If the Bernard Garrett family gets a favorable vote from the Board of Commissioners after Tuesday night’s public hearing on its request for a permit for a materials recovery facility on Dials Mill Road, it will have passed a first hurdle in getting a state of Georgia permit for the facility.
Before the state would issue its permit, it would hold another hearing where the public could once again state its support or voice its opposition to the proposed plan.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday is scheduled to approve a change in sewer policy requested by Chairman Melvin Davis to facilitate construction of an assisted living facility at the corner of SR 316 and the Oconee Connector Extension.
The new policy repeats the existing requirement that no more than 50 percent of the capacity of either of the county’s two sewage treatment facilities can be allocated to residential use, and it excludes from the calculation of residential use facilities operated as an “assisted living community.”
While residents in subdivisions near the proposed materials recovery facility on Dials Mill Road have been most outspoken about the project, the decision the Board of Commissioners makes about the facility has the potential to impact indirectly residents of two other areas of the county.
One of the areas is south of Watkinsville, where the Board of Commissioners in 2005 turned down a request for a waste transfer station. That request is likely to come back if the BOC approves the Dials Mill Road project.
Two officials from the north Fulton County city of Milton last night told 30 Oconee County citizens, including four commissioners, why Milton adopted just last June a Transfer of Development Rights program.
The reason, Mayor Pro Tem Bill Lusk told the group, was simple.
The residents wanted to maintain the rural character, the “green space, the open space, your farms,” he said, and the TDR program was a mechanism for doing just that.
Oconee Farmers Market will begin operating 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesdays on the grounds of Watkinsville First Christian Church in downtown Watkinsville starting on May 14.
Market Manager Cindy Pritchard said the expanded market is in response to customer requests and to help vendors during the peak part of the growing season.
As Bernard Garrett, daughter Katie Garrett, and son Simon Garrett tell the story, the family's companies, Roll Off Systems, Walton C&D Landfill, and the proposed Harvest Recycling, are a simple outgrowth of the family's history of farming and its commitment to the land.
County records indeed document the agricultural origins and vestiges of what has become a business with 35 employees in both Oconee County and Walton County.
The Georgia Department of Transportation has told Oconee County officials it expects to have money to spend on state highway improvements in the region and has asked the county to submit projects for possible funding.
Oconee County Public Works Director Emil Beshara told the Citizens Advisory Committee on Land Use and Transportation Planning of the state request at the Committee’s April 16 meeting and asked the members to react to two projects he wants to submit.
