Epps Bridge Centre on Agenda Again

The Road’s On Us

The scheduled hearing on Oct. 7 for the rezone request for the $76 million Epps Bridge Centre on Epps Bridge Parkway might seem almost unnecessary.

The state–at the urging of the county–already has decided to build a $26 million roadway to the project.

The county, in an effort to facilitate the project, has loaned the state $5 million for right of way purchase for the roadway.

The county also passed a beer and wine ordinance in April that any mall with seven restaurants and a 16-screen theater–which is what Epps Bridge Centre is supposed to contain–almost certainly needs to be successful.

The county planning staff–despite a negative review of the North East Georgia Regional Development Center–recommended that the Epps Bridge Centre be approved.

The county Planning Commission voted on Aug. 18 to approve the rezone request and send it to the BOC–again despite conclusion of the NEGRDC that "the development is not in the best interest of the Region and therefore the State."

The BOC was supposed to hold its public hearing on the rezone on Sept. 2, but when developer Frank Bishop asked for a delay, the BOC gladly agreed.

Bishop said he needed more time "to work out some design details with the planning staff." B.R. White, planning director, told me after the meeting Bishop wants to know what he will be expected to do when the rezone is approved.

Even the federal government has gotten into the act. When Bishop decided he wanted to pave over–rather than preserve–the 2,421 linear feet of flowing streams and 1.06 acres of wetlands on the site, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave him a permit. It even allowed him to mitigate his destruction of the Oconee streams and wetlands by repairing streams and wetlands in neighboring Greene County.

The reason Oconee County is so enthusiastic about the project is the tax money it is supposed to generate. Bishop has estimated that it will generate about $750,000 each year in property taxes for the county and $4.7 million in sales taxes.

With the county planning to ask voters to renew its Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) in March of 2009, retail sales are crucial. The county hopes to rake in $40 million over the six-year life of the tax of a penny on each dollar of retail sales.

The SPLOST is in addition to the existing Local Option Sales Tax of one cent per dollar and the Education Local Option Sales Tax of one cent per dollar. The remaining four cents of the seven cent sales tax go to the state.

Bishop has estimated that Epps Bridge Centre will have annual sales of approximately $158 million, so total sales tax revenue would be more than $11 million a year, if he is correct, and the county would get 43 percent of that, or the $4.7 million.

Ever since the new western gateway to Athens was created with completion of SR 316 more than a decade ago, the county has eyed and promoted the development of the land along Epps Bridge Parkway for commercial use.

The goal has been to make the corridor the new western retail center for the two counties, competing with, and perhaps overtaking, West Broad Street. Epps Bridge Centre expects to have major retail anchors that will compete with similar stores at the existing Georgia Square Mall on West Broad.

To that end, the county has been promoting for a decade the proposed highway that will fly over SR Loop 10 and open up for development the land behind Lowe’s, Wal-Mart and Kohl’s.

The concept plan for the 1.7 mile long roadway, then known as the Jennings Mill Parkway Extension but now called the Oconee Connector Extension, was produced at least as early as 2004 by Moreland Altobelli Associates Inc., the huge engineering firm out of Norcross.

In August of 2005, Bishop bought the exact pieces of land the state had targeted for the extension as well as two of the other three pieces of land he needed for the development. He bought the final piece in 2007 and that same year swapped out some land with Georgia Department of Transportation to round out the boundaries on his property.

The state has delayed the letting of contracts for the Oconee Connector Extension several times, but it is expected to do so in the next few months. Without that roadway, Epps Bridge Centre is not going to happen.

Even the county agrees to that. The planning staff and the Planning Commission have recommended as a condition for the rezone that Bishop not be allowed to build more than a third of Epps Bridge Centre until the extension is completed.

Bishop proposes to complete the project in several phases, beginning with site clearing and grubbing in January of 2009, according to a document he submitted to Oconee County in May of 2008. He plans to start constructing pads for the first buildings in November of 2009. The project is not expected to be completed until 2013.

The mall will dump a lot of traffic onto Epps Bridge Parkway and SR 316 under any circumstance. According to the NEGRDC report, Epps Bridge Centre will generate 19,108 new Annual Average Daily Traffic units (AADT). In 2007, Epps Bridge Parkway near the development site had 27,170 AADT units.

The new road is simply a semicircle allowing traffic to move through the shopping center rather than continue directly along Epps Bridge Parkway and SR 316. According to the 2004 plans, traffic also will be able to enter SR Loop 10 going north and exist SR Loop 10 coming south. What will happen to the existing entrances to and exists from SR Loop10 on Epps Bridge Parkway and SR 316 isn’t clear.

The plans also call for construction of an access road that will dump traffic onto Jennings Mill Road, which borders residential neighborhoods in Clarke County before intersecting with West Broad Street in Athens across from the Logan’s Roadhouse restaurant. This already is a confusing and congested intersection near an exit ramp from SR Loop 10 onto West Broad Street.

One positive feature of the Oconee Connector extension is that it will contain sidewalks and bike lanes, according to a Narrative Bishop submitted to the Oconee Planning Department with his rezone materials on May 07, 2008. Epps Bridge Centre does not include bikeways as part of its traffic plan.

At build-out, 70 percent of the land at Epps Bridge Centre will be covered with impervious surface, including lots of parking spaces, according to the NEGRDC report. In fact, Bishop’s concept plan shows 2,905 parking spaces, which he says is 17 percent more than the 2,483 required.

That concept plan shows a long strip mall with four clusters of building and 15 self-standing buildings, including the 16-screen movie theater. The four clusters are designated for anchor stores.

How precisely Bishop has estimated the tax revenue the mall will produce for the county is hard to say. So far, he has not been asked in a public meeting to explain or justify the calculations.

According to the NEGRDC report, Bishop has estimated it will cost the county only $55,498 annually to provide community services associated with the project. Given that Epps Bridge Centre is intended to be an entertainment complex with the restaurants and theater, the county will have to assume some security costs as well as costs associated with administration and enforcement of the beer and wine ordinance.

Alan Theriault, administrative officer for the county, told me in an email message of Sept. 8 that one entry-level deputy sheriff currently gets paid a minimum of $29,956. Benefits and other personnel costs are in addition to that, raising questions about the $55,498 estimate.

A common statement among government leaders in Oconee County is that development is inevitable. All they can be asked to do is manage it.

In fact, BOC Chairman Melvin Davis claimed on the small, folded business cards he passed out during the July primary election that one of his accomplishments was that he "Effectively managed county growth."

Davis has done much more than manage this development.

Davis was the force behind the beer and wine ordinance, making sure it came to a vote and voting in favor of it to break a tie when two of the four other commissioners opposed the ordinance.

County officials reporting to Davis also have taken credit for working with State Representative Bob Smith to make sure the funding has come through for the roadway Bishop needs for his shopping mall.

When Bishop sent an email message to Brad Callender in the Oconee County Planning Department on Sept. 17, following the BOC meeting on Sept. 2, he copied it to Davis, thereby making sure Davis was in the loop. The email offered Bishop’s defense of the criticism the project had received from NEGRDC.

The BOC seems likely to vote in favor of the rezone for Epps Bridge Centre, if not on Oct. 7, then at a later date.

The citizens of the county are being given a chance to voice their opinions at the public hearing on Epps Bridge Center only after a long series of decisions by the county and its leaders promoting this development.

Greene County Site Picked for Oconee County Mitigation

Oconee Options Exist

The developer planning to build the $76 million shopping center on Epps Bridge Parkway expects to mitigate the damage to wetlands and streams on that site by restoring streams and wetlands in Greene County, but at least two options now exist for mitigation here in Oconee County.

The developer, The Bishop Company, has received approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to use the Greene County site to compensate for the damage in Oconee County, according to the Oconee County Planning Department Staff Report.

Frank Bishop, representing the company, told the Oconee County Planning Commission at its Aug. 18 meeting that his company had searched for mitigation sites in Clarke County without success and could not find "affordable" land in Oconee County for this purpose.

Planning Commission member Bruce MacPherson questioned Bishop about that decision, noting that the Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center (NEGRDC) criticized the project because it did not mitigate damages in the local geographic area impacted by the development.

NEGRDC concluded that the shopping mall project was "not in the best interest of the region and therefore the state" and that "the negative impacts of the project outweighed the positive economic impacts and job creation."

The Oconee County Board of Commissioners postponed a public hearing on the proposal and its required zoning change at its Sept. 2 meeting and has rescheduled that hearing for 7 p.m. on Oct. 7.

During the time the proposed Epps Bridge Centre shopping mall project has been under review, two new mitigation opportunities in Oconee County have become available.

Corps of Engineers regulations were changed in early March of this year, and the Georgia Environmental Policy Institute in Athens has been authorized to calculate a fee to be paid to compensate for the damage to "jurisdictional wetlands" on development sites. The Center then could use those monies to purchase and preserve sensitive land in Oconee County.

Atkel Development Company of Watkinsville, in collaboration with by Sligh Environmental Consultants of Savannah, has developed a mitigation site on Rose Creek in southern Oconee County that has credits available for purchase to mitigate stream and wetland damage.

The Bishop Company and land owner Oconee 316 Associates propose to fill, pave over or otherwise modify 2,421 linear feet of stream and a little more than an acre of wetlands on the 68-acre site that will become the Epps Bridge Centre. The site is located on Epps Bridge Parkway between the Lowe’s and SR Loop 10.

Streams and their associated wetlands are under the jurisdiction of the federal government, though their protection also is the responsibility of state and local authorities. The federal Clean Water Act stipulates that damage to streams and wetlands is to be avoided and minimized to the extent possible.

The law requires that anyone who wants to place fill materials in, ditch, drain or dam, or pave over streams and wetlands must get a permit from the Corps of Engineers.

When the Corps concludes that destruction of the streams and wetlands is unavoidable, it can issue a permit and require compensatory mitigation.

In March of this year, the Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a new rule "to clarify how to provide compensatory mitigation for unavoidable impacts to the nation’s wetlands and streams."

The rule created a hierarchy that requires those seeking compensation to turn first to an approved mitigation bank, then to an in-lieu fee program and next to other alternatives, including mitigation by the permittee. Mitigation banks are usually commercially operated and sell credits for both stream and wetland compensation.

Bishop told the NEGRDC that he planned to restore 981 linear feet of stream and two acres of wetlands along an unnamed tributary of Town Creek in Green County to generate 17,412 stream credits and 7.2 wetland credits.

In an email message to Brad Callender of the Oconee County Planning department of Sept. 17, 2008, responding to the NEGRDC criticism, Bishop said he has searched all the existing mitigation banks in the area and determined that there were insufficient credits available for purchase. I found a copy of the email when I reviewed the Planning Department files on Sept. 19.

As a result of the lack of available banks, Bishop wrote in his email, he decided "to establish our own mitigation bank" and "searched for available sites" within the affected Upper Oconee River watershed. That is when he found and purchased the property in Greene County, he wrote.

I searched the Greene County government tax site and located two properties located between SR 15 and Boswell Road in Green County owned by Bishop Farms LLC.

Bishop Farms LLC, Oconee 316 Associates, The Bishop Company and a fourth company, Greensboro MB LLC all list their principal office address as 6425 Powers Ferry Road in the Georgia Secretary of State databank.

Bob Lord, who handles wetlands review permits for the federal Environmental Protection Agency out of his office in Atlanta, informed me via email on Sept. 15 that Greensboro Mitigation Bank is one of six approved banks in the Upper Oconee River watershed. Two others are in Jackson County, one is in Barrow County, and another is Hall County. The final is the Rose Creek Mitigation Bank in Oconee County.

The Rose Creek MB consists of 60 acres from a total of 160 acres owned by Atkel Development Company. The property formerly was sold to Atkel by Carl Lavender in 2003, according to Oconee County tax records, and is on the west side of SR15 just north of the Green County line.

Mike Kelly, who with Wayne Atkinson, owns the bank, told me in a telephone conversation on Sept. 19 that the bank has been approved by the Corps of Engineers but he has not yet taken the final step in setting it up–recording the restrictive deed that would keep it from ever being farmed or developed once the stream and wetlands on the site are restored.

Kelly also told me he was interested in selling all 160 acres.

Lord from EPA told me that at least four other mitigation banks have been proposed in the Upper Oconee watershed, and one of those is in Oconee County, called Goat Farm MB.

Lord confirmed that Clarke County has no mitigation bank. The Georgia Land Trust Service Center in Athens, a program of the Georgia Environmental Policy Institute, however, provides an in-lieu fee option.

Hans Neuhauser, director of the Georgia Land Trust Service Center, said his organization has not been approached by Oconee 316 Associates or The Frank Bishop Company. I talked with Neuhauser by telephone on Sept. 8.

Neuhauser told me that his organization would be interested in working with groups in Oconee County to identify and preserve streams and wetlands, including sections of Rose Creek around Elder Bridge. This land remains in private hands and is under development pressure.

The NEGRDC also criticized the Epps Bridge Centre project for the amount of impervious surface in the project and its potential effects on stormwater runoff and for the reduction in tree canopy and vegetation due to land clearing for the project.

Bishop, in his response in his email message to Callender at the Oconee planning department, said the development will meet or "exceed the stormwater best management practices" prescribed for Georgia and that the site, at tree maturity, "will exceed the canopy of the existing trees and will have enhanced vegetation."

I have not yet been able to review the materials Bishop and Oconee 316 Associates filed in support of the application for the Corps of Engineers permit to disturb the wetlands. I have submitted an open records request under the federal Freedom of Information Act to see those records.

The federal government allows itself 20 business days to respond to FOIA requests, and the deadline for a response is Oct. 9.

I have asked for an expeditious response because of the Oct. 7 meeting of the Board of Commissioners, but I’ve been told it is up to the office that handles the permit to make a decision on the amount of time needed.

I also was informed I will not be told which office is handling the permit until that office provides me the files.

Oconee Candidate Forum Set for Oct. 13

Breedlove & Clark (Listed Alphabetically) Agree to Meet

Oconee County Board of Education candidates Tom Breedlove and Rich Clark have agreed to take part in a Candidate Forum from 7 to 9 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 13, at the auditorium in the Oconee County Library in Watkinsville.

The Forum is being organized by the same consortium of Oconee citizen groups that organized the successful candidate forums in early June for the local primaries. More than 100 people turned out for the first of those Forums, on June 2, for the Board of Commissioner and Coroner candidates.

A slightly smaller audience turned out on June 4 for Board of Education candidates.

Both Breedlove and Clark participated in the June 4 Forum, when Breedlove was competing with Kyle Martin in the July 15 primary election to secure the Republican nomination for the Post 5 slot on the BOE and Clark was running unopposed as a Democrat for Post 5.

Both also participated in a Candidate Forum put together by the Oconee County Chamber of Commerce on June 16.

The Oct. 13 Candidate Forum is being organized by members of five citizen organizations: Citizens for Oconee’s Future, Citizens for South Oconee County, Friends of Barber Creek, Friends of the Apalachee, and Oconee Citizens for Responsible Growth. I’m the president of Friends of Barber Creek.

Citizens will be able to ask questions directly of Breedlove and Clark at the Oct. 13 Forum.

None of the other four successful candidates for BOE in the Republican primary on July 15 has opposition in the November election. David Weeks will become BOE Chairman, which also is Post 1. Mack Guest will assume the Post 2 position. Kim Argo will become Post 3 board member, and Michael Hunter will move into the Post 4 position.

Breedlove received 3,037 votes against 2,270 for Martin in the primary, while Clark received only 529 votes against no opposition in the Democratic primary.

Georgia has open primaries, meaning that anyone can vote for either party. Given that all of the locally contested races were in the Republican primary, it isn’t surprising that only a small number of local voters participated in the Democratic primary. The largest number of votes–614–was cast in the primary race for someone to run against incumbent Saxby Chambliss for the U.S. Senate.

In the February presidential primary, however, a third of the votes were cast on a Democratic ballot.

Both Republicans and Democrats will be fielding candidates in November for the presidential race, for the U.S. Senate race (Chamblis vs. Jim Martin), for the U.S. 10th Congressional seat (Incumbent Republican Paul Brown vs. Democrat Bobby Saxon), for the State Senator from the 46th District (Incumbent Republican Bill Cowsert vs. Democrat Sherry Jackson), and for District 4 Public Service Commissioner (Democrat Jim Powell vs. Republican Lauren McDonald).

I have sent email messages to both Cowsert and Jackson asking them to appear at the October 13 Candidate Forum and have spoken with Jackson, but neither has committed so far to appear.

Libertarian candidates will appear on the ballot for President (Bob Barr), U.S. Senator (Allen Buckley), District 1 Public Service Commissioner (John Monds), and District 4 Public Service Commissioner (Branden Givens).

None of the Oconee County elections other than the BOE Post 5 slot is being contested on the ballot, though Tom Leach is running a write-in campaign for Chairman of the Board of Commissioners. Incumbent Melvin Davis is the Republican candidate.

Bob Smith is unopposed in his bid to be reelected to represent the 113th District in the General Assembly.

Breedlove, 38, is a partner in the firm Williams & Associates Land Planners one of the two most prominent such firms representating developers in Oconee County.

Clark, 43, is director of polling at the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government.

Breedlove lives at 1130 Creek Farm Run off Malcolm Bridge Road near Eastville, and Clark lives at 1230 Castle Drive off Simonton Road east of Watkinsville.

Either Breedlove or Clark will be joining a relatively inexperienced Board of Education. Chairman Weeks has been on the Board of Education for four years, and Post 2 member Guest has been on the Board for about a year. Argo and Hunter are newcomers.

While most of the media attention in Oconee County generally is on the activities of the Board of Commissioners, most of our property tax revenue goes to the Board of Education.

For every $1 we pay in property taxes, just under 71 cents is for the BOE. The Board of Commissioners control how 28 cents are spent, and the state takes a penny.

Of the 7 cents for each dollar we spend in sales taxes, the state takes 4 cents, the Board of Commissioners 2 cents, and the BOE 1 cent.

Obviously, the BOE deserves more attention that it has received from me and from others concerned about Oconee County.

All of the winners in the BOE races on July 15 were listed first on the ballot. My analysis of the race suggests ballot order was not the only explanation for the candidate success.

The Candidate Forum on Oct. 13 should give those who attend more to go on than name in making a choice on Nov. 4.

Oconee County Water Rate Increase Examined

Conservation vs. Just Pricing

Oconee County put into place a water rate increase on April 1 with little fanfare and no public scrutiny.

The increase, which for those using more than 12,000 gallons per month was 30 percent or more, was presented to the public as an attempt to discourage water use.

The chairman of the citizen group that reviewed the rate increase and recommended it to the Board of Commissioners acknowledged, however, that there is no way to know if the increase will lower water use.

The rate increase was initiated by Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis, an examination of the available records shows, and the rate structure was proposed by the Utility Department, not the citizen group.

Moody’s Investors Service noted the rate increase favorably when it reviewed the county’s sale of $20 million in revenue bonds to finance Oconee County’s portion of construction costs of the initial phase of the Hard Labor Creek reservoir project. Moody’s said the increase was put in place to "fund the additional debt service expenditures" associated with Hard Labor Creek.

The rate increase applies only to residential customers. The county left the rate for commercial and industrial customers unchanged.

The county announced the rate change in the Spring 2008 edition of The Reservoir, the newsletter of the Utility Department.

"As recommended by a citizen advisory committee, effective April 1, the Utility Department will implement a revised residential conservation rate plan that will further promote conservation," the newsletter said. "The purpose of conservation pricing is to reward low users with lower pricing and charge more to those using excess amounts of water, primarily for outdoor watering."

Prior to the rate increase, the county had a four-tier structure for water rates for residential users but only a two-tier structure for commercial users.

After the increase, the county had a six-tier structure for residential users, with the higher rate changed from $4.80 per 1,000 gallons of water used to $6.72 per 1,000 gallons of water used. That is an increase of 40 percent. The commercial rate structure remained unchanged.

The Board of Commissioners approved the residential rate increase at its regular meeting on March 4, 2008, with almost no discussion.

Jim Kundell, chairman of the county Drought Contingency Committee, presented the recommendation of the rate increase to the Board. Commissioner Margaret Hale made a motion to approve the increase, and Commissioner Chuck Horton seconded it. The motion passed unanimously.

I filed an open records request with the county on May 13, 2008, asking for details of the work of the Drought Contingency Committee.

Specifically, I asked for documents relating to the appointment of the members of the committee, the charge given the committee, minutes of meetings, public notices "informing citizens in advance of the meetings of the Drought Contingency Committee," all reports and documents used by the Committee during its deliberations, and all reports and recommendations produced by the committee.

The county gave me a packet of documents for review and copying. The county did not provide any evidence that any meeting of the Committee had been announced to the public, any minutes of meetings held, or any documents produced by the Committee.

According to the documents I was given, BOC Chairman Melvin Davis sent an email message to County Administrative Officer Alan Theriault at 3:53 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2007, asking Theriault to convene the Drought Contingency Committee after the first of the year. "It may be appropriate to revise our rate structure to reward conservation of water," Davis wrote.

The Drought Contingency Committee had met during the fall to produce a revised Outdoor Water Use Ordinance for the county.

Theriault wrote back to Davis five minutes after receiving his Dec. 31 email indicating that "Discussions with the Committee indicated they wanted to review pricing." Theriault said he would call the Committee together after the middle of January.

On Feb. 5, 2008, Jane Greathouse, the deputy clerk for the county, sent an email message to the 10 members of the Drought Contingency Committee asking if they would be able to meet on Feb. 19 in the Grand Jury Room at the courthouse.

The members of the Committee were: Sonia Adsit, Mildred Bell, Gary Dodd, John Glisson, Mack Guest, Henry Hibbs, Chris McClintock, Charles Osborn, Bill Ross and Kundell.

On Feb. 5 Theriault also sent an email message to John Hatcher, then the head of the Utility Department, telling him of the Feb. 19 meeting. Theriault said he knew that Hatcher "had worked on some conservation pricing a few weeks ago" and asked Hatcher to send those suggestions to him as well as "any other ideas that you think are worth floating out to the committee."

That meeting took place on Feb. 19, according to the notes I was given, and early on the morning of Feb. 20 Theriault sent Kundell a brief summary of the meeting via email. Kundell replied later in the day suggesting a change in the wording of the note regarding the decision not to increase the rate for commercial users.

The original note contained as a bullet item: "Not adjust rates for commercial/retail customers (already paying the highest rates/recession/etc)."

Kundell suggested this be changed to: "Maintain rates for commercial users..."

The email did not indicate who attended the meeting, but a set of notes provided to me in response to my open records request contained the hand-written list of Adsit, Bell, Dodd, Glisson, Ross and Kundell.

I visited with Kundell in his office at the Carl Vinson Institute at the University of Georgia on Aug. 21, 2008, to discuss the work of the Drought Contingency Committee, and he indicated that not all the members attended the Feb. 19 meeting and he thought the list I was given was of those who did attend.

Kundell, who is retired but maintains his office at UGA, said the Drought Contingency Committee had met several times during the fall to discuss water regulations and "for whatever reason, they called us back together to look at and make recommendations."

Kundell said the Utility department presented rate increase options to the Committee, and the Committee accepted the rates provided.

"It is hard to anticipate how effective it is going to be," he said. "You have to put it in place and see how it works. It is an adaptive management approach."

Kundell said he didn’t remember much of the discussion about commercial rates. "We focused primarily on residential," he said. "The logic is that businesses already have an incentive to conserve."

"It might be the county isn’t interesting in putting it too high," he said. "It might discourage business."

Kundell said that all meetings of committees such as the Draft Contingency Committee are open to the public, but he does not know what–if anything–the county did to publicize the Feb. 19 meeting.

Prior to the March 4 vote of the BOC, the county had a four-tier structure for water rates for residential users but only a two-tier structure for commercial users.

After the vote, the county had a six-tier structure for residential users, with the highest rate changed from $4.80 per 1,000 gallons of water used to $6.72 per 1,000 gallons of water used. That is an increase of 40 percent, and, according to the notes provided by the county, was the higher of two rate increases considered.

The least amount a user of water in the county can pay each month is $14.04, and that figure was not changed with the new rate structure. That rate covers up to 2,000 gallons of water use per month. Someone who uses 5,000 gallons of water per month pays $14.08 per month for the first 2,000 gallons and then $11.40 more for the extra 3,000. That figure also was left unchanged when the rates were increased.

After 5,000 gallons of use, however, the rate increase kicked in. A residential customer who used 12,000 gallons of water before the rate increase would have paid $54.63. After the increase, that customer would have paid $60.70, or an increase of 11.1 percent.

A customer who used 15,000 gallons of water per month with the old rates paid $69.03. With the new rates, a customer using this amount of water pays $79.42, or 15.1 percent more.

Commercial customers pay the same base rate of $14.04 per month as residential customers. For that amount, the commercial customer can use 2,000 gallons of water per month. After that, commercial customers pay $4.80 per 1,000 gallons of water used, regardless of how many gallons they use.

This means that a commercial user of 15,000 gallons per month now pays $76.44, or $2.98 less than a residential user of 15,000. Prior to the rate increase, the commercial user of 15,000 paid $7.41 more than the residential user of the same amount.

Commercial users vary in size and water demand. A small retail shop might well use 2,000 gallons per month or less and pay the base fee of $14.04.

The new hotel under construction at 3500 Daniells Bridge Road, however, was promised water availability of 19,500 per day in a letter from the Utility Department to the developer on Jan. 9, 2007. For a 30-day month, that amounts to 585,000 gallons.

With the current commercial rate, the hotel, if it uses that amount of water in a month, will pay $2,812.44. If the hotel were a residence and paid at the new residential rate, it would pay $3,907.42, or 38.9 percent more.

A smaller hotel under construction on Virgil Langford Road was promised 12,700 gallons per day of water in a letter from the Utility Department of Sept. 10, 2007. That amounts to 381,000 gallons per month. Its owner will save–at maximum use–$703.30 because the residential rates were not applied to it.

All of these calculations are shown on my web site, with the other documents from this story.

Chris Thomas, currently the head of the Utility Department, appeared before the Board of Commissioners on June 24 to announce the county was lifting its ban on total outdoor watering. Citizens currently are allowed to water one day per week. In late August, the Utility Department began putting up signs around the county informing people that they were allowed to water.

What impact the "conservation" pricing will have on people’s decision to water remains unclear.

If residential customers use more than 5,000 gallons of water per month, they are going to pay more than they would have paid before the rate increase.

And the county Utility Department will have more revenue than it would have had withour the April Fool’s Day "conservation" rate increase.

Oconee BOC Delays Hearing on Epps Bridge Centre

Come Again?

In a surprise move, the developer of the proposed Epps Bridge Centre asked the Oconee County Board of Commissioners tonight to postpone action on its rezone request until Oct. 7 so he can "work out some design details with the planning staff."

The Board voted unanimously to cancel the scheduled public hearing and table action on the rezone for the $76 million strip mall proposed for vacant land between Lowe’s and Loop 10 on Epps Bridge Parkway, behind the current McDonald’s and Starbucks.

The rezone request had been approved by the Planning Commission on Aug. 18, and the public hearing scheduled for tonight had been advertised. In fact, the BOC had officially put the item on tonight’s agenda at its agenda setting meeting of Aug. 26.

Developer Frank Bishop appeared before the Board tonight to confirm his interest in delaying discussion of the project.

The half dozen or so persons who planned to ask questions during the public hearing were not given advance notice of the requested postponement. Commission Chuck Horton informed me via email earlier today he had been told the developer had planned to ask for the delay in action.

B.R. White, Oconee County Planning director, told Charles Baugh from Citizens for Oconee's Future near the end of the BOC meeting that the developer wanted to know in advance "what will be expected" when he submits his detailed plans.

White said it will be necessary now to readvertise for the Oct. 7 public hearing so citizens have another chance to comment on the large commercial project.

Epps Bridge Centre as proposed includes a 16-screen movie theater, space for anchor stores, small retail shops and seven restaurants.

At build-out in 2013, the project is expected to produce just less than $752,000 annually in property taxes for the county, according to the estimates provided to the Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center by the developer, which officially is Oconee 316 Associates of Atlanta.

Oconee 316 Associates estimated that the annual sales tax revenue is expected to be $11 million and that it will cost only $55,500 annually to provide community services for the project.

Oconee County would receive three-sevenths of the sales tax revenue, or $4.7 million.

How these estimates of tax revenues and costs were arrived was not explained at the Planning Commission meeting. I had hoped to raise that question at the meeting tonight.

The Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center reviewed the project and concluded that "the development is not in the best interest of the Region and therefore the State."

Among the many problems cited by the NEGRD is the increased traffic on Epps Bridge Parkway.

The developer proposed to have an entrance and exit to Epps Bridge Centre across from the existing entrance to Kroger and the Waffle House near the exit ramp from SR Loop 10 on Epps Bridge Parkway.

According to the plans submitted to the NEGRD, that entrance and exit would allow traffic to turn in both directions from the mall onto Epps Bridge Parkway at this already congested section of roadway.

Oconee to Consider New Shopping Center

We Got Asphalt

The Oconee County Planning Commission, the staff report of the Oconee County Planning Department, and the regional impact assessment of the Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center all have raised questions about the proposed $76 million Epps Bridge Centre, which the Oconee County Board of Commissioners will consider on Sept. 2.

After a hearing on Aug. 18, the Planning Commission recommended, with only one dissent, that the Board of Commissioners approve the rezone for Epps Bridge Centre, proposed for vacant land between Lowe’s and Loop 10 on Epps Bridge Parkway, behind the current McDonald’s and Starbucks.

The staff of the Planning Department also recommended approval, with seven conditions, which were adopted by the Planning Commission.

The Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center, however, concluded that "the development is not in the best interest of the Region and therefore the State."

Among the questions raised about the project are the following:

• How will the traffic generated by the project affect the already clogged Epps Bridge Parkway?


• Has the developer adequately addressed issues resulting from the fact that it will alter and partially pave over wetlands on the site and thereby affect nearby McNutt Creek, which forms the border between Clarke and Oconee counties?


• Has the developer created excessive amounts of impervious surface, including large amount of parking space?


• Are the aesthetics and design of the development appropriate and, in particularly will the rear of the development be an eyesore to people traveling on Loop 10?


• Has the developer done enough to protect green space?


• What are the implications of creating what is essentially an entertainment center–with a 16-screen movie theater and seven restaurants–on a county that has struggled with the issue of alcohol sales.

Here are the basics of the proposal.

In 2005 and 2007, a company called Oconee 316 Associates LLC purchased five parcels on the north side of State Route Loop 10, west of Epps Bridge Parkway and south of the proposed Oconee Connector extension.

According to the Oconee County Board of Tax Assessors, Oconee 316 Associates LLC paid a total of $15.6 million for the five tracts. The tax records indicate the tracts total 79.5 acres.

While the Staff Report of the Oconee County Planning Department lists Oconee 316 Associates LLC as the applicant, the Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center lists The Bishop Company LLC as the applicant.

The Georgia Secretary of State Corporate records list The Bishop Company LLC and Oconee 316 Associates LLC as both being located at 6425 Powers Ferry Road, Suite 180, Atlanta. Both The Bishop Company and Oconee 316 LLC have the same registered agent, J. Parker Gilbert.

The Bishop Company purchased Georgetown Square on Barnett Shoals Road in Athens in 2004 and redeveloped it two years later, according to stories in the Athens Banner-Herald in 2005 and 2007.

The Bishop Company name appears on the signs at Georgetown Square today, and Frank Bishop was asked about that development when he appeared before the Oconee Planning Commission on Aug. 18 to answer questions about the proposed Epps Bridge Centre development.

Oconee Planning Commission 8/18/08.

Epps Bridge Centre, as proposed, is a long strip mall consisting of four clusters of building and 15 self-standing buildings, including the 16-screen movie theater. The four clusters are designated for anchor stores. The largest is 45,000 square feet in size. Three of the four clusters also include space for small shops.

The seven restaurants shown on the conceptual site plan vary in size from 1,860 to 7,000 square feet. The theater is 60,000 square feet in size.

At build-out in 2013, the project is expected to be valued at $76 million and produce just less than $752,000 annually in property taxes for the county, according to the Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center. The estimated annual sales tax revenue at build out is expected to be $11 million. The applicant estimates it will cost only $55,500 annually to provide community services for the project.

At present, according to the county tax records, the land is valued at just a little more than $9 million, but $1.5 million of that is for land that will be used by the state to build the Oconee Connector Extension.

A big part of the annual taxes will be paid to Oconee County from people outside the county, and particularly from people in nearby Clarke County. The retail stores in the Epps Bridge Center will collect seven cents on every dollar in sales tax, and Oconee County government and Oconee County schools get three of those. That is money that Clarke County citizens might otherwise spend at home to finance their own government and schools.

According to NEGRD, the applicant has estimated that 390 tempory jobs will be created during construction and 800 permanent jobs can be expected when the project is completed. Most, of course, will be retail clerks and other service works, such as kitchen staff.

Access to the development will come mostly from the proposed Oconee Connector Extension, which will be a continuation of the existing road between Lowe’s and the building housing Starbucks and Verizon. That extension will turn and cross Loop 10 and circle back to become part of the existing Oconee Connector.

The roadway is being built to open up land for development, including the land being used for the Epps Bridge Centre, and presently undeveloped land behind Lowe’s, WalMart and Kohl’s.

According to the NEGRDC report, Epps Bridge Centre will require 39,400 gallons per day of water and roughly that same amount in sewage treatment capacity. Oconee County's base water rate for residences is for use of 2,000 gallons per month. The assumption is a residence can stay at or near that level with conservation.

It also will generate just less than 2,000 tons of solid waste each year. The Centre will cover 70 percent of the land with impervious surface.

The site contains wetlands that are covered by the federal Clean Water Act that largely will be paved over in the construction of Epps Bridge Centre. Included are five perennial streams that are tributaries of McNutt Creek.

According to the staff report of the Oconee County Planning Department, the developer has received approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to "mitigate" the loss of these wetlands by creating approximately 70 acres of wetlands near the Oconee National Forest in Greene County.

According to the NEGRDC report, Epps Bridge Centre will generate 19,108 new Annual Average Daily Traffic units (AADT). In 2007, Epps Bridge Parkway near the development site had 27,170 AADT units.

Epps Bridge Centre is proposed to have a total of six entrances, one off Epps Bridge Parkway and five off the as yet unbuilt Oconee Connector Extension. The entrance off Epps Bridge Parkway will be between the McDonalds and Loop 10, across from the entrance to the Krogers.

Since the Oconee Connector Extension will be a loop from Epps Bridge Parkway at Lowe’s to SR 316 where the current Oconee Connector intersects that road, most of the traffic from the Epps Bridge Centre almost certainly will end up on Epps Bridge Parkway and SR 316. An entrance to Loop 10 is proposed where the Extension crosses the Loop.

Athens Transit does not provide service to the site, meaning all those employed at the Epps Bridge Centre as well as the customers are going to have to travel to their jobs by auto.

NEGRDC gave four reasons for opposing Epps Bridge Centre.

1. The amount of impervious surface and the potential effects on stormwater runoff and water quality.


2. The location of the proposed stream and wetland restoration site being used to mitigate the destruction of the wetlands for Epps Bridge Centre is "significantly downstream" from the project site.


3. Because the proposed Epps Bridge Centre will be accessible only from Epps Bridge Parkway until the Oconee Connector Extension is built, the development has the "potential to significantly degrade the level of service" on Epps Bridge Parkway and "cause safety issues related to access management."


4. The destruction of "tree canopy and vegetation" will "adversely impact water and air quality of the adjacent counties and the region." The Development Center said "Canopy and vegetation loss can be reduced through better site design."

The Oconee County Planning Department staff report recommended approval of the project but listed seven conditions, most of which are routine.

The final condition, however, stipulated that no more than one-third "of the overall building square footage of the site" can use Epps Bridge Parkway as the "sole access to the development." So the remaining part of the project–whatever the developer decides that to be–cannot be completed until the Oconee Connector Extension is built.

Bishop indicated at the August 18 Planning Commission meeting that he expects to start development with the theater, which is at the very rear of the property.

Mike Maxey, a member of the Planning Commission, said at the Commission meeting that he found that restriction to be overly burdensome on the developer. The county would be holding the developer "hostage" by the stipulation.

Maxey garnered no support for his position, however, and the condition was included as part of the Planning Commission’s approval of the project. Maxey actually seconded the motion.

Planning Commission member Bruce MacPherson, representing Bishop, led the discussion at that August 18 meeting. He was concerned about the amount of impervious surface, about the destruction of the wetlands, and about the possibility of mixed use development versus retail, and about the architecture.

Bishop said he would use white roofing to minimize the geothermal effect and use landscaping to minimize water runoff.

Bishop said he had looked for ways to mitigate the wetlands destruction but did not find land in Clarke County and found the land in Oconee County was not "affordable." So he purchased the land in the middle of the Oconee National Forest for mitigation.

Bishop also said mixed use was not a good idea, and that the architecture would be of a "high quality."

George Rodrigues, the Planning Commission member from Watkinsville, also was concerned about the amount of impervious surface and about the layout of the proposed strip mall.

Rodrigues even said (see video above) he wondered if Bishop "was invested in asphalt." He also said he didn’t like Bishop’s Georgetown Square, which he described as "confusing."

Bishop said the design was a response to the needs of the national tenants he hopes to have in the mall. He also said the narrow nature of the land available to him helped shape what he could do.

Planning Commission member Travis Marshall was concerned that the back of the restaurants facing Loop 10 wouldn’t look so nice. Marshall asked if it was safe to "assume" they would look good, and Bishop said it was.

In the end, only MacPherson voted against the motion to rezone the existing land from agricultural and agricultural-residential to a highway business district.

Bishop said his mall, with the theaters and the restaurants, is heavy on entertainment. It is doubtful that kind of entertainment mall would have been possible had the Board of Commissioners not voted earlier this year to allow the sale of beer and wine in restaurants.

Bishop wasn’t asked if his restaurants will also want to be able to sell liquor by the drink.

All of the documents referenced in this post as well as the audio links are at Oconee County Observations II.

Entrance to Epps Bridge Center

Oconee Posts Water Signs to Help Confused Citizens

Sign: Outdoor Watering Allowed



The signs that the Oconee County Utility Department has posted in a small number of subdivisions around the county might seem like an attempt to promote water use, but Utility Department Director Chris Thomas said the intent is quite different.

People in the county are confused about when they are allowed to water, he said, and the Utility Department put up signs this week in four subdivisions and last week in four others to help clarify the rules.

The white signs read: Outdoor Watering Allowed One Day a Week, Call OCUD for Your Scheduled Day." The sign lists the Oconee County Utility Department phone number and web address for the county.

When Thomas appeared before the Board of Commissioners on June 24 to announce the lifting of the outdoor water ban, he said the county would use the last digit of the address to determine when watering was allowed.

The county subsequently found that 90 percent of the addresses in the county ended in either zero or one, so it needed a new system, and the county started using the second to the last digit of the address to determine when people can water.

"With our system, it is a little confusing as to when your day is," Thomas said. "So a lot of people are going by Athens’ schedule, which goes on your last number versus our system, which goes on the first number of the last two numbers."

I told Thomas when I talked to him by telephone Wednesday I thought the sign suggested the county was actually encouraging people to water one day a week.

"We’re producing and selling a fairly decent amount of water," Thomas said. "We’re not necessarily encouraging people to water. What we’re encouraging people to do is, if you’re going to water, try to do it on the schedule that’s there."

Thomas said the Utility Department has been getting two or three calls a week from people complaining about their neighbors watering off schedule. The Department then has to send someone out with a notice, and that is "bad for us."

Thomas said people have been "really good" about following the rules. "When we went to one day a week, it wasn’t like everybody was trying to cheat the system and irrigate, irrigate, irrigate. We didn’t see a large increase."

According to data released by the county recently, the Utility Department saw a significant decrease in water use after restrictions went into place late last summer. In August of 2007, the average demand for water in the county was 4.44 million gallons per day. In December demand was 1.37 MGD, and in May it was 1.79 MGD. That figure had increased only to 2.09 MGD in the first two weeks of June, after the restrictions were eased.

The Utility Department operates as an Enterprise Fund, meaning it is supposed to cover its costs by selling water and treating sewage.

According to Thomas, the signs went up this week in Oconee Crossing, Founders Grove, Lane Creek and Welbrook Farms. I live in Welbrook Farms, and I noticed the sign at the end of the day on Monday.

Thomas said the signs were in Boulder Springs, Oak Lake, Meridian and Christian Lake last week.

Ultimately, the plan is to distribute the signs in all the neighborhoods of the county, according to Thomas. The department only printed six or eight signs, he said. "We didn’t want to spend a lot of money."

Thomas said that people need to check the county web site or call the Utility Department every week before they turn their sprinklers on to make sure the rules have not changed.

The front page of the county web site doesn’t contain the information, however, or even a direct link to it. Rather, a user has to click on "Public Notices" and then on "Water Restrictions as of June 30, 2008" to get to the restrictions themselves and the watering schedule.

According to a story in the Athens Banner-Herald on Tuesday, the Bear Creek Reservoir, from which the Oconee County Utility Department draws most of its water, was 3.6 inches higher this week than at this time a year ago.

Clarke County has had to start drawing from Bear Creek, however, because the flow in the Middle Oconee River, from which it normally gets its water, is so low.

State Climatologist David Stooksbury is quoted in the article as saying even significant rainfall from Tropical Storm Fay would provide only limited relief.