Georgia County Government - October 2008 - (Page 24) SOUTH GEORGIA continued from page 23 of travelers en route to Florida via I-75 – the objective being, getting them to stop for a day and a night and see the sights in South Georgia. One of the region’s most exciting recreation additions sure to be an attractive “pit stop” for travelers, and beyond that, a destination in itself, is the South Georgia Motor Sports Park in Cook County, a race track that features a “combo” drag strip and oval track which was recently featured on both the Speed Network and ESPN, according to Waldron. The county and region have high hopes for the success of this new attraction. As mentioned previously, the park’s potential economic impact could be as much as $37 million per year. Reed Bingham State Park, one of the most popular in the state, is convenient to travelers along I-75 as well. Operated in the region by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, it remains a popular destination for campers and day excursions. The Georgia Agrirama Center in Tifton is a well-known venue for agricultural shows, exhibitions and fairs which also attracts thousands of visitors yearly. Officials are also proud that there are a growing number of high-profi le golf courses in the region, including that found at the Golf Club of South Georgia, proximal to which the Sun Suite residential development is planned. Turner County features the Crime and Punishment Museum, a quite popular tourist attraction off I-75. The museum, opened in 2003 as a joint tourism effort of the local Chamber of Commerce and the Ashburn Historic Preservation Commission, has hosted more than 20,000 visitors to date, including international visitors from eight foreign nations. The county also hosts the popular Fire Ant Festival every March, which has grown to see 200,000-plus visitors to the county yearly. The business community makes the most of this event, and encourages vendors to set up booths and arts and crafts displays of all kinds. Echols County also offers access to the Alapaha River, offering outstanding canoeing, kayaking, and fishing year-round. Also in the region are the tourist-popular Suwannee and Lapahoochee Rivers. qPublic.net Your On-Line Data & GIS Experts Georgia’s Leading Provider qPublic provides websites for Georgia Tax Commissioners & Assessors. Tax Commissioner’s website visitors query your data by Name, Address, or Parcel/Account Number. Search result webpages display the account information with a convenient Pay Now button. In addition to the searchable database features, all of our websites provide static webpages for general county information, downloadable forms, jurisdiction information, important dates, tax estimator, etc., making it a convenient, efficient community service tool. Reduce your phone calls and office visits by 80%! Virtually keeps your office open 24/7! Satisfaction Guaranteed! qPublic specializes in cross-linking the data from the Assessor’s office with the Tax Commissioner’s data! qPublic provides automated data transfers. qPublic works with ALL systems, including YOURS. qPublic –GET HOOKED TODAY! For more information contact John Cox: john@qpublic.net | (386) 801-5249 | Fax (866) 800-8637 Residential Growth, Zoning Like all of South Georgia and the Georgia coastal region, this region too is seeing an influx of Floridians coming in to live, to take advantage of lower insurance costs, property costs and taxes than in their former state. Residential communities, therefore, while not as pronounced in number as in more urban and metro counties, are also breaking ground or being built. To cope, the counties here are forming alliances such as that between the RDC and the City of Tifton, now consolidating land use and development codes, which will result in a more uniform set of codes for developers. New residential developments here run the gamut for housing aimed for the workforce, affordably priced, to higherend communities anchored by golf courses and selling homes that go up into the half-million-dollar price range, like Sun Suite. According to Waldron, in Cook County, proximal to Lowndes, where residential development among the four is perhaps most active, there is a lot of moderately priced housing being built as well. “The residential growth in 24 GEORGIA COUNTY 326768_Q_public.indd 1 GOVERNMENT 5/7/07 2:23:53 PM http://www.qpublic.net
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