BOC hears ordinance amendments

By Pamela Permar-Shierling

The Glynn County Board of Commissioners (BOC) held a public hearing and first reading last week (Sept. 3) to make four changes to the ordinance which went into effect July 1.

The first change is to the Marsh Buffer ordinance. The amendment removes the county’s 15 ft. buffer from marshes leaving the current 25 ft. buffer required by the State of Georgia the only marsh buffer requirement.

The second change considered is to remove the site coverage requirements on the mainland for both residential and commercial development and to leave the site coverage requirements for the Islands in place.

Site coverage for the Islands is 60% residential and 75% commercial.

The Mainland Planning Commission (MPC) recommended that all site coverage be removed county wide.

The Islands Planning Commission (IPC) recommended counting artificial turf and gravel as 50% toward site coverage and exempting resiliency and emergency equipment like generators and handicapped lifts from site coverage calculations.

Everything is counted in site coverage except dirt, grass, and trees.

The change to the Traffic Impact Study portion of the ordinance was to remove the reference to ‘Level I Traffic Impact Study.’

The verbiage Level I and Level II Traffic Impact Study were removed from the ordinance draft but Level I remained in a couple of places.

There is no definition for a Level I Impact Study and there is no requirement for a Level I study.

The ordinance states the county engineer can require a traffic study upon review of an application. A traffic study may also be required by the county engineer with a pre-application.

The MPC wanted to leave the Level I study in place in the form of a trip generation memo. Then if the memo required a study, the county engineer could require it.

The next change exempts additions and accessory buildings from going through the development plan (formerly site plan) process for existing commercial developments.

Instead of going through the development plan process, a developer may simply apply for a building permit.

Note: this exemption does not apply to mixed use or residential.

Kat Montgomery, 100 Miles, spoke during the public hearing asking if stormwater experts had been consulted when considering removing the site coverage limits.

She stated the two planning commissions’ ordinance discussions seemed to be about removing restrictions for developers.

She asked that the decision to remove site coverage restrictions from mainland Glynn be deferred until an adequate solution to address stormwater management concerns is created for all residential and commercial development.

Maggie Van Cantfort, Coastkeeper for the Altamaha Riverkeeper organization, said she didn’t understand and would like an explanation of why the 15 ft. buffer and site coverage limits were being eliminated.

She said she could not find any other imperious surface limits in the zoning ordinance. Relating to the mainland site coverage she said if the site coverage limit is eliminated, any property owner could completely pave over their property. “Do you really want to pave paradise?” she asked.

She asked that the 15 ft county buffer remain in the ordinance and to keep the site coverage limits until it could be figured out if impervious surface limits should be added to the ordinance.

A second public hearing is scheduled for Sept. 17 and the BOC could vote on the amendments at that meeting.