Citizens, Developer, Commissioners Compromise On Shopping Center

Joel Adair, president of the Belfair Homeowners Association, was deliberate and measured as he offered his 12-minutes of comments to the Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night.

Adair said he recognized that the proposal before the Board for a reconfigured Meadowlands shopping center and Continuing Care Retirement Community fronting on U.S. 78 was a significant improvement over the one approved by the Board in 2009.

Even with the changes, Adair said, the development was going to produce increased traffic from Dials Mill Road cutting through the Belfair subdivision to reach the proposed shopping center, making it unsafe for the families living there.

One solution, Adair said, was to close the entrance to the shopping center off Talus Street.

Commissioners Chuck Horton and Amrey Harden said they were sympathetic and that said they wanted to find a way to address the concerns of Adair and his neighbors. Harden asked if the proposed entrance road could become a multi-use path instead.

Bob Smith, representing developer Mark Jennings’ Ellington Farms Development Partners LLC, said Jennings would agree to the restriction.

The Board then voted unanimously to approve the 90-acre development that is to include a large grocery store, a collection of small retail shops and offices, independent living units, and two multi-story buildings for both assisted living and independent living.

Dials Mill Road, which runs from U.S. 78 to SR 316, also came up at the beginning of the meeting when the president of the Dials Mill Plantation Property Owners Association asked the Commissioners to monitor state planning for a multi-grade interchange of the road with SR 316.

For more on the story, with a link to the video of the meeting, please go to Oconee County Observations.