Citizens, lawyers, and developers @ Lake Park 2014-04-28

“A molehill to cover up an eyesore” pretty much summed up the neighbors’ opinions. Some of the usual local lawyers seemed surprised at the number and sophistication of the rezoning opponents, as you can see in these videos of the public hearing for the Brookhaven apartment building proposed rezoning. The Lake Park City Council took its duties to its citizens seriously, holding a separate zoning meeting just for this one subject.

Here’s a video playlist:


Citizens, lawyers, and developers
Rezoning Public Hearing, Lake Park City Council (Lake Park),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Lake Park, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 April 2014.

Attorney Tom Kurrie’s apparent suggestion that the neighbors wanted to discriminate against the elderly and children didn’t get much traction. An audience member proceeded to address his other three points that he had indicated were their primary objections:

  1. Esthetics of a two-story structure in a one-story neighborhood. “Not gorgeous,” she said.
  2. Inadequate buffer zone. She referred to his suggestion that the developer would hire a landscaper as “a molehill to cover up an eyesore”.
  3. Runoff. No plans to divert the water if it rises. Plans to pump through the (private) lakes that are maintained by the neighbors she considered objectionable.
She summed up by saying the developers weren’t doing any of it to help the elderly; they were doing it to make money.

There was much more, about Hammock Lake nearby being a private lake, about fire hazards, about density of development, the apparent lack of a letter of authorization from the applicant in the council’s packet, and on.

See separate post for Judge Wayne Ellerbee’s eloquent presentation for some of the opponents of the zoning.

Final decision was to be made 7:30 PM 6 May 2014 by the Lake Park City Council.

Here videos of the previous Lake Park City Council meeting of 1 April 2014, at which they tabled LP-2014-02-26, and videos of the Planning Commission meeting of 31 March 2014 which voted unanimously to recommend denying the rezoning.

-jsq