The final meeting of the year for the Fayette County Commission includes one more political hot potato for outgoing commissioners Eric Maxwell and Jack Smith.
County staff on Thursday will be presenting a proposed conceptual alignment for the third and final phase of the controversial West Fayetteville Bypass, which will stretch from just south of Ga. Highway 54 down to Ga. Highway 85 at Harp Road.
This will allow the county to hire a design engineer to develop a preliminary design that will be brought back to the commission at a later date along with a preliminary cost estimate, said Public Works Director Phil Mallon.
The county anticipates making potential changes to the configuration as the county proceeds with field investigations of the proposed layout, Mallon said.
The 4.3-mile project will use existing roads in many circumstances but nearly 50 percent of the road will involve new construction, Mallon said. The project also includes a replacement bridge and a new bridge.
Although this conceptual design for the road was undertaken to minimize impacts to properties “to the greatest extent possible” about four to six properties will have “significant impacts” and may need to be acquired completely, Mallon said.
“We looked at a lot of different alignments and thought this was the best balance of road efficiency in terms of future needs, impact to the environment, impact to property and cost,” Mallon said.
The commission has taken heat from a determined group of citizens over the alignment of the second phase of the bypass, which will go from Sandy Creek Road to Ga. Highway 92. Although that group, the West Fayetteville Bypass Coalition, has threatened to file a federal suit against the project, such a lawsuit has not yet been filed.
