Citing need for affordable housing, Athens officials go against neighborhood's wishes

Neighbors of a proposed 227-unit townhome and single-family development with 11,000 square feet of commercial space in western Athens let frustrations boil over this week as the county’s planning commission moved toward an eventual recommendation that the county commission approve the rezoning needed for the project.

One particularly frustrated woman, chastised by a planning commissioner for speaking out after public comment on the proposed rezoning and land use map change request had finished and the planning body was deliberating, shot back, “What are you going to do, arrest me? You need to listen to us.”

Prominent among the largely single-family neighborhood worries about the proposed 41-acre project at 5100 Atlanta Highway at Cleveland Road was the traffic the development could, if approved by the Athens-Clarke County Commission, bring into the area, particularly along Cleveland Road.

County commissioners could get a look at the recommendation to approve the rezoning at their July 16 agenda-setting session, and could make a final decision at their Aug. 6 voting meeting. Both meetings will include an opportunity for additional public comment on the rezoning proposal.

“There’s going to be crashes,” one resident of Fowler Mill Road, which intersects with Cleveland Road, told the planning commission during the public comment period. “People are going to get killed.”

“We love our single-family home area,” a Cleveland Road resident told the planning body, going on to assert that the development will raise property taxes in the area.

“How many of you guys live on Cleveland Road?” another speaker asked the planning commission, suggesting that the development, if built, will be “horrible for all our neighbors.”

The Fowler Mill Road resident told planning commissioners, “We have nice little neighborhoods. We like our privacy. We don’t want lights everywhere.”

She went on to tell the planning commission the area didn’t need new commercial development, to express concern that Cleveland Road Elementary School might not be able to handle an influx of new students, and to wonder whether the development could force area residents to connect to Athens-Clarke County sewer service.

In their deliberations on the requested rezoning from the current general business, employment center and traditional neighborhood classifications to general business and mixed-density residential classifications, planning commissioners confronted the need for more housing, and particularly more affordable housing, in the community as its population is projected to grow by 30,000 people over the next 20 years.

Townhomes in the proposed development, three-bedroom units ranging from 1,800 to 2,400 square feet, are projected to sell for between $200,000 and $300,000. Current median housing costs in Athens-Clarke County range from the low $300,000s to near $400,000, according to various real estate sources.

“Athens’ population is growing,” Planning Commission Chairman Michael Hall said as the commission deliberated, adding that “young professionals can’t buy homes here” amid “a supply-demand imbalance.”

The housing that would be offered at the Atlanta Highway development, Hall contended, “will make it so more people of moderate income can afford to live in Athens-Clarke County.”

“It addresses things Athens needs,” Hall said of the project proposal.

“The reality is, we do have a housing crisis,” added Planning Commissioner Sheila Collins.

In the end, the planning panel recommended that the county commission approve the change in the county’s future land use map needed for the Atlanta Highway project to go forward. Just one planning commissioner, Alex Sams, voted against recommending county commission approval of the proposed rezoning.