Agenda 21 In Forsyth's Comprehensive Plan

In recent weeks, my articles have addressed certain outside influences at work guiding Forsyth County planning purposes.  I began citing three “residential design standards” meetings I attended, run by private consultants rather than county planners.  In each, I witnessed those consultants leading a smattering of attendees, ostensibly representing the entire population Forsyth County, through a process designed to appear democratic, but instead is one in which the results are predetermined.  I referred to these meetings as “Delphi sessions.”

So how do I know that the procedures I witnessed were designed to fool the attendees toward predetermined outcomes?  I simply observed and asked.  In the first meeting, the consultant leading the program told the attendees that the input they offered in the form of “yellow stickies” placed upon various residential design elements “they liked,” would lead to tabulated results to be used later in process.  Yet in the culminating meeting the presentation materials were nothing customized from input they received. Instead those results were mere props the consultants use over and over.  Reasonably, how could the consultants have taken raw, non-specific input such as the placement of a certain numbers of yellow dots on a picture of a garage door, and meaningfully extrapolate that the citizens of Forsyth County overwhelmingly prefer future garage door walls to sit back ten feet from any adjacent plane of the building?  Not possible.  To confirm that simple deduction, I asked the consultant how he could have drawn such precise conclusions from such imprecise data.  Noticeably nervous by then, he admitted that the depicted standards were “also drawn from similar meetings outside of Forsyth County.”  Obviously, those were the same presentation materials, depicting the same residential design standards the consultants take with them wherever they hold these meetings.  These meetings were charades, friends, paid with your tax dollars.

In my article two weeks ago, I offered a concise history of United Nations Agenda 21 ideological purposes reshaping an entire body of US Federal regulations starting during the Clinton Administration.  Using grants as bait, those federal regulations have now been incorporated into municipal planning requirements and recommendations throughout the State of Georgia, and indeed in every state across the country.  As I indicated, one major purpose of Agenda 21, or, “Sustainable Development,” is for local planners to guide their jurisdictions toward adopting high-density zoning categories into their local ordinances. The Holy Grail of this initiative is to finally compress any local human footprint, over time, into as small an area possible, thus preserving the outlying lands which would eventually be transferred to the government.  Yes, that’s their un-American plan.

Not coincidentally, the Forsyth County Comprehensive Plan, authored under the supervision of our county planning professionals, mirrors a certain document entitled, “The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide: An Introduction to Sustainable Development Planning.”  According to the Agenda 21 planning guide, “Local authorities…assist in implementing national and sub-national environmental policies.”  It calls for, “all local governments to create their own action plans for sustainable development.”  Of course it does.  That’s all part of what I told you last week.  Mandated by federal grant strings to fulfill Agenda 21 objectives, the Georgia Department of Community Affairs and Georgia Mountain Regional Commission, which supervise our county’s comprehensive plan, must, according to that same document, “translate the principles and mandates of Agenda 21 into concrete service strategies for each local community.”   Consequently, under Forsyth County’s planning professionals who supervise the development of our comprehensive plan, our local plan is laced with Agenda 21 Sustainable Development service strategies, among which is a call for squeezing high-density, even “multi-generational” residential developments into our community.

Pasted from Forsyth Comprehensive Plan

Our planners, urging the adoption of a high-density residential scheme, minimize the difference  claiming, “high-density” is really a relative term, suggesting that, “what is typically considered to be medium density in comparison communities, is considered high-density in Forsyth County [and] without a more ambitious housing policy to support [lively, mixed-use town center areas], it is likely that town center development [cited as desired by the community] will be slowed.”  According to our planners, “In the long term, higher density residential zoning district(s) may be appropriate…but the community is not ready for them now.”  Even so, the county commission should, “Consider addition of higher density, multi-family residential zoning districts to allow for highest and best use of land.”  According to our comprehensive plan, “Without RES8 (8 dwelling units per acre) or RES12 (12 dwelling units per acre), higher-density townhomes, cottage courts, and similar products cannot be built.” Offering recent anecdotal developer interest in high-density zonings to support their purposes, rather than simply rejecting those ideas outright, our planners cited their own purposes expressing, “The Comprehensive Plan’s role is to identify the right locations for these higher density residential products.”

Pasted from Forsyth Comprehensive Plan

Now those are simply a few of the telling passages from the Forsyth County Comprehensive Plan.  They and many others vividly demonstrate a resolve by our planners to promote Agenda 21 purposes with respect to housing, high-density developments.  The first excerpt subliminally cements the impression that what locals think is high-density really isn’t high-density at all.  The second indicates a purpose to seek opportunities to insert high-density zoning districts as time proceeds.  And the third indicates an unwillingness to adopt a medium to low-density strategies in the long term.

“what is typically considered to be medium density in comparison communities, is considered high-density in Forsyth County [and] without a more ambitious housing policy to support [lively, mixed-use town center areas], it is likely that town center development [cited as desired by the community] will be slowed...Consider addition of higher density, multi-family residential zoning districts to allow for highest and best use of land.” -Forsyth County Comprehensive Plan

The purpose of enforcing residential design standards throughout the county is predicated on the assumption of our commissioners simultaneously approving high-density zoning categories.  Inexpensive homes generally mean inexpensive appearances.  Thankfully, our commissioners have halted a move toward high-density zoning categories. Although that ship has sailed for the time, that doesn’t mean future boards will not adopt the planners’ Agenda 21 purposes.  To maintain the character of  Forsyth County, as we know it, those high-density zoning references must be removed from the Forsyth County Comprehensive Plan and replaced with those expressing the need for medium and low-density zoning categories.