Habersham County Commissioners are proceeding with plans to hold two more public hearings on the proposed Soque Scenic Byway. Commission chair Chad Henderson says he expects the next byway hearing will be held in January but says nothing has yet been decided.
Commissioners voted Monday, November 17, to begin again with the public hearing process after it was brought to their attention that 300 property owners along the proposed byway route were left off the mailing list when notices about this year’s hearings were mailed.
The mailing list was obtained from the Habersham County Planning Department and compiled by the City of Clarkesville, the lead sponsor of the byway proposal. Clarkesville City Manager Barbara Kesler says she doesn’t know what happened to the 300 missing addresses but says she’s certain it was “an honest, innocent mistake.”
The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) requires public hearings to be held before it will even consider awarding a byway designation. Some have referred to the lapse in notification of those hearings as a ‘technical error’ that caused the county to be out of compliance with state byway application guidelines, but Kesler disagrees. Kesler says state DOT guidelines say “an attempt” should be made to mail out notifications to all property owners. She’s referring to this section of the Georgia Scenic Byways Program Designation Guide which states:
“Sponsors should attempt to notify, by letter, every property owner along the potential byway, explaining their efforts and inviting them to a public meeting…In addition, an announcement of each public meeting should be placed in the appropriate local newspaper or other appropriate media.”
Kesler says, “I think we made a valid, concerted attempt to do that (notify all property owners) and we covered ourselves by putting notices in the newspaper before the public hearings.”
Meanwhile, county officials read the byway guidelines differently. Henderson says, “The way that the county attorney reads the regulations, the property owners must be notified. I am sure that there is some “reasonable attempt” measure that they take into consideration, but nothing that is clearly defined.”
Henderson says the county’s decision to hold more public hearings is based on one overriding factor, “The majority of the people who live along that route don’t live in the city so they don’t have any redress with the city, but they do with us.” He adds, “The county commission, all five of us, would tell you we just point blank underestimated the gravity that this partcular issue had as it related to the people who live along the route. When it was presented to us (by the City of Clarkesville) it was presented as a means to attract tourists.”
Supporters of the byway say it began as a positive, well-intentioned attempt to spur tourism and preserve the natural beauty of Habersham County. Since then, it has become a polarizing issue; a long and sometimes nasty, bitter debate over personal property rights and public interests.
Clarkesville has agreed to pay for half of the costs of the new round of notices that will be mailed in advance of next year’s public hearings. The county paid for the last mailing.
Kesler says she expects the Clarkesville City Council will discuss the Soque Scenice Byway at its next meeting in December but adds no further action is required by council members. The application has been delivered to GDOT and Kesler says she’s satisfied the city followed proper protocol, “We followed all of the requirements set forth by the DOT.”
As for the county, Henderson says, “We got it wrong the first time. We will not do this in such a way as to “short cut” the process. When a mistake is made we need to fix it if we can. We made a mistake.”
