Statesboro City Council during its most recent meeting unanimously approved a preliminary plat for construction of a 152-unit townhouse subdivision on Jones Mill Road and a zoning change for a much smaller “infill” cottage court to be built at 231 East Main St.

These developments, by different owners, are unrelated, but they represent types of housing construction the city government has encouraged with its 2022 Townhomes Ordinance and 2023 Unified Development Code.

Simcoe Investment Group’s plan to construct townhouse buildings on an until recently wooded, now cleared 26.32-acre tract on Jones Mill Road isn’t new to the public’s attention. Its rezoning to R-2, townhome residential, had been approved by the council back in August 2022. An estimate of 151 units at this site was included in a count of 1,004 townhomes, within a larger total of more than 2,400 housing units in various parts of Statesboro, that were in various stages of city approval as of an Oct. 30, 2023 Statesboro Herald story.

So the April 16 approval of the subdivision plat, with lots drawn for the buildings with paired homes totaling 152 units, was a further step toward construction. The plat also shows a Y-shaped interior street leading to a cul-de-sac in the triangular piece of land, one side of which is along Veterans Memorial Parkway.

Keith Stevens of EMC Engineering, who spoke on behalf of Simcoe during the council hearing, reported the developers had obtained other city and state approvals. They would also address a concern from a neighboring subdivision about stormwater drainage by adding a third culvert pipe under Jones Mill Road, he said.

But the project drew some statements of concern or opposition from three residents of the neighborhood, especially nearby Belair Estates. Stephen Rigg, John Oldmixon and Sydna Davidson expressed concern about the loss of trees that have already been cut down, encroachment on a pond on the site where a required 20-foot buffer had yet to be planted and established, and the traffic on Jones Mill Road, given other new developments planned or already under construction nearby.

“I know we can’t stop this from coming,” said Oldmixon. “I’m not for this. I think we’re making a big mistake, 151 townhouses is going to create a heck of a traffic jam at the end of Jones Mill, and you already put 200-some-odd on Beasley Road.”

Knowing it can’t be stopped at this point, he said, he wanted assurance that the buffer would be put back in before construction starts.

When Mayor Jonathan McCollar asked staff members to address this, Assistant City Engineer David Moyer noted that much of the vegetation on the site had been  smaller trees and bushes and said that if developers had left a few large pines, that would not have formed much of a buffer. But city staff will follow up to make sure the buffer is established, officials said.

Councilmembers Shari Barr of District 5 and Paulette Chavers of District 2 indicated that they shared some of the neighborhood concerns, with Barr speaking both about trees and traffic, and Chavers asking that city staff follow up on area traffic studies and the possibility of traffic signals. 

“I share your frustration,” Barr told neighbors. “I know some of you folks have had birds and foxes and all kinds of beautiful things just out your back door or where you walked and now it’s just dirt, and I hate it. It makes me sad to see that happening, (but) we don’t have enough places for people to live, the people already here, much less more who are coming.”

During a work session that immediately preceded the meeting, the mayor and council had heard a progress report on an ongoing update of the Statesboro Bulloch County Long-Range Transportation Plan.

“I share your concerns about traffic,” Barr continued in her remarks to the Jones Mill Road neighbors. “Traffic studies are being done. We just heard about our comprehensive transportation plan, trying to deal with it.”

She said city officials are doing their best and she trusts the staff professionals to make sure developers fulfill conditions such as the requirement for a buffer. Chavers made the motion to approve the preliminary plat with the conditions, District 3 Councilmember Ginny Hendley seconded, and the vote was 5-0.

Cottage Court

The proposal for an eight-unit cottage court housing development at 231 East Main St. comes from property owner Burbank Pointe LLC. Its request was to rezone a lot measuring just 0.32 acre from R-15 single-family residential to R-6, which is also single-family residential but allows small homes, cottages, to be built around a courtyard in a very compact arrangement.

“Currently the property is a recently vacated vegetable market,” said city Planning and Development Director Kathy Field. “This location is a part of the overall development plan for the surrounding lots on both Hill Street and East Main Street. … Due to the lot makeup, the lot will be combined with the lot to the north which was initially rezoned to the R-6 designation.”

That former vegetable market long operated under the name L&D Produce. The R-6 zoning classification was redefined in the city’s Unified Development Code, which was adopted last year to replace obsolescent zoning rules and other development-related ordinances. Construction of the cottage court at this location will trigger a limit in the UDC rules prohibiting other cottage courts from being built within the same block, Field said.

“I think this is a fine example of an infill cottage court development,” she said.

By “infill,” she means that it is being built on ground within an existing residential neighborhood, instead of on the edge of town. City officials have said that encouraging this type of development is the purpose of the R-6 designation and “cottage courtyard” definition. 

The developer’s layout illustration, prepared by the engineering firm Hussey Gay Bell, shows eight cottage homes around the courtyard, fronted by a strip of off-street parking, along East Main to the corner of Gordon Street. The other homes in the overall development, along Hill and Anderson Streets, are on individual lots and not around a courtyard.

No one spoke against this zoning change. Council approved 5-0.