The Oconee County Board of Commissioners approved in quick order and with very little discussion a long list of rezone requests on Tuesday night after no one turned out to speak in opposition to any of the requests and the only ones speaking in favor in each case were the applicant or the applicant’s representative.
Included was a downzone of 203.7 acres in the triangle of Oconee County on the northeast side of the Oconee River squeezed between Clarke and Oglethorpe counties.
The 203.7 acres were part of a 284.3 acre tract that was zoned in 2007 for a 196-lot residential subdivision contingent on the developer paying to get Oconee County water across the river to the residential subdivision and making improvements to Old Barnett Shoals Road.
The water line was never built and the improvements to Old Barnett Shoals Road were never made.
Icy Forest LLC, which owns the property, plans to build two homes on the 203.7 acres.
The Board also rezoned 2.89 acres on U.S. 441 just north of Bishop for a 28-seat restaurant to be added to an existing gas station and convenience store and 11.2 acres on Pete Dickens Road where it dead ends into SR 316 for a five-lot residential subdivision.
The Board also approved the 2025 the property tax millage rate of 4.184 for the unincorporated parts of the county and 5.154 for the incorporated areas. The 4.184 rate for the unincorporated parts of the county represents a 3.9 percent tax cut, while the 5.154 rate is the rollback rate to reflect no tax increase.
The Board of Commissioners does not set the millage rate for Oconee County Schools, but on Tuesday it formally approved the millage rate of 13.926 set by the Board of Education. That rate is the rollback rate as well.
Rezones
The Board’s agenda on Tuesday included six rezone requests and three requests for variances.
 |
| Board Voting On Icy Forest Rezones 8/5/2025 |
Several of the requests were interconnected–one of the rezone requests also had two variance requests and Icy Forest LLC was seeking a rezone for two adjoining properties–and the Board devoted 25 out of its relatively short 37-minute-long meeting to zoning.
All of the votes on the rezones were positive and unanimous.
Commissioners Amrey Harden and Mark Thomas missed the meeting, so Board Chair John Daniell joined with Commissioners in Chuck Horton and Mark Saxon in each of the votes.
Icy Forest Request
The Icy Forest LLC rezones were the fifth and sixth items on the zoning agenda.
Kevin York, who owns three properties totaling 38.8 acres adjoining the property being considered for rezone on Tuesday, is listed as the registered agent for Icy Forest LLC in the business records of the Georgia Secretary of State.
Fortson, Bentley and Griffin law firm, 2500 Daniells Bridge Road, is listed as the applicant for the two rezones, and David Ellison with that firm represented Icy Forrest LLC at the meeting on Tuesday.
The Icy Forest request before the Board involved two properties, one 6.56 acres in size. The other, adjoining property is 197.12 acres in size. Icy Forest was asking to downzone both properties from AR (Agricultural Residential) to AG (Agricultural).
Concept plans submitted with the rezone show a house on each property, served by a long road that empties onto Old Barnett Shoals Road.
Old Barnett Estates
The 6.56 acres and 197.12 acre tracts were part of the 284.3 acres that were supposed to be developed as the 196-lot subdivision called Old Barnett Estates.
 |
| Ellison 8/5/2025 |
That rezone had been controversial back in 2007 because of the lack of water, and, as a condition of rezoning, the developer at the time was required to improve Old Barnett Shoals Road to current county road standards and extend a public water line 1.7 miles, with the line crossing the Oconee River. How that was to be accomplished was not clear.
No construction plans were approved for the proposed subdivision, according to the Oconee County Department of Planning and Code Enforcement, and no road or utility improvements were made after the rezoning approval.
Ellison told the Board that “these two properties are the last pieces of the original rezone that was never developed” and said he was asking for the rezone to “allow this property to be used in a way that is consistent with the surrounding areas.”
Tax Records
Tax records show that the Gissendanner family sold the larger of the two properties to Icy Forest in 2014.
Icy Forest bought the smaller property from Brett Self and Arryss Wagner in 2022.
In September of 2024, the Board granted a downzone from AR to AG of an adjoining 13.06 acres owned by Arryss Wagner and David K. Wagner that also had been a part of the 284.3 acres in the planned Old Barnett Estates subdivision.
In February of 2024, Rancho Tesoros LLC, had downzoned another 68 acres from the Old Barnett Estates subdivision to create five residential lots.
Icy Forest owns one additional tract of 38.14 acres that abuts the larger tract rezoned on Tuesday. Icy Forest acquired that property in 2016. It was not part of the Old Barnett Estates plans and is zoned AG.
The larger of the two properties downzoned on Tuesday stretches from Old Barnett Shoals Road to the Oconee River just downstream from the dam and hydroelectric plant.
Restaurant Near Bishop
Lee Anderson, of South Engineering Resources of Snellville, told the Board on Tuesday that his client, Sakss Bishop LLC, would like to rezone the 2.89 acres on the east side of U.S. 441 just north of the Bishop town line from AG (Agriculture) to B-2 (Highway Business) “because there's a potential restaurant on the property, and we want the area rezoned so we can provide ample parking.”
 |
Submitted For Rezone For Restaurant |
“We also would like to redo the sewer system,” he said. “Obviously, we're going to have to, because it's outdated.”
“On a personal note,” he said, “I'm doing this job so I can get in this restaurant because I want to run the restaurant.”
The property was zoned AG when the county adopted its first zoning map in 1968, but the county planning staff say a convenience store with gas pumps had been built on the property in 1950 and a second building was added in 1960.
The plan is to convert that second building, now vacant but formerly an antique shop, “into a modern eatery for the local community and the traveling public,” according to the rezone narrative.
The project is proposing to use on-site well water because the property currently is not served by Oconee County Water Resources Department. A water connection is possible but will require a 800-foot public line extension.
Sakss Bishop LLP, with a Suwanee address, has owned the property since 2023. There proposed completion time for project site improvements is four months after the permitting approval by the county, according to the zoning narrative.
Minor Residential Subdivision
Gildardo and Juana Sandra Orozco asked the Board on Tuesday to approve the rezone of two odd shaped lots on Pete Dickens Road they acquired last year from their current AG (Agricultural) to AR (Agricultural-Residential District) so they can create a five-lot minor subdivision.
One of the parcels has a residence built in 1968, and the submitted site plan shows that building remaining in place.
Justin Greer of Pittman and Greer Engineering, representing the Orozcos at the meeting on Tuesday, noted that the homes in the subdivision will be served by wells because there is no county water in that area.
The Oconee County Industrial Development Authority owns two small pieces of property that abut the lots that the Board rezoned on Tuesday night.
These properties are technically a part of the Gateway Technology and Business Park, but they have no roadway frontage other than SR 316, which is a limited access roadway.
County Attorney Daniel Haygood said at an Industrial Development Authority meeting in May that “we probably need to approach the adjoining owners on some of that. And just say, what can we work out?”
Haygood did not attend the meeting on Tuesday, and no reference was made to that possibility.
Other Rezoning Decisions
The Commission on Tuesday also approved a rezone it had requested of itself to modify conditions of approval for six lots located on Monroe Highway and Pete Dickens Road.
As part of those earlier rezones, the county had included rights of way for a realigned intersection of Pete Dickens Road and U.S. 78, and Oconee County Director of Planning and Code Enforcement told the Board on Tuesday that “The future realignment is no longer needed.”
The Board approved a rezone of 6.221 acres from AR to AG at 1967 and 1971 Flat Rock Road.
The Board also approved setback variances on two 4.5-acres properties at 1971 Flat Rock Road and on 2.25 acres at 1010 Brookview Place.
Millage Rates
Commission Chair Daniell told the Board on Tuesday that the homestead exemptions increased this Fiscal Year by $265.4 million in the unincorporated parts of the county and by $22.9 million in the county’s four cities as a result of the Board initiated and voter approved expansion of the county’s homestead exemption program.
 |
| Daniell 8/5/2025 |
When these changes are combined with the floating homestead exemption approved by the state legislature and accepted by the Commission, Daniell said, “$287 million dropped off our (tax) digest for 2025.”
The total digest for 2025 is $3.7 billion.
The proposed millage rate of 4.184 for the unincorporated parts of the county is lower than the calculated rollback amount, Daniell noted.
The incorporated rate of 5.154 is at the rollback rate.
“The difference in the two rates is the insurance premium tax,” Daniell said. The state returns part of an insurance premium tax directly to the taxing authority, either the county or the four cities.
The county reduces its millage rate for the unincorporated parts of the county to reflect receipt of this insurance premium tax.
“This will represent the fifth year of a millage rate reduction,” Daniell said, and “the fourth year of a full rollback.”
The Board approved the rates unanimously.
Video
The video below is on the Oconee County YouTube Channel.
I attended the meeting, and the still images above are from my own recording of the meeting.
Because the audio is much better on the county video, I am embedding it below.
The discussion of rezones begins at 13:12 in the video.
|
| Daniell 8/5/2025 |
|
| Ellison 8/5/2025 |
|
| Board Voting On Icy Forest Rezones 8/5/2025 |
|
Submitted For Rezone For Restaurant |
No comments:
Post a Comment