| May
13, 2006
WHAT
WILL THE COUNTY LOOK LIKE IN 5 YEARS?
Following is
the Work Session Agenda. It looks as if the county will
be spending more money
to correct our Zoning Ordinances. The
Zoning Ordinance Review which was done by the RDC was discussed
at the April 17th work session. The RDC sent a letter to
the BOC in February 2006, yet no one seemed to know anything
about it. There were 36
items listed, and in essence the letter said the ordinances
couldn’t even be enforced. Chris Anderson,
a master’s level planner, was questioned by the BOC. The
questioning went like this:
Comm.
Johnson—What have you done about this, Chris?
Chris
Anderson—Nothing.
Comm. Johnson—When
do you think this can be resolved?
Chris Anderson—To
completely overhaul would take one full year.
Comm. Johnson—What
are your suggestions? Just fix the 36 items?
Chris Anderson—That
would be a quick fix.
Comm. Bernard—John
(Nix), what is your evaluation?
Attorney Nix—What
do you want your county to look like? You need Zoning Ordinances
that are NOT “text out of the mill”. You want them to reflect
you and how you want to be. At least get your
Zoning consistent with your Land Plan. You
need to get ready for what is coming 5 years from now. Need
a vision of your community.
Comm. Bernard—During
the Land Use Plan meetings, people said they wanted to keep
the rural nature of our county.
Attorney
Nix—Someone needs to help Mr. Anderson see the big picture.
Comm. Bernard—What’s
it going to cost us?
The TWG asks,
“What’s it going to cost us if it isn’t done?” Mr. Nix went
into detail as to what could happen here without good ordinances
and a good land use plan. Big business, such as a Medical
Landfill, with budgets 20 times Jasper County’s would be
looking for a place to put their waste, and Jasper would
be a sitting duck. He indicated that our county would be
“sliced and diced.”
It is disturbing
that Chris Anderson, a certified planner and director of
P&Z, never brought this to the BOC’s attention from
February until April. When it did appear on the agenda,
he did not have answers for the BOC. The end of the discussion
went like this:
Comm.
Bernard—How are we going to do this, Chris?
Chris
Anderson—How are we going to do it? That’s the big question.
And Mr.
Anderson sat down.
So here we are.
No one has answers but the Request For Proposals will be
discussed at the upcoming work session. How do YOU want
YOUR County to look? We will be paying someone else, in
addition to our P&Z director, to get this matter corrected.
TWG
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Mission
Statement:
** To keep the taxpayers of Jasper County, Georgia informed
as to where and how their tax dollars are being spent.
** To keep the taxpayers abreast of local policies and laws
being discussed and enacted.
** We advocate more open government, less government spending,
and lower property taxes.
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