Meybohm Real Estate is seeking approval from the county to get the sixth phase of its Whispering Pines neighborhood fully underway.
On Sept. 8, CSRA Development Company submitted an updated version of the conceptual plans to Whispering Pines Phase VI for review by the Columbia County planning department and the Planning Commission.
This final phase in Whispering Pines’ master plan entails building 115 new residential lots, ranging from 5,000 to 8,5000 square feet, along some 54 acres at the Evans subdivision’s northwestern side.
The detached family homes are mostly two-story houses of similar design to the houses among more than 300 lots throughout the 163-acre development, with price points of about $150,000 to $290,000 and up.
The developers along with the landowners, Pollard Land Company, also applied for a variance for the new subdivision phase.
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The variance request places the proposed neighborhood section in an undeveloped parcel at 0 Georgia Pine Trl., and petitions the county to allow an exception to county ordinance 34-1, which states that a “natural, undisturbed buffer with a minimum width of 50 feet shall be maintained along the exterior boundary” of an intended residential development affected by major site grading.
In a document accompanying the variance request, the CSRA Development explains that there is approximately 74 feet between the back of the proposed lots and the northern property line of Whispering Pines Phase VI, and that a 25-foot wooded before was in place before developers granted the county an easement to loop its water system. The document further notes that wetlands on the property prevent the developers from moving the roadway south.
“The easement would not have been granted had we known at the time that the distance was so critical,” said CSRA Development in its explanatory document. “The only other option to obtain the 50 foot buffer would be to single load the roadway with homes only on one side, which would make the neighborhood economically unfeasible.”
The first phase of Whispering Pines was completed and put on the market in 2016.
The Columbia County Planning Commission is scheduled to vote on both the variance request and the concept plans (the latter item not being decided in a public hearing) in its meeting on Thursday, Oct. 6.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
