After a two-month delay due to the disruption in supplies because of Hurricane Harvey, construction crews are ready to start work on the upgrade to the sewer line from Epps Bridge Parkway to the Calls Creek wastewater treatment plant outside Watkinsville.
Piles of 12-inch pipe are stacked at locations on the route along Old Epps Bridge Road, the Oconee Connector and Daniells Bridge Road.
The Policy Committee of the Madison Athens Clarke Oconee Regional Transportation Study (MACORTS) last week removed the proposed flyover connecting Daniells Bridge Road with the Oconee Connector from its 2040 Long Range Transportation Plan.
The Policy Committee also added five projects to its 2040 Long Range Transportation Plan to accommodate the Construction Work Program of the Georgia Department of Transportation.
Oconee County commissioners last (Tuesday) night rezoned nearly two acres on the Oconee Connector and Daniells Bridge Road where the Barber Creek fire station sits in preparation for selling it for business development.
Although the property was donated to the county prior to 1997, the county owns the land outright and is preparing to sell it to the best bidder. The owners of the nearby SpringHill Suites by Marriott, 3500 Daniells Bridge Road, seem likely to be interested.
Oconee County commissioners are set to give final approval tomorrow (Tuesday) night to a $1.9 million contract to upgrade the sewer line running from Epps Bridge Parkway at McNutt Creek and down Daniells Bridge Road and Government Station Road.
The upgraded sewer line will allow the county to divert sewage now being pumped to the sewage treatment facility on Rocky Branch Road to the Calls Creek plant currently under expansion outside Watkinsville.
The Technical Coordinating Committee of the Madison Athens Clarke Oconee Regional Transportation Study (MACORTS) voted last week to recommend to the body’s Policy Committee that it remove from its long range plans the proposed flyover connecting Daniells Bridge Road with the Oconee Connector.
The Technical Coordinating Committee also recommended that five projects be added to the MACORTS long range plans, all to accommodate requests from the Georgia Department of Transportation.
MACORTS, the regional transportation planning organization, has begun accepting public feedback on changes to its planning documents, including the removal of the controversial Daniells Bridge Road Extension and SR Loop 10 flyover from its long range plans.
The first of three public meetings on the proposed changes in the planning documents will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on June 26 at the Community Center in Oconee Veterans Park, 3500 Hog Mountain Road.
A committee of the area regional transportation body last week added $19.2 million to its 2040 Long Range Transportation Plan at the request of the Georgia Department of Transportation to cover a range of projects, including several in Oconee County.
To accommodate the addition of the projects, the Committee eliminated the controversial Daniells Bridge Road Extension and flyover of SR Loop 10 from that same Long Range Plan, meaning it is no longer a part of the active projects in the Long Range Transportation Plan.
Oconee County expects to open Parkway Boulevard from the Oconee Connector to Kohl’s by the end of May, county Public Works Director Emil Beshara told a meeting of the regional metropolitan transportation planning organization on Wednesday.
Construction on the roadway is “winding down,” Beshara told the group, with work remaining only on such things as pedestrian islands, guardrails, and striping.
Chuck Horton raised slightly more money than Marcus Wiedower in the last days of October and November as the two competed in the special election for open Post 2 on the Oconee County Board of Commissioners.
Wiedower raised $3,793 and spent $17,818 with War Room Strategies, an Athens-based consulting firm, leaving him with a balance of $9,521 for the campaign going into the final vote on Tuesday, according to his campaign finance reports.
When Oconee County Public Works Director Emil Beshara reviewed bids for the SR 316 corridor study at the Nov. 1 Board of Commissioners meeting, he made no mention of the proposed Daniell's Bridge Road flyover of SR Loop 10.
Bidders, however, knew the controversial project was to be a part of the study they were being asked to do.
Early voting starts on Nov. 28, the Monday after Thanksgiving, for the Dec. 6 runoff election for Post II on the Oconee County Board of Commissioners.
Early voting will run only Monday through Friday of that week and will be held at the Board of Elections and Registration Office, 10 Court Street, across from the Oconee County Courthouse in Watkinsville.
Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis is asking his fellow commissioners tomorrow (Tuesday) night to spend between $30,000 and $60,000 on a study to justify widening Daniells Bridge Road and building a flyover of that road to the Oconee Connector at Home Depot.
The exact cost of the study isn’t known because county Public Works Director Emil Beshara has not yet released the three bids received.
Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis has the proposed Daniells Bridge Road flyover of SR Loop 10 back on the Commission agenda for Tuesday night’s meeting.
A year and a half after the Board of Commissioners turned down his efforts to get approval of the flyover and widening of Daniells Bridge Road to Hog Mountain Road, he is asking for funding of a traffic study of SR 316 and Epps Bridge Parkway.
Marcus Wiedower said he will bring his listening skills and his planning skills to the Oconee County Board of Commissioners if voters select him for Post II in the special election on Nov 8.
“All I do all day long is plan,” said Wiedower, a custom home builder, in an hour-long interview. He said he will bring to the Commission “an educated, experienced voice” that “has a planning background.”
Chuck Horton said his experience and background will allow him to “hit the ground running” should he win the open seat on the Oconee County Board of Commissioners in the special election on Nov. 8.
Because of his service on the Board of Education, Horton said he understands the need for the Board of Commissioners to think through the implications of decisions it makes on the county’s schools.
Ben Bridges says the county is growing too fast and it is time to slow down for a little while to take stock of where things are.
He also says that water and sewer are the biggest challenges facing the county.
Work is well underway on the clearing of 13.4 acres at the corner of U.S. 441 and Lavista Road for construction of what is being called Lavista Office Park.
Preliminary site plans filed with the Oconee County Planning Department a year ago show construction of a 12,000-square-foot professional office building at the southern end of the lot nearest to the Waffle House at 8000 Macon Highway (U.S. 441).
The Oconee County Planning Commission tomorrow night will review plans for a $42 million corporate campus on Daniells Bridge Road that will provide a new headquarters for Zaxby’s.
The plans are for a complex with up to five buildings on a 90-acre tract on the south side of Daniells Bridge Road just east of its intersection with the Oconee Connector and Mars Hill Road.
Construction crews last week began assembling equipment and materials in preparation for pouring the foundation for another two-story office building that will be part of the University Parkway Office and Technology Park at 2500 Daniells Bridge Road.
The building will join two others under construction in the quickly-developing area around the Oconee Connector, SR 316 and Virgil Langford Road.
One of those, a storage facility complex of two three-story buildings, is visible across SR 316 from near the site of the office building to be constructed on Daniells Bridge Road.
The Georgia Department of Transportation has decided not to fund the widening of Jimmy Daniell Road, nullifying the project framework agreement signed by Oconee County in December of last year.
GDOT took this action because Oconee County never specified where it was going to find the $1.15 million estimated cost to the county for right of way acquisition for the project.
