Newspaper Page Text
Page 6, October 21,2024, The Islander
Manager Stefanie Leif explained that
the parking spaces were located off the
alley behind the Mallery St. buildings
and would be accessed from Floyd St.,
which is a block west of Mallery. Both
the alley and Floyd St. run parallel to
Mallery.
Leif said the four residential units
would share the parking spaces and
that the residences would be accessed
from the rear of the buildings. This
means residents will have to cross
through the alley to get from the park
ing lot to their units.
Leif said the IPC voted 5 - 1 on
Oct. 15 to recommend approval of the
CUPs. Member Patrick Duncan was
the sole vote to deny. At the earlier
IPC meetings Duncan had expressed
his concerns about the parking spaces.
Leif also mentioned there were con
cerns at the IPC meetings that the new
residential use would generate noise
complaints from the people staying
there.
She checked with the police depart
ment and found there were 26 noise
complaints last year along Mallery St.
and almost as many this year.
Note: There are two buildings on
Mallery St. residential on hold for now
By Matthew J. Permar
During last week’s Glynn County
Board of Commissioners (BOC) meet
ing (Thursday, Oct. 17), the seven
voted unanimously to defer two Condi
tional Use Permits that would have al
lowed four new second floor residential
units at 115 and 121 Mallery St. in the
pier village area of St. Simons Island.
This zoning application has an in
teresting and lengthy history going
back to the June 18 Island Planning
Commission (IPC) meeting when the
applicant, architect Charles Day,
sought design review approval for the
project under the village preservation
district for the demolition of a portion
of the structure at 115 Mallery Street
and the addition of a second story at
121 Mallery St.
Along with the design review and
demolition permit, Day would also
need a Conditional Use Permit (CUP)
and site plan approval for the two sep
arate buildings.
Note: Residential property use on
Mallery St. requires a CUP.
Concerned about the lack of design
details and communication with ad
jacent business owners, the IPC de
ferred the application to its next meet
ing which was in August.
After hearing from Day again in
August, the IPC discussed wanting to
consider all required zoning applica
tions for the project at the same meet
ing and deferred the application a sec
ond time with no specific meeting date
named.
The design review application re
surfaced on the IPC’s agenda for their
October 15 meeting. In addition, the
applications for the residential CUPs
for both 115 and 121 Mallery St. were
also on the agenda.
Interestingly, the two CUPs were
also on the BOC’s agenda two nights
later at their Thursday, Oct. 17
meeting.
Generally there is a two-week pe
riod between items being on the IPC
agenda and the BOC agenda.
There was no clear explanation dur
ing the BOC meeting of how the CUPs
made it on two different meeting agen
das within two days of each other.
What makes it unusual is the fact
that agendas are set several days be
fore a meeting takes place, and in this
case it was on the BOC agenda before
the IPC meeting took place.
One of the issues that was discussed
at all three IPC meetings was parking
for the four proposed new residential
units.
One residential unit would be on
the existing second floor of 115 Mal
lery, which is the former Blue Water
restaurant.
The applicant is also proposing
building a second floor on 121 Mallery
St. that would house three residential
units.
For parking, according to Day, the
plan is to demolish the rear of 115 Mal
lery, which was a more recent addition
to the original building, and turn that
space into eight parking spaces - two
per residential unit, which meets the
county ordinance for parking.
During the BOC’s meeting last
week (Thursday, Oct. 17) Planning
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Mallery St. with existing residential
uses, both of which are north of Beach-
view Dr. on the east side of Mallery.
The ones on the second floor of the
Kent building on the corner of Mallery
and Ocean Blvd. have been there since
the 1950s or 1960s.
Commissioner Cap Fendig (Dist.
2) spoke first last week saying he had
received a lot of phone calls about the
proposed residences. Noting the IPC
had just taken action two nights be
fore, he wanted to look into the issue
further. “People just heard about this,”
he said. He also wondered if it was le
gal to bring it to the BOC from the IPC
so quickly.
Leif said they don’t often move items
from the IPC to the BOC so quickly,
but she said this started in June. She
said it was heard twice at the IPC and
the applicant wanted to move forward.
She added that she had updated the
report from the IPC meeting.
County Attorney Aaron Mumford
agreed with Leif saying there was no
time frame in the county ordinance, or
state law, for getting applications from
one commission to the other.
Commissioner Bo Clark (At Large
#1) asked where the residence’s gar
bage cans would be located.
Leif said, “I don’t know, we can ask
the applicant.”
At this point, BOC chairman Wayne
Neal (Dist. 3) opened the public hear
ing on the issue.
Three people spoke in opposition to
the CUP applications and three spoke
in favor, one of whom was the archi
tect Charles Day.
The main focus of the opposition
was that residential is incompatible
with the commercial nature of Mal
lery St. and the pier village.
Brad Proctor said the intent of the
village mixed use (VMU) ordinance
was to discourage encroachment of
things that will harm the small busi
nesses. He noted the limited parking
and poor access to it.
“This is a tightly condensed area
with limited parking,” he said, “that
will harm business if the residential is
allowed.”
He noted that the alley residents
would have to use has grease traps in
it and is used by delivery trucks.
He said drivers will have to back
out of the eight parking spaces onto
Floyd St. which will be difficult. “Folks
won’t want to park back there and will
park in front of the businesses on Mal
lery St. where there is no time limit on
parking.”
Turn to Page 8
Mallery St.
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