Saturday, July 13, 2024

Oconee Commissioners Turn Down Office Building On Mars Hill Road, Approve Large Retail Project For U.S. 441 Near Hog Mountain Road

***Also Officially Set Millage Rates***

The Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night turned down a rezone request for a commercial development on Mars Hill Road at Julian Drive and approved a large strip development on U.S. 441 just north of Watkinsville.

The vote against the Mars Hill Road development represented an attempt to keep that section of Mars Hill Road residential. Commissioner Mark Thomas was the sole negative vote on the rezone denial.

The vote in favor of the 16-lot commercial subdivision on U.S. 441 south of the Bank South and north of the planned QuikTrip was a recognition of the commercialization of that section of U.S. 441.

In the initial phase of development of the 23.5 acre site, access will be at the traffic light where Macon Highway (an extension of Watkinsville’s North Main Street) meets U.S. 441. QuikTrip will use this same access.

Full development of the site is dependent on a second access to Hog Mountain Road across 12 acres not owned by the developer.

Much of the discussion among commissioners prior to their unanimous vote in favor of the rezone was about that separate 12-acre property and about the impact the development will have on Hog Mountain Road traffic when the second access becomes possible.

Three citizens spoke against the Mars Hill Road rezone request, but no one spoke against the U.S. 441 rezone request.

In other action on Tuesday, the Board set the 2024 Tax Millage Levy for Oconee County Government Maintenance and Operations at 4.435 for the unincorporated parts of the county and 5.375 for the incorporated area, representing a full millage rate rollback.

The Board also accepted the request of the Oconee County Board of Education setting the 2024 Tax Millage Levy for Oconee County Schools Maintenance and Operation at 14.25 mills, an increase in taxes of 2.27 percent.

Mars Hill Road Rezone

Lifemark Development LLC asked the Board to rezone a six-acre lot at the corner of Julian Dive and Mars Hill Road currently zoned R-1 (Single Family Residential) to OIP (Office-Institutional-Professional) for an office development.

Horne Before Commission 7/9/2024

The Board of Commissioners turned down a similar request by Lifemark in June of 2023 because of the surrounding residential zoning.

The 2023 proposal included a warehouse as well as office space. The warehouse has been removed from the current request.

Brian Kimsey from Carter Engineering represented Seixas “Chad” Milner III, President and CEO of The Milner Agency, at the Tuesday public hearing on the rezone request. Milner wants to move his office from Lawrenceville to the Mars Hill Road site.

The 16.5 acres north of the six acres owned by Milner through Lifemark is zoned OIP (Office Institutional Professional) and is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

The parcel to the west, across Julian Drive, is split AG (Agricultural) and R-1 (Single Family Residential). The AG parcel is occupied by Athens Church of Christ. The property on the south side, across Mars Hill Road, is residential.

Citizen Comments

All three of the citizens who spoke at the hearing on Tuesday focused on the residential nature of the area around the site of the proposed two-story office building.

Walton Before Commission 7/9/2024

Foy Horne told the Commissioners that he owns property where his daughter lives across Mars Hill Road from the proposed developed and “I see no reason it (the six acres) needs to go from residential to some sort of office complex.”

Tommy Walton, who said he has lived diagonally across from the parcel for 50 years, said the proposed building, if allowed “will be an anomaly. It will be a two-story brick facade building in the middle of a corridor that is well-kept by homeowners that have owned their property for many, many years.”

Wayne McCarty, who lives just east of the proposed office building on the same side of Mars Hill Road, was the third speaker, and he said his family “has been there for 80 years.”

“I'm not against change,” he said, “but if someone wants to build a business then, there's designated areas for those businesses, not in an agricultural residential area.”

Commission Response

“I think it's incumbent upon us to maybe take that in consideration of preserving that corridor where it is today,” Commissioner Amrey Harden said when the hearing had closed.

McCarty Before Commission 7/9/2024

“Because when we approve this, then it's going to keep creeping right on down Mars Hill Road,” he said. Harden lives off Mars Hill Road.

“I wanted to kind of put that on record that I'm concerned about the creeping of commercial development down Mars Hill Road,” he said.

“I wish folks would come to the Planning Commission meeting and say something,” Commissioner Horton said. “It does help the Commission. It does help because I was here at the Planning Commission meeting and hearing citizens, it does give me something to look at.”

The Planning Commission had recommended approval of the rezone request. No citizens spoke at that meeting.

Horton made the motion to deny the rezone request. Harden seconded. They were joined by Commissioner Mark Saxon.

The vote had been 3 to 1 in June of 2023, with Commissioner Thomas voting in the minority, when the Commission turned down the earlier request for rezone of the property.

Commercial Development On U.S. 441

Barak Zukerman, owner of Cideco Development of Atlanta, appeared before the commissioners on Tuesday to ask them to rezone 23.5 acres that front on U.S. 441 from AR (Agricultural Residential) to B-2 (Highway Business) to develop a proposed 174,500 square feet of commercial buildings.

Zuckerman Before Commission 7/9/2024

The land currently is owned by Kerry Barwick and Ken D. Hill of Midland and is part of an odd-shaped parcel of 44.8 acres that borders the University of Georgia Durham Horticulture Farm and a tract of the J. Phil Campbell Sr. Research Center.

Cideco, according to its web site, is a privately held commercial real estate company, specializing in retail and self-storage development/redevelopment, acquisitions, and management.

The web site lists two projects in Athens, Trail Creek Village and City Centre Athens. The company is based in Atlanta.

In July of 2023, the Board of Commissioners approved a rezone for 6.3 acres south of the commercial center proposed by Zukerman for a QuikTrip.

Of those 6.3 acres, 2.0 acres were taken from the 44.8 acres owned by Kelly Barwick and Ken Hill, and 4.3 acres were taken from a 22.4 acre parcel owned by Jacobs Properties LLC of Tuckasegee, N.C.

Much opposition was voiced by citizens living in residential areas on the other side of U.S. 441 during the hearings on that rezone request for the QuikTrip.

Only Zukerman spoke to the Commission on Monday regarding the rezone.

Details Of Development

The concept plan submitted with the application by Cideco shows fast food restaurants with drive thrus, a family restaurant, an automotive oil change facility, a two-story tennis court facility, a sports club, a pet boarding facility, and a day care center.

Also shown are a medical/dental office, a bank, a retail furniture store, an auto parts store, and general merchandise outlets.

Sole access to the shopping and commercial center would be from an entrance on U.S. 441 at the light at Macon Highway just west of the roundabout and entrance to the county’s new Administrative Building.

The County planning staff recommended that the development “shall be limited to 68,000 square feet of building area until a second entrance is obtained to meet the requirement for two fire apparatus access roads unless all buildings up to 124,000 square feet are equipped throughout with approved automatic sprinkler systems.”

The concept plan that Zukerman submitted for the commercial center shows an entrance to the north of the proposed development, but that land is owned by Manor Holdings LLC of Athens.

The Planning Commission had recommended approval of the rezone request, with the condition on the second entrance recommended by staff.

Commission Response

Much of the discussion among commissioners on Tuesday was related to that second entrance.

Harden 7/9/2024

Commissioner Harden began by noting that the Board last July had rezoned an adjoining 6.3 acres on the U.S. 441 Bypass for a QuikTrip gas station and convenience store with three diesel truck refueling bays.

He also noted that the county had approved in 2021 a rezone for Oconee Mercantile, across the street, a multi-use commercial development that involved the relocation of The Stone Store.

And it has approved a rezone for an ice cream shop on Hog Mountain Road near the existing car wash as well as an adjoining medical office complex linked to Presbyterian Homes.

“Is there anything that we should know tonight that would help us make a good decision as far as how this will impact that whole intersection,” Harden asked Guy Herring, Oconee County Director of Planning and Code Enforcement.

“You mentioned that he's only going to have one ingress and regress and that's at the traffic light with the QuikTrip,” Harden said. “That tells me that there must be something planned for a second entrance somewhere else but it's not on the site plan.”

Planning Staff Reply

Herring told Harden that plans for the QuikTrip are “under construction review and development permitting” and that it will share the existing traffic light opposite Macon Highway with the development Zukerman had presented.

Herring said that the Cideco commercial development also will be required to have access to the property owned by Manor Holdings LLC, with its address at an office on Meriweather Drive in Oconee County, according to the Secretary of State corporate database.

According to county tax records, Manor Holdings purchased that and an adjoining parcel from Patricia Ivy for $4.5 million only on June 14 of this year.

Manor Holdings also owns three parcels on U.S 441 at Rockinwood Drive and three parcels at U.S. 441 at Spartan Lane.

Herring said that the Manor Holdings parcel has access to U.S. 441 at the median break opposite Woodridge Lane as well at Hog Mountain Road.

“What's going to happen out there on what we call the Hog Mountain Road?” Harden asked. “I mean there's only one traffic signal is going to be put out there, I'm sure. What is your big picture?”

Herring said there is a possibility of “a roundabout at that location. So those are things that we'll look at during the design and construction of any of those developments.”

Zuckerman told Commissioner Horton that he expected to have three or four parcels of the 16 built by next summer.

Variances

The commissioners approved the rezone along with three variance requests.

Commissioners And Map Of Rezone On U.S. 441
7/9/2024

One of the variances is to reduce the buffer with a portion of the University of Georgia farm from 25 feet to 10 feet, one is to reduce the minimum required parking by 50 percent on one part of the proposed parcel, and one is to increase the maximum allowed lots from five to 16 for access to a private drive.

Zukerman told the Commissioners that the first of these variances was to allow for access to the unused parts of the 44.7 acre parcel, which is behind the QuikTrip.

“We're not asking to rezone it,” he said of that acreage. “We we're just going to leave it at be.” But the variance will allow future access, he said.

The second variance on parking, Zukerman said, “has to do with one specific tenant” that he didn’t name “because they have not committed.”

The concept plan shows two 40,000 square foot buildings at the rear of the project, and Zuckerman said of the prospective tenant, “They have a use that doesn't require parking as much.”

One of the 40,000 square foot buildings is labeled as a furniture store, and the other as a two-story, 16 court tennis facility.

The third request is temporary until the connection with Hog Mountain Road is complete, Zukerman said.

June 25 Meeting

The Tuesday meeting was unusual in that it did not have a consent agenda carried over from the June 25 agenda setting meeting.

At that meeting, the commissioners, at the request of Commission Chair John Daniell, approved an equity adjustment of $1,000 for all full-time employees and $500 for part-time employees, requiring a budget amendment of $261,052 to include payroll taxes.

Additionally, the commissioners approved a one-time funding for merit over and above the other equity adjustment to reward top performing employees who exceeded expectations in their performance review.

The cost of that merit funding is $62,196, including payroll taxes, Daniell said.

The funds for these expenditures result from open positions funded in the original budget, Daniell said.

Daniell said this is the third year for merit increases and the fourth year for equity adjustments.

The Board also approved the renewal of the Memo of Understanding with the Oconee Chamber of Commerce for provision of economic development services. Funding will continue at $100,000 annually.

Commissioner Horton recused himself from discussion of the renewal, since his daughter, Courtney Horton Bernardi, is president of the Chamber of Commerce.

Video

The video below is on the Oconee County YouTube Channel.

The meeting begins at 5:06 in the video.

Discussion of the Mars Hill Road rezone begins at 10:06 in the video.

Discussion of the rezone request for the strip development on U.S. 441 begins at 53:28 in the video.

I did attend the meeting. The still images above are taken from the video I recorded at the meeting.

1 comment:

Dan Magee said...

There is a whole lot of nonsense going on as the county turns into Gwinnett.

Shame on the commissioners for changing their mind on the planning policies they themselves set. They allowed Barak Zukerman, owner of Cideco Development of Atlanta, to reduce the buffer with a portion of the UGA farm from 25 feet to 10 feet and to increase the maximum allowed lots from five to SIXTEEN for access to a private drive.
And shame on the Planning Commission for letting this sail through.

No buffer.
Five lot to sixteen. More than 3x the commercial lots that should be permitted.

The commissioners approve the county planning code. And they issue way too many variances to the very own code they approved. Interesting to note that Amrey voted against the proposed office building near his house but voted for Barak of Cideco from Atlanta's sixteen lots.

So Barak of Cideco from Atlanta wants to bring to an already busy roadway, fast food restaurants with drive thrus, a fast oil change shop, auto parts shop, etc., etc.
Barak is bringing in strip malls. Look at the Cideco website for the ugly, paint by numbers, without any redeeming architectural value or imagination strip malls he specializes in.

And Courtney Bernardi, if you are going to handle economic development for the county, fast food drive thru's, fast oil change, auto parts, self storage, etc., sure ain't it.

The county's No. 1 economic development strength is it's proximity to a very large university. That large university has a number of research centers, bio-research centers and institutes that startup's and existing companies in those fields could and should be drawn to locate to Oconee, which also has strong quality of life, good parks, and good schools.

If current EcDev staff does not have the expertise to recruit such companies, bring in consultants who can. Squeezing in an ice cream place by the car wash across from RaceTrac???

We get car washes, self storage, fast food drive thru's, fast oil change, an ice cream shop on a postage stamp sized lot with no buffer, etc.,...minor league stuff that does not create good jobs or sustainable property tax revenue, instead of recruiting companies and startup's that can benefit from Oconee's quality of life and being located next to UGA's:
Center for Food Safety
Center for Geospatial Research
Center for International Trade & Security
Center for Molecular Medicine
Center for Vaccines & Immunology
Complex Carbohydrate Research Center
Regenerative Bioscience Center
UGA Cancer Center
Biomedical and Translational Sciences Institute
Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture
Institute of Bioinformatics
UGA Institute for Intl. Biomedical Regulatory Sciences
New Materials Institute
Owens Institute for Behavioral Research
Clinical & Translational Research Unit
Georgia Clinical & Translational Science Alliance
Obesity Research Initiative
Developmental Biology Alliance


Decisions matter.
Barak of Cideco from Atlanta is going to build sixteen commercial lots (glorified strip malls) with one entrance at a new QT truck stop off 441. It will be an ugly strip mall development just like his previous ones, and just like Frank Bishop of Atlanta's Epps Bridge Parkway.

Y'all can do better.
Gwinnett-lite, Gwinnett Jr., Gwinnett wannabe...here it comes.
Re-read this five years from now and tell me I'm wrong.