About The Islander. (St. Simons Island, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (March 11, 2019)
Page 6, March 11,2019, The Islander County Commission Continued from Page 1 impact development efforts and harm competitiveness.” The BOC is currently in the pro cess of a complete rewrite of the county’s Zoning Ordinance and Subdivision Regulations, and build ing design elements and standards will likely be included in the new regulations. The resolution also states that “appropriate local design standards and land use policies create a di verse, stable, profitable, and sus tainable residential development landscape.” The BOC believes that HB 302 would undermine the self determi nation of citizens to establish com munity standards by the following: • County and municipal officials are elected in part to make decisions about the look and feel of their com munity, which fosters economic de velopment, preserves the character of communities; and • Counties and municipalities use design standards to ensure that the property values of surrounding prop erty owners remain protected from incompatible development; and • HB 302 would severely erode the ability of all 538 Georgia cities and 159 counties to address unique and community-specific quality of life issues. Continuing the resolution states: - design standards are used to protect property values, attract high quality developers and block incom patible development; - assure residents and business owners that their investments will be protected and that others who come behind them will be equally committed to quality; - local governments spend a large amount of resources studying, sur veying, crafting and defining their vision and development strategies, and design standards are an integral part of these endeavors to attract residents, businesses and a trained work force; - development and redevelopment should reflect the community and it’s vision, while creating a sense of place, - county and municipal officials are elected to make decisions about the look and feel of their communi ties, and HB 302 would transfer that power from duly-elected local lead ers to outside groups with little to no stake in the future or success of Georgia’s counties and municipali ties, including real estate developers and home builders; - building design standards nei ther discourage nor favor affordable housing, nor prevent the availability of certain housing types - as support ers of HB 302 purport; - local governments have the abil ity to provide more affordable hous ing options without sacrificing their unique character or threatening eco nomic growth; - although historic districts are protected in HB 302, which indicates an understanding that standards do in fact make sense, downtown overlays or other similar special zon ing districts are not; - local governments should be em powered to enforce building design standards to today’s thriving county areas tomorrow’s historic districts; - by limiting the ability of local governments to enforce design stan dards in single and double family dwellings, HB 302 would negatively impact quality of life issues, includ ing economic growth and the safety and welfare of the citizens of Georgia and in particular Glynn County. With that the BOC sent a copy of this resolution to every member of the Georgia House of Representa tives and Senate. • In other business: - The BOC voted unanimously to approve a change order for the Fred erica Road repaving project in the amount of $52,730. The road project is a Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) 2016 project. The item was on the consent agen da, but was pulled by Commissioner Peter Murphy (Dist. 2) to have an ex planation for the public. Murphy said, “I received an e- mail from a concerned citizen about this change order regarding the road widening in the Wymberly area. As the crew was paving they found that some additional work needed to be done. The concerned citizen felt the issue should go to the oversight com mittee (SPLOST Citizens Oversight Committee) first before being com ing to us.” “The issue was the discovery of a broken clay pipe,” said Murphy, “It turned out it was a storm water drainage pipe, not a JWSC (Joint Water and Sewer Commission) pipe.” Murphy asked for an explanation of who has purview over the issue. Commission chairman Mike Browning (Dist. 1) said the oversight committee was formed to mirror the Board of Education’s ESPLOST oversight committee. Their purpose, said Browning, is to review the progress and status of the projects and put the information out to the public. “The committee was never meant,” said Browning, “to super vise to make decisions. It is up to us, the county commission, to execute the SPLOST projects because we an swer to the taxpayers. We can’t put the authority off on anyone else. At the end of the day, it is our decision on how to handle it and implement the SPLOST.” “Dave Austin (Public Works Di rector) contacted me about this,” said Browning, “and said we needed to deal with it now and not just cov er up a broken drain pipe. We have enough money to deal with it, so we made the decision to do it.” Murphy also asked for another item to be pulled regarding an in crease for the SPLOST 2016 funded Pier Village Drainage project. Murphy said he pulled it for a similar explanation for the same concerned citizen. The request was to increase the project budget by $4,358 and it was approved unanimously. Living on St. Simons, Ed Kellis has become a neighbor and professional that you can trust. With more than 25 years floor covering experience, Ed Kellis is Brunswick Floors expert for the islands. Call Ed today at 638-9119 or 230-4166 for a free in-home estimate. 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