Tucker Rd, West Ridge Business Park, Appointments VLCCCTA, VLCIA @ LCC 2017-12-11

A very busy agenda this morning, including the
controversial
REZ-2017-14 Cothron, Tucker Rd rezoning.

They’ll probably reappoint Commissioner Joyce Evans and Gerone Anderson to the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Conference Center and Tourism Authority,
although Robert Jefferson and Ellen Hill have also applied.

Mary Gooding is retiring from the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Development (Industrial) Authority,
and four people have applied:
Ed Hightower Jr., Brad Folsom, John (Mac) McCall (currently on ZBOA) and Giovanni Panizzi.


Mary Gooding, VLCIA

Nevermind the
REZ-2017-12 West Ridge Business Park
rezoning
had nothing to do with the Industrial Authority that I know of.

No meeting would be complete without Continue reading →

The shift has come: GE, Siemens massive job losses as fossil fuels crash and the sun rises

The carbon bubble is bursting,
as jobs fly from some of the biggest companies in the world,
because solar and wind power are taking over right now.
It’s too late to bet on the wrong nuclear horse
or the wrong pipelnie snake.
Get out of fossil fuels now: the sun is rising.

Tiffany Hsu and Clifford Krauss,
New York Times, 7 December 2017,

G.E. Cuts Jobs as It Navigates a Shifting Energy Market,

General Electric, whose new leadership is moving to eliminate bloat
and grapple with the fallout from earlier, ill-timed decisions, is
taking drastic steps to keep pace with seismic shifts in the global
energy industry.


GE ranks first in 2017 downsizing after 12,000 more jobs: Brandon Kochkodin, Bloomberg, 7 December 2017

Brandon Kochkodin, Bloomberg, 7 December 2017,
GE Ranks First in 2017 Downsizing After 12,000 More Job Cuts.

The company said on Thursday that it would cut 12,000 jobs in its
power division, reducing the size of the unit’s work force by 18
percent as part of a push to compete with international rivals in a
saturated natural gas market, adjust to “softening” in
the oil and gas sectors and stay abreast of the growing demand for
renewable energy.

Solar and wind energy technology is increasingly being deployed Continue reading →

Sign variances @ ZBOA 2017-12-05

“[V]ariances are
designed to provide an opportunity for relief in circumstances beyond design’s control where it would be
difficult if not impossible to meet the regulations,”
said city staff, about

APP-2017-07 — Messiah Lutheran Church,
on the the agenda
for this afternoon at the decision-making Valdosta-Lowndes Zoning Board of Appeals.
Ditto
APP-2017-06 — Axis Infrastructure,
but they like the signs proposed in

APP-2017-05 — Staten Station.


APP-2017-05 Tax Parcels Aerial

You can see all the details of the three Valdosta cases on

on the LAKE website.
I don’t have the packet items for the four Lowndes County cases.

Valdosta – Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals

Matt Martin,
Valdosta Planning and Zoning Administrator

300 North Lee Street, Valdosta, Georgia

(229) 259-3563

Carmella Braswell,
Lowndes County Zoning Administrator

327 North Ashley Street, Valdosta, Georgia

(229) 671-2430

AGENDA

December 5, 2017

2:30 p.m.

Continue reading →

Videos: Cothron on Tucker Road and second West Ridge Business Park rezoning @ GLPC 2017-11-27



Twenty five minutes on

7. REZ-2017-14 Cothron 5310 Tucker Road 5 acres from E-A to R-A
to split out two 2.5 acre house lots and a home business office
(is there a deed restriction?),
fourteen minutes on a storage building in

3. VA-2017-16 220-224 Myddleton Road 0.58 acres from R-6 to M-2
(probably will be at ZBOA for a variance later),
and six minutes each on

5. REZ-2017-12 West Ridge Business Park 1.2 acres from C-G to C-H
and

4. VA-2017-17 City of Valdosta LDR text amendments.
Everything else sailed through.

They

nominated
the same Chair and Vice-Chair as currently:
Franklin Bailey and Jody Hall.
County Planner Jason Davenport pointed out traditionally they
rotate every two years, but the Commission could decide to keep the same
officers, and they did.

Below are links to each LAKE video with a few notes,
followed by a LAKE video playlist.
See also
the agenda. Continue reading →

Videos: Office in the woods, B&B, Church @ GLPC 2017-10-30



Well, it wasn’t all that brief, because

3. REZ-2017-11 Dasher Johnson & Howell Roads
for an office far away from any similar zoning
was contentious and almost 40 minutes long,
with a split vote against, although later
the Lowndes County Commission passed the rezoning anyway.

Second longest was

4. CU-2017-05 206 East College Street (B&B)
at almost nineteen minutes.
Everything else sailed through.

Below are Continue reading →

Second West Ridge Business Park rezoning in two months @ GLPC 2017-11-27

Second rezoning in two months at

West Ridge Business Park, which does not appear to be
among the
eight Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority business parks,
none of which appear to be on the agenda for today’s Planning Commission
meeting.


Parcel 0059 140B, 2812 Cameron Road

Lowndes County Tax Assessors,
Parcel 0059 140B, 2812 Cameron Lane

Greater Lowndes Planning Commission Continue reading →

Videos: Office rezoning, Georgia Power, Alcohol, and road abandomnent @ LCC 2017-11-14



They

added and agenda item for

7.p. Solicitor-General’s VOCA Grant Renewal; yes, really, the agenda was so long that’s sub-item letter P and the meeting was 51 and a half minutes long.

Longest at seven minutes was

6a. REZ-2017-11 Arrow Engineering,
in which the County Commissioners ignored the Planning Commission’s recommendation to deny, and the County Planner’s observation the previous morning that
the applicants would accept one acre.
Instead they approved 2.5 acres with no conditions as Office Institutional (OI)
in an area with no other instances of that.

At six minutes,

7.n. Georgia Power- VisionFirst
was about putting $25,000 to hire an unnamed consultant for a joint project
for unspecified results.

Update 2017-11-22: According to Chairman Bill Slaughter, the consultant is VisionFirst Advisors out of Tallahassee.

Did they mean the sinkhole-infested Mission Creek instead of

7.k. Grant of Easement for Utility Right of Way Moody-Mission Point?

Five minutes included questions from the Chairman and resulted in a split vote
and a stern warning on

7.i. Beer, Wine & Liquor License – Liquor Barn, 3990 N. Valdosta Rd.

One of the

two road abandonments,

7.a. Abandonment of Lane Road and a Portion of Sheavette Road,
got a very rare split vote, with Commissioner Clay Griner voting alone against.

Below are Continue reading →

Development Authority sells land for solar arrays

Next to ERCO Worldwide,
one of the few tenants in
VLCIA’s “eight industrial parks”,
SolAmerica is buying land for a solar farm
that will take up most of the rest of the Perimeter East Business Park.


Site Layout, East of Valdosta

Site Layout submitted by SolAmerica to VLCIA in 14 November 2017 meeting.

Jason A. Smith, VDT, 15 November 2017,

Solar arrays planned for land,

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Development Authority voted Tuesday to
approve the sale of 27.42 acres for $137,100 to be used for solar
arrays.

Continue reading →