After a few dozen people stood up to oppose it, a developer’s request to rezone 61 acres of agricultural land on the Georgia Highway 119 Connector for creation of a subdivision with lots for 59 single-family homes went down to denial by a 4-3 vote of the Bulloch County commissioners June 3.

This involved Chairman David Bennett’s first use of his tiebreaker vote since he was elected countywide to lead the Board of Commissioners last year and took office in early January 2025. Of the district commissioners, two who were first elected last year, Ray Davis and Nick Newkirk, respectively, made and seconded the motion to deny the zoning change. One longer-serving commissioner, Toby Conner, joined them in voting “yes” for denial. But the other three longer-serving commissioners – Anthony Simmons, Ray Mosley and Timmy Rushing – voted “no.”

Since Davis made his motion in the negative, those who voted “no” were actually those who favored approval of the zoning change, or at least thought the county had no legal basis to deny it.

River Bluff Properties, LLC, led by established local developer Robert K. Bell Jr., had requested that the 61- acre tract, which is along the Highway 119 Connector to where it meets Highway 119 proper, be rezoned from Ag-5 agricultural to R-40 residential. This is in the Ivanhoe area near the southeastern corner of the county.

The minimum lot size generally required for a house in an Ag-5 zone is five acres. R-40 is one of the county’s lower-density residential classifications, requiring a lot size of at least 40,000 square feet, or little over nine-tenths of an acre.

“Staff recommends approval of the request, with conditions. …,” county Planning & Development Director James Pope told the commissioners.

“This rezoning would be considered, I guess, a pioneering zoning for this area,” he said. “Ivanhoe has been identified in the Comprehensive Plan map as a rural neighborhood.”

In ‘Smart’ plan

In other words, this is in one of the areas mapped for residential development in the Comprehensive Plan and revised Zoning Ordinance adopted by the commissioners after a late summer 2022-spring 2023 partial moratorium on rezoning for subdivisions in the southeastern part of the county. This was carried forward in the Smart Bulloch 2045 plan update adopted in June 2024.

The proposed project would follow the design principles and characteristics of a rural neighborhood, Pope said in explaining the staff recommendation.

“So, it does follow the Comprehensive Plan,” he said.

But he acknowledged that concerns about the Highway 119 intersection had been discussed by the appointed Planning and Zoning Commission and that residents had raised “some environmental concerns.”

One thing that Pope said in his introduction of the agenda item turned out to be inaccurate. He at first said that the Planning and Zoning Commission, in an earlier meeting, had voted unanimously to recommend denial of the rezoning. But later in the county commissioners’ meeting, after Rushing asked about this, Pope checked the record and acknowledged that the P&Z board vote had been 3-1 for denial.

Attorney for Bell

Bell also attended the Board of Commissioners meeting, but a local attorney, Chris Gohagan,  spoke on behalf of River Bluff Properties LLC in presenting the request.

The Board of Commissioners had “invested heavily in a housing study,” Gohagan said. “I was here in December when the most recent results of that study were presented, which indicate that in the next five years our county’s going to see a growth of 20 percent in our population. That represents roughly 20,000 new residents. They project that over 4,000 new building permits are going to have to be issued to meet the needs of that new population. This project is one of the pieces of the puzzle.”

He asserted that the county staff had found that the proposed project reflected “a reasonable balance between the promotion of the public health, safety, morality and welfare and the right to unrestricted use of property.”

‘Negative impacts’

The county’s departmental review of the project had listed some “negative impacts,” but listing negatives – including added demands on county government services – is a standard part of the reviews.

One passage of the report described the “School impact,” stating: “Student Enrollment Created by New Development … A minimum of 36 new students in the Southeast Bulloch High School feeder district.”

“Negative Impact: The impact to the Southeast Bulloch High School feeder system is likely to be negative assuming 25% of new residents will be less than 19 years old,” the report stated.

The page on Fire Department and Emergency Medical Service impacts included this statement: “Negative Impact: Response times for fire and EMS are currently inadequate, however future staffing plans for an EMS station will place the development within 6 miles of an EMS station. Future plans for a fire station are in place. The new Eldora station will be located approximately 3.5 miles from the development. The developer donated 1 acre to Bulloch County for the fire station location.”

At the request of commissioners, particularly Rushing, Chief Ben Tapley of the Bulloch County Fire Department and EMS Director Brian Hendrix later spoke about the plans for new stations, and Bulloch County Board of Education member Lannie Lanier spoke about planning for school growth and the school system budget. He was one of three county school board members present at the commissioners’ meeting.

Voices in opposition

Before offering the public microphone to opposition speakers, Bennett noted that he had received several typed messages about the project over the past week. One was from the Ogeechee Riverkeeper organization, expressing opposition to it and noting concerns about septic waste. Another, from Coastal Communities United, listed “multiple concerns, with traffic, overcrowding and septic issues,” Bennett said. The third was from Lisha Nevil, another of the school board members, who wrote about strain placed on schools, particularly Stilson Elementary.

Eight people had signed up to speak in opposition, and seven actually did so. When they did not designate a group spokesperson, Bennett gave them each two minutes at the microphone.

First to speak was Clint Proudfoot, a Highway 119 resident.

“While we fully support responsible growth, this particular proposal raises significant issues that affect our infrastructure, environment, safety and overall quality of life,” he said.

Proudfoot spoke of the “impact on agriculture,” saying the development  would undermine farmers’ ability to operate in adjacent fields and threaten the area’s rural character. He also gave a count of accidents at the nearby intersection, which he called “notoriously dangerous.”

Neighboring property owner Mary Rogers spoke of a potential “domino effect,” of the subdivision starting a trend of further development in the immediate area. Casey Martin talked about the number of gopher tortoises on land around the site.

When commissioners discussed the project, Rushing said he believed the county would face a lawsuit from the developer if they denied the rezoning.

“When you’ve got a project that comes on line that’s been on the books for 20-something years, that checks every box, goes above and beyond everything, can we turn it down?” Rushing asked. “Yeah, we can turn it down, we can. I’ll let (County Attorney) Jeff Akins guess at this, how much it’s going to cost him to defend it. … But it’s going to be a tax increase, because we’re going to have to fight this thing, I can tell you, because there’s no legal stance that this commission can actually turn this down.”

Commissioner Simmons expressed similar concern and suggested that neighbors opposed to the project might buy the land from the developer.

But Commissioner Conner said that while he appreciated how Bell was willing to work with the county and what he has done in the past, Conner wasn’t trusting anybody’s prediction of how things will turn out in the future.

“All I know is the facts. The facts are we’re not ready yet,” he said.

Davis asked those in the audience who were there in opposition to the project to stand. It was a far larger group than just those who signed up to speak.

After Davis’ motion to deny the zoning change resulted in a 3-3 tie, Bennett said, “We’ll go on record tonight with the chairman voting for the first time. I’m going to vote to deny.”

Akins had him to clarify, and he did, that this was a “yes” vote for Davis’ motion.