SCBC Land Use Public Hearing ends in dispute

A Stephens County Marshal had to step in, for the second time in recent months, in a heated land use public hearing, during the Stephens County Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday.

Bernard Wood petitioned to have his properties rezoned from Residential Single Family to Agriculture Residential.

Wood’s properties are located at 361 Currahee Ridge Road, Lot 16A Currahee Ridge Road, and 130 Slice of Heaven Drive, and combined the acreage is just over 12.5 acres.

Wood’s request to rezone for chickens and gardening was met with opposition from his neighbors.

“My name’s Bernard Dean Wood, I’m the owner of these properties, I reside at 130 Slice of Heaven Drive, Toccoa. In response to the first meeting, water quality of the lake, what I’m proposing is 300 feet from the water, that’s just from the core line to the water, above that would be a 12- to 15-foot-wide gravel driveway, above that would be a garden, and above that would be chicken coop to help fertilize the garden specifically. As far as watershed runoff, there’s no way that will get to the lake. That’s impossible. There’s so much land and woods between me and the lake, I’m not going to contaminate anything,” he said.

The majority of the complaints from Wood’s neighbors were that if the property was rezoned to Agriculture Residential nothing would prevent Wood from adding more livestock causing property values to go down in the subdivision.

Currently, there are 30 acres in Circle East zoned Residential Agriculture.

Additionally, one resident in the subdivision has 30 chickens.

Chairperson Michelle Ivester asked the opposing neighbors if they could find common ground to allow Wood to have a restricted number of chickens on his property.

Many agreed if the County Commission included conditions that would prevent Wood from exceeding 10 chickens on his property.

After two failed motions, Ivester recommended Wood reapply; but to seek a conditional use request rather than a rezoning request.

“Because this one is hard, when you have that many acres, but then again, you’re in the middle of a residential subdivision. Maybe there’s some common ground we can reach, so, I would like to ask, if anyone in this subdivision, would you have a problem with him having a maximum of 10 chickens, and just that. There would be no pigs, no cows, no horses, no farm animals, nothing that would raise any concerns, just 10 chickens,” she said.

Wood then spoke out against the conditional use.

“What am I going to do with 12 acres, just sit and stare at the woods,” Wood asked?

“We are trying to help you get to that goal,” Ivester said.

“I would like a garden right by my home, and you know have some decent food,” Wood said.

“Okay, we’re going to move on, but we do welcome you to reapply and do a conditional use,” Ivester said.

“I will, I will reapply, I will appeal, I will get an attorney. I will not stop,” Wood said.

Despite the Commission trying to appeal to both sides of the argument, Wood told his neighbors that he would put pigs on his other properties outside of the subdivision that are already zoned residential agriculture.

“I have 13 acres with boat storage on it, right across from East Silver Shoals, and half of that is not used, because I can’t build anymore because of zoning changes, but that’s fine, well I have whole bunch of acreage there that I can put pigs on if I wanted to, its zoned Agriculture Intensive because its 13 acres. That’s maybe what I’m going to do, I’m going to put them right across from all of your homes, so you can smell pigs all summer,” he said.

“We’re trying to help you, I wish you could understand that but it doesn’t seem like you’re going to,” Ivester said.

Following Wood’s outburst, County Marshal Joe Smith stepped in to escort Wood out of the meeting.