County wants homebuilders to abide by their rules

Published 12:00 pm Thursday, August 4, 2016

The Lafayette County Board of Supervisors took the unprecedented step of deciding to have temporary weight limit signs posted in a subdivision development in order to prevent concrete trucks and other large vehicles from using the main entrance to Shelbi Place.

The subdivision, located on Highway 7, has an entrance on County Road 370 for work vehicles, but residents claim that entrance is not being utilized by the homebuilders and workers are parking their trucks three deep on the road.

Supervisor Mike Roberts said “enough is enough” and made the motion for the weight limit at the recommendation of county inspector Joel Hollowell who outlined the problems during Monday evening’s regular board meeting.

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“I’m tired of my phone ringing day and night,” Roberts said. “All these people can’t be wrong. If it takes shutting the project down, I don’t want to go there, but we’ve bent over backwards and we’re hearing the same problems over and over again.”

Roberts expressed concern for residents in the area.

Supervisor Chad McLarty disagreed with the need for temporary weight limit signs that would put an unnecessary hindrance on construction workers. McLarty, who is also a sub-contractor and is not involved in this project, said this is an issue between the developer and the homebuilders. He said he doesn’t like the precedent it sets.

“I don’t understand where we’re going with weight limit signs,” McLarty said.

His fellow supervisors decided to issue the temporary weight limit of 6,000 pounds.

In other matters:

— The Blake sought tax exemption on the true value of their $7,131,072. 93 property. No one from the Blake was present and the motion died for lack of a second.

— Laura Beth Walker with the Oxford-Lafayette County Public Library made her budget request for more laptops. The supervisors said they would take it under advisement.

— Accepted the fiscal year 2015 audit from David Engel of Fortenberry & Ballard, PC.