The Columbia County Planning Commission voted down a proposed marina storage facility in Appling during its meeting, Thursday night.
The Government A Building Auditorium was full of neighboring residents there to contest the requested rezoning of some 10 acres of land on 0 Ray Owens Road, a portion of which sits at the intersection of Ridge and Washington roads.
Developer Meister & Marban LLC petitioned the county to rezone the property, owned by Mary Godwin, from its split zone of Recreational Residential (R-4) and General Commercial (C-2) to Special zoning (S-1), so that it could build a luxury boat and RV storage center.
Jacob Glover of Meister & Marban, speaking before the planning commissioners, said that the developers, along with conferring with the county, had also contacted area residents door to door and via letters, and even met with locals at the Eubank-Blanchard Community Center in Appling to discuss the community’s issues with the proposed project.
Glover told the commissioners that the residents’ chief concerns, such as traffic, noise pollution and security, were addressed with the planned installation of LED lights, 24-hour cameras, coded access, low visibility construction and word from traffic engineering that the development would draw fewer than 100 vehicles per day, as opposed to the 958 it currently generates.
“This is a class A facility. It’s going to bring value up. This is going to be something that Columbia County is going to be proud of for years to come,” Glover said. “You’re going to hear general impact oppositions that are going to basically say what we’ve already taken care of. And we just ask that now that you recognize that there’s no concern with health and safety and welfare issues because we’re taking care of all that.”
District 3 Planning Commissioner Emory Holloway differed, positing that the greatest concern among residents was likely the hill in front of Ridge Road.
“When you come out of Ridge Road heading back toward Evans, you’ve got to gun it. You better be moving,” Holloway said, underscoring the likelihood of a deadly accident. “But when you think of a crew cab, an F2-50, pulling out there with a 40-foot camper, he can’t gun it.”
Ridge Road resident John Bryan echoed Holloway’s concern, noting the potential traffic hazard, particularly regarding entering or exiting Ridge Road, a curved and narrow road, from or onto Washington.
“As we begin to look at it, and as you may hear from others within our community, the clarity can come into point of just simply thinking, not only in terms of a long-term effect, putting commercial buildings on a residential area that Mr. Glover has said will ultimately all become commercial,” said Bryan to the commissioners, underscoring the flow of logging trucks moving through the area since Hurricane Helene. “That projection, I think, is hypothetical and I think unreasonable as well.”
Another nearby resident, Julie Harrison, went before the commissioners with a petition in tow signed by more than 200 of her neighbors opposing the storage development.
“I have to pull over the road from the boats are coming, [when] campers are coming,” Harrison said, also stressing Ridge Road’s winding and narrow shape as a potential hazard. “We had a neighbor who went out and went down from the top of the hill, going 65 miles an hour. It takes five seconds to get from that hill to your Ridge Road. There’s no way the boat can even cross Ridge Road in five seconds. Somebody’s going to get hit, and it’s going to be bad.”
Planning staff recommended disapproval of the rezoning request. Planning manager Will Butler noted that the development pattern in the area surrounding the subject property has been for RV and boat storage to be immediately adjacent to the lake, within the rural community crossroads to the north.
“In order for this to work, you’d have to expand the community crossroads, and our opinion is there’s not really the reason to do that,” said Butler. The planning commissioners followed suit, voting unanimously to deny the request.
Skyler Andrews is a reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
