The City of Cornelia unanimously approved an amendment to their city code restricting where residents can place their leaves and brush, as well as an amendment extending their downtown entertainment district, at their Tuesday night meeting.
Leaf ordinance
The commissioners unanimously approved the leaf and brush ordinance first discussed at the commission’s Jan. 11 meeting. The amendment to their city code, Ordinance 1-22-01, makes it illegal for residents to place leaves or brush in city storm ditches, culverts and on top of catch basins.
The city, and city residents, say that leaves and brush ending up in stormwater mitigation infrastructure is causing flooding during rain events.
“The leaves are a problem in the street,” Cornelia citizen Kristi Lewallen told the commissioners before their vote. “They’re causing problems— a lot of flooding. Two cars can’t pass on the road because of [the] leaves.”
Lewallen is hopeful the city can further enforce keeping resident-placed leaves and brush out of the roadways, as well as stormwater mitigation.
“It’s a flooding issue, and it’s a traffic issue,” Lewallen said.
Cornelia Mayor John Borrow shared that they’re working on ways to address her concerns, including the ordiance they voted on following public comment.
“This is something we’ve been dealing with, really, since the fall,” Borrow said. “We hear you and we’ve seen this all over the city, and you’re exactly right. We’re working on it.”
Entertainment district
The commission also unanimously approved the expansion of the city’s entertainment district to encompass South Main Street, Front Street, Larkin Street and Fore Acre Street.
Local businesses, as well as the city’s downtown development authority, expressed their approval of the expansion to the commissioners. At the meeting, representatives from Habersham Hardware and Farm and Lavish Marketplace spoke at the public hearing in favor of the entertainment district’s expansion.
“We feel like that will be a beneifit to us to attract different businesses, or whatever comes in, to our vacant buildings that have been sitting there now for a year vacant,” Lewis Cody of Habersham Hardware said.
Alice Dover of Farm and Lavish also brought the positive effects she believes the entertainment district expansion would have on her business forward.
“We’re not looking to sell alcohol, we just want people to have the privlidge of coming into our location with it if they’re bringing it in from Fenders Alley, or Bigg Daddy’s, or wherever,” she says.
No one spoke in oposition of the expansion.
