Category Archives: Planning

Solar Lowndes High?

What does the world see driving north up I-75 past Valdosta? The empty roofs of Lowndes High School. Every south-facing one of which could hold solar panels.


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That would do more to put Lowndes County and Valdosta on the map as supporting solar and thus knowledge-based jobs than any amount of exit beautification.

Run out of roof space? What about those parking lots:


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And it wouldn’t take a Ted Turner to do it. In all but a few states the Lowndes County Board of Education (LCBOE) could let a private company finance and install all those solar panels and then lease the electricity for a fixed rate for 20 years, greatly reducing the school’s electricity bill and promoting our local community, all without any expense to we the taxpayers.

But you can’t do that in Georgia! Because Georgia Power doesn’t want us to. Unless we get some laws changed. Follow the link for how.

-jsq

PS: I haven’t forgotten Valdosta High School. All the economic advantages would apply just as well for the Valdosta Board of Education and Valdosta taxpayers. Even Valwood could do this and profit. If we get Georgia law changed to permit it.

Video Playlist @ LCC 2012-05-08

An appointment, a road abandonment, three rezonings, and a bunch of for considerations: they did take longer than five minutes. Here are videos of the entire Tuesday 8 May 2012 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission. Here’s the agenda. Here are videos of the previous morning’s work session.

They unanimously reappointed four people to the Lowndes County Development Authority. They held a public hearing about abandoning part of an unopened right of way off US 41 South. Nobody spoke either for or against, and they approved the abandonment unanimously.

They heard several items we saw discussed at much more length in the GLPC 30 April videos.

They zipped through everything else on the agenda, approving everything unanimously, including a no-bid item for $60,354.32 to Scruggs Company. There was some discussion about the need for a contract with an audit firm they hadn’t used for three years. They tabled that one, unanimously, of course.

One citizen spoke, me, about Internet speed and access in Lowndes County as necessary for knowledge-based jobs and businesses.

Here’s a video playlist:

Video Playlist
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 8 May 2012.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-jsq

No agenda for work session: Lowndes County Commission @ LCC 2012-06-11

According to the calendar for the Lowndes County Commission, there are two meetings scheduled Monday morning, 11 June 2011. There's no agenda posted for either of them.

Lowndes County Work Session (6/11/2012)

Lowndes County Board of Commissioners
327 N. Ashley St – Commission Chambers, 2nd Floor Administration Building
Valdosta, GA
8:30 a.m.

This is the first time in a long time there's been no agenda up less than a day before a County Commission Work Session. Rumor has it that they're going to talk about one of the most contentious and ill-planned issues around: solid waste disposal. Is rumor how we the citizens and taxpayers should hear about that?

The other meeting on the calendar for tomorrow is about SPLOST; see other post.

-jsq

Company installs solar and leases it to New Jersey school: you can’t do that in Georgia

Schools can’t do this in Georgia, because of the Territoriality Law. They can’t have a company finance and install solar panels on their property and lease the power from them at a fixed rate. You can’t, either, not even on your own private property. Does that seem right to you?

US DoE EERE wrote (no date), NJ School Installs 6.1 MW Solar System,

A 100-year old private school, Lawrenceville School, in Lawrenceville, N.J., installed a 6.1 megawatt ground-mounted system on 30 acres of school-owned farm land. The system features 24,934 SolarWorld solar panels, manufactured at the company’s U.S. headquarters in Hillsboro, Oregon. KDC Solar leased the land for the project from the school and owns and maintains the solar equipment. Through a power purchase agreement, the Lawrenceville School will buy electricity produced by the array over the next 20 years.

The school says the Lawrenceville Solar Farm was dedicated 4 May 2012., and adds that they also keep bees on the same land, plus what six megawatts means:

The Lawrenceville School Solar Farm consists of a nearly 30-acre, net metered, 6.1 megawatt solar facility, and honey-producing bee hives, which ring the perimeter of the array. The nearly 900,000 resident honey bees are nourished by a special wildflower mixture planted among and around the solar panels. The Farm offsets 6,388 metric tons of CO2 annually, the equivalent of taking 1,253 cars off the road annually.

The 24,934 solar panels generate six megawatts of energy, covering 90 percent of the School’s needs. During the day, the array can produce nearly twice the amount of energy needed by the School. The excess is imported to the local electrical utility, Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G) and credited to the School. The School will draw excess energy and all other required energy from PSE&G after sundown.

Here’s a PDF with more details.

The big picture is: you can do that in all but about four states. Georgia is one of those four states, Continue reading →

Real discussion! Video Playlist @ GLPC 2012-04-30

Here are videos of the entire 30 April 2012 Regular Session of the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission, which actually discusses cases when there are points to be clarified or positions to be debated. Here’s the agenda.

GLPC had four cases to be decided 10 May 2012 by the Valdosta City Council:

And three cases to be decided 6 May 2012 by the Lowndes County Commission:

Continue reading →

I’m really trying to develop the property as full as it could be. —Jason Davenport @ GLPC 2012-04-30

In a rezoning case we heard the de facto motto of the Lowndes County Commission:

“I’m really trying to develop the property as full as it could be.”

This was in discussion about REZ-2012-07 McNeil Property, 6888 & 6870 McNeil Road, Hahira, on the agenda for the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission meeting of 30 April 2012. According to the tax assessors’ database, they spelled it wrong: it’s McNeal Road. This rezoning was for lot width, such as would have to happen for the Gloria Dave property to be subdivided. Nathan Smith spoke for, representing multiple people. There was concern among the GLPC board that the rezoning would permit more houses than were currently being requested.

This was the only case in that meeting with speakers against. Elizabeth Daniels, lives nearby (I think she said across the road), pointed out that four lots on one section would permit 4 lots on another section, and that would be a problem on that narrow road.

Donya Rigal, 6840 McNeal Road, the property next door, pointed out dust from traffic and other problems. McNeal Road is a county road, 35 feet wide.

County Planner Jason Davenport said:

“They did actually reserve 12 and a half feet of each of these properties in anticipation of improvement, but I don’t know that that’s on any list for improvement any time soon”

On questioning about whether further subdivision would be possible with the requested rezoning, he pointed out that Continue reading →

The solar train is leaving the station, but the nuclear buggywhip is in the way

The president of the Georgia Solar Energy Association Solar Energy Industries Association says the solar train is leaving the station nationwide, but Georgia remains enmeshed in tangled legislation. We could have changed that last year with SB 401 if Georgia Power and Southern Company’s vested interested in new nuclear plants at Plant Vogtle hadn’t gotten in the way. We can change it next year with a similar or better law. The time to contact your Georgia legislator or candidate is now, while election season is on.

Update 14 June 2012: Fixed Rhone Resch employment attribution.

Rhone Resch wrote for the Saporta Report, 3 June 2012, It’s time to put solar to work in Georgia

There are now more than 100,000 Americans employed at over 5,600 solar businesses in all 50 states. Many of these are small businesses that have been hit hard by the recession, but they are finding new opportunity for growth in the solar industry.

In Georgia, there are more than 80 companies in the solar value chain including Suniva, MAGE Solar, Inc. and Enfinity Corporation. I will be joining representatives of each of these fine companies — and many others — at the Southern Solar Summit on June 15 in the Georgia Tech Research Institute Conference Center in Midtown Atlanta to talk about the strides solar is making, and what remains to be done.

These companies are leading rapid innovation — across the entire value chain, from manufacturing improvements to new financing and sales mechanisms, that are allowing more and more Americans to go solar.

He points out that more solar was installed in 2011 than the total installed in 2008 and 2009, which shows that Moore’s Law continues to work for solar: the price per watt continues to go down, causing demand to go up. He projects forward:

The U.S. is on pace to install nearly 3,200 megawatts of new solar capacity this year with an annual growth rate of 30 percent through 2016.

At that rate, the United States would add more than 25,000 megawatts of new solar capacity between now and 2016. That is roughly the size of 25 coal-fired power plants and represents a significant opportunity for states that aggressively move to obtain a share of this exponentially growing market.

Hm, at Plant Vogtle the operating nuclear reactors produce about 2,430 megawatts and the two new ones under construction are supposed to produce about 2,200 megawatts. So that 25 gigawatts of new solar capacity by 2016 would be about 20 nuclear plants, a number that may be familiar from what Germany has already deployed. Somebody remind me again: why are we building any new nukes? How about if we end the nuke boondoggle and get on with clean green jobs for community and profit?

Rhone Resch says what Georgia can do:

Continue reading →

JLUS Transparency and Videos @ SGRC 2012-06-08

The South Georgia Regional Commission held a public hearing on Wednesday June 6th to give an overview of the current Implementation Phase draft of the Joint Land Use Study (JLUS) for Moody Air Force Base and surrounding communities.

Todd Miller, the project coordinator, gave a power point presentation. When asked if the presentation could be made available on the SGRC web site, he said yes (and then called to make sure I could find it).

The complete draft implementation phase documents are available at http://www.sgrc.us/JLUS/implementation.htm and the comment period is open until the end of June. Comments should be sent to Todd Miller at tmiller (at) sgrc.us.

Here's a video playlist:

JLUS Transparency and Videos
Public Hearing, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC), Todd Miller,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, Fri, 8 Jun 2012 10:21:39 -0400.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-gretchen

Film your cause for annual local festival

VSU professor and student publish book chapter about films of Lowndes County. You, too, can submit a film about changes in local culture for the whole world to see.

Matthew Richard and Andrea Zvikas wrote Causes Mini-Film Festival: Anthropology for Public Consumption for the book Building Bridges in Anthropology: Understanding, Acting, Teaching, and Theorizing, Edited by Robert Shanafelt, published this month.

The goal is simple: to get all of us who live in Lowndes County, Georgia, to ponder some of our casual habits and to seek better ways of doing things here. The hope is that the collective wisdom and creativity of various community members can stoke our collective imagination—maybe even our “collective conscience”—and generate improvements in our way of life. The hope is that the collective wisdom and creativity of various community members can stoke our collective imagination—maybe even our “collective conscience”—and generate improvements in our way of life. Our somewhat quixotic reasoning is that change has to start somewhere, so why not initiate it right now, right here “in our own backyard”?

On facebook: “Causes”— Valdosta’s (mini) Film Festival. 2010 Causes Film Festival YouTube channel.

Do you have a cause? If so, please make your own 90-second mini-documentary and we’ll see you in Valdosta the weekend between the Martin Luther King holiday and the Superbowl.

Here’s a sample Causes video:

Dear Valdosta City Council, we need….
Submission for Causes Film Festival 2010

-jsq

VLCIA Focus Group meeting 20 June 2012

Today I received an invitation from the Industrial Authority to attend a focus group interview for input to their Competitive Assessment and their Economic Development Strategy. So, dear readers, what do you think I should say to them? Don’t worry; I have some ideas already, but I’m all ears for more.

You may recall VLCIA has been put out an RFP early this year for an organization to do a Strategic Plan process. They selected Market Street Services of Atlanta, and they said in April they were preparing to do focus groups. Now apparently they’ve sent out invitation letters for a focus group on 20 June 2012. I have no idea who else they have invited; I was rather surprised to find they invited me.

What would you say to them?

Invitation from Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA)
to a focus group interview 20 June 2012
Wiregrass Georgia Technical College, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 1 June 2012.
Scanned by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-jsq