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Bainbridge residents gathered in the city council chambers on Tuesday afternoon to present their concerns and protest the proposed rezoning of residential land in west Bainbridge. The land, if rezoned, would go from residential to heavy industrial. Multiple residents came to the podium to express their concerns, with some starting a petition opposing it beforehand; that petition, as of the writing of this article, has gained 255 signatures.

The land that is proposed for the rezoning is currently undeveloped, though in light of the recent controversy surrounding Safer Human Medicine’s primate facility, residents are concerned about their property taxes, as well as the potential for unwanted business to move in.

“What we’re asking these hard-working people to do, is uproot everything that they’ve built, and take it elsewhere and start over,” one resident said, “not knowing how life is gonna go, even if they’re going to be able to afford life as they once knew it.”

“I don’t know if there are any proposed and/or promised benefits from the rezoning of residential to heavy industrial,” said resident Tori Greene, “but I do know that the usually proposed economic benefits from rezoning do not materialize for the existing residents. How will this impact our property taxes, our property values, rent prices?”

Members of the planning commission responded to some of the  residents as they spoke, with one stating, “Progress comes at a cost… and everybody’s gonna benefit in one way or another.”

Rick McCaskill, executive director of the Bainbridge-Decatur County Development Authority, took to the podium at the meeting as well.

“First I feel like I need to talk a little about the benefits that might come out of this,” McCaskill said. “Bainbridge and Decatur County have got a lot of people on the bottom few rungs of the ladder. We take it very seriously to try and help these people out and get some good jobs in here.” He went on to assert that they have been working to fill the employment gap left by the closure of Amoco Fabrics, and stressed the importance of the size of this parcel of land up for rezoning, saying, “We need some more industrial space. The reason this space looks so good to us is it’s closest to the city limits where we could run infrastructure out there, which we have done.”

McCaskill stated that the Development Authority was “sympathetic” to the fears of the residents. “I understand the unknown is scary, and that’s what we’re talking about here. We don’t know what’s gonna go there.”

The city council is set to vote on the zoning proposal at next week’s meeting, which will be held Tuesday afternoon at 6:30 PM, at city hall.