The Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night turned down a request by Celebration Village Athens that would have allowed it to build and occupy self-standing housing units before it completed the assisted living and memory care components of the Assisted Living Community.
Active Senior Concepts, developer of the 61.7-acre complex on the Oconee Connector across from Home Depot, was proposing to contract for assisted living services to operate out of the social club prior to completion of the assisted living and memory care building.
David Ellison, representing Athens Bungalow Partners LLC, legal owner of the property, said the developer wants to have some unspecified number of “bungalows” available for occupancy before the assisted living and memory care building is completed.
Ellison was asking the Board to overturn an administrative decision by Oconee County Planning and Code Enforcement Director Guy Herring that Athens Bungalow Partners had to follow the provisions of the 2020 rezone for the age-in-place retirement community.
The narrative for that 2020 rezone, incorporated into the rezone ordinance, stated that Phase One of the project would include the assisted living and memory care building, and that Phase Two would include 43 residential duplexes, now being called “active adult bungalows”
Herring had advised Ellison that his client would have to submit a rezoning application because the changes requested “cannot be approved administratively as a field change.”
After 20 minutes of discussion, Commissioner Chuck Horton said he was not going to vote to overturn the planning staff decision, telling Ellison that “All I’m asking is that you do what you said you’d do in 2020.”
The vote to “affirm the decision of the planning director” was unanimous.
Sewer Service Key Issue
The county’s sewer policy was at center of the discussion on Tuesday night nearly from the beginning.
“The applicant is appealing the decision of the Planning Director that a Rezoning Application and amendment of conditions is required to change the phasing plan for Celebration Village Athens Assisted Living Community,” Herring told the Board.
“This is due to the proposed change to allow the Active Adult Bungalows to be developed before the Assisted Living and Memory Care component, and have contracted services for the Assisted Living portion while other phases are under development.”
Herring said “staff has determined this change does not substantially conform” to the 2020 rezone “and the related Concept Plan and Narrative and cannot be approved administratively as a field change.”
“The current Wastewater Treatment Capacity Policy also distinguishes residential uses, including condominiums, duplexes, single-family homes and apartments, from development that includes Assisted Living Communities,” Herring said.
The policy states that residential permits are limited to 30 percent of capacity, which is now filled, but the “Policy separately provides for capacity to be allowed for Assisted Living Communities,” Herring said.
Herring said at some point in the discussion of the “field change application, the property owner proposed to subdivide the property and transfer a portion of the property to another owner” so that the bungalows could be constructed before the assisted living and memory care center.
Athens Bungalow Partners LLC, which has the same address in Suwanee as Active Senior Concepts, purchased the property from Athens Senior Partners for $9 million in July of 2025, according to county tax records. Athens Senior Partners, with an Atlanta address, had purchased the property for $5.8 million from Ross Developments Inc. in late 2021.
Ellison Responds
“My client has spent over $18 million on Celebration Village to get this site ready,” Ellison said when he came to the podium. “We're lining up financing. We have 24 contracts for bungalows and 42 people on the waiting list.”
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| Ellison Before Commission 9/1/2026 |
“Over the past six years, the industry has changed,” he continued. “Generally, residents want a larger living area. And so what we are proposing here is essentially a different unit mix than before.”
“When we first applied for this appeal,” he said, “we were going to start with the bungalows and then the assisted living facility.”
Ellison said he had made some changes in the plans even in the last few days.
“We're now proposing that before any permit on any residential structure can be pulled, we have to have obtained a permit on the assisted living facility and have commenced construction before pulling any other permit.”
Before construction can begin, a building permit has to be issued. Before a unit can be occupied, the developer has to have an occupancy permit, or a certificate of occupancy (CO).
Ellison said he wanted the commissioners to overrule the decision of Herring to require a rezone application and then to approve a “development agreement” that he said would allow for issuance of an occupancy permit for the bungalows before completion of the assisted living and memory care facility.
He said the alternative is for his client to file a lawsuit contesting a Board denial of his appeal of Herrings’s decision.
Commissioner Discussion
In response to a question from Commissioner Horton, Paul Aase, CEO of Active Senior Concepts, said “before we finish construction of any of the bungalow units, we will have finished construction of our clubhouse building, our pool building, our amenities, outdoor amenities.”
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| Haygood 9/1/2026 |
The clubhouse building “will house our third-party home care and home health care providers until the assisted living building is complete and open,” he said.
Commissioner Mark Thomas asked County Attorney Daniel Haygood about phasing of the project and sewer capacity.
“If the project was constructed in accordance with the rezone,” Haygood said, “you would never have a concern that there were bungalows out there that never had an assisted living facility constructed to serve.”
“So that meant the sewer policy could be honored, and we were fairly certain of that,” he continued.
“The concern that is expressed by memo by the planning department is, if you flip it the other way around, and the bungalows are built first and for whatever reason--finance or whatever--the assisted living facility never gets built, then we've inadvertently violated the sewer use policy/waste policy by allowing bungalows built without having an assisted living facility.”
“So that was the key revision we made to the development agreement last week,” Ellison interjected. “When this whole process started, our goal was, let's go ahead and start the bungalows and then we'll do the AL facility later.” (AL was for Assisted Living.)
“Now what we're proposing is that we cannot start on the bungalows until we have the permit on the assisted living facility, the funding on the assisted living facility, and really the whole project.”
Questions On Time Line
“How many people could be living in there before the assisted living license is achieved?” Board Chair John Daniell asked.
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| Horton 9/1/2026 |
Ellison didn’t give a direct answer.
“But the bottom line is you're going to have people out there living before this other part's finished,” Horton said.
“There will be a period of time where there are COs on the bungalows before the assisted living facility is constructed. We acknowledge that,” Ellison said.
“That's not what we agreed to in 2020,” Horton said.
“Correct,” Ellison responded.
“That's all I need to know,” Horton said.
Other Action
In other action on Tuesday, the Board of Commissioners approved a variance request by Christopher and Megan Clark to allow a garage in the front yard and allow a garage less than 200 feet from right-of-way in front of house at 1020 Trestle Run.
The Board also approved a variance request by the Clarks to increase the number of driveways allowed to access their property.
The Board approved a number of text amendments to the county’s Unified Development Code.
The Board also appointed Richard H. Ashmore, Patrick Snead, Wesley Scott, and Giles Moree to the Recreation Advisory Committee and Annette Scotland to the Family and Children's Services Board
The Board also approved without discussion its consent agenda from the Aug. 25 meeting.
At the beginning of the meeting, Commission Chair Daniell announced a called Town Hall meeting for 6 p.m. on Sept. 15 at the county administrative building, 7635 Macon Highway, north of Watkinsville, to discuss the proposed truck bypass linking SR 15 and U.S. 441 south of Watkinsville.
Daniell also repeated that the Jimmy Daniell Road access to SR 316 will begin a six-month closure on September 14 as part of reconstruction of that intersection.
Video
The video below is on the county’s YouTube Channel. The still images above are frames from video I recorded at the meeting.
The meeting begins at 8:04 in the video.
Discussion of the Celebration Village Athens appeal begins at 15:27 in the video.
Ellison began his summary of the request at 22:40 in the video.
The commissioners began their discussion at 33:32 in the video.
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