A rezoning petition initially voted down by Hinesville City Council won approval at its meeting Thursday.
City council members voted 3-2 against rezoning 15.3 acres off Ellie Lane from single-family residential to multi-family residential but voted at their previous meeting to reconsider the issue.
Developers plan to build 41 townhomes and 48 apartments on the site.
The Liberty Consolidated Planning Commission recommended approving the rezoning petition back in May 2024. But city council members tabled the matter over questions of property ownership. The LCPC put conditions on their recommendation, including an Army Corps of Engineers wetlands delineation prior to site plan review and ownership of Ellie Lane shall be determined before approval of the preliminary plat.
Council member Diana Reid asked if there was any way the city could compensate Shelly Walker, who had been maintaining portions of Ellie Lane. Mayor Karl Riles recommended giving City Manager Kenneth Howard and staff time to consider the options.
Council members also approved a number of other rezonings and heard the first reading of a proposed annexation.
“There is a lot of growth going on in Hinesville,” LCPC executive director Jeff Ricketson said.
Council members unanimously approved rezoning 37.21 acres on Pipkin Road from R-8 and multi-family residential to planned unit development. The tract was the site of a mobile home park that is no longer in use, Ricketson said.
“It’s vacant and under- utilized,” he said.
Plans call for building 280 homes, mostly townhomes, on the tract. A traffic study will have to be done before building can start.
“It will be a good facelift for the area,” Adam Wilkinson of Goose Creek, the project developers, told council members. “I think it will be a very nice development.”
Also approved was rezoning to amend an existing PUD on Airport Road to build single-family homes instead of townhomes. The plan also calls for the number of units to be built to reduced from 41 to 40.
Instead of townhomes, the builders will put in row homes, meaning they will have some space between buildings and not attached to each other.
The city also cleared the way for two office buildings to be built along Martin Luther King Drive, Court Street and Highway 84. Plans for a new Southeastern Bank building and for a new Osteen Law Group building were approved by the design review board. Any project within the downtown area has to be sent to the design review board, Ricketson pointed out.
The Southeastern Bank will be a one-story building and the Osteen Law Group building will be three stories. There will be inter-parcel access between the two, and there will not be an access to either building from Highway 84.
The Southeastern Bank plans call for an ATM and two drive-through teller windows, and the Osteen Law Group building will face Court Street. Council members also approved reducing the number of parking spaces at the law firm’s building from 64 to 49.
Jason Floyd, who is the local Southeastern Bank branch manager, abstained from voting on approving the bank’s design.
of its activities on the first two floors and the third floor will be for future growth, Ricketson said. Council members approved its design request unanimously.
“Those are two very good-looking buildings,” Mayor Karl Riles said. “We have a very nice aesthetic and it is nice to see they considered the pieces we have and decided to match that.”
Council members also held their first of three hearings on a proposed annexation of 22.5 acres off Ruben Wells Road as part of the Grand Reserve planned unit development. The development will be a total of 340 acres, if the annexation is approved, with a total of 636 units.
The developers plan to take out 200 multi-family units and replace those with 100 single-family homes.
The LCPC recommended approval and as part of its special conditions, asked that the developer provide an updated general development plan that includes all of the approved amendments and that the spine road shall remain as a collector street and remain a requirement of the PUD. The LCPC board also recommended making a future connection to Grove Point Drive a requirement of the PUD.
The developers are asking to remove the collector street requirement because of the reduction in density and as there is no longer a proposed connection to the Grove Point subdivision.
“The area we were going to connect to 15th Street has been built out,” project engineer Marcus Sack told council members. “If we were going to connect through Grove Point, it would be more of an undue burden. We would like to remove collector street requirement because that is critical to this development.
“We’re just trying to do the right thing, which we agreed to in the planning portion of this project.”
In its zoning analysis, LCPC staff said “the proposed elimination of the spine road would have a negative effect for public safety and effect transportation. Proposed elimination of the spine road and future connection to Grove Point Drive is not consistent with the HAMPO Metropolitan Transportation Plan.”
Ricketson said the Hinesville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization had envisioned a connection between Veterans Parkway and 15th Street.
“This piece of property represents the last opportunity to do that,” he said. “Griffin Park has been built out. So if that connection doesn’t happen here, it will never happen.”
The annexation request will come back to the council members for two other readings.