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Doraville staff propose zoning tweaks to limit convenience stores and reduce T4 building heights near neighborhoods
Summary
Staff recommended changes to Doraville’s zoning text: define convenience stores as a separate use (requiring a conditional use permit in T4), correct use-table inconsistencies and reduce T4 maximum height from four stories to three where adjacent to single-family areas; council asked staff to refine the language and return next month.
Doraville staff presented a package of zoning text amendments aimed at tightening controls along busy corridors and clarifying the city’s use table. The proposed changes would:
- Create a separate, defined category for convenience stores and require a conditional-use permit (CUP) for convenience stores in T4 zones (they would remain allowed by right in higher-intensity zones). - Correct anomalies in the use table (for example, ensuring office uses are allowed where intended). - Lower the maximum permitted stories in T4 from four to three in locations that directly abut single-family (R1) properties; planners noted buffers, setbacks and a rear planted buffer would still limit building mass near homes.
Planning staff described the modifications as technical fixes plus one policy change intended to preserve neighborhood scale along the edge of commercial corridors. “We heard residents about heights… the suggestion is to reduce the maximum height from four stories to three,” a planner said during the public hearing.
Council members and residents debated whether a blanket reduction to three stories across all T4 areas would be overly restrictive and potentially discourage development, and whether the three-story limit should apply only where T4 abuts R1 properties. Staff and several council members noted that setbacks, planted buffers and drive-aisle/parking requirements already constrain where taller buildings can sit relative to existing homes.
Council directed staff to refine the amendments — including drafting language that limits a three-story cap only where T4 directly abuts R1 — and to return with revised text for a future vote.
Provenance: ordinance text and staff presentation (intro: SEG 2561; public hearing and council debate through SEG 3381).
