P&Z rejects hookah lounge, approves Lamar Road subdivision

A would-be hookah lounge owner in East Macon will have to come up with a different business plan after Macon-Bibb County Planning & Zoning Commission denied his permit during Monday’s hearings that also resulted in approval of a new subdivision on Lamar Road despite neighbors’ objections.

In Fort Hill, Johntrell Jackson has been trying since January of 2024 to find a suitable business for a commercial building with very little parking at 635 Womack St. 

Jackson said he’s been holding private gatherings but wanted to open the Skyline Cigar & Hookah Lounge. 

“Just a new approach to things,” Jackson said. “Just excited to get going, serving beer, wine, alcohol, cigars,” Jackson said. 

“What is a hookah bar? I don’t know what that is,” Commissioner Tim Jones asked. 

Hookah bars date back to their use overseas where people smoked flavored tobacco called shisha, Jackson said. 

“Just something that looks good and cool and they get a little enjoyment out of it,” he added.

Nearly two years ago, Jackson was approved at the same location for an aquaponics farm with a bait and tackle business that rents U-hauls, but could not secure parking in the vacant lot next door and did not have a place to display vehicles. 

With parking still an issue, Jackson planned to bus patrons from all over the county to the Skyline Cigar & Hookah Lounge and take them back home, but P&Z questioned the feasibility of that solution, especially with a lack of any type of landscape buffer between the lounge and the house next door.

“My concern for this is serving alcohol. You are very close to your neighbors, and this is, to me, not a good location for what you want to do here,” P&Z Chair Jeane Easom said. 

P&Z Executive Director Jeff Ruggieri agreed. 

“You’re gonna have buses and there’ll be people talking. You’re gonna be open till two o’clock in the morning. People get a little loud when they drink, especially after 12, I’ve been told,” Ruggieri said. “So we try to do our best to try to separate those uses and try to make life bearable for people on the other side of you. In this situation here, it’s really hard to do.”

P&Z Commissioner Tim Jones moved to deny the conditional use application and the vote was unanimous. 

New Lamar Road neighborhood

Northwest Macon property owners successfully fought off rezoning applications in the past for high density homes in the 800 block of Lamar Road, but couldn’t overcome scaled-down plans that P&Z approved Nov. 10. 

Bolt Engineering initially applied to rezone nearly 35 acres at 855, 875 Lamar Road from agricultural to single-family residential to develop 82 lots in a residential subdivision.

In March of 2024, P&Z denied a similar rezoning request when Rowland Engineering planned to develop 120 lots on the same parcels. Two weeks later, P&Z rejected Rowland’s reduction to 113 houses. 

At P&Z’s Oct. 27 meeting, Tyler Findley of Hughston Homes out of Columbus — the company building and selling the homes — heard multiple neighbors’ concerns about traffic, neighborhood density, impact on crowded schools and loss of greenspace. With two commissioners absent last month, a split vote on the proposal brought an automatic deferral to the November meeting where Findley presented new plans for 79 homes with larger lots fronting Lamar Road. 

“While we don’t have massive home sites here, we do feel like it fits the area. It allows us to still build an attainably priced home based on the lot yield that we’re able to get,” Findley told commissioners. 

Prices will range between $350,000 to $500,000 per home and reducing the number of lots would not cover development costs, Findley argued. He sees the two-story homes creating a transition from apartment dwellings on one side and the larger-lot estate homes on the other side. 

Elizabeth Ford, who lives on Old Forsyth Road, attended the other hearings, but spoke out for the first time Monday. 

With the recent addition of apartment complexes along Lamar Road, Ford said the road lacks proper infrastructure. 

“People are walking in the street, that’s just where they walk, and there’s obviously no sidewalks. At night, it’s dangerous. I just think it’s a dangerous spot that we have some issues that need to be helped. And I think adding 79 homes is just going to create more problems than we already have,” Ford said. “ I’m just not seeing the need here as to why we should create burdens on schools, infrastructure, roads, everything.”

Mary Jackson lives across the street from the future development.

“Trying to cram 79 houses in that little small area, it’s like trying to put 30 people in your house to live,” Jackson said. 

Lake Wildwood resident Linda Hurd also favored less density due to stormwater runoff that has caused flooding in her neighborhood.

Easom said the lack of available land in Bibb County means developments “have to dense up a little bit.”

Commissioner Kesia Stafford concurred.

“I don’t always like density, but in order for us to progress, in order for us to be ready for what is to come, this is where we find ourselves,” Stafford said. “I do know that we are growing, and what’s making it challenging for people to come here is housing. They’re looking for affordable housing. They’re looking for quality housing, and this meets that.” 

All but Commissioner Robby Redmond approved the rezoning. 

New ‘Comp Plan,’ signs of the times 

At the start of the Nov. 10 meeting, P&Z held a 17-minute public hearing to explain the process for updating the Comprehensive Land Development Plan, which is the guiding document for zoning decisions. 

TSW consulting firm’s Allison Sinyard explained that a steering committee would be meeting over the next year to take a comprehensive approach to land development, bicycle and pedestrian planning, enhancing quality of life, freight planning and how Macon-Bibb County should look in 30 years. 

Through the process, Sinyard plans community meetings in each of the nine county commission districts with the goal of completing the plan by Oct. 31, 2027.

Findings in the current “Comp Plan” for more walkable neighborhoods with restaurants and amenities came up Monday as Khalil English of St. John’s Street in East Macon opposed BTBB Architects’ rezoning request for 536, 544, 552 Church St. 

Developers sought a change from R-2 residential to C-2 commercial to allow for a medical office building that is still in the design phase.

Neighbors across Church Street asked that the entrances be away from their homes and that security fencing be installed to prevent people from cutting through to Coliseum Drive. 

With medical uses on the rest of that side of the block, P&Z approved the rezoning.

In New Pleasant Grove Baptist Church’s variance request for a new sign at 795 Maynard St., P&Z asked The Sign Store representative to come back next month with a scaled-down version. 

Under regulations, the church is only allowed 50 square feet of signage and proposed lettering for the “Pastor Richard L. Gammage Educational Annex” exceeds that by more than 35 square feet. 

Ingleside Baptist Church Student Youth Ministries withdrew its variance application for a multi-message, or digital billboard at 863 Wimbish Road. In June, P&Z turned down the church’s request for a variance to allow a double-sided billboard because it fell short of the 5,000-foot radius required between signs. 

The same regulation applied in the new application and staff noted: “The number of signs along this stretch of road is excessive and could be considered distracting and dangerous to motorists and pedestrians.”

Ingleside had a billboard at that site, but did not renew Lamar’s contract and the company removed it. In April, Lamar unsuccessfully applied for a new billboard just down Riverside Drive, but was denied due to the proximity to another digital billboard across Interstate 75. 

Upon the recommendation of the Design Review Board, or DRB, P&Z denied a certificate of appropriateness for renovations that have already been done at 2619 Suwanee Ave., which is in the Cherokee Heights Historic District. 

Rafael Garzon, registered agent of H&R Real Estate Renovations LLC of Forest Park, never applied for a building permit for the house his company purchased in June. 

The review board determined he changed the historic character of the house and was not in compliance by removing awnings, replacing windows with different materials, sizes and shapes, enclosing the screened-in porch and building a back deck. 

Garzon did not appeal to P&Z for a reversal of the DRB’s recommendation, so he will have to work with P&Z staff to come into compliance. 

While the members of the Design Review Board were sympathetic to Garzon’s costly mistake in installing inappropriate materials, they could not set a precedent by going against historic district regulations. 

“Had you gotten a building permit, they would have told you you were in a historic district and all of this could have been avoided,” Ruggieri said. 

“There’s a reason why the processes are the way they are,” DRB Chair Will Stanford said. 

Other agenda items

• 2669 Hillcrest Ave. — Roofing materials approved to replace existing three-tab shingles. 
• 468 Second St. — P&Z approved a certificate of appropriateness for the Social Duck to replace its second story, one-over-one, single-pane wood windows with double-pane glass, aluminum-clad wood windows of the same style, size and appearance. 
• 555 Fifth St. — P&Z approved signage for the new office of ICB Construction Group. The applicant deferred a request for a certificate of appropriateness to paint the brick, which is not typically allowed in the Central Business District.  
• 4979 Mercer University Drive — By a vote of 3-2, P&Z granted a variance to NAPA for an additional sign on their new location in the old school supply store. Regulations state signs should not be placed on sides of buildings that do not have street frontage, but a majority felt that the best visibility for the business sign was on the side of the building facing westbound traffic on Mercer University Drive. 

— Civic Journalism Senior Fellow Liz Fabian covers Macon-Bibb County government entities for The Macon Newsroom and can be reached at fabian_lj@mercer.edu or 478-301-2976.