When the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners acted on zoning requests for residential developments at the beginning of August, the one approved was for the plan most densely packed with housing and nearest Statesboro, where it can be connected to city water and sewer.

JCT Investments LLC’s proposal to place 91 townhome units on roughly 11 acreS at Burkhalter and Harville Roads drew a few questions but no public opposition from neighbors. Much of the site was previously zoned HC, for highway-commercial uses, and the developers’ request for a change to R-3 multi-family residential received a 4-0 approval recommendation from the appointed Planning and Zoning Commission before the elected Board of Commissioners 6-0 final approval Aug. 2.

Meanwhile, two proposals to turn tracts of farmland into subdivisions for multiple single-family homes, requiring a change from AG-5 agricultural to R-25 residential, ran into potent opposition.

“We are in a dire need for development and homes in Bulloch County,” Bubba Hunt, owner of RE/MAX Eagle Creek Realty, said to the county commissioners. “I can give you a few statistics to let you know where we’re at.”

He was asking the commissioners for approval – as it turned out, unsuccessfully – of a zoning change required for Eagle Creek Construction to create 44 home lots on 42.5 acres at 6417 Arcola Road. This request had already garnered a 4-0 recommendation for denial from the planning and zoning board, following also a thumbs-down from county staff members after their review.

But the elected commissioners get to make the final decision, and Hunt argued for them to approve more projects that will help meet demand for more affordable housing.

Limited supply

During the first seven months of 2019, real estate agencies listed 806 homes in Bulloch County for sale and sold 597 of them, or 74% of the inventory, but in the first seven months of 2022, only 605 homes were listed and 527 sold, or 87% of the inventory, he said.

Meanwhile, the average cash value of a home in the county soared from about $175,000 in 2019 to about $277,000 this year, according to his data. 

“Price has been driven up astronomically in Bulloch County. …,” Hunt observed. “When prices are driven up because of supply and demand, it takes a certain buyer out of the market, which is … first-time buyers, either USDA loan or someone obtaining an FHA loan or any type of loan that they would need closing cost assistance. None of those people are able to buy homes right now.”

People with homes listed for $300,000 and under in Bulloch County have been getting cash offers from all over the country, and so it’s a sellers’ market and they do not have to pay closing costs, he said.

Hunt also mentioned “the mega plant,” meaning Hyundai’s announced plans to build an electrical vehicle and battery factory, projected to employ more than 8,000 people, at the regional industrial Mega Site in northern Bryan County. He said he doesn’t see home prices coming back down in the near future.

“I just ask you to consider that when you look at development now,” Hunt said to the commissioners. “Listen, I love our farming community and I understand the frustration … but are we going to embrace this, or are we going to send it to another community?”

As a small business owner, he is “looking for growth” and wants it to come to Bulloch and not all go to other counties, such as Bryan and Effingham.

Farming concerns

But Dennis Akins, whose farming operation includes a field next to the 42.5-acre site on Arcola Road, said the backs of 14 of the 44 proposed home sites would just be across the fence.

“I am concerned, as a farmer, about what kind of complaints I’m going to have of these 44 houses when I start farming and dust flies across this barrier or I spin my chicken litter or my cow manure starts smelling, everything,” Akins said. 

Traffic on Arcola Road already makes driving into and out of his fields difficult, and 44 homes, he argued, would make the amount of traffic “unbearable.”

“I know you as commissioners have a very hard job between wanting growth, and knowing what’s good for the county, but where will it stop?” Akins asked.

Gwinea Burns, who lives about three-fourths of a mile away on Arcola Road, said she and her husband moved there just last year. But her daughters have homes on each side of them, with the whole family group occupying about 23 acres she said her late father purchased about 15 years ago.

“I grew up in Effingham County when Effingham County was a rural county,” Burns said. “It is no longer a rural county. That’s why we sold our house last year in Rincon and moved over to my father’s land, to get back out into a rural community.”

In addition to fears of losing what remains of Bulloch County’s rural character, she and others who spoke in opposition expressed concerns about the load that more residents will place on Bulloch County’s public services. Burns mentioned the time required for the Emergency Medical Service to respond to rural calls, and Akins noted that more residents will further place demands on the schools, hospital and sheriff’s department.

On a motion by Commissioner Curt Deal – who told Hunt he appreciated his comments and his contributions to the community – seconded by Commissioner Ray Mosley, the board unanimously denied Eagle Creek Construction’s rezoning request.

Withdrawn proposal

Another proposal, filed in the name of property owner Greg T. Sikes, would have created 87 home lots on 75.7 acres on Slater Hagan Road. It also appeared on the Aug. 2 agenda. But after a show of opposition from area residents at the earlier planning and zoning board meeting, that proposal never quite made it to a vote of the commissioners. It was withdrawn by the developer or property owner prior to their meeting.

At the planning and zoning board’s July 14 meeting, a few neighborhood residents spoke in favor of the Eagle Creek proposal, while a few others spoke against it. But at least five citizens spoke in opposition to the proposal for Sikes’ property on Slater Hagan Road and another 24 signed up to speak in opposition but then waived their opportunity, according to the minutes of the planning board meeting.

‘Rural open space’

In fact, county planning and development staff, in reviews of both of the Arcola Road and the Slater Hagan Road requests, had recommended denial of both based on the Bulloch County Comprehensive Plan’s designation of these areas as “rural open space” in the Future Land Use Map.

“As far as staff is concerned, we have a future growth plan that we make our recommendations based off of, generally speaking, unless there’s some compelling reason why not,” Planning and Development Director James Pope said this week. “So right now, that’s what we’re following, and those in that last meeting had a lot of opposition, but those were outside of the growth area that’s identified in the comprehensive plan.”

‘Suburban corridor’

So, the one request for a zoning change to allow a sizeable housing development that received the go-ahead from planning staff, planning board and commissioners was JCT Investments’ 91-unit townhouse proposal. Unlike the rejected projects, which would have required private water systems and septic tanks, it will be connected to Statesboro’s water and sewer lines, recently extended to that area by arrangement of a nonresidential neighbor, Optim Orthopedics.

The JCT developers agreed to 35 special conditions placed on the project by zoning staff, and negotiated changes in two other conditions. In the county master plan, it fits into what is called a “suburban corridor,” the group’s attorney, Steve Rushing, noted to the commissioners.

“I would note that we’re not taking out any ag land, either,” he said.