Gainesville City Council gave final approval to the development of a 25-acre Ga. 53/Dawsonville Highway retail center near the Lakeshore Heights subdivision Tuesday evening, disappointing residents who again spoke in opposition.

America’s Home Place, an independent custom home builder, asked the city to approve a 246,000-square-foot shopping center across from recently built restaurants Olive Garden, Cheddar’s Casual Cafe and Buffalo Wild Wings, and near the Lakeshore Heights subdivision.

The plan generated controversy among the neighborhood residents, and many spoke in opposition at the Planning and Appeals Board meeting Feb. 12 and before the first City Council vote on March 5.

Tuesday’s vote was unanimous, even as Councilman Bob Hamrick interrupted it to discuss the detention pond concerns voiced by Michael Proulx, president of the Lakeshore Heights Homeowners Association.

Proulx gave council members two pictures he said he took of the detention pond behind the Buffalo Wild Wings. The first picture was labeled Feb. 7 and showed the detention pond full of water. The next picture was labeled with Tuesday’s date and showed some water still visible in the pond.

Gainesville Public Works Director David Dockery said that detention pond was approved as an extended detention pond and wasn’t designed to drain immediately after a rainfall. Dockery clarified a statement from City Manager Kip Padgett to make clear that public works has a goal to inspect 20 percent of detention ponds in the city once every five years, but it doesn’t inspect the ponds once a year.

The ponds are examined case-by-case, if there’s a complaint, by the two public works inspectors or the three code enforcement officers in the Community Development Department. Padgett said it’s an internal goal that’s not reported to him.

Mayor Danny Dunagan said he felt sure public works would inspect the ponds every year if it had the staff to do that. Padgett said the city staff will try to increase the inspections to respond to Hamrick’s concern.

Lakeshore Heights resident Bill Williams said the City Council didn’t understand the issues it was voting on. City staff at the meeting couldn’t answer some of the council members’ questions about the detention ponds, but Councilwoman Myrtle Figueras said Gainesville senior civil engineer Stan Aiken, who wasn’t there, knew the information because he’s been involved in the project.

“It’s almost as if their minds were already made up,” said Lakeshore Heights resident Pat Horgan. “It’s almost as if they made up their minds before they had the facts.”

Williams said neighbors will have to police the development because the city lacks the staff. Other neighborhood residents complained that some City Council members didn’t go to the subdivision before voting.

Figueras said she drove through the entire neighborhood, spoke to the developer and Aiken, and she was assured that the development was going to be OK. She also said that she was concerned about the detention ponds.

“I’m on the other side of concerned because I want each resident to be protected,” she said. “I feel as though the development is going to be a good development and I want it to happen. I don’t want it to happen at the expense of anybody’s house.”

Councilman George Wangemann said he understood the concerns of residents and that’s why council members required certain conditions of the developer to create a buffer between the shopping center and the neighborhood. Wangemann said any physical impacts will be taken care of by the conditions council has set. Those include three staggered rows of evergreen trees between the rear of the buildings and the adjacent subdivision, an 8-foot high black vinyl-coated security fence in the back and no vehicle access from the development to the Lakeshore Heights neighborhood, except for utility vehicles.