County Commissioner's Office

County Talk
By
Lamar Paris - Commissioner 

Part II - Continued questions on development
Q.  Who is going to be held responsible for all of this negative development in the county?  How long before what used to be the beauty of Union County becomes just a memory?
A. I will certainly be held partly responsible for that development, as will those who own property and want to maximize its value by selling it. The developers and builders will hold some responsibility. And those that live here, who are so friendly and make this such an attractive community that people want to move to, will also have to share some of the responsibility. I always like to ask new people that I meet how they ended up in Union County.  Invariably they will say the “people” are so nice and friendly here.  Towns Co, Fannin Co, Clay and Cherokee Co in neighboring N.C. all have similar terrain and mountains like Union County. But while they certainly have their share of attributes, we tend to have more people locate here because of the number of “nice” and friendly people living here.

Some people consider any development that they do not live in to be negative.  Others view any new development as ruining the beauty of Union County. Of course we have many who want to close the gate and as I have said before, I don’t blame them. If I were retired here, I might feel the same way.   However, our county is going to continue to grow and I take it as very much my responsibility to help guide that growth as much as possible so we don’t ruin the beauty of our county.

For your information, Union County has 430 subdivisions listed at the tax assessor’s office mostly beginning from the 1950’s to date.  The majority of people living in Union County now live in a subdivision.

Q. How are you going to “guide” the future growth?
A. It is my responsibility to address problems in our county related to growth.  Water quality and trees are two of our great natural resources.  We have some people who often do not respect their value.  We are in the process of setting up a county wide developer “registration”.   There will be no cost to register, but it will be a requirement for land disturbing permits, that not only are they registered, but that we have documentation proving that they have completed the required soil and erosion certifications currently required by the state.

Other methods include following current ordinances, developing new ones as needed and closely monitoring our growth.  I attend many work shops on smart growth, and all the North Georgia commissioners constantly talk about our individual growth problems and how best to deal with them.   All of the Commissioners in the mountains work together attempting to come up with solutions. We are all trying to plan what our future will look like.

Q. What is the purpose of this developer registration?
A. The purpose of this registration is not to create another aggravating step in the development process, but to make sure that if a person is developing property in this county that they fully understand the rules.  In addition, it will allow us to have a data base so that when new rules are instituted by the state or federal government or by the county, we have a way to let the developers know before someone gives them a fine or ticket.

Q. Will developer registration really help the problem of seemingly uncontrolled growth?
A. Absolutely. We will also hold some public meetings with the developers so that the county can discuss “problem areas” that we are seeing. The goal would then be to ask them to help us solve problems without having to make new ordinances every time some one takes advantage of the system.  We are very fortunate in that we have a lot of very good developers in our county. People tend to criticize them all and paint them with a broad brush, while most people living in this county are now living in a subdivision that was developed by someone.

Union County wants to protect what we have so that we can maintain a certain quality of life.  It is very difficult to walk the tight rope of property rights issue vs. what is best for the larger population.  It is my job to try to find that balance.

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