The new tiny house community planned for Merry Street has applied for a rezoning and a reduction in the number of required parking spaces.
The development, intended to house youth aging out of the foster system, would be Augusta’s first tiny home community. But skepticism persists among some of its intended neighbors, who see the April 1 vote as a chance to block the project.
Architect Joe Gambill filed the application on behalf of owner Bridge Builder Communities. The development is the first by Bridge Builder, a group founded by retired Army strategic force manager Jackson Drumgoole II.
Drumgoole, now director of learning and organizational development for Wellstar Health System, said he wants to give youth who’ve been shuffled through the foster system a place to regroup and transition into successful adults.
The request includes rezoning the 3.1-acre site from R-1C to R1-E, which allows single- and multi-family dwellings of various lot sizes but with no more than eight units per structure and no more than 10 units per acre.
Phase 1 of the development will include a 3,500-square-foot community building and 10 tiny houses, according to the application. Phase 2 would bring the number of tiny homes to 25.
Under Augusta’s zoning ordinance, the community center requires 12 spaces, while R-1E zoning would require two spaces per residential unit, or 50 spaces.
Bridge Builder wants to reduce number of residential parking spaces from 50 to 11, saying only one in 10 residents is expected to have a car, the application states.
“it is likely only a few of our residents will own automobiles,” the group said.
The development sits within an easy walk of Augusta Transit’s blue and pink lines, it said. The blue route on Walton Way and the pink route on Wrightsboro Road each are about a half-mile away.
The 1140 Merry St. site, where the city allows on-street parking, is a vacant 3.1-acre former city park known as Central Park. Augusta, Georgia Land Bank Authority negotiated the transfer of the park to Drumgoole with no known public input.
The sits adjacent to the eastern end of McDowell Street, about a 400-foot walk from the nearest retail, a Family Dollar on Central Avenue.
Ahead of the vote, former Augusta Commission candidate Michael Thurman was rallying opposition Saturday.
“This group will pull at your heartstrings, and rightly so! This is needed, but not in a neighborhood,” Thurman posted.
Thurman’s residential rental properties surround the park site and sit sandwiched between the site and Paine College. The tract is block from the former Lamar Elementary, which Richmond County Board of Education recently agreed to sell for the development of multifamily housing for Augusta’s Choice Neighborhood housing grant application.
Thurman was skeptical the project’s founders will maintain the security and supervision they say will be part of the development. He sided with some homeowners surrounding Lamar, on Baker Avenue, that oppose the proposed apartment complex.
“Once this rezoning is allowed, it will be harder for the demolition and the rezoning of the Lamar Elementary School and the hundreds of people they want to put in that small space,” he said.
