Public Hearing Scheduled for Abandonment of Roads in Lavonia Area

A public hearing is scheduled in Franklin County on the county’s plans to abandon several roads that are expected to be taken over by the City of Lavonia.

The public hearing will take place Monday, October 3 at 5:30p at the Justice Center in Carnesville.

In August, Franklin County Commissioners began the process of transferring certain roads to the City of Lavonia.

Those roads include Gerrard Road from Highway 328 to Pleasant Hill Road; Tiger Tail Road from Highway 59 (West Avenue) to end; Concrete Road from Pleasant Hill Road to end; and Pleasant Hill Road from Gerrard Road to Highway 17.

The roads in question are near retail and commercial areas in Lavonia that are experiencing ongoing or new growth.

At their August meeting, commissioners voted to accept a resolution to abandon the roads with a view towards offering them to the City.

County attorney Bubba Samuels explained, however, that there is a process that must be gone through in order to transfer those roads to Lavonia, that includes a public hearing.

“The process for removing a county road from the county road system is called road abandonment. It requires a public hearing and a resolution from this Board after notice in the paper,” Samuels explained. “And once that resolution is adopted the road is removed from the County’s road system and at that point the statute authorizes us to first offer it to the City the road runs through and convey by a quit claim deed to the city, which is a long way to get to the relief the City is asking for but it’s a process that is state law and in my legal opinion is required in order to remove the road from the County road system.”

In July, the Lavonia City Council also approved a resolution to request the annexation of those roads after hearing from City Mayor Courtney Umbehant.

The Mayor said only the roads would be annexed into the city, not properties.

Anyone living along the roads in question will be able to make a comment for or against at the public hearing.

There will also be a diagram available of the roads in question.

Again, that public hearing takes place at 5:30p on Monday, Oct. 3 at the Justice Center in Carnesville before the regular Board of Commission meeting.