GREENE COUNTY
The Greene County Board of Commissioners Tuesday approved a wide-ranging update to the Comprehensive Plan that sets up specific areas of the county for future housing, industrial and commercial developments as well as community services, recreation, and broadband internet.
The five-year plan covers the unincorporated areas of Greene County and will serve as a guideline for future development in the county. The county’s five cities are developing their own plans.
The plan creates eight distinct “Character Areas” that are matched with specific types of residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural development.
For example, an area called “North Greene/Lake Oconee” along Highway 278 would be for low-density, single-family homes, and planned unit developments. Commercial and industrial development would not be allowed.
Another area, the “Transitional Residential Hub,” surrounds the cities of Union Point and Woodville and would offer a variety of housing and lot sizes. This is one area the report suggests could provide a solution to the shortage of middle-income, affordable housing in the county.
The report blames the shortage primarily on “the lack of public sewers throughout the county (because) Greene County is limited in its ability to facilitate denser developments built on smaller lots.” Union Point has its own water and sewer systems that could be extended to areas needing service.
The report includes suggestions for ways to encourage developers to build affordable homes and also recommends that rental options be increased in the county.
Development around the county’s roads will also be controlled. For example, Highway 44 south of Greensboro, and the Richland and Veazy Connectors are designated in the plan for retail and light commercial businesses to “encourage the growth of businesses that serve the needs of county residents, such as medical offices and childcare centers.”
Industrial development would be located in the Highway 278 corridor from Greensboro to the Taliaferro County line. Also, Highway 77 between Union Point and Siloam is designated for “parcels with corridor frontage for high-quality, masterplanned industrial growth, such as a business or industrial park.”
About 65 percent of the land in the county, 184,000 acres, is designated as farmland, conservation, or forestry.
The plan has a list of 23 short-term action items that will cost about $40 million. Most of that will come from T-SPLOST funds and be used primarily to resurface and improve roads, construct hangars and a larger tarmac at Greene County Airport, renovate the Greene County Jail, and continue building the Firefly Trail in the Union Point/Woodville area.
The state requires county and city governments to update their Comprehensive Plan every five years. In the past, the process in Greene County was low-key with limited results. The 2018 plan was 15 pages long. The 2023 plan is 63 pages long with an almost 150-page appendix. It is the product of high-profile public meetings, presentations, feedback opportunities, and work by a 10-person steering committee that began in September 2022.
Commissioner Jeffery Smith (Dist. 2) said it is increasingly more important.
“The way the county’s growing in different areas,” he told the Lake Oconee News, “we’re trying to maintain the rural areas, the commercial areas, and the lake areas. We’re just trying to do it correctly.”
Also at Tuesday night’s Greene County Commission meeting: A consultant was hired to help the county put in place zoning changes that will conform to the new Comprehensive Plan.
A preliminary plat was approved for four additional lots, totaling 17 acres, at Reynolds’ The Homesteads development. A conditional use request was approved for the special event venue The Ivy on the Plains at 1841 Jernigan’s Bridge Road.
Rural Georgia Transit, which operates the county’s rural transit system, was approved for another annual contract.