Dougherty County public hearing draws supporters and neighbors opposed to proposed women’s sober-living home at 1021 Cordele Road; vote postponed

The Dougherty County Board of Commissioners held a public hearing Jan. 27 on a request to rezone a 4.095-acre portion of a 59.05-acre parcel at 1021 Cordele Road so a nonprofit-run sober-living home for women can operate there. Lanier Engineering is the applicant and Emery Keith Griffith Sr. is the property owner; the group Motif asked to operate the home. The board did not vote on the rezoning and the acting chair said the vote will take place at the board’s next regular meeting.

The planning department presentation, delivered by Deputy Planning Director Angel Gray, said the parcel would be rezoned from AG (agricultural) to CR (community residential — multiple-dwelling). Gray told commissioners the county’s traffic review uses single-family-residence trip rates, estimating about one to five trips per day for the proposed use and noting that the closest average daily traffic count on Cordele Road (Georgia Highway 300) was 6,810 in 2023. Gray said the parcel is largely outside mapped floodplain but has flood-hazard area on the north edge, and that the planning commission recommended approval with conditions that would require the property to be subdivided and a buffer and screening installed before permitting.

Why it matters: supporters said the house would provide supervised, structured housing and increase the success rate for women leaving inpatient treatment; neighbors said the house would change a long-established single-family neighborhood and raised safety, transparency and process concerns. The planning commission failed to reach a majority on the rezoning because some commissioners said they lacked information.

Planning staff and proponents

Gray said three houses in the…