By Tara DeRock Mahoney
Senior Staff Writer

    Morgan County Planning Commission members recommended approval of a re-zoning of 94 acres of AG land near the county’s one-time “mega-site” last week.
    Once upon a time, a large tract of land just south of the City of Madison was ear-marked for a possible Ford Motor Company plant. Plans for the plant tanked, but the assembled acreage, dubbed the “mega-site,” has been labeled as land appropriate for industrial use. A portion of that land—currently zoned Agricultural—could be re-zoned as I-1, or industrial use land, in coming weeks.
“It’s the area surrounding the City of Madison’s new [wastewater reclamation facility],” said county senior planner Allison Moon. “It’s adjacent to 240 acres that are already zoned I-1.”
The land, if re-zoned, would be purchased by the Patillo companies for use as the site of 500,000 square feet of warehouse space. The project, which has been designated as a “Development of Regional Impact” because of its size, was determined to be in the best interests of the region by the Northeast Georgia RDC. The Morgan County Conservancy commented on the project in recent weeks as well, and noted that the amount of impervious surfaces and the width of stream buffers should be of concern to the county.
Because the land is adjacent to existing I-1 property, as well as the railroad, county planners had no substantive objections to the re-zoning. The area is also marked as appropriate for industrial on the county’s future land-use map.
The planning commission did append some recommended conditions to their seal of approval. The re-zoning is contingent upon interested parties working with the City of Madison to install a traffic light at the intersection of Pierce Dairy Road and Hwy. 441. No curb cuts will be granted along Indian Creek Road until such a time as that road is paved to county standards. And finally, no truck traffic will be permitted to leave the south end of the site, near Mission and Aqua Roads; all truck traffic will be required to exit the development onto Pierce Dairy Road.
Morgan County commissioners are expected to review the recommendation at their regular meeting on May 8. Commissioners will not convene on their regular first-Tuesday meeting date; in May only, they will meet on the first Thursday of the month.