Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce members just got a message from Bruce Allred, Government Affairs Council Chairman, saying:
MONDAY IS DEADLINE TO APPEAL PROPERTY TAX ASSESSMENTS!
You can look up your property on the Tax Assessors’ website: www.qpublic.net/ga/lowndes.
See also the LAKE Videos: Rural revaluation meeting at Farm Bureau 2015-08-04.
That Chamber message includes this useful information: Continue reading
See for yourself the Tax Assessor response to local landowners, in these
LAKE videos of
last night’s meeting at Farm Bureau.
Do you think there’s a problem?
If so, what do you think we should do to fix it?
The attendees appointed Gretchen to take notes. Here are her notes, followed by the videos.
Accessibility is not about access, it’s about geographic location…. That was done by one of our appraisers on staff. —Chief Appraiser Silas Hrobar
Rural and commercial land owners got surprises in the mail in July when they received the updated assessments of their properties. Lowndes County Assessors engaged a contractor last year to help with the reassessments of approximately 10,000 properties. Rural properties were categorized as small (under 20 acres) and large (over 20 acres) but complaints were the same, inconsistent and confusing application of criteria.
On Tuesday evening, Farm Bureau hosted Continue reading
Are Bill Gates and subdivisions really more important than agriculture
or rivers or public transportation?
Come to Farm Bureau tomorrow evening
and find out what’s
going on with the rural land revaluation. facebook event.
When: 7PM, Tuesday, 4 August 2015
Where: 3296 Greystone Way, Valdosta, GA, (229) 242-7876
By: Farm Bureau board member Buddy Coleman called this meeting.
What: Compare the Comprehensive Plan to this revaluation here (PDF).
Sprawl: sprawling residential growth is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin (Or at least big tax increases). PDF of the report by UGA Prof. Jeffrey H. Dorfman Lowndes County paid for in 2007, The Local Government Fiscal Impacts of Land Use in Lowndes County.
Who: At least some of the Lowndes County Tax Assessors Continue reading
The proposed MAZ changes were
tabled for 90 days,
they approved everything else, and
welcomed new Utilities Director Steve Stalvey again,
at the 5:30 PM Tuesday 28 July 2015 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
Valdosta City Council
Sandra Tooley
didn’t fill out a form and so didn’t get to speak,
but
another citizen asked about the
Naylor Boat Ramp (answer after the meeting: on schedule for this fall)
and about Sabal Trail (answer: none).
See also Continue reading
The proposed MAZ changes have “absolutely nothing to do with”
the 23 acres on Davidson Road that were proposed to be rezoned R-21 back in 2010,
after the county paved Davidson Road, said County Chairman Bill Slaughter at yesterday morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session.
County Planner Jason Davenport said he had hoped to get “on the same page with Moody”
before that same evening’s Planning Commission meeting
for the
MAZ ULDC Text Amendments,
but as yet he had nothing to report, and tabling was an option.
I don’t think that word “ultimately” means what he thinks it does.
See more
below about Davidson Road.
Not on the agenda were three, no four, reports:
Like the MAZ changes, also requiring a public hearing Tuesday evening is Continue reading
While
Dougherty County, Albany, and their state and federal reps
plan a joint opposition meeting to the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline invader, there’s nothing about that pipeline
on
Monday’s
8:30 AM
agenda of the Lowndes County Commission.
Three items on
emergency response,
emergency planning,
and
911 operations,
plus one on
liability,
but nothing about the
invading pipeline soft target.
The highly controversial Moody Activity Zoning Districts (MAZ) are back, despite massive opposition. The Planning Commission will hear MAZ again Monday evening, and because there’s only one day from then until the County Commission can vote on MAZ Tuesday, the County Planner says: Continue reading
Does this
rural land revaluation map
resemble the
Comprehensive Plan Future Development map?
Why not?
And why were rivers and public transportation not considered either
by the Lowndes County Tax Assessors
while tracts with road frontage were considered the
“highest market area”
and
land purchases by Bill Gates
were considered
“benchmark sales” instrumental in pricing large tracts?
This rural land revaluation is yet another vehicle to drive development straight north into the agricultural areas of the county, not even stopping at the Withlacoochee River.
That way lies sprawl, which as Dr. Jeffrey H. Dorfman of UGA has said, “is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin* * Or at least big tax increases.”
The City of Valdosta better watch out! Much of this Continue reading
Keep Lowndes-Valdosta Beautiful did cleanups in wetlands in
both the Withlacoochee and the Alapaha River watersheds, plus
at exit 22, and the general illegal trash dumping situation came up.
Did the county change the speed limit on your road?
The County Engineer said only in one area, but they didn’t publish the list.
Also discussed
were
a
GEMA grant application, a
proposal for engineering services for Exits 22 and 29,
HVAC for county buildings, and a
liquor license.
Here’s
the agenda
with links to the videos and a few notes.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
Continue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, MARCH 23, 2015 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 2015 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Some of this is happening locally: Valdosta is planting trees along Hill Avenue, Lowndes County is building Naylor Park with a boat ramp that will be part of the Alapaha River Water Trail and VLPRA has long been thinking about a blueway on the Withlacoochee River, where it already has a string of parks and ramps. Valdosta has the Azalea City Trail across several parks and VSU. Imagine if that Trail extended a little farther on each end, connecting the Withlacoochee River and the Alapaha River: a greenway between two blueways. Imagine if Lowndes County planted trees in that concrete median in Bemiss Road. Imagine a bus running down that parkway….
Janice Astbury, the nature of cities, 29 March 2015, Green Transport Routes Are Social-Cultural-Ecological Corridors,
…natural corridors do not appear on the standard online GPS systems that people increasingly use to plan their routes. In other cases, the path is suddenly interrupted by infrastructure hostile to pedestrians and cyclists. It is clear that green and active transport routes are an afterthought, an add-on, rather than a core part of the city’s transport strategy.
Local government should invest in developing and maintaining the natural connective tissue of the city. In the same way that significant investment is made in arterial roads because they are believed to serve everyone and to connect up vital places, so inviting connective green infrastructure should be supported. The canals, footpaths, and cycleways that provide routes for active transport should appear prominently on maps and signage. Whole systems should be indicated when possible, even when portions of them are currently inaccessible, in order to enhance system understanding, and to encourage thinking about connecting up fragmented corridors.
Few people complain when a county or city spends millions of dollars on Continue reading
Due to requests from Greenlaw in Atlanta and Save Our Suwannee in Florida,
WWALS Watershed Coalition asked the City of Valdosta for a presentation
on their wastewater situation.
Valdosta presented less than two weeks later, and brought their entire
hierarchy related to this issue, from the mayor on down.
Plus Lowndes County, which isn’t even responsible for Valdosta’s wastewater,
was represented by their Chairman and a Commissioner.
Not all questions could be answered that quickly, but many were.
The slides are on the LAKE website and the videos are on the LAKE YouTube channel; see below. See also Valdosta’s Sanitary Sewer System Improvements web page.
At the meeting, clockwise from Tim Carroll (introducing), were: Continue reading