About The Islander. (St. Simons Island, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (June 24, 2019)
Page 16, June 24, 2019, The Islander 'If you'd just follow the rules..." I’m turning Back Talk over to sis ter Pam this week for something she’s been wanting to say for a while. I think I may have enough room at the end for some comments of my own on a different subject. Enjoy!! Matthew Permar By Pamela Permar-Shierling So I’m doing a little light reading of the Glynn County zoning ordinance Section 701. Here’s what it says: 701.1 Intent of Districts. “It is the intent of this section that the R-6, R-9, M-6, M-9, Mh-6 and Mh-9 One-Family Residential Zoning Districts he devel oped and reserved for low-to-medium density residential purposes. The regulations which apply within these districts are designed to encour age the formation and continuance of a stable, healthy environment for one- family dwellings situated on zoning lots having an area of six thousand (6,000) square feet or more, and to dis courage any encroachment hy commer cial, industrial, high density residen tial, or other uses capable of adversely affecting the single-family residential character of the district. It is further the intent that no additional land he rezoned to the R-6 district in Plan ning District 2 (St. Simons Island) after December 31, 2002. (0-2002-20, 11/7/2002).” You will have to trust me on the next two items. 701 permitted uses do not include parks. Conditional uses do include non-commercial recreation areas but, and it’s a big but, the use of any rec reational area is for subdivision resi dents and guests only. 701.4.4 (conditional uses recre ational areas) says in compliance with Section 702.4, and 702.4 is where the conditional uses are detailed. So how can you require, albeit a public road, that goes through R6 zon ing, no commercial parks allowed, to be used to get to almost 300 acres of commercial park? This is what is happening at Ger man Village. The St. Simons Land Trust wants to use their road, the only road in and out of the neighbor hood, to access their new park, Guale Preserve. Would you only limit access to a commercial area through a subdivi sion, particularly a subdivision with only one way in and one way out, one with a very narrow public road on which two vehicles cannot pass, on which school busses don’t travel, on which large vehicles such as land scape trucks, delivery vans, and tour buses have to travel down the middle of the road? Remedial planning 101 says to me, a layman, of course not. Especially when your ordinance has codified the formation of and “continuance of a The Islander EDITORIAL Pamela Permar Shierling Editor stable, healthy environment for one- family dwellings.” Yes I am speaking about Guale Preserve purchased in phases, three so far with an option for a fourth, by the St. Simons Land Trust. It’s also odd that Glynn County has committed to spend $5,000 for an ordi nance to regulate short term rentals. While there are a number of reasons to regulate the rentals, one reason that has been repeated is traffic and parking problems from the rentals along public neighborhood streets. The county could still potentially spend another $90,000 a year for a consultant to monitor these rentals. The odd part is the county has been silent when it comes to German Vil lage residents’ very real concerns about the parking and traffic issues they could be facing in connection with Guale Preserve. What’s up with that? Nor has the Land Trust ever public ly presented a full site plan to anyone; not the Islands Planning Commission, not the Community Development De partment, and above all not to the German Village Property owners association. Why? Who needs drivers? By Matthew J. Permar So it seems Pam did leave me a bit of room. Yay! I found some very interesting things in Pam’s Page 2 article about the Brunswick City Commission and their budget. There’s a ‘Mass Transit Fund’ in case the city receives federal and state transportation grants totaling almost $400,000. The department would re quire in infusion of $43,000 from the general fund as well. A $423,000 expense to purchase buses is included. A couple of things.... first, public, mass transportation systems have been studied here for years and have never been deemed a good idea. Second, let’s say the city gets the $400,000 grant and buys a bunch of buses. There is no mention anywhere of how they will fund salaries for driv ers and mechanics and admin people to run the system. I promise you, there won’t be enough left out of the grant to do it. And what about fuel? How do they pay for that? $400,000 is a wasted drop in the bucket of our tax dollars for an abso lutely unnecessary project. There has been absolutely no fore thought or planning put into this - it’s just, “Oh, money! Yeah, we’ll take it.” We Know YOU’RE READY? but it’s never too early to start planning. 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