Toll Brothers Alliance Engineering and Planning submitted plans to the City of Suwanee to develop single-family homes on property located on Settles Bridge Road and lying northwest of the intersection with Moore Road and a request the property from R-140 (Single Family Residential) to R-100 (Single Family Residential).
On January 4, 2022, the Suwanee Planning Commission conditionally recommended approval. The City Council is expected to review the rezoning request during their meeting scheduled on January 25, 2022. Conditions of approval include that all homes shall be constructed with brick or stone as the primary exterior material on three sides, homes must be at least 2,400 square feet in size, sidewalks are provided on both sides of the interior streets, installation of street trees, construction buffers are maintained around stormwater facilities and that all utilities shall be located underground.
The rezoning would facilitate the development of 121 acres into a 174-lot single-family residential neighborhood with access from a single public road onto Settles Bridge Road. According to City documents, the proposed neighborhood is part of a larger 131-acre tract. The landowner intends to retain ten acres and is not part of the rezoning request.
A 3.1-acre amenity area is proposed near the center of the neighborhood and is adjacent to an undisturbed 2.5-acre cemetery. The amenity includes three tennis courts, a 25-yard pool, and a clubhouse. The applicant also proposed a large open space parcel at the northern end of the project and two smaller open space parcels at the southerly end of the project.
According to City Planners, the 2040 Comprehensive Plan specifies that the property should be developed with low-density residential or as a conservation subdivision that concentrates on two to four units per acre. The proposed residential development has a density of 1.45 acres meeting the intent of the future land use plan.
3 Responses
Last year I sat through a big presentation from the city planning office about how the move away from single-family zoning was necessary to provide more affordable missing middle housing and I totally bought it…yet every rezoning request I have seen seems to be replacing single-family housing with high-density luxury units listed for millions of dollars. My neighborhood just fought off one of these false pretense rezoning requests. I encourage everyone to take a close look at every rezoning request impacting their neighborhood and fight off these cash grabs. And shame on the city for trying to sell us a false narrative. This is about lining pockets, not helping people. I was supportive of mixed use zoning and integrating missing middle into our SFH neighborhoods, but the reality is there is no intention of providing affordable missing middle housing – these new builds will just ensure property taxes skyrocket and those of us in single-family housing will be priced right out of our neighborhoods.
Looks like a thoughtful project that increases density and preserves some greenspace, so I would say this is a win. 18 units instead of 5 units regardless of cost or level of luxury is a win as increasing the total amount of supply is better than doing nothing.
Some will argue that if the housing is at a higher price point, building it is a bad thing. The number of high-income people in the market to buy housing does not change, so these buyers will simply bid up the cost of other housing more affordable regardless. (See Old Fourth Ward and other neighborhoods). At the end of the day, more housing to meet overall supply creates housing for everyone. The most restrictive cities (to development) end up being the most expensive — see San Fran, New York, Boston, LA… On the flip side places like Houston and Dallas remain more affordable because they build a crazy amount of housing. Whether developers get rich doing it, shouldn’t matter. It’s a job with lots of risks — a lot of projects fail, and developers go bankrupt. They put their personal capital at risk. They are the ones building the housing that all of us are living in. If there was more supply, there would be less opportunity for developers to increase supply based on scarcity.
I’ll be moving to Atlanta this spring and I’m gonna be looking for up and coming new construction that’s affordable for all!!