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Driveway alignment and turn‑lane at Sharp Mountain Creek divides commissioners over cost and safety
Summary
Commissioners debated whether to require a developer or neighboring property owner to realign driveways to support a new left‑turn lane on Ball Ground Highway; engineering recommended alignment where feasible, the property representative estimated relocation costs between roughly $250,000 and $451,000, and commissioners weighed safety, feasibility and who should pay.
A lengthy exchange at the Cherokee County work session focused on a developer proposal for the Sharp Mountain Creek Overlook entrance on Ball Ground Highway and whether driveways should be aligned or a double/two‑way left‑turn lane constructed.
Transportation staff said standard practice is to align new entrances with opposite driveways when feasible; the engineering recommendation to either require the developer to align the entrance or work with the neighbor to relocate the existing driveway prompted debate about cost and feasibility. A developer representative and the property owner’s representative described topographic and access constraints that could make relocation expensive.
The property owner’s representative said a contractor bid for relocating and reconfiguring the neighbor’s driveway and related work was $451,000 but the county’s consultant estimated a lower figure of about $254,794 for work specifically tied to moving Mr. Stone’s entrance. The representative characterized the larger number as negotiation padding and said a modest gravel extension might be far less, but acknowledged that full driveway relocation could be a major expense.
Commissioners discussed safety trade‑offs between a single northbound left‑turn lane and a two‑way left‑turn lane, differences in traffic speed on Ball Ground Highway (45 mph) versus other local roads and whether the county could force an existing legal entrance to move if the property owner objected. Staff said an existing entrance typically cannot be forced to move; requiring alignment or mitigation would generally fall to the new development where feasible.
Several commissioners said the situation should be resolved at the design level and that moving a driveway for a few trips per day may be impractical and costly, while others warned that failing to secure alignment now could create a more serious traffic problem if adjacent development increases volumes in the future. The board concluded the issue had been ‘‘beat to death’’ in the work session and planned to discuss it again during the evening meeting and in subsequent deliberations.
