The Fayette County School Board Monday decided to say thanks but no thanks to an offer by Fayette County to buy 49.4 acres of surplus wetland property at the Goza Road school complex.

The county recently offered a total of $400,000 for property that, according to school system Facilities Director Mike Satterfield and retired biologist and environmental activist Dennis Chase, could be worth more than $2 million. The board months ago had discussed selling the property for wetlands mitigation use if a sufficient bid was received.

Mitigation credits are used to mitigate or lessen the environmental impact to a wetlands area to be developed, such as a roadway, utility right-of-way or a commercial development, by that entity through purchasing land in another wetlands area. The credits are sold per unit, such as per acre.

Fayette County is potentially interested in securing credits for its road projects.

Aside from an unofficial offer from Fayetteville developer Brent Scarbrough, the only written offer for the property came from Fayette County.

Satterfield said initial projections suggested the 49.4 acres could bring 48,000-58,000 wetland mitigation credits in the range of $90 per credit for a total of $4-5 million. Satterfield said the mitigation credit market is now down to approximately $80 per credit, largely due to the economy.

“There’s not a lot of development going on now,” he said, suggesting a reasonable offer could take up to three years. “The county’s offer is insignificant compared to the value of the property. We at least need to get out of it what we’ve got in it.”

The bottom line, said Satterfield, is that the school system already has $750,000 in the wetlands area. He recommended waiting until economic conditions improve before trying to sell the property.

“Personally, I’m not interested in a fire sale,” board member Bob Todd said of the Fayette County offer. Everyone on the board agreed that the county offer was not sufficient.

Board members asked Dennis Chase to give his opinion of the issue and the county’s offer.

“I would be prone to tell the county what they could do with this offer,” Chase said, noting the county’s tabulation of fewer available mitigation credits and at a lower price per credit.

Satterfield and Chase noted that two future alternatives the school board could consider would be to set up its own mitigation bank, though that would bear a substantial cost and staff time, or have a non-profit organization manage it.

The first option would, over a period of years, generate an estimated $1.3-1.5 million for the school system. The second option could be expected to generate $2-2.5 million over an 8-10 year period, Chase said.

The board agreed to wait until market conditions improve.

Board members in March were told by Integrated Science & Engineering (ISE) that the unbuildable property should bring substantially more than the $5,005 per acre appraised value for 49.4 acres situated inside the Goza Road/Kiwanis property.

Though the company could provide only a generalized example of what the board might expect from selling the land for mitigation use, ISE’s Ron Feldner said the mitigation credits might bring us much as $850,000, or 3.5 times the appraised value. He said March 17 the potential buyers included Fayette County, Georgia Dept. of Transportation, Georgia Power and private mitigation banks.

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