Construction has progressed since the go-ahead was issued in January for the first phase of a 1,200-acre gated housing development off Highway 282 and Crossroads Church Road, confirmed the Gilmer County Planning and Zoning Office.
The High River development will consist of 305 lots that are 3 or more acres each. One hundred of those lots have already been sold, noted Planning and Zoning Director Karen Henson. The property is being developed by Flint Mountain Holdings, of Blue Ridge.
“There will probably be six or eight phases. They’ve finished the first three phases, but there’s been no permits issued for residences yet. They had a massive sale a week ago and sold all 100 lots the same day. They’ve got 23 lots in phase 4 that’s just gotten approved for the preliminary. They can’t sell those lots till they get the final plat approved.” Henson explained.
“The preliminary is the point where you can start putting the roads in. Once the roads are finished, you have to have a final plat approval. Once the final plat is approved and recorded, they can sell the lots and the owners of the lots would come in and get building permits,” she added.
Mark Chastain, whose company, Chastain and Associates, is the surveyor for the project, noted how unusual it is for 100 lots in a development to all sell on the same day.
“I’ve been doing this for 33 years and I’ve not ever heard of anything close to that,” he said. “The final plat was approved at the June planning commission meeting for those three phases and they were all sold at a one-day sale event June 20. The market has absorbed them as quickly as they can be put out there.”
A larger subdivision was planned to be built in the same area several years ago, but construction never started on that project, said Chastain.
“When zoning came in in 2005, Flint Timber owned all of this and it was all zoned R2. It was approved and zoned for like 1,900 and something lots and a golf course,” he said of the previous proposed development, Mountaintown Creek at Carters Lake.
Flint Timber, the developers for that project, and Flint Mountain Holdings, the developers for High River, are two different entities, Henson noted.
A Development of Regional Impact (DRI) application for High River has been submitted to the Northwest Georgia Regional Commission. The estimated project completion date listed on that DRI is July 2023.
“With housing, anything over 125 lots is the point where you have to do a DRI with the state. The Northwest Georgia Regional Commission handles the DRI along with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs when needed. They send out requests to any potentially affected county/office/department for review and comments,” said Henson.
The estimated value at build-out listed on the economic development portion of the DRI document is $100 million and the estimated annual local tax revenue likely to be generated by the proposed development is listed at $1 million.
Some of the High River property neighbors Coosawattee River Resort, Henson noted.
“The phase that goes across Mountaintown Creek will back up to Coosawattee. They will abut one another,” she added.
There will not be an entrance-exit connection between the two developments, noted Chastain.
“There is a tentative agreement to allow for an emergency-only gate that Coosawattee public safety and the High River POA would have a key to, but it’s not for daily access or convenience,” he added.
High River will not be nearly as large as Coosawattee River Resort, but the scenic location and proposed amenities make for prime real estate, Chastain said.
“This is a different product. It’s a master plan, low-density development with parks and common areas throughout. There’s going to be a 15-acre park put in where Mountaintown Creek runs into the Coosawattee River, which, to me, is about the prettiest spot in the county. The park has already been drawn out, preliminary platted and voted on by the planning commission,” he added.
Chastain noted how the early interest in purchasing lots in the development also speaks to Gilmer County becoming an attractive place to own mountain property, which, over the last two decades, has also driven high-dollar sales in such scenic locations as Cashiers and Highlands, N.C.
“That appetite for what Highlands had to offer 15 years ago has crept southward. Whether it’s good or bad, I think Gilmer County is about to catch it,” he said.
“Over the last 15 years, my company has done a whole lot of surveying for developments in this area. A whole lot of them didn’t get finished. They got boxed up and the bank took them back and sold them. Either one lot or one development at a time, they’ve pretty much all had the dust blown off of them and been rejuvenated. For the most part, they’ve all sold. There’s no inventory out there (as far as) a quality product that an affluent buyer wants to buy.”