Following comments from a citizen who appeared before commissioners, Bulloch County plans to formally object to the annexation of a property by the City of Statesboro.
Resident B. Anderson addressed commissioners during public comment Monday night about the annexation of a 714-acre tract of land for a development slated to yield 1,794 housing units on Burkhalter Road. The project, known as Blue Fern Village, is currently within the county, but if annexed would become home to “townhomes, duplexes, “casitas” or small cottages and single-family homes on lots ranging from 3,500 square feet to 6,200 square feet,” according to the Statesboro Herald.
Statesboro City Manager Charles Penny told WTOC in July that the development was in response to Hyundai and he hoped the larged development would help ‘moderate’ home prices and rental rates. He also told the Statesboro Herald that annexation is the only way a city can grow.
On Monday night, Anderson shared with commissioners that the project hasn’t even begun, but the area already experiences substantial flooding during rains because of Little Lotts Creek near Golf Club Road.
“We have until Friday to officially object to that as a county,” he said. “This is an unprecedented size.” Anderson said the pine trees in the area, which are set to be cleared, hold a conservative estimate of two million to twenty-eight million gallons of water per day before considering sealing the ground with pavement.
“That’s the size of Cypress Lake if it was five-foot deep,” he said. “You can’t tell me that isn’t going to have a tremendous effect on that creek. We are already getting flooded out.”
Anderson said he deals with it as it pertains to his own property, but people won’t want to live in the neighborhood with the kind of flooding that will undoubtedly be exacerbated. “Folks that buy in that neighborhood aren’t going to have a clue until their neighborhood looks like Richmond Hill does right now.”
Anderson lamented that the county owns the roads and it won’t be the city’s issue to fix when everything runs downstream. “It’s going to come out of our pocket and the city’s the one getting the tax money from it.”
“Even though it may seem like a waste of time because it didn’t work last year, it does a couple things,” Anderson said. “One, it tells the citizens of Bulloch County that you’ve got our backs and you acknowledged that this is going to be an issue. And the city understands the county is not on board with this. The next thing is it puts something official in place that maybe there’s a legal avenue in the future. At least there is something on record that the county did not just say ‘OK.'”
Anderson said it may have an impact on the decisions of city officials because of politics. Referring to the application with the city, Anderson read where the developer noted that ‘county zoning makes the property difficult to develop and would not allow for appropriate unit density to meet the cost of utility extension.’ “They’re saying they know they can’t do it” [it’s in the county,] he said.
County Manager Tom Couch responded to Anderson and acknowledged that he and other staff had been emailing with Anderson about the issue.
“Because of the size and magnitude of this development, it was considered a development of regional impact which meant it had to go before the Coastal Regional Commission and they did a cursory review. Now, they don’t have any binding power to make formative recommendations or decisions, they did in a way, but they never come out and say ‘this isn’t in the best interest of the county or the region or the state.’ However, we did put on the record what our concerns were with the development, like you mentioned, the road, the drainage. You can look at any GIS map and see the property is great for being a hunting preserve but outside of that, it’s going to be difficult to develop at that scale, in our opinion. But then there’s all the other impacts that, many of those impacts may end up accruing in the unincorporated area of the county, hence the county government, versus the city. Our county attorney isn’t present tonight because he’s out – he’s had a knee replacement – I feel it would be incumbent for me to contact him if the Board of Commissioners are willing to take any kind of action tonight, I’m not sure it doesn’t need to be supported by some kind of a resolution…
But if you [Anderson] go back to the email Mr. Pope sent you, the Beasley Road annexation, I would probably say the state Department of Community Affairs didn’t have the county’s back. We tried to go through a mediation process and, if my memory is correct, they were either unwilling or unable to pull some mediators together and like Mr. Pope said, they threw a bunch of obstacles up and I think if you look at that as a precedent, going through this again may be nothing more than to send the message that you suggested: have our back.
I think if the county commission wanted to take that plan of action…I know we sent out a notice about the annexation and I know I didn’t hear back from any of you all. It’s a big property and it’s a big development, and while the city has had some communication with us that they would take our concerns into consideration, frankly that’s not a guarantee.”
Commissioner Rushing said he remembered the hardships with the Beasley Road annexation, “but at the end of it, the city did end up agreeing to take all the responsibility for it. For the traffic, for the roads. So I wouldn’t have a thing against giving staff permission to go back to the city. I don’t think we can stop it, but we can make them accept full responsibility.”
Ultimately, Commissioner Simmons made a motion to allow staff to take the necessary steps to file a formal annexation objection according to Georgia statute. It was approved unanimously with all commissioners voting in favor.
