Bibb P&Z denies Big House plan to demolish condemned historic structure, build garden
Macon’s Planning and Zoning Commission denied The Big House Foundation’s plans to demolish a historic home on Vineville Avenue to make way for a garden space in a hearing Monday.
The foundation was appealing to destroy a pre-1920s house next to the former home of the Allman Brothers. The home was condemned in recent years after the Big House purchased it in 2015.
“I’m very happy with this decision because there’s been nothing planned to replace those items,” said Chris Clark of the potential demolition of the house, which sits at 2353 Vineville Avenue. “It will look like a very large blank space in our streetscape on Vineville.”
Clark, who opposed the appeal during the commission meeting, is the chairman of the Design Review Board and a nearby homeowner in the Historic Vineville district. He said the demolition of the house would not only be a detriment to the historic look of the area, it would lead to the construction of an amphitheater and subsequent noise problems for the neighborhood.
“I believe that the neighborhood needs buffers…with walls and evergreen buffers of 50 feet and 25 feet,” Clark said. “The landscape plan needs a serious massaging, because all it’s doing now is introducing something into the neighborhood that’s really not there and it’s not appropriate. A facade would need to be put back there.”
Representatives with the Big House were adamant that no amphitheater would be built, saying the plan is to build a garden space in the area. Without a finalized master plan, though, the commission didn’t have anything documenting what would be done with the land after the house was demolished and felt they needed to deny the appeal until a master plan was made.
Other big concerns for Maconites included construction affecting Vineville Avenue traffic, the overcrowding of cars parking on nearby roads and the actual history of the house, which could have been home to Catherine Brewer Benson, the first graduate of Wesleyan College.
Big House representatives argued that it was highly unlikely that Benson ever lived there because the home was a reconstructed version of an older structure.
Many of these issues were brought up as early as June of 2021 and spurred discussions between the Big House and organizations like Historic Macon. After a year of trying to compromise, Clark and the Historic Vineville Neighborhood Association both claimed that the Big House stopped responding to their attempts to meet around April of 2022.
The plan was not approved by Macon’s Design Board on July 18, but the board recommended the plan be heard by the full committee.
While the appeal was denied by the P&Z board, the board and the opposition believe that the Big House will refile the appeal once they have a full master plan for the land.
