When the developers of Wildflower Meadows, a 263.1- acre subdivision in northwest Oconee County, wanted to launch the project in 2006, they assembled 10 different pieces of property to accommodate the proposed 170 lots.
The largest of the 10 assembled tracts was a 113.5-acre parcel owned by the Hammond family of Gainesville.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners, in a 3-1 vote Tuesday night, agreed to spend $13.4 million to upgrade the Calls Creek wastewater treatment plant to 1.5 million gallons per day and prepare the plant for possible future upgrade to 3.0 million gallons per day.
Oconee County Utility Department Director Wayne Haynie argued that the county would save money in the long-run if it spent a $1.1 million “premium” on the plant now so that the county would have the option of upgrading the plant to 3 million gallons per day in the future.
UPDATE 9:10 p.m. on Feb. 7: The Board selected 24 persons to serve on the Stakeholder Committee. That list is HERE. The highlighted names are those selected.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners tonight will select from–or accept all on–a list of 33 applicants for the Stakeholder Committee that will help develop a new Comprehensive Plan for the county.
The list includes five people currently holding a position on a citizen committee in the county, a county employee, and an unsuccessful candidate in the most recent election for the Board of Commissioners.
Oconee County posted a public notice on its Utility Department home page late Friday afternoon announcing a sanitary sewer force main break at its Calls Creek wastewater plant located at 1100 Durhams Mill Way on the north side of Watkinsville.
According to the announcement, the break was discovered at approximately 9:15 a.m. on Friday at the pump station at the base of the plant.
Oconee County Utility Department Director Wayne Haynie will ask the Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night to spend $13.5 million for an upgrade to its Calls Creek wastewater treatment plant, including at least $900,000 for expansion of the plant beyond the initial 1.5 million gallons per day of capacity.
The $900,000 is part of just less than $2 million the Utility Department asked Crowder Construction Company in March of last year to add to its estimated costs for the wastewater plant expansion.
Oconee County Commissioners voted last (Tuesday) night to refund sewer capacity for four undeveloped subdivisions in the county, significantly reducing the need for increased sewage treatment capacity in the county.
The decision will make those four housing projects, including the massive Parkside and Westland subdivisions, unbuildable as zoned, since they require sewage capacity for the intensive development proposed.
Oconee County Utility Department Director Wayne Haynie is scheduled to ask the Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night to approve his upgrade plans for the Calls Creek wastewater treatment plant, but he says those plans do not include an effluent pipeline down the creek.
In fact, Haynie told Jim McGarvey of Friends of Calls Creek in an email message on Friday that the county is no longer planning a sewer line down Calls Creek.
