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Commish, Legislators Talk
Taxes, Trains, Water & More
Plenty of Tasks for Athens’
Planning Department
Four Athens-area state legislators met with
Athens-Clarke County (ACC) Commissioners
Nov. 11 to hear the commission's wish list
for items of local interest they'd like the
legislature to act on. The discussions were
friendly—and even the Republican legisla
tors didn't disagree with commissioners on
most of the 15 items presented—but a big
underlying issue was raised by a handout that
Mayor Heidi Davison distributed. It listed over
a dozen recent "unfunded mandates"—state
and federal requirements like soil erosion
and stormwater enforcement, or having to
replace all road signs
to meet new reflectiv
ity standards—that the
county must pay for,
even while state money
is cut (for Superior
Court judges, for
example) or promised
money is eliminated.
But Representative
Bob Smith warned that the result of state
budget-cutting is "not going to be pretty for
the cities; it's not going to be pretty for the
counties."
The twice-yearly meetings of commission
ers and legislators have sometimes been tense
in the past, especially about the commission's
desire to raise the local hotel/motel tax. The
7 percent tax on lodging is an "equitable"
funding source, Commissioner Kelly Girtz said,
whereby out-of-town visitors (football fans,
for example) help pay costs for the services
they require (like extra game-day policing).
Commissioners want to raise the tax to 8
percent. But Rep. Smith, particularly, has
opposed any increase. Smith said nothing last
week on the matter, but fellow Republican
Ralph Hudgens didn't dismiss it outright and
asked several questions about the details.
Also at the ACC Commission work session
Nov. 11 (see above), commissioners heard
"concept" proposals from Don Martin—
administrator of county SPLOST sales-tax
projects—for construction of a work-release
center next to the jail. Such a 50-bed "diver
sion center" was one recommendation of a
recent consultant's study of jail needs, and of
the criminal justice task force that commis
sioned the study. "We've been talking about
a work-release program in this community
forever," task force chair Elton Dodson told
fellow commissioners. Keeping qualified, non
violent inmates in the dorm-like facility will
be cheaper than keeping them in a new jail;
perhaps a third of present jail inmates might
qualify for work-release, Martin said.
"It's hard to say you're excited about a
jail facility, or a detention facility," Dodson
admitted, but "it's a good plan that's exactly
Nor did Senator Hudgens dismiss the possi
bility of putting limits on private water with
drawals by homeowners who drill their own
wells—or pump from a river or lake if they
live next to one—in order to have unlimited
water for landscaping. "What if everybody that
lives adjacent to the Oconee River just
put a pump in there and drew out 99,000
gallons of water a day?" asked Commissioner
Kathy Hoard. (They might be able to do so
without a permit, since state law begins
regulating such surface withdrawals at the
threshold of 100,000 gallons a day.) "We
don't have the tools"
to discourage such
withdrawals, Hoard
said, even while other
citizens are being asked
to conserve water.
Hudgens acknowledged
the problem but said
such restrictions should
be decided by the State
Water Council once it has assessed regional
water needs under the new statewide water
management act.
Democratic representatives Doug McKillip
and Keith Heard also attended the session.
All the legislators seemed sympathetic to the
county's desire for a sales tax (subject to voter
approval) to fund public transportation, and
Mayor Davison said she expects the Legislature
to approve some such option this year.
Rep. Smith, meanwhile, seemed to be get
ting on board with passenger rail. "We created
the rail in America, and now we're lagging in
it," he said, citing "bullet trains" that run in
Europe and Japan. A "Brain Train" to Atlanta
that runs only 55 miles per hour? "It'd be
nice," Smith said, "but 210's nicer."
where we need to be going." Other commis
sioners did not disagree; the work-release
center could reduce the "revolving door" of
people returning to jail again and again,
Commissioner George Maxwell, a former police
man, said. (The consultant's report said the
average Clarke County jail inmate has been in
jail 10 times before.) Some people are willing
to go to jail just for "three hots and a cot,"
Maxwell said. One man, he said, told him,
"'When I get out, I find that all my friends
have deserted me, my family doesn't want me
in the house, I can't get a decent job. So I
do just enough to go back to jail.'" Maxwell
added: "We didn't teach that young man any
thing until we got him in a rehab program.
Now he has a good job, goes to work every
day and has a family."
John Huie jphuie@athens.net
Upcoming studies of Prince Avenue (end
to end) and Oconee/Oak Street—similar
to a study already done for the Boulevard
corridor—have been requested by ACC
Commissioners with a view to guiding future
development and amenities, and will be done
"in-house" (without outside consultants) by
the ACC Planning Department rlext year.
"Don't lose sight that we did express a
vision of what corridors should look like,"
Commissioner Carl Jordan tcld Planning
Director Brad Griffin at last week's commission
work session. "That they should be green, that
they should accommodate pedestrians, they
should accommodate bicycles. We wanted to
place some constraints on signage," Jordan
added.
The studies will inventory existing condi
tions along both streets and make long-term
recommendations for sidewalks or other
pedestrian amenities, Griffin said. They might
recommend rezoning a few properties, or add
ing "overlay districts"
with special require
ments in some areas.
Commissioner David
Lynn said he'd like to
see very individualized
plans for each corridor,
with key properties
identified. The study should not be too gen
eral: it should ask "how we improve this cor
ner," he said, and not "this is how we're going
to develop an urban intown corridor, wherever
it is."
Griffin proposed holding public meetings
on each study only after it has been finished,
so his staff can maintain an independent view
in making recommendations. "I think some
times we end up, from a professional staff
standpoint, being steered in specific direc
tions if we have a majority of people [with
strong views]," he said. But several commis
sioners had reservations about that approach:
asked Lynn, what if affected neighborhoods
hate the study once it's been done?
When citizens are involved up front, Lynn
said, it "seems like it's easier, and—more
importantly—more accepted by the commu
nity." And, he said, "part of why we're going
through this—for Prince Avenue at least—
is all the work that the CAPPA [Community
Approach to Planning Prince Avenue] folks
did.... Citizens need to see these corridors
as planners do; but planners need to see the
corridors as a citizen does." Commissioner
Kelly Girtz suggested holding "a pair of
charrettes"—design sessions that involve the
public—for both the Prince and Oconee/Oak
corridors.
Planners are also studying Milledge Avenue.
The current moratorium on demolition of
additional houses along Milledge Avenue (the
part between Broad Street and Lumpkin Street
that's not already a protected historic district)
will expire in April. Recommendations for a
permanent historic district should be done
by then, and they include allowing Planning
Department staffers more flexibility to approve
minor changes to buildings, short of approval
by the Historic Preservation Commission.
"Forty percent of the buildings on Milledge
are not historic, meaning they're not 50 years
old," Amy Kissane, director of the Athens-
Clarke Heritage Foundation told Flagpole last
week. But "a lot of those fit in really well,"
she said. So like downtown, Milledge may get
its own design guidelines for property own
ers to use when they're
considering making
substantial changes to a
building. The guidelines
for Milledge may be a
year away, and could
take into account "com
patibility issues" and
parking for fraternities and sororities, Griffin
said. Existing design guidelines for downtown
and for other historic districts are available
at the Planning Department's web site (www.
accplanning.com).
And next year, planning staffers will pre
pare draft ordinances based on the depart
ment's study of infill housing (released in
February of this year) "to better understand
issues related to neighborhoods and to recom
mend appropriate ordinance changes."
In 2010, the department will pick a
consultant who will design a transferable
development rights (or TDR) program for
Athens-Clarke. The program is designed to pro
tect greenspace in so-called "sending" areas,
and give developers more flexibility in areas
"receiving" development rights. Then planning
staff "will recommend the most uncomplicated
means of transferring the rights and establish
a cost structure" for landowners who wish to
sell them. "Sending" and "receiving" zones
will be proposed and then reviewed by the
Planning Commission and ACC Commissioners.
John Huie jphuie@athens.net
“What if everybody that lives
adjacent to the Oconee River
just put a pump in there
and drew out 99,000 gallons
of water a day?”
John Huie jphuie@athens.net
“Three Hots and a Cot”:
Diversion Center in Works
“Citizens need to see these
corridors as planners do;
but planners need to see the
corridors as a citizen does.”
6 FLAGPOLE.COM • NOVEMBER 19,2008