Category Archives: Comprehensive Plan

Videos: Brookwood reappears, 3 board appointments, 2 road abandoments, Comp Plan Update, Budget Adoption @ LCC 2016-06-27

County Planner Jason Davenport said at Monday morning’s Work Session that the Comprehensive Plan Update should be a Public Hearing, so it needs to be listed as such for Tuesday evening’s Regular Session. I guess that is more than 24 hours notice, but did they send a notice to the newspaper? How were people to know, and why was this left to the day before when this schedule has been known for months to all the local planners?

Not on the agenda, the Brookwood Place Subdivision tabled two weeks ago popped up in Reports.

The county has had a board member listed for VLPRA for a year after his term actually expired.

Plus a special Continue reading →

2 Lowndes County developments, Comprehensive Plan Update @ GLPC 2016-06-27

The long-prepared transmittal of the Comprehensive Plan Update is on the Planning Commission agenda tonight at 5:30 PM, along with two Lowndes County land development cases, oddly scheduled for final approval by the Lowndes County Commission at two different dates.

Greater Lowndes Planning Commission
Lowndes County City of Valdosta City of Dasher City of Hahira City of Lake Park
REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING
AGENDA
Lowndes County South Health District Administrative Office
325 West Savannah Avenue
Monday, June 27, 2016 * 5:30 P.M. * Public Hearing

Continue reading →

3 board appointments, 2 road abandoments, Comp Plan Update, Budget Adoption @ LCC 2016-06-27

Sheriff or VLPRA? Invisible budget, visible Comp Plan Update, 1 road abandonment + apparently another, and sewage not getting sprayed. All Monday morning 8:30 AM at the Lowndes County Commission Work Session.

The LAS Pump Control Panel is for the sewage spray field, aka Land Application Site: cost $18,500. Lowndes County does not have a wastewater treatment plant, just an LAS, east of Moody Air Force Base’s Grassy Pond west of I-75 and Lake Park.

The Update for the 2016 Greater Lowndes Comprehensive Plan has gone through quite a process of community input, thanks to SGRC.

Can’t say the same for the Adoption of Fiscal Year 2017 Budget, for which the county had a budget meeting with less than 24 hours notice, followed by two budget hearings that those who attended say lasted fifteen minutes each with six slides presented. And the most recent budget document on the county’s website is from 2016.

There’s only one road abandonment listed as such on the agenda (a Portion of Beaver Lane), but Continue reading →

Videos: Planning Meeting, Lowndes County Commission @ LCC 2016-02-04

Suing local businesses helps run up fees to the county attorney, says County Manager Joe Pritchard. He didn’t mention that continuing to promote sprawl for example through the county’s thoroughfare plan also runs up fees that property taxes will never meet. Commissioners seemed very concerned about “stakeholders” whom they said were “the development community, the real estate community” and “the construction and homebuilder industries”. Maybe somewhere they mentioned the agricultural and forestry industries, or sales tax payers even if they don’t own real estate; if so I missed it. At least they’re thinking about the Comprehensive Plan and the general direction of the county in a public forum. And the County Planner did talk about quality of life. Plus it seems business prospects bringing that up got the attention of the County Manager. They said they have a responsiblity to set the direction of the county. How about instead of continuing to drive sprawl outwards, which is a fiscally (and environmentally) irresponsible path, turn to directing development to be more dense in already-developed areas? They continue this morning at 8:30 AM, and Gretchen is there again with the LAKE video camera.

Here’s the agenda followed by links to each LAKE video with a few notes. See also two previous pictures.

We are looking forward to the improved communication that was touted in the VDT headline. Jason Stewart, VDT, 4 February 2016, Slaughter wants to strengthen communication, Continue reading →

Public Hearing, 2016 Comprehensive Plan Update @ SGRC 2016-01-19

Received Friday 5 January 2016:

Subject: Lowndes Comprehensive Plan Kickoff Jan. 19th

The kick-off public hearing for the joint Lowndes County and Cities of Dasher, Hahira, Lake Park, Remerton, and Valdosta 2016 Comprehensive Plan Update will be held on:

Tuesday, January 19, 2016, 5:30 p.m.

Lowndes County South Health District Administrative Office
325 W. Savannah Avenue
Valdosta, Georgia

The purpose of this public hearing will be Continue reading →

Who are the Lowndes County Tax Assessors?

This should be an easy question, but it isn’t. Why not?

300x353 W.G. Walker, in Rural land re-evaluation, by Tax Assessors, 14 July 2015 300x336 Mike Hill, in Rural land re-evaluation, by Tax Assessors, 14 July 2015

And the answer is a saw sales owner who previously promoted development in an agricultural region of Lowndes County, a realtor whose job is to promote development, and a preacher who previously chaired a board that wanted to take tax money from the county without rural citizens being able to vote on it. None of them appear to have any experience in agriculture. These are the people who oversaw the recent revaluation of rural (and commercial) properties that would drive development into parts of Lowndes County that the Comprehensive Plan says should be agricultural. Now I know all three of them, and they’re fine people. But perhaps some rural people need to ask them some questions.

The list on lowndescounty.com of Lowndes County’s elected Tax Assessors is not remotely correct: Doyle Kelly is no longer serving due to illness, yet he’s still on that list, along with Mike Hill and W.G. Walker.

Mike Hill runs Continue reading →

Valdosta’s Penn Station to be torn down –Alfred Willis @ VCC 2014-10-23

Received as a response to Outside corporation trumps Valdosta citizens about historical Nichols house? –Jim Parker @ VCC 2014-10-23. -jsq

The City Council’s deliberations on the 23rd had nothing to do with any construction project, but rather focused on the sale of a parcel — as Councilman Carroll’s message of the 25th accurately conveys. The Council’s vote was historic because it signified openly the supremacy of certain private property interests (specifically, those entailed in selling as a form of enjoyment) over civic cultural interests, at least within the municipality of Valdosta. In doing so it gave Valdosta’s citizens a peek behind a curtain that had remained drawn over historic preservation here since 1980. The construction of buildings, the demolition of buildings, the remodeling or moving of buildings, the maintenance and preservation of buildings, their sale and their purchase, their adaptive reuse — all of those processes are historical processes that turn on the resolution of conflicts among interests. Thus they all reveal structures of power and the machinations of powerful individuals and groups. How could they not?

The construction of the Nichols house in the early 1950s showed with a degree of clarity that probably no other Valdosta building of that time did, the identity, values, attitudes, and mode of operation of Valdosta’s leadership. Its demolition will Continue reading →

Alfred Willis comments at Valdosta Historic Preservation 2014-10-06

600x222 Nichols House, in Valdosta's Ultramodern Masterpiece: The Nichols House on Baytree, by Alfred Willis, 1 October 2014

Nichols House, in Valdosta’s Ultramodern Masterpiece: The Nichols House on Baytree

One of the (many) meetings that LAKE has not been covering is the Valdosta Historic Preservation Commission.
Dr. Alfred Willis speaking at VSU

Dr. Alfred Willis speaking at VSU

At the October 2014 meeting, the commission considered the issue of the Nichols House (corner of Baytree and Azalea). Alfred Willis sent his comments from that meeting to LAKE for publication.

Earlier in the month, LAKE covered Dr. Willis’ presentation at VSU about the Nichols House article here and video playlist .

I am Alfred Willis of 4153 Stone Hall Boulevard, Hermitage, TN. I am a consultant in architectural history and I speak for my clients, the Alden Park Homeowners’ Association. My clients engaged me to study a group of buildings threatened with demolition as part of a proposed student-housing complex. They were concerned by Continue reading →

Frontage, trees, daycare, and Wal-Mart @ ZBOA 2014-06-03

Two Lowndes County cases ( road frontage and tree protection), and two Valdosta Valdosta cases (daycares on busy streets and Wal-Mart parking). The county cases are both variances from the Unified Land Development Code (ULDC) and the city cases are both variances from Valdosta’s Land Development Regulations (LDR), and both the ULDC and LDR are supposed to be consistent with the Comprehensive Plan.

Here’s the agenda. The City of Valdosta puts ZBOA agendas and minutes online in real PDFs.

Valdosta -Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals

Matt Martin, Valdosta Planning and Zoning Administrator Carmella Braswell, Lowndes County Zoning Administrator
300 North Lee Street, Valdosta, Georgia 327 North Ashley Street, Valdosta, Georgia
(229) 259-3563 (229) 671-2430

AGENDA


Tuesday, June 3, 2014
2:30 p.m.
Continue reading →