While the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) was treating roads Thursday in preparation for Winter Storm Cora, one road got a particular amount of interest at the Hall County Commission meeting on Thursday.
Swansey Road in Flowery Branch is the future site of a 100-lot subdivision by Abernathy Engineering Group. The issue? Swansey is currently a dirt road and a major concern is the increased traffic on the cut-through road that connects Blackjack and Friendship Roads.
The amended conditions of zoning has been tabled since a Sept. 10, 2024 commission meeting.
“You’re talking about 200 more cars on this road if not more,” Susan, a resident near Swansey Road said. “It was supposed to be done years ago.”
Michael, another resident at the meeting, said that the condition was for the developer to pave the road.
“The condition was that the builder would pave the road,” Michael said. “So now it looks like the cost is being shifted to the taxpayer again.”
Director of Public Works and Utilities Bill Nash presented the commissioners with a few different options.
The first being the road be paved to American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) standards, a cost of about $5-6-million.
The next option was for there to be a maintenance standard of six-inch graded aggregate base (GAB) over the road to allow vehicles to come in and out. That had an estimated cost of $525,000.
The other option was county standard besides a troublesome curve in the road, which would cost a couple million dollars.
The last one was leaving the road as is, with no changes.
Commissioner Jeff Stowe made the point that getting the road to AASHTO standard would make it built to last for 50 years, a much more enticing proposition than just simple material over it that would need to be redone shortly.
The commissioners first decided to do the road from the development to Blackjack Road to county standard and the other portion to Friendship Road to maintenance standard, a total cost of a little over $1-million with a $650,000 contribution from the developer.
County Administrator Zach Propes then interjected, saying the commissioners should reconvene to put this in the next fiscal year budget and do phase one by April of 2026 and phase two by July of 2028, with Hall County performing the work/
Michael Cooper, the developer, said he would be willing to do the road to maintenance standard but cited the originally agreed upon $650,000 figure that they would contribute. He also cited how drawn out the process has been and asked if they could do the work if the county could not get to it by April of 2026.
District 1 Commissioner Kathy Cooper, who represents the district the road is on, amended the motion for the developer to fully fund the portion to Blackjack Road to county standard with the county funding the portion to Friendship Road to maintenance standard.
Propes added the county would fulfill the work in 12 to 24 months.
Kathy Cooper stuck to her motion for the developer to shoulder the cost to Blackjack Road/
“It’s not my responsibility to tell you how much that’s going to cost,” she said.
The developer rebutted, showcasing his frustration at the standard the road is being held to.
“It’s not the developer's problem to realign a county road,” Michael Cooper said. “The county engineering department decided we want this to be the Taj Mahal of roads and be a 6 million dollar road.”
The commission ultimately passed the motion to have the developer fund the portion to Blackjack and for the county to do the portion to Friendship to maintenance standard by April of 2026.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2025/1/1280418/hall-co-commission-decides-on-contentious-swansey-road-development