Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

probably be asking for a variance to give them a

the first phase. most of their like really original. All right, I'm gonna talk to y'all because we want you all to feel like you're part of what's going on. And if you have any questions, no, but people online, they get my back. All right. Good evening and welcome to the November 6th, 2025 meeting of the Assar County Planning Commission. If you're watching this meeting on YouTube, you'll find the meeting agenda at accgov.com/planning. For those of you here in person, there's a sign-in sheet with copies of tonight's agenda on the table by um here's the process for the items on the agenda. First, staff will make a presentation. Then we will move to public comment in support of the application. We allow 10 minutes for the applicant to address the commission, followed by members of the public speaking in favor who receive three minutes each. After comments in support of the application, we move to comments in opposition. All speakers receive three minutes, but if you are here representing a specific interest group such as the homeowners association, please let us know so we may allocate the appropriate amount of time. When addressing the commission, please provide your name, address, and the nature of your interest in the project. [clears throat] After public comment, the applicant or their representative may request a two-minute response. Please note the timer. It will display a yellow light when you have 30 seconds left and a red light when your time is expired. Once we have heard from members of the public, the planning commission will discuss the item. We will not receive additional public comments unless there is a spec specific question to be addressed. Exhibits may be displayed by the applicants or public at the podium. Written correspondence received by noon yesterday has been forwarded to us and is part of the public record. Any additional written materials will be placed into the record um to be placed into the record must be read during the public comment period. Please direct your comments to the

planning commission, not the applicants. And please refrain from repotting or jering any of the speakers. Finally, please note that this meeting is being broadcast live and our microphones are sensitive and please make sure your cell phones. Thank you. [clears throat] All right. Does anybody want to introduce introduce staff reports? I'll do that. All right. Second. Um. Okay. Um, we moved on that one. Sarah and

um

second. Who wants it? You can have it. Matt has one. All right. Alex. Alex seconds. All those in favor say I. I. Um May court's review and comment. Do we have anything from May courts? No, we do not. No. All right. So, with that, let's get into old business. 2415 Jefferson Road, item PD 2025-0895.

All right. Good evening, planning commissioners. You click on that.

Thank you. Okay. We've got um old business item 2415 Jefferson Road PD2505-0895. So this is back I believe this is the third time before the planning commission. So I think there's some familiarity here. So we're the applicant is seeking a plan development in a commercial general zone. The current future land use is general business out at this location and that is to remain. They are submitting a binding site plan for the two apartment buildings. Um, in those two buildings, they are 233 units with 382 bedrooms. They also have added eight town homes to the project. Uh, all all eight of those are three-bedroom town homes. The existing site out there is around 130 140,000 square feet. they would be removing some of the commercial. So that would drop down to 92,000 square feet of existing commercial. You can see the ratio down there below of the bedrooms. So we've got 9% studios, 15% onebedroom, 70% twobedroom, and then the town homes make up 6% and that that's all broken down by bedroom count. They are seeking to have 633 surface parking spaces. 362 of those are for the proposed residential. 271 of those are for the commercial. And so there's a little bit of commercial with the new project that's coming in. Um a uh a tenant space in each of the two apartment buildings, but then they have the uh existing commercial out there and the existing parking that serves that commercial. So, there's a parking chart there in your packets for the commissioners, and we'll get into that a little bit more as we go through this. They are proposing 29,000 square feet of plaza space. In this case, um they're showing that as an amphitheater towards

South Homewood Drive there. And then they have some amenity space for the residential buildings, including a pool. So, here we have the existing Homewood Hills shopping center. You can see um out here for anyone that's not familiar, we're just outside Loop 10. This is Jefferson Road right after it becomes Prince Avenue. We have the Homewood Hills subdivision and Mossside subdivision. Across the street, we've got the Athens Country Club. And then directly behind the sub uh excuse me, the commercial center is the cottages at Magnolia Blossom Way there, the cottages at Homewood. So, we've got uh an out out building out here and then we've got the um commercial along here. We've got a second smaller commercial building there. We're also bound on this site by the railroad tracks that are out there. So, here you can see the future land use for the site, excuse me, and that is to remain. We've got general business. Uh the church next door happens to be general business. And then we've got traditional neighborhood behind across the street. And then this is a mixed density. This is actually the apartment complex that is out off of Talis Road that has been part of it's been open and some of it's been under development for the last few years. Here is the zoning. So we've got CG currently and then we're going to CGPD. Surrounding that we've got a little bit of commercial next door and then we've got residential behind and the golf course is also So, a few shots from the site. If you all have been out here, we've got um you fairly extensive parking out there currently. We have this this aisle that currently exists. This goes out to Jefferson Road. Uh that's a focus of the development that's being proposed. We've got a shot of the one of the outcommercial buildings there. And this

was here to kind of show some of the topo. You can see this driveway. This is the existing driveway that comes in right behind the gas station um with quite a bit of topography going in there. You can kind of see that topography again here. This is the back entrance and then you can see the commercial center that's back there. And then we've got Magnolia Blossom Way here with the uh the fence that's between the two properties currently. And then again, another shot of the topography difference here. So, we're looking down Homewood Drive and then into the shopping center. And then lastly, here's just some shots of the existing commercial out there that they're proposing um to do a little bit of renovation on. Um and this these buildings would go away a little bit of the back here. But starting I believe it's right I think it's right here going this direction where the Dollar General marketplace is is the commercial that would be to remain. Here's some shots. These this is the house right across the street. That's part of the Homewood Hills subdivision. And then here's some houses you can see at the cottages section. I've got three site plans here for you just to show a little bit of change over time. So, this was the first one that came before you all. Um, the drive in was through the existing one behind the gas station, then also a connection to Magnolia Blossom. They have changed that up a little bit. We had two uh slightly larger apartment buildings here. Uh, we had some angled parking here and then we had sort of a a mix of plaza space around. So I think those are some of the big things that they have changed. This was the second iteration you all saw. So they added the second drive to the back here. They closed off vehicle traffic to Magnolia Blossom and made this a pedestrian connection. They [clears throat] began cutting down the one apartment building um and putting some of that over here a little bit further away from Homewood. And then here is the Plaza amphitheater and the

town homes added. That is quite similar to the current one. this drive changed up just a little bit. Um, and so just wanted to highlight all the differences that the applicant has gone through to uh hopefully try and respond to some of the comments they've heard before this body. They are also showing I'll show in here, you know, they're showing a little bit of parking lot upgrade to some of the existing parking. They're showing full compliance with our parking standards where all the new parking is coming in here. And then they've got uh the existing tenant spaces that would remain here and those are the ones that would get some of that renovated facelift um type stuff they've spoke to in the application. Here are some elevations of the structure. This is the larger of the two buildings. Yes, the the one that's a little bit more U-shaped on the southern side of the the drive aisle. I did forget to mention, sorry, one other thing. They've changed this angled parking to parallel to try and make it a little bit more of an on street effect between the two buildings. So, here is the look. Um, they've got a bit of a tenant space up here in the front corner. They are showing some doorways uh along along that ground floor there. Here is the skinnier of the two buildings. Again, they've got the tenant space. Both those tenant spaces are towards the existing commercial and away from Magnolia Blossom. uh similar aesthetic to those two buildings there. Here is an example of the town homes. You can see from the rear they will be parked under from the Magnolia Blossom side. They've kind of sit up on a podium a little bit there with those steps walking up to them. Here are some of the renderings and I think this will come up in the discussion. The fire marshall and this is in the report just so you're all aware. The fire marshall has asked that um has not asked, has said that those string lights would not be allowed over top of the roadway there. Uh we've got the view looking in from Homewood Drive

down into the area. We've got the view looking down the internal uh network there between the two buildings. Um this is the view looking towards the town homes and then just a kind of another secondary view of the apartment. So in terms of the staff recommendation, the sewer uh the sanitary sewer capacity is not sufficient for wet weather flow. So they have come up with a unique situation that deals with storage on site. So um I apologize to the um the report that went out to the planning commission has been amended. I had that incorrectly in there. Um PUD is actually recommending approval assuming they can meet those conditions there with that uh stu excuse me sewage sewage storage facility. Uh we find this to be partly compatible with the comprehensive plan. This is infill development. There's been a lot of discussion um over the last two years with public input meetings and our future land use steering committee. they are um they have talked a lot about what we can do with some of these infill sites and so um that is definitely a positive in favor of this development. This does happen to be a lot more of the same housing type. So 94% of this is one and two-bedroom apartments which really skews towards um one sector of our rental population. We had talked about possibly adding some more that would skew towards families and so I think the eight town homes are a part of that but again 94% being studios, onebs and two bedrooms. due to where this is located and some of the connections. There are some limited connections getting across the loop to Prince Avenue where we do have a really good pedestrian network and then there's also a plan for the greenway network to come up through that multif family property and so they would need to connect across the railway to get to that. So, um unfortunately this this area is hemmed in a little bit

which makes it a little bit more on the autoentric side. Um, and then staff has talked a lot about making this into a bit more of a business district, and you can see in in the staff or excuse me, in the application report and all their documents some of the limitations they have to becoming that. Um, however, it was our stance that we'd like to see the creation uh, you know, some of the foundations of that potential business district out there. And so that sort of spoke to a little bit in terms of the future land use they mentioned. One other aspect of that discussion that we heard a lot from the future land use steering committee is how those developments end up coming together. We all saw possibilities for groundf flooror residential. However, that groundf flooror residential really was meant to step down into the communities as it gets to that and I think the applicant has some things in here that they would probably speak to how that might work. Um but having the five stories there up against the um the residential community was a little bit in conflict with what some of the stuff we heard from the future land use steering committee. So this is computer uh compatible with the current future land use map. There's no change there needed. Um we did not find this to be compatible with the zoning map, hence the waiverss that they are asking. And in that same regard, uh, a lot of this could be done by right on site and even the ground floor residential could be done with a less process um through the special use process. The plan development process is really for putting a bunch of, you know, unique uses together in unique ways. Um, but this is kind of seeking to get some waivers from our current standards when a lot of this could be done in a by- fashion. So in terms of the waivers, they have six uh reducing the conserved canopy. This is really just about needing to work with the applicant if this does proceed. We usually ask the applicants to go a little bit above and beyond. And at this stage of plan development, we do not require as intensive of a tree management plan. So I think that can be worked through, but as it is, that that needs a little bit

more attention. The the waiver for the requirement from the residential units. Um so again, part of this is about how it's framed and how it how it looks and how it presents itself to the public. So we do have some examples. Uh, one thing mentioned in the report is using some of the code that is allowed in the commercial downtown zone, which really talks about that streetscape and that environment a little bit differently than it does anywhere else. We recognize this is not downtown, but if we were going to talk about these business districts as, you know, small nodes and little business districts and little town areas, neighborhood centers, uh, it would make sense to use some of those same characteristics. The third waiver is about maximum block size. And I will say that it is these last four waiverss. This all has to do with the fact that they're putting the plan development on the entire site, but their attention is going to the portion where the apartment complex is. So a lot of these are not in compliance based off of the rest of the existing um to commercial to remain out there. Uh so a little bit of that is you know how can they address it but also do they have a plan going forward? There is a phase two in the application report. However, that phase two is not binding. So staff would like a little bit more information about that. So the block size over three acres, the building length of 300 ft, the parking standards between the building and street, which they actually meet quite a bit more than um I think they they know exactly in there. There's quite there's there's still a few parking spaces that are between the street and the building. Uh that could use some attention. And then the parking spaces. So we definitely want to see shared parking in these arrangements. However, the there's a little bit of miscon maybe on our part about what would be permitted in the restricted zone per the application there and how these uses would be shared. Uh the residential on this is fairly

underparked for residential especially in an area that you know has one one bus coming to it you know every hour and tough connections across um the loop there to Prince Avenue. So, a little bit more information on that would help out and a little bit more recognition of where that shared parking would occur. So, staff is recommending denial. However, this goes forward. Staff does have some proposed conditions that could potentially benefit this site. So, part of this is that they're using the entire acreage for their density calculation. Staff is recommending that they use the acreage that they are actually improving, which is about 8.8 acres, which would allow 211 bedrooms. Um staff does propose that they have more ground floor connection or excuse me ground floor commercial on the frontage between the apartment buildings. So they've got two little um kind of endcap units. I believe one is 2,000 and one is 4,000 square feet to bring more of that commercial through there or again to use some of those standards that are in the 9106 which is our downtown design standards. The third one is about having a proposed location for conserved canopy that is adjacent to the railroad that that be binding. And then lastly, that the town homes be constructed on fe simple lots so they have the potential for more of an ownership opportunity. And with that, we'll conclude the staff report.

Thank you. Now we'll hear from the applicant.

[clears throat]

Just one second. Take your time.

Just There you go.

We go. Okay. Uh, hey everybody. My name is Jack Murphy. I'm with Carter. Um, since this is our third time here, I was going to maybe just dive in. Um, start getting get into the nitty-gritty to make sure that we can say everything we've wanted to say. Um, so in uh in past planning commission meetings, we heard a lot of discussion about, you know, the scale of the development and is there a better way to step some of the apartment buildings. And so we went back and we reviewed it with our design team internally and talked about it. and we really feel that this is the appropriate scaling uh for the project and the best way to set up the plan. So, you know, we're within the code. We've got threetory town homes buffering the western side of the site that steps back to the five-story apartments before eventually settling back to the existing retail. And if you look at kind of the transitional height plane coming from Magnolia Blossom, if you're behind those town homes, you won't even see the top of the apartment building. Whether it's five or four stories, however tall it is, you won't see it. And if you're kind of meandering on either side of it, the kind of visual effect will basically feel the same scale because of how far back the apartments are set. So this is kind of coming from Homewood Drive. This is the view from uh the cottages. And so that scale really does transition back because of the, you know, the distance from where you are that the apartments are. So we don't feel like that, you know, the height is going to be the thing that stands out to you. We feel like this pedestrian street that's kind of welcoming and inviting you into the retail and outdoor plaza part of the site is what is going to catch your eye and and really be the kind of focus of the pedestrian experience. Um, speaking of kind of the retail and outdoor plaza, um, one of the things obviously that's brought up in the report, uh, it's the waiver we're we're seeking, waiver number two, as well as relates to condition number two, is the ground floor commercial requirement. So, as kind of we've stated all along, we really don't believe that ground floor

commercial is appropriate for the apartment frontages that do not face the shopping center. Uh and to further test this, we actually had our leasing team look at kind of seven most recent mixeduse developments that had ground flooror retail uh within them. And what they found was that 50% of those uh ground flooror commercial spaces are still vacant today. And so we feel like that sort of supports our view as well as kind of the existing uh retail leasing that they've done on site that kind of everything that's sort of behind those two retail nodes that face the the shopping center really should not be retail. And so what we're proposing instead is, as was already sort of mentioned in the staff report, changing all of the the space along the internal drive to either be uh active uses like the leasing center, clubhouse, amenity, fitness, etc., or have ground floor access directly into the unit, so it feels more like a brownstone kind of feel. Uh, additionally, we've changed the first two floors to all brick uh to have more of kind of a differentiator between what should feel like the active pedestrian use and the residential above that you can see here as well. Uh, moving on. So, waivers 1, three and four all deal with the existing conditions of the site. Uh, as mentioned, waiver number one is regarding the tree canopy. Uh right now if you take out the Bradford pairs that everybody dislikes and wants to get rid of, there's only 10.7% canopy on the site currently as it sits today. All of that is in the southeastern quarter of the site as you can see right here. And it covers up kind of the existing storm uh water facilities that are failing and hazardous and need to be fixed. In order to do that, we have to clear the canopy. There's really no other choice. But once we're done, we'll have a 47% canopy

across the site, which exceeds the minimum requirement of 40% and is obviously a huge improvement to today's canopy on the site. Waiver number three, as mentioned, addresses the block size, which you'll see here. Currently, as it sits today, [clears throat] it's just one giant 14acre block out there, sea of asphalt. Um once we're done with the first phase of development, the only block that is still non-conforming will be what's left of the existing retail that we can't do anything about due to the existing leases that are in place. Uh similarly, waiver number four relates to the um width or length of the building. So right now that main retail building that's out there is a little over 835 ft wide. And so what you'll see is after this first phase of development that building will still be you know above the 300 ft at 558 but both of the new apartment buildings will be less than 300 ft and will be compliant. So effectively in shorts 1, three and four would have to be granted if you were going to redevelop this property in any way at this point in time. Five and six uh really concern parking. Uh number five is is the amount of parking that sits between the facade and the streets. So this is as it as it is today. 95% of the spaces are located between the building facade and the streets. Um postdevelopment, as mentioned, we've we've gotten rid of almost all of the parking spaces between uh the building facades and the streets in the areas where we're doing the significant development. And the rest of this site that is still kind of has that parking between the facade and street is either um in areas that we're not planning to redevelop or is encumbered by the Georgia power easement that comes through here or is subject to kind of existing tenant uh restrictions where we can't get rid of the parking today. Um but after the development we'll be at

about 61% of the parking uh between facade and the street and you know we foresee as you continue to develop with future phases that would obviously continue to improve and get below you know the 50% requirement. The uh sixth waiver has to do with shared parking um or parking minimums as as mentioned before. And you know, when we originally looked at this property, we heard a lot of complaints of just this sea of asphalt and and just this massive parking lot. And so we really tried to do our best to minimize the parking as much as possible, but where we felt that it was a, you know, market and financable um and b was not going to cause any any problems to any of the existing tenants or any of the neighbors. And so what we've done is used ULI's kind of shared parking standards, which you'll see here, to come up with the amount of parking that they project that we need based on all of the various uses that we had. So they project using all of their kind of um guidelines that are commonly agreed upon uh that we would need 630 spaces. I believe we have somewhere between 633 or 637. Um and you know the the the parking would be shared between the retail and the residential. Retail obviously would be you know majority use during the day when a lot of the residents would be out you know going about their daily lives whereas the nighttime parking would probably be more used by the residential when the shops are all closed and it's when most people are going to have their car at their home. So we feel you know really confident that the parking situation um will be a good one. I think the contradicting piece that the question is, you know, how can we use this for shared parking when we're saying that it's, you know, a restricted parking use. We can't get rid of it, but it doesn't mean that we can't use it for other people to park in, if that makes sense. So, we can't take it away and redevelop it, but we can still use the

park. Um so kind of regarding the conditions um by staff condition number one would limit the density to 50% of what is currently designed. When we studied the height reduction from five to four stories which is a 20% reduction in rent. That alone made the project unfinancable and infeasible. And so we know that a 50% limit would make this project work and effectively stop redevelopment. So condition one is not acceptable to us. Condition number two uh is not acceptable as well as we discussed earlier with our planned kind of how to treat the internal drive there with just better kind of uh exterior materials and entryways and active uses. Condition number three totally acceptable. And then condition number four not really acceptable as written. Um with the way the few simple lots work that could require some site plan revisions we haven't had time to fully evaluate. However, if the condition is simply that we want the apartments to be for sale rather than for rent, we're totally fine with that. So, at the last meeting, Alex, you asked if this is the best we can do. Our answer is yes. If we want this redevelopment to move forward, this is the best plan that we know we can finance and execute. I'm sure we'll hear from some neighbors who oppose it and we'll also hear some from some neighbors who support it. In addition to that, uh we have 40 signed petitions here from residents um each with a signature and a local street address that all support this project um because they believe among other things, the project's going to replace outdated retail space with highquality forale and for rent housing opportunities. It's going to attract new restaurants, businesses, and jobs. It's going to improve walkability, safety, connectivity within the area and it's going to incorporate green space,

landscape and storm water upgrades that we understand are very much needed. Um, running out of time here, so I would just say we appreciate all your time and consideration and all the feedback you've given us so far and we're happy to answer any other questions or walk through these waiverss or condition responses in more detail, you know, after all the other public comments happen. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else here to speak in support of the application

from the neighborhood? In support. In support. Yes. Yes. Your time.

Good. Thank you. Jennifer Davidson, 108 Valleywood Drive. Um, initially was not very supportive of the project. mostly because of the residential. I was concerned about property values and then the traffic. Um upon further research, uh I found that the property values if anything could go up. So that made me feel good about it. Um secondly, I'm from Atlanta, uh born and raised and know Carter there. I've seen their work. So I feel good about them implementing this, executing on this, and then continuing on with phase two. And thirdly, I think they've done a really good job of kind of compromising and meeting a lot of the things that we asked them for. So, I feel I'm in or I am in support of this and um like it's a big uh improvement on what's already there.

Thank you. Anybody else here to speak in favor of the application? [clears throat]

I am Brian Austin at 248 Prince Avenue. I grew up in Homewood Hills and I'm here tonight to speak in favor of the proposed Homewood redevelopment. I'm a commercial real estate professional in Athens and in the prior planning meeting, I heard concern from neighbors and planning commissioners alike that the lack of more retail going down the new mixed road, the new mixeduse buildings. For decades, the shopping center has struggled to attract quality retail that survives in the far corner, same area that these new buildings will replace. This struggle is due to the lack of visibility from vehicular traffic, topography as it sits in a hole and the distance from the primary entrances. Unfortunately, with any redevelopment, these challenges will persist and thus building more retail along this corridor that leads to an emergency vehicle exit and a parking lot in a new mixeduse buildings is not viable for retail business's success. In my professional opinion, retail built with these challenges will struggle to survive and perpetuate the current vacancy of over 30,000 square feet in the center today. This project is designed to retain the retail portion of Homewood Hills that is viable, has quality access and visibility. As a part of their redevelopment, they will improve the facade, parking lot, lighting, and landscaping and overall look of this retail as a part of their large investment in the project. These improvements are designed to support the quality tenants currently in place and to poise it to replace the lower quality tenants with new ones that we all desire. Athens as a whole has struggled with retail built under residential even in the core of downtown Athens with the densest population we have to offer to any retailer. The market study was shown earlier by Jack. Meanwhile, vacancy in traditional retail shopping centers is at a historical low for Athens. This proposed project has a developer with one of the best track records in the southeast behind it. They plan to hold this property as a long-term investment and if approved and

they are able to move forward, we will see a developer and the neighbors interest in cultivating successful retail aligned. This will result in attracting quality tenants that the neighbors all desire. The center has struggled since since when Dixie moved out when I was in the fourth grade. That was quite some time ago. It's time to breathe a fresh life into this underserved retail area of our community and watch it flourish. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else here to speak in support of the application? All right. Is anybody here to speak in opposition? You can come on up.

Uh good evening. Uh thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Keith Hubbert. 125 North Homewood. Uh, let me qualify. I'm not really necessarily saying that I am opposed to this project. Uh, I'm new to this. I've just moved into the neighborhood less than a year ago, so I don't know all of the history. Uh, so if I ask a question or make a statement that's been answered already, I apologize. Um, I had some questions about the parking density. I had some questions about storm water. I I'm an architect, by the way, so I'm a little familiar with some of this. My primary concern as a resident is traffic. Uh I do not know whether or not there has been a traffic impact study completed on what this redevelopment would do to the neighborhood. The proportions of a five-story apartment building to a singlestory house does not concern me so much. But as a resident on North Homewood, a quiet community with a lot of pedestrian activity, mothers strolling their babies, couples walking their dogs. It's a quiet, peaceful community that I have fallen in love with. We do however already have traffic through the neighborhood to cut through to other residential areas beyond. I'm very familiar with this area and the ingress and egress to this site is of primary concern. There is a basically useless drive that connects to Jefferson or or Prince because of the divided highway and the light there. It's basically a right in right out. Very limited use whatsoever. That leaves all of the access being off of South Homewood. There is the easternmost

drive which is closest to the intersection which is used predominantly and then there's the one a little further down the hill more western that's down closer to the part that's going to be demolished for this project. Uh as a resident coming home frequently as I make my left into the development I'm immediately stopped by someone who's making a left turn into the development. There's not a lot of lane, so you stop and wait. Not not a real big deal. But when you turn around and you increase the the occupancy in this community by 233 new residential units, 382 beds, limited access directly to the primary road as we have now. I see and I fear a great influx of cross traffic using North Homewood as a thorough fair through a backway to get in and out. South Homewood already has traffic bumps, so they're going to use my road and they already do, but I see that just escalating uh to the detriment of the community and the safety of the citizens. That's my primary concern and thank you for the opportunity to express that.

Thank you. Is there anyone else is in opposition? Y'all can just come up. You don't have to wait for me. It's fine. Hey, I am uh on the board of the homeowners. So, I don't know if I could have a little bit more time. If you're speaking on behalf of the entire board, then that would mean nobody else from the board is speaking. And correct. Okay. Um Yes.

My name is Mary Stribbling. I live at 224 Magnolia Blossom Way. Uh, I'm an original owner in the cottages at Homewood. I've lived here for 20 years. I'm speaking not just as an individual, but as a board member of a community that deeply values its character, environment, and future. This proposed development presented as progress raises serious concerns about the long-term impact on our neighborhood and our shared quality of life. This is not a stance against growth, but a call for responsible, thoughtful, and timely development that respects the voice of those who live here. We believe this project in its current form threatens to disrupt what makes our community special and we urge decision makers to not approve this proposal. and three proposals. We have been promised nothing about the remaining dilapidated shopping center except a paint job and to continue with the same managing company that has allowed our shopping center to be in its current condition. In the end, there are two five-story buildings plpped down adjacent to an established stylized Charlestonian neighborhood that has at most two-story homes. It doesn't fit. Let's get a developer that specializes in shopping centers to draw up a plan that fits this community. We can do better. Anyone

else to speak at?

Hi, I'm Grace Tack, 146 South Homewood Drive. I live just down the street from this proposed project. I'm here speaking against again tonight, mainly because nothing has significantly changed since this was tabled. um disappointing to see that this is in fact the best offer that we have right now for this and kind of pains me to be speaking against I really want to see something move forward here but I still feel like the gap between what's being offered what this site could be and arguably should be is just too wide for me to support. Um not going to go in detail. I think I've explained a lot of um my personal objections to this and objections from others in the neighborhood, but I agree with your reasons for tableabling it last time. I think the building massing needs to be looked at. There's um the density is not quite compatible with the surrounding community and overall there's just not anything we can count on coming to fruition long term for phase two. So, if this does move forward, I'm anticipating it just kind of looking really weird for a long time. Um, and that's assuming phase two does come to pass, which I think is probably unlikely giving given that they're building out all the residential density in phase one. So, I I understand the constraints of the site and that this is the best that this applicant can do. I just think saying yes to this is going to be saying no to a better proposal down the line that's going to make this a truly walkable mixeduse town center development that belongs here. So I don't want to sell ourselves short and speaking for myself and I know there are other neighbors that feel the same way. We'd rather wait and uh I guess what it

should be. Thank you. Thank you.

Anybody else? Good evening. My name is Heather Mroy. I live at 228 Magnolia Blossom Way. Um I think for three opportunities now, the citizens that are actually currently living, not past tense, currently living adjacent to this have made it clear that we do not want five-story apartments right next to where we live. Um, the county should not continue to approve hundreds of apartments when there are vacancies all around town and other apartment complexes. Um, traffic was mentioned uh briefly, but I don't think anybody's really talked about coming off of the outer loop and you have a very short space to come across three lanes of traffic to then turn in left into the complex on South Homewood. Not only is the left turn lane leaving South Homewood to get on to Prince really short and tricky um and adding additional several hundred cars trying to go to the closest grocery store going to be a nightmare. But people coming off of that loop, it's already dangerous to cross across three lanes of traffic to get in that lane. It's only going to be amplified if we add hundreds of more bodies, therefore cars, to our complex. Um staff has reviewed uh staff review has rightfully denied this project three times. We ask that y'all humbly take their advice and also deny this tonight. The planning commission has given the developer three swings to get this right. And each time they've gone back to the drawing board and each time they come up here and try to justify what they think is right when people who live here are saying it's not right for us. It's not what we want. It's not the best thing for this complex. Um, so we asked, we've remained open-minded. We've been excited to see the changes. This last goround, hardly anything changed. We get a yellow curb and and that's it. Um, you know, it just

they've added density every single time. Um, the amphitheater is tucked back in the corner right beside the apartment, so it doesn't feel like a town center. It doesn't feel like it's something that's part of the community. Um, we're just asking that y'all please deny this. Um there's oversized luxury apartment housing complexes all over town. Um that's not what that's who will come here. Um this project is asking that we use our imagination to see what phase 2 might be, but they don't want to be held to that. So why can't we use our imagination and really see what this entire complex could be and it can be better than what's being presented here tonight? Um, we would ask that you um, please deny this. Um, we feel like they've gotten three swings and in baseball when you get three swings, you're out. Thank you.

Anybody else to speak in opposition? Um, hi. I'm Avery Mroy and I live and I live at 228 Magnolia Blossom Way and I've lived there my whole life. And I don't like the idea of having a lot of apartments up right in front of where I live because um the people that might buy there will probably come down in our green space and we have signs up that say only Magno Blossom White owners can go there, but they're just assigned. So, and there's going to be a lot of cars and the very um pretty canopy that I really like is going to be gone when y'all put the apartment homes. And I don't like the idea of having many many apartments in front of where I live. and the construction will take a really really long time and that would be loud. Thank you else to speak in opposition. Okay, hearing none, um I'll have um give the application minutes for our talk. Yes. So I mean I think there was a lot of uh a lot of comments um you know some of which was a little bit of conjecture and I think a lot of that we have

addressed at the three other community meetings that we held um where we talked a lot about traffic concerns and things like that. We did perform a traffic study that said there'd be very minimal increase to traffic. But I think I'll kind of wait and let you guys tell me if there's certain questions or things that you want really want to drill down on and I can get into more detail. But I would say, you know, my main takeaway from all this is is, you know, we can potentially let perfection get in the way of something that could be really great. And we believe in this development. And yes, we can't commit to whatever phase two is, but we can commit to um doing whatever we can to make an awesome phase two. It's just can't commit to what when we don't even know when we'll be able to do it. Um, but you know, I just hate to see [clears throat] five years from now and this project looks exactly the way it looks today. So, um, anyway, I'll wait for you guys to sort of dictate where you want me to go with questions and what you want to drill down on further. I'm happy to elaborate, uh, further on anything. Um, but, you know, two minutes always isn't enough time to hit every single thing I'd like to say. So, um, yeah, I'll wait for you guys to ask any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, we'll take it behind the rail. Anybody want to start us off with some comments?

I just had a couple of questions for staff to start. Um, and in particular, uh, on conditions one and four, I I wondered if you could walk us through the rationale for those, like why do we care if the town homes around lots for instance, and why would we suggest if the 16 acre site is zoned for the density that the applicants requesting, why would we ask them to only use half of the density for the part they're redeveloping? you know, um there it struck me that that those conditions are a little surprising because it's um not something that our zone, you know, they're asking for a variance about or something. It's just something that's consistent with our zoning code in their application. So,

um Sure. And Robert, I don't know if you want to put the conditions on the screen to help. That'd be great. So the the first condition talking about how to calculate the yield. Um one of the things that staff has noted in in our evaluation as this has been through discussion is that if you're exhausting the full extent of the residential capacity in that location, you're you're taking everything for the full scope of the site and you're putting it at that western end that's closest to the single family residential. So you're taking the the bulk of the density and you're putting it right contextually in a spot that's probably the toughest spot to make it work. Um so this was an attempt to find a common middle ground and say okay some density there is is good let's go ahead and use the acreage that is being redeveloped which we were approximating to be at 8.8 acres and and that that addresses some of the scale concerns that were brought up in previous discussions. So that's that's the thinking behind that to respond to context and and really just use the acreage that's being adapted um to generate the yield that's being placed. The fourth is I think one of the speakers kind of spoke to the intent behind it fairly well that um and I think it was the applicant that if if the goal here is home ownership opportunity that that was the motivator behind the wording of the fourth condition. Could that take a a form other than a fe simple lot? Yes, it could. Um the layout on the site again this is a PD. this is one of the reasons to use a PD would be to ask for relief from some of the standards for how to subdivide. that would be an an absolutely appropriate way to use the PD tool out of the code is to say we need

flexibility here whether it's because of too that we have a fairly narrow street in um Magnolia Blossom Way where we big lots um but the notion of fe simple was something that was uh a way to look at ownership for lack a better way to put it but if that took the form of condo ownership that's fine. Um, those tend to trend still in the direction of rental. So, the fee simple was meant to be something that might have a chance of something that that stays owner occupied. That that's where it's coming from.

Okay. I was just thinking about in my time on the planning commission, I don't remember there being addition to a reszone request that said you you know some of these units have to be for sale rather than rent. Maybe I'm forgetting something. I think I think when it's been a condition it's been profered by the applicant. We've had a few where that's been part of the application is to say they want the flexibility, but they are going to have some units that are fe simple or they are going to have some that are designed and intended for owner occupancy. That's that's been part of some other Okay, thanks for clarifying. Um I'll wait to hear what some other people have said before.

I do want to pick at your first point a little bit though because I had a similar question. Would it then be correct to assume then I don't know why I never put this together before. So if all of the residential is maxed out in the current development, that basically means that any phase 2 would not include any residential component. So we're basically saying this is the residential portion, this is a commercial portion, correct? With with current zoning, that is a true state

unless they came back for another PE that then like say Georgia Power removes that thing and there's there I know there's a lot of weird restrictions on the lot. Say those magically go away. come back with the second PD and say here's all the things we want to do. That would be another PD process, but that would have to happen otherwise it is what it is. That's right. Okay. Thank

actually just one one more follow up on my first point. Uh following up on what said is the u you know you said it's about finding a I don't know split the baby that's not the word you use but something like that a compromise something something along those lines. Um, but in the applicant's presentation where they showed, you know, the view from Magnolia Blossom Way and we've got the town homes and then you've got the five-story building in the distance and it seems, you know, stepped up in a way that didn't seem particularly discordant. Um, it wasn't like a massive increase of scale like a little house next to a huge apartment building. So I wondered what was the thought process behind why why do we need to it seemed like they they were making an effort to compromise in that way by by doing the town homes and so then why ask them to restrict the density further

sounds like you don't agree with the condition and that's okay but I'm just wondering if staff had concerns about the form or the the step up um that dictated well we better bring the take the top story for otherwise reduce the density or is it more just you know uh serving two purposes. One was the contextual concerns that were raised and the other was leaving some reserve for the redevelopment of the balance of the property or residential to be a part of that and make it a mixeduse redevelopment of the balance of the site. Um so if that helps. Okay.

Yeah. Because for what it's worth that was how I was reading it. I I actually don't have a problem with the density or the scale, but I was thinking more of down the road. So now we're locked into residential here and it's off the table for the rest of the phase two. So this would allow to be back on the table. So I think it's an interesting compromise, but I also understand why it would be financial feasible. Question. Yeah. Um I think these are probably questions for you, Bruce. Um, is the unit mix locked in by the PD? Like X number of studios, X number of onebedrooms, X number of two. Do they have to do that?

The information that's in the applicants report becomes binding. So yes. Okay. So, like one option we would have is just to say that's your bedroom max. how you decide to um like I guess what I'm thinking is is I still would love to see the applicant add some three bedroom units into this if possible and I'm just wondering about whether it's possible would recommend approval like could we loosen that up so that they like maybe there's a minimum set for some of the others but that there's still an option to be be a little bit more flexible with the mix.

The condition of approval from the planning commission if this is a recommendation could change the wording to allow for three-bedroom units but to not exceed the maximum residential density in terms of bedroom yield as shown as submitted.

Okay. Um the other question I had actually the gentleman brought up um I also thought that that ingress egress point the one that's furthest east closest to Jefferson seemed a little too close and I wondered if we could just clarify that distance and whether that sort of is okay with our traffic folks like I think the concern is you're pull you're driving out of town on Jefferson, you take a left into on that's Homewood right there, right? And if people are kind of stopping to take a left out of there, how many cars can stack up until you're at that intersection? So you're you've created kind of a mess on a pretty

for the folks who want to take a right anyway for for if you're pulling on from Jefferson onto Homewood and people are waiting for whatever reason because there's a bottleneck to take their left down into the development. Do they only have space to tax set two cars? Could that be a problem? No. And I can't tell you the number of cars, but I know it's more than two. Um to make a left into the development off of Homewood at that entrance. Yep. Um I mean stacking space is not great. It is not lengthy. Um but it's not super duper short. Maybe um it it won't hold more than two or three cars. So just to answer just to answer your question,

yeah, if if that were the case, there may be something that has to be done with signalization. Um I also want to say that the drive the furthest west, it is still interconnected, is it not Mark? Yeah. So the other one's the existing drive. So if Right. It's already there, but if there's an issue there, somebody driving would have the opportunity to go deeper down homewood and you know, as long as those people kind of move along. Oh, so that their driveway is the one is what's there. It is more. That's an existing drive behind the service station. Yes, that's correct. Um, okay.

Sarah, is your question I'm just curious because I had kind of the same question. Is your question how many cars waiting on Homewood to turn right or left onto Prince does it take before that driveway is blocked?

That's kind of part of my question. Just generally wondering if that space between that driveway and Jefferson is a little short. So, oh, so coming from Homewood back into town, for example, um where we've had that condition in other places, what we usually end up with is the striping of the box. Don't block the box. So, that is to remain open for car movement. Um you hope you hope people follow uh what they're supposed to do, but that's where we've got that condition around town. That's that's how that gets managed. Um the other question I have is I'm really unclear about um so this PD is for the entire site but really is primarily right now addressing this left side of the site as on the drawing. And so with this if this PD were approved what could the applicant do by right with the rest of the property down the road? basically nothing like just to keep it as is both elevation wise and footprint wise.

I mean without digging too deep into all the options if the the PD is for the entire property. So the shopping center area is in the lighter line weight on there. Tenants could change, interior partitions could change, but that footprint would remain. The parking arrangement would remain. Um, any change to that to expand it or frankly even remove portions of that building is an amendment to the PD. Okay. Um, have we ever done anything like that before? That's pretty weird.

Where you have an existing structure that that is more or less being untouched in terms of placement, massing, scale. Um, if we have, it hasn't been this large. Um, but honestly, I can't think I'm not coming up with a a scenario where we've had that occur.

I don't necessarily have a problem with it. It's just kind of unusual. It does sort of create a condition where any substantial change does come through the planning commission. So there would be opportunity to weigh in to sort of ensure that the town center that we all want to have there has a greater chance of happening. But that could be 10 years down the road with different commissioners, different leadership. But that kind of concerns me a little bit because I think for me I understand I've sort of I go back and forth in this development but there is a part of me that's that does sort of agree with the applicant sentiment or whoever said this I can't remember now but that what we want perfectly to happen there and what is possible from economic standpoint might not be the same thing. I do wish it were a little bit more like my concern a little bit about the residential density is that I would like for the applicant to have reserved a little bit of their density for the rest of the site like if there really were going to be a town center type of commercial like more of a mixed use. So now in this way we haven't horizontally mixed our uses. We've used across the site and you know I could see the direction people wanting to go to be to have a little bit of residential density in the upper sort of commercial retail office down the road. So that's one one concern I have. But generally speaking this is such a um it's such a challenging site. I think that I don't know how long we wait as a community for the perfect um for the perfect project. I I think for me I am I

that is a really um unattractive development right now. even though sort of like it. I like you to go there. There's lots of parking and you can go get your Mexican food or whatever you want to do and but I do think that can't help but think that there's like somebody who wants to come in and invest a bunch into this and it's not perfect and it's going to be down the road till it becomes I think what's something that the community because one and two bedroom apartments that doesn't serve me necessarily like that's not somewhere I'm going for that reason but I understand the the need for that. So, I'm not really clear about how I'm going to vote, but I just I am sort of um I am sort of ambivalent about this and I think it's worth if that if we felt we were moving in the direction of approval to talk a little bit more about [clears throat] you know obviously the staff conditions talking about the um kind of if there's anything we need to add to this to um not influence but guide what happens a little bit on that phase two. Um I guess I wish that there I've said this before. I've said this I think this is the third time that I wish that we had been presented with a master plan development and a vision for what this was going to look like. And we kind of have like that's the non-binding phase two in there. I sort of get that but I wish I had a little bit more assurance of like this master plan development. Here's the vision. We're going to do this part first. we got to wait up for these leases to to run out. We've got to wait for this Georgia Power Eent to get resolved and then we'll do the rest of this. And I don't really have that assurance, but by not exactly saying what could happen on the rest of the site there that could be there. I just worry about that that could be years and years down the road.

um a question

there. Um so I have a question for staff about the um concern of a a different intensities being too close. Um so the applicant showed um diagram showing like okay from the nearest residential street you won't be able to see the apartment buildings. Um, and so I guess my my question for staff is why else do we care about the apartments being five stories and the neighborhood being single family neighborhood? Like what what impact on the quality of life does that have assuming you know traffic is managed? Um, what what are the concerns caused by like them being too different, too close if no one can see it from from the street where they live? I

mean, too different, too. I think you've you've paraphrased very well and summarized what what our analysis was was was focusing on. Yes. But like why what what's so just And if that's again if that's if that's an analysis that you don't share, that's fine. Oh, I guess I'm just looking for like more like why is that bad? Again, if if so from a staff comment on on we didn't say bad. Okay. So, uh undesirable or not what we're looking well context matters. Uhhuh.

Um proximity generates tension contextually it can and so pro this design has progressed in a way to mitigate that. Obviously, this design is has incorporated elements the second one and the third that weren't present in the first. Um that notion of that many stories in proximity to low-rise town homes compared to twotory. I guess we will call them twotory the what's developed in Magnol. Is it stepping? Yes, it is. Um when you have that much density and you have 14 plus acres in which to arrange it, we have pinch points on this site to be sure. Um when you take everything that you got and you slide it in the direction of where you have a different context, I think that's the point of our comment. Um and and so what we've been talking about with the applicant with these iterations, how to mitigate that. I don't think I don't think it's staff at any point has said no multif family in this location.

Oh yeah. Right. So I think what we've been talking about is massing placement scale. Yeah.

And the note to Matt's earlier question the one condition is to say all right multif family here fine but just do the units that that acreage would generate and that helps bring the mass and the scale even further down and also has that opportunity for reserve for a future phase. Um but you know, in the in the discussion of density, you're not going to hear anything from staff that is going to push back on the concept of density. And I don't think you're ever going to hear us say that it's bad. Um, what we're going to talk about is how you do it.

And so, I think that's where our condition or our proposed condition if this were to go forward with approval is trying to anticipate another way to kind of maybe step it down yet again. I do like um other random other comment. I do like the amphitheater placement here. Um just it being I think it is good that it is towards the neighborhood makes it easier to access by the existing neighbors. Um seems like and and facing the roadside makes a lot of sense. Uh yeah, it it's tricky and complicated. I mean, honestly, it just seems like a gamble. Uh making a bet. We think something better is going to happen in 10 years. Is it worth keeping it the way it is for 10 years? uh 10 plus years until the leases on the big boxes run out. Or is it worth it to do this now? Hoping that thinking that creating that additional residential density can attract better retail when that is ready for phase two. Oh,

uh, a couple of things. Um, one thing to answer, at least this is my view, um, Sarah, your concern about wanting to see more of a built out plan. Um, anybody that [clears throat] would show us a plan of what's going to happen 10 years from now would be lying. They would just be giving us a pretty plan because they don't know what they're going to do. So that that would be my thought on that as someone who has done a minor bit of work like this and and seen it. So to me they're just being honest. We don't know. They don't know rather. So um that [clears throat] would that would that would be my view at least that that I wouldn't I would if I were the developer I would tell you have no idea what can go there in 10 years. Uh probably don't even know in five years. So, um, also can can we ask the developer to come up for a question?

Do you mind? So, you mentioned, and it's it's probably in here, uh, and I apologize if I can't pinpoint it. Um, putting the offices like leasing offices and gyms and all of that on the bottom floor of one of the buildings. Is it specifically written in here where that's going to be? It may be and I just missed it. In the staff report, in the in the report that's going to be part of the PD, we list specifically where the No, I don't think so. Um, but I could we could describe it to you. Yeah.

Just [clears throat] basically all along the internal drive of the southern on the northern side of the southern building. Does that make sense? Okay. northern side of the This is the retail coffee shop, right? Everything that kind of runs along here basically. Okay. So, that would that would not be uh apartments then. That the bottom floor of that line that you just did would would not be apartments. That would be office. Well, TJ, does it run the whole length of it?

So, it hasn't specifically been designed by the architect at this point. We are envisioning that kind of that section behind the How does this thing work? Click the green. Jay, can you give us name? Oh. Oh, yeah. Sorry. TJ Laco. I'm director of development at Carter. I run design and construction. Um, so this is where the existing or the new retail is going to be, the 4,000 foot box. We're imagining that the amenity space, leasing office, fitness is kind of working within this area. It just hasn't specifically been designed yet. So, I don't know exactly where it is, but in this general area,

okay, but it is there's no and and I I'm going to ask staff the same thing. So, that makes that opens up a little bit of that retail feel that uh at least you get with the the retail they're going to have there. And then you've got non livable um non-residential sorry non-residential on the bottom floor which which brings in yeah the um the neighborhood can't really come use that but it at least the design and the flow and the feel of it is going to be more of that commercial feel. Um,

Bruce, is that like like to me that's that's a little bit of okay, that's that's stepping in the right direction with me. Is that in the PD? Like is that I want to make sure that's protected and doesn't turn into apartments um [clears throat] in residential. So, how what needs to be done and has it been done? Is that already handled? Mark, you may want to help me with this one, but I I think all that's in the PD are the retail spaces identified on the ground for the work. Y

um and that was the the relief. The rest was to allow for residential at, you know, at will. Yeah. Um does that require them to make the other units residential? Maybe that's your question. Um could they do a fitness center in that area? Um absolutely. I think Alex you're you're asking if it's not already in applicants materials something for example this body could add.

Yeah. So I was establishing whether it was or wasn't already and I know we could ask that then but so it's not established. There's no like the retail is there. Retail has to be there. uh that's part of the PD, but what they were describing along that road could turn into anything residential or and I'll just call your offices or um even the the gym that's commercial in Miami Height, it's not residential. But um

if it if it's helpful um if the gym is not open to the general public, if there was some other ancillary use, a lobby, a coffee shop that's for residents, whatever it is, it's not open to the general public that is considered to be residential, right? Because it is serving the residents of the development. If it's open to the general public, then it's leasable space and that's different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm and I'm balancing the or I understand the difference too.

Um, but there is a difference in the the the feel and flow uh I dare not say fabric um of of that if it's residential versus some type of non-residential use. So, okay. Well, that's that's what I needed to know then.

Yeah. I mean, our intention was to commit to doing that. whether it just maybe it hasn't been exactly identified, but what we were committing is that anything that lines the street on either side is either active use like we've talked about or if it is residential it has a ground floor entry so that it feels more of like you know an urban feel, pedestrian feel like you'd be walking down wherever you know New York wherever where you you know you got residents coming right out onto the street rather than having to go through the corridors and out a certain exit. So that would lend more to that pedestrian dealer fabric. Thank you. Clarify for staff.

Sorry. Thank you. I think um is there a distinction between sale and leasing office? Yes. Uh yes. So that leasing office is serving the function residential, right? Yeah. So if if there's a distinction of these are where the retail spaces are, they could become an orange theory fitness for everybody including residents. Sure. But it couldn't be a leasing office for the facility itself. Correct. The leasing office would be in those other areas

for residential use. I think something that you're saying, Alex, that I Oh, actually, Matt, I think I just spoke right over you. Okay. Well, um, that regardless of sort of how we like formal def formally define, I do think you're getting at, which is something I generally agree with, is just that these slightly more active uses are different than the side of the ground story, the ground floor of an apartment building. And I think that's kind of what the applicant's getting at with that you either have whatever we're going to determine is sort of active use and maybe some ground floor that have their doors out open to that street. The idea is that you're trying to build a little bit of sense of like activity, people living there interacting with one another. That is a very different thing than the side of a of groundstory apartments that are act that are accessed from an interior hallway. And so to me that is a step in the right direction. And I think if we were to move forward in that vein, I would sort of recommend that we figure out a way to like um uh put that in language that's kind of like clear and enforceable

um [clears throat] as a condition. Yeah. And it could, if you don't mind, if if it was an office and a gym and let's say I bought it all the whole lot and decided I don't need an office. Got one down the street and I can it's already built for Yes. It's not an apartment and so I could put something else in there. Uh in theory option of having ground floor commercial down the road.

Is that kind of what you're saying? Yeah, I mean it's space built out for commercial versus apartments. Um if it fit to do that, it would be set up for that. I mean up to them. It's not a no guarantee whatsoever that would be the case. But don't think that's necessarily what they're saying. Not what I'm saying. No, I don't think that's what the applicant is saying. Well, he's I'm just saying it could be used for that. they they probably have no intention of doing that. But my point is it could be versus once it's residential, it ain't going nowhere. It's residential and right. But if it's ground floor and entrances to the apartments on the ground floor would never

they were talking two different things. They were talking some will be apartments ground floor entry and then you've got at least the use they want to do with the with the leasing office and uh their gym there again. gym, their gym would not be open to the public. I would assume and but it's it's set up that way. In other words, that's that's the way it was built on that bottom floor, which is harder to convert to residential later. Um the residential will stay residential, whatever they put there. But I'm just trying to inch more non-residential on that ground floor, which is the interest uh of like you said, it just it just changes the tone of people that are walking around there. Um yeah, so I have a few thoughts. Um [clears throat] you know, and I start from the perspective that this is a terrible shopping center right now. Uh it's just an eyes sore and it's not very functional and it's the parking lot is 80% empty every time I've ever been there. And uh you know, so so um change is good or is called for is needed. Um, I think what's proposed here is certainly a big improvement and it meets the county's it provides a contribution to the county's uh significant continuing need for new housing, right? We expect 30,000 new people in the next 15 or 20 years. Uh, so so we're going to need all these bedrooms and uh, you know, 50 times more. Um I I think that the um the I'm kind of on the fence on this ground floor commercial thing and I think um maybe that it would help if staff or the applicant could clarify. couldn't really tell from the report um what percentage I understand that the

the waiver they're asking for from section 9-10-2 footnote L1 is that's the thing that says you can't have ground floor residential in a commercially zoned area has to be on second floor uh or above and what is the square footage of the proposed ground floor in total in both apartment buildings that y'all are proposing how many square feet is that on the ground floor and what fraction of that are you asking for a waiver? I I take it that a lot of it would be non-residential. So what is the total square footage of residential that you propose and what is the total square footage on the ground floor? Is there anyone from the applicant that can tell us trying to do some mental math to figure out if something is even close? Um I mean I think it's going to end up being there that a a high percentage I mean I would think 90% would be non-commercial uses if you are counting

Yeah. No I'm not asking about the your gym or your leasing office. I'm just saying the waiver you need is for like the the code only requires 50% of the ground floor to be leasable commercial space. Um, and I take you're going to be well under I'm guessing we'd be like 10. Okay. So 10%ish leasable commercial. And is the residential then 40 or is it 70 or um percentage of the ground floor? [clears throat] I mean I would think definitely still the residential is over 50% of the ground floor. Okay. And then the rest would be the residential uses that are like active uses but they're not they're not retail but they're not living units

right it's gym clubhouse okay co-working etc.

Thank you. Um, so a couple more thoughts I wanted to to share are just as a general matter like both here and for any projects I think that when we have concerns about height and massing and scale those should be addressed directly not with bedroom limitations because I think that that's tangential you know like a [clears throat] bedroom can be big or small square footage can be big or small right I mean like you could uh build the number of bedrooms they propose in a smaller building and just have smaller living rooms and smaller bedrooms and so on. So, I just think regular bedrooms as an attempt to limit height and massing in scale is um is not the way to do it. And I think it's perfectly legitimate for uh the planning department and Athens clar county as an entity to um have opinions and impose conditions on staff or on applicants regarding height and masking and scale. But I don't think that we should try and um do it in that indirect way um that doesn't really isn't really focused on what it is that we say you're concerned about. That's my personal opinion for whatever it is. And um generally though I agree with the staff that that more of a business district kind of vibe here would be nice. A little bit more commercial. you know, some I understand a lot of there's a lot of vacant square footage in the commercial space now, but that's because it is the first thing I said. It's a horrible strip mall that nobody wants to go to is sad. And um this seems vibrant and potentially not sad. And and so having some additional uh not just a cafe, but also some restaurants that everybody in Homewood Hills and on Magnolia Blossom, etc., can enjoy um I think I think would be good. and um and

all of the people in these whatever 382 bedrooms would enjoy having walkable uh retail stuff too. Um, so I I I do tend to agree with staff that some more commercial I mean if if the current code requirement that 50% of the ground floor be leasable commercial space if that's impracticable and the applicant said can we dial that down to 30 instead of 50 or 25 or something you know um then we'd be at least having a conversation that would but just saying like can we just do a cafe and then nothing else like that feels like um maybe going too far to me personally. Um and then I guess my last point is on the um well two I think the town houses in terms of heighten masking scale. I think those town houses that the applicant added in this goound do a really nice job of stepping down to the residential neighborhoods and addressing some concerns and I appreciate all the neighborhood commenters who both spoke for and against including those who said like that they appreciate some of the changes that have been made. I I think that's great. Um, last point is just on the unit mix. Although I understand staff's perspective regarding, you know, this is 94% one and twobedroom units and we like to see a mix. Um, if you look at this whole area, everything that's there right now is three and fourbedroom units. And so adding exclusively one and two-bedroom units provides the mix that we currently lack. All we have now is familysized units. Uh, and there are families that live in houses that want to downsize because they're 70 and they're tired of mowing the lawn and maybe they like one of these town homes or maybe they'd like to rent an apartment but still be walkable to their friends in Homewood Hills and so on. And so, um, it strikes me that the thing in the comp plan that says we want a diversity of m of unit sizes is [clears throat] actually well served by adding what we don't have, not by saying that every new development has to provide all the unit sizes in the world. Um, so, you know, that's that's my

thought on that. I don't see a problem with the um adding one and two bedroom units exclusively here. Couple of things. Uh, so I do value the innovation and the development. Uh, I appreciate your revisions. It looks like you've incorporated some extensity as well. I do need some clarifications on a few things. So, specifically the sewage storage modifications. Can you speak a little bit more in depthly about what that looks like?

Ed Lane with SPG Planners and Engineers at 1725 Electric Avenue. So this is relatively new to Athens, but this would not be the first project that is having to do this where it it is an onsite storage tank that um you know all day collects the flow from that and then um especially during rain events is when there's leakage into the downstream sewer pipes to where it's overflowing. It has no capacity. So during rainfall events it is stored and then it is released kind of in non- peak rainfall hours so that it doesn't exacerbate that problem. And you know Joel [clears throat] can can correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is there's one project in Athens that now currently has been permitted with this system and is under construction and there's another one that's under plans review. Um and so this one I think would be the third I mean and we're we're at PD phase but um that is having to use this system and it's not unique to this project. There are sewer basins across the whole city. You know I don't know what percentage of the land it is but it's a lot like a third of the city has this this problem and you'll be seeing a lot more of these on-site systems.

Who owns it? Who maintains it? Do you know the the developer would um is that correct Joel? That's correct. Okay. So that was question one. Thank you. The second is can you clarify the type of segregation in place? Like what protective barrier would segregate the residents in this facility versus the existing neighbors and Homewood Hills and that area from the from the sew the storage tank specifically or?

No, from the development itself. So the some of the staff comments were actually to to try to connect them. So I believe you know we're trying to make pedestrian connections to whatever rideway was available. So the largest is where the the ped uh the vehicular connection to Magnolia Blossom Way was blocked so that there's not cars going there. But that's now kind of a wide pedestrian way so that anyone in that neighborhood would be able to walk right in. You know, they could someone could walk out as well. I don't know. There's not a necessarily an amenity to go to there. And then I think there are five other kind of sidewalk connections that are trying to integrate this development to to the surrounding area. Is that is that what you were asking? Okay. And then the last question is, is there a price point for these homes or like what's what is the affordability like? Because I kind of want to make sure we're addressing the one of the major needs for Athens Clark County. You know, development is one thing, but affordability and development is what we really want to strive for.

Yeah. I mean, these are planned to be market rate apartments. So, it'll be, you know, whatever the going rate is at the time that they're delivered. But, you know, like one of the um, you know, potential comps that we look at is Holden at Oak Grove apartments that are down the street. Um, so it'll be kind of in line or potentially at a premium to that since these are a little bit newer and nicer homes. So, their market sping. I mean, the a lot of the neighbors were curious. They wanted to make sure that they were going to be market rate and higher priced because of you know they wanted that kind of quality of person living here and they were concerned who would be living in these apartments. So it's you know the plan here is listed to be market rate apartments. So

thank you. Do you know what holding rents for? Um [clears throat] I wouldn't want to just quote it off the top of my head. I mean I I have a rough idea in my head but I don't want to range. Um, you know, I mean, I think they're probably somewhere in the 1,500 plus range for a onebedroom. And then, you know, two bedrooms are generally higher higher, you know, but not like double, you know, so it's somewhere probably like the $1,800 $2,000 plus range. Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry.

Um, uh, so so you were hearing from the neighbors that affordable apartments would like bring a lower quality person. They just wanted to know what type of whether these would be market rate apartments or whether they would be affordable. What what was it you said about the quality of person like and I'm assuming that you're repeating what you've heard. So that's what is what I want to hear about. No, it's just like they wanted to know like well who's going to be living in these apartments and it's like you know they just wanted to know that it it was going to be you know high quality people and it's like yes we do credit checks, we do background checks, we do all of the you know typical um you know checks before you let someone lease an apartment. make sure they can, you know, afford to pay it. They've got good credit and they've got obviously no criminal history and all that stuff.

And what I guess the the inference that I'm making from is that the people that you were hearing from were thinking a more expensive apartment will bring a higher quality of person. I guess that's I'm not I'm not saying that's what you're saying. I'm saying that's that sounds like what you were hearing. Yeah. Okay. General, let's just like to bring attention to it when I hear it. I ask a question while you're there. Um I know you said this earlier and I think I didn't quite didn't remember actually is what you all think of condition three that that's the um Yeah, we're fine with that. Okay, that was the one that was doable. That's fine. Yeah, condition three and then condition four. I think um we're I think the intent we're fine with.

Okay. It was just the way it was written. We just wanted to we needed to like flesh out to make sure that's not going to have any ripple effects. Got it. Thanks. I will entertain a motel.

Well, I want to add just one more thing. The one of the main drivers for reducing rent is surplus. Everyone's bill adds to surplus. It's it's a natural economic thing. So when these get built, they may have had an opinion at this point and they may come in even lower as more are being built. So it's already happening now. So a little bit of surplus out there even not only homes but uh rental apartments and things like that. Are you saying that because of the surplus the cost could potentially be lower? Choice. Yeah. I got choice. I don't have to rent from you. I'll go rent from them because it's $200 less.

Okay. And when there's no surplus, you are stuck with whatever they pretty much go with. Okay. I would like to make a motion, but I um well, I think it's going to spawn discussion because I want to talk about um this that ground floor active use thing. So, um I'm not sure the best we should just talk about that now or should I make a motion and we talk about it? Why don't [clears throat] we talk about what you would see? I think you're you're you're talking about like the word a condition.

Why don't you talk about how you might word the condition and we'll get a sense of like how people feel about it.

Okay. Um, so, so the, um, the spirit of the condition I'm trying to get the wordings sorted out with is I'm kind of thinking about the conversation you all were having like a a way I I do want to ensure I I I like that the applicant is sort of offering to do active uses and ground floor apartments that open up to the interior street. like I want to get that into a condition in a way that feels both reasonable to the applicant and um and enforceable for lack of a better word by staff. And so I guess I just need a little help figuring out is that just saying I don't know if we need to sort of define active uses and then active uses are gym lobby co-working space um type of thing or kind of what that would look like. But I do think

tenant amenities. Yeah, tenant amenities that sort of encourage like tenants interacting with one another. Um, and so I don't know if that's just purely kind of Matt you were talking about the notion of do we it's kind of two different things like if we're just reducing the amount of rather than relieving the agric completely from the ground floor commercial or reducing it from 50 to 30 or something you know commercial is different than active use space so I don't know I guess I just wanted to have guys think and

um so my my question as far as how in depth definitely need to go on that. We have what it looks like, right? Like this would this isn't changing um even with the request for this is what they report. So if if if the frontage looks like what you would want those uses to look like, right? So, like you've got some storefront windows where someone could point me. Okay. Point out that I'm not only interested in what they look like. That's sort of the point. It's like I am interested in how people are using those spaces. And if the applicant is already saying that they're willing for those to be more active uses with some ground flooror apartments opening to that interior road, then I would like that to be um because use is actually is the key thing here. is what you're asked though like in terms of just having an apartment building and having amenities. If we know that there's spaces that are on the right side that leasable to a business those are those are that if you're offering amenities to your tenants of the next obvious place to put them is that sort of interior portion. I mean you wouldn't want it to have like your gym on the other side of the building or anything.

I I think that I don't know though. We wouldn't know. Yeah. I mean, they may go, "That's really better than that southwest corner all of a sudden." And then now it then that other space fills up with residential.

I understand. I just It's fine. Just get too bogged down in like details that were probably fine. But sorry. Would it be a problem to and is this what you're interested in Sarah to to rather than granting a complete waiver from the 50% leasable space requirement on the ground floor under our code grant a part you know just say like um as part of condition rephrase condition two to say something along the lines of you know at least 25% of the ground floor space shall be leasable commercial space uh and leave it at that or um I mean that's one way to to grant partial relief but provide an active, you know, space. I don't know if that's in the direction you're wanting to go. I don't know actually if I mean to your point about Sarah's point about Garing's point about what it looks like if if it you know commercial means it has 12 or 14 foot ceilings and ground floor residential may only have nine or 10 foot ceilings. And so it may be that the the facade that we see here dictates that certain parts of this ground floor space will be built with 9 or 10 foot ceilings. And so it can't really be commercial. I don't know. But uh and so what I'm suggesting might actually not work without further changes. But anyway, that is that

kind of Yeah, I don't know the best way to do it. Um Jennifer I have a little bit of concern if we put too much condition on how they activate their interior space for their residents. We could upset the affordability of any of those units. If they have to put too much extra on that ground floor to be supportive of what we're looking for, it could drive up the prices of the units a good bit. Well, the units are market price, but market price is going to be dictated on the amenities.

Could it be as Yeah. Um, as simple as um that nor I think it's building 200, the lower building, the more southern building, the northern side of that is where he mentioned would be the these amenities. um calling [clears throat] that it's it's commercial if they do that whether and this but could could it be said the northern side of building to hunting um would be commercial and however we have to put the word commercial and we don't put the word leasable because it could be one day leasable but it's certainly not going to be leasable going into this I mean according to what they've said. So,

are you including in commercial like their gym that's only for their residents and I mean, I don't think this will hold up uh with Austin. Commercial style, commercial type. Um I I don't know if that word type holds much value, but do you hear what I'm saying? At least that maybe give somebody a better way of putting it.

Yeah. I mean, the deal is I don't mind belaboring this point. This is a huge development and I I don't I don't think that it's that big a deal to be kind of discussing in detail what this condition like but actually don't have other than um staff condition three and then just maybe making sure that the um that the sewer facility is is in the is in the plan development or if we have I don't think we'd have add that. That's just part of it because they've offered it.

Yeah. So, I'm actually not even really I don't have a big but this one I think is important. Um, and so I guess, um, Matt, you sort of make a good point about the ceiling height of the ground floor, or would it make sense to say something like the um, I don't know if my directions are right, but in it would be like the northern side of the buildings are leasable or commercial, as well as the interior portion building one or whatever that larger building is as commercial space. My my issue is I'm not sure what the difference is between commercial versus retail. I don't know where that line is drawn, but some dictating that these are portions that would not be residential.

Um can I ask the applicant to tell me about the height of that as currently drawn? Um, think you've got to come up here. Sorry. Or do you have that? Yeah. Uh, TJ Lacaco with Carter, director of development. Um, so typical floor heights are generally right about 10 feet. Um, so in the leasing amenity space, it's probably going to be double volume. So it'll be roughly 20 feet there. Um, right now we we're scheduled for about 10,000 square feet of amenity co-working. um the two buildings or

I mean what we're thinking is that it's all going to be in the southern building. Um we're thinking that it's mostly going to be in that area that I talked about right here and here on the back side of the building a little bit here. Um and we think that's just going to be the best way to draw people into the building and then for the residents to actually use the space. Okay. And is the is the ceiling height of the ground floor in your elevations that are in the uh I believe on the elevations it it calls it out per and so it should like if you go um look at the elevation page there should be a height chart on the left or the right hand side in here I think so yeah

sections uh so there are elevation Yeah, this book. Yep. see

and the reason I'm asking about this as well for is just that you know I think making sure that that ground floor I just don't want to remove the corruptions like if the ground floor is gone to have a higher ceiling height, then that's great. That's what we want. Um, that leaves those options open. Um, and it it could be that there is something more about asking the applicant. I don't really mind the idea of all the active space being on the southern. That's not such a big deal. Um, I could see the northern building having then the apartments that open up to the street on the ground floor. Um, and so I'm wondering about almost sort of requiring it those active uses are specifically in uh that their location within the ground floor is at that I don't it's get back to these like fabric conversations or the notion of something like right we're just trying to like get activate that a little bit with

it gives it a sense at least that

yeah on the elevation it's 10 foot 8401 and 842 between developer and stuff. Would there be something that would like I'm trying to find that balance of like we're gonna put this where we say we're going to put it and also something that's not cumber cumbersome for staff to then enforce you know something that's like you know what I mean

is the concern that the amenity space is going to somehow end up on the second level or third level or fourth level of building and then so it's yes it's not going to act away from that little street area. I mean, to me it seems sensible. Like [clears throat] I think what I sort of understand is that that's where you guys where I want you to put it is also where you want to put it. Um but more like can we put that in writing? Yeah, that's pretty much it. Can we put that in writing? And in in my ideal situation, which might not be possible, it would be space that if 20 years down the road you all decided that you wanted it to be commercial space, that it would be appropriate for that.

That there would be no like obvious building constraint that would make that not possible. Yeah. Um well the commercial that we're um representing on there the 6,000 ft² I think that's roughly um 12% of the footprint of the first level of those two buildings. The 10,000 square feet that we're suggesting as being amenity leasing co-working that type of space is roughly that space. So maybe it's talking about a percentage of 32% um active use and ground floor retail instead of 50% ground floor retail. But different.

So we want to make sure that it's it's front of that interior. Yeah. Where the public can see it, right? Mixes better with it there. Right. I mean, is that what you're That's my take. There's doors coming into it from the outside that the street is activated by people going in and out the various doors, right? So, how can we ensure that those amenities are placed fronting the middle courtyard or something like that? Could you say like 75% of the school? The only the only concern we have is that we you will want have some connection to the pool like clubhouse that that connects to the pool which would be on the other side of the hallway.

Yeah. So if there's a way to commit that says like you know the majority of the community amenity space will front the internal drive and pick a percentage that we're okay with or something that would make sense, right? Yeah. Could it be something like that? 75% of the amenity space common space will have a frontage on that do it in that building in that building. So we need to specify the building the the frontage which was helpful. I think the reference to the north elevation [clears throat]

of we keep been referring to it as building 200, but I think it's actually it's 100. Um, and I think one of the things that we talk about when we look at this with other developments is the access being to the exterior, not from the interior. So, [clears throat] and that's been said by the applicant. So, making that part of that condition, I think activates that street frontage. I think what I'm hearing you say. Yeah. Um, so people are not planning to do any all the the amenity and kind of openish spaces for both buildings is going to be in the southern building. Okay. Besides the 2,000 square feet for retail in the north building.

Okay. So, and I think then yeah, I think you Okay. Thank you. Ask you buck up four more times. Um, and then Yeah. So, so you got that? [laughter] I don't think I have that written down yet. Okay. So, I think what I would like to do is mot make a motion to approve with staff condition number three and requiring that did we say 75% of the amenity space? Yes. in building in the southern building has frontage or has from this frontage has frontage to the street

and entrance and entrance. Okay.

And I also want to require I think um that all of the ground floor apartments on the northern building open up street. Their entrance is on the street. Yeah. No, just a condition three from staff. Um, and if somebody wants to second it, then we can talk about it more if somebody wants to add conditions. So, basically modification of condition two and condition three. Correct. Oh. Um, yeah, leave it at that. Can

I just ask what 75% of an unknown number of amenity space? I was the way I was hearing that was 75% of the frontage, not square footage. 75% of the frontage. That is that what you meant? Um, building 100 facing interior road. 75% of that ground floor elevation would be used for commercial andor um nonhabitation residential use. So that type of thing. Y that that sounds right to me.

Okay. So you're saying 75% of the north elevation of Yes. is something that I can do. Yeah. Yeah. Again, I think somebody wants more about

I guess I I'll second that. But I I um and I just ask the applicant to comment on the 75% of the north elevation of building 100 scope of the condition if that um creates an insurmountable problem or if that uh you know works with the um facade that has been depicted in the PD and which will be binding on. Right. Right. I think what I heard you say is is is doable. 75% of the northern facade of building 100. Yes.

Yeah. Okay. And then and then Sarah to clarify the other thing I just seconded. Um you said that the in building 200 the ground floor apartments need to open on the street. And as I'm looking at the elevation, it appears that the south elevation has a bunch of doors. The north elevation of building 200 doesn't. But I I took you to mean this the internal street facing which is south elevation of building 200. And so that that's the requirement about opening. Yes. Okay. Only on the the south side of open. Yeah. Unless you unless um

I'm looking at page A4-0 of the big Robert, do we have building 200? Yeah. Yeah. There we Yeah. So, like on the the south elevation, you can see there's a whole bunch of doors. And then on the north elevation, there's a bunch of little fake balconies where there's like a double door or something that opens, but you can't go outside. There's like a railing it looks like. So, I um I seconded it with the understanding that that that condition about opening to the street is restricted to the south. Yeah. Unless you unless you want to suggest a friendly amendment and require on both sides. I'm not sure.

No, no, I I didn't intend to do that. I you know, it's it's the street facing and interaction with the street that I think uh this was all directed at. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Do we have any more discussion questions about the and the commissions?

Second. um can I just make a point um because it may matter if this is all turned in on uh A4-02 um what Matt is referring to the also am I reading this wrong but if uh there is number four building 200- East elevation and below it there's drawing number two building 200- East elev elevation.

That's that c I got caught in that earlier week looking at it that should be um number four should be west elevation. Is that correct? And does that matter to the PD then it's matters to the PD if it's sub all over again? Right. I No, I appreciate that clarification. Maybe [clears throat] it would be helpful just for the record for the applicant to say drawing four, drawing two is actually the west. Confirm drawing four is the west. Thank you. Out. But that would go in the record.

Thoughts? We'll go to the vote. You all got the other that also staff condition number three right in there. I think we'll read it before we vote. We want to read it before we vote. Read proper conditions. You want to just confirm agree as stated in the staff report, right? Yes. You didn't alter that.

Okay. All right. So motion is to recommend approval with the conditions number three in the staff recommended one and then the two that have just been crafted here the 75% of building 100 northern frontage will be used for commercial and non-residential uses and the ground floor apartments in the south side of the northern building I guess that's 200 of an entrance to the street. Did you say commercial non-residential uses? Commercial or non you said yeah essentially not affiliated. So non-residential

the non-residential meaning like the workout center the gym the leasing center the lobby that type of thing. So 70 so 25% could ground floor habitation residential habitation. Okay. So, the 75% includes leasable commercial space or as depicted the leasing office and the gym and the other stuff like that. That's right. Amenities.

So, is there any chance that that commercial non or non-residential could cause confusion in the future? Does it just need to say amenities, commercial or amenities, or does I think it might be better to rephrase it that way just given what you said that that commercial generally means, you know, that you consider the gym and other amenities to be part of the residential. It's just not habitable residential. So given that, I would say maybe non-residential could mislead somebody's five years down the road who's trying to remember what what this was about. So So maybe we should just clarify either leasable commercial space or commercial like amenity space or

yeah I think that cause a problem no yeah I think so maybe Stephen see what see how you got that I don't know what that was okay just changed the well read re read us condition two as rewritten by Sarah again and we'll tell you where to okay So 75% of building 100's northern frontage will be used for and what I originally said was commercial or non-residential uses. You are saying now for for commercial or I think what I said was commercial or commercial like amenity spaces

at least full commercial and then commercial amenity like commercial like amenity there spaces. Okay. Okay. Ready for roll call? There's a second part of that though, right? Well, there's the other condition about the ground floor apartments on the south side of northern building 200. But you weren't changing that one, right? No. No. Okay. All right. Motion to recommend approval with conditions. Darren, no. Lee, yes.

Hurry, yes. Paul, yes. Uh, pass. No. Sams, yes. Sanders, no. Motion passes four to three. That's all. All right. Next, we have 115 road.

Um, his own Good evening. About 8:00. Hope you guys are ready for round two. 15 ml. Um couple zoning actions here. I believe Bruce spoke to it um during agenda setting. Um the applicant is requesting a reszone. They are also requesting a special use. The special use is predicated on the approval of the reszone. Um so it's a it's kind of a precipitating deal. One requires the first um and as he also mentioned the special use um application has a variance request that is baked in. Um so we will get to the specifics but we go. So, the parcel we're looking at is primarily CG. There is a uh that's commercial general, sorry. Um there's a small sliver of commercial rural zoning left over from a few previous zoning actions. We'll see that on the map here in a moment. Um but they're looking to wipe that clean and replace it with employment office zoning. Um the special use application, as I said, is predicated on approval of that. Um, EO requires that uh self- storage, which is the the use that the applicant is requesting. Um, within EO, self storage is is a special use process. Um, the applicant is requesting to increase their floor area

ratio uh for the development from 75 to 1.0. Um there is no change to the future land use map as EO is similar in a lot of regards to um commercial general. So it's the same future land use designation. Um this is what we're looking at. So Mlung got the culde-sac here. Um if you recall from a month maybe two months ago, sorry time is relative these days. um a separate applicant had just reszoned uh a piece right here to accommodate a future RM um development. So again, that that's just kind of setting the scene. We've kind of looked at this area previously. Um future land use map. Again, it's remaining general business. We have a lot of general business in this corridor. Um so it's it's in kind. This is the zoning map I was referring to. Um, so and we've got some mapping errors that we've got to clean up, but please take my word for it that here north the brown is zoned RM2. This pink that you see here, that's commercial rural. Now, this parcel is not actually going to be well, it it's being developed, but it is a storm water retention facility. Um, so it's not any retail space or or living accommodations, any anything like that. um the zoning for this parcel is is kind of irrelevant and so they're doing away with this little sliver and changing the entire parcel from CG little bit of CR to employment office. Um generally speaking, staff supports this approval. Uh I'm sorry, supports this rezone. Um and we do recommend approval here. EO is it would be somewhat of a spot zoning situation here

in that there's not any EO in the immediate vicinity but there is employment office zoned property in the general area um and and frankly the land uses kind of align um with with the rest of CG um they offer some good complimentary opportunities um and and integrations in that regard. So, if the commission decides to approve this reszone, we've got to look at the special use application. Now, staff is recommending denial on this. Um, and and and we can kind of walk through why we don't find that self storage um as a use is compatible here with the comprehensive plan. um it doesn't really hit any of the economic target sectors called for um in the comprehensive plan. It's a much more passive and ancillary use self storageages to existing active uses um like the apartments that are potentially being built out. Um I believe there's an existing senior home nearby. Um this would be again ancillary to that. it it doesn't activate anything. Um it it doesn't really offer any increase in in available jobs. Um and it it doesn't really provide uh a good it's in the slide, but an inviting community gateway. Um as we develop this corridor, as we add more apartments, the the goal is to create a a lively interconnected streetscape and and just interaction of uses. Again, self storage staff believes is is fairly passive in that regard and and doesn't add to it in any way. Um

oh, going too far ahead. Um so again, staff generally denial for the special use. By no means does staff believe that adding a self- storage facility in this location inherently breaks anything. It doesn't. um it's contribute anything either. So it's it's kind of a call back to the discussion that you guys just had and it's well do we want this here or do we want to wait for something to come along? Now the applicant is requesting a variance for F. Um, and a few things that that the applicant has pointed out is the topography on the site is not ideal. It is not ideal by any means. Um, the site sits about 16 feet below the grade of McClung Road. So, given that it is narrow and and kind of shallow, it from a design perspective, it's difficult to access. um the applicant's rationale for, you know, supporting the variance that would support a a larger and more productive self- storage facility. Um I'm sorry. They have identified that topography as an extraordinary and exceptional condition to this property, but we don't find it unique by any means. The rest of this area is is under the same limitations and restrictions. Um we we don't find that the F of 0.75 is an undue hardship. Um it is quite normal for the other zones. Now it is worth noting that the CG zone has an F that caps out at 1.5. So it's it's about double this and the applicant is only requesting 1.0. So they are swapping from CG to EO and kind of meeting in the

middle for that F. But again with the exception of CR the other commercial zones EI I have an F of 75. So so this is fairly typical um and and again staff just doesn't identify that as an undue or unnecessary hardship. Um, as far as uh special circumstances and conditions being a result of of the applicant's actions, um, obviously the applicant had nothing to do with the topography on that site. Um, but they were involved in the conversations and negotiations that landed with the final configuration of the lot and ultimately decided on this, I'll call it a three- tiered zoning process that requires the reszone special use and then the associated variance. Um, there are other paths forward. None of them are simple and straightforward. They all have dripping hazards. Um but this is the path that was decided upon. Um whether or not the benefits of granting the variance or the increased F whether it outweighs any negative impacts and furthers the intent of the comprehensive plan. Again, staff doesn't believe that that was met here. Um and it comes back to self storage primarily being a passive land use. Um to add on to that, it's a passive land use and and ancillary. It's complimentary, but in the applicants on market study, they identified 15 self- storage facilities within 5 mile radius. It's also worth noting to be totally fair. Um not all of those self storage facilities are great. A lot of them are run down. The applicants um report states that this will be a a a much more

modern solution to self storage than than what exists. Um, but I do feel that we feel that it's worth pointing out that the service does exist in the vicinity. Um, and then is this the minimum and least deviation from the code that would afford to leave or afford relief? Um, again, staff does not believe that criteria was met. Um, staff doesn't necessarily agree with the hardship that the applicant identified. Um but again that is for you all to decide. So if the special use if the refund is approved and if the special use is approved um staff would recommend a condition on that special use. Um and and it's we're we're quoting 9-25 AE here. Um it's the it's kind of wordy. It's not all that long, but it's certainly too much to put up on a slide. These are our commercial general design standards. That's what that section is. So the intent here is okay if we are going to swap this from commercial general to EO and if we are going to allow self storage facility to come in as a special use why not at least adhere it to the design standards of the zone of the surrounding zone. So it hits on things like finisheration and and sizing and and visibility access that kind of thing. Again, it would just sort of bring it in line if it were to move forward. [clears throat]

Eric Johansson, Universal Planning Development. Um, we are the u I'm an agent for the owner, but we're all related. And the previous case that was before you guys about the triangle a couple months ago and the big property behind that, that's our property, too. Um, just to be clear what we're here for, staff did a great job. Um, I think the only people that rival them are Hall County on how detailed their reports are, but you guys do a great job. But we're here today to talk about a zoning change. If the zoning changes, they need a special use permit. And if that changes, they need a variance. And y'all seem like very logical people from all the debates on the on the case before that I've watched a couple times. So I hope you'll like the logic that I'm going to go through on this. And I agree this is an ancillary use, but I think it's an ancillary use that's needed for the area. Um I've created this slide to say sometimes opinions differ, you know, and when we talk about the comprehensive land plan, we are stated in the comprehensive land plan that the zoning works but the special use doesn't. So kind of what I'm going to show you and what we're going on is there's a residential boom in the area. There's a lot of units in this area and there are units in the area as dictated by our marketing study, but I can show you in the marketing study, there's 157,000 square ft of climate control. And of that 157,000 square ft, 90% is already leased up. So, of all the units I'm about to show you, they're not part of the people that are using that. And the ideal radius is a three mile radius for people that travel to get to climate control. Just in the surrounding area, uh we've got Athens Tech, a Kroger shopping center, numerous apartment properties, a town home community, single family lots, senior housing, commercial out parcels, a package store, an industrial center, railroad tracks, mobile home sales, trailer sales, distribution center, a racetrack gas station, and plenty of green space ready for other things to happen in this area. So from the bypass to us is less than a mile, and all of that is within that stretch right there. So I we feel we like the area but we feel this is a a very diverse mixture of areas and a lot of the growth in here is in the

commercial districts with the stipulations that the residential could have occurred in there. This is what I wanted to show you which is very critical is the the area right there. So our property is right here and it's not even a mile to this distance right here. You've got um the property we just zoned right back here, which is approved for 833 beds, 340 units. You've got property B, which is a developed apartment complex in the commercial district, which has got 240 units. You've got property C, which is a single family development that the Bowens are doing, is 188 lots. You've got Manor Lake, which is a combination of independent living and cottages and some senior care, but there's 122 units in there. Classic City Flats, which is a builtout compartment complex here. The Hillpoint apartment complex here, the Hillpoint um uh town homes here, and another future um of the town homes, I'm sorry, here. This is a built out um apartment complex by another developer. So, in total, it's not even accounted for in any of the u market study because our market study was last January. We did boots on the ground market study. There's 1,700 units and over 3,500 beds just surrounding this. And all of this green space behind here will never be developed because that's the creek and you've got the uh stream buffer off the creek and then you've got the flood plane and the wetlands associated with that. So, we're fully insulated and we're insulated with ourself. Um the market study that I provided in here was like I said, it was a boots on the ground. BMS Group is a group out of Miami. They do they're one of the industry experts that travel the country and and they deal with market studies. So, we thought we hired the best guy, not a local guy, and we didn't do a desktop where somebody can just blow up like at U-Haul and say, "How many units are open and how many are left?" So, we we brought a guy in, he came in November, and if you look at the market study, he was actually here when there's snow on the ground. He he he taught me

to buy a heated jacket. So, I got that. Um, what I want to show you on this slide, I think, is very important. There are 15 uh self-s storage facilities within a five mile radius of the site. You got a one mile, three mile, five mile. Note that 12 of the 15 are all in CG zoning districts. The reason to note that is my property is zoned the same as those properties are prior to and I don't know if I get this right of whether it's December 23 or December 24, but there was an action taken by the city or the county that said self storage could no longer go into a commercial zing district. So if if we didn't have that action and I had the same ability that everybody else here had to go in, we're properly zoned for what we could go in and our F is 1.5. But because we're not because we are zoned commercial and we can't do it now based on the change that occurred. The most plausible zoning district to go to is EO. And if you go to EO then it requires a special use. because it requires a special use, then we're asking for an F change to get to one. In self storage, 75% of your total square footage is the only leasable square footage. So, you lose 25% of your building to um corridors, hallways, elevators, office space, and everything it takes to space. So, you know, I want to point out, you know, I did this more for ourselves, but these are the taxes that a lot of these people pay. And I know we I know we don't make decisions on taxes, but the tax the average tax rate is about $1.50 a square foot. So hypothetically, we did that on $100,000 facility under this model, this would generate about $150,000 versus the property right now is maybe at $1,100. Um, as as laid out, this is a a topographically challenged site. It's also a oddshaped site. And I did not create the site. I want to correct something in staff's report. Yes, we were part of a plat change and the plat

change was the zoning change was approved two years ago that required us to build a road about a mile long. So, Dollar Tree agreed to slide over to the right. So, when they slid over to the right, their property line used to be right here. So, the plat change that we were involved with was the property change to get Dollar Tree to slide over so that we could create a 60oot rideway that lined up with Nice Drive and can continue another mile into the site as it goes around the back. We were involved with a plat change, but we were involved with a very minor plat change to reshape a couple lines right here. We had nothing to do with the shape of this property. This property was shaped when McClung Road was built down to the culde-sac and the Wendy's, the O'Reillies, the Bojank, the Popeyes, the Starbucks, and the Vet Clinic were put in. We didn't do that. That was done by a guy named Alan Nice and his partners. Um, we do have an odd shape property like I said. So we and we and this from from the from the U ground level uh right here if you're at those parallel parking spaces if you go 10 ft off the just 10 ft off you start going down a hill and you immediately bottom out at about 16t. So you're 16 foot in here. So to go back to a primary use on the property and people around here people in developments utilize retaining walls. The retaining wall would be 14 to 16 foot tall and it would take over 55,000 yards of dirt to import to fill in the site to make it a viable commercial use. So, we feel that this site needs a use whether it's an anor use or a primary use. And it needs a use with a basement. And if you get into it from a residential standpoint, I know we could put in town houses there. We could get 17 three-bedroom town houses on that property. That would require garages if they're largely occupied by students. There's not too many not too many town houses around here that I know of that have basements, two-car garages on the back with

students that can go in to a property like this and and absorb the sight cost to try to get that up. So, a basement and a town home would be probably 8 to 9 ft deep and we're 16 ft deep. So, that still means of that 55,000 yards of dirt I was talking about, there'd still be a wall on the backside to say we're at 25,000 yards to fill in the site just so we could get in. So we could put in a basement to make town homes work. So daycare centers don't work. Hotels aren't going to work because it's the shape of the property and and the parking that would be needed on the site. And that's why we had a market study done because we own the land. And as we own the land, we know everything else around it. And we go back to that map that I showed you of the 1700 units and the 3,500 beds and the existing self storage in the area. There's not a lot of there's 157,000 square feet of climate control. 90% of that is already leased up. So, how does that benefit any of the new growth that's come to the neighborhood? We feel that second tier site, meaning right, it's behind two businesses, a third and a fourth over here of the Starbucks that all have drive-thru services circulate the building. It's not a primary site for any other um commercial to go to that that that you could reasonably want to say, I want to go build a big wall and bring all this dirt in to fill it in. And it's like all the field of dreams, you know, like do that and hope that something changes. It's just not going to do that. So, what we've proposed is a twotory uh building above grade and and it'll have two and this is as you start coming down the hill. These are the above grades and this would be the third. So here you have this would be two stories above grade because ground grade is right there. This is the first level and as you go around the back of the site fourth level would be there. So you you're looking at one level, two levels, three levels, four levels and what that

looks like from the street view the built project. I'm not saying it's extra space storage but architecturally it could be something very similar to this that meets the code. This is what a two-story above grade building looks like from um this this is in Sugar Hill directly across the street from a Kroger at a light with a Chipotle and a Zach pies. So similar to our situation, this is what it looks like from the street where ground level is and you have two stories going down and two stories above grade. So in our situation back on on our site here, two stories of this building would be below grade. You don't see it unless you're on the sides of the building. Two stories would be above grade. So it would be very similar to the pictures that I just showed you. So respectfully, there's a lot to try to to get in. That's why I asked if I had more time. But at the end of the day, we feel this is an appropriate use for this property. It does have challenges because of the topography, the odd shape of the prop, odd shape, size.

Thank you. And we're here because of that. So thank you. Is there anybody else here to speak in favor of the application? Anybody here to speak in opposition the application? Okay. All right. Discussion. M

I was struck by that comment the applicant made about in the graph they showed about or the table they showed about all how all the other self- storage facilities are on CG zone parcels and um can you tell us a little bit more about that? What recent action I'm asking Bruce uh what recent action the county took that changed the rules uh I think in terms of whether that's allowed. Yeah, I believe it was in 2023 there was a text amendment that removed the self storage and the warehousing from commercial general from the commercial zones. And so um that came through this body for discussion and a recommendation went up to the mayor and commission for approval. Um the the impetus for that was um taking commercial corridors and removing that commercial viability and putting it into something that was self- storage or that kind of storage function but finding a place where that was appropriate and so EO zoning and EI and the industrial those areas you know that suitable

um [clears throat] for those uses. Is there a way in light of that text amendment to allow you know can can we grant a variance from the uh provision of 9-10-3 that says it's not an allowed use there or is there a way to do it without changing the zoning or why are we you know

no you know so so the only way to do that which would be sort of perhaps an inappropriate use of it but a PD where you could change the list of uses change, you know, and the underlying zoning stays CG. Um, I think that's where staff's recommendation about the design standards of CG is is intended to go is that this body were to find this to be something to recommend approval for to consider the fact that the development or the the materials the standards we would normally have for the commercial general zoning would be a part of the development of the site even if the use does is allowed be the self storage. Okay. So, there's not a way to do it. Like, oh, I looked in the table and I guess commercial rural does allow it, but the FAR is way too low there, right? So, that's why they're not saying zone the whole site CR because then they need a a

That's right. That'd be another way to do it, but then they'd be asking for six times the FAR that CR allows rather is compatible with the future land use designation. So, we tried to prioritize that.

Okay. Um, thanks for clarifying. I guess my my view on this is just like this is a really weird site with bad topography and strange dimensions that doesn't really lend itself to a lot of things. And um, two years ago it could have been built as a um, self- storage facility. And so, uh, as abhorrent as I think the tendency of Americans to accumulate crap and store it away from their homes in self- storage facilities is, that's the world that we live in. And so, this I don't see how allowing this proposal harms anyone. It seems like a good use for the site. I'm sure their market study is, you know, they're the ones putting their money behind this. So they they believe that there's a need and so it does serve the community desire for self- storage facilities and it's not a site where I would say like oh boy but wouldn't that be a great whatever you know like it's it's a funky site. So whether we it sounds you know the easier way would seem to me to be to just grant a variance from that thing but I take right from Bruce the expert that that's not allowed and so if we got to resone it to do it then I would be in favor of that.

Do I have it correct Bruce with the two issues two votes on the table. So one is the zoning and whether there is an appropriate is if this is an appropriate use for the new zone or like in appropriate let me rephrase if this is an appropriate reasonzoning period and then secondly is the issue of the variance and whether or not the the use because then it's the the size of the building on the site. Yeah. Okay, just Jennifer, do you have a follow?

I do. So, I wasn't here in 2023, but I'd like some insight of kind of what brought us I'm I'm assuming that this usage was taken out of CG because it doesn't bring jobs. It doesn't necessarily have interaction with the public. What was the thinking? I know you just touched on that a minute ago, but is there any deeper conversation as to what brought that about and why they felt in 2023 that that was an important thing to eliminate? So, so thinking about commercial viability on those commercially general commercial general zone and um you know the the appropriateness in the proliferation of these that we were seeing

um and and certainly the last few that had been built by Wright in the CG zone weren't examples of cell storage that we had 20 years ago. Um they tended to be climate controlled, they tended to be multi-story, they you know they But the the desire was to allow for those commercial general properties to have an animated use. Um perhaps a type of investment that also allowed for residential use. Um mixed using mixed development can be done by right. And so the question became well self storage is there is a demand for it. There is a need for it. Where is it most appropriate?

And so that pivot was to say focus should be in these other three zones with employment office requiring a special use um allowed by right and employment and industrial industrial. Um so where we have commercial general that is off of a main corridor it starts to ask the question of so what where is that shift? So the future land use being general business, EO is still consistent with that and and so this is where this discussion about as a special use um is is comes before y'all. Yeah.

And I guess I mean I have mixed feelings about this. I'm sure it would crush it over there. It is a weird property. It is behind other commercial general. It's down in a in a gully. However, as somebody who's tried to get local tenants in that area, what I've seen is that the limitation of commercial, even though it feels like that area has blown up, there's not enough commercial over there to create a dynamic where a local tenant really has a viable option to get in. In other words, the commercial that's over there right now is so premium that you have to have a gazillion dollars and be a national tenant to even be able to get a thousand square foot space. So, I think it's hard for me to take that usage of a more commercially viable space that has jobs, that has foot traffic off the table for self storage, knowing that it's such a high demand area over there right now that doesn't have enough commercial space that it's really opened up for people in our community to be able to have this. That's tough. Oh,

I'm gonna coattail that a little bit. So, working with the future land use steering committee, and I'm not going to reference that map because it's a draft. It hasn't been approved by mayor commission at this moment, but we really dug in to so many places. Where where are things going to go to? Where where's the flow? um where people want to live. You can drive up there and in a second see that people want to live up there. There are more apartments being built there probably than anywhere in town. It is super fast to get downtown from there. Uh you wouldn't think so looking at a map, but it is really quick. It is quick to get to College Station and onto UG. And that's one reason people are moving up there. Um, so I I I [clears throat] like the um the the Murville General is it I don't want to cut that off yet because and I I get the terrain. Um, I understand all of that and but if if if this property were up 70, if come down and go back to the V and then go up 72 toward Hull uh Comr and all that, there are spaces where this would be perfect. It's a little out of sight, a little off of uh um the road. This road leads right into Starbucks. It's gonna it is a it is a commercial road. It is behind and half you know you're looking at the back end of a lot of fast food but it this is a delicate area and all the research I've done and looked at and

talked to this is a delicate area. It can go one way or the other um as far as how scaled it goes. Um, I don't mean affordability in any way, but I've actually I know people that live up there. There's someone in my office building and I was like, "Oh, yeah. How you like it?" Well, everything's fast food and everything's this. I like that I can get a lot of this, but I would like it to start getting its own um personality. That's not her words, but you see where I'm going. And if we get to commercial, I mean, if we get too industrial feel up there, it's it's just going to turn out to be just full of nothing with character and and it's it's borderlining losing that shot right now. And this just pushes it in that direction. So that's what I've seen just working with uh that for a year and a half that this area is teetering right now. And the road is leading to a development with like 800 units. Is that what's going in there?

Yeah. But it's it's it's an entrance to what will be an apartment. Yeah. So that to me is my thought was like, is this your entrance drive into where you live that you would pass every day? Well, and that that road ultimately will also be dedicated. It's going to be a public road, not just an entrance drive to a multif family development, but it'll be a way through connect,

right? Because we added that interaction. I think I think Jennifer your your sort of um comments are really [snorts] very similar to the conversations that were had in 2023 about that the self storage was kind of popping up in places that had a different that had more potential and um so you're kind of saying the same sort of a choice limiting action in a way. So, um, okay. I sort of agree. I I agree with what you said, Matt, and then I also agree with what these guys are saying. So, not really sure what to think, but I it seems sort of reasonable and certainly you can see how self storage with all these apartments nearby would actually be very useful to folks who live in that area. But it does seem like, you know, you could also put something in there that could give a little bit of vitality to that area because right now it's just backing you. It's got the apartments or will have the apartments behind it and then in front of it are two carentric fast food joints. So I'm I'll leave it with I'm not sure. I ask the applicant. It's just a burning question. You mentioned a daycare center that wouldn't work there. Now that you mentioned this, all I can think of is what a perfect place for a daycare center with so many people living around there. Why would a daycare center not work?

Can I go back to the cycling? I I understand all the comments that everybody's saying, but you guys are not taking into account the cost to bring it up to grade to even make it viable for any of these commercial commercial uses to go in here makes it an unreasonable site. So, there will be no mom and pop shops going in here. When you import 55,000 yards of dirt at 30 bucks a yard off site to get in here and you build a half million dollar wall, it will be unaffordable for anybody to go in there. It needs a use that has a 16 ft basement. So you can put it in there. The problem maybe the daycare won't work. It's

it's the entire site is a hole. It it like other than 10% at the shoulder of the road, it drops down. The whole site is a whole. And can I bring up one point about the F. We own this detention pond right here. It's 1.1 acres. My original submission to staff included the 2.18 or the 2.13 and that 1.18. So when you put those together at 75 F, I was at the same square footage I'm at now with a one. I was asked by staff to drop this detention pond that's zone commercial that we own from my application so that my area would be less. So because my area is less to get to the same building, now I have a variance instead of if I added that square footage in, I wouldn't be asking for a variance. It would just be a zoning and a special use. So, there are things beyond my control that are driving me for the requests I have. And I can't do anything about the shape of the property. And if we spend that site development money to bring it up, it'll never be the things that I'm hearing. It's It's not deep enough. It's It's 110 ft deep.

Understood. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you,

Bruce. I'm I'm just curious about that. Um, since they own that adjacent parcel, I don't know. Does that drain storm water for this parcel or is that um parcels? We own it. It serves more than that parcel. I see. Okay. And that's why staff didn't consider that it was appropriate to combine it with this. Okay. Um because the site would have to handle its own drainage and that would affect other sites around it that use it for drainage. It it is it is a parcel that's integrated into the development of the other parcels as a as a as part of a like a larger thing. Yeah. Okay.

Entertain a motion. I move to um first thing is the reason to approve the reszone. Second.

Yes. I'll second it just so we can talk about it. All right. [clears throat] Okay. Comments. I just maybe need a quick reminder even though I did look at this this week, but I I need a quick reminder of sort of the idea general types of uses that are allowed in CG versus EO like what is the how would you characterize this? I could also pull up the use table and look, but

so a quick characterization EO when it was written was more of an office park type zone. So imagine that like it's it's it was meant to be um primarily office but larger scale offices more job creation corporate campus that that idea um you see those types of corporate and that's that's a very old idea now but most of done when it was written it was early 2000s so you had perhaps a restaurant or perhaps a supporting daycare or some other uses that might be a part of that corporate development that that was EO um is EO uh commercial general is that corridorbased general retail perhaps some office but um that's where you would find your your larger square footage and other commercial uses

and is EO the only zone in which you can apply for a to have a self storage facility with a special use permit or are there other is it all the E zones uh in the light industrial is permitted in the permitted commercial rural it's permitted. Okay. And those are those are zones that are sort of in in sort of the periphery when you think land use wise CR is a zoning category that is that is further up these corridors where there is no sewer present. Okay. So that's and is it always a special use request or are any of is the special use? Those are all the other ones are by right and that's a by right use. Correct.

Okay. Um, and I was kind of curious about the residential density in EO. It says 20% of total project square footage. Is that what SF means there? Okay. Okay. Thanks. Oh, I'm sorry. Is that a minimum or maximum? Max. Okay.

Any other thoughts? Is that that was a second? It was. Yeah. Okay. All right. It I didn't hear that. Um may I So, is it possible that by the time this is all over through the mayor and commission, this could be reszoned but not approved for the use for the special use?

Yeah. Yes. So we could have this property, this spot zoning without the use that that the applicants want and then now it's marked into that. So if not that it would, but that could that's an issue. Um and you know I'm I'm going to vote no just because I think it needs to be left alone in there right now. Yeah, I wouldn't support the reszone if if it didn't go along with the things that they're asking for next. I think, you know, to zone that as EO um if the applicant just came in and asked for that. I think I would say I would say no, it's it's commercial area and and so on. You know, personally, like I absolutely hear everything that that Jen said and and Alex said. Um, and I think you're doing a lot more like locally owned commercial sites. Um, but hearing what the applicant said about the cost of developing this particularly challenging site, you know, makes it a tough decision for me. And kind of at the end of the day when I'm on the fence, I heir on the side of um, people do what they want with their property. they, you know, it benefits the community in some way and doesn't cause any harm.

Yeah. I mean, I tend to agree with what Matt's saying. As much as I would love love love for this not to be that, no offense, I do understand that if you have to put in so much infrastructure to make it what we'd like it to be, it'll cost it out of the things that we'd like to see. So, I'm inclined to let them go ahead and do it. Make a motion to I think you already have a motion. I made one. She f motion to approve the reszoning.

All right. Karen, yes. Lee, yes. Yes. Paul, yes. Pass. Yes. Sams, no. Sanders, yes. Motion passes six to one. Thank you. Can I make a motion to approve the special use permit with the requested variance? Yes. Thank you for reminding. Yes. Yes. Second. Okay. We have discussion or we can vote on that.

Just Yes. It was so long ago that we talked about this agenda setting that I forgotten. Um, is the is the is the only option yes or no on the special use with the variance? Like can we say yes to special use, no to variance? The the body could, but if there's a motion that Yes. Yes. Not on this particular vote, but in general. But this is approving a special use. Huh? Approving a special use. Yeah. My motion was to approve a special use with and

with the requested. Okay. All right. We have a second. Yes. Um All right. There's no more discussion. We'll vote on that. All right. A motion to approve the special use with the variance. Garing, no. Lee, yes. Harrisford, yes. Paul, yes. Pass, yes. Sams, no. Sanders, yes.

Motion passes 5 to two. Thank you very much. The new business we doing them all at once. One presentation with three votes.

So it's 250 Little Street A8 and B3. Yeah. All righty. Good evening, plan commissioners, sake of our audience. My name is Steven Jacy's staff here presenting on what is actually three separate requests, three separate special use requests here at the complex at 250 Little Street, units A208, A303, and B306. Yep. Appin is requesting a special use in the RM2 zoning district here for each condominium unit that they are proposing to convert from a a residence into a commercial short-term rental. That would be units A208, A303, B306. Each one would get a special use permit to become a commercial short-term rental. The occupancy for each of these units is proposed to be no more than four individuals at a time. This is the site. Um, this is the Stadium Village complex. Here you can see the units are highlighted for you, all three of them. Uh they're on the buildings to your left. There's four buildings out here. If you've been out there, they stand up fairly tall from the surrounding area. We have Cars Hill and it's the neighborhood here um to the north. And then we have the Okone Hill Cemetery here to the I guess southwest.

Future land use is mixed density residential as it is for the rest of this neighborhood. This would not be changing. You see the units highlighted there. This is condos. So you can see those little condo lines. Those are all individual pieces that are owned by their um their buyers. And then we have zoning out here that is RM2 which is consistent with the rest of the neighborhood. RM2 would not be changing. Interestingly, the cemetery is zoned RM1 here. That's what you see on the on the corner here. I guess there's a lot of occupants there, units. And this is the the site plan. You can see it's a it's a fairly large site and the units are in these two buildings to the left. You can see the middleone river as it flows. On your left here, it has the units here or the the site here has views of the Yokone River and then the campus stadium beyond on the other side. These are the units themselves. Um the A208 as labeled at the top there. This is the exterior. This is the close-up view. A deck or a p um a porch there. A303 looks very similar, but it actually fronts on a courtyard here. Each of these buildings has an interior courtyard. Then B306. Here's the exterior from a distance. Get up close. Looks very similar. We've seen these commercial short-term rentals before. Our um analysis has been fairly consistent with these. We find them to be incompatible with our 2023 comprehensive plan largely because they remove long-term housing from our constrained housing market in favor of essentially hospitality.

It is compatible with the future land use map, the zoning map, and the ordinance. Well, we're we're not changing the building here. We're just changing the use. And therefore, you don't have to change the map. You don't have to comply with the ordinance. Um, as far as new construction goes, there is no new construction. It is just a use change. Um, [snorts] however, when we look at the special use criteria, it does not meet all of those criteria, particularly because of the potential impact on a neighborhood's character. If you get a number of these in in one concentration, um, then you would change the the character of the neighborhood from a residential character to a more transient, you know, hospitality visitor-based character. As we've also said in these reports, this contradicts the the short-term rental ordinance purpose statements quoted in your staff report. Sections E, H, and K talk about the impact on our housing stock. We regulate these because of the potential to take units away from our long-term residents. the also the desire to address quality of life concerns with these uses and that our RM districts are primarily intended to be residential rather than hospitality. It should be noted that a short-term rental is allowed by right in each of these properties through the home occupation application. So, they are not completely prohibited from using these properties for short-term rentals. they would just have to follow the home occupation, which means that there's a primary resident that lives here and rent it out on the side. The special use criteria, and we've had this issue before, they are largely met when you look at the prop at the individual properties and individual applications. However, it's that cumulative effect of um the commercial short-term rentals that puts stress on our on our on our strained housing market and creates

potential for change to the neighborhood character. So that is why we're recommending denial on each of the three applications. And that concludes the staff.

Um now we hear from the applicant and my name is Wendy Gresian Craft. I live at 190 Hickory Point Drive in Athens Clark County and I'm a fourth grade teacher. Um we have a couple of short terminals that you know helped us make ends meet. Um the application uh for special uses just is for three onebedroom cond. Um we've had these for years. I understand that there's no special objection to our application but the blanket concern for affordable housing which is a concern we understand it's shared. Um a little bit of history about Stadium Village. on the according to the internet it was built in 1964. Um the if you look at the bylaws they have it set out as student units and alumni units and the units that are alumni units. Um the only thing that you're allowed to do there as leases of less than seven days because they were arranged originally were basically parents to come visit or come to games or maybe let their friends stay there. So there's an entire building where that is the case. And um anyway, so it was originally set out to be that way. The other units were set out to be student units. So these um essentially are small units and they don't even have washerd dryer hookups like in individual units. I mean there is a laundry facility that you can walk to a little ways away or whatnot but um but it was originally designed. So I don't think that when we're looking at talking about the character, if this was the original design and this has been the way that it has been, I don't know

that it would really change much of the character. Um, and I received some data from uh Park County here where there's apparently right now 182 permitted short-term rentals, although you don't have any licensed one, licensed ones. That's about maybe the size of a hotel that you've got here. But I do think that Athens Clark County, you benefit from some short-term rentals because people that we've had as guests over the years, you've get people that have small children or that have special dietary needs that need a kitchen. And this is not a need that can be filled by the hotel,

right? You get, you know, professors that come from all over the world, come, you know, work at the university for lecturing for a little bit or, you know, kids that come for a swim camp and they've got brothers and sister. It's just, it's one of those kind of things where I feel like Athens needs to welcome some of these visitors and have an appropriate place for them to stay and a hotel is not always going to fill that need. Um, again, because these units were literally made for this, um, I don't think that we're going against the the neighborhood, uh, character. And also, they're very small units. We're talking about one-bedroom units. So, when we're looking at the impact on the housing in Athens at large, um, you know, I think that the impact here is going to be somewhat negligible. Um because they are such small units and because they are in such close proximity to other units, we have never had any difficulty with not a one complaint. Nobody's trying to have a party in a one-bedroom unit. Um you know, we screen the guests. They've got to have good reviews in order to be able to um to actually stay in the units. of other factors to consider. Uh we are both Athens Clark County residents. This is a local investment that we're talking about. Um we pay local cleaners and the cleaning that they do makes up a significant portion of their annual income. Um, you know, we've got uh we also pay vendors and then looking over just in the last four years with the number of people that do come and do want to stay in um uh these condos, um we have submitted in local taxes

approximately $40,000 to Athens Clark County from these little units. Um and again that's not with any complaint from any neighbor from the community. No complaints at all. Um we have been attempting to comply. You know, we applied for licensing that went away. So then you now we're doing this route which of course is somewhat arduous for someone who's not been through anything like this before. Um so we're really trying to to work in concert with the community here. Um uh as a uh finally thinking about the the housing, we do have the one unit that we can um potentially long-term lease. So if in a hopeful consideration for um approval on two of the units, we would withdraw the application for our unit of B306 as that one does have some flexibility so that we can actually rent it out to someone else for a different term. Um we hope that you'll agree with us that we have met the criteria for special use and that in this case it's the best thing um for everyone concerned to allow what already exists. Thanks very much Melissa.

Thank you. Is there anyone here to speak in support of the application? Anyone here to speak in opposition to the application? I'd like to speak briefly in favor. Oh, yeah. If you want to speak in favor, that's fine.

Um, Eric Crassel, husband, I I just wanted to point out regarding affordable housing, this is across from the across the river from the stadium. It's uniquely suited for its purpose that it's being used for. And while we support affordable housing and so forth, we also believe that this is not opposed to that because as an STR um when we first came into this complex, it was um was, you know, suffering some uh stress, just a handful of STRs came in there and in the last 5 years, it's really taken the complex from potentially degrading rapidly to being a viable complex. At the time we came in there, it was being solicited for development probably into unaffordable housing, unaffordable housing. And yet now it is doing well um because partially because of the STRs that did come in. It's just a handful of them, but because they served on the board as did my wife Wendy here, and because they would be responsible and clean up and really take pride in the place and do all the things. um they are inspected weekly. They um you know they don't use as much parking or anything because they're only inhabited one one or two days a week. I think it really helped the complex itself survive and so that in the long run in some small way really does contribute to the affordable housing available. Thank you. Um, all right. So, take it on the side for discussion. Who wants to start?

Alex.

So, um, the gentleman said something that's true. I've said it a few times, but it it really would make a difference here. We hear these landlords of uh regular, you know, um year leases and all that don't keep the property up and they don't fix this and they don't fix that and all that because they got somebody on the contract for a year and they'll just do it again the next time. You can't do that uh with short-term rentals. So, even a complex like this that's somewhat sizable. It's not just four units in the entire complex. But if I were short if I if I had units there and I was doing short-term rental, I would be on that board. Uh I mean own them as in let's get this place cleaned up. I would be doing things for the entire community there because I need it clean when my tenant goes in there. Um, and I get the complaints, again, all fictional here, but that it was dirty and that it was this and that. Well, guess what I'm going to do? Come right back around and and see to it. Where we again, we hear in a college town, they're just landlords that just are somewhat abusive um when it comes to the year leases and and things like that. Um, and I do know this complex, not real well, but I do know it was it was in a low and it did lift up to where it's it's a it's a very old-fashioned but wellbuilt and clean place. It's not fancy, but it it's sort of like a Hampton Inn. You get a clean carpet and I'm good. Uh, that's this place is similar to that. Um it's a unique location in Athens up on Cars Hill but down low probably the oldest building

there I would imagine. Um and again if [clears throat] not there where um and and last thing I'll say onebedrooms. Um we probably all partied in a one-bedroom uh place. I don't know but not as loud and not as long. you know, I I do think it it's a restriction because it's just one veteran of being a nuisance

there. Um, yeah, I uh tend to agree with uh staff's analysis uh as I have or I I've tended to agree with staff's analysis on every single one of these special use um applications that we've gotten being cumulatively it is a problem. I am excited to be looking at the changes uh later. Um and in this specific instance, I think we might have found the one place that actually does seem special to me. Um given the history and character of this, it I mean it sounds like the original short-term rental complex. Um so this does seem like an appropriate place to be granting these special use permits. So, like one one time I've been convinced that this actually does seem like a special uh a special place that is different from other apartment buildings uh for this particular use. So, I am I I tend to be in favor.

Is that a motion? Uh yes. So, which one's first? Um Okay. A motion uh motion to approve uh recommend approval on uh 250 Little Street, unit A208. Second. That's why you're want to say something else. I was just going to say mostly the update.

Sorry. I mean, part of the reserve that I had initially of approving special use permits for this usage in an RM zone is that it runs with the property. So, if we grant this tonight and they sell it to someone that doesn't have the same intentions to run it as a great Airbnb, those people are stuck with it. And and I think everything that we've talked about over and over again through this process to try to get away from the special use permit, I hate to see us piece millies in, especially last minute. So, I couldn't be in favor of that. So

um I think I that's an interesting point you just made and I would it's funny Alex when you were making your point earlier I was literally writing down the same point as you were talking like I was we came to the same conclusion which is that think something we failed to understand that the point the gentleman was making was that the income that these places can generate um everyone thinks it's always sort of big bad developers just trying to get as much money as They can, but I think sometimes this income can serve the income and the impetus that it gives the owner to keep the place up can have a nice effect. And I think that I I think that what you said is interesting, but I but it that applies to a slum lord owning and not doing a very good job managing a long-term rental, right? like any you know this this race exists. So I think what I would say is and we'll get to this when we talk about the STRs and RNs later but I do think this is a special um circumstance. I tend to be okay with it. Um and it to me well we'll we'll talk about that later when we talk about the text amendments. Sir,

I would just like to add for me personally, I am never thinking about who it is that has is making these applications. I hope we never have to see them again. Um, these kinds of things because it draws us into the area of are the people nice? Do we like them? Do we trust them? Which I don't think should really ever be a consideration a a factor of consideration on a zoning action. I'll just mention that I agree with what Sarah said earlier about that this is a particularly specially appropriate place for this thing. Um and and with what Alex said about how, you know, it's been good for the the complex there. It's a it seems like it's in the shadow of the stadium basically and and it's uniquely appropriate in location and um other ways for special use. So if ever there if ever a special use permit is appended, I think it's for properties in this particular complex.

All right, let's do a vote on A208. All right, motion to approve A208. Garing, yes. Lee, no. Harrisford, yes. All yes. Pass. Yes. Sam's. Yes. Sanders. Yes. Motion passes six to one. Okay. Which one's next?

A303. Okay. Make a motion to recommend approval for 250 Little Street Unit A30. Right. Alex, I'm sorry. That was Alex. Yeah, I'm losing my voice. Yeah, just a second. Who was the one who motion?

Okay. Motion to recommend approval. A303. Garing. Yes. Nope. Yes. Paul, yes. Pass. Sams, yes. Sanders, yes. Motion passes six to one. Motion to recommend approval on 250 Little Street, unit B 306. Second,

I noticed I wanted to ask one question about that. The applicant said something about possibly being willing to withdraw or maybe definitely wanting to withdraw that one and so can we just ask for clarification on Absolutely. Um yeah, in the interest of you know writing different housing, we'll go ahead and withdraw that one. You are you are withdrawing. Um to the subject to the the board's approval. Okay. Um, so like motion to accept the what would it be? To accept the request to withdraw. Okay. I'd like to change my motion. Alex, I second. You accept this change. How how does it work? Yes. You would make amendment. Make a motion to accept the withdrawal.

Withdrawal. Yeah. Of the application 250 Little Street Unit 306. Second. Second. by her still. Sarah second. Yes. No longer. Alex.

Okay. Motion to accept withdrawal B 06. Yes. Lee. Yes. Harrisburg. Yes. Paul. Yes. pass. Yes. Sams, yes. Sanders, yes. Motion passes unanimously.

Five minute break. Five minute break. Okay. Okay.

So generous. All right. 1065, 1075, and 1085 Hull Road.

Good evening. Uh this is the staff presentation for 1065, 1075 and 1085 toll road zoning action 2025 091987 def. Let's try that again. 1065 1075 1085 whole road zoning action 2025 091987. The request is for a reszone on three parcels from commercial rural to commercial general. Uh the future land use is going to be unchanged. It's already general business um which complies with commercial general. Um actually the current zoning of commercial rural is incompatible with general business. So this would this request would bring uh these three parcels closer into compliance with the future land use designation. Um the purpose of this reason for an unspecified commercial use. There is some indication from the applicant that this could be restaurant or retail. Uh though neither of those are binding, nor is there any development plan associated or submitted with this request. Here's an aerial view of the three parcels in question. Um 1065 Hole Road has a unoccupied single family house on it that earlier this year a demolition review um was submitted to commissioners and was approved although demolition permits have not yet been pulled um but the intention is to demolish that house. The other two parcels are undeveloped. Uh as mentioned earlier the future land use designation is general business that will remain unchanged. Here you can see the proposed change to the zoning map. On the left is the current commercial rural designation. On

the right would be the change to commercial general. And here's a survey of the property showing the house and existing driveway. Uh the staff recommendation is approval with the condition. Um staff finds that as mentioned earlier uh it is compatible with the future land use map. Uh it actually brings it closer into compliance uh than it currently is. that it's compatible with the 2023 comprehensive plan. Uh because as we've seen of late um that area of whole road has increased in intensity uh both in terms of commercial and uh mixed density residential development. Um development in this area has changed uh quite a bit since the sewer expansion. Hence um changing from CR to CG. commercial rule generally is for properties that don't have access to sewer and sewer has been expanded um in this direction in uh the recent decade. Uh and also staff finds that the adjacent parcels long hole road are similar in use and this is sort of represents a continuation of ongoing development in this area. Uh the one condition that staff recommends is that land disturbance permits shall not be issued without a viable sanitary sewer connection uh per the standards of the Athens Car County Public Utilities Department. Um this condition is not because um it is unlikely, in fact is quite likely the Athens Car County Public Utilities Department has recommended approval for this project. This is just um sort of uh representing a condition that the applicant before the permits to actually begin development uh are in place that the sewer connection has been developed um as per [clears throat] the Athens Car County Public Utilities Department. And so again, staff staff's recommendation is approval with uh the condition on the screen. That concludes the staff report.

Thank you. Now we'll hear from the applicant. Good evening. Uh my name is Frank Pitman with Pitman and Greer Engineering. We're I'm I'm here representing property owner of these three parcels. Um as mentioned the uh these three parcels total about roughly an acre and a half fronting whole road existing CR zoning um as mentioned was was in place because at at the time that it was zoned there was no sewer out there. Um sewer is out there now. Um other parcels adjacent to it have already been reszoned to CG. Um this it it fronts what would be you know the remainder of that tally crossing project. Just to the right of this would be the parkway that eventually would go into Tally Crossing as well. Um the owner does have has had some good discussions with with a restaurant group. Um not not a fast food restaurant that is um kind of waiting for this thing to get reszoned and and get a little bit further along, but it's very interested in coming out there. Um it does have water and sewer capacity. Um I'll touch on that condition that was written. Really what that means is this the sewer is actually one parcel over from this property. there is an easement that that is already platted through the adjacent property. So they the utility department is just making sure that everybody knows that we've got to actually get over physically get to it. Um and and owner understands that and the ement's already in place. Um it does meet the future land use map. Uh the request does the the existing zoning does not. So um as staff mentioned we we would actually be bringing it into compliance with that. Um, otherwise I think uh the property owner's excited to to bring, you know, I sat here and listened a while ago and this is kind of the same area where there's a lot of

multif family growth and and probably is not enough commercial to to service it. Um, so this is um this is opportunity to to bring something else to the area. Um, so I would ask for open to any questions and ask for y'all's recommendation. Thank you. You anybody here to speak in favor of the application? Anyone to speak in opposition to the application? Okay, hearing none. Take a round. Who wants to start? I'm a motion to approve of the staff condition.

I'll second. Okay. Any other discussion? All right. Take a vote. Motion to approve with the staff condition.

Yes. Lee Harrisford. Yes. Paul, yes. Pass. Um Sams, yes. Sanders, yes. All right, motion passes unanimously. See you a minute.

So that takes us to 255 Smithonia Road. All right. Good evening again, folks. So this uh last case of the evening is at 255 Smithonia reszone 2025-10-2011. So the request is to reszone an existing parcel from AR to CR. That's agricultural residential to commercial rural. Uh the existing AR property uh has a few agricultural structures on it. The future land use on this is rural which is compatible with both AR and the CR zone that they're require requesting. They are looking to split this parcel. It's currently just over 71 acres. Um and then they actually want to split this into four pieces and two of those pieces total 30 acres. So they're just asking to reszone those uh two pieces that I believe on the map are to the north. This parcel also splits between Athens, clar county, and the city of Winterville. The two parcels they would be carving out if approved in this reszone would be completely in Athens, Clark County. So, we have reached out to the city of Winterville and they have expressed um no concerns over the reszone request. The 41 acres would remain as AR. Um this is a straight reszone request but they have indicated that the purpose of this would be to build a church. So here are the parcels. The portion highlighted in teal there are the 30 acres that they are looking to reszone. Soon we'll see the winter. There we go. There you can see Winterville in white

and the AR zoning of the or excuse me this is rural future land use. the uh green rural future land use there is where the Clark County boundary is just outside of Winterville. We are um just off of Charlie Bolton Road. You can see we are out right at the edge of the county right here. So going into Oakorp County out there off of Smithonia Road. Here is the zoning request. So we currently have AR and with conditions and then to go to CR on the right. This is what they are looking to show. Um if approved they would like to replplat the map with these four tracks. So you can see the request for the reszone is tract three a 20acre tract and tract four a 10acre tract. Tracks two and two and one would remain AR with um the bulk of those being in the Winterville city limits and governed by Winterville zoning code. So staff sees this as compatible with the comprehensive plan. The rural to rural change is um pretty equal in the eyes of the comprehensive plan. Um the request does help promote some community gathering. We are out in the the edge of the community here. So, a potential space for that to occur. It is compatible with the future land use map, uh the zoning map, and the um ACC ordinance. This is um a little bit of a departure from the surrounding zoning classifications, but the rural characteristic of it staff sees as compatible. The mixing of rural and commercial rural is usually quite often dependent upon someone's ability to use that property. So, in using that property as a church as opposed to just simply a residence, um, uh, the zoning map has kind of seen those opportunities. There's there's not a

there's not like a a congregation of CR property in any area. It's usually a little bit of a spot here and a spot there that sort of plays well with the surrounding KR zoning. So, with that, staff is recommending approval. And that concludes the staff. Get this up here. Thank you. From the applicant next.

Good evening everyone. I'm Chase Zesh with Armit Trout with any Thurman representing the owner. Um we're the engineers on this so far. Appreciate you guys sticking with us here at the end of the night. Um the staff report pretty much says everything that it needs to. Um, I did just want to highlight that, uh, while we are breaking this into a couple different tracks, we are focusing on the 20 acres, um, and the 10 acres on the top. That'll be entirely within Clerk County. U, the zoning request is based on the fact that, uh, churches is kind of a an odd use in the zoning ordinance. Um there AR does technically allow for churches by special use and that um would be a very uh arburous project especially with the current climate with fundraising and the binding nature of the site and the elevations and the time that it's going to take to see this come to fruition is is going to be really difficult for this the binding nature of the special use. Um so that kind of instigates the the request to change zoning where um a church is is by right. Um we feel uh the church is currently meeting in the uh Marold Auditorium which is just just down the road from this. So uh the church has been looking for quite some time to find a parcel kind of in their backyard. They don't really want to leave Winterville. They don't want to change demographics. They want to kind of be here. They want to be a community partner uh that represents the the Winterville Clark County area with with pride. Um, so that they've been through four or five different parcels and then this one presented itself and uh we really feel like it's perfect for the use. Um, going uh you one of the big things that changes going from AR to the commercial is is it does allow slightly more coverage. We feel like that fits perfectly for the use of the church. Um AR limits I believe it's 15% um and the commercial goes up to 35 but we should be well with un under that for the kind of the proposal. We don't um there's no

site plan or you know current building right now and um we appreciate the owner who's trying to sell this working with us is as it's a long process to try to reszone and then subdivide so that way we can actually buy real estate. They've been very gracious and and working through this process. Um so I'm going to leave it with that and if there's any other questions in particular I'd be happy to those. Thank you very much. Um, anybody here to speak in favor of the application? Anybody here to speak in opposition?

Well, I wasn't planning on speaking, but I own the property directly across the street from it. My daughter and I have 60 acres.

Oh, sorry. Can you say your name? My name Maryanne Cheetum 775 Charlie Bolton Roadill Georgia I'm sorry. So we border Charlie Bolton Road and then Church will be on the other side. This is not a commercial residential area. I lived there 20 years. It's agricultural residential. Yesterday I drove down the road from Charlie Bolton from Smithonia to Lim Edwards. They're probably 20 parcels of land. Seven that are probably under 10 acres. the green belt and the rest of them are large tracks of land with single houses. You can only see like four houses from the road. You know, people are set back. It's it's a rural area. This church is going to stick out like a sore thumb. The light pollution will affect everybody that travels that road at night. We look across it. It's the most beautiful sky. stars. The moon comes up that way in the spring full of wild flowers. It's what the green belt is all about. I don't know who started the green belt, but you did a good job. That's why we bought there and paid more money for property there because of the restrictions of the green belt. And now they can you y'all can just reszone it. I I don't understand it. There's nothing commercial between Lim Edwards. Nothing. Never has been. was a plantation from the 1700s. It's still so rural. Maybe a few hayfields, few cows. This church, you know, just they say try to scare you by saying, "Okay, if you don't do the church, you know, it could be somebody else can come along." I guess because they just accept the idea that y'all are going to reszone. There could be something worse than a church or chicken houses. Well, nobody's going to spend three4ers of a million dollars on chicken houses. It'll be the most

three houses and that won't even be what what most of it is. We have two houses on 60 acres. My neighbor one on 70 acres. My other neighbor on the other side one on 120 acres. This isn't a developed area. I just don't understand why they can't go an eighth of a mile further, build a church, and not have to reszone the green. I mean, we're the epitome of what the green belt was designed for. We're like the bastion of the green belt ideals. And so I came here not wanting to speak, but I'll be back too. I just hope you think about it. I invite all of you to ride down that road and look at it and see if you think that church won't stick out. if you think it fits for the atmosphere of that area.

Thank you. Anybody else to speak in opposition? Okay. Um do you want um a rebuttal or I don't know if that's if there's anything you want to say or not, it's fine. Okay. Um all right, we'll take it on the side. want to start discussion. Sarah, um, I was really surprised to see staff approving this and I hate to keep going against staff recommendations tonight, but I'm just kind of starting by stating my opinion. I do agree with everything the neighbors

and it seems totally insane to me to reszone 30 acres when we nickel and dime and go crazy detail on a halfacre piece of property close to the town and the idea of just in one fell swoop reszoning 30 acres without any real sense of you know we know that and I I do appreciate that comment that even if a church doesn't happen, um the other CR uses are somewhat compatible with the area out there. But um I personally this does not make me feel comfortable. Um, and if nothing else, sort of thinking about why we have a green belt, what's happening out there soil-wise, water-wise for this community, um, and creating a situation where more of that can be turned into impervious surface coverage. Yeah, I'm I'm not a super fan of this. I don't mind a church being out there. I just want a little bit less of a big swath of property being reszoned at once.

That's terrible. I feel like I saw both Sarah's go at the same time. So, I'll go to Sarah and then

um so I just want to clarify because I I heard um something different in a comment. So, this is not commercial residential. So, it's not like a normal commercial zoning. It's commercial rural. Um and so it does not have uh the same standards of intensity that our in town commercial zoning would carry. Um question for staff um about the the the table um here um the density 16 is that 16 dwelling units per acre and there's no density and AR zoning. The table is confusing me.

Uh that's fair. Um also the percentages for canopy. So see okay so our commercial zones allow for multif family development in commercial rural. Yes. Okay.

So that's that is where the 16 is coming from. Um 16 beds. So that would not be units but yeah. And then in the AR zone that minimum lot size is the 10 acres. That's your essentially that's your density count is. So perhaps um because it's not multif family that's why it's showing up as NA but on 30 acres you'd have three residential lots under AR zoning that would be possible. Okay. So one so AR zoning is one

10 acre lot acre minimum lot. Okay. Okay. Um, and what's the canopy? Uh, well, look at that. 60 and 30 for CR. So, 30% conserved canopy and 60% planted and conserved. And AR is our zone where you can take everything down. So, 0% to name. Oh, as an agricultural use. So, tickering is an egg use.

I got you. I got you. But not So, yeah. Okay. That totally makes sense. Um, all right. So, and and uh another question for staff. So, like the rural future land use is the green belt, right? Locally, yes. So, a zoning category that is allowed or that is compatible with the rural future land use is compatible with the green belt. Okay, sounds good.

I feel like we're getting back to Old Apple Road. I mean, 30 acres is a lot of acreage and this sounds like a fairly large church. I just don't I agree with what Sarah's saying. The green belt had meaning. It just doesn't feel compatible. This doesn't feel [clears throat] feels like a disruption. But with old Elton Road, we were looking at changing the future land use

away from rural and and like so yeah, the green belt has meaning and and certain and certain uses under the commercial rural zone were contemplated within that meaning. And there you can you can still disagree with it and that's totally fine. But I just wanted to like clarify what is the green belt? What do we mean when we're talking about it and like what is the meaning that it has had and it has always contemplated these kinds of uses.

Yeah. Um, so I I hear what um Clara Barisford and Jen are saying, but um I'm also, you know, when I look at the permitted uses table for commercial rural, you know, like Bruce said, it allows 16 bedrooms per acre, which would mean 480 bedrooms on a 30 acre parcel, but there's no sewer anywhere near this site, so nothing like that will ever happen, right? There's no land sewer anywhere near it. Um there are however some uses that are of right in commercial rural that don't really require sewer such as self- storage facilities.

Um you know so so a straight reszone to commercial rural does give me pause for the simple reason that it doesn't restrict the use [clears throat] unless there's a condition that restricts the use as part of a grant of a reszone. If this were to be the church that these folks want to build, that wouldn't concern me at all. When I drive through rural Georgia, I see a lot of churches. And so that seems perfectly consistent with our green belt. And so I think my um although I totally uh understand and agree with the general idea of like we should be cautious, I think Sarah Garing's absolutely right that this is not a future land use change that CR zoning is consistent with our green belt. So, it's not a huge deal. Um, and if if all these folks want to do is build a church, my um view would be let them do it. And maybe we let them do it by um by granting the reszone subject to a condition that these two [clears throat] parcels track three and track four on the survey um can't be used um for anything other than a church. Um, and you know, then the I I have no concerns about like what else might go in there. Straight resone gives me a little bit of pause, but people want to build a church. I don't think we have any business standing in their way.

I I have two questions for staff and then I'll get to your question. First off, um I I think partly what throws me is the commercial rural. It's kind of like big small. Like to me it's just kind of two different words that don't seem So what I'm saying though is like I feel like an example of a commercial rural lot would be like a lumber yard

like something that requires some space and has some space around it. Um with that in mind like what kind of building limits would be in place for just a straight reason. Like I'm not even thinking about whether or not a church will be here. Like just I now have a commercial rural property. It's 30 acres. What could I build that out to? So your maximum lot coverage is 35%. Right. So like my god. Yeah. That's okay. Yeah. So I mean yeah a third 400,000 square feet 10 acres on this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's maybe a partial answer to your question.

And that does that include like paved areas and all that. Yes, that would be lot coverage.

Total lot coverage. So you have a building and the and and the parking lot that associated with all that. Okay. Thank you. That's helpful, Alex. So, um, you know, when I was reading this and thinking neat little church on the side of the road, you know, on the in the rural areas, um, they're everywhere and they're near houses and not we don't know what this is. This I am extremely uncomfortable changing the zoning and we don't even know it's going to be a church and we don't know what the church is going to look like. We don't know how big the church is going to be. There are some big ugly buildings that call themselves churches and the lights, everything. It it I couldn't I I couldn't be comfortable without a a a binding plan uh practically on this. I mean, that's what would make me kind and I'd be extremely comfortable possibly. There are churches I live near Timothy Road. their their churches there that people live all around and doesn't bother anybody. Um, and but they mix in a little better or they're at a big intersection with a lot of commercial around or or such. But that's what's holding me back is just doing this and letting the chips fall with them because that is exactly what we would be doing. Kristen, there was one other metric that you you may want to know. the floor area ratio that's a maximum for this is 0.25. So on when it comes to that you we're talking about you know a quarter of the total which is still a lot still a lot but as it relates to other commercial zones that's very very low. Um so that floor area ratio is the amount of floor area of a of structures.

Um so just putting that out there too. Um but it it 30 time 43 560 a quarter of that that's a lot of square footage. So right yeah a question but Matt might have I'm not sure who Matt. Okay.

Okay. I just have a couple more observations because I I fully hear what Alex uh is saying. looking at the use table distribution center like an Amazon warehouse is a permitted use in commercial rural. So a 7 acre Amazon warehouse that covers 25% of a 30 acre parcel is a permitted use outright um in a commercial rural 30acre parcel. So, um, you know, the church limitation might be a way to address that, but you know, I'm I'm certainly open to the suggestion that maybe we just should encourage the applicant to come back with the either, you know, the reason request with a binding site plan, showing us what the church is going to look like and how much coverage there's going to be and that there's no Amazon warehouses. Not that that's what you all intend to do, but you know, if the land changed hands, if a bank foreclosed, whatever, you know, uh, reszones are kind of a big deal if they don't have restrictions. So, so I hear what Alex is saying and there are certainly some cans of worms that could get open there. Now, one other thing that was mentioned, I think earlier on that I just wanted to bring back to the surface is I think Bruce, you said that under the current zoning, a church is a is permitted as a special use permit. Is that right? So that would be another way that we the applicant could be encouraged to proceed is to we can table this for 60 days, let them come back with a either a binding plan with a reszone or just no reason but a special use permit um to allow them to do a church on this and then I think all of the concerns I've heard expressed would be alleviated by that.

I agree with that. I think we don't have enough information and I think having those options would be beneficially. They would have to they would have to withdraw their reszone and submit a whole new start over again with a special use request. You can't table it and then switch their request. Okay. But a resone with a binding plan could be a table and and revise, but a special use is just withdraw and Okay. Thank you.

Um I guess this kind of touches all that said. Why um why wasn't actually never mind I don't have that question anymore. Um when we had looked at special use permits for um or special use approvals for churches in the past do those have binding site plans? Okay. It's not just a use thing.

Okay. Um yeah I think this question I mean my opinion hasn't changed. I I don't believe it's my respiration about sort of what's compatible. I mean, this kind of came up recently because there are people in the community that are concerned with future land use map changes. And the idea being that if you up update the future land use designation for a piece of land, this is more kind of talking about urban density that they're worried that because a certain type of zoning is allowed in is considered compatible like maybe there are small multif family that are allowed in that particular future land use designation where they live. I think that there's concern that that means that somebody can sort of automatically like that the slope is downhill to reszone to multif family right next to single family. And I think it's important for us to to be clear on that that that is not what that means. It just means that those zonings are allowed in that area in general. It doesn't mean that somebody has more of a right necessarily to ask for that particular zoning. So, I I know that CR is compatible with this area, but um this is why we have zoning applications is to be able to look at these places um on individual basis. And I'm I'm with everyone who says, you know, I don't really have a problem with the church there. I do have a problem with a a big church with lots of lights. I think that the point there is really important. Um, so I think that a I'd be happy to like look at a special use permit application in the current zoning and I would just say that like it's still that church

that is proposed still needs to honor the rural nature of the area around it. We have design standards about lights. Uh, are they different depending on like they by zone? They v. So the the lights in the rural zone would be different different requirement. I don't I don't I didn't bring my binder today. I'm sorry.

We've got a whole chapter of the code that deals with with lighting, outdoor lighting. Um, in our C zones, uh, without reading these numbers to you as if they would have meaning, yes, read them to you. I will say we do have standards for our commercial zones. CR would fall into that slot. The other zones that follow those same standards include employment office, employment, industrial, industrial, government, park, and institutional zones. So those are the ones that are sort of categorized as having the same lighting standards. Perhaps that's helpful for the discussion. Great.

How are the lighting standards different from CR to AR? So in the AR zones [clears throat] I'm part of another group AR or RS single family residential and RM mixed density residential those zones all live in the same category for lighting level and is the lighting more intense or less intense less less in they would not be so the church if they went here they would be able to increase their light the lighting intensity would increase and you're saying that the sea the option to go toward so the category of lighting um regulation is the same for all the seas. Yeah. Okay. Mhm. So that's important. So CR doesn't have a special limitation on lighting.

Correct. The same lighting regulations along say Atlanta highway would also apply to a commercial lighting levels. Right. Right. It's just the building would be different because of the size would be allowed. Correct. In theory. Matt, can I ask the applicant a question?

Sure. Um so you've you've heard the discussion and some of the concerns and um mult there's obviously many ways we could proceed. One of which is to um if if the applicant wants to withdraw we can grant that request here. Um if the applicant wants a vote up or down um then I think that's what we have to do. Um, so or do you just want to share your thoughts with us on what makes sense to you all?

Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity. Um, we discussed special use versus reszone at the the staff level and we're told the burden of proof was not there to grant a special use um that it was unlikely and that a reszone would be the more likely course of action. Um, I'm happy to accept conditions um on the lighting. I know that's come up a few times. Um, you know, if you want to um put a condition on, you know, the church shall be used, if you want to put conditions on um, you know, lighting standards, if you want to hold us to residential lighting standards, I think that's going to be easy to do. Um I think with the proposal um that the church is looking at you know kind of the size and the standards that would be something that would be easily accomplished um to hold us to a lower standard than commercial um but as far as lighting or setbacks you know I mean you talk about the green belt I did want to highlight you know as agricultural the owner you know if this falls through I mean I'm not trying to scare but he could go level all the trees and sell them and try to sell to you know something else it would require a PD, it would require special use. It would require coming back before this body if you wanted to sell to a neighborhood or something like that. He'd be in the same shoes I would, but the commercial is very restrictive on what we can do. We have to plant, I believe you said it was 65% tree canopy at the end, which would actually increase the tree coverage that's out there now. It's mostly pasture. So, I I guess kind of I'll put it back on you. I would be happy to accept conditions um if we're concerned about overall size or overall coverage or uses. is, you know, if you want to say, well, approve the reszone if a church is the only thing that can go on there. Um, because I mean, the way the just looking on the back side again, you're not concerned about something selling. I mean, the it's a done this parcel will only be sold to us if it gets resed. Um, that's kind of the way the deal is set up. So, we're perfectly acceptable because if we if we buy it, it's going to be a church.

Um, otherwise, it's not going to be not going to be sold to us. So, um, I guess I'll defer back to you guys on any type of conditions. Um, we just kind of circle back to where I started. The reason we went down reszone instead of special use was one just due to time um that it takes to develop that and pricing and all that. Um, but also we we were kind of told that special use was going to be unlikely given the burden of proof um on this parcel. Can I ask too? It sounds like you're not ready to present a binding site plan and that there'd be cost in developing that because of the architecture and all that stuff and but I assume that of the 30 acres it's only a very small fraction that would be disturbed in in Yel's plan because you know an Amazon warehouse could go on a 30 acre parcel but if only three acres of this can be disturbed if that were a condition would that um hamper your use in any way? Um, thinking about percentage-wise, um, the the agricultural the 15% was slightly hampering, uh, to the use, but 35 is probably more than we need. Um, so I believe, you know, on the 30, you know, you're looking at um, excuse me while I do some math here, it's late. You know, at 15% you're looking at four and a half acres of of coverage. That starts to become slightly limiting. We talk about the access drive you have to build to get the, you know, to get the parking lot behind the structure and those kinds of things, but um 35 is is probably more than we would need. So, if you wanted to put some kind of extra restrictive coverage, we'd be happy to accept that. Okay.

And something in the 20 25% range um I think would be acceptable for Okay. Thanks for clarifying. Um Bruce, do do you have any comment on the special use appropriateness? Um because I'd hate to suggest that they do that and pay another filing fee for a special use permit and then like get a staff recommendation that says the criteria aren't satisfied.

Yeah, I'm not I have to admit I was not part of that preapp discussion. Um I think the the criteria associated with the special use I think I think that's in the hands of the applicant to respond to and provide information to support. Um we didn't have that at the time. We were I guess having a staff level discussion about the the various paths. I think the bigger issue that I understood was coming out of the discussion was the the time and the expense and at present the congregation's uncertainty about what their ultimate building plan would be made a special use kind of a heavy-handed approach when they didn't have those answers yet. But what they had in front of them was an opportunity for the for the property to come into their control. So given that situation, the the reszone was a path that would remove the special use, architectural binding, site plan binding, report binding criteria and put them into a zoning category that was in alignment with the rural designation and allow them to kind of do their planning and do their fundraising and do the work that they would need to do without the burden of that special use effort. Um because in all likelihood it would have to come back and be amended for whatever ultimate reality turned out to be how they could develop the church. Um does that answer your question?

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. If I could add clarification on that, when we talked with them, we talked about because of this lock coverage, they would potentially need a variance on their special use. And that's where we thought there might be a um okay, it would be hard to support that because it would be hard to find a hardship. If you need the special use with the variance to get approval and you can't get the variance, then that's might be where they're saying, "Oh, we were advised not to do the special use." Stephen, are you saying that that that the problem would have been that they wanted to have too much impervious surface? They would need to go above the limit that AR allowed.

Yes. So they would be too much. Therefore, you need the variance from a staff standpoint might be hard to support. Well, and from an ordinance standpoint, from an ordinance, I wouldn't want to say from a staff standpoint. From an ordinance standpoint, the criteria just read previously for approving a variance is one of them is is the situation of the applicant's making and and this would be so I think that's where Thank you, Stephen. I think that's where that clarification and that discussion was trying to go.

Yeah, I have a question for you. So, do you have I know you don't have a site plan and it sounds like you don't need a full 35% of 30 acres. Do you have a sense in general of how big the church intends to be? So, what um the church is part of a of a network of individually governed churches. There's a church that recently constructed a a facility in Videlia. Um they built um it was about 650 seats. Um what does that equate to in square footage?

So they built um it was about 28,000 square feet of building um which is way below the limit here. I know that sounds big but again way below the limit. And then um that would I'm drawing a blank on the number of parking spaces but that we'd go off Athens Clark County um requirements for the seats. And then there was um a minor amount of um like classroom space on the outside within that that 28,000 square feet. Roughly like 30 to 40,000 square feet of building.

28,000 ft of building. Um and then they built um down in Videlia, they built an extra-lar parking lot. Um we wouldn't go that high because frankly we would be subject to the storm water ordinance u when we build this. You know, once this goes to to construction, we'd be subject to the rainfall recharge and all that. So this the less impervious we can build to get our use the better because the the tension and the you know the rainfall recharge and all that is based on the impervious structure. So the other thing that we're looking at which is why we have kind of the the the 20 and 10 um split right now is uh we're we're really going to we're going to construct primarily on the 20 acres. We won't be able to cross that property line. We're going to keep the 10 for like accessory uses um keeping that rural feel. Um, part of it is the seller only wanted to sell 30 acres and so we're buying 30 acres. Um, the 20 is is in our control. Um, and that's really where we primarily want to build and the 10 will be kept in our in our possession for other things. Um,

be kind of a stupid question, but why do you want 20 acres for a church? We when we started this process, we thought it was because that's what we could afford. Uh, 20 acres versus 30, the price of land, uh, the monthly payment, those kinds of things. I think my question really is why do you need 20 acres? Why don't you just defy?

Part of it is the coverage requirements and the parking. Um so you start getting down to five acres. Trying to put, you know, 28,000 on five acres runs you way high on your um your your coverage. So now you're looking at variances anyway. You're looking at things like that. So, we really only need, you know, as far as what we're building, you're talking about building four and a half, five acres, but we need 30 to make it fit that rural feel for this zoning for the area, for it keeps it tucked away. You know, you talk about some of the churches you see that are right up on the right up on the neighbors. That's what we're trying to avoid. Um, and in reality, switching to CR gives us the ability, actually forces us to keep it at 65% canopy coverage, tree coverage. whereas with AR there there really isn't a isn't a standard. Um so we kind of circle back around, you know, and I appreciate your time and the good discussion on this. We'd be happy to to entertain any type of limiting um concerns that you may have um at this time because special use is is a long process. It's costly um and not having an exact plan yet in order to purchase the property, in order to make a plan. you know, we can't invest the kind of capital to have a full-blown architectural site plan before even buying a parcel because that may get all thrown out the window if if it doesn't go through. So, um, any other questions or concerns?

You you still have to design the site plan for a a large building though? Like that's still part of the process. It's going to have to happen. it it would be part of the process and we we would be held to Athens Clark County standards as far as you know you talk about the light pollution you know the the standards do require that we don't flood our neighbor with light you know you talk about Atlanta highway those don't really fall under the current standards they're old um so you that that's not the idea what we're what we're putting out there um we would have to you to do cut offs and make sure we're not doing one one foot candle of light I know that's a standard that mean a even to me other than I know how to measure it. Um, we would be required to have make sure we're not polluting our neighbors. We're not just going to go out there and put, you know, six flags and have it lit up all night long. It's it it does fall under ordinance.

Question. Um, not not for the applicant. I dismissed. I think you're good. Yeah. Um, a quick question for Bruce and then I think I'll be ready to make a motion. Um uh as far as uses go, if we uh put a limitation as uh limitation on the use saying that it can only be used for church use, religious use, whatever it is in the code. Um if the church like has a daycare, is that still are they still allowed to do that under the church use?

That's a good question. So the way we the way we review the use of church property, you know, some some churches may have a school. Some churches may have family life center of some sort and and they'll run a basketball camp or something like that. If it's under the opices of the church, it's under the church use. Okay. um if it's on a separate parcel, which we do have that other tract and and they were to develop something that that functions separately from the church, it just happens to be on church owned properly, but it's leased say to something else, that would not be part considered part of a church use.

Okay. Um uh knowing that I would like to make a motion uh to recommend approval with a condition that the uh parcel um uh only be used um uh only have the approved use of church. Can I ask a clarification? There was some discussion about the lighting levels associated with AR. That is not a part of my motion. Good. Thank you. Second.

If there's no second, I would like to make a almost the same but slightly different motion. Okay. So, yeah. So, first motion. Um, okay. What's your motion?

So, um, my motion would be, uh, to recommend approval with the condition that the use be restricted to church and that um, the lighting restrictions applicable in the AR zone shall apply to the parcel. And that's my second condition. And then my third condition is um that I'm going to say no more than 20% of the parcel they be that impervious surface is limited to 20% of the parcel. So that gives them a little more than the 15 they would get in AR.

We say lock coverage just to be consistent with code lock coverage. Yeah. Sure. Sure. block coverage shall be limited to 20% of the um

the com and by parcel I mean to say the the combined 30 acre these two separate tracks so maybe parcel is not the right word but no more than six acres on this these two tracks can be covered second second. Oh, okay. Any discussion? I'll let Stephen catch up and then we can do a vote. Motion to recommend with three conditions that the use shall be restricted to a church that lighting restrictions for the AR zone shall be applied and that no more than 20% of lock coverage shall be allowed

or the area of the reszone or the area of the res. Okay. That that's referred to the 20 acres or the 30. Okay. All righty. I'm sorry. I'm gonna have to ask more about that. You're saying that the 20% applies to the full 30 acres that are actually going to be two different pieces of property.

But we don't do that, do we? when we're like reszoning properties and looking at properties and looking at storm water regulations and lot coverage I I think right you so it would be what would I don't know there's got to be a different way to do that but I think that's not quite like it has to apply to one or the other or something I'm not sure how to do this on the 30 acres represented in the request no more than 20% of that 30 acre area would have bought coverage. Which of the two are they proposing to put the church on? Track three.

The 20 acres. The second from the top. Yes. 20 acres. I mean, could it just But there's nothing to stop them from recombining the parcels, right, as well. So, the boundary of the reszone, I think, is the way staff would interpret that condition. Yeah. Mhm.

I just think we sort of Well, I don't know what we've frown on, but it seems like sort of it's either one piece of property or two pieces of property. It seems like that should be sort of applied. Um I don't know. I'm not sure. I just I'm not going to use the 10 acres to build on, then it really shouldn't be part of this. They suggested some other I mean like a parsonage house. I don't know what I'm I'm just thinking of the things that go with a church, but they said there might be something else like that, right?

I guess that would be my my So maybe that's five and a half for the church and then a half acre for a parsonage. That's that's kind of the theory in my mind that I could see. That makes sense. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. It might be a playground on the other parcel or parsonage house or any other Yeah. Outdoor area.

All right. Ready for a vote? Motion recommend approval of conditions hearing. Yes. You restate the conditions. Um the use shall be restricted to a church. lighting restrictions for the AR zone shall be applied and that no more than 20% of the reszone area can be um can have lock coverage or the reszone area is limited to 20% lock coverage.

Thank you. Start again. Okay. Garing. Yes. Lee, no. Harrisford, no. Paul, yes. Pass. Yes. Sams, no. Sanders, yes. Motion passes 4 to three. Thanks. Now the moment we all

everyone loves short-term rentals house on Thursday night. Yes. Okay. Um staff sorry presentation right here. Not on screen. Not on there. Excellent. So we're gonna work from the memos. Um, the information that we've presented on short-term rentals, I think, is fairly well documented. The data is the same that we presented at work session and under prior discussion with this body.

So, what's in front of you is summarized in the cover memo that came from staff. Um, the text amendments that are proposed uh categorically are trying to do things and and both of these things are in line with the discussion that recently occurred with that going up session with the county commission. The first thing is to help clarify short-term rental home occupation uses and to bring that definition in line with home occupations of other sorts. Um, so that it's understood the dwelling units in a multif family development, whether that be in a commercial zone or in a multif family zone. Um, each of those units is eligible for a home occupation short-term rental use. The second thing, which is a much larger set of changes, is to remove the special use permit requirement for commercial short-term rentals. So, clear distinction on that. Making sure we're commercial short-term rentals here from all the use tables and then making a determination as to where they're permitted and where they're not permitted and if there are any conditions associated with those to make that happen. So in the EO employment office zone, commercial short-term rentals would be permitted by right and as was discussed earlier that would be within the 20% total of of the total square footage is eligible for residential use. Just to make that clear, um the institutional the AR zones and the the all of the C zones would have a limitation of some sort associated with them being permitted by rights. um in the institutional which is a zone that's frankly hasn't even been used yet but it exists in the code um the notion there is that that residential use would be something that is operated by functions as part of the institution as a whole so

that's that limitation it's it's there's language in there to help with that um in the AR zone [clears throat] the limitation is talking about the fact that short-term rental commercial uses would not be permitted in AR neighborhoods as defined in the code. Um, but they would be allowed on any other property that doesn't qualify as an AR neighborhood. So, in the areas of agricultural residential where you have large lots in a single family home or a residential unit present, a commercial short-term rental would be allowed by right. Um, the the AR neighborhood and I think this is worth saying out loud. Uh the AR neighborhood distinction brings this on par in staff's opinion with single family residential subdivisions. Um if that is a character-defining feature of a single family residential subdivision that they don't have a commercial short-term rental use that should be the same in AR neighborhood. [clears throat] And then in all the C zones there is a limitation that was worded making it clear again that this is per dwelling unit. So, you know, not looking at it as per parcel. Um, the big finish on this, I guess, is making it clear that special uses no longer involved and commercial short-term rentals would not be permitted in any of the RS zones, in any of the RM zones, in the I light industrial, and in the I industrial zones. Happy to answer any questions you might have. Um, I'm gonna ask for public comment.

Fair enough. First, so do we have anyone, I guess, to speak in favor of the text amendment or to speak in opposition. It's fine if you all want to speak at all. It's fine. You want to go first. How are you? Oh, okay. [laughter] I was depending on Clint to go first uh because I think I will. Okay.

I I think he understands the issue a little better than I do. However, fools rush in. I'm Marilyn Vickers 197 Witherspoon Court. Uh and I have been working um the last several years on this STR issue. Um, I'm the woman who has the VRBO next door, an RS zone. Um, so I really just have a question from what you just said, Bruce. So are you saying that that um this special use u or I'm sorry that commercial STRs cannot be in AR zones in RS zones in RM zones or in EI zones. Is that what you just said? So in in all the zones that you just said other than AR, that's correct. They're not permitted in the AR. They're not permitted in the areas of the agricultural residential zone that are known as an AR neighborhood. And so those are platted subdivisions that had that share a development scheme. You could not do a commercial subdivision, a commercial short-term rental in those subdivision.

Okay. So, could someone um buy some AR land and put up a big party st as a special event facility and and probably with um an STR because they're going to want people to stay there. So, the special event facility is a special use. So, like a like wedding facility that that's in a barn kind of setting, those are special uses. Um, but a short-term rental, not a party facility, but a short-term rental, commercial short-term rental, where you don't have somebody who's living there, um, that's an owner occupant or a long-term resident, those would be allowed in that AR setting outside of an AR neighborhood.

Does that help? Okay. Yes. Higher density like it would be just same as a house. Yeah. It'd be one house on 10 acres. Okay. Uh, all right. Then, um, what I would, uh, have to say that I'm not sure is is being, uh, covered in this is that, uh, right now, uh, as far as home occupancy STRs, as I understand, we have about 107 in the county. Uh, and there are still 711 non-conforming STRs. And does this say anything about non-conforming STRs? No, ma'am.

Okay. Is anything going to be said about non-conforming STRs? Yes. And so and and perhaps something like that. Ask me a question. It's true. Uh the the uh uh non legal non-conforming short-term rentals, um where they're located, those the terms of the sunset clause, perhaps maybe that's what you're asking about. the sunset clause is going to be taken up separately as part of the discussion regarding licensing um because there may be a causal relationship there and that was that was the request from the county commission when we met as a group

was to divide those two topics right so so the direction that we received out of that meeting was to move forward with the special use question and that the the sunset clause timing and should it be extended should it be eliminated those types questions would be taken up at the same time as the licensing question. Okay. Well, thank you for that clarification. Yes, ma'am. I yield my no time. [laughter]

Um I'm Clint Moore. Uh I'm at 228 Parkway Drive in Athens and um I I mainly don't want to leave Maryland hanging. Um I I came to uh talk uh mainly about the issue of uh the uh the non-conforming STRs and plans for um um uh well what what will happen to the the sunset provision and the and the licensing uh things but this is not the time or place to talk about that tonight. I understand it'll come. It'll come. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So, who wants to start? Who's got

I just got a question. I'm not going to carry on, but the All right. So, now we are It was that RM RM would do special use and they could get it just like we did tonight. Um, according to this, if if this were approved as written by us and and or recommended in their commission, that wouldn't even be an option for them, right? Just and we would never again see one of those special use that we've seen 800 less

and and that they would have to do something else with their property. Everybody in RM's done still doation, right? They could do home occupation.

Yes. I think the thing that stuck out at me when I looked at this, which I mean generally this looks good. I I either misunderstood neglectfully or willfully I guess the conversation around the RM. And [clears throat] I think that at least what I was trying to say was that we needed some set of criteria or standards or rules or some something that would make the RM special use requests less arduous, less arbitrary, less kind of like what Sarah was saying earlier tonight, like I don't want to take into consideration the person standing in front of us. And so I think that's the thing that gave me pause about this was that I think what I was looking more for was like if there's an apartment building with 100 units, there will be a maximum of x number of licenses available for that type of use. I think that's what I was kind of looking for and that that it would fall under licensing so that it's something that could be revoked somebody after um and that there would only be a certain number of so I'm not really going to die on that hill. I just that's what I thought that's what I felt like the group was asking for was just a little bit more for that process to feel less arbitrary. So that was part of the discussion, but my understanding was there was a a large contingent of out of residential loans period. Like the fact that it's an RM but not RS that is unfair to the folks in RM like you know who have single family houses and RM you know that that so so this is writing that shift.

The other portion what you're talking about that criteria we did discuss it but that was going to take more detail. So it was a question of do we want one portion earlier to kind of fix the RM issue and then we'll come back with the licensing and with the criteria and with the those other if it is not permitted then it is not eligible for license it won't get licensed. Yeah this RM then it's out of the licensing business unless we go back and redo it which we could which we could in one fell sw. Well, again, l we're stopping and starting that. I mean, we're going to

The licensing discussion is still to happen, but it's it's conceivable that your licensing wouldn't just be for commercial short-term rentals. It would also be for the home occupation short-term rentals,

right? Eligible for RM still has always been the process for RS. So the the I think the key distinction that needs to be understood is we've got or key point we've got a lot of property that's eligible to operate a short-term rental like a lot a lot of property it's just of what form and um the RM still has the opportunity and that's why we wanted to be clear with this first point that we have here that we aren't saying in the RM it's one per parcel we're saying it's one per dwelling unit for home occup occupancy

for home occupation version of short-term rental. So, not to say that we were trying to have a balancing act. We again, we did that for consistency with other home occupations, period. But I think I think the other outcome of that is these RM properties with this text amendment have there's there's an opening of the door for more opportunity. It's just as a home occupation. That helps. Okay. Thank you.

Um, so I thought this was all um very sensible and seemed good, but I do have just one kind of question that's more a logic thing than anything else. And um on pages four and five of the handout um so in commercial zones uh the very last line on page four notes that commercial short-term rentals are a permitted use commercial zones,

right? And then we're adding under the home occupation thing this footnote about oh only one it's got you know uh one accommodation per dwelling unit and it has to be owner occup. Um so why is anybody ever going to do the home occupancy route in a commercial zone? If they have a house in a commercial zone they want to do as an STR, if it's permitted to do a commercial one, then what's the point of restrict, you know, the home occupancy type has to be your, you know, um because earlier I asked the same right before we started it was sort of if both of those are option and commercial, why would somebody choose the one that's

Yeah, I couldn't think of any reason why anyone would choose the one with restrictions and not choose the commercial one. Um, so does that mean that we I mean maybe, you know, put footnote L17 is in there just because for consistency because it's that way with all the other home ones I suppose is

maybe that's a good enough answer. I just I just thought it was a little funny that like, oh, you can do it the easy way or the hard way that's limited and everybody's going to choose that. And if they don't live there, I'm sorry, if they do live there, do they have to do it as a home occupation or can they do it like if it's their let's say they I don't remember in Georgia how many nights you have to live somewhere to call it your primary residence, but let's say you live there 180 nights a year and the rest of it you rent out. So is your primary residence, you you have a home uh stud exemption, can you do it as a commercial short-term rental if you want to? consistency was the goal. Let's start there.

Um would So, so we do have some properties that are zoned commercially that are in subdivisions because there was a period of time where um ever thought this was happen that this would happen, but we had subdivisions pop up in commercially zone property and built with single family homes. Um, we have two notable developments like that. Um, I'm a little fuzzy on this, so I'm going to I'm going to ask my other staff folks to kind of help me on on thinking this through because I'm not I'm not reading the home occupation permit in front of me that would help provide this answer. If you are, if that is your primary residence, I think there's a sticking point for that to be your primary residence and also to be a commercial property, meaning a commercial short-term rental.

What is that sticking point? Well, that's that's I think

I think that's the hangup is so but you have the option if that is your home. You just come through and you do the home occupation permit. But I I think we're going to run into some building code problems. I think we're going to run into some other issues that if this is your homestead exemption piece and now you're going to try to claim it as a commercial property. I I don't think you get to do that. And I and I don't think it's a zoning code issue. I think it's some other issues that may come to play. But the fact is in the Czones where somebody has a house where they live in your scenario of 181 days a year or whatever, that's their primary residence. the option that's available to them is the home occupation version of short-term rental. Um, how that does or doesn't translate into whatever licensing scheme may come along down the line, I I don't know. But there are other own standards to be brought to bear, whether it's from the fire marshall or the building code officials um about commercial function in a residence. And I don't I think I don't think those are going to sync up very well. But in a commercially zone piece of property, you would have either option.

And in either pathway, you have to get a you will likely have to get some sort of approval. Like on the commercial pathway, you have to There's permitting for either. Yeah. Permitting. Well, zoning. I'm I'm only focusing on the zoning. So, if it's a home occupation, you have a home occupation permit. If it's a commercial function, you'll go through plans review and you'll have to you'll get reviewed by 13 reviewing departments and you'll you'll emerge with permits to do the use. Okay. So, to your point, Matt, this the commercial short-term rental permitting process is a is a lot more involved because you have to go through our construction plans review process for an existing property. I have to go construction plans review

because there are modifications to that property that you might have to do to come into compliance with it as a commercial short-term route. So, somebody might actually rationally choose the home occupancy route in a commercial zone to avoid that. Correct. Okay, that's good enough for me as far as why [clears throat] they're both in there. Thank you, Alex.

So, jump on my door and I'm trying to think good governing, good keep somehow going from this to that to this to that. So, we've said RM you can do it with special permit. People are making decisions based on that information. [clears throat] If this is approved all the way through, then we're gonna say, "Well, no, not anymore. RM's off the table now. Doesn't matter that you made a decision according to this because you thought that was going to be the ordinance. We've changed the ordinance again." Um, but maybe we'll get you. I mean, we don't say anything, but then So, either we just all leave it at that, or we go back to the licensing thing, which I understand, you know, we're separating those a little bit. And if it was all chosen this way and elect or or voted on, possibly RM can come back in with a license. So that that's never

short-term rental. No, if this were adopted, no, licensing wouldn't somehow change the zoning regulation. Okay. So RM is out forever. Licensing will not help. But somebody who has a SUP that was previously issued is still grandfathered in. Yeah, I would assume that they can't in the future a new one could.

But so so I'm just making making sure I'm very clear on it. Yeah. So, RM, that means again that what we just said was great. Those are perfect. We we we're recommending you the mayor and commission to uh do short-term rental to those two units earlier today. That that sort of thing can't happen anymore then in RM, right? No special RM2. So, no special use. So, their neighbor can't do it or no other no other place in a facility where multiple families live. And as a commercial short-term rental as a home occupation, Yes.

Yeah. Okay. So, we're we just that's the part I don't have a not comfortable. But to that point though, like why because right now we don't allow it in RS. Why would we allow it in RM and not RS? Because you cannot build an apartment complex in my neighborhood that's RS. But when I think of

I think of lots of single family neighborhoods. We have so many in town stressed neighborhoods that do that are actively like like these short-term rentals have like really hit these neighborhoods the hardest. So that to me when I hear the RM like oh it's okay in RMs that to me is code for oh these historically black neighborhood that's okay to have the short-term rentals but not in Boulevard. Like that's that's how it reads to me. And I think it's completely unfair and ridiculous. So like if it's I I feel like and I I I'm cool with short-term rentals honestly, but like if it's going to be like that then no this say no in residential and yes in commercial and we'll just go from there. That's that's how I feel about it.

The you're talking about the neighborhoods you're talking about are those RM1 or RM2 or both? All no, the the neighborhoods you're talking about that are historically black that that you're talking about, are those RM1? I'm not sure. I don't know. I think they mostly are, but I think most of Cars Hill is RM2 and that matches the description. Leave that behind. Um, I believe my point is that there is a pretty big difference between RM1 and RM3. Yeah, that I agree with what you're saying. Yeah. Um that there is some kind of weird leftover bon that is creating that situation,

right?

Sure. But I mean shared walls are shared walls. I mean that's part of what part of what Woodlink's discussion brought us back to this. Is it appropriate if you've got people sharing walls and they've got a short-term rental beside them and they had no input? They had no say so. And I also think too like again like I mean I hate that we could keep like I don't like the idea that we would keep going back to the drawing board but I mean five years ago we had like nothing on the books for this and now we're actually like working through something. I feel like it's it's kind of a fluid process because I'm sure if this if this gets approved by the American Commission, there's going to be some loopholes on your mind. I think for the like I feel like it's sort of like a whack-a-ole situation, but at least in this sense, it's sort of keeping things a little bit more.

I agree. Yeah, I think it's this is a work in progress. Um these are good changes that make what we have a whole lot better than it has been. partly because I don't want to hear 10 special use permit applications every planning commission meeting for the rest of my time on the planning commission. You know, that's just that adopting that process was a a horrific error. Um fixing that is a step in the right direction. Um it may well be that in the future, you know, um essentially like we have 700 and something existing grandfathered in short-term rentals. Um, we've in with these text ordinances by eliminating the special use permit process for RM zones, we're cutting off a supply of new short-term rentals or a method to which you seek approval of a new short-term rental, but also we're um clarifying some things about, you know, in commercial zones and in home occupations like then that'll provide a pathway for people to make new short-term rentals who want to do so with the limitations that we've talked talked about endlessly at a number of meetings and have decided are right and that does not mean as Chris just said that we'll be done after this [clears throat] because probably there will be other issues that will crop up with short-term rentals and we will have the opportunity to continue to revise these ordinances but I think this is a good step in the right direction and um I'd like to make a motion to approve the text amendment second

discussion Yeah.

Um I don't mind working a little harder to distinguish between a street that maybe it doesn't belong on and an apartment complex of condos like we talked about um today and p or or recommended. So I I get what you're saying and just throwing it out to all of our own and that's why we did say they had to come to special use and then that became a lot of effort. I just I'm I'm not going to vote in favor of this because I think we just made our lives easier at the cost of of continuing to to try to solve the problem a little more specifically. there. Um so I uh I hear that I also do think that it is reasonable um to uh try to you know forward thinkingly limit how many times uh changes will happen um just from a certainty perspective um and also I would like to point out that it's not just our time that we are saving um by cutting stopping the flow of all these special use permit uh permits. It is it is the taxpayer resource that is staff's time. Um and I could not begin to estimate the amount of tax dollars in a a strange masma of of uh public resources that are used to process these applications. Um but that is also a factor. Um, and I think from a fairness perspective,

it is important that we treat RM and RS the same um, for the reasons that Kristen said and I don't think that short-term commercial short-term rentals are important enough um, that that we have a hu we'll take a huge loss if uh, suddenly people cannot create new short-term rentals. in RM neighborhoods. Um, like the the special use permits that we saw today. Glad that we saw them. I I stand by what I voted on. I don't think it's a great tragedy if that can't keep happening. Just a quick rebuttal on that.

Okay. At the very beginning of this, I said how this is going to suck our resources dry. we weren't ready to move all of this. I definitely appreciate the fact that it takes staff's time, an enormous amount of time. I can only speak from my time though, so that was what I was referring to. But um so yeah, I'll just hold it at that.

One thing I maybe add is that to me, I don't I think the alternative to approving or approving or recommending approval of this would be to put the RMS in a moratorum to be discussed whether to add to this. I don't know if that's the right thing to do, but if there's sort of a sense that the RM spoken about or discussed a little bit more extensively, that would be more

Oh, Matt, sorry. Um, on that I'll just say that I agree with Sarah that I think that it's a Sarah Garing that that it's uh important from a fairness perspective to treat RM and RS the same for the reasons that Kristen mentioned earlier. Um, and if later on we're directed by the mayor commission to like, hey, maybe apartment complexes we can carve out a different kind of rule like fine, you know, across the bridge when we come to it. Again, I think this is a good package of amendments and it makes the ordinance materially better.

We have a mot. There's a motion in a second. Okay. Why don't we go ahead and vote? All right. Motion to approve. Gary, yes. Yes. Yes. Paul, yes. Pass. Yes. Sams, no.

Passes un All right, I have to report other than it's November, which means that my favorite event of the year will happen on our traditional December planning commission meeting night. So, doesn't that mean that our December meeting happens? phone. So, yeah. So, it'll be the second Thursday. Second Thursday. Yes. And we do have business. Can I can speak to that under the director's report. Okay. Well, I'm done. So, if you want to give

Okay.

Um December PC meeting. This was to be the first opportunity for us with the the new schedule where in in out of sort of an understanding that mayor and commission don't year planning commission items in January and they don't meet in July. So, we were going to look at those two planning commission meetings that lead up to those non voting routines for the commission as opportunities for us to talk about special topics. We could take up text amendments. We could talk about items of community concern. We would have an opportunity to talk about planning related things apart from and aside from an application. Um, we've heard from each of you individually, some collectively on some other things where that would be of value. So, we wanted to give that a shot. Best laid plans. Right. So, we do have a business item that will be coming forward um regarding property on um the the core the development

by virtue of the vote [clears throat] that happened on Tuesday night um that authorized the ability for the reszone to move forward on a certain schedule. that certain schedule involves a December planning commission consideration of that item. So, you will have a zoning a reszone request for two parcels um to go from CD zoning, forgive me, GZ zoning to CD. Oh, right. The parking lot, right? The two pieces that Atheis Park County owns

would be up for consideration. Um, so, uh, that application, the kind of revisited application of that will be in our hands tomorrow, I believe. So, we will have that. Um, and then we will also let you know what that discussion topic will be. Um, there's a couple things that are pressing, staff is kind of working through right now that we think it might be best to talk with the planning commission about before we have something sitting in front of you. Um, so I'm I'm going to be getting some guidance from management on those questions. So I think that's where our content is going to come from as a training opportunity

apart from an applica application about something that is going to be coming before you in the new year. Is that fair? There's my tease. So okay. Um, so Bruce, just to clarify to make sure I understand that, is it safe to say that going forward planning commission meetings prior to the December Maring Commission and and July Maring Commission when they're not voting on planning items will generally not include applications. So y'all will just be telling applicants who are applying who want to apply for, you know, a June meeting, you got to wait till July because that's the timeline now. and and we're you're reserving those except when exceptional circumstances like that.

The wording that we have on the schedule is that there will be no final action taken by the planning commission. Okay. At the December meeting and at the June meeting. Now, if somebody comes in with a PD and it's for comment only, you'll be having that. Okay. Some of those kinds of business. There's no point doing anything. will not have final plan is to not have final votes at the December and the June planning commission meetings, but to use those as opportunities for those discussion only items. Um because applicants are still having to wait off cycle anyway because there is no commission meeting to follow. Yeah. In the normal routine. Yeah. There's no point in that.

In the event that commission voting session starts to return in those months, we'll revisit that schedule. Um, two other business items and then I I promise I'm I'm done. Um, one, I want to welcome Nell Warren who has intrepidly sat through this meeting even though she had no item to [laughter] Nell is our newest staff member. She's a planner three. She is our transportation planner charged primarily to work with Mayorts.

The MO has a really interesting sort of career arc. um administrator, educator, engineer, scientist, um grants administrator, and most recently, uh a master's graduate student from UG with an urban planning degree, uh with a focus in transportation and community design and community engagement. So, all of those things are going to serve her and us all very well. So, we're very happy to have now with us. So as one comes on board, I have to announce that one is leaving. So Stephen Jquiz has accepted a position as senior planner with the city of Monroe. So this is his last planning commission meeting.

A um so we want to thank him for for administering the work of this body specifically. So that that is one of his primary charges in his position with us is you guys. So, um, super appreciative as a director and as an interim director and as an assistant planning director for all the work that he's done with us and for us and for you. So, be missed. Bravo, Stephen.

Things I wanted to say. Um, I'm I'm grateful for the opportunity to have been able to partner with you all uh over the past three and a half years as planning commission and staff have worked to be good stewards of this unique and lovely place that we call home here in Athens, Georgia. Uh, I'm excited about the opportunity in the city of Monroe, but it was not easy to leave here, especially because there is so much more work for all of us to do implementing our new future land use vision and addressing our housing issues and setting up our build environment for success in the decades and generations to come. Um, I will miss seeing you all on a monthly basis, but you will not be free of me entirely. I will still be living here in Athens with my family and I look forward to continuing to partner with y'all on making Athens a stronger place. I'll just be doing it in a different role as a resident instead of staff member.

Excellent. Congratulations. I hear they're talking about short-term rentals down there. [laughter] They're just getting started on it again. That's it. That's it. All right. Motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. All in favor?