{"id":23794,"date":"2023-08-24T09:14:16","date_gmt":"2023-08-24T13:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=23794"},"modified":"2023-09-15T07:28:35","modified_gmt":"2023-09-15T11:28:35","slug":"packet-two-county-rezonings-one-plainly-inappropriate-glpc-2023-08-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2023\/08\/packet-two-county-rezonings-one-plainly-inappropriate-glpc-2023-08-28.html","title":{"rendered":"Packet: Two county rezonings, one plainly inappropriate @ GLPC 2023-08-28"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update 2023-08-29<\/strong>:\r\n\r\nVideos: Quarterman Road rezoning recommended against, Mt. Zion Church Road for @ GLPC 2023-08-28<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nThe Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC) has only two cases for Monday, both Lowndes County Cases.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"[Two<\/a>\r\n
Two Lowndes County cases @ GLPC 2023-08-28<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nCounty staff recommend approval of both rezonings, one in the middle of subdivisions on Mt. Zion Church Road, and the other in the middle of agriculture and forestry land on Quarterman Road.\r\n

\r\nFor REZ-2023-04 on Quarterman Road,\r\ncounty staff strain really hard to dilute agriculture and forestry by including\r\na nearby subdivision in their first calculation.\r\nQuarterman Road is almost all\r\n\r\n E-A zoning with large fields and forests with some minimum 5-acre lots.\r\nA few R-21 lots on the northwest end of the road were grandfathered in back in the 1980s along with the R-21 half-acre-lot house-packed subdivision.\r\nCounty staff inappropriately lump together Quarterman Road and the very different subdivision.\r\n

\r\nCounty staff’s second calculation chooses only one part of Quarterman Road and\r\nincludes only lots with a single-family dwelling, excluding almost all of the agriculture and forestry land that is characteristic of Quarterman Road.\r\nSuch fables are inappropriate for county planning.\r\n

\r\nSee below for details<\/a>.\r\nBut the main point is simple:\r\ncounty staff cannot justify the Quarterman Road rezoning if they look at what is actually on the road, and the whole road.\r\n

\r\nStaff omitted a relevant calculation<\/a>: that residential sprawl costs the taxpayers more than it can return in tax revenue.\r\n

\r\nCounty staff’s mis-calculations cannot hide the plain fact:\r\nagriculture and forestry are characteristic of Quarterman Road,\r\nand that is how it should remain.\r\n

\r\nPlanning Commissioners and County Commissioners should see through these straw men staff have thrown up,\r\nand deny this inappropriate rezoning.\r\n

\r\nHere is a petition you can sign against that Quarterman Road rezoning:\r\n
\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/chng.it\/LDW47QsdSd<\/a>\r\n

\r\nAnd here are\r\n\r\nmore reasons to sign it<\/a>.\r\n

Agenda<\/a><\/H4>\r\n

\r\nHere is the agenda<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nThe rest of the board packet, received in response to a LAKE open records request,\r\nis \r\non the LAKE website<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n

\r\nGreater Lowndes Planning Commission\r\n<\/strong>\r\n
\r\n~ Lowndes County ~ City of Valdosta ~ City of Dasher ~\r\n
\r\n~ City of Hahira ~ City of Lake Park ~ City of Remerton ~\r\n

\r\n
\r\nMonday, August 21, 2023 5:30 P.M. Work Session\r\n
\r\nMonday, August 28, 2023 5:30 P.M. Regular Session\r\n
\r\nLowndes County South Health District Administrative Office\r\n
\r\n325 West Savannah Avenue, Valdosta, Georgia\r\n

    \r\n
  1. Call to Order, Pledge and Invocation\r\n
  2. Approval of the Meeting Minutes: July 31, 2023\r\n
    \r\n

    \r\nLowndes County Cases:\r\n<\/H4>\r\n

    \r\nFINAL ACTION by the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners, 327 N. Ashley Street,\r\n
    \r\nValdosta, Georgia, Lowndes County Judicial and Administrative Complex Commission\r\n
    \r\nChambers, 2nd Floor, Tuesday, September 12th, 2023 5:30 p.m.<\/u>\r\n
    \r\nPoint of Contact: JD Dillard, County Planner, (229) 671-2430\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

  3. \r\n\r\nREZ-2023-04 Chase, 6119 Quarterman Rd., 0022 102, ~17.8 acres,<\/a><\/strong>\r\n
    \r\nCurrent Zoning: E-A (Estate Agricultural)\r\n
    \r\nProposed Zoning: R-A (Residential Agricultural\r\n
  4. \r\n\r\nREZ-2023-10 Copeland, 3728 Mt. Zion Church Rd., 0147 057, ~3.8 acres,<\/a><\/strong>\r\n
    \r\nCurrent Zoning: E-A (Estate Agricultural)\r\n
    \r\nProposed Zoning: R-21 (Medium Density Residential)\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

    \r\nOTHER BUSINESS\r\n<\/H4>\r\n

    \r\nADJOURNMENT\r\n<\/H4>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

    Details on REZ-2023-04 on Quarterman Road<\/a><\/H4>\r\n

    \r\nFirst, look at this map of Quarterman Road.\r\nIt is obvious that large properties characterize the road.\r\n\r\n

    \r\n\r\n\"[Quarterman<\/a>\r\n
    Quarterman Road with Parcel 0102 022 marked in SE corner<\/a>\r\n—\r\nLowndes County Tax Assessors<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

    \r\nThere is also a subdivision next to the road’s west side, but that is not part of Quarterman Road.\r\n

    \r\nNow let’s look at the fables county staff made up to try to ignore those obvious characteristics.\r\n

    \r\nStaff’s Zoning Location Map does not let you see the above context.\r\n

    \r\n\r\n\"[Zoning<\/a>\r\n
    Zoning Location Map<\/a>\r\n
    PDF<\/strong><\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    About what you cannot see in their maps, county staff claim that: “For reference, there are 131 properties that have access to\r\nQuarterman Road, with an average lot size of 12.10 acres.”\r\n

    \r\nWhat is this “access to”?\r\nEveryone in the county, the country, and the world, has “access to” Quarterman Road,\r\njust by driving there.\r\nSo what does county staff mean?\r\n

    \r\nThere are only 44 “properties” that front Quarterman Road.\r\nAnd that’s by counting everything with a border line as a separate “property”,\r\neven though some of them actually have the same owner.\r\nYou can count them yourself in the above Tax Assessors map.\r\n

    \r\nFollow the link to the Tax Assessors map<\/a>, and you can add them up to 1967.18 acres.\r\nThat’s 44.7 acres per lot.\r\nThat number is so low only because of about a dozen 5-acre lots,\r\na few 1-acre lots, and\r\na couple of half-acre lots in the subdivision and on the corner, diluting the much larger tracts.\r\n

    \r\nThe county staff says there are 87 lots in the subdivision.\r\nLet’s assume that is accurate.\r\n

    \r\n44 + 87 is 131.\r\nWhich is presumably where they get their 131.\r\n(Nevermind three subdivision lots are counted twice.)\r\n

    \r\nSure, if you include the subdivision with its half-acre lots,\r\nthe average lot size goes way down.\r\n

    \r\nBut it is inappropriate to do that, since that subdivision only exists\r\nbecause it was grandfathered in before county-wide zoning.\r\n

    \r\nSo “has access to” is just an excuse to include the subdivision lots in staff’s figures.\r\n

    \r\nYet the subdivision has R-21 zoning and is obviously a different beast.\r\n

    \r\n\r\n\"[Quarterman<\/a>\r\n
    Quarterman Road<\/a> in VALORGIS<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

    \r\nThere are also a few R-21 lots on the northwest end of Quarterman Road at Hambrick Road, which were also grandfathered in\r\nalong with the subdivision back in the 1980s.\r\n

    \r\nI would provide evidence of that 1980s R-21 rezoning, but despite a decade of asking, county staff have not been able to produce the minutes of whichever\r\nmeeting of the County Commission approved that deal.\r\nSo I can only go by what neighbors have told me.\r\nYou can see that the R-21 lots are unlike the rest of Quarterman Road.\r\n

    \r\nCounty staff are grasping at half-acre straws by including those R-21 lots in their bogus calculations.\r\n

    \r\nBack in 2007 when there was an attempt to rezone for a second subdivision<\/a>\r\nnext to that one (REZ-2007-21<\/a>),\r\npeople in the existing subdivision were among those most against it.\r\nThe Planning Commission recommended denying that one, and the County Commission did deny it.\r\nThe same should happen for this inappropriate attempt to insert too-small house lots into an agricultural and forestry area.\r\n

    \r\nThen county staff add an even more inappropriate calculation:\r\n“Along the southern boundaries of Quarterman Road, there are 19\r\nproperties, including the subject property, that contain at least\r\none, single-family dwelling, with an average lot size of 11.66\r\nacres.”\r\n

    \r\nRequiring “that contain at least one, single-family dwelling”\r\nconveniently discards\r\nRicky and Sherry Brunston’s 100 acres,\r\nIann Walker’s 192.21 acres (if they didn’t notice her house down by the Withlacoochee River),\r\nFerrell Scruggs’ 604.8 acres,\r\nStalvey Farms West’s 111.02 acres,\r\nand Cathy Quarterman Life Estate’s 204.59 acres.\r\nThus county staff try to avoid the main point that most of the land on Quarterman Road is in agriculture or forestry.\r\n

    \r\nAccording to the \r\n\r\nLowndes County Unified Land Development Code (ULDC)<\/a>,\r\n“2.01.02 A. E-A, Estate Agricultural District (5 acre). This district is intended to\r\nprovide for agricultural activities, including those related to crops,\r\nlivestock, and timber, protected from the effects of suburban residential\r\ndevelopment.”\r\n

    \r\nIn contrast, “2.01.02 B. R-A, Residential Agricultural District (2.5 acre). This district is intended\r\nto preserve the mixed agricultural and residential character of land while\r\nproviding a transition between rural and agricultural land and suburban\r\nand urban land.”\r\n

    \r\nThere is no suburban nor urban land adjoining the subject property.\r\nResidents of Quarterman Road do not want the road to turn suburban or urban.\r\nThe county government should not want that, either.\r\n

    \r\nInserting smaller house lots in an Agriculture, Forestry, and Conservation Character Area is inappropriate and should be denied.\r\n

    \r\nThe Dorfman Report<\/a>\r\n<\/H4>\r\n

    \r\nCounty staff omit an actual relevant calculation, which is how much sprawl costs the taxpayers.\r\nYet back in 2007 Lowndes County paid a consultant professor from the University of Georgia to write that up.\r\n

    \r\n\r\n\"sprawl\"<\/a>\r\n
    \r\n    \r\nThe Local Government Fiscal Impacts of Land Use in Lowndes County:\r\n
    \r\nRevenue and Expenditure Streams by Land Use Category<\/a>,\r\n
    \r\nJeffrey H. Dorfman, Ph.D., Dorfman Consulting, December 2007.\r\n

    \r\nThese bar charts are specific to Lowndes County:\r\n

    \r\n\r\n\"[Figure<\/a>\r\n
    Figure 1, Revenues per $1 of Expenditures by Land Use, the Dorfman Report, 2007<\/a>\r\n
    PDF<\/strong><\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

    \r\n$0.74 for residential means for each $1.00 the county spends, residential only returns $0.74 in taxes.\r\nThe specific dollar figures may have changed since 2007, but the proportions are probably much the same.\r\n

    \r\nHouse lots bring in much less tax revenue per tax dollars spent than agriculture or forestry,\r\nbecause fields and forests don’t need school busses and they don’t often call the fire department or the Sheriff.\r\nResidential even costs the county money by calling the fire department when I’m doing prescribed burns of my pine forest, with a burn permit, firebreaks, and people keeping the fire in.\r\n

    \r\nAs Dr. Dorfman summarized in a different presentation<\/a>,\r\n

    \r\n

    \r\nLocal governments must ensure balanced growth, as\r\n
    \r\nsprawling residential growth is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin*<\/strong>\r\n
    \r\n* Or at least big tax increases.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

    \r\nThe county should deny this rezoning to avoid costing taxpayers more.\r\n

    Agenda Sheet for REZ-2023-04<\/a><\/H4>\r\n

    \r\nBelow is the main text of the GLPC agenda sheet for REZ-2023-04<\/a>.\r\n

    \r\n

    \r\nACTION REQUESTED ON: REZ-2023-04, 6119 Quarterman Rd, ~18ac., E-A to R-A, Well\/Septic\r\n<\/H4>\r\n

    \r\nHISTORY, FACTS AND ISSUES:\r\n

    \r\nThis request represents a change in zoning on approximately 18 acres\r\nat 6119 Quarterman Road from E-A (Estate Agricultural) zoning to R-A\r\n(Residential Agricultural) zoning, in order for the property to be\r\nsubdivided.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

    \r\nThe subject property is in the Rural Service Area and an\r\nAgricultural\/Forestry Character Area, with act to and from the\r\nproperty off Quarterman Road, a County maintained local road. While\r\nthe general area is depicted as Agricultural\/Forestry on the Future\r\nLand Use Map, the existing land use pattern, especially along the\r\nsouthern boundaries of Quarterman Road, aligns more with a Rural\r\nResidential description. Both character areas encourage maintaining\r\nthe rural character by limiting new development and promoting rural\r\nclusters or conservation subdivision strategies, with high degrees\r\nof building separation. Per Comprehensive Plan guidance, R-A zoning\r\nis listed as a recommended zoning within both character areas.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

    \r\nFor reference, there are 131 properties that have access to\r\nQuarterman Road, with an average lot size of 12.10 acres.\r\n<\/p>\r\n