No one from the general public attended the public hearing Thursday night on a proposed new zoning “overlay” district for all of the corridors entering Commerce.
But Mayor Clark Hill and five of the six Commerce City Council members turned out at the Commerce Civic Center to get their first look at what amounts to proposed new zoning regulations along Maysville Road, Homer Road, Ila Road, State Street, Hwy. 334, U.S. 441 and Jefferson Road that will change the face of future development.
The proposal is a joint project of Commerce and Jackson County, whose planning professionals have been working on the project for eight months. The idea, explained Jackson County senior planner Toni Smith, is that “it doesn’t look like you just passed into the city or into the county” on those entrances to Commerce because the development standards will be identical.
The proposed district does not go into the central business district. Nor does it affect agricultural use.
The Jackson County Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the proposal at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 23, in the county administrative building, and the Jackson County Board of Commissioners will vote on it Monday, March 19, at 7 p.m. in the grand jury room of the county courthouse.
The Commerce Planning Commission will take up the matter at 7 p.m. on Monday, March 26, in the Commerce Civic Center, with the Commerce City Council voting on it Monday, April 9, at 6:30 p.m. in the Commerce Civic Center.
The new overlay district, over time, is expected to provide continuity of development, whether residential, commercial or industrial. But it will not affect current uses of property.
“It takes effect when the property use changes,” Smith explained.
The new district will affect signage, lighting, building materials, ingress and egress, parking, site layout, sidewalks, landscaping and connectivity. Jackson County planning director Gina Mitsdarffer noted that a Family Dollar store proposed in the Hwy. 124 overlay zone in West Jackson will have to comply with the building standards, “not just a metal building.”
The new standards would kick in if the use of a building changed – or if the owner wanted to erect a new sign. If the building is destroyed by fire or natural disaster, its replacement would have to meet the standards under the overlay.
The boundaries of the Commerce overlay would run as follows:
•Hwy. 98 west: from Yarbrough Ridgeway Road east to Jefferson Road
•Hwy. 98 east: from South Broad Street east to the Madison County line
•Homer Road: from North Broad Street to the U.S. 441 bypass
•U.S. 441: From the Banks County line at the north to Hoods Mill Road on the south
•Jefferson Road: from North Elm Street west to the North Oconee River
•Hwy. 334: from U.S. 441 south to beyond Ingles
Commissioner Chas Hardy, who represents the Commerce area, explained that the board of commissioners approached then planning commission chairman Greg Perry, Mayor Charles L. Hardy Jr. and city manager Clarence Bryant about the prospect. The initial plan was to focus on the U.S. 441 corridor, but the Commerce officials expressed a desire to incorporate all of the entrances to the town.
Commissioner Bruce Yates, who strongly promoted the West Jackson overlay, said that the district enacted there four years ago “gives people the confidence in what it’s (development) going to look like.”
“You will be pleased with how the businesses react,” Smith predicted. She noted that some businesses being planned as the West Jackson overlay was being created followed the plan even though the overlay was not yet in effect.
Hardy said the two governments “moved real slowly to make sure we didn’t jump into it too quickly.”
In addition to the Hwy. 124 overlay, there are two other overlay districts in the county, both in Braselton. The Commerce overlay would be the first multi-jurisdictional zoning overlay district in the county.
