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Planning board approves 275-lot subdivision in south Forsyth
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Forsyth County planning board members approved a 250-lot subdivision near Fowler Park at a public hearing Tuesday evening.

Meritage Homes of Georgia Inc. filed a request last May to rezone 287 acres of agricultural district, or A1, and commercial business district, or CBD, between Atlanta Highway (Hwy. 9), Castleberry Road and Majors Road to a master planned district, or MPD.

The proposal originally asked for 344 residential lots and 84 attached residential units with a density of 1.48 units per acre and 49,800 square feet of commercial buildings with 239 parking spaces.

At a work session Jan. 24, District 3 planning board member Patrick Britt, whose district the application falls in, said he was working with the applicant and its lawyers to reduce the number of lots to just less than 300.

At the public hearing, Britt further lowered that number to no more than 250 single family homes.

The property would connect to the Big Creek Greenway, which Britt said is a selling point.

“I live in [Forsyth County], too, and I run up and down that greenway with my kid, and I’ve been out on that property — it’s absolutely gorgeous,” he said. “I think we’ve come up with something that will address a lot of what everybody wants.”

Instead of MPD, Britt conditioned the property to be comprised of single family residential Res-2, Res-2 estate lots, Res-3 and commercial business district, or CBD.

The Res-2 estate lots were conditioned to be a minimum of 40,000 square feet with a width of at least 140 feet.

They will be located in the northeast part of the property, near the intersection of Majors and Castleberry roads.

“I feel that [area] needs to be a little less dense because Majors is already an interesting stretch of road,” Britt said. “I’d say [we’ll get] four or five, maybe six [estates.] It depends on how they lay it out.”

The commercial part of the development will take up 5 acres, with no more than 50,000 square feet of retail, Britt said.

It will be located at the corner of Atlanta highway (Hwy. 9) and Castleberry Road.

Planning board members raised no concerns about the conditioned application and voted unanimously to send it to the Board of Commissioners with a recommendation for approval.

The BOC, which has final say over land use requests, is scheduled to vote on the application Feb. 16.