The Demorest City Council voted Thursday night to approve concept plans for a new parking lot at City Hall. The concept, as designed, would require the removal of two historic oak trees.
Demorest City Manager Mark Musselwhite said tearing down the oak trees was the only option to provide the required parking needed for a post office.
“The international building code requires at least nineteen spaces for a post office,” Musselwhite said. “We have to be outside of the dripline which is as long as the limbs are, which wouldn’t provide enough parking.”
Musselwhite stressed that council hadn’t approved anything yet, but since he’s been city manager, the council’s discussion has always centered around moving the post office from the main downtown corridor.
Freeing up retail space
The post office’s current location on Georgia Street is owned by Demorest’s Downtown Development Authority (DDA). The DDA’s chairman, Jim Wellborn, told the audience they want the post office out of a prime downtown retail space.
“We can make much better use of that building if it wasn’t selling stamps,” Wellborn said. “It would be better served as a restaurant or retail space.”
Mussellwhite told the council they could vote to leave the post office where it is, but would defeat the city’s purpose of buying the old Demorest Elementary building in the first place.
“We bought this building with the intent to lease the building to create some cash flow,” he said. “Now, if the city didn’t buy it, most likely a developer would have bought it, torn it down, and built townhomes.”
More importantly, another problem was the trees themselves could potentially be a threat to public safety as Demorest Mayor Jerry Harkness explained.
“We had an arborist come out and drill both sides of the trees to see how they were,” Harkness said. “The one furthest away from us had no roots on one side. It’s at a very high risk of falling at any moment.”
Licensed arborist Chris James inspected the trees and told Musselwhite the bad news.
“The tree is over 100 years old now,” Musselwhite said. “He [James] said he wouldn’t put his family to sit out beneath those trees. He indicated there is a lot of rot in those trees.”
A second opinion; another option
The arborist report led some in the audience to ask for another opinion from a second arborist.
“Could we perhaps call down to the UGA extension service and see if another arborist can inspect the trees?” Demorest resident LeAnne Lutz asked.
Musselwhite said he would try to get several different opinions before the next council meeting.
Councilman Jimmy Davis felt like his colleagues had not explored every possible avenue.
“There’s another option that nobody seems to want to talk about,” Davis said. “We should move the post office on the Alabama Street side of the building and utilize the parking that is already here and leave that space and those trees alone.”
Harkness told Davis that option was not feasible.
“What the post office needs is a loading dock, and adding a loading dock on this side of the building would eat up so much of this side that it would destroy most of the parking,” Harkness said.”
Musselwhite explained that mail delivery can not operate in the same entrance as the customer.
‘God’s little acre’
Harkness explained he knows the city is in God’s little acre, but wanted to ensure the building itself was kept safe.
“It’s a very tough place to be,” Harkness said. “When we learned about this building being able to be purchased, we rapidly got involved to make sure it wasn’t torn down by a developer. Without us buying this building, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”
Council faced some opposition from residents who opposed the trees’ removal and asked them to consider other options.
“It’s great to see everyone so passionate about this town,” said Demorest resident Sherry McCullough who came to speak on behalf of several elderly neighbors who couldn’t be in attendance. “We all care about it. Those trees are the moral fabric of what we call home and we do not want what is on the table tonight to happen.”
The measure passed 3-1, with Councilman Jimmy Davis casting the lone dissenting vote.
New police station
The City Council also approved a plan to move the city’s police department into the existing City Hall.
Davis stated this proposition would be detrimental to the police department.
“The police don’t want to move,” Davis said. “They like it where they are and have a presence in the park.”
The council then called Police Chief Casey Chastain to speak, and while he said the police do love their current location, it’s too small for their needs.
“We need more space,” Chastain said. “We can do our job in any building.”
Councilman Allen went ahead and made a motion to approve, “It’s a concept plan, nothing is written in stone, I make a motion to go forward with these concept plans.”
Mayor Harkness said this plan is only moving forward with the design work so the city can get a fair and accurate price, but Councilman Davis was still not budging.
“I think we should look at other options,” Davis said. “One of the options would be to leave the trees alone and the post office where it is. We’re going to spend more than a million dollars just inside this building.”
Davis, yet again, served as the lone nay vote on the concepts for the city hall building.
Those comments drew the ire of Councilman Donnie Bennett, as the council has been mulling over this plan for months.
“Where have you been the last few months when we’ve been talking about this, Jimmy? You’ve been sitting right there and you haven’t said any of this,” Bennett said.
Gone too far
Sherry McCullough again addressed the council and stated she was against moving the police department.
“That is close to the Demorest Springs park and keeps our kids safe,” McCullough said. “We need protection for our children and students.”
Councilman Allen, who is also the interim director of the Habersham County Historical Society, felt the negative comments by the public had gone too far.
“I just want to say when I first heard the initial arborist report, I cried,” Allen said. “You read the comments on social media, and some people are going overboard.”
The Demorest City Council will hold its next meeting on Oct. 7, when they hope to unveil reports from other arborists and more information on project pricing.
