First, it was The Overlook of Dahlonega. Now another Planned Unit Development is winding its way through the City planning process.
The first public notice of hearings for the proposed rezoning, which would clear the way for at least 196 townhomes along Pinetree Way, was published in the legal section of the October 8 edition of The Nugget.
If approved, the townhome units would consist of 35 buildings spread across 57.89 acres of property owned by the Cottrell family, which wraps like a horseshoe around Cottrell Elementary School.
The City Planning Commission was originally set to hear the plan on November 4, followed by a City Council hearing on November 17. But that initial hearing was postponed to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, December 2.
“[The hearing] was continued from the last meeting to tomorrow … The City did update the signs and send updated letters to the adjacent property owners,” City Manager Allison Martin confirmed in an email response on Monday.
In meeting terminology, a “continuance” is a form of postponement that specifies a set date and time to continue discussion of the item, whereas “tabling” sets the agenda item aside indefinitely.
Now the hearing appears poised for a second delay, as City staff has pointed out “several items that should be provided by the applicant to supplement the application.”
“Thus it is recommended that this matter be postponed to the Commission’s meeting of January 6, 2026,” the memo inside the online agenda packet continued.
“Staff doesn’t vote but would ask that of the Planning Commission so that a completed packet and consultant planner’s report can be returned,” Martin added via email.
EVOLVING PLAN
The parcels of land in question, along with another adjacent parcel, were rezoned by the City Council in 2001 from Industrial to PUD for a combination of commercial and retail office space with a multi-family residential component.
The first submitted plan by Jones and Goulding called for an assisted living facility with six commercial buildings and seven assisted living buildings.
The next rezone application would not come until March of 2023, when Mountain Top Real Estate Group requested to rezone 62.77 acres from the previous PUD to a new one for 325 multi-family residential units and 10,000 square feet of commercial space, although the Council denied that application.
In 2025, the owners initially filed an appeal of an administrative decision that the existing PUD zoning only allows for assisted living and commercial uses, not fee simple townhomes or apartments.
However, before that request was heard the applicant filed the current rezoning request to modify the PUD to authorize fee-simple townhouses instead.
The term fee simple-means that the home and property are owned completely by the buyer.
The townhomes in the latest plan would be 24x52 feet each, with a maximum proposed building height of 40 feet.
There will be a total of 784 resident parking spaces, assuming two vehicles in the garage and two in the driveway. Combined with 47 guest spaces, that makes for a grand total of 831 proposed parking spaces.
The site plan submitted with the application shows two proposed street connections, one with Pinetree Way and one with Mechanicsville Road. A previously-proposed emergency fire access connection to Lumpkin County school property has been removed.
In an attached Letter of Intent for the project dated October 21, Julie Sellers with Dillard Sellers Attorneys at Law wrote that the 2025 site plan adds additional greenspace and “eliminates the significant amount of commercial/retail use and creates much needed housing.”
“Another benefit of the approval of the 2025 site plan is the traffic reduction between the 2001 site plan and the residential development set fort in the 2025 plan,” she added.
Sellers provided a traffic engineers’ report from A&R Engineering, Inc. that claimed the new plan would result in a significant reduction in traffic over the 2001 PUD.
“A comparative analysis shows that the proposed development will generate 38 percent less trips in the a.m. peak hour, 62 percent less trips in the p.m. peak hour, and 71 percent less 24 hour two way trips than the current PUD,” the report stated.
The Nugget reached out to Sellers at the email address printed on the letter to ask whether a return to the 2001 PUD plan could be in the cards if the latest rezone attempt fails, but did not receive a response as of press time.