Laid-back Living In Rincon, the county’s largest city

Laid-back Living

In Rincon, the county’s largest city, leaders also are boosting the quality of life while maintaining its status as one of the rare Georgia cities with no property tax.

On the heels of announcements to build a much larger Kroger store and a new Chick-fil-A restaurant, Rincon decided to hire a retail coach/consultant to help market the city commercially.

City Manager Wesley Corbitt says the consultant will look for chain stores that would be a good fit for Rincon’s demographics.

According to the last traffic study about 18 months ago, he says, “We have something like 30,000 cars a day that go in front of our town on the streets, and that’s a lot of people.”

Rincon is also setting aside land for recreation. Freedom Park was built on a 20-acre field the city bought downtown. It has a stage and hosts Oktoberfest and a huge July 4 celebration.

Four new ballfields were added last fall at Macomber Park for a total of eight fields, making it “one-stop shopping for recreation,” Corbitt says.

Rincon has also added firefighting equipment and staff to improve its fire protection rating, thus lowering insurance premiums for its citizens. The city also is upgrading its antiquated water infrastructure. With the housing market back up to at least 100 permits a year for new homes, the city is also looking into expanding its water and sewer lines. “We’re running out of lots inside the city limits,” Corbitt says.

Permits for houses in Springfield, Bennett says, have also “picked up tremendously.”

The chamber’s Lott says that with projections of population growth in the county nearly doubling in the next 10 to 15 years, Effingham is ready except in one major area.

“The one piece that’s missing – and it’s a hard fix – is the transportation,” he says. “Highway 21, which is the main artery between Effingham County and Chatham County, is already very congested.”

Lott says the deepening of the Savannah harbor in the coming years carries a mixed blessing.

“It’s going to bring us lots and lots of business, lots of new folks, but it’s going to put a lot of additional trucks on the highway,” he says.

A plan to build a new parkway by creating a roadway or modifying an existing roadway to take trucks off Highway 21 requires state and federal funding.

While Lott says city dwellers are used to traffic, “here in the country, you don’t think that’s supposed to be the norm.”

Still, with all of its charms, Effingham County could be called picture perfect.
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