Habersham shelter planning moves ahead while construction-manager decision remains unresolved

Habersham County’s most recent documented move toward a new animal shelter came May 18, 2026, when the Board of Commissioners agenda called for considering an award of RFP 2026-12 for shelter fencing to A&T Fence. The item indicates that procurement work on the facility was continuing, but it was a proposed award on an agenda, not confirmation that the board approved it or that fencing work began.

The unresolved question is larger than a fencing contract. County leaders had considered bringing the shelter together with planned Fire/EMS/911 buildings under one construction manager at risk, an arrangement staff said could help value-engineer the designs before the firm returned with a guaranteed maximum price. Whether that plan was adopted affects how residents can understand responsibility for coordinating the projects, their eventual pricing and their schedules.

At the May 20, 2024 commission meeting, staff said the county had identified a new shelter site, completed roughly 90% of the design work and received responses from seven firms to its construction-manager RFP. The proposed manager would work on both the shelter and public-safety facilities, then develop a guaranteed maximum price. A year later, a separate May 19, 2025 board agenda proposed a Rochester traffic-engineering study and signal for the future Fire-EMS headquarters driveway on U.S. 441/SR 365, showing related public-safety planning continued. The 2026 fencing proposal marked another step tied specifically to the shelter.

County staff presented the construction-manager approach as a cost-control and design-review tool: select a manager early, let that firm value-engineer the work, and seek a guaranteed maximum price afterward. The commissioners were the decision-makers asked to consider that approach and, later, the proposed fencing award. The records identify A&T Fence as the proposed recipient of the shelter-fencing RFP, while Rochester was named in the separate proposal for a study and signal at the future Fire-EMS headquarters access point. Neither proposal itself establishes an approved contract.

Planning, design development and proposed procurement are documented. What is not documented in the cited records is an executed construction-manager agreement, a guaranteed maximum price, a construction award or a construction start for either the shelter or the Fire/EMS/911 buildings. Most importantly, the May 20, 2024 minutes excerpt records discussion of the construction-manager proposal but does not state the commission’s outcome, so it cannot establish that commissioners approved the shared-manager plan.

The next meaningful public action would be a board record, procurement document or executed contract identifying the construction manager and specifying what commissioners authorized. Until such a record appears, residents cannot tell from these materials whether Habersham adopted the one-manager approach, approved the proposed A&T Fence award, or settled the price and timetable for the shelter and planned public-safety facilities.