TIFTON — Amid heavy opposition from the community, Tift County commissioners elected to halt further progress on the development of a truck stop in Chula at their July 8 meeting.

The project, beginning with a request to rezone property along U.S. Highway 41 to match it with existing parcels from the same owner, had faced backlash from residents at previous meetings of both the Greater Tift County Planning and Zoning Commission and the County Board of Commissioners, who feared the establishment would bring unwanted dangers to the area.

These residents appeared at the most recent county meeting to once again make their case against the plan, producing a large enough turnout that the meeting had to be relocated to the building’s courtroom to accommodate the crowd.

Prior to opening the public hearing, board chair Tony McBrayer asked for a time limit to be established for each side of the argument to keep the meeting from going on too late into the evening, restricting both those in favor and against the project to a total of 20 minutes each.

Robert King, a representative of the applicant Baljinda Singh, took only a minute or so of his allotted time, reiterating that Singh was planning to make the parcel of land in question contiguous with his existing properties.

Those in opposition to the development, however, took up all of the time given to them and then some in voicing their concerns.

George Woods, opting to offer his dissent in the public comments segment of the meeting, highlighted the danger another truck stop would bring to the area, providing a record of more than 500 9-1-1 calls, taken from a public records request, from just the Pilot truck stop in the last two years.

He reminded the board that the Pilot truck stop was the closest to the center of town and therefore would receive the fastest response time from the sheriff’s department, expressing concern that a truck stop even further away in Chula would likely have just as many incidents, but with a lower chance of police involvement due to the greater distance.

Chris Cutts, who stated he had experience in the field of business development, said it was inevitable that Chula would receive future development, but he stressed that the community should have a say in what will be developed there and that this plan would be an ill fit for the area.

Cutts noted the heavy traffic already affecting the area from the nearby Tiftarea Academy, a train crossing, and farmers moving their agricultural equipment, as well as the sharp turn from Highway 41 onto Chula-Brookfield Road, and he argued that adding the expected influx of traffic predicted by the project’s site plans on top of these factors would be far greater than the area’s current infrastructure could accommodate.

Additionally, he pointed out the presence of several “No Truck” signs along Chula-Brookfield, as well as bridges with weight limits that most trucks would approach the maximum weight with only an empty trailer. He said there are no evident plans of widening the bridges.

Reed Howell restated many of his concerns from the July 2 meeting, including that the planned General Business zoning classification would not be and had not been an adequate classification for truck stops in the county, as the other such establishments are designated Light Industrial, and that the truck stop would likely pose a safety risk to the nearby Tiftarea Academy.

He asserted that the community would continue to fight the development even if the county were to vote in its favor.

Megan Bradford also expressed concerns over the safety of the community being impacted, especially in regards to her infant son, and reported that many of her neighbors planned on moving were the development to go through.

At the conclusion of the public hearing, District 6 commissioner Greg Wood sympathized with the concerns of the community, stating his belief that their duty as commissioners was to uphold the safety and security of their constituents.

Wood made the motion to deny the proposed rezoning, which was accepted unanimously to applause from the courtroom.