COVINGTON, Ga. – Council members discussed potential new home requirements due to standard changes reviewed at their Aug. 19 meeting.

This comes after a first reading of a text amendment regarding standard changes for dwelling, single-family detached homes in section 16.20.135.

According to planning director Judy Johnson, this is merely a clean up of the language that will make this easier to regulate.

Architectural details that saw changes include tree landscaping, where each single family dwelling must provide a minimum of three trees, with at least one tree in the front yard of a native Georgia species. This is up from two trees. Exceptions may be given based on topography. 

Brick or masonry water table barriers, which previously had a requirement to be a minimum of 48 inches, are now proposed to be required on all sides, no less than one foot in height. 

Currently, shingles are required by a certain brand, but the change will take out the brand being stated, and instead allow any brand with a warranty of 25 years. 

The last architectural change, garage design, now has new requirements for front facing garages. If the house design includes a covered entrance, garages shall not project beyond the front plane of the house. The minimum for the front of the house is one foot. 

If the house includes a covered front porch, the garage must be setback a minimum of four feet from the outer edge of the front porch roof. 

Council member Jared Rutberg had a few comments with these changes. Rutberg stated that the 25 year warranty for shingles isn’t enough, since most companies don’t make them with warranties of this length, and gave the proposition to change it to 30 years. 

Rutberg also recommended deleting the four foot setback.

“Use the habitable space, it’s the plane and be done with it,” Rutberg said. “It’s a lot easier. They don’t have to go out with a tape measure.” 

Johnson said that if the goal is to keep it on the same plane as the habitable space, they would change the first part of the garage proposal. 

“A lot of the homes that are being constructed today are being designed a more a stoop entrance rather than that large southern front porch that you have,” Johnson said.  

Regardless of the porch, whether it be a stoop entrance or covered porch, the garage would need to be on the plane or setback. 

Rutberg also looked to increase the distance of the current architectural variety standard. Currently, for the same house plan whether it’s reversed or looks just the same, it cannot be adjacent to the other house. 

Rutberg proposed that no more than 15 percent of an entire subdivision can have the same home. He recommended that the homes shouldn’t be within three parcels left or right of one another, or across the street three left or right.  

“It’s not changing the percentage for the subdivision, it’s just changing it so that you can’t go down the street and you’re looking at the same cookie cutters back and forth,” Rutberg said. 

Following the reading, the floor was opened for a public hearing, with no one speaking in favor or opposed. Council member Susie Keck made the motion to approve the first reading of the text amendment for standard changes, which was seconded by Charika Davis and approved 6-0.

However, as the architectural variety was not discussed at the planning commission meeting, city attorney Frank Turner Jr. said that the particular change will need to undergo the entire process.

Turner told the council they would need to add that item to the agenda and then initiate a text amendment going over architectural variety. This is what the council did, approving both items 6-0.

The council also discussed fourth of July and Lighting of the Square with their recent plan for action. 

The previous consensus from council was that for the Independence Day celebrations, festivities will be downtown, and fireworks moved to a location that has yet to be determined. For Christmas celebrations there will be no fireworks. 

It should be noted, however, that no official vote has been made as of this time.

Council member Anthony Henderson pitched the idea to have the fireworks for their Juneteenth celebration during council comments.

“If we go away from the Lighting of the Square, we could do Juneteenth and then Fourth of July and it gives us the time to kind of prepare,” Henderson said. 

Since they are using a new location for the fourth of July, Henderson said they could test the fireworks with a smaller crowd for Juneteenth. 

With final Fourth of July comments, Rutberg thanked everyone involved with the event preparations. 

“I wanna thank all that expressed interest or worked on this whole July 4th thing from staff, to merchants, to citizens, Rutberg said. “I know it’s been a very personal and sometimes painful subject, but I wanna thank everybody for participating.”