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4A I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I dawsonnews.com
Wednesday, March 20,2019
Photos by Allie Dean Dawson County News
Corey Gutherie, an engineer working with Dawson Village Partners, speaks to a group of residents who live near the proposed mixed-use development.
Etowah Village hearing tabled until April 16
By Allie Dean
adean@dawsonnews.com
Developers of the proposed
mixed-use development tenta
tively named Etowah Village will
have another month to prepare to
go before the Dawson County
Planning Commission after their
scheduled appearance at the
March 19 meeting was post
poned until April.
Dawson Village Partners sub
mitted a request March 13 to
table their rezoning application
until the April 16 planning com
mission meeting. The request
also moves the date the applica
tion will go before the Board of
Commissioners to May 16. Both
meetings will begin at 6 p.m. in
the second floor assembly room
of the county courthouse.
Corey Gutherie, an engineer
on the project, said during a
March 12 public information
meeting that the postponement
was necessary because the coun
ty did not expect to receive a
review of the project from the
Georgia Mountains Regional
Commission until March 18.
The Georgia Mountains
Regional Commission reviews
large-scale projects such as the
proposed Etowah Village, which
are called Developments of
Regional Impact, or DRIs.
According to the Georgia
Department of Community
Affairs website, the DRI review
procedure is “designed to
improve communication between
affected governments” and “pro
vide a means of revealing and
assessing potential impacts of
large-scale developments before
conflicts relating to them arise.”
The project review will include
recommendations and conditions
that will be implemented in the
project plan.
Gutherie submitted the DRI
Jan. 29, which detailed the
desired use of the property and
the number of residential units,
hotel rooms, recreational space
and park space.
Gutherie and other parties
involved in the development gave
residents more details on the
project during the March 12
meeting, which was attended by
property owners and residents
whose property is adjacent to the
proposed 877-acre development.
The meeting took place at Fire
Station No. 2.
Changes in the plans and acre
age have dropped the number of
projected residential units from
2,727 to 2,174, and the numbers
could still fluctuate, according to
Gutherie. The overall density
will remain 2.8 units per acre
with 319 loft units, 800 apart
ment units, 451 Continuing Care
Retirement Community (CCRC)
beds, 33 active adult units as part
of the CCRC, 171 single family
detached homes and 400 active
adult units.
Shaun Adams, an attorney rep
resenting the developers, said
that the buildout will come in
five phases, with retail space
developing first closest to Ga.
400, followed by the convention
center, hotel, performing arts
center, fire station and loft space
on top of retail. The third phase
will consist of the construction of
office space, apartments, the
Continuing Care Retirement
Community and active adult
housing. The fourth phase will
jump the Etowah River with the
construction of a new bridge, and
will contain a large neighbor
hood of active adult housing. The
fifth phase will finish out the
middle of the development with
single family residential units.
Adams said that having a mas
ter plan for the development will
create more uniformity as
opposed to zoning the property
piece by piece over the years.
“What this development is
doing is giving you a 10-15 year
vision that is a uniform develop
ment that’s going to work togeth
er,” Adams said. “By working
together it’s creating more oppor
tunities for inter-parcel connec
tivity, which minimizes the traf
fic on the roads... (creates) more
opportunity for jobs and increas
es the tax base.”
The full market value of the
development when built out
would be around $750 million in
2018 values, Adams said, which
would bring in several million
Sara Reed, a Dawson County resident, asks about floodplains
opers have proposed residential units.
Citizens inspect plans for a large mixed-use development at the northwest corner of
Lumpkin Campground Road and Ga. 400.
“We will have a meeting with
the GMRC, the Georgia
Department of Transportation
and the county to discuss the
entrance on Hwy. 53,” Gutherie
said. “This is a development that
we anticipate will take 10-plus
years if not even 20 years to fully
build out where everybody is liv
ing in a house, and we have to
think about what the landscape’s
going to look like 15-20 years
from now, which is going to be a
lot different than it is today.”
Sara Reed, another resident,
brought up another concern and
said it looked like the plans were
drawn in such a way that homes
would be built on floodplains
along the Etowah River.
Gutherie said that the plan is
currently designed around the
floodplains according to infor
mation from the Federal
Emergency Management
Agency, and that he will need to
obtain more accurate data during
the design phase of the project to
determine where the develop
ment should actually go.
Other citizens asked why the
development was necessary at
all.
Ty Hudson, a Dawson County
resident, said he liked the project
but doesn’t want it to negatively
impact Dawson County’s exist
ing retail.
“My question is: Is this us? We
have a very big difficulty in fill
ing a grocery store that was
replaced, you’re talking about
bringing in all this new retail
space,” Hudson said. “I don’t
want it to become a ghost town at
the outlet mall...we need a
Lowe’s and we need a Kohl’s
and we’re done.”
Gutherie said the developers
are looking for comments from
citizens and want to address any
concerns.
“This plan that you see here
and on the walls is a concept; it’s
not set in stone,” he said.
Darwin Douglas, who lives near the proposed Etowah
Village development, asks developers a question during a
March 12 public information meeting.
Darwin Douglas, who lives in
a subdivision near the proposed
Hwy. 53 entrance, said he was
already concerned about the safe
ty of that section of the roadway.
“You can’t see traffic between
Meadows Court and just beyond
Rob’s Way; there’s a dip in the
road,” Douglas said. “You can’t
see cars coming, they have
wrecks there all the time and traf
fic gets backed up from the traf
fic light there at Lumpkin
Campground all the way past
Savannah Trace.”
Gutherie said the developers
can’t and won’t propose any
intersections that could cause
fatalities due to limited sight.
He also said there will be a
parkway through the whole
development, running from an
entrance at Ga. 400 to an
entrance on Etowah River Road.
“That parkway would be a pri
mary artery that could relieve
some of the traffic on Hwy. 53,”
Gutherie said.
He also said that due to growth
in the region, Hwy. 53 will have
to be addressed at the state level
at some point, which could
include expansion to a four-lane
highway among other improve
ments.
dollars a year in property taxes
for the school system and county
government.
Gutherie addressed some of
the most asked questions of the
meeting when he discussed traf
fic implications. Entrances to the
development will be on Etowah
River Road, at Grant Road and
Ga. 400, on Hwy. 53 in front of
Byrd’s Mini Storage and on
Lumpkin Campground Road.
on the property where devel-