MOULTRIE — The Moultrie City Council approved the preliminary plan for a major subdivision on Doc Darbyshire Road after changes were made to an earlier plan.

The city annexed the land at its March meeting to allow owners Robert and Lawrence Valentino to proceed with the subdivision.

On Tuesday, City of Moultrie Director of Community Enhancement Stephen Godley presented the plan, and Joshua Mura, the project’s civil engineer, provided follow-up information.

The project will consist of three apartment buildings totaling 72 units, Mura said, and 103 single-family houses.

The original plan included the apartments along with townhomes and fewer single-family residences. The new plan replaced the townhomes with more houses, Godley said.

Godley said the houses would be set on 40-foot-wide lots, and when he showed council members a photo of a similar project, they immediately saw how narrow that is. 

One asked if they were tiny homes.

Mura said they were not. The houses will be between 1,000 and 1,400 square feet each, but they’ll be narrow and long. Based on the photo and a graphic Godley displayed, each house will have very little yard.

Also at Tuesday’s city council meeting, the council approved steps in support of building a hotel in downtown Moultrie. Read that story here.

In other action Tuesday, the city council:

— Approved a bid to replace water meters. The winning bid was $42,500 from Core & Main of Tallahassee. City Manager Pete Dillard said the city had been replacing more than 100 meters per week using its own staff, but the need exceeded what city workers could handle. The meters were installed six to eight years ago, he said, and some are still under warranty.

— Approved a $59,792 bid from Hall Contractors of Omega to replace the roof on the Department of Labor building, which the city owns and rents to the state agency.

— Purchased a 2016 used Caterpillar motorgrader from Yancy Cat Rental of Valdosta for $124,400. Dillard said the city doesn’t have any dirt roads but sometimes needs to scrape the sides of streets or level land for projects. He said this grader will replace a 1992 model and should last the city another 20 years.

— Approved a memorandum of understanding and mutual aid agreement with the Moultrie-Colquitt County Airport Authority.

— Appointed Councilman Cole Posey to the Airport Authority.

— Approved a commitment letter to the Rural Workforce Housing Initiative Grant, which was originally presented to the council in March.

— Approved a subdivision participation form with Sandoz Inc. Sandoz is a generic pharmaceutical company, and this action was related to a settlement of the national opioid lawsuit that involved the company.

— Approved a memorandum of understanding with the state and other local governments regarding the national opioid settlement with Purdue Pharmaceuticals.

— Agreed to receive a gift of property on Fifth Avenue Southeast, 10th Street Southeast and 10th Court Southeast. Dillard described the property as running along the Okapilco Creek from the bridge on First Avenue Southeast to the one on Fifth Avenue Southeast. He said the land is in a flood plain so there’s very little that can be done with it, but he envisioned a greenway there.