Concerns about new Master Plan and Subdivsion changes

[Ken Johanson]

Dear Commissioners,

A concerned group of citizens is asking that you please read the points below, and if you find any of these to be inaccurate, please reply with your thoughts. We also ask that you send the pending Master Plan and Subdivision documents back to the Community and Development Services (Planning Department) staff and require that protections against these concerns be added back into the documents.

In summary we are concerned that the dramatic and wholesale removal of the regulations which limited where new development can occur (the Land Use Map and Adjacency criteria, and no replacement Proximity or Compatibly criteria), especially in agricultural areas, will create immense new burdens on our services, result in even more county debt, bad credit rating, and increased taxes. The changes also insure that developers have more legal basis to initiate suits against the county, even if the Planning Commission or BOCC objects to a application, because only written regulations offer strong protection (whereas, removing these regulations is an endorsement of the hopscotch growth). Citizens may also be more compelled to challenge new developments, and yet, have even less legal points to protect them.

Thank you,

Ken Johanson,
Elbert County Resident

[Ken Johanson]

Hello Hope, thank you very much for your reply. Please read these numbered comments by another citizen, in response to your question, I believe they sum it up rather well:

1)  The changes for subdivision applications are good and effective, and provide a much more effective approach than adjacency for subdivisions.  

 

2)  However, the manner in which the specific Master Plan page substitutions were selected results in the abolishment of all adjacency for all land use applications in the County, and eliminates the Master Plan map and all density constraints previously in place for rural high, medium and low development for all land use applications in the county.  

 

3)  The abolishment of all adjacency for all land use applications in the county was never part of the extensive public dialogue that focused on the subdivision changes, and reaches far beyond the subdivision changes themselves.   A better choice of page substitutions in the Master Plan needs to be found. 

 

4)  Abolishment of all adjacency requirements on all land use applications is premature at this point.  More work needs to be done, and a viable process for public involvement is already in place to do it. 

 

5)  We believe it is mandatory that we revisit the implementation of these good improvements for subdivision applications, at the same time continuing work on a similarly effective alternative to adjacency for other land use applications.   That means returning the entire package for much needed work before it can take effect.

Please, let me know if I can provide more details about any part of this.. I also ask that you PLEASE confer with the other BOCC members, so we can sure they are fully aware of these points.

Thank you,

Ken Johanson, behalf of Elbert County concerned citizens.

Hope Goetz wrote:

Dear Ken,

I am in the process of reading this, but fail to see a problem. We have several citizens who have raised concerns about different issues and we can't please everyone, but still looking for issues of concern.

Thanks

Hope