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
They vote this evening, about right now.
Here are videos of yesterday morning’s Work Session.
The
Forestry report referred to a report that the public can’t see.
What the forestry rep reported was mostly numbers of burn permits.
County Manager Joe Pritchard had to stop Chairman Bill Slaughter from adjourning so he could say: “Friday afternoon we received a request for electronic signalling at highway 41.” County Engineer Mike Fletcher elaborated that it was a railroad pre-empt that would not allow for left turns onto Tillman Crossing when there’s a train. Request came from Norfolk Southern. Chairman agreed to add it to the agenda, then they adjourned.
The annual continued funding for the Little River USGS stream gage at GA 122 costs $400 more this year. Commissioner Marshall wanted to know what happened with the automated gage reporting system he thought they voted for previously, that would send reports when the gage was high. County Manager Joe Pritchard said that was actually the SCADA system for the county’s wells and sewage lift stations. Commissioner Mark Wisenbaker wanted to know how this gage operates. Box on bridge, tube down into river, monitors height and flow, reported through a cell phone, real time data on the web. It’s been there long enough to establish flood stages and advanced warning levels so people can protect their property.
The Abandonment of a portion of Spain Ferry Road and Kinderlou Clyattville Road turns out to be from Continue reading
This morning at 8:30 AM,
USGS Funding Agreement for HWY 122 Stream Gauge
continue funding for Little River USGS stream gage at GA 122,
Abandonment of a portion of Spain Ferry Road and Kinderlou Clyattville Road because “the county has received a request” from whom wasn’t said,
Dedicate a portion of Shiloh Road to whom or what wasn’t said.
Plus
GEMA Sheltering Memorandum of Agreement
“for the sheltering of evacuees from Coastal Georgia and/or Florida in the event those areas are threatened by a hurricane”.
Plus
Declaration of Surplus Items and Authorization to Sell on GovDeals.com.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
Continue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2015, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2015, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
They meet again today 2:30 PM.
Last month,
ZBOA voted 5 to 1 to let
Moody Family Housing
have a reduction of 25% (half of the 50% they wanted)
so as to include a requirement of native trees.
Gretchen Quarterman made the motion, Paul Alvarado seconded, and Satrina Plyler (filling the unexpired term of Scott Orenstein) voted against.
See for more background.
Here’s a video playlist:
Videos: Moody Family Housing doesn’t want to replace trees it cut down on Val-Del
Regular Session, Valdosta-Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBOA),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 4 August 2015.
-jsq
Appeal today if you think there’s more to land (or business)
and woods and fields and streams than money,
unlike the Tax Assessors, whose revaluation would drive development
into agricultural areas of the county where it doesn’t belong,
while avoiding populated areas such as the south side of Valdosta.
We can expect pipeline companies and utilities from other states
to think nothing of pillaging our lands for their profit.
We shouldn’t expect that of our neighbors whom we elected Tax Asssessors.
If you have affection for your land, your county, your neighborhood,
today’s the deadline
to appeal your valuation.
And there will be an election later.
As Wendell Berry said,
Whatever has happened in what economists call “the economy,” it is generally true that the land economy has been discounted or ignored.
Are the Tax Assessors boomers? Are you a sticker? Wendell Berry explains: Continue reading
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
2:30 PM today,
should developers not have to follow code and put back trees
on the unnecessary and environmentally hazardous Moody Family Housing
on Val-Del Road?
You wouldn’t know who this was by a pretty name like
Azalea Commons,
or an acronym like
ACC Group III Housing,
and only the
board packet
mentions Balfour Beatty,
but it’s the same
Moody Family Housing
in an
aquifer recharge zone
that
already had a sinkhole
as admitted by
a K Street lawyer to the
Lowndes County Commission
and told to them and to the Air Force by VSU professors
that the Air Force proceeded to ignore in its
environmental assessment
and the Lowndes County Commission rezoned anyway.
Staff recommend 20% “relief” from planting trees.
How about the county get some relief from unnecessary sprawl?
They did provide
a table of the trees they want to cut down.
Here’s the agenda, which is not on the City of Valdosta website, appearing here courtesy of 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
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