Gainesville Council OK's industrial park land

GAINESVILLE - Gainesville City Council Thursday agreed to the "best and fastest" way to solve the city's shortage of industrial park space.

That best and fastest way, as Councilman George Wangemann put it, is to transfer the recently rezoned and annexed New Harvest Road site to the Gainesville Hall County Development authority as recommended by Authority attorney Tred Syfan.

The 170-acre site then becomes an industrial park complete with constructed buildings to market to prospects once the Development Authority sells it to Gwinnett Industries, a division of Pattillo Construction Company.

Mayor Myrtle Figueras said the transfer sets the stage for Gainesville to offer industrial property again, and that means providing jobs.

"This is going to be good for businesses to locate here so that we can provide jobs for people in this area," Figueras said. "This was imitated by council. We've been talking about needing an industrial park and this is an opportunity for us to fulfill the promises."

Formal approval comes at next Tuesday's council meeting, and Figueras expects no opposition.

UTILITY RATE STUDY


Gainesville City Council is launching a $96,000 study to update the city's utility rate structure.

Public Utilities Director Kelly Randall said the update is aimed at making sure rates are fairly applied to water and sewer customers.

"It's a system to try to get the user who actually uses the service to pay for the service rather than spreading that cost over all the system's customers," Randall said.

Randall added the consultant's study will review existing rates and fees and identify areas where fees are not charged by Public Utilities.