Split Franklin County vote allows old Prospect Road home to stay as storage

Franklin County commissioners have approved Eugene Pittman’s request to keep an older manufactured home at 2753 Prospect Road, near Toccoa, as a storage building rather than a dwelling. Planning and Zoning Commission minutes dated June 18 report that the Board of Commissioners approved variance V-2026-003 by a 3–2 vote for the roughly 2.24-acre tract. The close vote settles the central land-use request, though the commission record does not say when the Board took the vote or spell out the rules Pittman must follow as the structure changes use.

The decision matters because the property had been discussed as having two homes, and the variance gives Pittman a path to retain the older one without continuing to treat it as housing. That distinction affects the property’s future appearance and use, while also raising the practical question of how the county will determine that a former home is functioning only as storage. The 3–2 result shows the request did not command a routine consensus among commissioners.

Pittman’s proposal first appeared on the Planning and Zoning Commission’s May 21 agenda as a request to convert the old manufactured home into storage. At that meeting, commissioners discussed the request and possible measures including boarding the windows, but those discussions did not themselves establish a final requirement. The matter then advanced to the Board of Commissioners’ June 1 public-hearing and regular-meeting agendas with a Planning and Zoning Commission recommendation, 3–1, for conditional approval. A June 18 Planning and Zoning Commission agenda and its minutes subsequently reported the Board’s 3–2 approval.

At the June 1 public hearing, Pittman and a supporter argued for retaining the manufactured home as storage. An opponent urged the Board to weigh the building’s condition and the precedent the variance could set. Those competing views framed the choice before commissioners: whether a nonresidential storage use could address Pittman’s request while avoiding the concerns raised about keeping the structure on the site. The later approval permits the conversion, but the record summarized in the June 18 commission minutes does not identify which commissioners voted each way.

The variance is approved, not awaiting another vote. What remains uncertain is implementation. The June 18 Planning and Zoning Commission minutes report the Board’s result but do not reproduce the Board’s motion or specify final conditions for the storage use. As a result, window boarding remains a possibility raised during the May discussion, not a documented condition of approval. The cited county materials also do not establish whether utilities must be disconnected, when conversion work will begin or whether work has already occurred.

The next public sign of follow-through would be a county record that sets implementation requirements, records an amendment or documents compliance work at 2753 Prospect Road. No later conclusive record in this matter establishes those details. Until one does, the land-use decision is clear—Pittman may convert the manufactured home to storage—but the schedule, the physical steps that will mark the transition and the county’s final enforcement terms remain undecided in the public record.