The Flowery Branch City Council hosted their city council meeting Thursday night at 6 p.m.
One of the items on the agenda was for an intergovernmental agreement between the Hall County Government, the City of Gainesville, the City of Oakwood, and the City of Flowery Branch for a maintenance agreement for the Highlands to Islands trail.
“We’ve had some really awesome meetings with Hall County and the different agencies to talk about what kind of lights we want along the trail, what kind of trash receptacles, what kind of benches so to have that uniformity throughout each jurisdiction has been really nice,” Flowery Branch City Manager Tonya Parrish said.
Flowery Branch’s section of the trail is the Downtown Flowery Branch Trails area, which they will maintain and the parties are agreeing to split the annual maintenance cost of the Highlands to Islands Trail information website, roughly $1,250 a year.
“Several pieces of the Highlands to Islands trail have been built and most of those are not in the City of Flowery Branch yet,” Parrish said. “But as those sections are built it’s just saying that we’ll all maintain them to the same level.”
The trail is funded by Hall County's SPLOST tax along with the federal Transportation Enhancement Grant, the state Local Maintenance Improvement Grant, and other local funds.
The agreement will allow the Cities of Gainesville, Oakwood, and Flowery Branch to do their part in upkeep and maintenance.
