Two significant development projects affecting downtown Eatonton and the Lake Oconee area appear to be near – but not yet at – the boiling point.
Both involve zoning decisions, but only one will likely come to some resolution in the next week or so.
The first – a possible buyer of the old Eatonton Hotel on South Madison Avenue, across from the courthouse – is on a fast track for a public hearing (and possible decision) – on July 17, during Eatonton City Council’s regularly scheduled mid-month meeting at the county commission offices.
The second started with a complex 220-page application involving 137 largely undeveloped acres, three investor groups, and eight properties between the Greensboro Highway and Old Phoenix Road. For unstated reasons, however, the developers are now seeking for that application to be withdrawn at Thursday night’s Putnam County Planning and Zoning Commission meeting.
Setting up the possible vote on the Eatonton Hotel property will be a review by the city’s planning and zoning commission at a called meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 13, at The Hut, near downtown.
Publicly available details were skimpy over the July 4 weekend, especially as to the potential buyer or use. However, the Drew Company, acting as agent for the Putnam Development Authority (which currently holds title to the property), is seeking four variances from the city’s current zoning ordinance requirements: lot width, lot coverage by buildings, parking, and structure height.
The 102-year-old, three-story building is bordered by the Rice and Batchelor real estate/insurance building, the Farmers and Merchants Bank parking lot, and a bank exit onto Sumter Street.
As for the Greensboro Highway/Old Phoenix Road project, casual mentions of the coming of a grocery store for the Putnam side of the lake had been heard for several months.
However, the vision for the area is much larger and completion would not be immediate, according to various points in the application (available at the county’s website, putnamcountyga.us, where a third of its 220 pages is taken up with a transportation study with six appendices, most usefully studied with patience, attention to detail, and a master’s degree in traffic engineering).
The purpose of the application was to change the commercial (C-1 and C-2) and agricultural (AG) zoning for the eight properties to Commercial-Planned Unit Development (C-PUD). The C-PUD zoning allows the flexibility for mixed commercial and various forms of residential development, plus open spaces – dubbed a “Town Center environment” in a letter of intent.
The development would proceed in phases, beginning with commercial developments on parcels nearest the two major roads. Residential uses would come toward the rear and would feature single-family homes, apartments and townhomes, sometimes sprinkled together. The largest single tract – 88 acres adjoining Lakeview Estates and the only one now zoned AG – would likely be the last developed. According to the application documents, a complete build-out of the whole project area is not expected until 2037.
Although eight parcels and three owners may seem a bit awkward for a conglomerate approach, Jerry Shaifer is at the center, either as part owner or as the managing member for Shaifer Partners, Piedmont Park Development Co., and Shaifer/Griffin. Shaifer has run the Piedmont Water Co. operations since its inception several decades ago.
Though not part of the project area, one of the application’s maps shows a water tank to be built on a small parcel off Old Phoenix Road a few hundred yards from the Harmony Road intersection.