Category Archives: Planning

Comprehensive Plan Update Workshop @ SGRC 2016-03-07

As promised, there is an updated Work Book online, dated February 29, 2016. Title page As Ariel Godwin also promised, the SGRC website says:

The next workshop will be Monday, March 7, 2016, 5:00-7:00 p.m. at the SGRC office, 327 W. Savannah Ave., Valdosta, GA.

It will be interesting to see if this version of the Work Book for the 2016 Greater Lowndes County Comprehensive Plan Update contains any changes about the issues Greg Odom raised last month (22 February 2016) about road paving, trees, and reducing expense to the county. And LAKE will be at the meeting with the video camera.

-jsq

Bemiss and Guest Rd. VA-2016-03, VA-2016-04, VA-2016-05 @ GLPC 2016-02-29

The letters from “Gusto Development LLC” have an email address of kim@hutton.build, confirming that it’s really The Hutton Company Tax Parcels Aerial doing this work for Bassford Properties LLC; the same Hutton Company that recently did work on Wal-Marts in Chattanooga, TN and Athens, GA.

Received today at 4:17 PM EST, which was before the GLPC meeting started. However, as I told the City Clerk when she also called on the telephone, I was planting potatoes at that time. I recommended to her, as I did earlier that same day to the County Planner, that the agenda packet items go online so neither city nor county staff nor citizens have to go through this rigamarole just to see what Commissioners are looking at. The actual Planning Commission meeting was quite brief; they recommended everything; LAKE videos to come. Meanwhile, see the LAKE videos of the previous week’s Work Session.

The materials she sent are on the LAKE website. Continue reading →

Packet items for REZ-2016-03-06, CAC, Skipper Bridge Road @ GLPC 2016-02-29

Thanks to Lowndes County Planner Jason Davenport’s expeditious response to my open records request with the packet materials for REZ-2016-03-06, for tonight’s Planning Commission meetin, we now know this proposed CAC rezoning is at the NW corner of Skipper Bridge Road and Stafford Wright Road, about one acre of the 113.88 acre parcel 0106 232 owned by JEV Duck Pond LLC, in the watershed of Cherry Creek, which flows to the Withlacoochee River. Perhaps not coincidentally, the county recently approved plans to pave Stafford Wright Road. The County Planner mentioned that in the agenda sheet summary that county road classifications (local rural, minor collector, etc.) are stated in the Lowndes County Thoroughfare Plan. Back in 2009 when that plan was last updated, the County Engineer said it “…works as a guide for development and potential use changes in property.”

GREATER LOWNDES PLANNING COMMISSION
AGENDA ITEM

SUBJECT: Rezoning Case REZ—2016-06 Continue reading →

CAC office on Skipper Bridge Rd. + a Wal-Mart on Bemiss Rd? @ GLPC 2016-02-29

Finally with the agenda for tonight’s Planning Commission, case codes and an address for the 3-in-1 Bemiss Road rezoning, but still no address for the CAC Skipper Bridge Road rezoning, and none of the board packet: no maps, text, nothing else on Lowndes county’s website, for tonight’s 6PM Planning Commission Regular Session.

Center of three properties: 4196 Bemiss Rd. That Valdosta three-part case includes an annexation request. The agenda says it’s for Gusto Development, but no such company is registered with the Georgia Secretary of State. Maybe they mean Gusto GA Valdosta (Guest), LLC, registered “12/8/2015” with Principal Office Address: 736 Cherry St., Chattanooga, TN, 37402, USA. That’s the address of The Hutton Company, “We Know Dirt; Real Estate Development Construction”. The land is owned by Bassford Properties LLC, as noted in the previous post with the LAKE videos of the previous week’s Work Session, which shows what little the public was allowed to know, such as that it’s for a grocery store and a gas station. This might be a clue as to which company: Alex Green, timesfreepress.com, 9 November 2014, 3 new grocery stores coming to Chattanooga, and they may be Wal-Marts, Continue reading →

Canopy roads, agriculture, materials? –Greg Odom about Comprehensive Plan Update @ SGRC 2016-02-22

So well attended there weren’t enough handouts, as remarked on by Greg Odom, who later also said the proposed Comprehensive Plan Update didn’t have any plans for canopy roads, or roads on existing rights of way like in Virginia: “For the past 25 years there has not been a healthy attitude about people who want to maintain dirt roads. There has been an attitude of let’s pave everything, and let’s pave it in an outrageous way….”

Last night’s meeting was billed Continue reading →

Videos: Children’s Activity Center + 3 in 1 Valdosta cases on Bemiss Road @ GLPC 2016-02-22

No agenda available to the public, not on county’s website, and not available at the door at Monday’s Planning Commission Work Session. Parcel 0146A 420 They didn’t even say the rezoning case numbers. Apparently the Planning Commissioners had a board packet with some materials, but the citizens and taxpayers did not get to see it, and the City Planner said the electronic version would be much different. They haven’t even put a sign up on the Lowndes County property. The Valdosta rezoning is a pretty big deal, with a grocery store and a gas station for the unnamed applicant, who apparently is Continue reading →

Lack of site plan disconcerting and unacceptable –Glenn Gregory about cemetery rezoning @ GLPC 2016-01-25

For an item also on the Valdosta agenda tonight, lack of transparency and concern for trees perplexed a prominent local citizen at the Planning Commission, Glenn Gregory speaking as you can see in the LAKE video of the 25 January 2016 GLPC Regular Session. Glenn Gregory said:

I think y’all might have a site plan, but the public does not have a site plan.

Commissioner Celine Godwin recommended Gregory take his transparency recommendation to the Valdosta City Council. We shall see, at 5:30 PM tonight. Gretchen will be there with the LAKE video camera.

Jason Stewart, VDT, 29 January 2016, Gregory opposes cemetery proposal, Continue reading →

Videos: Video: Comprehensive Plan @ GLPC 2016-01-19

Comprehensive Plan Public Hearing at GLPC Following the email announcement about the Comprehensive Plan, I showed up late, expecting no formal presentation and a typical SGRC tables-and-easels mill-about meeting, and found the Planning Commission and staff in their usual seats. Turns out they were there for their Work Session agenda; see the LAKE videos. As you can see in this video of the first part of the meeting, there were citizen questions from Valdosta City Council Sandra Tooley and from me. Continue reading →

Videos: Chancy R6M, Stallings Road Cemetery, 4 County cases, one to E-A @ GLPC 2016-01-25

The Lowndes County cases are the ones the County Commission is reviewing this morning in their Work Session. GLPC recommended approval for all of them, with conditions on one, REZ-2016-03 Jacob Eckwahl on US 41 South.

See also the GLPC agenda and the LAKE videos of the 19 Jan 2016 GLPC Work Session. Below are the LAKE videos of the 25 Jan 2016 GLPC Regular Session, followed by a video playlist. Continue reading →

Videos: Chancy R6M, Stallings Road Cemetery, 4 County cases, one to E-A @ GLPC 2016-01-19

Not on the agenda, they started with a public hearing on the Comprehensive Plan. Expecting from the email announcement about the Comprehensive Plan that this would be a typical SGRC tables-and-easels mill-about meeting, I didn’t show up on the dot and was quite surprised to find the Planning Commission and staff in their usual spots. See separate post.

Here are the LAKE videos with some notes, followed by a video playlist. Continue reading →