In January, a developer stood before the Greene County Board of Commissioners and made the case for 79 townhomes beside Harbor Club. His representative's argument, as Lake Oconee News reported it, came down to one sentence:
"The zoning here has been in place for decades, and it's in the public record with the same property rights that every other homeowner has. Every homeowner who bought in Harbor Club had notice of these entitlements."
The board voted the plan down anyway. Taken together, those two facts are the most useful thing a buyer comparing Harbor Club with the rest of Lake Oconee can know. Much of the land in and around this community is zoned as a Planned Unit Development, or PUD. A wooded parcel behind a resale home may already have zoning that allows homes. Whether those homes get built is decided later, one plat at a time, in a public meeting. Over the past 18 months those meetings have gone both ways.
The Plan Met the Rules on Paper and Was Still Denied
The proposal was called Harbor Pointe. It was filed by Macallan Capital LLC as a Planned Unit Development on 15.17 acres, with land set aside for lots, common property and road right-of-way. According to Lake Oconee News coverage of the December meeting, Greene County's building and zoning office found that the plan complied with the Georgia Plat Act and the board's own guidelines.
The same Lake Oconee News report says public comment on that one item at the December 9 meeting ran close to an hour and a half. Residents raised privacy, open space and whether there was enough water to serve new development. One Harbor Club resident said many owners had assumed the unlotted areas on the community map were meant to stay open or green. The board tabled the request on a 3-2 vote.
When the request came back in January, the discussion turned to the road. Lake Oconee News reported that the preliminary plat placed Harbor Pointe on Loch Lomond Drive, half a mile from Armour Road. A neighbor near Armour Road described that stretch as more of a "roller coaster track." Chairman Gary Usry moved to approve the plat. The motion died for lack of a second. He then moved to deny, and that motion passed unanimously.
So a plan can satisfy the zoning office and still be denied by the board. When a buyer asks what's going to happen with the land behind a home, the honest answer starts with what the land is zoned for and finishes at a county meeting.
The Same Board Approved Two Plats in 2025
Harbor Pointe came after a different kind of decision. In 2025, The Harbor Company filed two plats through the Dell Law Firm for land zoned PUD inside the Harbor Club development. Both were approved without a dissenting vote.
| Meeting | Applicant | Project | Size | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 10, 2025 | The Harbor Company | Harbor Club on Lake Oconee, Phase 2, Section D | 14 lots on 14.14 acres | Approved unanimously |
| November 18, 2025 | The Harbor Company | Carthouse Commons, Phase I | 19 lots on 29.79 acres | Approved unanimously |
| December 9, 2025 | Macallan Capital LLC | Harbor Pointe Townhomes | 79 units on 15.17 acres | Tabled, 3-2 |
| January 2026 | Macallan Capital LLC | Harbor Pointe Townhomes | 79 units on 15.17 acres | Denied unanimously |
The table shows a pattern. Single-family lots on land zoned PUD inside the community got through. A dense townhome plan whose traffic would run onto a narrow outside road did not. Each decision applied to one parcel and one application. Buyers who want to know what the land next door can become have to look at that specific parcel.
Harbor Club Has More Homesites Than Homes
The community's own figures show how much room is left. According to Harbor Club's history page, John Matney bought Harbor Club in 1992, when it had 15 homes. It has since grown into a 1,100-acre community with more than 1,000 homesites and 650 homes under roof. Those figures date from 2023, and the 2025 plats have added more lots since then. Even by the 2023 count, there were roughly as many platted homesites without a house as there are homes in many smaller Lake Oconee communities.
New construction is filling some of those homesites now. My Home Communities is marketing Club Cottages at Harbor Club, a collection of 19 homesites in a gated section of the community, with single-family homes advertised from the $500s as of early 2026.
This changes how two Harbor Club homes compare. With a new cottage in a recently platted section, the neighbors are mostly visible on the site plan. With an established resale on a wooded edge, the zoning and plat records for the parcel behind it are what show what can be built there.
Next Door, What Gets Built Depends on the Road Work
The land outside the gate follows the same rules on a larger scale. In February 2023, Greene County rezoned about 600 acres off Richland Connector, alongside Harbor Club, from agricultural to PUD for Kolter Land Partners. The concept called for more than 1,400 homes, including villas, condos and single-family homes, built in three phases. Before the vote, Kolter agreed to rename the project, which had been proposed as the Cove at Harbor Club. It also dropped a shared road into Harbor Club, committed to a buffer of at least 50 feet between the communities, and agreed the new community would have its own POA and covenants.
The approval had conditions attached. As Lake Oconee News reported, no preliminary plat would be approved until Kolter had county-approved roadway designs for its intersections with Club Drive and Richland Connector. Its homebuilding timeline also had to line up with improvements on both roads. In March 2024, the county approved TSPLOST funding for engineering design of an access road connecting Club Drive and Richland Connector.
The state highway work is now on a set schedule. In May 2026, Lake Oconee News reported that the Georgia Department of Transportation had awarded Pittman Construction Company a $32.29 million contract. The work covers 3.76 miles of State Route 44 between Carey Station Road and the southern end of the Phase 1 project, widening it to four lanes. It includes new roundabouts at Richland Connector and at Carey Station Road, with completion set for August 31, 2030.
Closer to the front gate, according to the county's June 10, 2025 meeting minutes and May 2025 Planning and Zoning agenda, the board rezoned a 22.5-acre parcel at Club Drive and Wrightsville Church Road in June 2025. It went from A1 agricultural to B1, the county's Neighborhood Convenience Commercial District. The approval requires a 50-foot vegetative buffer along both roads and a 100-foot setback for all vertical structures. It also keeps the Club Drive entrance closed for up to 18 months.
For anyone choosing among Lake Oconee communities, this means the drive into Harbor Club will change over the next several years. The roundabouts are funded, the commercial zoning is approved, and the largest neighboring PUD can't move ahead until its road designs are approved.
Looking Up a Parcel Before You Make an Offer
All of these records are public. Here's how a buyer can check the land around a specific Harbor Club address:
- Search the parcel and its neighbors on Greene County's qPublic parcel search to find ownership and parcel numbers for the wooded land you can see from the house.
- Check those parcels against the county's Identifying Property Zoning page and its GIS mapping page.
- Read recent Board of Commissioners agendas and minutes on the county's meeting portal for plats or rezonings near the address. Every decision in the table above appeared there first.
- Follow Lake Oconee News coverage of Harbor Club, which reported the Harbor Pointe hearings in detail.
These steps show what a parcel is zoned for and what has been filed. To find out what that means for a particular contract, talk to the right professional. This post is general information, not legal advice, and a real estate attorney can confirm how zoning, plats and covenants apply to your situation.
Quick Answers
Does PUD zoning mean the land next to a home will be built on? Not necessarily. Harbor Pointe had zoning its developer described as decades old, and the board still denied the plat.
Is the 600-acre Kolter property part of Harbor Club? No. It was planned with its own POA and covenants, a buffer of at least 50 feet and no shared road into Harbor Club.
When will the GA-44 work at Richland Connector be done? GDOT's contract sets completion for August 31, 2030.
At Harbor Club, what you see from the back porch today doesn't tell you what will be there later. That depends on the zoning and on what the county approves. When you're weighing a home here, we'll pull the parcel maps and recent county decisions for the land around it before you make an offer. Start that conversation with Riezl Baker and Find Your Dream Home with the full picture in hand.
