Development plan pulled from agenda

Web posted Sunday, November 5, 2000

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By Heidi Coryell
Staff Writer

The owners of a 15.8-acre tract of land in west Augusta have removed their request before the Augusta-Richmond County Planning Commission to have a pre-development plan approved at its Monday meeting.

Co-owner of the property, John Speer, said Friday that he had no comment on his decision to pull the item from the commission agenda, only that the matter will be placed on hold indefinitely.

The heavily wooded lot - located off Wheeler Road between Somerset Way and Camellia Road - would have set a precedent for flood-sensitive land in Richmond County by being the first pre-development plan to go before the planning commission.

Pre-development plans are largely a formality and have always been approved by a staff member of the county planning and zoning office. But a heightened awareness of issues surrounding development in the flood plain, paired with an updated flood damage prevention ordinance, prompted officials in the Telfair Street office to forward the matter of approval to the Planning and Zoning Commission for the first time, Executive Director George Patty said.

Rae's Creek runs directly through the densely wooded property, which is just a few miles upstream from the Chelsea Drive area, notorious for its historic flood problems. Several homeowners in a neighboring subdivision distributed flyers to residents downstream from the property warning them about the potential for development.

The subdivision plat on file in the planning commission's office shows that the area would have been subdivided into four lots, ranging in size from 3.13 to 5.24 acres. The plat also shows that about 50 percent of the property is located in the 100-year flood plain, which means it has a 1 percent chance of flooding in any given year.

Reach Heidi Coryell at (706) 823-3215.

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