Opposition to Rossville development building
Walker planning commission unanimously recommends denying Gateway rezone request as petition garners 200 signatures
Walker County commissioners Oct. 14 will consider the rezoning request for apartments across from Ridgeland High School after the Planning Commission recommended denying the request for a second time.
The Walker County Planning Commission at its Sept. 16 meeting received a petition with the names of 200 opponents — including all but a handful of property owners in the adjoining Mission Glen subdivision — and heard from several before unanimously voting not to recommend the rezone.
Some of the opponents of Gateway at Rossville, a 156-unit affordable, multifamily development planned on Happy Valley Road, who recently voiced opposition also marched Aug. 26 in downtown LaFayette and demanded the resignation of Walker County Commission Chairman Shannon Whitfield who rezoned the property in November, when he was sole commissioner, without rescheduling the required second public hearing, resulting in repeating the rezone process.
“We believe this was a valid rezoning, and we think this was done properly, but we also think if we are going to play the long game here, we ought to do this in a way that is the most open and friendly and best-foot-forward way to be in a community that we want to be in for a long time,” Josh Mandell, president and chief operating officer at The Gateway Companies, said when asked about repeating the rezone process. He spoke Sept. 13 at a public information meeting at the Walker County Civic Center.
The public information meeting was attended by more than 40 residents, several of whom voiced concerns about traffic, school capacity, trespassing and other issues if the development is approved.
Whitfield and the other four county commissioners who attended the information meeting did not address the
audience; however, later the same evening Whitfield appeared with Mandell on Judy O’Neal’s “Night Talk” on UCTV.
“It’s just great to work with Josh and his team,” Whitfield told O’Neal. “You know they’re wanting to invest $25 million in our county, and we just don’t have people lining up at the door to do that.”
Whitfield, during the television program, explained that the county had followed the rezoning process last year by notifying property owners in writing, posting yellow signs, advertising the public hearings and hosting hearings at the planning commission and commissioner meetings. He said the county’s only missed step was not advertising the rescheduled second hearing after he tabled the matter when it was on the commissioner’s agenda.
When a caller asked Whitfield why he had approved the rezone in November despite the planning commission’s denial recommendation, he said, as he and his team learned more about this project, “we felt like that this is a positive project that only come (sic) down to traffic.”
Whitfield believed all other questions about the development had been answered since the planning commission’s meeting and that the traffic concerns could be solved, he said.
He also said residents tell him the county needs housing of all types and
levels.
“So many times when a decision is made, the commentary on it is ‘People have come to me, and they want this.’ Those people never call in. Those people never speak up at the meetings,” one caller stated. “Who are the people that apparently just behind closed doors voice that they want these things, and Commissioner Whitfield makes a decision on them because people come to him? But there’re a whole lot of people coming to you about this that do oppose it, and they get completely dismissed. And it’s the anonymous people that talk to you off the record apparently that you listen to and make your decisions on.”
The Gateway project is not the only decision that has had this kind of “narrative,” the caller concluded.
History
At the Nov. 12, 2020, Walker County commissioner’s meeting, then-Sole Commissioner Whitfield acted on a previouslytabled request from the Hutcheson family on behalf of the developer to rezone the 18.85-acre parcel from agricultural and commercial to residential (R-2).
Elliot Pierce, a member of the Walker County Planning Commission, pointed out the rezoning process error in a column
he published on his Facebook page.
The Walker County Planning Commission conducted Feb. 20, 2020, the first public hearing and recommended denying the request.
The county’s planning and development staff — citing from Jan. 1, 2018, through Jan. 1, 2020, 15 traffic accidents near the property — also recommended denying the request.
Whitfield, on Feb. 27, 2020, said that the second hearing would be postponed at the developer’s request and that another hearing would be
scheduled, legally advertised and allow time for public comment.
An informational meeting Oct. 22, 2020, at the Walker County Civic Center addressed traffic concerns about the project, with Whitfield noting Georgia Department of Transportation data confirmed “an existing traffic problem on Happy Valley Road.”
The meeting was not a public hearing and was not advertised according to the requirements for public hearings, and no minutes were taken, Pierce said.
The second hearing was not rescheduled. At the Nov. 12, 2020, commissioner’s meeting Whitfield stated that the required public hearings were held Feb. 20 and Feb. 27,
2020. He said the matter had been tabled at the Feb. 27 meeting.
“We are bringing this back up and taking action on this now, so we will approve this as submitted,” he said Nov. 12, 2020.
The preliminary plat approval for the development was on the Aug. 19, 2021, agenda for the Walker County Planning Commission; the planning commission granted the developer’s written request that consideration of the preliminary plat be extended until Thursday, Oct. 21.
Gateway project
Gateway’s multi-family housing development would utilize the federal
Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, which is not Section 8 and does not result in a separate rent schedule for residents based on income, Mandell stressed.
Multiple three-story buildings to include 18 one-bedroom units, 90 two-bedroom units and 48 threebedroom units would comprise the development.
Rental rates will be structured for households in the $26,055 to $47,100 income bracket, with rents anticipated to be $760 for a one-bedroom, $910 for a two-bedroom and $1,050 for a three-bedroom unit, Mandell said. Gateway would conduct credit and criminal background checks on all prospective tenants.
Gateway currently manages nearly 15,000 apartment units across several states, including about 40 communities in Georgia, he said.
Mandell said the proposed development will generate more than $105,000 annually in property taxes, $500,000 in sales taxes from construction, $200,000 in local permit and tap fees in addition to the $25 million capital investment. It would also create 150-200 direct and indirect construction jobs.
Within the last year, the county also approved a planned unit development of nearly 500 houses, to be built over the next five to seven years, at the corner of Happy Valley Road and Battlefield Parkway.