Since the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners formally objected to the city of Statesboro’s annexation of a 36.55-acre tract on Beasley Road for residential development, the city government has in turn responded with a challenge to the county’s objection.
That response, conveyed in an attorney’s April 28 letter to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, argues that the DCA should not name an arbitration panel to settle the dispute. Writing to DCA Commissioner Christopher Nunn of behalf of the city, Ted C. Baggett, an attorney from Lawrenceville, asserts both that Bulloch County submitted no real evidence in support of its objection and that the Georgia law calling for arbitration panels violates the state’s own Constitution.
“Article IX, Section II, Paragraph IV of the Georgia Constitution affords the zoning power to the governing authority of each city and county, not to panels of officials and academics from outside jurisdictions,” Baggett wrote in his concluding paragraph. “As it purports to empower entities other than the governing authority of the City of Statesboro (or Bulloch County) to make exclusively delegated decisions regarding zoning of property, the statutory scheme is fatally flawed and DCA should not attempt to comply with it.”
Began in January
The continuing dispute grew from a request earlier this year by Bel Air Estates Inc., as 100% landowner, to have the undeveloped tract adjacent to the city limits annexed into Statesboro. The Bel Air Estates shareholders have been proposing to sell the land to developer Lamar Smith of Smith Family Homes. Annexation to allow for city water and sewer service is reportedly a condition of the purchase.
Originally, the land was informally described as roughly 41 acres. The first proposal was for immediate rezoning from the city’s default annexation zoning of R-40 single-family residential to R-2 townhome residential for creation of a subdivision with up to 212 townhouse units.
But other area property owners and residents objected, citing the potential population density, traffic and effects on the character of the neighborhood as well as faults in the city’s notification process.
City Council first voted Jan. 17 to annex the site. But some of the objecting citizens then filed a legal challenge in Bulloch County Superior Court, noting errors in the city’s procedure that included failing to notify Bulloch County Schools officials before annexation and voting to annex before a required 45-day opportunity for the county commissioners to object had fully passed.
In a Feb. 23 consent order approved by Judge Ronnie Thompson, the city agreed that the January annexation was “null and void.” But as expected, the property owners applied again to have the land annexed, this time with a compromise proposal to have the property rezoned to R-6 for creation of 124 lots for detached, single-family houses.
County objection
The county commissioners then voted, 6-0, on April 4, to file a formal objection.
In presenting the resolution, County Attorney Jeff Akins said the proposed R-6 zoning and the resulting increase in density would “impose infrastructure demands” on the county. The added burden would include a need for “intersection improvements, road repairs and resurfacing,” and the project would “substantially increase traffic,” the resolution asserted.
Supplementing the county’s notice to the DCA, Akins included an April 18 affidavit from Alex Simmons, a Georgia-licensed professional engineer, commenting on the expected traffic impact on the area around Beasley Road and Jones Mill Road and their intersection.
Simmons noted in the affidavit that he is “in the process of conducting a traffic impact study of the intersection.”
The development planned for the annexed parcel “is expected to generate more than 100 trips” in the peak hour of the afternoon alone, “and nearly 1,200 trips over the course of a day,” Simmons stated. His cited source is an Institute of Transportation Engineers’ Trip Generation Manual.
Based on 2022 data from a Georgia Department of Transportation interactive database, Simmons stated that the current average daily traffic along Beasley Road south of Jones Mill Road is already 2,440 vehicles.
So, the subdivision proposed for the parcel pending annexation “is expected to increase traffic by nearly 50%,” he wrote.
“While the magnitude of the impacts will remain unknown until the traffic impact study is conducted, it is expected that the development will impact the existing operations along Beasley Road,” Simmons wrote. “It is possible that added vehicles along this roadway could require improvement alternatives. … Such … alternatives could be expected to incur significant expenses.”
City’s other claim
However, Baggett, in his letter for the city, quotes the state law as requiring the county to “specifically provide evidence of any financial impact forming the basis of the objection.”
Noting that Simmons’ affidavit was filed two weeks after the objection and also his use of terms such as “expected,” “possible” and “could,” Baggett alleges that the county has provided no actual evidence but only “speculation and conjecture.”
DCA Associate Planner Derrick Peavy, in an April 24 email to Bulloch Commissioners Chairman Roy Thompson and Statesboro Mayor Jonathan McCollar, had stated that the department would be back in touch within two weeks after assembling “a sufficient number of panelists.”
City Attorney Cain Smith, a City Hall official, provided a copy of the city’s response when requested by media organizations, but it was prepared by Baggett as an affiliated attorney with the Atlanta-area firm Pereira, Kirby, Kinsinger & Nguyen.
Phoned Monday, County Attorney Akins said he doesn’t know how the city’s letter will affect the process but that he is working with George Rountree of the Statesboro law firm Brown Rountree PC, who is lead counsel in preparing a response for the county.
“Our position is that the statute and the regulations require DCA to assemble an arbitration panel after an objection’s filed,” Akins said. “So I think it should proceed through that process.”