City Commission to hear request, decide on annexation in March

Cedartown City Commissioners will be voting in March on whether they want to allow a piece of property on the edge of the city limits on Prior Station Road to annex into the city with a planned development of 14 homes.

The builders requesting the annexation of the property are familiar to those on Girard Avenue watching new homes go up on Branch Street that began with clearing efforts at the beginning of the year.

Planning and Zoning Commission members heard from Tim Perkins and David Autrey and their proposal for a new round of 14 homes to be built on just over 12 acres of land on Prior Station Road near the soccer fields owned by Raul Guzman. The homes would be between 1,300 and 1,800 square feet in size, and take up space on lots ranging from six-tenths to 1.2 acres in size.

The single family homes are planned to be three bedroom-two bath or four bedroom-two bath options based on floorplans already in use by the pair of developers in Paulding County projects. They’ll be tying into city water, but will be having to use septic systems for waste.

City Building Inspector Joseph Martin provided some needed changes to the planned development that Perkins and Autrey want to build in the coming months. First, the cul-de-sac for the potential new homes will need to be widened to allow for fire trucks to be able to get turn around in the future neighborhood should those issues come up.

They’ll also need a pair of fire hydrants spaced out by several hundred feet in order to ensure water delivery during fire emergencies is available at all times.

Perkins and Autrey will also need to work with the Georgia Department of Transportation to determine right-of-way issues for utility access as well.

When they come before the City Commission on March 10 for the regular session to hold another public hearing and hear a decision on the annexation request as a PD-1 zoned property, they’ll be required to submit the floorplans they expect to offer to buyers, and the changes to the neighborhood layout to accommodate for emergency services.

They expected to have much of that submitted following the Monday session of the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Autrey and Perkins explained that they hoped with the future development of homes for sale in the new neighborhood they’ll offer an option that is hard to find in Polk County currently: new housing at a reasonable price that sits between older stock of houses that need work but are priced above $200,000, and custom homes that jump past the $400,000 mark with more property than many families will need.

They said the real issue has been finding a median price point since the types of homes they’re bringing to the area haven’t yet been built. Their hope was to see some new developments begin to come online in Rockmart and provide a comparable pricing for Cedartown-area homes.

Expect an additional announcement of a project from the pair, who are looking for more options for new neighborhood builds in the Cedartown area and have a deadline today to submit an application for a larger build in the area.