Planning Commission Sides With Home Owners Vs. Builder

Jeff Carter of Carter Engineering told the Oconee County Planning Commission that his client, Jud Shiver, has discovered problems with six of the lots he bought back in 2013 in Morningside subdivision off Hodges Mill Road.

The lots do not drain well, Carter said, and Shiver, operating as Scout Construction LLC, wants to disturb the 40-foot buffer on the six lots to create a drainage ditch to solve the problem.

Neighbors in Timarron subdivision next door on Hodges Mill Road told the Planning Commission they bought their houses knowing the county had established the buffers on the lots now owned by Shiver.

They said the loss of the tree and other vegetative cover would adversely affect the views from their back yards and the value of their properties.

They asked the Planning Commission to recommend against Shiver’s request, and eight of the nine members of the Commission agreed with them.

On Tuesday, the Board of Commissioners will decide if it agrees with the Planning Commission or with the county’s planning staff, which said Shiver should be able to violate the buffer established by an earlier Board back in 2001.

The Board also will consider two other rezone requests, one for a major new commercial complex spread across four parcels and 19.3 acres on Virgil Langford Road east of the Oconee Connector.

The other is for expansion of the campus of Prince Avenue Baptist Church on U.S. 78 to include a fellowship hall and a maintenance building.

The Commission meeting starts at 6 p.m. at the Courthouse in Watkinsville.

For more on this story, with a complete video of the Planning Commission meeting at which these rezone request were discussed, please go to Oconee County Observations.