County wants input for nature trail

County leaders will seek input from the public on Tuesday about a proposed greenway trail along the Euchee Creek corridor.

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Columbia County Community and Leisure Services officials and members of the county's Greenspace Advisory Board, who initiated plans for the trail, are looking for the public's help to determine the route of the proposed pedestrian and biking path and answer any of their concerns, the county's community forester Preston Duffie said.

"We want to take their input and make sure we incorporate it into the trail itself," Duffie said.

The original master plan for the Euchee Creek greenway project called for a biking, walking and jogging trail to stretch several miles from Chamblin Road near Interstate 20 north past Patriots Park to Riverside Park on Hardy McManus Road.

Last month, county officials removed from consideration a proposal to build a portion of the trail on a skirt of county-owned land between the creek and dozens of homes in Evans along Barnsley Drive. That portion of the plan raised the ire of many homeowners in that area when county leaders presented the proposal Jan. 11 to residents in Stratford subdivision.

"We're kind of backing up and (approaching) the developers instead of the individual homeowners," Duffie said. "We want to make sure that any homeowners who will be impacted by it in the future will have a say-so in what is designed and constructed."

Duffie said the county and The Jaeger Co., the company hired to design the trail, are negotiating with developers of subdivisions in the Chamblin Road area to include the trail in their plans as a community amenity.

The meeting begins at 6 p.m. in the Columbia County Government Complex Auditorium in Evans.