The City Council voted 4-2 to rezone 5.6 acres on Main Street for townhomes, condos, cottages and offices, and let the developer pipe a stream. What passed.
Adair Park is growing north along Main Street. The Woodstock City Council voted 4-2 Monday to approve Adair Park North, a mix of homes, offices and shops on 5.6 acres at 7950 and 8020 Main Street.
The site sits at the northwest corner of the roundabout where Main Street meets Haney Street. It is mostly woods today, with two houses, one of them vacant. Woodstock Elementary School is just west, across the Georgia Northeastern Railroad tracks.
Council member Rob Usher made the motion and council member David Potts seconded it. Mayor Pro Tem Colin Ake, who chaired the meeting, and council member Tracy Collins voted no, according to the city’s video of the Oct. 26 meeting. The figures below come from the case file, Z#172-26, in the meeting’s agenda packet, and from the staff presentation at the meeting.
What will be built
The council capped the project at 55 homes. The concept plan the developer must follow shows 51 of them:
- 30 townhomes, set inside the site and facing shared greens
- 10 condos on the upper floors of two mixed-use buildings on Main Street
- eight cottages, which the plans size at 900 to 1,800 square feet
- three detached single-family houses at the north end, next to Short Street
Staff said the plan also has more than 62,000 square feet of commercial space. Two commercial buildings would sit at the roundabout. Parking for the Main Street buildings goes underneath them, out of sight from the street.
The developer, Adair Park Development Company LLC, is led by Eric Richards. He told the council he wants to sell the offices on the north building as condos to local professionals.
The stream, the height and the road
The site drops about 22 feet from Main Street to a stream, then climbs toward the railroad, Richards told the council. He said a 75-foot buffer along the stream would leave the land unusable.
The council granted five variances from the city’s development code:
- removing the city’s stream buffer so the stream can be piped
- letting townhomes front onto open space instead of a street
- dropping the landscape strip required along the sidewalk
- narrowing the storm and sewer easements
- raising the height limit from 40 to 48 feet for the mixed-use and commercial buildings
Piping the stream still needs a federal permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Georgia Environmental Protection Division’s approval. Community Development Director Melissa Sigmund said the city’s buffer variance would not work if EPD does not agree. Staff said one building in the original Adair Park already received a height variance to 46 feet 8 inches.
Cars will reach the site from an extension of Haney Street and from Short Street. There will be no new driveways onto Main Street. The Haney Street extension is a city project that needs a rail crossing, and the city is still negotiating its alignment with the railroad, the staff report said.
The conditions
The council attached 14 conditions recommended by staff and the Planning Commission. They include:
- no more than 10% of the homes may be rented at any time, and no short-term rentals
- the developer must make the improvements in its traffic study, which staff said cover signal timing at Main Street and Ridgewalk Parkway
- no trash pickup or deliveries between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., and no delivery trucks unloading on Main Street
- the north commercial buildings must be finished before building permits for the townhomes next to them
- if the city’s deal for the Haney Street extension is not signed by site plan approval, the developer must build the section across its own frontage to the city’s design
- construction traffic may use Short Street only with the city’s specific approval
Monday’s motion added two more. The sides of townhomes that face a street must have the same level of design and detail as the fronts. Any extra density the zoning allows cannot be moved to a future project.
Why 2 members voted no
Ake said the developer argued the site should be judged on its own, while also presenting it as one coherent block of downtown with its other parcels. He said the council should be consistent in how it weighs stream buffers. “It is not the job of this council to make every parcel of the city developable,” he said.
A council member who backed the plan said the Haney Street link would give families another way to reach Woodstock Elementary without turning off Rope Mill Road.
Two residents spoke at the public hearing. One supported the road link and described emergency vehicles waiting at the Main Street rail crossing. The other asked the council to deny the stream variance and to require a flooding study before any site plan is approved. A written objection to the piping and height variances is also in the packet.
The Planning Commission recommended approval 4-1 on Oct. 1. The city’s Development Process Committee recommended it 5-1 in August.
Also approved Monday
These items passed in one consent vote with no objections, according to the meeting video:
- Economic development plan: KB Advisory Group will update the city’s plan for no more than $60,000. The city had 10 proposals.
- Comprehensive plan: Inspire Placemaking Collective will write the 10-year update, at a maximum fixed price of $400,000. The city had six proposals.
- Ridgewalk interchange: a change order pays the city’s engineer, Arcadis, for more bridge design on the I-575 diverging diamond after it found an overhang problem. Staff said that is GDOT’s responsibility and the city will seek repayment.
- Wall Street closure: Wall Street will close between the Elm Street and Mill Street crosswalks from 10 a.m. to midnight Saturday, Nov. 7, for Truck & Tap’s anniversary party. Live music is planned from about 5 to 11 p.m. The approval depends on the business getting written permission from the neighboring property owner, whose parking spaces would close.
- Oyster Fest: Roberto’s Deluxe, 8212 Main St., received a temporary alcohol permit for its Oyster Fest on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 13 and 14.
What it means for you
- Nothing is being built yet. The developer still needs a site plan, the federal and state stream permits and building permits. No construction date has been announced.
- Neighbors on Short Street will get a road connection through the site to the Haney Street extension, once that road is built.
- Downtown traffic: watch our road construction and closures page for the Haney Street work and the Wall Street closure on Nov. 7.
- Buying downtown: the 10% rental cap and short-term rental ban will be written into the homeowners association covenants. Our home prices page tracks what homes in Woodstock are selling for.
The full case file is in the agenda packet linked above. Our downtown Woodstock guide covers what is already there, and our who to call at City Hall page lists the Community Development office.
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