Rezoning materials for REZ-2025-11, potential datacenter site, on Coleman Road North 2026-08-03

Leave a reply

Lowndes County offered to charge up to $250 for rezoning materials related to the 2025 rezoning on Coleman Road North for the potential datacenter site across the Withlacoochee River from Langdale Park. Materials such as many other counties put in their board packets and put on their own website.

They actually charged $40.85.

They provided a heap of files on a USB stick, with little indication of which request each file was supposed to address.

[Rezoning materials, REZ-2025-11, potential datacenter site, Coleman Road North, Withlacoochee River @ LCC 2025-07-08]
Rezoning materials, REZ-2025-11, potential datacenter site, Coleman Road North, Withlacoochee River @ LCC 2025-07-08

This is what I asked for, plus links to what Lowndes County provided in response, as near as I can decipher what they sent.

This is a Georgia Open Records Request (GORA) for materials related to the rezoning application for REZ-2025-11, Langdale Capital Assets, N Coleman Road, as required by Lowndes County Unified Development Code (ULDC).

The rezoning request, evidence of payment, evidence of ownership, and the other items were not in the board packets for the June 30, 2025, Planning Commission meeting, nor for the July 8, 2025, Lowndes County Commission Regular Session, at each of which REZ-2025-11 was heard, at least not as returned in response to open records request by LAKE requesting those board packets.

In this present GORA request I am asking for:

  1. The rezoning application as required by ULDC 10.02.01.A.1.
  2. Evidence of payment of the requisite fees and when they were paid as required by ULDC 10.01.02.A and 10.02.01.A.6.
  3. Proof of ownership in the form of the current deed recorded in the office of the Clerk of the Superior Court of Lowndes County, as required by ULDC 10.01.02.A.2.
  4. A vicinity map indicating the location of the site proposed for development, as required by ULDC 10.01.02.A.5.
  5. Any “Other information to support the application as specified in this chapter and as may be required by the County Manager” as required by ULDC 10.01.02.A.9.
    • I don’t know whether anything they sent is responsive to this item.
  6. “The application file number, date of application, and action taken on, all prior applications filed for the reclassification of the whole or part of the land proposed to be reclassified” as required by ULDC 10.02.05.A.2.
    • I don’t see anything responsive to this request.
  7. The Public Notices for each of those meetings, the Planning Commission of June 30, and the County Commission of July 8, including when each notice was sent to the legal organ of the county (The Valdosta Daily Times), the contents of each such notice, and images of the notices posted at the meeting places of those meetings and when they were posted, as required by GA Code (2024) 50-14-1(d)(1).
    • What that state law says is, “ Every agency subject to this chapter shall prescribe the time, place, and dates of regular meetings of the agency. Such information shall be available to the general public and a notice containing such information shall be posted at least one week in advance and maintained in a conspicuous place available to the public at the regular place of an agency or committee meeting subject to this chapter as well as on the agency’s website, if any. Meetings shall be held in accordance with a regular schedule, but nothing in this subsection shall preclude an agency from canceling or postponing any regularly scheduled meeting.”
    • There is also GA Code (2024) 36-66-4 (2022)a. “A local government taking action resulting in a zoning decision shall provide for a hearing on the proposed action. Where the proposed action includes any combination of zoning decisions under subparagraphs (C), (E), or (F) of paragraph (4) of Code Section 36-66-3 for the same property, only one hearing shall be required under this Code Section. At least 15 but not more than 45 days prior to the date of the hearing, the local government shall cause to be published within a newspaper of general circulation within the territorial boundaries of the local government a notice of the hearing. The notice shall state the time, place, and purpose of the hearing.”
    • Notice “taking action resulting in a zoning decision”. As the GLPC Chair says at the beginning of every Planning Commission meeting, GLPC is not a deciding body. In this case, the Lowndes County Commission was the deciding body. So the public hearing notice time limits don’t apply to GLPC.
    • Anyway, I don’t see any images of notices posted at meeting places.
    • They sent a PDF, Valdosta-Daily-Times-Ad-6-21-2025.pdf, but that file is corrupted and unreadable. The file name would seem to indicate it was sent to the VDT on June 21, 2025. That would be more than 15 days before the July 8, 2025, Lowndes County Commission meeting.
  8. Where and when each physical public notice sign was placed, and what was on the signs, as required by ULDC 10.03.01.B.2.
    • That ULDC passage says, “A sign shall be placed in a conspicuous location on the property not less than fifteen (15) days prior to the hearing containing the nature of the request and the date, time, and place of the hearing.”
    • It matches Georgia Code 36-66-4.b.2. (2022), “A sign containing information required by local ordinance or resolution shall be placed in a conspicuous location on the property not less than 15 days prior to the date of the hearing.”
    • The county provided pictures of two Notice of Public Hearing signs, but no locations and no dates for when they were placed. However, the meta data in each of the images says:

      “exif:DateTimeOriginal: 2025:06:25”

      That’s not fifteen days before the July 8, 2025, Lowndes County Commission meeting.

    • This picture shows enough of the road to deduce that it was across from 3671 Coleman Road N.

      [Notice sign across from 3671 Coleman Road N]
      Notice sign across from 3671 Coleman Road N

    • This one I don’t know where it was.

      [Closeup notice sign, unknown location]
      Closeup notice sign, unknown location

      [Notice sign, unknown location]
      Notice sign, unknown location

  9. “A list of all current owners of record for properties located immediately adjacent to or directly across a public street or railroad right-of-way from the subject property. The list shall include the current names, mailing addresses, and tax Map-Parcel numbers as reflected on the current tax roll of Lowndes County” as required by ULDC 10.02.05.A.5.
  10. A list of names, addresses, and dates of when each of those adjacent property owners were sent notices of the impending Planning Commission or Lowndes County Commission Public Hearings for REZ-2025-11, as required by ULDC 10.03.01.B.3, as well as the same information for any similar notices sent to any other property owners.
  11. “Natural features, including topography at ten (10) foot intervals, surface drainage, surface waters, flood plains, watershed areas, groundwater recharge areas, general location of wetlands, and the general location of wooded areas” as required by ULDC 10.02.05.B.5.
    • I don’t see a map “including topography at ten (10) foot intervals”. See above maps for most of the other features.
  12. Any other materials required by the ULDC that were not in the board packets for that rezoning, REZ-2025-11.
  13. Any related correspondence between county staff or commissioners with the applicant, especially including about the compliance report from the Technical Review Committee (TRC) and any corrections to it, as well as the final TRC compliance report itself, as specified in ULDC 10.01.04.
  14. The notes or minutes of the pre-application conference required by ULDC 10.01.01, together with a list of attendees and their affiliations.
  15. Any notices of deficiencies or corrections of deficiencies as required by ULDC 10.01.02.B.
    • I don’t see much responsive to this request, except maybe this email:
    • RE_-LCA-Coleman-Road-Rezoning-Parcel-055-021.txt
    • Pope Langdale on November 13, 2025, asked Michael Cooper of ASA Engineering and surveying, “Mike, We need to get an ALTA survey of this property.  We are going to divide out the land into two parcels, that on the east side of the railroad and that on the west side of the railroad.  Please let me know if you can get that done for us.  Thanks.”
    • Cooper answered, that same day, “Pope, Sounds good. As discussed, we’ll work on finishing the field work needed asap and will plan to get you a draft ALTA after the Thanksgiving weekend.”
  16. The written determination by the County Manager that the application was complete, as required by ULDC 10.01.02.
  17. Any letter of credit for compliance with imposed conditions as specified in 10.01.05.B.3.
    • I don’t see anything responsive to this request.

I am willing to pay reasonable costs and fees.

If any of this information exists only on paper, I am willing to come to county offices to photograph.

Otherwise, I would like this information via email.

My contact information is below.

They also included these items, although I don’t know why, since we already got them through previous GORA requests and published them.

And, finally, what they charged me.

Meanwhile, what we had before is almost all linked in here: Rezoning application for potential datacenter, Coleman Road, Lowndes County 2025-06-30.

https://wwals.net/?p=70475

-jsq

Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today!
http://www.l-a-k-e.org/blog/donate

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *