Land Clearing in Lavonia, GA

Land clearing in Lavonia as the town grows

Lavonia began as a railroad stop planned in 1878. It took its name from Lavonia Jones, the wife of the railroad's president. The 2020 Census counted 2,143 people in the city. Census Bureau estimates date about four in ten of its homes to before 1970.

Lavonia meets I-85 at Exit 173. Franklin County's 2024 joint plan names the I-85 interchanges as the places most likely to change fast. It marks the land around Lavonia and Carnesville as a growth area for new homes and shops. The plan also says GA 17 will be widened and partly rerouted, and Lavonia is among the towns most affected.

New house sites come out of wooded tracts and old fields. Site preparation clears the brush and small trees off the house site and the drive. The mature trees you want to keep stay standing, so you can see where the house will sit. If you own an older lot in town, the job may be a grown-up back corner or a fence line.

Bush hogging and fence line clearing on Franklin County farms

Franklin County is farm country. The county plan ranks it third among Georgia counties for farm value in 2022. It calls the county a haven for poultry growers and says it hosts the state's largest livestock market.

Farm ground like that needs upkeep. A pasture that skips a season of cutting grows tall weeds, then briars and saplings. Bush hogging with the heavy brush cutter on our track loader cuts that growth back down. Farm customers come back each season to keep their fields open.

Fence rows are often the first to close in. Privet crowds the wire and saplings root along the posts. Fence line clearing mulches the row down so the fence can be repaired or rebuilt. The same mulching head opens property lines and grown-over farm roads.

Clearing a Lake Hartwell lot near Lavonia

Lake Hartwell is Lavonia's back yard. The Army Corps of Engineers built it between 1955 and 1963 on the Savannah, Tugaloo and Seneca Rivers. Tugaloo State Park covers 393 acres on a wooded peninsula of the lake, with a Lavonia address. Gumlog, one of the county's most settled areas outside the cities, sits between town and the lake homes.

A strip of public land usually lies between a private lake lot and the water. The Corps manages that strip and marks its line with painted blazes on witness trees. Its shoreline plan says the painted trees show about where the line runs. Finding your own property line is the landowner's job, and the Corps shares boundary information for surveys.

Brush cutting on that strip takes a Shoreline Use Permit from the Corps. The plan allows hand tools only there, such as chain saws and weed trimmers. It limits the cutting to growth under 3 inches across at ground level.

Machine work belongs on the private side of the line. There, underbrushing mulches the privet and briars under your big trees and opens up the woods. Lake-area homes in the county often run on septic systems, the county plan notes. Mark the tank and the drain field before machine work starts.

Red clay and the permit offices around Lavonia

NRCS soil maps put the center of Lavonia on Cecil sandy loam, a sandy surface over red clay. Madison, Appling and Pacolet soils show up on the slopes around town. Many of those map units carry an eroded label, and some are listed as severely eroded. Creek bottoms in the area hold soils the maps call occasionally flooded.

Bear Creek and Unawatti Creek run by town, and Crawford Creek and Gum Log Creek feed Lake Hartwell. The county plan says most streams on the state's list are there for bacteria or sediment. NOAA's climate normals for nearby Toccoa put yearly rain near 59 inches. Forestry mulching leaves a layer of mulch on the ground, so the clay stays covered after the brush comes down.

Inside the city limits, Lavonia's code has its own zoning and building chapters, so start at City Hall. Outside them, Franklin County's Planning and Zoning Department handles county zoning. Neither the county nor the city is on the state's list of local issuing authorities for erosion permits. For both, EPD's Northeast District office in Athens handles erosion permits.

Machine digging and grading call for a Georgia 811 ticket at least three business days ahead. Private lines to a barn or a well go unmarked, so point them out first. A new driveway onto GA 17 or another state route takes a permit from the Georgia DOT area office.