A rezoning request in favor of a proposed manufacturing facility near the Augusta Regional Airport moved smoothly through its review during the Augusta Planning Commission’s November meeting, Monday afternoon.
The Nixon Trusts petitioned to rezone some 100 acres of their 280-acre parcel at 1550 Four H Club Road to Heavy Industrial (HI) to make way for an undisclosed developer’s plan to build a manufacturing warehouse.
Planning staff noted that while the subject parcel is currently zoned Agricultural (A), several neighboring tracts have been rezoned from A to Light Industrial (LI) from 2020 to 2023. Ashley Catterton, development service administrator with Augusta Planning, also mentioned to the planning commissioners that the prospective developer’s project aims to “support heavy industrial use and railway expansion by connecting to Norfolk Southern’s main rail line.”
Attorney John Trotter told planning commissioners that his client, the applicant, was working closely with the Augusta Economic Development Authority (AEDA) on drawing a potential end user for the property. As such he was not at liberty to name the potential user, Trotter said, though he underscored that this user’s project would “primarily be a warehouse,” and that all manufacturing would be “done within that warehouse.”
Trotter also made sure to mention that the development would not be anything akin to a paper mill or a chemical plant—two examples of uses that would be allowed under a Heavy Industrial zoning — and that the developer, seeking to use property near the airport, was “not a foreign entity.”
Planning staff recommended approval, though with conditions including a minimum 25-foot buffer from all wetlands on the parcel, and the completion of an FAA form for a notice of proposed construction or alteration. The planning commissioners followed suit, voting unanimously in favor of the request.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering general reporting for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com
