to be built. Um I don't know how if any of you go out that way in the mornings or in the evenings or even during the day. Uh you just can't get through. So, I I I would hope there'd be some plans to do something with the infrastructure out there. I don't even know how they'll get into those things unless they go in by the by the soccer fields at Patriots Park and that when you got all those kids over there and all the traffic, it's unbelievable. You know, I I would hope we consider, you know, some some different things with the road, some um maybe coming out of Bartum Trail, some lighting. You can't get out of Bark and Trail on Columbia Road hardly at all. It It's just going to be a mess. So, just consider if you would the the traffic and how we're going to get in and out of that place. And William F is a mess and Columbia Road's a mess right there.

Yeah. As part of the site plan review for any one of these particular ones, the you know that traffic component will be a part of that review. And don't discount the people coming with the big trucks from the cement plant. Yeah. Garbage plant. all that down. It It's a mess. Thank you. Thank you. Do I have any other uh person here would like to speak in opposition? Did I get a motion? One more. Oh, come forward, please. I'm sorry. I didn't see you.

My name is Carrie McCullum. And your address, please. 161 South Old Belair Road. um opposition to the sign or to the development, but from what I understand from the last gentleman, that's already done deal, right? The the zoning's already in effect. So, users will be coming, you know, as as they come on board. This is just about whether or not to allow uh signs.

All right. Well, my concern, because that's what I thought this was about, and I I concur with him. Um traffic is horrible and considering from a statistical perspective there's been nine fatalities on this road um whenever you have business up fronting that road I would only imagine that you would have some kind of road widening effort as part of that proposal because other than that you it's a recipe for failure just makes me wonder how anybody how familiar anybody is with that area. So I definitely agree with him. This traffic is horrible. Thank you. Thank you. Like to come forward.

Uh thank you, chairman. State your name and address, please.

Uh Rainak, 352 Sandleton Way. Um the main I understand that the area is already zoned for uh commercial use. Um, but I driving alongside I I drive along I I like to drive. Um, but one of the things that I noticed along the uh when driving along William and and uh Columbia Road is the greenway and how it is used by a lot of people um mainly families and children. Uh and so with the current sign plan, how it is laid out, it is laid out in a way that is uh uh that is uh catered more toward uh the vehicles driving along the two roads. Um when the greenway itself is could be a good place for the for sorry uh where the greenway itself and the neighboring Patriots Park uh again with the the 600,000 annual visitors. Uh the point I'm trying to make is I feel like this this development could be done in such a way that it would be more uh pedestrian friendly uh and not carentric. Uh the I live in Riverwood. The public shopping area that's that is there uh I believe is also community commercial. And uh the despite living right next to it, I actually drive to Publix. Um, even though that all the trails and everything that lead up to the area are well-developed, the actual area itself has no sidewalks connecting from the main area, the way the back the back entrance to the actual shopping area itself and most of the shopping area is a parking lot encouraging more people to drive there. So, um I feel like with

just because the the greenway is already there and it's being heavily used, I feel like that this could be a um an opportunity to promote a more um a less a less car centric uh development. Sorry. That is all I have to say. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Questions? Okay. Thank you. Any other member here would like to speak in opposition? I get a motion.

Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to recommend approval with conditions of file RZ25-11-05 master sign for the property at 2207 William Parkway to be known as Square. Second. I got a motion and a second. Can I all those in favor raise your right hand?

Motion carries. H1 A5. We've got a major S1 revision North Bell Road. Will sheriff's request for a major S1 revision to add a couple buildings. A25 North Pair Road on about 21.4 acres currently zoned S1. His location of the property on the east side North Pair Road and currently zoned S1. Uh most everything around is zone R2. The north, south, and east. And you have some across street from R1. North hand side. You do have some more S1 for more places of worship. View of the site and the plat of the property and the site itself. Overall, what we're adding is about we'll call it about 7,500 ft of building to the site. We have a a maintenance building on the south hand side, a proposed a future material storage structure, and a future mission storage building. The proposed maintenance building is actually replacing one that got destroyed by Helen was actually a small increase in overall square footage from what was what was there before. Um, so that's what what they're looking to do. In terms of the buffer on the property, again, a 20 foot buffer on the south side. Again, everything's kind of pushed more towards the interior of the site to stay away from any residential properties. Uh overall staff has no concerns with uh the request terms of future development. This is a neighborhood's character area. A place of worship is a a listed use within that carriage area. And again, this is a very minor expansion of that use and staff recommends approval of the request.

Thank you. Will the owner and applicant the board of trustees of Wesley United Methodist Church Incorporated would like to come forward and speak? I'm Ron Thben, chair of the trustees at Wesley Methodist Church. We are building a maintenance building on want to build a maintenance building on our campus. Sensitive to the character of the neighborhood and the area, the lay of the land. If you look at the topography, this actually almost won't be visible from the church and certainly won't be visible from North Bair. And we'll work to preserve area and we appreciate the assistance and guidance of staff as we've been through process.

Thank you. Have any questions? Thank you. Thank you. [clears throat] Any other member here would like to speak in opposition? Okay. Can I get a motion? Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to recommend approval of fall RZ25-11-06 major S1 revision for additional buildings at 825 North Pillow Road. Second. I have a motion on the floor and second. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion carries. One abstain.

Okay. H1 A6 reszoning from R2 to RA and that is Dylan. Yes. [clears throat] Yes, sir. So, this is an application for reszoning from R2 to RA [clears throat] property off of Hamilton Road. A portion of a larger parcel is here in um this is the subject parcel. As you can see, it's south of Writesboro Road, but portion that we're going to be dealing with is on the south side of the greater parcel along Hamilton. [clears throat]

This is a uh zoning map uh illustration. Um as you can see this large parcel, the larger parcel kind of earmarked for residential development is currently uh zoned R2. It was zoned that way a few years ago. Um the R2 zoning district requires sewer connection. reason that this parcel hasn't been uh developed up to now is because they've just been figuring out uh kind of how to get that sewer service to this parcel. Um however, again, the application for this evening uh proper the portion of this property that's kind of subject to this request is uh along the southern portion of this parcel along Hamilton Road south of uh these creeks that we're dealing with. And this is a uh a plat of this parcel. Again, also showing a topo map and uh the environmental uh uh obstacles that these couple creeks near the southern portion parcel present that also a little bit of an impact to this application. Um this shows the concept plan for how uh the developer is seeking to develop these parcels along Hamilton Road. Um, if you remember, uh, all of the surrounding parcels on that zoning slide, uh, all of them along this Hamilton Road frontage, uh, in the surrounding area for this portion of the parcel specifically, we're still zoned RA, as this parcel was zoned previously. And so the reasoning for, uh, this portion of the parcel is kind of in keeping with the surrounding area, specifically up and down the streetscape for Hamilton Road. Uh and so it kind of again being in keeping with the development pattern for the surrounding area, uh we think that this proposal actually benefits those neighbors that are already there in, you know, on location with homes up and down Hamilton Road. Um however, uh this reszoning back to RA for this portion of the parcel is a

little bit unusual in that um this parcel is within the neighborhood's character area on the future development map. um that allows for increased density. That's kind of how they've gotten to uh the R2 zoning that they have now. That typically allows about one to three residences per per gross acre of area. Um however, the RA zoning district that they're proposing with this application only allows, you know, a residence on every uh a minimum lot size of two and a half acres, which these new uh parcels that they're proposing in their concept plan meet that size. So that's a a little bit conflicting with the future development plan, but as we just discussed, uh this proposal is much more in keeping with the existing residents and the existing lots and the existing development pattern there up and down Hamilton Road specifically. And so given that we think that this is an appropriate uh reasonzoning.

Thank you Dylan. With the owners uh Jack M. Houston or applicant Tyler Finley would like to come forward and add anything state your name and address for the record. Please. Yes sir. Thank you. Uh Tyler Finley Houston Homes 6053 Veterans Parkway, Columbus, Georgia. Uh Dylan, thank you. I don't really have anything to add. That was uh pretty good layout of of where we've been, where we are, what we're asking for, but happy to answer any questions you guys may have. Okay. Thank you. We have any questions? Have any questions? Thank you. Thank you'all for your time. Thank you.

Do I have any other member here that would like to speak in favor or in opposition? Can I get a motion? Chairman, I make a motion to recommend approval of file RZ25-11-07 reszoning to 27.57 acre portion of tax map052 partial 037 off Hamilton Road from R2 to R8. Second. I have a motion on the floor and second. All those in favor raise your right hand. Motion carries. Have any legal matters tonight? Not tonight. Okay. Staff and commissioner comments. None. Any other public comments or participation? Can I get a motion for adjournment? I'm

going to make a motion to re recommend approval for journment [laughter] but we'll take adjourned. That's it. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor for a journ. We are adjourned.