"Why here, why not over on Jimmy Deloach, put more warehouses there." That's what Wendy Sevendant, a volunteer with the Savannah-Ogeechee Canal Society, told a reporter in April after leading a walk against new industrial construction near Tom Triplett Community Park. Nine residents had already said something close to the same thing to the city council a month earlier. The council voted for the warehouses anyway, unanimously, on April 6.
Two months later, the City of Pooler bought 28 acres at the park's entrance to keep it from ever being built on. The two outcomes look like they contradict each other. They don't. They show how Pooler actually protects its green space in 2026: not by winning every zoning fight, but by buying the ground the zoning fights can't touch.
Two Votes, Ten Weeks Apart
In January, the council faced a variance request for a property across from Tom Triplett Park. A developer named Ben Wall wanted to build stormwater infrastructure inside a 50-foot buffer meant to protect the park, saying he hadn't known the buffer existed when he drew up the site plan. The vote split 3 to 3, and Mayor Karen Williams cast the tie-breaking vote to deny it. Resident John Boutwell told the council the area was one of the last quiet places left along a fast-growing stretch of Highway 80.
Ten weeks later, a different property came up: 200 Jesup Road, the old Oglethorpe Speedway site, sitting within two miles of the park rather than directly across from it. The request wasn't a variance inside a buffer. It was a zoning map amendment, stripping two conditions set in 2022 and adding six new ones to clear the way for industrial warehouse buildings and a new access road. Nine residents spoke against it at a packed March meeting, one saying the property bordered her own land and she'd been there fifty years. The council approved it anyway on April 6, and this time the vote was unanimous.
The difference wasn't how loud the room was. It was the property line. The January site sat inside a protected buffer, which gave the council a legal reason to say no. The April site sat outside it, zoned for industrial use since 2022, which left the council with a much narrower legal basis to refuse a rezoning that removed old access conditions and added new ones.
What Changed at the Old Speedway Site
The zoning amendment at 200 Jesup Road did more than approve warehouses. It also decided how trucks would get to them. The original conditions allowed continued access through Raymond Road and cut off access to Dublin Road. The amended version goes further, denying Dublin Road access altogether and routing the new access road through the southside, along the historic Savannah-Ogeechee Canal, according to reporting on the vote.
That's the detail that turned a zoning hearing into a canal walk. A developer representative told the council that "trees, buffer, drainage, how we're going to handle drainage" would all be worked out later, in the site plan process, with the engineering firm Thomas and Hutton handling those specifics. Residents weren't reassured. Sevendant's walk two weeks later traced the trail where the old speedway buildings are still visible, the same stretch where three new warehouses are now planned.
Here's the timeline, condensed:
- January 5, 2026 — Council denies a stormwater variance inside the park's protective buffer, 3-3 tie broken by the mayor.
- March 2, 2026 — Council hears a separate zoning map amendment for 200 Jesup Road; nine residents speak against it.
- April 6, 2026 — Council approves the amendment unanimously, opening the door to warehouses and a canal-side access road.
- April 11, 2026 — Residents and the Savannah-Ogeechee Canal Society walk the site in protest.
- June 16, 2026 — The City of Pooler completes a 28-acre land purchase at the park's entrance.
The Fight Nobody Organized a Walk For
While the Jesup Road fight was playing out in council chambers and on the canal trail, the city was working a second track that got almost no public attention. In June, Pooler announced it had completed the purchase of more than 28 acres adjacent to the entrance of Tom Triplett Park, using $1.5 million from the city's Tree Fund plus a $10.5 million charitable donation. That purchase builds on an earlier acquisition of 35 acres of wetlands and woodlands off Old Pine Barren Road, bringing the total land preserved under the city's Tree Fund ordinance to more than 60 acres.
There was no packed council meeting for this one. No resident had to drive out to speak at a podium. The Tree Fund, built from developer contributions tied to tree removal elsewhere in the city, gave Pooler a way to act on land it wanted to protect without needing a zoning vote to go its way. Tom Triplett Park itself is a Chatham County park, not a city property, which means the city can't dictate what happens inside it. What it can do is control what surrounds it, one acquisition at a time.
Measured against the park's own footprint, the math is worth sitting with. Tom Triplett spans roughly 200 acres. The land the city has now protected around its entrance and edges, more than 60 acres combined, adds up to close to a third of the park's own size. That's not a symbolic buffer. It's a second, quieter park-sized commitment sitting next to the one the county already runs.
What's Still Running at the Park This Fall
None of this has slowed down what the park is actually used for. The 19-acre lake at its center still draws anglers after catfish, bass and bream, and the 1.5-mile paved track around it is still open for walking, jogging and biking. The 18-hole disc golf course, rated a solid 4.3 out of 5 by the disc golf community, still winds through the wooded interior on three tee options per hole. The fenced dog park, divided for large and small breeds, still runs a busy weekend rotation, and the two free tennis courts at the entrance are still first-come, first-served.
A few minutes down Highway 80, the retail corridor around Tanger Outlets keeps filling in too. California Tortilla is opening its first Georgia location this fall at 260 Tanger Outlets Blvd, run by cousins Krish Patel and Sohal Patel, who also operate a rental management business together. The outlets are also hosting an Art Walk on September 26, turning the plaza into an open-air gallery of local watercolor, jewelry and woodwork for the day, with the Big Bash Fall Festival and Car Show following on October 24.
None of that changes what happened at 200 Jesup Road. It just means the park's daily rhythm, the lake loop, the disc golf rounds, the dog park runs, hasn't paused for any of it. The warehouses are still a site plan away from breaking ground. The 60 acres the city already bought aren't going anywhere.
If you spend your weekends on that lake trail or you've been watching the council meetings play out on the local news, you already know Pooler's relationship with its own green space isn't settled by a single vote. It's built one purchase and one hearing at a time, and this year both tracks ran at once.
If you're trying to make sense of what's changing around Tom Triplett Park, or any other corner of Pooler, Nicholas Oliver at Oliver Group keeps close tabs on what's happening in the neighborhoods across Chatham County. Reach out if you want to talk through what it means for your part of town.
