Habersham County rejects proposed event center and farm tours on Preacher Campbell Road

Habersham County commissioners rejected Doug Campbell’s conditional-use application to operate an event center and offer farm tours on 35 acres at 850 Preacher Campbell Road. The Board of Commissioners considered CU-26-01 during a public hearing on Jan. 20, 2026, for property in the county’s Low Intensity district.

The decision matters because the proposed operation required conditional approval rather than being treated as a routine by-right use. Without that approval, Campbell cannot proceed with the event-center and farm-tour plan described in CU-26-01 for this site, though the decision does not itself settle what another future use of the property might be.

County meeting materials first put the request before the public as a Jan. 20 hearing item. The agenda identified Campbell’s application for the Preacher Campbell Road acreage, and the Board then held the hearing that day. The resulting item record says commissioners did not approve the request, turning the application from a proposal into a rejected conditional-use request.

Campbell sought permission for two linked uses: an event center and farm tours. The proposal included a 50-by-231-foot gravel parking area expected to serve about 50 to 70 vehicles, along with proposed limits for private events and driveway sight-distance conditions. Commissioners, acting on the conditional-use request after the public hearing, did not approve that proposal.

The Jan. 20 hearing and the county’s nonapproval are completed actions; the event center, farm tours, parking area and proposed operating conditions were elements of an application, not established improvements or operations. The minutes identify the application as not approved, but the quoted item text does not give a vote count, name commissioners’ reasons, list formal findings or say whether any alternative conditions were considered. Nothing in the record establishes that either proposed operation has begun.

The next public indication of the property’s direction would be a planning or Board of Commissioners filing for 850 Preacher Campbell Road, such as a revised conditional-use request or a different application. It remains unknown whether Campbell will pursue another approval route, what a new proposal might contain, and how commissioners would act on it. The Jan. 20 records do not establish an amendment, a new application or implementation of the rejected plan.