Warner Robins Residents Upset With Zoning Decision

A group of Warner Robins residents is disappointed after city council re-zoned property near their community.

At Monday night’s city council meeting, several residents showed up to ask leaders to re-think the change–but council voted to move forward with it.

It’s a tight knit community–a group of houses that back up directly to this piece of land.

They came out in bunches to petition both the zoning committee meeting last week and last night’s city council meeting.

Tuesday night, they were frustrated with the outcome.

“They failed us as an elected official for us,” said Michael Saylor.

It’s safe to say Michael Saylor is not exactly happy with his city’s leaders.

Saylor lives near a piece of land off Houston Lake Road, which Warner Robins City Council voted to rezone and make room for an apartment complex.

A change Saylor and his neighbors protested vigorously.

“They’re here to listen to our needs, and we came out in literally bunches to sit there and express our concern with this area,” said Saylor.

Saylor expressed concerns about the apartments possibly being low income, and an emergency road that would be put near his back yard.

He felt the council didn’t let him voice his problems.

“Yesterday with the council, basically, they didn’t let anybody talk–it was just a simple okay everybody voted on it everybody agreed on it, and out the door,” said Saylor.

Tuesday night, I spoke with council member Carolyn Robbins, who assured me over the phone–council considered the problem carefully.

“There will be a buffer completely all the way around those apartments. They won’t even touch or come close to the land where the residents are,” said Robbins. “And also, they were concerned about a road. The road is definitely just there for emergencies only, and that will not be open every day, on an everyday basis. It would just be in case of an emergency.”

But Saylor said there’s another problem that doesn’t have anything to do with the design of the complex.

“It just felt like they didn’t care about our concerns, they were just caring about whether it would bring in the almighty dollar that they’re gonna bring into Warner Robins,” said Saylor.

Robbins said she spoke with the planning and zoning committee, and assured 41NBC the apartments would not be low income.

Saylor is hoping the developer will change its mind about beginning construction on the land.