Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

This is the meeting for July 21st, 2026. Roll call. All members appear to be present. Any members not present? They're all here, so moving to the agenda. Has everyone had a chance to review the agenda? Are there any changes to be made?

No changes.

Then I need a motion to approve.

Motion to approve.

Sonja and Rosamond, approved and seconded, all right. Minutes from the previous meeting. They've been, we're good with that though, right? Okay, all right. A report from the code officer. Brett?

Sir, I had nothing to report this evening.

Old business. Did you get it?

Mr. Camp, can we get a motion to approve the minutes?

Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Do you need a motion to approve the minutes?

I move we approve. Second.

Motion seconded. Rosalind? John? Are you going to say aye? Aye. Okay. Got that. Thank you. Thank you. We now move to first item. Excuse me. First item on the agenda. This is certificate appropriateness 4452, 1110 North Broad Street.

And this item is, again, to be tabled from the previous month. It is, again, tabled from the City Council agenda and at the July City Council meeting. So this has to be tabled at your meeting this month. It is to be considered at the August City Council meeting. So you will be considering the CDO, hopefully, in the August Planning Commission. So, again, this needs to be tabled until the City Council can hear those two requests for hardship variance and for conditional use. Very well. So we need a motion and a second to take.

Motion to table. Second.

Motion to second. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye. Aye.

Okay. Motion carried. Excuse me. New business. Resume 4689, 120, 130, and 140 Blaine Street and 121 and 131 North Hammond Drive. There's some information on that to review. Someone to speak in favor of it?

Yeah, staff will give a presentation first.

Staff presentation first.

Okay, so here's the staff report. For the rezone, it is... for the purpose of amending the planned district that's already out here. The overall project is a redevelopment of a vacant shopping center. This is the proposed site plan here in the middle. We have, just to orient you, we have the municipal court and the police department up here. This is Hammond Drive. This is Blaine. We have Athens Tech with their track over here. And then we have Spring Street to the south just off screen. The existing shopping center is right here where these buildings are. And then this area would be new construction for some commercial and some residential. a phased project you can see overall here we have the the PCD zoning designation right here and then you have an aerial there in the bottom corner this to show you a comparison on the left is what is currently approved mostly the chain the Right here, I wanna draw your attention. And then on the right is what is proposed, and that's where the changes are, primarily in the existing building. The current plan calls for 100% commercial in that area, and the amendment is requesting the opportunity to put between 14 and 28 residences there, and 10 to 15,000 square feet of commercials, plus this kind of open gathering semi-public space. This is a large project. I'll briefly summarize it. The intent, like I said, is to redevelop the vacant shopping center. The city bought this property and created a binding redevelopment plan. We contracted with a firm to create this plan with the intent that it would then be handed off to private developers in phases to actually build it. So there are multiple phases. The subarea four here at the top has already been built. That's the court and police facility. Subarea one is a commercial mixed use. That's right here. That would be brand new. Subarea two is the residential mixed use. That's gonna be here. That would also be brand new, currently slated for townhomes. And then subarea three is residential and commercial rehab. That is the existing building here. And it's what is before you tonight asking for amendments. So like I said, it would be taking that vacant commercial space, converting it into a mix of residences and new commercial space, maybe some flex space in there as well as some public semi-public gathering space. This is a sample of what is proposed for the architecture. You'll notice there's not elevations here. There's not drawings of exactly what it's going to be. Our plan does not request that. It's not in the current plan. The current plan takes the approach of doing preferred architecture sampling from areas around the country, around the South, around Georgia. and then also includes things that are discouraged. So it's meant to have some flexibility and that was meant for the applicant to kind of take their best judgment within certain bounds. So why is this before us? The applicant is contending that the market may not be able to support 100% commercial in that sub area. Staff concurs with that assessment, seems reasonable. The pivot to residential and flex space will potentially help this project reach viability. Otherwise the project may stall and remain vacant without the amendment. We think that the amended plan in staff's opinion complies with the spirit of the original plan. It's very much compatible with the original plan And it again only amends sub area three. The rest remains as currently planned and may be up for amendments at a future date. But tonight we're only considering the area up for amendment at sub area three. So our recommendation is for approval, no conditions, as a staff. That concludes the staff report.

Here we go. Is there someone here to speak in favor of this project?

My name is Chad Draper with the Eulalia Group. This is Liz Swift with Smith Planning Group. And so we're available to answer any questions. Essentially, as they described, this phase of the project was largely designed as commercial. And we just have some concerns that big box commercial, as drawn in the original plan, would be viable out there. And we felt like a mixture of residential and commercial would fit better and be more viable. So that's essentially the request.

Thank you for preparing that report. You did a lot of my job for me. And thank you for also putting up these slides if we could. through the existing conditions because y'all did such a good job.

Well, we have your PowerPoint queued up if you want to. There's a remote there if you'd like to flip through them.

Look at y'all. Great. Yep. Like I said, y'all did a great job. You've already explained the existing site. But to reiterate, we are just looking at the existing strip mall. So on that aerial right there where you see the two parking lots, the grassy area, and then the strip mall that's in front of the current municipal court. That's the only area that we're talking about within the approved PCD. So that is this area highlighted in red here. And the revisions that we are asking for solely apply to sub area three, like was previously stated, and is mostly to allow for residential site design and architectural design and use. The approved site plan as it stands is on my left. and the amended site plan if this amendment were approved is on the right to show the limits of the changes the changes include a through street from hammond or edwards all the way through and also allows for 14 to 28 units with the orange units being flex units allowing for residential and commercial use so if there are commercial tenants that want to come in here, we can also have storefronts on that side. But the thing that is missing from the approved site plan is the use. So right now in subarea three, there are no permitted uses relevant to residential use. With this amended PCD, we would be allowing all of the ones listed above. And here is a example of the amended development controls. So we're looking to make sure Sorry, this is a little bit further than I thought it was going to be. We're still going to be allowing 10,000 to 15,000 square feet of commercial, but also allow 14 to 28 units of residential space. Before, that was not allowed. We're also looking to change the individual tenant space from zero to 10,000 square feet to 900 to 2,000 square feet. And we'll get back to that one in a second. And then for shared open space, previously we had none. We have of the existing, which is zero. And with the amendment, we would be providing 5,000 square feet of open space. Now for the amendment within the amendment, we would like to ask to change zero to 10,000 square feet to 500 to 2,500 square feet for the size of the individual tenant space. This largely came about because as we got engaged with the architects, they started looking at the building. They were not able to promise zero to 10,000 square feet ranges, and we were able to narrow it down to what it could actually be. So we would like to also add that nested amendment to the amendment within here. And the site plan controls remain the same across the sub area. And the elevations and perspectives can be seen here. In the far back is the current municipal court and I believe police station, yeah. And again. And y'all already covered this extremely well. We just would like to reiterate, we're trying to stay away from the strip mall look, hence the bottom right. Other materials and details, and y'all should have this entire pattern book. Oh, in the top, my top right, there is the through street for Hammond, that is, or for Edward Street, That is what the cross section would look like. If there are more discoveries down the road as we get into the building and we start pulling it apart, that might be a spot where you might see another amendment to the plan. And that's all I have.

Questions? Anyone here to speak in opposition to this plan? Hearing none. Seeing none.

We're going to do a motion.

Ask for a motion.

Motion to approve. Second. Second.

Motion to second.

All in favor? Before y'all get too far and long on that, they did propose an amendment. So do you want to include that amendment that they proposed in this? Did you want to discuss that at all? They were talking about changing that. It's fine. You want to include the amendment in there? Yeah. Okay.

Are you okay with that?

Yeah, I would, if you wanted me to speak to that briefly, we did have a conversation with them today and they had mentioned that to us. Flexibility is no problem with us. It actually adds some flexibility to the site. So we have no issue with what they're proposing and add some flexibility to those residential units for them. So we have no issue with what they're asking for. So this could just be a slip sheet that we put in the new amendment book. So as it goes to council, they just need to give us an amended pattern book. It just gives us, you know, this additional sheet. So there's no need to condition the pattern book. We just need to get an amended pattern book from them. So if you want to recommend approval based on what was presented to you tonight, that'd be fine.

The square footage was 900 to 2,000 square feet, and they've adjusted it to 500 to 2,500.

We okay with the motion and the second? And I'm second, yes. Again, all in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Okay.

Thank you.

Very good. Thank you. Well, we're done. Adjournment. Motion to adjourn?

Second.

Motion, second. If I could say aye. Aye. We adjourn. Thank you.