A request to rezone some three acres near the intersection of Columbia Road and William Few Parkway for a gas station is returning to the county.
Last year, Paul V. Davies Jr. Family Properties, Carboy Quarry Properties LLC and Mary Ann Godwin requested to rezone their property at 5607 Columbia Road from Residential Agricultural to Community Commercial, and for variances to operate for 24 hours and to remove the required 30-foot and 10-foot structural buffers where the parcel abuts a residential area.
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The landowners were looking to make way for a proposed Circle-K gas station. The Columbia County Planning Commission voted to recommend approval for the requests in June of 2023, even amid opposition from neighboring residents.
By the time the item was before the Board of Commissioners, the applicants had asked to withdraw their requests without prejudice. The board obliged, voting to allow the withdrawal, during the same meeting in which commissioners voted against allowing a Parker’s Kitchen along Lewiston Road to operate for 24 hours. The board would reconsider and then vote to approve that variance a month later.
This year, the owners of the Columbia Road parcel are again requesting to rezone the tract to Community Commercial and get a variance for the required buffers, and to operate for 24 hours, but now the proposed convenience store is another Parker’s Kitchen, with Daniel Ben-Yisrael, Drayton-Parker’s real estate development manager, among the applicants.
The plan for the new fuel station includes a convenience store building of more than 5,000 square feet, 38 parking spaces and 16 fuel pumps. The Savannah-based convenience store chain is also building a location at Riverwood Plantation, at the intersection of William Few and Washington Road.
The Columbia County Planning Commission is scheduled to consider the requests during its June 20 meeting.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
