Wednesday, June 8, 2004

Developer offers park, gets his annexation

Well, once again and no surprise to Fayette County citizens, developer Bob Rolader has wooed the Fayetteville Planning and Zoning Commissioners with his offer of an 8-acre park, which he would donate to the city in exchange for them annexing 108 acres of land on Redwine Road just south of the Kiwanis Park and across from the Lakemont subdivision.

The developer’s plan calls for a “conservation subdivision” with 94 single-family houses. However, no one seems to be able to figure out exactly what a “conservation subdivision” zoning is, since no such zoning currently exists [in the city].

Despite this, the Fayetteville Planning and Zoning Board voted unanimously in favor of the annexation and zoning despite concerns of local citizens, who pleaded with the commissioners to take their concerns seriously about the traffic problems which already exist on Redwine Road.

This is not the first time that Bob Rolader has put his offer of parkland in an annexation pitch and I’m sure this will not be the last, since he seems to get very favorable results each time he has used it.

The property is currently zoned AR and is surrounded on all sides by Fayette County property. The property is directly south of the Kiwanis Park, which already contributes greatly to the traffic woes on Redwine Road.

The planning and zoning commissioners showed little concern for the traffic problems. Why should they? After all, that would be Fayette County’s problem since the county is generally left scrambling to provide schools and solutions to the traffic nightmares that these expanding city boundaries create.

When asked by a concerned citizen were there any current plans to improve Redwine Road to handle the additional traffic, one of the commissioners replied that there is currently no plan to improve Redwine Road and that the county had made no plans to improve the road, “so why should we?”

So as usual the citizens will be forced to deal with the traffic nightmare with no hope that things will improve anytime soon.

Developers like Bob Rolader have figured out that by donating land for city parks and city use, they are pretty much assured that the annexation will be a success and they can use annexations to get around the suburban counties who are still clinging to their low-density land-use plans and avoid impact fees that counties often impose on them.

There seems to be no solution in sight to give the counties power to control annexations so cities will continue to be allowed to gobble up county land and developers like Bob Rolader will continue to come out winners, while the citizens of counties like Fayette County will be faced with the traffic nightmares, school overcrowding, rising crimes rates and rising taxes to keep up with the loss in tax base.

Maybe developers like Bob Rolader, instead of donating parks we don’t need or want, should have to foot the bill for road improvements to ease the traffic nightmares they create by continuing to push for cities to expand their boundaries to take in their new projects.

How can counties continue to be left with the loss in tax base as well as the cost of trying to solve the problems the cities and developers create by their greed? Unless legislation is passed to solve these issues, I see little hope for counties to survive, and how can they when there is no limit to just how much land cities can steal away.

D. Crowder

Fayetteville, Ga.

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