Oconee County on Tuesday announced a major sewer spill into Barber Creek at Malcolm Bridge Road as a result of a break in a forced main leading to the county’s Land Application Site on Rocky Branch Road.
The actual break in the sewer line occurred sometime before noon on Monday, according to an email message Oconee County Utility department Director Wayne Haynie sent Tuesday afternoon.
The Oconee County Planning Commission was concerned about traffic on Hog Mountain Road in its rezone hearings on Monday night, but not where Hog Mountain Road meets U.S.441 at Ray’s Crossing.
Instead the Commission was focused on the impact of two proposed fast food restaurants with drive through operations on school traffic just west of Butler’s Crossing.
The Oconee County Planning Commission will hold public hearings on four different rezone requests tomorrow (Monday) night, including one that will have impact on everyone who uses the already busy intersection of Hog Mountain Road and U.S. 441.
ABE Consulting, on behalf of property owner Toccoa 85 LP, is asking the county to rezone 1.7 acres, with frontage on and access to both Hog Mountain Road and U.S. 441, to allow development of a small commercial shopping center.
Oconee County has been working on specific plans for construction of a sewer pipeline down Calls Creek since at least March of 2015, or nearly a year before it revealed those plans to citizens living along the creek.
The county began making specific plans for the 24-inch pipeline after it appraised at least two key pieces of property, one on the Middle Oconee River and the other adjoining the county’s existing wastewater treatment plant on Calls Creek.
Oconee County Commissioners approved a rezone request last night for a complex of auto dealerships on SR 316 at Virgil Langford Road after a public hearing lasting 115 minutes.
The vote was 2-1, with Commissioners Jim Luke and William “Bubber” Wilkes in favor of the rezone of the nearly 30 acres, and Commissioner Mark Saxon opposed.
Oconee County Commissioners, in a called meeting tomorrow night, will be asked to give final approval to a Fiscal Year 2017 budget that is nearly 22 percent larger than for the current fiscal year and that includes an average property tax increase of approximately 5 percent.
The county’s millage rate will remain unchanged from this year, but the balanced budget is predicated on an expected 5 percent increase in the county’s tax digest. That increase translates into increased individual property taxes.
Bruce Anderson Jr., Georgia Department of Transportation project manager for the widening of U.S. 441 and Bishop Bypass, has called a meeting for Tuesday to provide an update of work on the highway project.
The meeting is scheduled for from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Community Center in Oconee Veterans Park, 3500A Hog Mountain Road.
