Columbus residents speak against proposed zoning change allowing townhomes
Columbus residents spoke against a rezoning request during Tuesday’s Columbus Council meeting, arguing the proposed development off Veterans Parkway would exacerbate traffic problems.
Dave Erickson, who previously represented Wizer Homes in an attempt to rezone land for a development off Macon Road, again was requesting the council’s approval after the Columbus Planning Advisory Commission recommended denial during an Oct. 1 meeting.
Erickson, president of Tiger Creek Development, applied to rezone 21.7 acres at 8828 Veterans Parkway and 4885 Charleston Way to allow single-family and multifamily residential dwellings. It is zoned for only single-family homes.
The zoning would stay the same, Erickson told the council, but he is asking for the conditions to change. Tiger Creek Development’s plan is to add 93 new homes with the conditions change, he said. The land already is zoned for 83 new single-family homes if there is no change.
Proposed plan for Charleston Place
In one section of the property, the developer is asking for larger lots than what is typical for the Charleston Place neighborhood, Erickson said. In the rear of the property, Erickson said, he is requesting to have smaller lots for townhomes.
“The reason for this is the drastic change in the cost of construction in Columbus and the cost of interest rates,” he told the council. “This is the new normal for now and into the future for many years to come, as far as I can see.”
The plan includes 78 townhomes and 15 larger lots, Erickson confirmed to the Ledger-Enquirer.
All the other conditions of the zoning would remain, he said, with green spaces and access points. There was also a request from a resident for a 200-foot extension of a fence in the area that they’re looking to support, Erickson said.
The large lots would have a 90-foot frontage, he said, and are intended for homes that would cost around $500,000 or more.
“There is a large mansion-type house in the rear,” Erickson said. “We plan to keep that in there, that will anchor this particular niche of the Charleston Place subdivision.”
Traffic concerns
Mayor Pro Tem Gary Allen, who represents District 6 on the council, explained that he intends to vote against this zoning change in part because of traffic concerns. The council is expected to vote on the rezoning request during its Dec. 16 meeting.
Erickson said, with no change in the zoning, the traffic study found the planned 83 new homes would generate about 747 vehicles per day. If the zoning conditions are changed, he said, then the additional 93 homes would generate 644 vehicles per day.
This would be 103 fewer vehicles per day with the zoning conditions changed, Erickson argued.
A retirement community is in this area and consists of small homes, Allen said. No children live in the area, he said.
This new development would lead to more traffic and school buses traveling through that community to exit on Veterans Parkway, Allen said.
“It’s human nature,” he said during the meeting. “You’re going to take the path of least resistance, right?”
Field data showed approximately five cars traveling from Charleston Place through The Promenades to exit, Erickson told the Ledger-Enquirer. The vehicles came from homes near the transition from one neighborhood to the next, he said.
While Allen spoke with Muscogee County School District superintendent David Lewis to work out an agreement so buses would not cut through this retirement community, that won’t stop an increased volume of traffic in the area.
“We’ve met with Mr. Ericson and talked several times, trying to work out another traffic outlet to relieve the stress on this community,” Allen said. “So far, he has not been able to do that, and I said I cannot support this going forward unless you can get another outlet.”
Allen said the numbers Erickson provided, which showed there would be less traffic with more homes, did not make sense.
“That math doesn’t work for me,” Allen said. “I’m concerned about this reasoning.”
The reason the traffic would be less with 93 homes rather than 83 is because of demographics, Erickson said.
Older, single women and single women with children are more likely to purchase townhomes rather than single-family homes, he said. Families with two adults and kids are more likely to live in single-family homes.
“There’s a lot more moving around,” Erickson said.
People who live in townhomes have fewer cars and generate less traffic than people who live in single-family homes, he argued.
Vance Beck, the Columbus Consolidated Government’s engineering director, told the council his department does not have any traffic concerns about this proposed development.
The Planning Advisory Commission staff report notes the traffic impact on Veterans Parkway would be minimal and Charleston Way would experience a significant increase that “remains acceptable but warrants mitigation.”
Charleston Place is near a $40 million Georgia Department of Transportation project to widen SR1/US27, which is expected to be completed by next fall.
Allen still has concerns about the traffic, he said, because he already receives calls about people driving through those neighborhoods and getting stuck at a bottleneck trying to turn left onto Veterans Parkway.
The widened road will not ease the problem, he said.
“There’s going to be access in the median for them to turn,” Allen said. “But trying to cross a four-lane road, once the road’s finished, and everyone trying to get out of there all of the time — going to the store, going to school, going to work — it’s a problem.”
Erickson is trying to “monetize” the property to get every dollar he can out of it, Allen said.
“What we approved several years ago for you to build is what I’m going to support,” he said. “And I’m sticking with that. I’m not going to approve any vote for anything else unless we can come to an agreement on another outlet.”
Erickson disagreed with Allen’s assessment of the traffic in the area, saying the councilor’s information is “fundamentally” wrong.
“I have personally done a traffic analysis at peak traffic flow of people coming in and out,” Erickson said. “Perception is people’s reality, but perception is not factual.”
His facts supported that traffic would not be a problem, Erickson said.
Through first-person observation, field-generated data, Erickson found the average time spent at a stop sign to exit Charleston Plan is 15 seconds, he told the Ledger-Enquirer.
If the development is built with the 83 single-family homes without townhomes, then, in three to four years, the vehicle count would be higher, Erickson said.
“The reality is, if you turn this down, so be it,” he said. “That would be the politics involved, not serving the middle housing sector of this city.”
Residents speak against the zoning change
Columbus resident Ben Sorrell, who lives next to the property, spoke against the request during the meeting.
Sorrell disagrees with Erickson’s assessment of the traffic, saying Charleston Way is a local road with limited capacity. He pointed to the staff report’s assertion that the street may require widening to turn lanes to accommodate the increased traffic.
“I appreciate the numbers Mr. Erickson presented,” Sorrell told the council. “But I think, based on this discussion, that you can make numbers work however you want to, depending on your point of view.”
Along with traffic, Sorrell also spoke about how the property was rezoned from single-family residential to a planned unit development by a unanimous vote in 2014.
After 11 years with nothing being built, residents are now being asked to accept many more townhomes than the small number of single-family homes they were expecting because the profit margin has changed, he said.
“In fairness to what Mr. Erickson said, the economy has changed,” Sorrell said. “I do agree with that. But the profit margin of the developer shouldn’t outweigh the commitments that this council made and what the community was sold on 11 years ago.”
Katherine Gant, a resident representing The Promenades neighborhood HOA, also spoke against the request because of concerns about additional traffic funneling through her neighborhood.
“We agree there should be another way out of that neighborhood before you build another 80, 100 (homes),” she told the council.
Patricia Ashley, also resident of The Promenades, agreed with the previous speakers that traffic not only would be a concern with the additional homes but already is a problem.
“We are the ones who can hardly get out at certain times of day,” Ashley told the council. “We had trouble this morning getting out of our neighborhood.”
Steve Dunn, representing the Charleston Place HOA, expressed similar concerns about traffic and how the proposed plan does not align with what was agreed upon in 2014. He argued that the residents were not against growth.
“We’re not anti-progress,” he told the council. “We’re not anti-business, however you want to frame it. But the fact is, as citizens, we want to see Columbus thrive. We want to see it grow, but growth has to be constrained.”
The city is expanding toward these neighborhoods, Dunn said, and residents welcome “responsible development.”
But townhomes don’t belong in the area and wouldn’t have the typical advantages of attached housing like walkability, access to transit and urban access to restaurants or other shopping centers, Dunn said.
Dunn also expressed doubts about the target demographic being single individuals and young professionals when the stated sales price for the proposed townhomes is between $400,000 and $450,000.
“We may not be a large community,” Dunn said, “but Charleston Place deserves a transparent, fact-driven process, not hypotheticals and veiled alternatives.”
