It’s not that easy to find a truly rural pocket of Gwinnett County these days — but if there’s one anywhere, it’s here.
In this southeast corner of Georgia’s second most populous county, there are subdivisions and other signs of typical suburban life. But they’re fewer and farther between than in other parts of the rapidly urbanizing county, and they’re otherwise surrounded by farms and horses and trees and plenty of peace and quiet.
That’s what the folks leading the opposition to a proposal for a sprawling new neighborhood in the area — one with more than 350 homes proposed on about 160 acres — are fighting for.
“The value of our property lies in the rural character,” Laura Walsh, one of the leaders of the movement, said at a recent meeting of Gwinnett’s planning commission. “The trees, the sound of the animals, the ability to see the stars at night. These are the reasons we all moved to this community.”
As Walsh and the more than 500 members of an opposition Facebook group see it, the folks behind June Ivey Development LLC are trying to take all of that away. Or at least spoil it.
The LLC and the unnamed developers behind it filed paperwork earlier this year for a zoning change that would pave the way for the sizable subdivision near June Ivey and Indian Shoals roads, a predominantly wooded area just east of Harbins Park and not far from both the Walton and Barrow county lines.
Documents propose a total of 356 single-family detached homes of at least 1,400 square feet. The development’s net density would be more than 2.4 homes per acre, officials said.
The property is currently zoned RA-200, which is geared toward “agriculture, forestry and very low density residential uses,” according to Gwinnett’s unified development ordinance.
Walking trails and a pocket park would also create a combined 33 acres of “conservation space” on the property, attorney Shane Lanham, who represents the developer, said at the March 6 planning commission meeting. He argued that will help make the proposed project worthy of the county’s OSC, or open space conservation, zoning classification.
Dozens of red-clad protesters at the same meeting said otherwise. Rob Protasewich, the HOA president of a nearby subdivision, was among them.
Protasewich told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution this week that he and his comrades — who are in the process of scheduling a community meeting with Lanham and county officials later this month — are aware that they’re not going to keep development out of their area altogether.
“But to me,” he said, “it’s just about smart growth versus stupid growth.”
Asked this week about the June Ivey proposal, planning commission chairman Chuck Warbington actually had similar comments. But he didn’t reveal on which side of the spectrum he believed the proposed development might lie.
“As leaders, we should walk cautiously in the development of our community to ensure a long-term sustainable growth,” Warbington wrote in an email. “This does not mean no growth in undeveloped/rural areas, rather smart growth that ensures infrastructure, facilities and other community amenities are programmed or in place.”
The planning commission has tabled its decision on the proposed rezoning until its May 1 meeting. If that body gives the go-ahead, the proposal would still have to be approved by Gwinnett’s Board of Commissioners.
In the meantime, Protasewich said he plans to print more than 100 yard signs protesting the development. He and his neighbors will continue calling and emailing their public officials, too.
They don’t plan to back down.
“It’s not just this one development or our little stretch of road,” said Walsh, the opposition’s other leader. “The greenspace in Gwinnett needs to stay as green as we can keep it. There’s not a lot left.”
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