Wednesday, November 21, 2001
|
Wednesday, November 21, 2001 |
|
County buys 180 acres for north Fayette park By DAVE HAMRICK Fayette County has purchased 180.5 acres of rolling pasture and forest land for a community park for north Fayette residents, including more than 40 acres of permanent green space. "It's a nice piece of property ... a big piece of property, where we can do what we need to do now, and if we need to we can add [facilities] to it later," said Greg Dunn, chairman of the Board of Commissioners. He said tentative plans are for "ball fields, a picnic area, maybe a pavilion," on the land, which fronts on Kenwood Road and Ga. Highway 279. Work could begin as early as next summer, if all goes well, Dunn said. Grants from Georgia's green space program will provide more than $380,000 toward the purchase. The remainder of the purchase price undisclosed at this time will come from funds the county has been putting aside for this purpose. "We took that money and put it with the green space money and that made a really good deal for a park," said Dunn. Residents working through the North Fayette Homeowners Association have pushed for the park for some time, he said. "We don't have any facilities in the north county right now for recreation, and we had committed to them to provide some decent facilities and we're going to do it," said Dunn. An added benefit to purchasing the property, he said, is that the land is now preserved from development. "A lot of people don't realize what we have up here in the north part of the county," Dunn said. With projects like the park and green space program, he said, "This whole part of the county up here is going to be really neat." Fayette has received about three quarters of a million dollars each year of the first two years of the green space program. The state Legislature, in creating the program, made the funding available to counties that would commit to a long-term effort to set aside 20 percent of their land area as permanent green space. "I like the green space program," said Dunn, "because it coincides with our desire to keep the county, as much as possible, like it is."
|
||