When the applicants for an assisted living community for special needs adults went before the Hall County Planning Commission earlier this month, their rezoning request was denied unanimously. The story was different, however, when they presented their plan to the Hall County Commission on Thursday, Oct. 25.
The organizers for the Flourish community came before the Board of Commissioners with more specific plans for their project, and while opponents on Bogus Road were still vocal about their concerns, the application won unanimous approval from commissioners.
Bob Mudd, President of Adventures in Mission and the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Flourish, said he understood the concerns of neighbors, but he is hoping they'll come to embrace the residents who will live in the complex.
"Our heart is to have great relations and to be seen as a benefit to the people who live around us," Mudd said after Thursday's vote.
Mudd, who has a special needs daughter, said opponents who attended the meeting had a chance to be briefly "immersed" in spending time with the special needs community, since a number of families with special needs adults also showed up for the public hearing.
"Having that integrated into their local community is something that I'm sure brings a lot of consternation," Mudd said. "My hope and my prayer for all of this is that we steward it [Flourish] so well that...they become partners with us or at least understand that we're going to work alongside them to retain the beauty [of the property] and the reason that they moved out there in the first place."
Several residents who spoke in opposition to the project before the county planning board on Oct. 2 voiced their same concerns to county commissioners. Many were concerned with the density of the project and with traffic that would be generated by visitors to the facility. At least one homeowner expressed concern for the safety of his young children with a special needs community in the area.
When all is said and done, Flourish will consist of four homes with 12 residents each, along with two caregivers per home. Opponents argued, without success, the set-up violated the county's comprehensive plan for the rural North Hall area.
Mudd said his group had refrained from fundraising until the rezoning was approved; now, they can begin those efforts.
"We're going to initiate fundraising straight away and when that fundraising gets to the point of completion, we've got a very detailed business model that we're following," Mudd said. "I'm assuming fundraising will take six months or so."
Mudd said the initial fundraising goal is around $1.5 million.
