Changes to Macon-Bibb County Planning & Zoning regulations prompted a couple of property owners to go back to the drawing board Monday to revise or abandon plans.
Carr’s convenience store at 5988 Mt. Pleasant Church Road will not be able to add on 400 square feet to the building to serve hot food because of a 2022 change in the code preventing fueling center gas pumps or fuel tanks to be within 500 feet of a residence.
Although the store was grandfathered in and was able to continue to operate within 500 feet of a mobile home, the code that governs P&Z does not allow expansion of a non-conforming property.
Further complicating the matters, the store didn’t apply for necessary permits in 2023 when they initially illegally added on to the building.
At the time, they did submit plans to P&Z to expand the fueling canopy and were limited to two gas pumps, but P&Z staff neglected to inform the owners that they could not move the pumps any closer to the home, which they did.
P&Z also did not know about the building expansion, only the canopy project.
“This was back in the days when we weren’t communicating well at all between us and the building department. And people would come in, get their (zoning) compliance and then go to the building department and do what they wanted,” P&Z Executive Director Jeff Ruggieri explained.
While P&Z will not require the store owners to remove the unauthorized expansion, Section 24 of the code prohibits them from expanding on the non-conforming property, Ruggieri said.
“When they did that original expansion, had they come in for a permit, it would have been denied,” Ruggieri said. “Our code explicitly prohibits that expansion, so there’s really no basis in the code to approve this expansion.”
The advent of the short-term rental craze prompted code changes in December that have a north Macon homeowner rethinking his plans for an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, in his backyard.
Robbie Allen thought he could build a home for his mother with an attached garage behind his house at 136 Waterford Place, but his plans put the building too close to the property line.
ADUs must have a 40-foot setback from the property line under the new code, while a garage or other accessory dwelling only needs 10 feet.
Allen could separate the ADU from the garage and reconfigure the building to come into compliance, but all agreed it would look better as one building.
He agreed to defer the item to explore his options to revise the building plan.
P&Z also rezoned several parcels from light manufacturing to single-family residential after its own code changes made residential uses illegal in manufacturing zones.
Although the existing homes were grandfathered in, property owners could not add on or rebuild if the house was destroyed by fire or storms.
P&Z staff are combing through these M-1 districts to rezone some of these smaller parcels to residential and will continue to do so in the coming months.
This week’s batch included rezoning parcels at 2808, 2806, 2782, & 2770 Antioch Road and others at 2704, 2734, 2744, & 2752 Antioch Road.
Downtown arts center, Helms College renovation
An old warehouse at 857 Third St.will be transformed with new offices, event space, catering kitchen and maintain an automotive repair shop after P&Z approved a certificate of appropriateness upon the recommendation of the Design Review Board.
“Essentially, we’re changing the building to sort of be like an art studio, among other things, but
we’re trying to essentially improve the aesthetic of the building from the streets,” said owner Steve Chiariello.
Exterior modifications to the nearly 14,000-square-foot brick building built in 1939 required design approval because it is a contributing building to the Downtown Central Business District.
A metal rollup door on the front of the building will be replaced with a bay door with glass panels.
Chiariello said having that large opening was essential to his plans.
“At some point, the expectation is that there’ll be some exhibit component to this.
The building itself has a really large open area that is really a selling point of the building, and to be able to bring things in and out through that front bay doors is crucial,” Chiariello said.
Once he knows more about the tenants moving in, Chiariello plans to come back to P&Z with an application for signage and possible awnings.
Goodwill Industries is expanding its Helms College operation at 5171 Eisenhower Parkway.
P&Z approved a conditional use application for the school to convert about 3,400 square feet of the old café and bookstore into a School of Health Services with two classrooms and two laboratories.
Although the college has been operating on the site for more than a decade, it never applied for zoning compliance until now, according to P&Z staff.
P&Z approved the application as long as a digital sign on the building was removed, which the applicant said it has been.
Other agenda items:
- 616 Poplar St. — Certificate of Appropriateness granted for signage at Shuster’s Candy & Creamery.
- 2064 Vineville Ave. — Signage approved for new physicians’ offices.
- 2614 Stanislaus Circle — Joseph Hanson’s home addition approved under historic district guidelines.
- 1074 Inverness Ave. — Certificate of appropriateness issued for Jeffery Lawrence’s new windows as long as they are wood, or wood with aluminum cladding.
- 3401 Ocmulgee East Industrial Blvd. — Edward Kulikov’s automobile repair shop was granted conditional use approval.
- 533 Grenada Terrace — The Anderson family applied for a variance for their front fence being too close to the right-of-way, but the gate opens into the street. They will try to redesign the gate and return to P&Z.
— Civic Journalism Senior Fellow Liz Fabian covers Macon-Bibb County government entities for The Macon Newsroom and can be reached at [email protected] or 478-301-2976.
