With nearly two hours of debate among council members, developers and nearby residents, Hinesville City Council members approved a rezoning for a planned apartment complex off Courtland Drive in a 3-2 vote.

The developers, Walthourville Properties, were asking council members to rezone 19.86 acres from single-family residential. But about a dozen residents of the nearby Wexford and Courtland neighborhoods were on hand at last Thursday’s council meeting to voice their opposition to the rezoning request. Many of the concerns centered additional traffic and potential effects on already problematic drainage in the neighborhood.

“We have great concern that the flooding is going to be even worse,” said Ray Egan. “With the current drainage situation, I don’t see how he is going to get around it not increasing. As soon as trees get cut down, it starts to raise great concern about our homes getting flooded out.

“No way will this drainage system accept this,” Egan added. “With just one road in and one road out that the traffic is going to become a little untenable. Getting out of Courtland Drive in the first place is one of the most dangerous places in Hinesville. It is extremely dangerous. Trying to go left is almost ridiculous.”

Mayor Karl Riles pointed out the Georgia Department of Transportation has a median safety traffic project on the books for Highway 84, with work set to start in GDOT’s fiscal year 2027. That project will make coming out of Courtland onto 84 a rightturn only, Riles said.

Other residents said the flooding has gotten so bad, there have been fish coming down the street. Residents said the cutting of trees on a nearby property has led to a worsening of the drainage.

“I’ve met all kinds of snakes in my front yard, and one snake that is longer than I am tall,” said Renea Camper, “and all kinds of other animals, some I don’t even know the names of. What that is telling me is we are disturbing their habitat. My property has flooded three times in a major way, twice in the last year.”

Those existing drainage problems, Mayor Riles said, will be examined and remedied by the city.

“That’s something we’re going to address as a city, quickly,” he said.

Engineer Marcus Sack said the proposed development won’t worsen the drainage and flooding issues for the neighbors. With retention ponds, the stormwater runoff will be released at a rate lower than it flows now, he said.

“We are uphill and upstream,” he said. “We can do our development to make sure it doesn’t become any worse. There is a chance it might get better. So this again would not have an adverse impact on other property owners.”

The apartment complex also will be buffered from Courtland Drive by 30 to 40 feet, and there will be 600 feet of buffer, a result of adjoining wetlands, from the neighborhoods.

Sack noted that concerns over a development routinely involve traffic, drainage and flooding, buffers and adequate capacity for utilities. Sack said Courtland Drive, recently given an overlay by the city, is well built and can handle the additional traffic from the apartment complex.

Sack said apartments — since there are one- and two-bedroom units — often produce fewer trips than single-family homes, because there are fewer people coming in and out of the complex. By his count, there are 1,650 trips per day now on Courtland and will be 2,650 trips per day once the apartments are done.

The street, Sack said, can handle up 1,900 trips per hour.

“That’s a significant amount of traffic for a free-flowing street,” he said.

As a comparison, Sack cited the traffic counts along other streets, such as 5,490 a day at North Main Street and East Mills, and 5,790 trips per day at Shaw Road and Barry McCaffrey Boulevard.

Sack also cited the upcoming GDOT median safety project as an aid to traffic flow once it is completed.

“Once this development is done, this roadway and intersection will actually operate better,” he said. “We all know Highway 84 is congested and is an issue. Any development has a potential to affect Highway 84. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop all development.”

Claude Dryden of Walthourville Properties asserted they wanted to be good neighbors with the residents in Courtland and Wexford.

“It’s a great project and it’s in a place where it is needed,” he said. “We wouldn’t do it if we didn’t think it would do well. We’ll be good neighbors. If we could ever do it right, this is about as best it could be done.”

He offered his development along Veterans Parkway, Wyngrove Apartments, as comparable.

Yet residents were worried about the additional traffic along Courtland.

“Our issue is one way in and one way out,” Tammy Smith said. “We can’t get in. We can’t get out.”

Other residents were worried about the possibility of increased crime with an apartment complex coming in — an assertion that bristled some council members.

“We do not want these apartment complexes in our neighborhood,” said Lisa Boyer. “I don’t wish to have unmentionable people trample into my back yard. I don’t wish for them to cram a bunch of apartments in there. “Our little sanctuary is going to be overran with a development that is not good for our area.”

Other residents also pointed to the city’s own crime map and the hot spots near apartment complexes. But council members also pushed back on that.

Mayor Riles said that in his younger days he lived in Wedgewood Apartments, went to work, came home and raised his two children.

“No bodies were found. I didn’t steal anything,” he said. “I think what this body is hearing is that you are sure the people who commit the crimes are apartment people and you as house people don’t want to live next to apartment people. You sound like the people who are going to move in are more prone to crime than the people who live in houses.”

The mayor also said the cost of building today, and the basic allowance for housing available to soldiers, the apartments might be more expensive than the mortgages for single- family homes.

“When we say apartment people, we make it divisive,” said Council member Dexter Newby, who voted against the rezoning. “I have homeowner people I do not trust.”

Council member Vicky Nelson said she lives near the Wyngrove complex and it is a quiet development. Nelson added there are a number of issues, such as drainage, that the city needs to take a look at as a result of the residents’ concerns.

Council member Jose Ortiz, who voted against the rezoning, offered that growth is coming to Hinesville and is going to continue to come.

“Hinesville is growing, leaps and bounds,” he said. “We are needing houses. We have more people than homes, whether it be apartments or single-family homes. The impact is going to be felt everywhere. Hinesville is not that big and we do not have a lot of dry land we can build on. We are no longer country- like. This is not the country anymore. We have to embrace the growth in Hinesville.”