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By Becky Watts
ZEBULON - County Manager John Hanson informed commissioners in last night's meeting that as the county was preparing to send out letters of notification on the property currently known as the Shri Ram Chandra Mission, the county was advised that the application for rezoning had been withdrawn.
The owners of this property had been requesting a re-zoning from A-R (Agricultural-Residential) to P-I (Professional-Institutional) to allow for the location of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center on the subject property. Many of the surrounding homeowners were against the rezoning and had spoken out when it came before the Planning Commission and the Board of Commissioners.
This application came before the Planning Commission on March 13 and April 10 and was denied both times with the main concerns being safety concerns for surrounding residents and non-conforming use for our land use map. Commissioners made no decision on this matter in the April meeting because it was abiding by state law OCGA 36-66-4 which states that there will be a hearing at least 6 months before and no more than 9 months before a decision can be made. The record included photos, letters, petitions, info from Planning and Development, etc. that were presented in the three meetings. The county has been served with a Notice of Constitutional Objection today which is required before any individual can file a lawsuit related to a zoning decision. November 12th will be the date of the final hearing on this matter.
County Manager John Hanson advised Pike County Times that this application for rezoning is withdrawn and the parcel will not be rezoned. If another application wanted to rezone the parcel, the rezoning process would begin again from scratch. He also advised that there is no litigation against the county involving this property that he is aware of at this time.
To read more about the property and the battle that surrounding homeowners had mounted against the rezoning, click here. This is a write up from the April 29, 2014 Board of Commissioners meeting.