A plan to rezone a corner of the Sardis and Ledan Road intersection in northwest Hall County will have to wait until January for a decision from the Hall County Planning Commission.
After a lengthy back-and-forth discussion among opponents and the developer at Monday evening's planning commission meeting, board members decided to table a request to rezone the 22.22-acre property for a residential and retail business complex until the second board meeting in January 2018.
About 50 people showed up to oppose the plan for Steve McKibbon's request to rezone the property from Agriculture-Residential III (AR-III) to Highway Business (H-B) and Residential I (R-I), many of them from The Chimneys subdivision on Ledan Road. The property in question backs up to the subdivision on its east side.
Among the biggest concerns expressed by residents, the unknown nature of the business that McKibbon might build on the property.
"My concern...is the unknown - what may or may not go there," said Ben Carter. "My fear is that [he'll] come in there at the corner and put a gas station, grade the rest [of the property] and then not do another thing for another five, 10 or 15 years. It just creates an eyesore."
Traffic was another concern, given the high volume of vehicles that uses the intersection each day.
Chimneys resident Doug Glidden cited a 2015 traffic study on the corridor, conducted for Hall County, when he addressed commission members.
"The traffic volume - they did a study on that - it was done on 9/9 and 9/10/2015," said Glidden. "Their count for that 24-hour period was 12,200 cars coming through that intersection, which is now a four-way stop. The corner that Mr. McKibbon is trying to rezone is exactly where all this traffic goes."
Glidden pointed out that the roundabout to be built at the intersection this summer would likely alleviate some of the traffic congestion, but he said it would not accommodate additional traffic that would come from a business and additional residences built on McKibbon's property.
McKibbon, who held a meeting with neighbors on March 14 to answer questions about his request, tried to assure those same residents Monday night that anything he builds on the land would not bring a large number of additional vehicles to the area.
"We're not going to put in a Walmart or a grocery store or anything like that," McKibbon said. "I think any businesses that are going to be there are going to take advantage of the existing traffic rather than being a destination-type business."
McKibbon told planning board members he was willing to wait a year or more for the property to be rezoned, saying he was willing to wait and see how the traffic roundabout might change traffic conditions in the area.
Ultimately, the three members of the planning commission who attended the meeting (Bo Brooks, Chris Braswell and Chairman Don Smallwood), agreed that delaying action would be best for all involved, especially given the construction of the new traffic roundabout.
Bids for the construction of the roundabout are due to Hall County Tuesday, April 4 at 3 p.m. Construction on the project is epected to begin at the end of May, according to the county website.
