Monday, April 04, 2016

Mars Hill Road Overlay District Proposal Joins Three Rezone Requests On Oconee County Commission Agenda

Animal Control Too

The proposed Mars Hill Road Overlay District is back on the agenda of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners tomorrow night.

The commissioners also will consider three rezone requests, two for properties in the quickly developing area surrounding the Virgil Langford Road and Oconee Connector intersection.

Linda S. Abney et al. are seeking to rezone 1.5 acres on the southwest corner of that intersection for a bank.

E.A. Development LLC is seeking to rezone .6 acres on the northeast corner of Virgil Langford Road and Jennings Mill Road for future commercial development.

The third rezone is for Green Tree Metals LLC, which is seeking to rezone 8.2 acres on Mars Hill Road west of U.S. 78 for an architectural and structural metals manufacturing operation.

The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at the Courthouse in Watkinsville.

Overlay District

The county has been considering an overlay district for the Mars Hill Road corridor for more than a year.

The goal has been to manage development along the roadway once widening work is completed in March of 2018.

The new road will be four lanes wide, with medians, and include both bike lanes and sidewalks.

Bill Ross, whom the county hired as a consultant to develop the amendments to the county’s Unified Development Code to create the overlay, ran into stiff resistance from Commissioner Jim Luke and, to a less extent, Commissioner John Daniell in February.

Ross is scheduled to back tomorrow night with a revised document for consideration.

Another Bank

The 1.5 acres on the southwest corner of the Connecter and Virgil Langford Road intersection will be the future home of a Pinnacle Bank, according to the rezone narrative.

Bank On Left, Bank On Right
Medical Park Straight Ahead

Pinnacle is locally owned and has branches in northeast Georgia, including on Lexington Road in Athens.

The one- or two-story building will be approximately 5,000 square feet in size and have four drive-through lanes.

Immediately across Virgil Langford Road from the planned Pinnacle Bank sits the recently renamed Community and Southern Bank. Certusbank sold the property in October of last year, according to county tax records.

Virgil Langford And Jennings Mill

Three Sixteen Professional Quarter has under contract 7.7 acres between Jennings Mill Road, the off ramp from SR Loop 10, the Oconee Connector and Virgil Langford Road. The property abuts and surrounds the 2 acres owned by Community and Southern Bank.

The current owner, E.A. Development LLC, is seeking to rezone the .7-acre parcel within that tract that currently is zoned for agricultural use. The remaining land already is zoned for business use.

Three Sixteen Professional Quarter is developing office space, largely for medical use, along Virgil Langford Road from SR 316 to Jennings Mill Road.

Included is the property just on the northwest corner of Jennings Mill Road and Virgil Langford Road that is being developed as a health park with Athens Regional Health System as the dominant tenant.

The zoning documents to not indicate what Three Sixteen Professional Quarter has planned for the 7.7 acres.

Green Tree Metals

The 8.2 acres that Green Tree Metals is seeking to rezone from agricultural use to industrial use lies between Mars Hill Road and SR 316 west of U.S. 78.

The plan is to build a four-building complex including a manufacturing plant where metal will be rolled to form roofing and siding panels and trim needed to complete installation of the panels will be manufactured.

Land surrounding the property is zoned for industrial, office-business-park and agricultural use, but the actual use of the land is largely for residential purposes.

A single-family residence is on the property at present.

Animal Contol Board

The Board of Commissioners is scheduled to make its announcement tomorrow night of the appointment of two persons to serve on the Animal Control Advisory Board.

The Advisory Board currently has six members, and the terms of three of them are expiring. The Board of Commissioners earlier this year reduced the size of the Board to five.

Board member Janet Calpin, who has been critical of the staff of the Animal Shelter in the past, was the only one of the three Advisory Board members with expiring terms who asked the Board of Commissioners for reappointment.

The three Animal Control Advisory Board members with continuing terms also have been unsupportive of many of the initiatives of Animal Control Board Director Catlyn Vickers and her staff.

Several of the nine applicants without a current Advisory Board appointment expressed support for the Animal Shelter staff in their applications.

The Board of Commissioners has a chance tomorrow night to appoint an Advisory Board more supportive of Animal Control Board Director Vickers or to reappoint Calpin, creating an Advisory Board likely to continue to be at odds with the county staff.

Addendum In Response To Comment

The Oconee County Planning Department staff recommended all three of the rezones be approved.

The Planning Commission also sent all three of these rezones forward to the Board of Commissioners with a positive recommendation.

1 comment:

Xardox said...

So they're back for another go at the "overlay."
Of course they are.
The heading "Another Bank" speaks volumes.
A sheet-metal industrial plant plopped into the middle of a transition zone from professional offices to residential?
I did not see what the Zoning Board recommendations were.