On Tuesday, Feb. 22, the Hart County Board of Commissioners voted in favor of a six-month moratorium on subdivisions in an effort to control growth in Hart County.
Commissioner Joey Dorsey, chairman Marshall Sayer, and Frankie Teasley all voted in favor of the new moratorium that Dorsey put forward, which will disallow any further issuing of building permits to develop subdivisions in Hart County on existing county roads. Commissioners Ricky Carter and Michael Bennett voted against the moratorium.
“I’m going to put that in form of a motion that we implement the six month moratorium on no new subdivisions, we’ll grandfather those that are already in place that we talked about, and we’ll give a two-week time limit for somebody to come forward about something we don’t know about to present their evidence, and if there’s evidence that they’ve been working with a government agency, and they can provide documentation, we’ll do it just like we did before,” Dorsey said. “On existing county roads or wherever there’s a tract that may be divided, we’ll use a minimum of three acres and a maximum of three lots.”
Dorsey cited year-over-year housing data in his argument that subdivision developments have to be slowed in Hart County.
“As many of you know there has been a tremendous amount of increase in residential development going on in Hart County,” Dorsey said. “Some of it has been good and some of it has caused issues that will have to be dealt with for years to come.
Dorsey said it’s “our jobs as elected officials” to make sure growth is managed and that “we’ve got things in order.”
“[These are] building permits issued by year for new single family residential homes. In 2019, there were 77. In 2020, there were 163,” Dorsey said. “In 2021, there were 232. Over 100% increase from ‘19 to ‘20, and over a 40% increase from ‘20 to ‘21. All you have to do is get out in this community and ride to see what’s going on.
“I want to put that in perspective with total building permits which is remodelings and things of that nature – 365 total building permits issued for 2019, and that includes the 77 new homes. [In] 2020, there were 413, and in 2021 there were 550. The data, regardless of what we’re looking at, follows the same trend, whether it’s the sum or the individual residential building permits.”
Dorsey said continued growth would begin to strain Hart County’s resources and citizens.
“As I’ve said many times before, residential growth as a whole is a penalty to the taxpayers,” Dorsey said. “It takes its burden on all of the services in the county. Right now today, we have three openings for paramedics for EMS. They’ve been there for about six months – can’t fill them, trying to fill them, but can’t fill them. Our volunteer fire force, the numbers are going down year after year after year. The more people, the more property to protect, the less resources. What are we going to do to fix it, how are we going to fix it? It’s going to be an impact to the taxpayers.”
Dorsey predicted that soon law enforcement, jails, courts, elections and other institutions would be impacted.
“We run this county on $5 million a year on property taxes, but with the growth that we’re seeing, if this continues, there’s no way that we can continue to do this,” Dorsey said. “This is going to be an impact on what’s going to happen. Right now we can’t keep up with the roads. We’ve got road improvements that far exceed the road funding that we have. Roads will also continue to be a big problem moving forward with all the growth that we have.”
Bennett voiced his disapproval for the moratorium, citing what he considers to be an already effective moratorium currently in place. The original 180-day moratorium, which started in July 2021, stopped the approval of less than one acre and only allows for modular or mobile homes and site-specific stick-built housing. It’s currently set to expire in May, at which time the commissioners can vote to extend it or let it die.
“There’s something else I failed to catch, commissioner Dorsey. You didn’t mention how many building permits have been pulled since Jan. 1 of this year,” Bennett said. “Six. The reason for that is the steps we’ve taken since last July 27… What we’ve primarily done is about shut [the subdivisions] down already. So if you want to take another shot, you know, you’ve already shot one bullet, but if you want to go ahead and kill the dog, just go ahead and shoot it twice.”
You’re going to put a lot of people out of work… It’s going to have a trickle down effect, and it’s going to hurt a tremendous amount of businesses.”
When the floor was opened up for public comment, many citizens came out in favor of the moratorium and many against it.
“I think the moratorium is a bad idea,” developer Charlene Fields said. “It’s mainly because there’s a lot of people that think about selling their property, and the value that they can get is a lot higher than what they could get in the past 10 years, and you’re going to stop that. And if this economy goes back down they’re going to miss their opportunity.”
In other news:
•The commissioners approved the adding of amendments to balance the budget.
•The commissioners approved to restororation of a beer and wine license to Royal Food Mart.
•The commissioners appointed board positions to the Hart County Library.
•The commissioners voted approved the current board members of the Hart County Water and Sewer to their positions.