The City of Hinesville’s next affordable housing project has taken another step in commencing work.
Council members voted 3-1, with one abstention, to select Simonton Engineering to do the engineering and construction management for the site work needed to build 31 townhomes on Court Street.
The city has a grant of nearly $1.1 million to spend over two years to provide infrastructure improvements along Court Street, including replacing sewer mains. The city is contributing $651,000 toward the project cost.
The design phase will take about five months, City Manager Kenneth Howard said, leaving the city about 18 months for construction.
“So it is critical we stay on task,” he said.
The city has partnered with a private developer to build 31 detached townhomes on Court Street between Welborn and Ashmore.
The townhomes, once built, will be sold to the residents, who must qualify and will be classified as low-to-moderate income.
“This is a true public private partnership,” Howard said. “This is an area we had planned to address anyway. This body is committed to address affordable housing and this is one of the unique ways the Department of Community Affairs has afforded us to gain access to grant funds to subsidize the costs of these developments.”
In order to prevent a developer or prospector from coming in and purchasing multiple homes, the sales will be restricted to one home per owner.
“We’re not going to allow a developer to come in and purchase these,” Howard said. “You can only purchase one of these homes.”
Simonton Engineering was one of three firms to bid on the request for qualifications and scored the highest from a committee looking over the proposals. The firm’s contract amount is set at not to exceed $153,645.
Council member Jason Floyd abstained from voting, as his bank is involved in the financing, and Jose Ortiz voted against awarding the contract to Simonton.
Floyd and Ortiz voted for a separate rezoning issue that failed to pass, and that vote means that rezoning cannot come back before council for another six months. That rezoning was tied to a dispute over land ownership of Ellie Lane.
The Liberty Consolidated Planning Commission recommended approving the rezoning, stipulating getting the ownership of Ellie Lane ironed out before a preliminary plat can be approved and a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wetlands delineation was needed prior to site plan review.
KC Brothers submitted a rezoning request in June 2024 to have 15.3 acres rezoned from R-8, single- family residential, to multi-family residential. The firm planned to build multi-family apartments and townhomes, with greenspaces and requisite stormwater detention facilities.
Builders estimated the tract would accommodate 48 apartments and 41 townhomes. Also, a segment of Ellie Lane was to be enhanced to bring it up to city standards.
But a local property owner said Ellie Lane, given to the city in 1975 by the late former mayor Carl Dykes, was rescinded in 1981 by Dykes.
“The city never maintained any of this,” Shelly Walker said. “I’m not against progress. I think everything should be done decently and in order.
“There was a private gate put up there by Keith Dykes and the city never did anything with it. Now growth come in and they city is gonna claim it. I don’t feel it’s right. When the storms came in and blew down the limbs, where was the city? I maintained it because I believed it was mine.”
City attorney Linnie Darden said the title search firm hired by his law firm showed the transaction from Dykes to the city in 1975 — but there was no other documentation to show a change in ownership after that.
“The question we have here is of ownership,” Mayor Karl Riles said. “It appears the city has owned this since ’75.”
