Buckhead Coach seeks variances to park luxury motor coaches at 7295 Covington Highway; staff and neighbors ask about noise, emissions and drainage

At a City of Stonecrest Community Planning Information Meeting on April 10, Buckhead Coach Company asked planners to lift conditions and approve variances so it can operate a private luxury motor‑coach parking site at 7295 Covington Highway in Lithonia.

Andre Washington, representing the applicant, said the parcel is 0.88 acres and that the company seeks to keep the parcel’s current zoning while removing an older condition that limited uses (previous approvals from 2014). The application asks for relief from the city’s minimum‑acreage requirement (the site is under the one‑acre minimum) and a reduction of a required vegetative buffer adjacent to an R‑75 residential district so the business can use the site for secured bus parking.

Washington described the business model as private charter service for schools, corporations and nonprofits and said the company operates “luxury motor coaches” and currently has about 10 buses that would be parked on the new site. He told the meeting the buses would be parked behind the building, inside a fence, while the front paved area would be for employee parking. He said cleaning and heavy maintenance occur off‑site; the site would function as a storage and staging location rather than a passenger terminal. Washington said the buses use modern clean‑diesel technology and that the company holds required state passenger‑carrier certificates.

Staff and attendees asked a series of operational questions. City staff asked whether drivers are employees or contractors, how many buses a terminal would accommodate, hours of operation, and how site grading and stormwater would be handled. Washington said buses typically leave early in the morning for multi‑day trips and that the applicant has an engineer who has discussed grading; the applicant proposed a gravel rear lot to reduce additional impervious surface and said an on‑site drainage solution would be developed with engineers. Washington also said the company would erect a fence behind the building so buses would not be visible from the front and offered to provide more detailed drawings and engineering responses to staff questions.

Neighbors and staff raised concerns about traffic near a nearby daycare, noise, and diesel emissions. Washington emphasized the private charter model and that passenger pickup would not occur on site. He also said the company recently underwent a Department of Transportation audit and maintains current state certificates for passenger service; the company expects to leave a current Gwinnett County lease in June and move operations to the Stonecrest site if approved.

No formal city action was taken at the CPIM. Staff requested follow‑up materials including a site plan showing the number of dock/parking spaces for buses, drainage/engineering details and documentation of operational certificates. Those materials were identified as follow‑up items to be provided before any formal hearing on the zoning or variance applications.