Video, Web Site, Facebook Page Support Shopping Center Rezone

An Athens sales and marketing firm has registered a web site to promote the rezoning of 47 acres at the corner of Mars Hill Road and the Oconee Connector for a major shopping center that would include a Publix.

The web site contains information used by land planner Ken Beall in his presentation to the Oconee County Planning Commission on Monday night, including a concept plan for the project that is different from and at odds with the one submitted to the county for the rezone request.

Centerpiece of the web site is a video that has been shared on Facebook that calls the project “environmentally responsible.”

The developers have secured a permit to drain and fill a stream on the site, and planners at the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission criticized the project as disruptive of “onsite natural resources.”

The web site uses the name Grow Smart Oconee, and a related Facebook page says Grow Smart Oconee is a “Community Organization.”

The video, the web site, and the Facebook page do not give any contact information or any other information about who is behind Grow Smart Oconee.

For more on this story, please go to Oconee County Observations.