Metter, GA Is Asked to Annex 46 Acres on I-16 for Cold Storage, a Hotel and Shops. Its Own Planning Commission Split 3-2.

The City of Metter, Georgia, put a public hearing and the first reading of an annexation ordinance on its September 14, 2026 council agenda. The petition asks the city to take in a 46.76-acre tract at 990 Fortner Road and zone it HOC — Highway Oriented Commercial. The owners, Matthew and Evangelina Moghaddam, propose a 70,300-square-foot cold storage facility, a hotel, a fast-food restaurant, a 20,000-square-foot retail center and two billboards on a parcel that sits in unincorporated Candler County and, in the staff report's words, "is not currently developed."

Ordinance 2026-01 would annex the parcel and rezone it from Candler County AG-3 Agriculture to City of Metter HOC in a single instrument. The agenda packet is the material the council was handed; it does not record what the council did with it.

The city's own planning commission was not unanimous. On August 3, 2026 it voted 3 in favor and 2 against to recommend approval, even though city staff found the request in compliance with the permitted uses in the zoning ordinance and compatible with the county's future land use map.

What the Moghaddams Are Asking Metter to Approve

The application is a combined annexation and rezoning. The owners are asking the city to take the land in and to assign it a city zoning district in the same ordinance.

Matthew and Evangelina Moghaddam bought the tract by limited warranty deed dated December 19, 2025 from William L. Turner, Jr. The deed describes the parent tract as 66 acres, more or less, known as Lot #8 of the J.A. Woodward Estate, less 18.564 acres conveyed to the Georgia Department of Transportation on July 11, 1975 and 0.68 acres conveyed to the City of Metter and Candler County in 1965.

The application lists Christopher Gohagan of Taulbee Rushing in Statesboro as the applicants' representative. It says construction would begin in 2027 and finish in 2029, and it answers "No" to whether there has been any prior zoning request on the property.

The concept plan puts the cold storage building at the west end of the developed area, with the undeveloped wetland tract beyond it, the hotel pad and the fast-food pad in the center, and the retail shopping center at the east end nearer the existing commercial development. A billboard is marked at each end of the Fortner Road frontage.

Where the Site Sits: Fortner Road, I-16 and the Candler County Industrial Park

Metter is a city of about 4,000 people and the seat of Candler County. Interstate 16 touches the southern edge of town, 63 miles west of Savannah and 102 miles east of Macon.

The staff report describes what is around the property:

That puts the site between a highway commercial strip and an industrial park, with farmland and one house on the other side. The staff report notes that the concept was originally part of a proposal that included an access road connecting to the parcel to the west and from there northwards into the industrial park.

Two Acreage Numbers in the Same Packet

The agenda caption describes the ordinance as approving annexation and zoning of "a parcel of land containing 45.0 acres" as shown on a survey dated December 16, 2025, prepared for Matthew Moghaddam by Denver W. Youngblood, Georgia Registered Land Surveyor, and recorded in Plat Book 30, Page 357, Candler County records.

Every other document says 46.76 acres: the staff report, the rezoning application, the concept plan, and the August 10 council minutes that rescheduled the public hearing to September 14. The ordinance itself gives no acreage, but its Exhibit A legal description — 66 acres less 18.564 acres less 0.68 acres — works out to 46.756 acres.

So the 45.0-acre figure appears once, in the agenda caption, and the legal instrument reconciles to 46.76. That distinction matters more than it looks, because Georgia's owner-petition annexation statute requires the entire parcel owned by the petitioner to be annexed and says lots "shall not be subdivided in an effort to evade" that requirement.

The agenda caption also states that the property "is presently not zoned," while the staff report lists current zoning as Candler County AG-3 Agriculture. Both can be read as consistent — the parcel has no City of Metter zoning classification because it is not yet in the city — but they are not the same description of the same land. The recorded legal description attached to the adopted ordinance, not the agenda caption, controls what actually comes into the city.

How Annexation Works in Georgia

Georgia gives cities several ways to annex. The one used here is the simplest: the owner petition, often called the 100 percent method, under O.C.G.A. Title 36, Chapter 36, Article 2. Metter's petition form is headed "100 Percent Method of Annexation."

Under that method, every owner of the land to be annexed — except the owners of any public street, road, highway or right of way — signs a written application asking the city to extend its boundaries. The city is not required to accept it. State law grants the authority to annex on such an application; it does not compel it. If the city does annex by ordinance, an identification of the annexed property has to be filed with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs and with the county.

The land has to be contiguous. O.C.G.A. § 36-36-20 defines a contiguous area as one where at least one-eighth of the aggregate external boundary, or 50 feet, whichever is less, abuts the municipal boundary directly — or would, but for publicly owned land or the definite width of a street or street right of way, a creek or river, or the right of way of a railroad or other public service corporation. Metter's petition form restates the one-eighth-of-the-property-line-or-50-feet test and asks the petitioner to show the abutting footage on the plat.

For a developer, the appeal of annexation is utilities and zoning in one step: the city has the water and sewer system, and the city district schedule may permit uses the county district does not. The cost is that the property moves onto the city tax rolls and under city regulation.

The County Gets a Say, and a Clock

One part of Georgia annexation law does not appear anywhere in Metter's packet but applies to this kind of case.

Under Article 7 of the same chapter, a city that accepts an annexation petition has 30 days to notify the county — and any impacted school system — by verifiable delivery, and the notice has to include a copy of the petition, which must state the proposed zoning and land use. The county then has 45 days to object, on the ground that the annexation would materially increase its burden because of the proposed change in zoning or land use, an increase in density, or infrastructure demands. An objection has to document the financial impact, and it routes the dispute to an arbitration panel appointed by the Department of Community Affairs. Article 7 applies to every annexation under the chapter except those done by local act of the General Assembly, so a 46-acre commercial annexation is squarely inside it.

This is not a parallel track. Once the notice goes out, state law bars the city from taking final action on the annexation until the window closes or an objection is resolved.

Two of the ingredients are present here: a zoning change from county AG-3 to city HOC, and new infrastructure demand. But the statute also requires that the new use differ substantially from what the county's own comprehensive plan or zoning already suggests for the property, and Metter's staff report says the Candler County future land use map anticipates this site's use as Commercial. That makes a successful county objection a harder case than the acreage alone would suggest.

What HOC — Highway Oriented Commercial — Zoning Allows

HOC is Metter's highway corridor commercial district. The staff report states that cold storage, fast-food restaurants, retail shopping centers and hotels are all permitted in HOC, and that the requested rezoning "will extend an existing commercial district along the I-16 corridor."

The billboards travel a shorter distance through the file. They appear in the staff report's request line and background bullets — "two billboards" — but not in the list of uses staff say are permitted in HOC, not in the determination, and not in the planning commission recommendation, all three of which describe the purpose as a cold storage facility, fast-food restaurant, retail center and hotel. Outdoor advertising signs are typically governed by separate sign regulations and, on an interstate frontage, by state permitting as well.

What a Development of Regional Impact Review Is, and What It Found Here

The project was reviewed as Development of Regional Impact #4695 by the Heart of Georgia Altamaha Regional Commission, which covers Candler County and 16 other counties. It issued its Final Comments and Findings Report on May 12, 2026.

A DRI review is an intergovernmental notice process. Under Department of Community Affairs rules, Georgia's twelve regional commissions administer it; projects above set thresholds for hotels, commercial space, industrial space and other categories have to be submitted so neighboring governments and state agencies can comment. DCA describes the process as non-regulatory: the findings are advisory, the review is capped at 30 calendar days, it runs concurrently with local permitting, and local governments keep their own authority throughout. A regional commission cannot approve or deny anything.

The comments summarized in Metter's staff report:

• Economic impact: value at build-out projected at $125 million, and estimated property tax revenue at build-out projected at $15 million
• Candler County Industrial Authority: submitted comments in support of the application
• Georgia DNR, Floodplain Unit: the site is in Zone X, outside the special flood hazard area, an area of low risk
• Georgia DNR, Wildlife Resources Division: recommended erosion control practices and inspections, use of natural vegetation and grading techniques, deer-friendly fencing along property perimeters, and porous asphalt in parking areas
• City of Santa Claus: expects no impact from the proposed development

The DNR wildlife items are recommendations, not conditions. Ordinance 2026-01 attaches no conditions at all, and the staff report recommends none — unlike the S. Kennedy Street setback variance the city handled the same month, where staff recommended two specific conditions. Unless the council adds conditions at adoption, nothing makes porous asphalt or deer-friendly fencing enforceable here.

Wetlands Cover Roughly a Third of the Site

The concept plan breaks the property into tracts and labels each one's wetland and upland acreage. The largest is labeled approximately 30.6 acres total, of which roughly 14.2 acres is wetland and 16.4 acres upland. A second tract is labeled about 6.2 acres total with 1.2 acres of wetland, and a third about 4.4 acres total with 0.4 acres of wetland. The plan also marks a usable area of approximately 10.5 acres.

Those three labeled tracts alone put 15.8 acres in wetland, about a third of the 46.76-acre parcel, and possibly more, since the plan does not break out wetland on every tract. That is consistent with the layout, which keeps all four buildings on the southern frontage.

Wetland acreage is not a zoning question, and the staff report does not mention it. It is a permitting and yield question that arrives later, when the buildable footprint, the stormwater design and any federal permitting get settled.

Water, Sewer and Traffic Are the Unfinished Parts

The staff report is direct about infrastructure in its background section. The property is next to city water. City sewer is not there:

City sewer infrastructure will require an extension either from the east on Fortner Road or from north in the industrial park.

Elsewhere in the same report, under the standard asking whether the proposal would burden existing streets and utilities, staff write that "water and sewer infrastructure is available in the area" and that "water and sewer line extensions will be necessary." Those two statements sit a page apart and pull in different directions. The operative fact for a developer is the second half of both: an extension is required.

On traffic, staff wrote that the development "may require transportation network and road improvements," that "a traffic study has been completed," and that "staff will work with the applicant to revise and refine the study."

The packet does not say who pays for the sewer extension, what it costs, or when it would be designed and bid. It does say what the city gets in the long run: staff noted that any future annexation and rezoning activity in the area would allow the water and sewer system to be looped through the industrial park. Looping a dead-end main is normally a capacity and reliability gain for existing customers, though the staff report does not say so.

Why the Planning Commission Split 3-2

The packet does not answer this. It records the tally and nothing else. There are no planning commission minutes in the packet, and the application form's "Decision of Planning Commission and Reason" field is blank.

What the packet does show is that the public hearing was rescheduled to September 14 by unanimous council motion on August 10, with no reason given in the minutes, and that the planning department's monthly report includes one line about meeting with residents to discuss potential annexation and industrial development.

On the merits, staff answered five of the six rezoning standards in the Metter zoning ordinance favorably: the use is suitable next to existing commercial zoning, it conforms to the 2022 Candler County / Metter Comprehensive Plan future land use designation of Commercial, and it is consistent with adjacent HOC zoning to the east and south and industrial zoning to the north. The remaining one — the second standard, which asks whether the proposal would cause an excessive or burdensome use of existing streets, utilities, schools or other public facilities — got a qualified answer: the road improvements that may be required, and the water and sewer extensions that will be.

What the Development Would Mean for Metter's Tax Base

Metter is in an unusual position this year. On the same agenda as the annexation, the council took up the 2026 rollback millage rate of 9.004 mills, down from 13.402 mills in 2025. The city manager told the council in August that the 4.398-mill reduction is based on the first six months of collecting the Property Tax Relief Local Option Sales Tax, or FLOST.

The effect on the city's own levy is large. Metter's published digest history shows net taxes levied falling from $1,517,834 in 2025 to $1,156,216 in 2026 — a decrease of $361,618, or 23.82 percent — even as the gross digest grew from $119.1 million to $144.9 million. Maintenance-and-operations exemptions also jumped over the same year, from $5,873,992 to $16,468,699. Two homestead exemption questions are on the city's November 3, 2026 special election ballot.

The $15 million property tax figure in the regional commission's economic impact summary is far above anything city millage alone would generate on a $125 million property. The staff report does not say whether that number is annual or cumulative, or which taxing authorities it covers. Anyone relying on it should go back to the DRI report rather than the summary line.

Why Cold Storage Looks at Sites Like This One

Cold storage is the piece of this proposal a site selector will read first, and the market it lands in is two-sided right now.

Coastal Georgia has drawn sustained cold-chain investment. MEDLOG opened a 291,000-square-foot facility in Rincon in September 2025, and a $60 million PermaCold project broke ground in Darien in McIntosh County in July 2025. The demand driver is the Port of Savannah: frozen poultry exports through the port rose 8.5 percent year over year to nearly 56,000 TEU in the twelve months ending February 2026, and a new $49.25 million federal customs inspection station opened at Garden City Terminal in February 2026, with dedicated refrigerated inspection space added later in the year.

The national picture is softer. Newmark's first-half 2026 cold storage report put U.S. vacancy at 7.7 percent, a 20-year high, with the first negative first-half absorption since 2007. The weakness is concentrated in older buildings: pre-2006 product accounts for about two-thirds of all vacant space, while newer facilities have captured most of the demand. CBRE put Savannah's overall industrial direct vacancy at 10.5 percent in the second quarter of 2026 and rising, driven more by slower leasing than by new supply, with the development pipeline itself shrinking to 4.4 million square feet.

A new-build facility sits on the better side of that split, but it is not a market where anything gets financed on optimism alone.

What cold storage needs from a site is specific and mostly utility-driven: heavy power, water and sewer capacity for sanitation, truck access that can take a continuous flow of refrigerated trailers, and enough flat, dry, buildable ground for a deep building footprint with a full apron of dock doors. At 70,300 square feet this is a mid-sized facility, not a port-scale one, which fits a site where the buildable area is limited by wetlands.

It is also why the sewer extension matters more here than it would for a hotel or a shopping center. A cold storage operator will want that commitment resolved before signing anything.

Why It Matters for Site Selectors and Developers

A 46-acre site on I-16 is about to change jurisdictions and districts at once. Until the ordinance is adopted, the land is county AG-3 with no city entitlements. Afterward it is city HOC with four commercial uses on the concept plan. That kind of step change in entitlement status is the clearest early signal that a corridor is opening up.

The sewer extension is a future procurement. The city has two possible routes on the table — east along Fortner Road or north from the industrial park. Either is engineering and construction work that has not been designed, funded or bid. So is whatever road improvement the revised traffic study produces.

The city has put the next phase in writing, conditionally. Staff wrote that any future annexation and rezoning activity in the area would allow looping of the water and sewer system through the industrial park. The adjoining landowners west and north of this parcel are the obvious next petitioners, and the planning department's monthly report records a meeting with residents about potential annexation and industrial development.

Another hotel is a demand question. City records from the same month show a sign permit approved for a Baymont by Wyndham at 1035 Fortner Road and a reception at a new Hampton Inn in late August. Metter already has several lodging properties clustered at the interstate exit, and the packet does not say what occupancy looks like.

The Risks and Obstacles

The vote is not finished. September 14 was set as a public hearing and a first reading. The agenda lists a second reading for a separate ordinance that went through its first reading in August, which is the city's practice on this agenda.

The planning commission was split. A 3-2 recommendation alongside a supportive staff report means at least two members saw something they did not like, and the packet does not say what.

The county has objection rights, and they gate adoption. Under Georgia's annexation dispute statute, Candler County has 45 days from proper notice to object, and the city cannot take final action until that window closes or an objection is resolved. Clearing the statute's second test is harder here, since the county's own future land use map already anticipates Commercial on this property.

The traffic study is not final. Staff said it has been completed and that they will work with the applicant to revise and refine it. Whatever improvements come out of that revision are unpriced and unassigned.

Sewer is not at the site. Nothing in the packet commits the city or the applicant to an extension, a route, a cost share or a schedule.

Roughly a third of the site is wetland. The buildable area shrinks accordingly, and federal and state permitting for any disturbance runs separately from zoning.

The billboards have not been analyzed. They are in the request and on the concept plan, but not in the permitted-use finding, the determination or the recommendation.

What to Watch

• The second reading and adoption of Ordinance 2026-01, and whether the council attaches any zoning conditions, including the DNR wildlife recommendations
• Which acreage and legal description the adopted ordinance carries, and the identification filed with the Department of Community Affairs and Candler County
• Whether Candler County files an objection, and whether the matter goes to arbitration
• The one-year limit on rezoning annexed land to a more intense density than the county was noticed of, which becomes two years where an objection was resolved
• The revised traffic study and any road improvements it produces on Fortner Road
• Any sewer extension design, cost estimate or construction solicitation for the Fortner Road route or the industrial park route
• Whether adjoining owners to the west and north file their own annexation petitions
• Whether a cold storage operator or a hotel flag is named as the project moves from concept plan to site plan and building permit

This article is factual background and is not legal, financial, or investment advice.