Carroll County opened Moss Ferry Park at 660 Moss Ferry Road in Villa Rica on Tuesday, September 29. That gave the north end of the county nearly 100 acres of woods, creeks, and about five miles of color-coded walking trails. The land comes with legal limits on what can be built there, and county leaders planned the park around those limits on purpose. That is why a park this size has so little built on it.
The easement was there before the park
The property sits just south of Flat Rock Road. When the Carroll County Board of Commissioners voted to accept it, the Douglas County Sentinel reported that it was a 106-acre undeveloped tract with an assessed value of $256,715. The board approved the agreement with Topsoil Preservation Alliance Circa 106, LLC at a September 1 meeting. Credit for the gift goes to Jeff and Brenda Matthews and their family, who donated the land hoping it would become a place the community could enjoy for generations.
The detail that shaped the park came up at the August 27 commission work session. County attorney Stacey Blackmon explained that a conservation easement had been placed on the property in 2018. Under it, permitted uses include protecting critical habitat and certain "low impact" outdoor recreation and education.
The land could have gone a very different way. At the ribbon cutting, District 2 Commissioner Clint Chance said the property had once been zoned as a planned unit development that could have held about 300 homes. The Times-Georgian reported his figure as "over 300 houses." Instead, the land now has a habitat-and-trails restriction written into it, and the county's job was to fit a park inside that restriction.
"No facilities," and the two that got built anyway
From the beginning, county leaders said they wanted to keep construction to a minimum. When the board accepted the donation, Chairman Michelle Morgan described the plan to the Douglas County Sentinel as a passive park, with no facilities on site, so future commissioners wouldn't be "burdened" with more buildings or employees. Chance called passive parks the "way of the future."
Opening day showed how far the plan bent. The county's public works department built a pavilion and a parking lot, according to the Times-Georgian's opening coverage. Those are about the minimum a public trailhead needs to work. Everything past them is trail.
The money tells a similar story. A Carroll County SPLOST table dated November 30, 2023 set aside $250,000 for Moss Ferry Park. At that point $23,141 had been spent and $226,859 was still available. That table is a snapshot from almost three years before opening, not the final cost. Still, the budget was sized for trails and a trailhead, not a recreation complex. Morgan said she worked with county staff and the engineering firm Georgia and West, Inc. throughout the planning and development of the trail system.
The county's announcement, published by The City Menus, admits the park took longer to finish than originally expected. It says the focus stayed on building a park and trail system that would serve the community for generations. Morgan credited Parks Director Kent Johnston with getting the project across the finish line. Chance thanked former Parks Director Ben Skipper for getting it started and former board members Vickie Anderson and Marty Smith for supporting it early.
What the easement protects
The easement protects what's beyond the pavilion, and the people who walked it at opening talked about little else. On a short tour with the Times-Georgian, Johnston pointed to the creeks and to one stand of trees in particular:
"There are several creeks out there, and there are long leaf magnolias. I've never seen quite so many growing in one spot as I've seen at the end of the Sandy Creek Trail." Kent Johnston, Carroll County Parks Director, Times-Georgian
He also pointed out native azaleas that bloom in spring and several kinds of ferns in the undergrowth. Morgan described the tree canopy: "There's a lot of nature back there," she told the paper. "You just don't know until you get back there."
Routes range from about a half-mile to more than three miles, so the same parking lot works for a quick loop before dinner or a longer weekend hike. Sandy Creek Trail is the one route the county has named publicly so far. The magnolia stand at its end gives you a good destination for your first visit.
The rules are the easement in practice
The park's rules apply the conservation restriction to everyday visits. These are the rules reported at opening. The full list is posted at the entrance.
| Rule at Moss Ferry Park | What it means on a visit |
|---|---|
| Open dawn to dusk | Plan early-evening loops around the earlier fall sunset |
| No overnight camping | Day use only |
| No motorized vehicles on trails | The trails are for walking, running, and hiking |
| Wildlife, plants, artifacts, and natural or man-made features may not be disturbed or removed | Leave the ferns, magnolia cones, and creek stones where they are |
| Pets on a leash no longer than six feet, with the owner at all times | Bring a standard leash, not a long retractable one |
Every rule on that list protects the land rather than managing a crowd. Chance put it in county-wide terms at the opening. "If you look at the theme of Carroll County, we've done a lot of agricultural preservation through land preservation," he told the Times-Georgian. "We've had a lot of development rights that have been bought out, and we've had a lot of donated property."
Two entrances, built for the north end
Besides its public entrance off Moss Ferry Road, the park has a second entrance connected to the Fairfield Plantation community, according to the Times-Georgian. "Obviously, everyone is welcome here, but having something that Fairfield has connectivity to is very important," Chance said. In the county's announcement, leaders thanked Alison Kennedy, general manager of the Fairfield Plantation Property Owners Association, for the partnership. They also noted that early plans for the property centered on nature trails for the Sandhill and Fairfield communities.
District 5 Commissioner Ben Hicks, who also represents the area around the park, called it "a wonderful addition to this part of Carroll County." The Georgia Sun's opening-day report also tied the park to those nearby communities.
The Villa Rica area has seen this kind of gift before. In 2015, the city received 159 acres of undeveloped green space from the Southeastern Trust for Parks and Land for use as a passive park. Moss Ferry Park adds county-owned acreage under the same idea, but on the far side of town from most of the city's parks. Our guide to parks and trails around Villa Rica covers the in-town options.
A first visit, step by step
- Arrive with daylight to spare. Hours are dawn to dusk, and late-October afternoons get short fast.
- Read the rules board at the entrance before you head past the pavilion.
- Take a photo of the map at the first trail intersection. The trails are color-coded. For now, temporary maps are posted at intersections, and permanent maps are planned.
- Choose your distance. Start on a half-mile route if you're testing the terrain, or put together a loop of three miles or more if you want the whole canopy.
- Head for Sandy Creek Trail and the longleaf magnolias at its end.
- Mark your calendar for spring to come back when the native azaleas bloom.
If the Gold Rush Festival is how you learned Villa Rica's history, Moss Ferry Park is a newer piece of local history. It is about 100 acres that were once zoned for a subdivision and are now protected so the woods stay largely as they are.
Moss Ferry Park is open to the public from dawn until dusk at 660 Moss Ferry Road. If you'd like to talk through which parts of north Carroll County put trails like these close to your front door, Vicki Morris would be grateful to walk through it with you. Schedule your personal consultation.
