The Troup County Board of Commissioners has tabled a rezoning request from a housing developer after community opposition to the proposed development.

BC Stone Homes requested to change 71.4 acres from Agricultural to Agricultural Residential zoning to allow for smaller than 5-acre lot sizes to build a subdivision with 17 homes in the Mountville area. The property in question is located off Greenville Road (GA 109) and Dallas Mill Road.

The Board of Planning and Zoning Appeals voted to deny the rezoning application, 4-2.

The owner later requested to amend the request to only ask for 48.54 acres to be rezoned to agricultural residential rather than the previous 71.4, leaving the remaining 20 acres on Dallas Mill Road as agriculturally zoned.

Commissioner Jamie Thrailkill questioned whether the applicant could amend the rezoning request rather than starting the whole process over, sending it back to the Planning Board.

“In accordance with the regulations, the application did not need to be resubmitted due to the nature and intent of the new request basically being the same,” Troup County Community Development Director Jenny Parmer said. “It’s the same location, and it is even a less intense use since they reduced the amount of rezoning. If it were an increase, it would be different. But this is a reduction.”

Developer Bryan Stone argued that the property in question are the only parcels on State Route 109 in Mountville that are zoned Agricultural. The surrounding properties are primarily Agricultural Residential with even some Single Family Residential, which allows lot sizes as low as 1 acre.

“There’s definitely a hodgepodge of zoning in the area. I would make the argument that given the infrastructure there it would certainly be a better use of the property to take advantage of the public water and the infrastructure of Highway 109 as zoned Agricultural Residential,” Stone said.

Owner Vernon Prince previously tried to develop this property into a subdivision, honoring the five-acre minimums of Agricultural zoning but was told he could not do so because Dallas Mill Road was not paved.

“We were denied permission to move forward with cutting the lots into 5-acre parcels, which is what most of the petitioners wanted during the planning and zoning meeting. Everyone was fine with five-acre minimum lots, but we were told we couldn’t do that,” Prince said.

Scott Rogers of Dallas Mill Road was among several residents who spoke against the change. Even more residents attended the meeting to show opposition but did not speak. Roughly 160 people signed a petition opposing the change.

Rogers asked that the commissioners deny the request to keep the 5-acre lot minimum for the property, saying all new development in the area has had 5-plus acre lot sizes.

“The petition not to rezone; it’s not to not build houses. We do want healthy growth in Mountville and I think we’ve pretty well had it over the years. We’ve had decent, healthy growth and the Mountville area hasn’t exploded,” Rogers said.

Ultimately, the commissioners voted unanimously to table the measure to their next meeting on March 25 to give further time to review the issue.