Neighbors in Kingsridge Estates, a subdivision built in the early 1970s that lies between Dupree Road and Ga. 92 in unincorporated Cherokee County, are fighting an annexation request that would take three homes in their subdivision into the city and zone them general commercial, for designated use as a car storage lot.
Hennessy Honda, which borders the subdivision and is located on Ga. 92 in the city of Woodstock, has requested annexation of 1.75 acres at 890 Tanglewood Trail, 1070 Castlewood Drive and 1080 Castlewood Drive. They have contracts on the properties, conditional on annexation and zoning, said dealership owner Peter Hennessy, who says the business wants to store excess cars inside a fenced enclosure on the property, which is located behind the dealership. Hennessy would not disclose how much his firm has offered to the owners of the properties.
Neighbors say the properties never posted “for sale” signs.
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Carolyn Mathews | Ledger-News
The home on the left, and two homes on the right side of the street, will be destroyed and the road spur abandoned if Hennessy Honda’s annexation and zoning requests for a car storage lot are granted by Woodstock. The dealership is located behind the trees.
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The Cherokee County Board of Commissioners, after notification from Woodstock of the request, objected to the annexation, basing their objection on land-use, traffic, buffers, and that the property is located outside the city’s former growth boundary.
Woodstock Director of Community Development Richard McLeod said the county’s objection “pretty much freezes” the annexation application until the county has a chance to present its side. A public hearing had been set for the Feb. 3 Woodstock Planning Commission, but has since been cancelled.
Post 4 County Commissioner Derek Good, in whose post the subdivision lies, said he was set to meet with McLeod, Woodstock City Manager Jeff Moon and other interested parties on Jan. 28 to discuss the annexation request.
“Our objection is purely land-use based,” Good said. “They are proposing to go into a platted residential subdivision. This may not be in the best interest of the neighborhood.”
Good said the county can protest and push for non-binding arbitration. However, he said the way Georgia law is set up, it’s the city’s decision.
“At the very minimum, I want to get any and all protection for my residents,” he said.
Neighborhood residents said they packed a public participation meeting on the annexation request that was held Dec. 28, with more than 60 people attending, and have submitted a petition against the move to the city of Woodstock with more than 100 signatures.
Lloyd Langston, who lives two houses away from where Hennessy is proposing to envelop what is now the end of a dead end street, is an original resident of the neighborhood.
“It will open up our neighborhood to Highway 92,” he said. “Right now the treeline blocks the view.” He said he is concerned that locating cars in a lot where the three subdivision homes are now located will bring vandals into the neighborhood, as well as more light and noise.
He said the city tree ordinance will be violated because of the size of the trees located on the property. The application requests rezoning of the property from residential (R-20) to general commercial, as well as a reduction of the buffer adjacent to residential development from the city’s required 75-foot buffer to a 35-foot buffer along the eastern and northern boundaries of the property, which adjoins the neighborhood.
Neighbors are concerned about property values.
Ana Anthuis, one of the homeowners, said more than 40 percent of the neighborhood are original owners.
“What this could do to us is scary,” she said, adding that two of the three homes Hennessy is eyeing currently are owner-occupied.
Resident Lisa Parker, who has lived in the neighborhood for 15 years, asked why Hennessy could not build a decked parking lot on its existing property.
Hennessy said there are height restrictions in the deed to his existing property that would keep him from doing that. He said if he can’t get the annexation he is asking for, he may explore that option, or he may move the dealership, possibly out of the county, even though that’s not his first choice.
“I wouldn’t even do this if I couldn’t make the area look as nice or nicer than it already is,” Hennessy said. “I don’t take it lightly trying to expand into a residential neighborhood.”
Hennessy said from the subdivision side, a buffer would be built that would have grass, shrubs, a 5-or-6 foot berm and 7-or-8 foot evergreens. The cars in the storage lot would be surrounded by a chain-link fence and an “architectural” fence.
Lighting would be 10-feet high instead of the current 25 feet on the rest of the dealership. Hennessy said he needs the storage lot to stay within parameters for facility size set by American Honda. He said while there has been little or no vandalism at the dealership lot, which he has had for 15 years, there has been vandalism at lots that are outlying, where he has tried to store cars.
Hennessy said there would be no nighttime noise from the storage lot. While Hennessy insists there are no deliveries of vehicles after 11 p.m., neighbors insist they arrive in the wee hours of the morning.
He said he had included a walking path out from the neighborhood to the retail area, because neighborhood members said they used such a path now, and wanted to keep it.
Langston said he and his neighbors already co-exist with Home Depot and Hennessy, but the annexation would destroy the neighborhood’s tranquility.
Neighbor Jerry Hollstrom, also a long-time resident, whose home would face the parking lot, agreed.
“We’ve had a quiet neighborhood, where our children could play and we could walk the block,” he said.
