Garretts Claim Their Special Use And Variance Requests Are Consistent With Their Oconee County Agricultural History

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 Garretts operate Roll Off Systems, a trash hauling and portable toilet business, on land zoned for agriculture, using as a garage a building permitted in 1982 as a poll barn.

The business office is the converted home where Bernard Garrett raised his family.

On another piece of land, also zoned for agriculture, they operate what the state Environment Protection Division classifies as a Recovered Materials Processing Facility. They also store containers and portable toilets from Roll Off Systems on that site.

Seeking MRF

Now the Garretts are asking Oconee County to grant them a special use permit within the agricultural zone to expand that second facility into a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) that would allow them to import a wider range of materials, including some household waste, so recyclable materials can be recovered and kept out of landfills.

They also are seeking a variance that would allow them to more than double the number of truck trips on Dials Mill Road to an estimated 100 as they expand the recycling operation.

That road, the Garretts point out, was built as a farm-to-market roadway in another era on land donated by the parents of Bernard Garrett.

To say that the Garrett narrative is not embraced by many of the neighbors in subdivisions that have grown up around the Garrett farms and businesses is an understatement. It also isn’t shared by all members of the extended Garrett family.

BOC Chairman Melvin Davis has joined with at least one neighbor and the Garretts to explore the possibility of alternate sites, including part of the county’s Gateway Industrial Park, before May 7, when the county is scheduled to make a decision on the implications of the Garrett narrative.

For more on this story, go to Oconee County Observations.

See also:

Dials Mill Resident Asks Commissioners to Oppose Recycling Center

Oconee County Planning Commission Recommends Materials Recovery Facility To Board of Commissioners

Oconee County Planning Staff Does Not Recommend Approval Of Permit For Recycling Facility