Packed Public Hearing on Swap Policy

The county is looking at how many people oppose the draft UGA swap policy language--language created by the BAR Holdings developers themselves to get around a provision in the law that would kill their development.

We had a packed public hearing on Jan. 21st before the county commissioners. Click here to watch (public comment starts at 1:57:00 and runs over an hour and a half).

Commissioner Menser said he had never seen so many people signed up to testify in all his time on the board.

Of the 50+ people who spoke, all but 8 were opposed. Comm. Menser said it was more than any hearing in his tenure. In fact, there were so many people that the commissioners reduced speaking time from 3 minutes to 2 minutes per person. The Board will hold a work session at some point and then make a decision on Feb. 4th.

Our main message: The 2024 swap law is clear in stating that no UGA swap is allowed to increase a UGA’s development capacity. In the draft UGA swap policy 2.6, subsection d was created by the developers’ attorney to allow the subversion of the UGA swap law.

Leaving it in allows UGA swaps to increase development capacity inside the UGA. By law, UGAs are supposed to include greenbelts and open spaces. The swap law was never intended to remove unbuildable lands from UGAs.

The 2024 swap law is also clear in its intent to protect groundwater. The draft policy does not achieve this protection. No UGA swap may result in a net increase in a higher-level classification of critical aquifer recharge area inside the UGA. Also, UGA boundary changes should be proposed by jurisdictions for the greater good, not by developers wanting to make money. Policy 2.3 should state that amendments to the urban growth boundaries must be *proposed by* a jurisdiction. It should state that before amendments are proposed, the jurisdiction must do a detailed study and full environmental review of likely impacts consistent with the State Environmental Policy Act review standards.