Carrollton’s school board and city government have reached an agreement on a stretch of land that will become part of the Carrollton Greenbelt, a 14-mile trail that will eventually circle the city.

Charles Griffin, Carrollton’s planning and zoning and administrator, has been working with Carrollton City Schools on the project, which includes property owned by the system.

“Today, the school board decided that they were content with where we wanted to put it,” he said this week. “Now that we’ve done that, we have a complete area between Hay’s Mill Road and Ben Scott Boulevard where the greenbelt is going.”

With that information, the city can now complete its engineering and construction plans and submit them to state for approval, he said. After approval, the city can put the project up for bid, he said.

“The state is telling us that their average review for the concept report, which is where we are now, is three to six months,” Griffin said. “Along those lines it could be sometime along April, early April at the very earliest with the concept review. It could go out as late as June or July.”

That could pose a problem for the school district, which is hoping the construction will be finished before school starts again in early August. Ben Scott Boulevard is the main thoroughfare for Carrollton Elementary School Carrollton Junior High School and Carrollton High School. It gets congested with cars and buses before school and at dismissal, even without construction blocking traffic, school system Chief Operating Officer Steve Spofford said.

“It’s imperative that, if they do this, it needs to be completed by the time school starts,” he said. “If this is all torn up with construction “ I don’t need that in my life.”

Griffin hopes the construction is finished before the 2008-09 school year. If it is not, the city will try to work with the system - maybe moving construction to the weekend or non-school hours, he said.

“We’re very sensitive to that, and we definitely don’t want to cause any traffic problems there,” he said.

One of the holdups in the negotiation process has been the school system’s cross country course, which the proposed greenbelt would have crossed. But that couldn’t happen, according to Spofford. The trail will be concrete, and Georgia High School Association regulations prohibit cross country runners from running on concrete, he said.

The new plans call for a knee wall along the area of the track closest to the greenbelt to guide runners along the track and away from the concrete, he said.

Phase I of the greenbelt is being financed through $850,000 in grants from Georgia Department of Transportation. The city had previously received a $150,000 Land and Water Conservation grant to construct the parking lot, pavilion and bathrooms on Hay’s Mill Road that will serve as one end of the greenbelt. From there, the trail will parallel Buffalo Creek and have three spurs into the Amy Lane, Clark Street and Nixon Street areas. The greenbelt will then follow Ben Scott Boulevard and will end at the corner of Tom Reeve Drive and Ben Scott Boulevard.

“We should know in the next couple of weeks what the full cost will be,” Griffin said. “But we’re very optimistic that we’ll be able to do that entire first leg with the ($850,000).”

The trail will be 12-foot-wide concrete path suitable for use by walkers, joggers, bikers and skaters, he said. It will be up to the City Council to decide who can and cannot use the trail, he said. There will be a buffer with a row of trees along Ben Scott Boulevard.

“We’re very excited about this first phase of the greenbelt,” Griffin said. “It has a large concentration of people. ... It’ll provide immediate access for those residents.”

Superintendent Tom Wilson said the greenbelt will enhance the access to the school campus either by walking or by bike, he said.

“What I’m excited about is I think eventually students will be able to ride bicycles to school on the greenbelt,” Wilson said. “It will be good for their wellness to exercise. We actually have some kids that ride bikes to school at the junior high that live close, but with the greenbelt it’ll be a lot safer than on the roads or sidewalks.”

In addition, it might help with traffic problems, he added.