Milledgeville’s City Council can expect plenty of input tonight as it takes one final look at group residences in the Historic District abutting downtown.

A public hearing will precede an up-or-down vote on whether to allow a special-use zoning designation for group residences in the Historic District. The special-use designation is the city’s second attempt to legislate a compromise to allow residences with more than three unrelated occupants in the single-family-zoned district abutting downtown Milledgeville and Georgia College & State University, a popular area for student renters.

The proposed amendment to the zoning ordinance would allow a special-use designation in the Historic District for group homes that could be occupied by more than three unrelated persons, provided that the owner meets parking requirements and certifies, annually, the maximum number of people occupying the house. The structure also must undergo annual inspection by the city building inspector and the fire department to ensure that the structure is suitable to be occupied by the number of people that the property owner certifies each year.

The special-use designation can be revoked if the property owner fails to recertify the property and/or fails to have the property inspected on an annual basis.

The proposed designation failed to receive a recommendation from the Planning and Zoning Commission on a 3-2 vote against the special use in the commission’s Oct. 6 meeting. Also, city council voted down a similar special-use designation for group homes in the Historic District in a Feb. 26 meeting.

Tonight’s meeting is expected to draw crowds as previous issues related to the quality-of-life ordinance regulating the number of occupants who can reside in a house in single-family-zoned neighborhoods have pitted landlords and renters against homeowners over the character of some of the city’s traditionally family-oriented neighborhoods.

Alissa Torchia, a GCSU student who chairs the Student Government Association’s City Relations Committee, said she and other students will be present at tonight’s public hearing to give input from the students’ perspective concerning the special-use designation and the three-unrelated-persons ordinance.

Torchia said the ordinance is not about the students who occupy the houses as much as it is about the noise and vandalism that accompany late nights in a downtown area that has slowly turned into an entertainment district accommodating the large student populations that want to live close to campus.

“We feel the community would be more accepting of students in the Historic District if there were no longer issues of the noise and vandalism,” Torchia said. “The students need to take action to work on the noise and vandalism, because we don’t want the ordinance to go into effect and the city not see any changes.”

The special-use designation is the last piece of legislation that can be considered by council before the three-unrelated-persons ordinance goes into effect in November.

Without the special-use, at least one Historic District landlord, Robert Binion, will be showing renters the door come November.

Binion owns the property at the corner of North Columbia and McIntosh streets, which is currently home to about 13 members of the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority. As the property was not rezoned to a multi-family designation at the time a moratorium on rezones went into effect before the November 2006 passing of the three-unrelated-persons ordinance, the property is not eligible to be grandfathered in as a legal nonconforming use, putting Binion in danger of being in violation of the ordinance if the special use does not pass tonight.

The city is under additional pressure as Binion has retained Eatonton attorney Francis N. Ford to represent him in possible litigation against the city challenging the constitutionality of the three-unrelated-persons ordinance. As late as Oct. 9, Binion confirmed with The Union-Recorder that he is still retaining Ford for legal representation, though at the time he declined to say whether any litigation was in the works.

District 4 Councilman Ken Vance, whose district encompasses the Historic District, said he will be listening attentively to both sides of the debate tonight. Although he’s supported the three-unrelated-persons ordinance since its inception more than two years ago, he said he understands the arguments against it as well.

“Some of those houses that will be affected are so big, I’m not sure they’ve ever been or ever will be single family,” he said. “It is a real quandary; half the people are happy [with the ordinance], the other half are mad. Government, ostensibly, is supposed to do better than this.”

District 5 Councilman Richard “Boo” Mullins said he will be looking at the character of the total neighborhood as it is now: A place that has evolved to have many different uses over the years.

“There are other areas within the Historic District where I’d say hands off,” he said. “But we’ve got to look at the use of the neighborhood.”

Both Vance and Mullins agreed that the three-unrelated-persons ordinance may have to be refined once it goes into effect in November. But for tonight, they will both be looking with open minds at one small part of it.