-David Crowder, WRGA News-
The Floyd County Commission has approved the purchase of just over 7.9 acres off of Blacks Bluff Road for a blueways paddle-in campsite on the Oostanaula River.
The campsite is a 2017 special purpose, local option sales tax project, according to Floyd County Manager Jamie McCord.
“This was actually a citizen application in 2017 by Mr. Frank Harmon,” McCord said.”It’s about the fifth property we have considered over the last several years. Since 2019, we’ve been looking pretty actively for properties to do this. It’s a very difficult project to site and actually to find property available. This property did appraise below the asking price. The parcel did appraise at a price of $110,000, and the negotiated asking price is $80,239.”
The purchase also resolves a conflict at Etowah Park, involving the fire station that was constructed in the late 1990s, which encroached upon Land Water Conservation Fund property.
“This will undo that,” McCord told the commission. We’ll be putting the paddle in site into the LWCF fund. We will remove the fire station from the LWCF fund, and both parcels will satisfy that demand. That will put us back in good standing with the LWCF, as well as make us available for future grants that may be available as future projects come along”
932,000 was included in the 2017 SPLOST for the project.
