The City of Baldwin is moving forward with development at Airport Business Park now that a covenant between the city and Habersham County Development Authority are official, and a variance from the city’s minimum development standards has been granted for the business park.
The covenant details how development will move forward at the business park, which the city and Habersham County Development Authority agreed on during a joint meeting Thursday. The covenant states that the stormwater retention ponds will be held to the standards they were originally designed as and that the HCDA will have the ponds inspected annually.
The Baldwin City Council voted unanimously on Monday night to approve both the covenant and second reading of the variance from the minimum development standards with Habersham County Development Authority Director Mike Beecham and Partnership Habersham Executive Director Charlie Fiveash present.
After the approval, members of the council breathed a sigh of relief, and even celebrated with applause, as they began the process of closing their part of the stormwater and business park development process.
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The council’s passage of a zoning map amendment will grant developers at the business park a variance from the city’s minimum development standards regarding the stormwater ponds at the business park and hold them to their as-built standards instead.
“It’s always great to finish something, especially something that you’ve worked so hard on,” Elam said. “This has been an enlightening process for me, even though I’ve served on council for 10 years, you learn something new every day.”
Now that the covenant is official and the variance has had its second reading, development can move forward at the business park.
“We’re so thankful that is done,” Elam said. “It took a long time, but it was immensely important to this council as a whole that everything was done right— and sometimes it takes us a little bit longer to get it done right, but it’s better than coming back [to it].”
