MOULTRIE – Many Moultrie residents were present at a recent Moultrie-Colquitt County Planning Commission meeting to show their opposition to an annexation request from the Hospital Authority of Colquitt County on a parcel it owns. The hospital authority wants to build apartments for Colquitt Regional Medical Center on the land.

Hospital Authority request presented

The planning commission met March 10 to consider a few zoning and variance requests. It considered the hospital authority’s request to annex its parcel into the City of Moultrie and to rezone it to R3 so its use would qualify for multiple-family housing including small apartment buildings.

The property in question, which is just under 2 1/2 acres, is located at 3026 S. Main St. Plantation Propane, Inc. sold the parcel to the Hospital Authority of Colquitt County, in 2007. The qPublic.net site lists it as being in the Clubview neighborhood.

City of Moultrie Director of Community Enhancement Stephen Godley presented the application for annexation and said, “Staff has no issues with this annexation and zoning.”

Commissioner Brab Young wanted to know if the plot was part of the city and Godley responded that it was county that abutted land in the city. He clarified the location of the land on a slide presentation for the commissioners.

Matney speaks for Hospital Authority

Colquitt Regional Medical Center CEO Jim Matney spoke in support of the request.

“The overview of this project is to have a new housing facility to support medical professionals training and working within our hospital system,” he said.

He told the commission that it would feature 16 model apartment units and landscaped with consideration for the neighbors’ property. He had met with the neighbors the previous week, he said, to talk about having an adequate buffer between the hospital’s property and theirs. The neighbors would not be able to see the apartment complex from their property, he said.

“The purpose of it is that the hospital has grown over the years and we’ve got physicians and employees on-call,” he said. “We have up to 20 people at night on-call for emergency surgeries, emergency deliveries and all of that. And they have to be within five to 10 minutes.”

Matney said the hospital currently owns or leases six different houses in various neighborhoods that they have people in and they’re full.

“During the bad weather storms, we lots of times, we have our employees stay over the night in the hospital. Last year, we had 40 people stay on cots, that had to work the next day, in our Ameris Education building. So, this will provide housing for them,” he said.

He said the housing would not be for PCOM students and one of the things that was a misunderstanding was “would they rent the apartments.”

“We won’t rent them. We’re a hospital authority,” Matney said. “We’re not allowed to compete with local industry. So, it won’t be rented. This is a space that will provide for employees and physicians.”

He also said students who come to the hospital’s residency program only come for one month. However, he said, it was hard to get a rental in Colquitt County for one month. He added that it kept residents from coming to the hospital’s program because Colquitt Regional couldn’t find them temporary housing.

Matney said, last year, the hospital started a pediatric unit and 30% of their pediatric patients came from outside of Colquitt County.

“And those family members need places to stay so these units will also provide temporary housing for people with pediatric patients,” he said.

He said the hospital had started radiation and cancer services last year and they would be able to provide housing to their cancer patients who are going through a five-day round of radiation. Matney said that apartments would also be used for new physicians who come into the community but had not found a house, yet.

“This is something we need as a hospital system to continue to expand our hospital. We have a great hospital. We have a lot of new services that, normally, don’t get offered in a rural area,” he said.

He said having the apartment complex would help the hospital to continue to recruit workforce to come into Colquitt Count.

Commissioners question Matney

Commissioner Frank Cox asked if any covenants would be in place to prevent the hospital from selling the apartment complex at a later date to a buyer that would not be using it for what it was originally intended.

“We would absolutely entertain any type of covenants and we’d put in the record that we will never use it for rental property,” Matney said. “As a hospital authority, we can never do that. And we could put in the hospital authority minutes that we would never sell it … and that is binding.”

Young wanted to know if the residents would walk across South Main Street to get over to CRMC and if it was a state highway.

Matney responded, similar to what they did with Hospital Park, the City of Moultrie put a crosswalk in for them.

“So, we will be petitioning the city to put a crosswalk in,” he said. “Most of the people aren’t going to be parking at the apartment complex. They’re going to be staying at the hospital where their service is. They’ll leave the car there after (sic) so we’ll need a crosswalk put in,” he said and added the city had always been willing to put a crosswalk in.

Planning Commission Chair John Peters said he thought South Main Street was a state or federal highway. He asked if the city would be able to grant the crosswalk. They asked Godley if he knew and he responded that he did not. He said he would have to go before GDOT for the application process.

Also in support of request

Commissioner Jonathan Vines also spoke in support of the annexing and rezoning request as the landscape architect for the project. He said that he was abstaining from voting because of that reason.

He showed slides of what the proposed landscaping was, specifically, pointing out an evergreen “screen.” This would separate the project from the homes in the neighborhood, he said.

“My role tonight, being here, is to help provide some clarity to the site plan that has been provided to me,” he said.

Vines also said there were no requirements that the hospital would have to provide “screening.” However, the hospital was going to provide two levels of screening.

He said one level of screening was a seven-foot tall privacy wall that would take care of any kind of screen on a car-level or a pedestrian level. The other level would be evergreen trees that were 12 feet tall, he said.

Vines added that one of the concerns he had heard was about the previous gas establishment that occupied the property. He said he was aware assessments were done and there were no issues in developing the site.

He said he wanted to make a point about the two driveways and the crosswalk that came up in discussion earlier.

“Obviously, this is a DOT highway, a state highway. All of those applications would have to go through DOT for approval, which in my mind, trumps anything I have to say, in this room, about safety,” Vines said.

He also said he knew it was a very congested area and that there were a lot of concerns in the room about that.

“I’ve been told that there were people looking into having the DOT do a vehicular traffic study for that area,” he said.

Opposition to Hospital Authority request

Residents of the Clubview and Wiregrass subdivisions spoke against the request and Sarah Rowley was the first to speak.

She handed out DOT traffic information to the commissioners about the area where the property was located.

“We’re here today because we do have some concerns about this development. I’d like to start off by saying, first and foremost, I think our entire neighborhood supports the hospital being able to do what it needs to do to bring talent to provide critical services to our community and we all appreciate that,” she said.

She said they were concerned because it affected their everyday lives, especially the issue of traffic.

“They have proposed that those that stay in this facility will be walking across Main Street. I invite everybody to come sit at the entrance to Clubview in the morning when we’re on our way to school to drop our kids off to see what it’s like to get out, especially when hospital staff is on their way to work or people are heading toward the south on Main Street,” she said.

Rowley also said that a petition was on Facebook and they had more than 100 signatures. She left a printed copy with the commission.

“Some folks that signed were concerned about their safety on the bike trail. They might not necessarily live in our neighborhood but anytime you add traffic to the bike trail, it’s just another point where folks might come in contact with cars,” she said.

In the materials she handed out, she pointed out a DOT map. It showed data on the concentration of traffic and the speed of the traffic in the area. She told them the numbers that they were looking at represented both north- and southbound traffic. It was about 2,300 vehicles each way, every day.

“Just today, there was an accident outside of our neighborhood so it’s not an unfounded concern,” Rowley said.

She said her other concern had to do with the suitability of an R3 designation.

“As Mr. Matney claims, they do plan to, essentially, have transient housing,” Rowley said. “It might be more suitable to consider it a hotel that people don’t pay for. That’s not necessarily allowed in an R3 designation.”

Young asked, “The issue is coming in and out, that’s what you’re saying?”

Rowley responded she thought the largest issue was people walking across the street and added, “There is so much traffic heading south, people pulling into our neighborhood. They’re turning left to go to the hospital. I mean it’s a steady flow of traffic. It’s pretty steady all day long.”

More opposition to request

Next, Fritzie Sheumaker got up and spoke against the annexing and zoning request. She said she wanted to reiterate that the idea itself was not in question but the location was a problem. She said pedestrian traffic walking from the apartment complex across the highway to the hospital could be in danger.

“And furthermore, you have the bike trail, which those of you who think it’s not really adjacent to it may not realize the great number of traffic, which is a good thing. You have bikes and children and strollers and all of those things coming down the bike trail,” Sheumaker said and added that it was a concern.

She said she was really concerned about people in an emergency situation that were coming out of the apartment’s entrance. She was concerned about how it would affect the bike trail.

Her final concern, she said, was there was only one entrance in and out of the subdivision. If an accident occurred, she said, it would really tie-up traffic for the entire neighborhood.

Another resident, Ian Smith, reiterated the concerns of the two women before him. He urged the commission to table the vote. He said he didn’t think the residents of the subdivisions had ample time to process it.

Discussion and vote

After the speakers, Young asked if any of the other commissioners thought they should answer the question about building a crosswalk before making a decision. He asked Godley if he could help them with the question.

“As far as a crosswalk, this is the first I’ve heard about a crosswalk. But anytime a crosswalk goes in … anytime anything is done across a GDOT highway, its got to be approved by GDOT,” he replied.

Matney spoke again and said they didn’t have a crosswalk in the site plans. He said they have also looked at whether they need one entry versus two entries. But, he said, they were not asking the commission for a crosswalk.

“Whether they will actually walk across the road or not, I don’t know. I just don’t know. Some people, especially, if they’re on call at night, may not feel comfortable walking through the parking lot across and will probably drive over there. Every apartment has to have at least two parking spots, so we’ve got the spots for them,” he said.

After no further discussion, the commission voted and passed the request after Chairman Peters broke a tie vote. Next, the commission forwards the request to the Moultrie City Council.

The next public hearing will be at the Moultrie City Council meeting, April 15, at 6 p.m. It will be in the Municipal Building, located at 21 First Ave. N.E., in the City Council Chambers.