Deferred Tax LLC will be back before the Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night with its latest plan for development of the 46.9 acres it owns on the Oconee Connector between Mars Hill Road and SR 316 stretching to Virgil Langford Road.
This time, Deferred Tax is proposing a two-building, 26,000 square foot retail center with a restaurant on a 6.8 sub-parcel at the northwest corner of Mars Hill Road and the Connector.
Deferred Tax has not submitted plans for the remainder of the 46.9 acres it owns.
The Board of Commissioners has twice turned down a request by Deferred Tax that to build a shopping center on the larger property with a Publix as an anchor and with an entrance on the Oconee Connector.
The preliminary site plan dated Nov. 21, 2025, for the 6.8 acres shows two entrances off Mars Hill Road to the two-building retail center. One is a full entrance opposite Hollow Creek Lane and the other is a right in/right out driveway northwest of Old Mars Hill Road.
Oconee County Director of Planning and Code Enforcement Guy Herring has informed Deferred Tax that the retail uses shown on the preliminary site plan are not permitted on the property as zoned.
Deferred Tax has appealed that decision by Herring to the Board of Commissioners, which is scheduled to make a decision on that appeal at its Tuesday night meeting.
Herring’s Memo
Herring has provided the Commissioners with a two-page memorandum outlining his version of the circumstances leading up to the appeal by Deferred Tax.
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| Zoning Of 6.8 Acres (B-2) Prior To Jan. 6, 2026, Rezone |
Landscape Architect Ken Beall is representing Maxie Price, listed as the property owner under the Deferred Tax name on the application.
According to Herring, Deferred Tax submitted the Preliminary Site Plan for review on Nov. 23, 2025, while the Board of Commissioners was considering a rezone it had initiated for 33.6 acres from the larger 46.9 acres owned by Deferred Tax.
According to Herring, his department issued a Completeness Review on Dec. 1, 2025, stating that “This property is currently undergoing a rezoning. No new processes can be undergone until a decision has been reached on the rezoning.”
At its meeting on Jan. 6, the Board of Commissioners downzoned the 6.8 acres at the corner of the Connector and Mars Hill Road from B-2 Highway Business District to OIP Office Institutional Professional District.
Herring says in his memorandum that “The applicant requested a status update on the Preliminary Site Plan application on Feb. 4, 2026, via email from Jeffrey DeLoach.” DeLoach represented Deferred Tax at the Jan. 6 hearing before the Board of Commissioners.
Herring said he responded on Feb 13, telling DeLoach that the 6.8 acre parcel “is zoned OIP.”
“The retail uses shown on the submitted site development plan are not permitted uses under that zoning,” Herring reported that he said. “If the owner submits a site development plan that shows a use consistent with the current zoning, the department will review it.”
“On March 6, 2026, the applicant submitted the Appeal of an Administrative Decision indicating that staff has not followed proper procedure in reviewing a Preliminary Site Plan while a zoning action was under consideration by the Board of Commissioners,” Herring said in his memorandum to the Board.
Deferred Tax Appeal
DeLoach, in his appeal, dated March 5, 2026, and with a filing date of March 6, 2026, states that when Beall submitted an application for preliminary site plan approval on Nov. 23 for the 6.8 acre parcel “The application was appropriately submitted under then-existing B-1 zoning for this parcel.”
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| Zoning Of 6.8 Acres (OIP) After Jan. 6, 2026, Rezone |
As Herring stated in his memo, the 6.8 acre parcel was zoned B-2 prior to the county initiated rezone, not B-1.
DeLoach said he later was informed that the county would not take action on the application “until a decision has been made on the rezoning.”
DeLoach said legal counsel told the county that the section of the county’s Unified Development Code cited to justify the delay “should not be applied to preclude review of this application and requested that Oconee County continue its review of the application.”
According to DeLoach, Herring’s “interpretation and application of the UDC (Unified Development Code) is legally flawed and in violation of Georgia law.”
“The UDC does not and cannot change the fact that the application must be considered based upon the zoning decision at the time of submission,” DeLoach wrote.
DeLoach said Deferred Tax “requests that the Board of Commissioners reverse the interpretation and decision of Respondent (Herring) and determine that the Applicant’s application for preliminary site plans approval...should be reviewed under the B-1 zoning designation existing on the property at the time of application.”
Board Initiated Rezone
On Oct. 7, 2025, the county announced its plan to rezone the 33.6 acres owned by Deferred Tax LLC that has been proposed for a shopping center to include a Publix as an anchor.
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| Federal Permit |
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 county initiated rezone was in responses to that suit.
The rezone initiated by the Board of Commissioners in October and approved in January 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 approved rezone divides the 33.6 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. Included is te 6.8 acres that Deferred tax wants to develop into the two-building retail center.
The rezone initiated by the Board of Commissioners did not involve 13.3 acres included in a rezone request by Deferred Tax in 2021 that also was denied, leaving that property zoned single family residential development.
The preliminary site plan submitted by Beall for the 6.8-acre tract does not include a grocery. The developer of a shopping center on U.S. 78 near the Mars Hill Road intersection has announced that Publix will be the main tenant.
The 6.8-acre tract contains a stream and wetlands, and the materials Beall submitted show that Publix holds the federal permit allowing it to pipe and fill the stream and wetlands.
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