By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Richmond Hill Council approves height variance for hotel
IMAG0112
Richmond Hill City Councilmembers Jan Bass and John Fesperman Jr. were sworn into their new terms by Mayor Harold Fowler on Tuesday in City Hall. - photo by Brent Zell

The Richmond Hill City Council on Tuesday approved a height variance for a proposed four-story Home2 Suites by Hilton at Highway 17 and Ponderosa Road.

The council signed off on an 8-foot variance to the city’s maximum building-height requirement of 35 feet.

At the Dec. 28 Richmond Hill Planning Commission meeting, Clif Cooper of Dawson Architects told the board that a fourth floor was necessary to shrink the hotel’s footprint and put it farther away from Wiley Woods. City Planning and Zoning Director Scott Allison told the board that the 35-foot limit was in place before the Richmond Hill Fire Department obtained a truck with a higher ladder. Commissioner Tara Baraniak said the hotel’s plans show space for a possible restaurant.

A petition containing 39 signatures was submitted in opposition to the variance, with some residents voicing concerns Dec. 28 about traffic, safety, buffers and other aspects. The Planning Commission voted 3-1 to recommend approval. No one spoke against the variance at Tuesday’s council meeting.

According to the variance application released at Tuesday’s meeting, the hotel prototype is designed for 107 rooms.

In other action Tuesday, the council approved three alcohol-related requests — for Publix Supermarket to sell beer and wine for off-premises consumption, for Fuji restaurant to sell beer and wine for on-premises consumption, and for Melody’s Coastal Café to sell alcohol on Sundays.

Also on Tuesday, council members Jan Bass and John Fesperman Jr. were sworn in for their new terms on the board. Bass and Fesperman were re-elected to their seats in November; each ran unopposed.

Sign up for our E-Newsletters
Later yall, its been fun
Placeholder Image

This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

Latest Obituaries