South Coast Advocate Lericia Harris, Coastal Planning Advocate Hannah Mendillo, and CEO Megan Desrosiers discuss the importance of zoning and community involvement in Glynn County’s draft zoning review process.
Learn more about zoning in Glynn County, including read the current draft and our comments, at OneHundredMiles.org/Glynn-Zoning.
This teach-in was held on March 19, 2024.
The live stream hello everyone we are going to give it a few more minutes uh to let others join and then we will get started okay so it is now 12:04 and we want to make sure that we have ample time for um our experts on here to share the
Information and talk about uh zoning and why it’s important so we are going to go for my name is Lisha Harris I’m the South Coast Advocate with 100 miles also coming before you today will be Hannah mandillo she’s the coastal planning Advocate and the executive director for
100 miles Megan D roers she’s also going to be um sharing some information about zoning with us today thank you ladies for being on here and sharing your expertise and your knowledge um but before we get going um into the purpose for today’s teach in um want to let you
Know that 100 miles is a non-governmental organization based here in Brunswick Georgia our mission is to preserve and protect Georgia’s 100 mile Coast through education advocacy and Community engagement and the comments that you will hear today and also read today are our beliefs um we are sharing
The purpose of zoning and why we feel like it’s important for you to be involved and why a person should be um heavily you you know into this entire process so making sure you have a clear understanding of zoning um and again why you should be involved because it is one
Of the most important policies that are in place uh that will determine the future of our community and it really and truly impacts every aspect of our daily lives it’s really the essential blueprint for our economic growth and the quality of life for years and years
To come and so now I’d like to um make sure that you all know we will have a period for questions at the end of our teach in today um so we are excited about this it’s our very first teach in and we will continue to
Have more of these um on various topics but we will have a portion for questions so if you have any questions just drop them in the comment area um on our Facebook live and we will make sure and try our best to get those answered for you
All so to progress on forward I’d like to bring in our executive director Megan for us to get started with the import of zoning and why um you should know more about it and be involved thank you thanks Lisha hi everybody um as Lisha said my name is
Megan der roers um I have a background in land use policy and um in a previous life was very heavily involved in zoning ordinances in other parts of the southeast um zoning is something that people kind of like glaze over when they hear the word because it seems maybe
Boring or wonky or maybe something that doesn’t relate to you and I think Lisha did a good job of making uh you all um understand or ex communicating why we should care about zoning but really I just want to share with you kind of the four purposes of zoning um and so
Essentially it does four things and those are the things that help us have a better quality of life first it divides land into designated regions or zones Each of which corresponds to a geographic area of the zoning map so the map I have here is the future land map
In the county that then translates into a zoning map and that zoning that is assigned um specifies what type of structures can or cannot be built within each Zone it prescribes limits on the size and dimensions of each structure as well as the density by Zone and very
Importantly it defines the process by which local governments Grant permission for new development so the next slide actually summarizes this and it says that um can you switch to the next side oh yeah thank you um it says that zoning leads to predictable expectations and outcomes for people and communities
Related to Land Development why 100 miles works on zoning is because every week people in our local governments whether it’s City commissions or County commissions are making decisions about our landscape and about our communities and we want those predictable outcomes to be uh predictable for yes people who
Live here also for our wildlife habitat and for um um issues of conservation that we care so much about um and really very simply it boils down to two things one is development in the right places and then development in the right patterns and so now I’m going to turn it
Over to Hannah to kind of walk you through the zoning map hey yeah so like Megan said zoning gives the community and local government control over how our built environment looks and how it interacts with our natural environment the Georgia zoning procedures law gives local governments the authority to implement zoning and
Use it to manage development activities um and the building blocks of zoning will be found in the County’s comprehensive plan comprehensive plans are a way for local governments to set a vision for the character of the community and the goals and actions they will use to get there comprehensive
Plans are also required by the state for the county to receive important state funding anytime a zoning decision is made elective officials have to determine if it is in line with the vision and the goals of the comprehensive plan Glen County released their updated comprehensive plan in October of
2023 so what we’re looking at here is the current zoning map for Glenn County and it separates the county into corresponding zones and each Zone has their own requirements for building standards in land use now how do we actually read a zoning map so I’ve zoomed into the key and the
Portion of the previous map to make it easier to see if you look towards the center right in that right upper white right quadrant of the map it’s the nodding Hill West subdivision and you can see it’s covered in the chartreuse yellow green Co color with the blue
Water body in the center um and then we can then go over to the key and see that this corresponds to the R20 one family residential Zone from there we would look at the zoning code which can be found on the County’s website to know that this particular Zone what the
Particular zoning requirements are for that area for example R20 is going to allow single family dwellings with a maximum of two houses per acre and you wouldn’t be able to keep livestock or poultry there great great thank you Hannah um this is a the the um the zoning map is
Especially important when you think about um how people choose where they’re going to live and what type of community they want to live in and so those predictable expectations are super important and so I want to just start um to dive into the draft zoning ordinance
By just talking to you a little bit about development in the right places so um when we think of development we think of it in terms of rural Landscapes versus suburban and urban Landscapes and um my section of this presentation really deals with development in the rural places and so it’s really
Important when you think about rural areas to remember that they provide Farmland they provide Timber they provide recreational opportunities like Hunting Fishing and Hiking um they provide wildlife habitat and clean water and they provide quiet living for people who don’t want to live in um highly traveled or highly uh
Developed areas but from a County’s perspective rural areas are important not just because of the diversity of uses that rural areas provide but also because they um help counties maintain their fiscal resources in a responsible way so rural development has less impact on roads it has less impact on sewer and
Water has less impact on schools and so as you think about a community planning process and Counties have to spend taxpayer dollars knowing that a place is going to remain rural helps them concentrate the taxpayer dollars into other places that are going to re be need to excuse me that are going to
Require more services from the community um okay next slide please so um in the draft zoning ordinance the rural the uh rural zoning that covers most of the western part of Glenn County and the North End of St Simons um is called uh Forest agriculture it’s called the forest
Agriculture based zoning and the purpose in the draft zoning ordinance is to ensure that land in Glen County can be utilized and reserved for some of those uses I mentioned before agriculture residential Recreation um and it’s to encourage the formation and continuance of a compatible environment um for all
These things public and recreational areas agricultural uses and it is to discourage any encroachment by incompatible housing developments or commercial or industrial operations to people who have moved out to the rural area again like I said because they prefer that quality of life go to the
Next slide we agree with all of that by the way the issue that we have with the draft zoning ordinance is that the applicability of that um of those goals of those um uses that the county says they want to uh preserve is that it’s inconsistent with those uses so
Essentially the density in the forest agriculture area that the draft zoning ordinance assigns is two units per acre go to the next slide please that’s what it looks like so if the rural area of our County um which is West Glenn County West of 95 and North
End of St Simons was developed at two units per acre this is what it would look like um these are developments real developments in Glenn County that are zoned for two units to the acre and this is what they look like one from an aerial photograph and then this is down
Here on the um on the uh bottom right is is what the street view would look like go to the next slide so when you look at the rural areas of our County this is what they are um in the zoning map um you can see
Um you can’t I can’t use my cursor here but it’s the green color on the west side of um Glen County and then it’s also the green color on the North End of St Simon so you can see where the word German Village is and then up um near
Hampton point and near Canon point so that’s where the fa zoning is go to the next slide please so if we develop that area in the west part of the county just for example I picked um one property owner so all of the highlighted properties in the west area of the
County is owned by one property owner that’s warehouser which is a paper company um that’s 55,000 Acres if they developed just with what they’re allowed to do by right which is two units per acre um that would be um 112,000 Acres of property would result in 224,000 homes and that’s in
The western part of the county where the county isn’t planning for significant growth go to the next slide which is a map of the North End of St Simons and we did the same analysis for that if all of these um properties which I’m sorry it’s confusing because now they’re a
Different color but the it’s the brown cop the brown color now um if they developed at two units per acre that’s approxim imately 9920 Acres which would lead to about 1,800 new homes on St Simons where again on the North End they’re not prepared for the growth so
You think about the impact of that on the schools on the roads on the sewer and water infrastructure which again do not have plans for that type of growth go to the next slide please so our recommendation is regarding the fa zoning assign a density that makes sense
Assign a density for that area that actually allows people to um subdivide or build as they like but make the density consistent with rural uses which would be five to 10 acres sorry five to 10 units per acre um no that’s I’m sorry that’s backwards it should say 5 to 10
Um Acres what is go back sorry it’s not 5 to 10 units per acre it’s five to 10 acres per unit so that’s a a typo on this SL that’s pretty significant um so that’s one unit per five to 10 acres so a lot would be either 5 Acres or a lot
Would be 10 acres and this is what it looks like um so you can see the street view you can see the aerial view you can see that it’s a lot more consistent with um rural zoning and go to the next slide thank you um so the so the second part
Of the rural is what if somebody does want to do a development in a rural area well um in the zoning ordinance they actually have a conservation subdivision District which um essentially what a conservation subdivision does is um it’s a growth management tool that protects ecologically sensitive areas from high
Density development so you can see the development on the left is not a conservation subdivision it’s a conventional subdivision and the development on the right would be considered a conservation subdivision you can see that it maximizes Green Space um and the value of a conservation subdivision is allow for development in
Rural areas while maining conne while maintaining connections for wildlife Recreation and other ecosystem values throughout the landscape they should not be thought of just from the perspective of the individual property but they need to be thought of as connected to the landscape that we’re trying to preserve um conservation subdivisions are more
Valuable in rural are areas than they are in urban or Suburban areas because of the maximized Green Space go ahead to the next slide please so our recommendation really relates to conservation subdivisions and planned developments in um the rural area so right now in the zoning ordinance a person could do a plan
Development in the rural area that goes up to a density much higher than two units per acre so if the county is really serious about preserving the rural area of the community for agriculture Recreation Hunting Fishing hiking all of those things that we said before then we really need to look at
Those planned developments and um you know it may be too late for these circled here but in the future when any new plan developments are granted then let’s think about requiring them to be conservation subdivisions so please go to the next slide um so our recommendation here is that conservation subdivisions should be
The only plan development options within the fa base zoning only allow conservation subdivisions in areas with a PD base zoning um which that’s the um uh conservation subdivision zoning should be used to preserve rural places that do not need sewer and water um and we would like to see them increase the
Minimum amount of Conservation area within a development from 30% to 50% currently the zoning ordinance says that there has to be 30% of Green Space we’d like that to be increased to 50% so please um go to the next slide and now it’s Hannah turn yeah thank you Megan now that we’ve
Heard about some of the concerns regarding our rural sections of the county we can pivot to our more urban and Suburban areas and these areas are going to be characterized by subdivisions INF infill development planned Parks and Recreation think like the North Glenn Recreation complex um
This is where the majority of people are going to live uh they’re going to be on public water houses are closer together larger stores like big box stores but we’ll also see our local and small businesses here as well and for our Urban and Suburban areas we want to encourage the idea of
Complete streets um and complete streets is an approach to planning design Urban or designing building operating and maintaining our streets and roadways in a manner that enable safe access for all people who need to use them including pedestrians bicyclists motorists and Transit Riders of all ages and abilities
Um take a moment to think about if your child can safely Bike to School how long would it take could you walk to the grocery store how long would that take are there sidewalks in your neighborhood are there bike lanes are there trees to provide shade or would you have to be in
The Sun the whole time are there any benches to stop and take breaks if it rains will the streets flood and you won’t be able to get anywhere all of these questions are considered and included in complete Street designs beyond the convenience of complete streets investing in our Transit infrastructure has other benefits
Studies have shown that communities that Implement complete Street designs are see a 50% decrease in cyclist injury and crash risk complete Street designs can help more vulnerable populations such as those of Mobility or Vision dis Mobility or Vision impairments um they have safer access to grow grocery stores and Community Gathering centers currently
Americans spend upwards of 18 cents of every dollar on Transportation investing in infrastructure that provides a safe and free way to travel lessens these Financial burdens on residents and so complete streets can mean a lot of things it’s green infrastructure it’s nature-based Solutions um it’s being
Able to walk to the grocery store or to work without having to cross a major roadway it’s also just simply better Street design so in these rendering you can see that a bike lane has been added along a road uh the bike lane might be a little different than some of the ones
We’re used to seeing especially here in Glen County uh this one is very clearly marked with that green paint and um the street dividers it’s wide enough for two bikes to be going in opposite directions the grass median and the trees provide safety to the cyclist but it also
Provides an aesthetic quality that makes the neighborhood more attractive and our recommendations for complete streets um for this new zoning update is to adopt a countywide complete streets ordinance that provides more opportunities for safe cycling and walking continue to expand the non-motorized transportation network of Glenn County and particularly on the
Mainland work to connect existing infrastructure to commercial centers collaborate with local organizations such as bike walk Golden Isles to develop a countywide master Trails plan which would serve to provide clear direction to the public and its elected officials to invest in future Trail connections while fostering additional funding funding opportunities to expand
The trail Network and really everything that we’ve talked about today complete streets rural character preservation conservation subdivisions are intended to improve the quality of life and overall health of the Glenn County Community often when we think of zoning we think of it as Government decisions that tell us how far away our houses
Have to be from one another but it’s so much more than that zoning affects your ability to grow food on your property your access to wildlife in beaches where your kids can play and fish how you get to spend time with your family where you get to exercise it affects your
Proximity to Industrial developments in pollution and that’s why it’s so important that residents of Glen County feel empowered to engage in local in the local zoning process to preserve or improve your way of life so now we would like to open it up for questions um that we may have
Received during our Facebook um on our Facebook comments and there was one question that we had ladies the question is about conservation subdivision um and it says is that meant to be cleared land in the conservation subdivision illustration if so what is the benefit of cleared space to forested
Regions good question so I took a um a rendering from a new a different community in I think it’s in Connecticut um and just to show you how the homes would be clustered to a certain portion of the development and the remainder of the development would be open space it’s
Not meant to be it could be any kind of open space um aside from a golf course we don’t want golf courses in the rural area but it could be Forest it could be Farm it could be wildlife habitat it doesn’t I didn’t mean to imply that it
Needed to be cleared but good good question for sure okay and um thank you Megan for that clarification um so Hannah mentioned so much Megan also mentioned um a lot during this presentation and we know that this is a lot to comprehend so if you have any other questions or you
Would like to see or read more about the Glen counting zoning draft ordinance that’s actually underway now you can always visit our um our website 100 miles. org Glen D zoning then you’ll see our recommendations you can also find there the most recent draft ordinance
That is also um linked to the county web page and you’ll be able to see a full list of our recommendations and some of the concerns that we had regarding the zoning draft ordinance we have a few more questions here um one question says I called the county and was told there
Is no scheduled meeting for the rewrite is that true as of right now there has not been any update regarding the next meeting um there was a previous meeting that was held back in um end of January and they were working on a new draft that would be posted to the website so
That residents and County members can see the progress that was made from the previous draft ordinance um so the current the most recent draft ordinance that you’ll see online now is from January 3rd it’s a red line which outlin some of the changes so they are making another draft ordinance which will show
More changes to um or more changes that have been made to the draft ordinance uh the next question that we see is is the meaning of a conservation subdivision forly defined or is it different across different municipalities Nationwide uh good question again um conservation subdivision is a planning
Tool that you know planners learn about and they um Can Implement them there are different just like any kind of technical um I don’t know technical field of um study or field of career um different people interpret things different ways a conservation subdivision just like any kind of zoning can be implemented
Through a zoning ordinance however any Community wants to do it so there is like Hannah’s a she’s officially a planner she has in her mind and she’s maybe been taught what a conservation subdivision does or is but that doesn’t mean that the city she works for agrees
With her or will do it the way that she wants it to be done um so that’s why it’s very important for us to Define what it means for ourselves and for our own community and it’s why it’s really important for people to participate in this process um the other thing I wanted
To just say and apologize for is the typo on this slide regarding Forest agriculture so to be clear our position is that in Forest agriculture the density should be one unit per five acres or one unit per 10 acres um and that preserves the rural character of the
Area thank you Megan for that clarification um and and helping people to understand um the or understand if their uh conservation subdivision is formally defined thank you for that um again if you would like to read more about um the recommend commendations at 100 miles submitted to those who are
Responsible for the draft ordinance please head over to our website the web page is displayed here for you there you’ll find the letter that was submitted and also you’ll see just a more descriptive um areas of our recommendations that we have and the concerns that we had regarding the draft
Ordinance also you can still submit your own comments and we would love for everyone to get involved and engaged in this process the website excuse me the email address is listed for you here zoning update at Glen county- ga.gov please make sure that you submit um any questions or concerns that you have
Regarding the draft ordinance and also please feel free to email myself if there are any questions that you may have for Hannah or Megan I can definitely direct those questions or comments to them as well again Hannah is our Coastal planning Advocate her background is in planning also Megan’s
Background is in planning as well that’s why we greatly appreciate them for sharing their expertise regarding this entire process um so again we thank you for tuning in to our very first teaching we will have several more of these on various topics but today we just wanted
To um talk to you specifically about the Glen County zoning draft ordinance as that is currently underway and has been for quite some time um and we want to to make sure that people have a full understanding of zoning and why it is important for you to be engaged and
Knowledgeable about this process so please make sure you visit our webite our website um so that you can learn more about the Glen County zoning draft ordinance and our recommendations and concerns regarding it we greatly appreciate Hannah and Megan once again and their expertise and we look forward
To seeing you guys again during our next teaching