Planning commission recommends approval with conditions for Highway 81 convenience store and warehouses

The Walton County Planning Commission on July 9 recommended approval with conditions of a rezoning request (Z26-0156) by 81 Investment Company for 7.486 acres at the corner of Highway 81 and Bay Creek Church Road to allow a convenience store with fuel pumps and three contractor office/warehouse buildings.

Attorney Andrea Grama, representing the applicant, presented the site plan and said the project proposes a roughly 7,000-square-foot convenience store and three warehouse/office buildings totaling about 37,000 square feet. She said the site is in a neighborhood-residential future land use character area that contemplates interspersed commercial development, and that the plan adheres to overlay-district requirements (including pervious-surface and buffer rules). Grama said the developer’s traffic study used GDOT’s trip-generation manual and estimated roughly 422 daily trips on Bay Creek Church Road and about 466 daily trips on Highway 81; the site plan includes a right-turn deceleration lane and a left-turn center lane on Highway 81 and a right-turn deceleration lane on Bay Creek Church Road to accommodate site traffic.

Opposition came from Joe Siegelman, who said he represents 5141 Food Mart Inc., the operator of a nearby Shell station. Siegelman said a substantially similar application had been withdrawn less than a year earlier after public opposition and submitted a prior petition into the record; he urged the commission to recommend denial, raising concerns about combining storage units with fuel sales and a convenience store and warning of potential loitering, security and traffic impacts. “I oppose this request and ask that the Walton County Board of Commissioners deny it,” Siegelman said.

Grama replied that the property had changed hands from a prior applicant and that the developer had reduced the plan from four buildings to three, added a 10-foot landscape strip and coordinated a traffic study with GDOT to mitigate impacts. She said the project would include a six-foot opaque fence where the site abuts residential properties, downward-facing lighting, and video surveillance.

A commissioner moved to recommend approval with five conditions: (1) plant the 10-foot landscape buffer with appropriate evergreen trees per the UDO; (2) enhance the convenience-store frontage with deciduous trees and shrubs; (3) require architectural treatments consistent with the applicant’s renderings; (4) install transportation upgrades recommended by the traffic study in coordination with GDOT and Walton County transportation; and (5) outdoor storage shall not be permitted in the storage area (the motion language was clarified on the record). The motion was seconded and carried by voice vote. The case will be presented to the Walton County Board of Commissioners on Aug. 4 for final action.

The commission’s recommendation included the conditions intended to mitigate visual and traffic impacts; opponents noted the previous, similar application and asked the Board of Commissioners to weigh community concerns during final consideration.