Oconee County commissioners face an agenda with a long list of rezone requests in their first meeting of the New Year on Tuesday night, including three with the potential to have significant impact on development in the county in the coming years.
Members of the Bishop family, who own 17.8 acres stretching from Experiment Station Road along the east side of Bishop Farms Parkway to the Oconee Campus of the University of North Georgia, are seeking to rezone 4.8 acres at the corner of Bishop Farms Parkway and Experiment Station Road for a small grocery store, restaurant, and gas station.
The family is asking that the remaining acres be rezoned residential for now but is expecting to develop them commercially in the future.
Townley Family Partnership LLLP is asking the county to rezone 242.3 acres stretching from Clotfelter Road to Malcom Bridge Road for a 119-lot residential subdivision.
The subdivision, if approved, will have access to both Clotfelter Road, and through the existing Malcom Bridge Estates, to Malcom Bridge Road, and will surround and expand residential development in that part of the county.
The county planning staff recommended approval of both rezones, and the county’s Planning Commission did the same after only one person spoke in opposition to each of the requests.
The third major rezone before the Board of Commissioners on Tuesday is one it has initiated itself in response to a lawsuit filed against it when it turned down the request by Deferred Tax LLC to rezone 33.7 acres on the Oconee Connector between SR 316 and Mars Hill Road for a major shopping center.
Representatives of Deferred Tax will have the opportunity to speak at the hearing on Tuesday, but Attorney David Ellison already has informed the county his client does not accept the county proposed rezone.
Superior Court Judge Eric Norris has set a pre-trial hearing on the suit filed by Deferred Tax for the week of Jan. 26 at the Oconee County Courthouse in Watkinsville.
Busy Agenda
The agenda for the Tuesday Board of Commissioners meeting contains eight rezone requests, but five of them are variance requests, leaving only the three actual rezones.
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| County Plan |
Three of the variance requests are from the Bishop family and are related to the rezone for the 17.8 acres on Bishop Farms Parkway.
The Deferred Tax rezone is the final item on the rezone list.
The Board has scheduled hearings for each of the rezone requests, with proponents and opponents given an opportunity to speak.
The Commission meeting begins at 6 p.m. at the County Administrative Building, 7635 Macon Highway, north of Watkinsville.
The Commissioners also will get an update on the Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Submittal Plan and on the Intergovernmental Agreements with the county’s four cities for the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum planned for the May ballot.
Deferred Tax Rezone
On Oct. 7, the county announced its plan to rezone the 33.7 acres owned by Deferred Tax LLC that has been proposed for a shopping center to include a Publix as an anchor.
The Board turned down the requested rezone for that property in 2022, in part because of traffic concerns.
In March of 2023, Deferred Tax LLC filed suit against the county, asking the Oconee County Superior Court to overturn the county decision.
The rezone initiated by the Board of Commissioners in October has four access points, one on the Oconee Connector and three on Mars Hill Road. Three of those are right-in, right-out driveways, including the one on the Oconee Connector.
One of the driveways on Mars Hill Road is at a roundabout.
The initiated rezone divides the 33.7 acres into four parts, with the largest part zoned B-2 Highway Business District, and another part zoned B-1 General Business District. B-2 is the more intense business zoning category.
The two parcels facing Mars Hill Road are to be zoned OIP Office Institutional Professional District under the county plan.
The rezone initiated by the Board of Commissioners does not involve 13 acres included in a rezone request by Deferred Tax in 2021 that also was denied, leaving that property zoned single family residential development.
Original Request
The rezone being initiated by the Board is different from the rezone proposed by Deferred Tax in 2022, but it would allow for a grocery on the site.
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| Deferred Tax Plan |
The county initiated site plan shows right-in, right-out access at three of the four driveways, with a roundabout on Mars Hill Road at the fourth driveway.
The Deferred Tax plan showed a full access at a median break on the Oconee Connector, a full access at two of the three Mars Hill Road driveways, and a right-in, right-out at the fourth.
Ellison, in a letter he sent to Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell on Nov. 25, said that the elimination of our client’s right to full commercial access to the Oconee Connector, “amounts to a regulatory taking.”
The suit filed by Deferred Tax LLC in 2023 asks the Court to rule that the county’s denial of the rezone request in 2022 violated the laws of the Georgia and the U.S. and Georgia constitutions.
The 2025 business registration with the Georgia Secretary of State shows the principal office address for Deferred Tax LLC is 1261 Hammond Creek Trail in Old Waverly subdivision off Rocky Branch Road. Maxie Price signed the lawsuit as Member for Deferred Tax LLC.
County Attorney Daniel Haygood said after the county initiated the rezone that “there is existing zoning on the property and existing site plans” from earlier rezones.
“Because of the construction of the roads through those sites,” he continued, referring to SR 316 and the Connector, “the plan cannot be built as submitted.”
“So, at this point, they don’t have any zoning on that property that they can actually use, which means it is not a Constitutional zoning, arguably,” he said.
“So, what the Board has determined to do is to rezone the property in such a way that the zoning does comply with the constitutional requirements,” he continued.
Traffic Study
In November of 2024 the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) awarded a $139.4 million contact with Archer Western Construction LLC and Heath & Lineback Engineering Inc. for reconstruction of the SR 316 interchanges with Jimmy Daniell Road, Virgil Langford Road, and the Oconee Connector.
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| GDOT Plan |
Under the plans, SR 316 will fly over the Oconee Connector, and the eastbound exit from SR 316 will skirt the property owned by Deferred Tax LLC.
According to a traffic study commissioned by Oconee County and submitted with the county initiated rezone materials, GDOT plans to put a traffic signal at the intersection of that eastbound exit and the Connector.
A traffic signal already exists at the intersection of the Connector and Mars Hill Road/Daniells Bridge Road.
WSP, an international engineering firm headquartered in Montreal, in its report to the county said that the site plan submitted by Deferred Tax in its rezone request in 2022 proposed a signalized intersection “approximately 450 to 500 feet south of the signalized SR 316 eastbound on/off ramp” planned by GDOT.
The GDOT manual “identifies minimum signal spacings of 1,320 and 1,000 feet for rural and urban roadway types, respectively,” according to the WSP report.
The 450 to 500-foot spacing between the signalized intersection proposed by Deferred Tax “and the SR-316 Eastbound on/off ramp signal along Oconee Connector is significantly less than either of the minimum rural or urban setting signal spacings identified in the GDOT Manual,” the report states.
Bishop Family Request
Members of the Bishop family own 17.8 acres stretching from Experiment Station Road along the east side of Bishop Farms Parkway to the Oconee Campus of the University of North Georgia that currently are divided into four lots.
The family is requesting that the lot fronting on Experiment Station Road be increased in size to 4.8 acres and zoned to B-1 (General Business) from AR-3 (Agricultural Residential Three Acre District).
Celia Watson, who lives in Old Waverly, said at the Planning Commission meeting that she has a concept for what she is calling Market Station for the site.
She described Market Station as a “destination place” with a “high end” grocery, “a great restaurant,” a bakery, a barista preparing “specialized coffee,” indoor and outdoor seating, and a pavilion that will be “a great place to have family gatherings and to do very family oriented things.”
The remaining three lots owned by the Bishop family would be slightly reconfigured and be zoned AR-3.
Frank Pittman, of Pittman and Greer Engineering, representing the Bishop Family, acknowledged at the Planning Commission meeting in December that the family is likely to ask that those remaining three lots be zoned commercial at some point in the future.
The Bishop family also is seeking a variance to reduce the buffer between the B-1 lot and the adjoining AR-3 lot from 50 feet to 20 feet because of “the likelihood” that the adjoining lot “will never be built as a residential lot” and the larger buffer would be “a waste of valuable commercial property,” according to the request.
The family also is requesting a variance from the requirements in the Mars Hill Overlay District that the roof line be a gable or hip style roof with a minimum pitch and that the roof material be architectural tab shingles, slate, or wood shakes with standing seam accents.
The plan is for a flat roof with some pitched accents and areas.
A third variance request is to allow a building with 23,500 square foot total on two floors, exceeding the limitation in the county Unified Development Code in a B-1 Zone of 12,000 square foot on two floors with a 6,000 square footprint or 20,000 square foot for a single-story building.
Townley Rezone Request
Townley Family Partnership LLLP is asking the county to rezone the 242.3 acres stretching from Clotfelter Road to Malcom Bridge Road from AG (Agricultural) to R-1 (Single Family Residential District) for a 119-lot residential subdivision.
Jeff Carter with Carter Engineering Consultants, representing Townley Family Partnership at the Planning Commission last month, referred to the proposed development as Malcom Bridge Estates Phase II.
Carter said the second phase, as is the case with the Phase I, will be gated, with the homeowners responsible for the internal roadways.
The rezone request follows a similar rezone by Townley Family Partnership approved by the Board of Commissioners in January of last year of 300 acres north of Hog Mountain Road between Rocky Branch and Hodges Mill roads for a 120-lot residential subdivision.
The Board set as a condition of that rezone a 10-year moratorium on development of the property, and the county planning staff is recommending that same condition should the Board approve the rezone currently being sought by Townley Family Partnership.
Carter had originally proposed only a five year moratorium, but he told the Planning Commission that Townley would accept the 10 year moratorium recommended by the planning staff as a condition for this rezone.
Tony Townley, one of the founders of Zaxby’s restaurant company, is the owner or managing member of Townley Family Partnership LLLP.
Other Requests On Tuesday Agenda
Industrial Property Management LLC is asking the county to modify two requirements of an existing rezone for the property it has purchased in the Gateway Technology and Business Park on the edge of Bogart.
In 2024, the county initiated a rezone of 52.1 acres in the Park for IMI Industrial Services Group, currently located in the Watkinsville Industrial Park. The county subsequently sold that land to Industrial Property Management LLC, which is linked to IMI.
Industrial Property Management is seeking a special exception variance from the Oconee County Unified Development Code to reduce the required parking for warehouse space and to eliminate the requirement for curb and gutter in the warehouse portion of the site.
The proposed parking space reduction is 63 spaces, or 35 percent of the required 180 spaces for the proposed 228, 250 square feet of buildings.
Adam and Christie Rickabaugh, 4674 Whitlow Creek Drive, are asking the county for a special exception variance to reduce the required side yard setback from 15 feet to 8.8 feet.
The variance would allow the placement of a detached garage to encroach 8.8 feet into the side 15-foot setback.
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