Developer Requests Annexation, Rezoning for Single-Family Homes on Hwy 20

But Is What We See What We'll Get?

In case AX 25-001, applicant Local Land Co. is requesting the annexation of 4 parcels (approximately 13.9 acres) on Highway 20 into the City of Sugar Hill from unincorporated Gwinnett County. The annexation request comes with a request to rezone the area to Sugar Hill RS-72 (medium-density residential) to build a subdivision of 40 detached, single-family homes. The property is currently zoned R-100 in Gwinnett County.

Developer Local Land Co. has requested that the City of Sugar Hill annex the four parcels highlighted in purple. Image from Gwinnett GIS.

According to the Letter of Intent, houses in the requested subdivision would range in size from 2,500 to 3,200 square feet, and the developer anticipates that they will sell for more than $550,000.

In the past few years, the four parcels at the center of this annexation and rezoning requests have also been part of two different plans requested of Gwinnett County - one for 344 apartments and another for 96 townhomes. Gwinnett County shot those requests down pretty hard, despite a significant conflict of interest by Commissioner Kirkland Carden of the Gwinnett Board of Commissioners (BoC) in the apartment case.

The Gwinnett County Planning and Development (P&D) Department and the Gwinnett County Planning Commission recommended denial of both requests. In both cases, Gwinnett P&D indicated that these dense uses were not compatible with the surrounding development and said in their reports for both cases that “development in this area should remain as low-density residential to protect the water quality and environmental character of the Chattahoochee and Lake Lanier.”

While Gwinnett County seems to have left the door open to approve a low-density residential development for the site, the property owners, their realtor, and the latest developer have decided it would be best to request that the City of Sugar Hill annex the property and assign it a zoning of RS-72 (a medium-density residential zoning that allows single-family homes, but also townhouses). You may remember the property owners’ longtime realtor, Clifton Prewitt, as the realtor who came in with a presentation seemingly coordinated with Mayor Brandon Hembree to advocate for the City’s mysterious Whitehead Road townhouse project last fall.
(Give a favor, get a favor.)

At the first public hearing before the Sugar Hill Planning Commission, Member Brian Shebs asked the applicant’s attorney, Shane Lanham of Mahaffey Pickens Tucker, about the project. Shebs said he was concerned about granting a zoning classification that seemed more dense than the proposed project would require.

While the requested project does seem to require the denser zoning because of its lot sizes, the City’s Planning Department and the applicant were somehow unable to express that simple fact (once again leaving it to Real Deal Sugar Hill to spell out the City’s zoning requirements pro bono). The experienced attorney babbled a bit before finally telling Shebs that the proposed condition that requires adherence to the presented site plan prevents them from “doing the bait and switch.”

What no one else is saying is that it is ENTIRELY possible to request a change in conditions at some point in the future. The City is currently considering a change in conditions for a high-density development behind the Lidl site that was originally approved with the condition that it would be primarily for seniors. Whether you want to call that a “change in plans,” a “change of circumstances,” or a plain old “bait and switch,” it can and does happen.

At the City Council Work Session on May 5, the council members made small talk about the case, but for the most part, said nothing noteworthy or remarkable. The only interesting remark was from Council Member Taylor Anderson, who has served as a vociferous and reliable spokesman for the development community, especially in the past few rezoning cases.

Anderson felt compelled to mention the apartment rezoning request made to Gwinnett County, as well as the denial without prejudice. He did not offer details or say why he was saying that. The implication was that if the City of Sugar Hill does not annex the property, the Gwinnett BoC will go back and approve an apartment complex.

Anderson did what he often does and likes to accuse Real Deal Sugar Hill of doing - he took a grain of truth and misrepresented it to get his way. He failed to mention how hard Gwinnett shot down both of those requests, and that the “denial without prejudice” was for the townhouse project, not the apartments. (The full story on why the BoC voted that way appears later in the article.)

According to the Gwinnett County Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), the only real difference between a denial and a denial without prejudice is that if another rezoning request comes up for those same parcels at a later date, Gwinnett P&D will leave that case out of their list of previous rezoning requests in their official report to the Gwinnett Planning Commission and BoC.

However, a denial without prejudice does not remove the case from County records, people’s memories, or newspaper articles. And most importantly, it does not prevent Gwinnett P&D or the Gwinnett Planning Commission from reviewing the “new” request and again recommending denial for the same reasons, or brand new reasons. Nor does it mean that the Gwinnett BoC cannot just deny the request again.

Anderson left all that out, too.

Anderson also left out the fact that the report prepared by the City of Sugar Hill Planning Department for this case does not mention ANY of the previous rezoning requests for the property. And apparently, no one on the City Council is bold enough to address, much less question, escalating procedural problems with the City of Sugar Hill Planning Department over the last ten months. In that time, they allowed two shockingly incomplete cases (ChurchPubEventCenter and Whitehead Road townhouses) to advance through their system to get public hearings. They also looked the other way as developer Kittle Homes ignored parts of the Zoning Ordinance for an existing project and bypassed a key zoning application requirement (stating the anticipated price of the units) to avoid public controversy for a new project request. There were even a couple of paperwork bloopers on this case (more later in the article).

What the City of Sugar Hill Planning Department HAS done successfully is provide backup for high-density developers with the Aspire 20 Land Use Map, included in the Sugar Hill SR20 Corridor Study commissioned by the City of Sugar Hill in 2018 and featured on its Planning and Development page to this day. The developers who wanted Gwinnett to grant them the townhouse rezoning used these materials in their presentation to the County, showing that the City considers the proposed uses of these parcels to be “High Density Residential” in the back (away from Highway 20) and “Medium Density Mixed Use” along the frontage of Highway 20. According to the Corridor Study, townhouses are acceptable uses in both land use categories.

Lanham used the same map and study in his presentation before the Planning Commission for this case, pointing out the lower density of this proposed project, but also clearly opening the door to a townhouse discussion later on.

Given all this, it’s hard to believe that the City of Sugar Hill is going to hold developers and realtors to a higher standard and protect existing residents’ interests better than Gwinnett County.

The Sugar Hill City Council is currently scheduled to conduct a final public hearing and vote on annexation and rezoning case RZ 25-002 on Monday, May 12, at 7:30 PM.

Case History

The complete history of these parcels’ progression through the Gwinnett County and City of Sugar Hill annexation and rezoning processes is detailed below.

Apartments Request (Gwinnett)

In the spring of 2022, multifamily developer The Residential Group requested that Gwinnett County rezone 9 parcels totaling approximately 20 acres (including the 4 parcels for this current request) from Gwinnett R-100 to Gwinnett R-24 to build a six-building, multi-family residential complex consisting of 344 units in four-story buildings.

First page of the Gwinnett Planning and Development Department’s case report for RZM2022-00016 as included in the agenda packet for the public hearing held by the Gwinnett BoC on June 28, 2022.

At the time, the site was within Gwinnett County’s District 1, represented by Commissioner Kirkland Carden. (New commission districts were approved in February 2022, before the apartment rezoning request. The site has been in District 4 since January 2023, represented by Commissioner Matthew Holtkamp.)

In the initial application for the case, Shane Lanham of Mahaffey Pickens Tucker, the law firm representing The Residential Group, indicated that his firm had contributed $2800 to a Carden campaign at an undisclosed date sometime in the two years prior to the rezoning request.

Even so, the Gwinnett P&D recommended denial of the case for multiple reasons. They stated that “a large multifamily development is not suitable in view of the surrounding single-family uses,” and that “development in this area should remain as low-density residential to protect the water quality and environmental character of the Chattahoochee and Lake Lanier. The proposed multifamily development is not in conformity with the policy and intent of the Unified Plan or Future Development Map.”

In May 2022, the Gwinnett Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend that the BoC deny the rezoning request.

Despite the strong recommendation for denial from the County’s Planning Department and Planning Commission, Commissioner Carden initially moved to approve the case with a long list of conditions at the June 2022 meeting of the Gwinnett BoC. That motion failed.

Strangely, Carden then moved to deny the rezoning request. The Commissioners ultimately voted unanimously to deny the rezoning case.

(According to his LinkedIn profile, Carden later became a partner at The Residential Group in October 2022. Carden is currently a partner of Blue Tier Residential, a division of The Residential Group.)

The nine parcels included in Gwinnett County rezoning case RZM2022-00016, a request to rezone from Gwinnett R-100 to Gwinnett R-24 for 344 apartments.

Conflict of Interest Certification from the application for Gwinnett County rezoning case RZM2022-00016, a request to rezone 20 acres for a 344-unit apartment complex.

Excerpt from the Staff Report of the Gwinnett County Planning and Development Department as included in the agenda packet for the May 3, 2022 meeting of the Gwinnett Planning Commission

From the May 4, 2022 meeting minutes of the Gwinnett County Planning Commission, in which the Commission unanimously voted to recommend denial of the request to rezone the subject parcels for a 344-unit apartment complex.

Townhouse Request (Gwinnett)

In late 2023, developer Gaskins + LeCraw requested that Gwinnett County rezone the same 13.9 acres under consideration for AX 25-001 from Gwinnett R-100 to Gwinnett R-TH to build a 96-unit townhouse community.

First page of the Gwinnett Planning and Development Department’s case report for RZM2023-00023 as included in the agenda packet for the public hearing held by the Gwinnett BoC on December 12, 2023

Again, Gwinnett P&D recommended denial, largely on the same grounds that they recommended denial of the apartments. And again, the Gwinnett County Planning Commission unanimously recommended denial (with two members absent).

At the public hearing before the Gwinnett BoC, Gaskins + LeCraw representative Michelle Macauley challenged that recommendation by pointing out an R-TH (townhouse) rezoning granted by Gwinnett County in the area in 2020 for 46 townhouses for the “Towne Village at Suwanee Dam” subdivision. (Of note, the only 2020 Commissioner still on the BoC at the time of this hearing was District 2’s Ben Ku.)

Michelle Macauley of Gaskins + LeCraw points out an R-TH rezoning approved by the BoC in 2020 at a public hearing for a requested rezoning to R-TH for the four parcels outlined in red on the map beneath the pointer.

Macauley also produced a copy of the Aspire 20 Land Use Map, included in the Sugar Hill SR20 Corridor Study produced for the City of Sugar Hill in 2018 and featured on its Planning and Development page to this day. The map and study indicate that the City considers the proposed uses of these parcels to be “High Density Residential” in the back (away from Highway 20) and “Medium Density Mixed Use” along the frontage of Highway 20. According to the Corridor Study, townhouses are acceptable uses in both land use categories.

At the BoC hearing, the senior property owner appeared and gave the typical story meant to elicit an emotional reaction. Afterward, sensing impending denial, Macauley explicitly requested that the BoC either “deny without prejudice” or table the matter to avoid hurting the senior property owner. Commissioner Holtkamp, in his first year of office serving the area where the property owner lives, made the motion to deny without prejudice, which the BoC then approved unanimously.

Macauley points to the subject parcels on the Aspire Hwy 20 Land Use Map from the City of Sugar Hill, which proposes those parcels as “High Density Residential” and “Medium Density Mixed-Use” land use categories.

The Aspire Hwy 20 Land Use Map included in the Sugar Hill SR20 Corridor Study.

Land Use Category Table from the Sugar Hill SR20 Corridor Study indicating the uses and characteristics of each category.

Annexation and Rezoning (Sugar Hill)

The applicant, Local Land Co., applied in March to have the subject parcels annexed by the City of Sugar Hill and rezoned to RS-72. These parcels are currently zoned R-100 in Gwinnett County.

The applicant states that they want to build a subdivision consisting of 40 single-family, detached houses tentatively referred to as “Sweetwater Grove.”

The site plan submitted by the applicant for case AX 25-001.

While the Letter of Intent was clear and met the City’s requirements, some of the other documentation provided by the applicant was incomplete. However, the City of Sugar Hill Planning Department accepted those incomplete forms, standing in stark contrast to the much stricter and more thorough approach displayed by Gwinnett County in the rezoning requests it processed for the same parcels.

The applicant’s letter of intent.

The “checklist” provided by the applicant with no checks and no indication of which Planning Department staff member reviewed it. All of the items were probably not submitted, because not all of them (namely, the Development of Regional Impact or Chattahoochee River paperwork) would have been required.

The Conflict of Interest and Disclosure of Campaign Contributions forms from the applicant. Notably, the applicant leaves the blank empty and never actually answers the question of whether a campaign contribution was made or not. Maybe the City assumed no. Maybe we’re supposed to assume that as well. No one should have to assume. The blank is there for a reason.

Five days prior to the first public hearing, the applicants and their attorney realized that under State law, the attorney has to submit a Conflict of Interest certification as well. While she filled out the form, it’s not clear if this is just for this individual attorney or the firm as well. This attorney (Gabrielle Schaller) was not the attorney (Shane Lanham) who represented the applicant at the public hearing, although both attorneys do work for the same firm, Mahaffey Pickens Tucker.

SHPC Public Hearing

At the public hearing conducted by the Sugar Hill Planning Commission (SHPC) meeting on April 21, Commission Member Jason Jones began asking why the applicant was asking for a variance (they were not) and Commission Chair Phil Olsen and City Attorney Frank Hartley had to explain to him that during an annexation, the annexing government has to assign a zoning classification to the property.

Jones did, however, come around to the point that the density of the development was actually within the requirements of RS-100, a less dense zoning classification than the requested RS-72.

The official calculated density of the development is 2.8 units per acre (40 units per 13.9 acres). There is a stream that runs across the property with required buffers on either side of it. Using the Gwinnett GIS tools, Real Deal Sugar Hill calculates the unbuildable area to be approximately 2.5 acres, yielding a practical density of approximately 3.5 units per acre. Both density figures fit easily within the density requirements of Sugar Hill RS-100.

Attorney for the applicant, Shane Lanham, used the Aspire 20 Land Use Map for his presentation, just as Gaskins + LeCraw did in their townhouse development request of Gwinnett County. Lanham pointed out the density that the City indicates is suitable for the site in the aforementioned Land Use Map and associated Sugar Hill SR20 Corridor Study, but then continues that the density of this request is much lower. He also uses the “transitional zone” argument, which is often used for proposed townhouse developments that would be near commercial areas.

Commission Member Brian Shebs asked Lanham directly why the applicant requested an RS-72 zoning instead of RS-100, stating that he was concerned about a potential density of 6 units per acre.

Lanham reiterated that the density of the project was less than RS-72 and RS-100 (which had already been clarified during the meeting). He then said that the topography of the site was difficult and that requesting RS-72 would allow them to “achieve that sort of lower middle residential density with these lot sizes, minimum 7200 square feet, but not abusing it, I'll say, or not maximizing the yield and only having a density of 2.87 units per acre."

After that clumsy and almost meaningless statement, he finally answered Shebs’ question directly, saying, "There’s already that staff-recommended condition that requires adherence to the site plan...that precludes us really from doing the bait and switch, and saying gotcha, RS-72, we're doing six units an acre. We would be totally fine making that more explicit."

However, the SHPC did not recommend any change to the conditions provided by the Planning Department, and the Planning Department went on to recommend the same conditions to the City Council at their Work Session on May 5.

Furthermore, it is fully possible to request a change in conditions at some point in the future. As of this publication date, the City is considering a change in conditions for a high-density development behind the Lidl site that was originally approved with the condition that it would be for seniors.

Upon further review of the case presentation, Real Deal Sugar Hill noticed a few things about the lot sizes in relation to the requirements of the City of Sugar Hill Zoning Ordinance that would require an RS-72 zoning classification instead of RS-100.

First of all, while the setbacks required by the City for RS-100 and RS-72 are the same, the minimum required lot widths are not. The typical lot width of the submitted development plans, according to the City’s presentation, is 55 feet, which would conform to the RS-72 requirement of 55 feet, but not the RS-100 requirement of 70 feet.

Second, a typical lot width of 55 feet and depth of 132 feet, the typical lot size for the proposed development would be 7260 feet, which would meet the 7200-square-feet lot-size requirement of R-72, but not the 10,000-square-feet lot-size requirement of RS-100.

Third, the developers say they plan to build houses that range in size between 2,500 and 3,200 square feet. Any house larger than about 2.900 square feet would cover more than 40% of the typical lot, which would not comply with the RS-100 maximum lot coverage requirements.

Those would be very clear, simple, and sensible reasons for requesting RS-72 instead of RS-100, but neither the applicant’s team nor the City team offered those simple facts, which would seem to indicate that, for some reason(s), neither party was taking this application very seriously. Instead, when the attorney was asked a reasonable question, he got nervous, rambled, and introduced the “bait and switch” idea to the discussion himself.

A diagram of a typical lot in the proposed development for AX 25-001, provided by the City of Sugar Hill Planning Department during the public hearing before the SHPC on April 21.

Dimension standards defined in the City of Sugar Hill Zoning Ordinance.

Dwelling types allowed within different residential zoning classifications as shown in the City of Sugar Hill Zoning Ordinance. Townhouses are allowed in RS-72, as are duplexes.

City Council Work Session Discussion

On Monday, May 5, the City Council discussed the annexation and rezoning request during their monthly work session.

At the City Council Work Session on May 5, the council members made small talk about the case, but said nothing noteworthy or remarkable. The only interesting remark was from Council Member Taylor Anderson, who has served as a reliable spokesman for the development community in the past few rezoning cases.

Anderson felt compelled to mention the apartment rezoning request made to Gwinnett County, as well as the denial without prejudice. He did not offer details or say why he was saying that. The implication was that if the City of Sugar Hill does not annex the property, Gwinnett County will go back and approve an apartment complex.

Anderson failed to mention that the “denial without prejudice” was for the townhouse project, not the apartments.

So, why did Gwinnett BoC deny without prejudice? At the BoC hearing, the applicant trotted out the senior property owner who gave the typical story meant to elicit an emotional reaction, after which the applicant’s representative, sensing impending denial, explicitly requested for the BoC to either “deny without prejudice” or table to the matter to avoid hurting the senior property owner. Commissioner Holtkamp, in his first year of office serving the area where the property owner lives, obliged.

According to the Gwinnett County Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), the only real difference between a denial and a “denial without prejudice” is that if another rezoning request comes up for those same parcels at a later date, the Gwinnett Planning and Development (P&D) Department will leave that case out of their list of previous rezoning requests in their official report to the Planning Commission and BoC.

However, it does not remove the case from County records, people’s memories, or newspaper articles. It does not allow a case to come back sooner than it ordinarily could. Most importantly, it does not prevent Gwinnett P&D from reviewing the “new” request and again recommending denial for the same exact reasons. Nor does it mean that the Gwinnett Planning Commission and BoC cannot just deny the request again.

So, practically speaking, Holtkamp’s move was nothing more than a man new to office displaying sensitivity to a constituent appearing before him.

(The City conveniently does not have its video of the City Council Work Session up on the City website as of the publication date. Video issues tend to happen when elected officials say something potentially embarrassing.)

Excerpt from the Gwinnett County Unified Development Ordinance explaining the different actions that can be taken by the Gwinnett BoC regarding planning and zoning cases.