The Oconee County Board of Commissioners on May 29 brought at least a temporary close to a two-year investigation of how the county handles sewer capacity fees when county Administrative Officer Alan Theriault read a nine-minute-long report on that investigation into the public record.
“Frankly, we had a mess,” said Commissioner Jim Luke at the end of the report, given as part of the regular Commission meeting. He said he was pleased with what the county had done to address the problem.
Oconee County water and sewer customers will begin paying higher rates on July 1 as part of the budget passed by the Oconee County Board of Commissioners last Tuesday.
The base rate for residential water customers will go from $17.50 per month to $18.00, or an increase of 2.9 percent.
Over the last 10 plus years, Tony Townley, one of the founders of Zaxby’s and now one of the largest land owners in Oconee County, has built a series of small lakes and ponds on his properties.
Included is a recently constructed small lake on Frazier Creek that backs up to Aycock Road just west of that road’s intersection with Matthews Road. Frazier Creek is a tributary of the Apalachee River.
I first learned of the Tony Townley ponds on Feb. 29, when James Knecht sent me an email message telling me about the small lake being built on Aycock Road on property abutting his.
Knecht and his wife, Sandra, whose address is 1451 Aycock Road, have a home they built overlooking a lengthy shoals on Frazier Creek, downstream from the lake constructed by Townley this year.
Caterpillar will bring about 150 people from outside the area to work at the manufacturing plant and distribution center on the edge of Bogart, but those people are unlikely to all settle in Oconee County.
The plant is located at a nearly ideal location in terms of transportation, and it is unlikely to have a significant impact on traffic congestion in the area.
The major impact of the project will come when suppliers also move to the area, but, at present, it is “too early to tell” how many such suppliers will relocate here.
These were some of the comments Oconee County Economic Development Director Rusty Haygood made to members of the Citizen Advisory Committee on Land Use and Transportation Planning at its meeting on May 15.
The Oconee County Citizen Advisory Committee on Land Use and Transportation Planning took a step Tuesday night toward endorsing the July 31 Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum.
But it changed course, deciding to develop first a list of local projects that might be funded by some of the monies from the tax.
Caterpillar submitted site development plans to the Oconee County Planning Department on Friday that call for buildings totaling 900,723 square feet, for 484,085 square feet of paved area, and for 6,692 square feet of sidewalks.
The total impervious area for the plant, on the eastern edge of Bogart, will be 1,391,500 square feet, covering about 13 percent of the roughly 250-acre site, according to the documents.
