Oconee County Commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved Tony Townley’s request for rezones for a 120-lot residential subdivision on 300 acres north of Hog Mountain Road between Rocky Branch and Hodges Mill roads.
It also approved, again unanimously, a request by Dixon Family Trust of 2012 for a special use allowing the Trust to add 10 rental cabins on part of 356 acres it owns that front on Hog Mountain and Lane Creek roads.
Three citizens spoke against the Townley rezone request, citing concerns about over-development and traffic.
Four citizens spoke in opposition to the Dixon Family Trust request, saying it would adversely affect their adjoining properties and that it was an inappropriate use for the property.
Jeff Carter, representing Townley, said his client had agreed to a 10-year moratorium on development of the property and that much of the acreage that would make up the subdivision already is zoned for residential development.
Tracie Dixon Hedges, representing the Dixon Family Trust, said the special use request for approximately 20 acres of the total 356-acre parcel is a way of keeping most of the acreage undeveloped. The 356 acres will remain zoned Agricultural.
In other action, the Board approved a request by Prince Avenue Baptist Church for special use for the addition of a 60,000-square-foot event facility and 531 additional parking spaces on its campus between U.S. 78 and Ruth Jackson Road.
The Board also approved an application by the county to the Georgia Department of Transportation for a traffic signal on U.S. 78 that will provide access to Shops of Oconee Crossing, a planned development behind Oconee Crossing subdivision.
Townley Request
The residential subdivision proposed by Townley Family Partnership LLLP involves nine different parcels totaling just less than 300 acres.
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| Townley (Left), Carter 1/7/2025 |
Some of that acreage already is zoned for residential development, so the request before the Board on Tuesday was to rezone 194.46 acres from Agricultural to Agricultural Residential use.
The resulting subdivision, being called Old Rocky Branch, will be accessed via both Hodges Mill Road and Rocky Branch Road, according to the submitted plans.
Each home will be 2,500 square feet or larger, according to the narrative for the rezone, with average cost of the residences at $1 million.
Lots will be two acres in size. Sewage will be treated by individual septic systems. Water will be provided by the Oconee County Water Resources Department.
Tony Townley, one of the founders of Zaxby’s, is the general partner of the Townley Family Partnership.
The Oconee County planning staff recommended approval of the rezone, with conditions that would apply to the entire 299.94 acres that will make up the residential subdivision.
The county Planning Commission, in a 4 to 3 vote on Dec. 9, had recommended against the rezone request.
Townley Presentation
Carter of Carter Engineering Consultants told the Commissioners in his presentation on Tuesday that “Mr. Townley lives across Hog Mountain Road” from the proposed development.
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| Wills 1/7/2025 |
“Now, why is that important?” he asked. “I think it is important that you know we don't have somebody from California or New York or Atlanta coming in to try to develop homes. This is somebody who's been in this community for generations. And lives right across the street.”
“So we know that he's going to do a quality development,” Carter said.
Carter said that one of the conditions of the rezone is that “no final plat shall be granted for a period of 10 years from the date of Board of Commissioners approval.”
“I've been in this a long time and I've never seen this type of recommendation,” he said. “Ten years is an awful long time. However, the landowner, the developer, Mr. Townley, is okay with this recommendation. We don't have any problem with this recommendation. I think I just wanted to point out how unusual this is.”
Carter was followed to the podium by Russell Wills, an accountant for the Townley Partnership, who said Townley is “committed to farming. That's his passion. He wants to continue doing that. I think the 10-year time line is kind of further commitment to that.”
Wills said the property up for rezoning is “land that's near and dear to him. It's where he and his dad grew Christmas trees. But it's just something that we're trying to get cleaned up as we think through long term planning.”
Townley attended the meeting, but he did not come to the podium to speak
Citizen Response
Suzannah Heimel was the first of the three persons who spoke in opposition to the request by Townley.
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| Heimel 1/7/2025 |
Heimel said the proposed subdivision is close to the massive but currently undeveloped Parkside subdivision further east on Hog Mountain Road and “we do not know how they (these two projects) will impact Highway 53 in the county.”
“I feel we really need smart and thoughtful rezoning.” she continued. “The Board needs to look beyond increase in revenue from these rezones and remember the taxpayers who elected them on their conservative platform.”
“I think it's time to stand up and preserve the farmland for future generations,” she said.
Carolyn Elster, whose property nearly abuts the proposed subdivision, said she was concerned about the increased traffic on Hog Mountain Road (SR 53) and about the impact the new subdivision will have on assessments of property in her neighborhood.
“So you're going to be paying,” she said. “We know that that type of housing will impact us.”
The final opponent of the proposal, Pam Hendrix, said “the average Joe Blow, they know what their property is zoned and...they agree to that. They abide by it.”
“But the rich, the sophisticated,” she said. “They know that they just go in and ask for a change of the zoning, and any time you up the zoning, or increase the density of zoning, you're really padding your own pocket.”
“It's about money and it's about development,” she said. “And I just want to say we're not dealing--we're dealing with a very sophisticated owner right here.”
“The other thing that I just want you to think about,” she said, “is we're talking density. It's density, density, density. And I go back to remembering some people had signs that said, don't Gwinnett our Oconee County.”
Commission Response
Commissioner Chuck Horton asked Oconee County Planning Director Guy Herring how many lots in the 300-acre Townley tracts currently are zoned so Townley could “start pulling permits” for development even without the rezone.
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| Horton 1/7/2025 |
Herring said “Probably around 80 lots, by right, under his current zoning.”
“So you're looking at another roughly 40 lots...available to start pulling the permits tomorrow,” Horton said. “So what we're getting is a 10-year-old stoppage on pulling permits.”
Commissioner Amrey Harden asked Herring for clarification of the 10-year moratorium on development listed by staff as a condition for the rezone.
“We do a draw down map essentially for the Board of Education,” Herring said. “So we show them periodically, every year, how many lots have been taken off of the total count of lots.”
Herring said the county currently has “roughly around 2,000 lots zoned in both high school districts, cumulatively as a total.”
“We do about 200 single family permits every year,” he continued. “Thus the 10 years. So that was our a rationale behind that. And thankfully the applicant was supportive of that.”
Commissioner Mark Thomas made the motion to approve the rezone request by Townley, and Horton seconded the motion.
Dixon Family Request
Dixon Family Trust of 2012 on Tuesday was seeking a special use approval for the construction of 10 recreational cabins and for the conversion of an existing dwelling, all to be used for overnight rentals, on a 356- acre parcel bordered by Hog Mountain Road, Lane Creek Road, and Moore’s Ford Road.
The 10 heated rental cabins will be approximately 1,000 square feet in size. The existing house, which is unoccupied, has three bedrooms and is 1,530 square feet in size.
Plans call for a trail system and a common meeting area. An existing garage would be converted to a “Common House” for gathering, cooking, games, and other activities, according to the narrative for the request.
The site will be accessed from Lane Creek Road. A second “service vehicles” access will use an existing gravel drive on Hog Mountain Road.
The Dixon Trust is proposing to utilize Oconee County water. Sewage disposal will be provided via on-site septic.
Rentals will be $750 to $1,000 per night.
Dixon Family Trust Presentation
Mick Kittle from SPG Planners and Engineers, representing the Dixon Trust, said the actual total land owned by the Dixon and Hedges families is about 475 acres and they “live on the property and have spent decades preserving the beauty, just really enjoying what it offers and keeping it well maintained.”
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| Hedges 1/7/2025 |
“The goal of the special use is to allow the construction of a small recreational overnight cabin community that aligns with the area's heritage of low impact development, meets current zoning requirements, and enhances the local economy by attracting light tourism,” he said.
“This offers convenient access to local and regional amenities such as golf, state parks, fishing, shopping, dining, as well as a lodging option for the many nearby event spaces,” he added.
As a result of comments at the Planning Commission, Kittle said, the proposed communal fire pit “is now located more central to the site away from adjacent properties.”
Hedges followed Kittle and said the property has been in her family for more than 50 years.
“So we have begun thinking of what do we do with 470 acres?” she said.
“Dad's a developer. My brother's a developer. My husband's a builder. I'm in real estate, she said. “I know what I could build. I know what to do.”
“But that's not what we want to do,” she said. “We want to try to figure out something. We were thinking outside the box. What can we do that, yeah, it helps create a little revenue so that we can hold on to all the land?”
Citizen Response
Kyle Setzer, whose 16.7-acre parcel abuts to the west the 19.6 acres owned by the Dixon Family Trust on which the recreational cabins are to be built, was the first to speak in opposition to the Dixon Family Trust request on Tuesday. He also spoke in opposition at the Planning Commission on Dec. 9.
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| Setzer 1/7/2025 |
Setzer said he has “concerns with overnight guests from outside of the county, from a short-term rental perspective, of people who don't live here and have long-term investments like I have with my property.”
“I'm not opposed to residential housing,” he said, “because I know those people are invested in the community. Short-term guests are not invested in the community, whether they're from Atlanta or Gwinnett.”
Dennis Zullo, whose property also abuts the Dixon property where the recreational cabins are to be built, said “I bought this house about six months ago. I knew there was a house behind me. I was told that there was an elderly gentlemen that lived there.”
“We've done a ton of work to this house to beautify it, to make it what we expected it to be,” he said. “I didn't expect to have a business behind me. Makes me feel a little uncomfortable with it, to be honest with you.”
Heimel returned to the podium to say that “looking at that rendering, it looks like a campground. I'm a member of a campground. It looks just like it. I mean, that is what this looks like, except instead of campers, or trailers, it's tiny homes.”
The cabins “are essentially high density housing, high density housing that brings in transient people and weekend renters,” she said, “and I think people who live around that area do not want that.”
Hendrix spoke next and said “I think this is scary because the word is precedent. It sets a precedent. I wrote down as I was listening, if you can't beat them, join them.”
“I'm thinking the gentleman with the 17-acre parcel, let's just let him build some tiny houses,” she said. “Let's just have a whole section of the county for tiny houses.”
“How are we going to allow this one and not allow more?” she asked. “It's precedent, precedent, precedent. It's density, density, density.”
Board Response
Commissioner Harden asked Planning and Code Enforcement Director Harden how the recreational cabins would be regulated.
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| Harden 1/7/2025 |
Herring said the facility would be treated as a hotel or motel, with the owners paying the county’s hotel/motel tax and filing records accordingly.
Herring told Commission Chair John Daniell that existing code does not set any limit on the number of nights a person can stay in such a facility.
Hedges told Daniell she would accept a limit of 30 days, and the motion approved by the Board for the rezone set that limit.
The Board also approved part of a variance request by the Dixon Family Trust allowing the existing access road from Hog Mountain Road to remain without a curb and gutter and allowing gravel parking at the cabins rather than paved parking.
The Board rejected a request that the existing access road remain unpaved.
Other Action
Carter also represented Prince Avenue Baptist Church in its request for a special use for the addition of a 60,000-square-foot event facility and 531 additional parking spaces and said the immediate need is for the parking because the church is growing.
The plan presented on Tuesday includes a new right-in, right-out access to U.S. 78 from the new parking area.
Because the property is zoned Agricultural and all of the development is under a special use, all changes need to be reviewed by and approved by the Board, Carter reminded the Board.
The Board on Tuesday also approved a special exception variance for the Goddard School being constructed at the corner of Virgil Langford Road and Jennings Mill Extension to allow for installation of a six-foot high decorative metal picket security fence rather than fence types listed in the county’s Unified Development Code.
Goddard School is a private daycare/kindergarten/school within the Research Quarter commercial subdivision now under construction.
Oconee County Public Works Director Jody Woodall told the commissioners that the developers of the Shops of Oconee Crossing are proposing a full access driveway on U.S. on the east of the development as well as two right-in right-out driveways, one already existing at Stripling’s and the other to the east of that existing driveway.
Woodall said that if the Georgia Department of Transportation accepts the application for the traffic light it would own and operate the signal and the county would be responsible for “the monthly power cost of operating the signal.”
Commission Chair Daniell announced at the beginning of the meeting on Tuesday that the January Town Hall meeting has been rescheduled from Jan. 21 to 6 p.m. on Jan. 29 at the county Administrative Building, 7635 Macon Highway, north of Watkinsville.
Video
The video below is on the Oconee County YouTube channel.
I attended the meeting at the Administrative Building and video recorded the meeting as well. The still images in the story are from my video.
The meeting begins at 5:45 in the video.
Discussion of the Townley rezone request begins at 8:28 in the video.
Discussion of the Prince Avenue Baptist Church begins at 52:03 in the video.
The rezone request by the Dixon Family Trust begins at 57:59.
1 comment:
Offhand, I can't think of anyone who would pay $1000 per night for a cabin, even a heated one, a few feet from 53, but fortunately that's not my concern.
Hendrix and Heimel oppose big and little homes alike. They're consistent.
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