Forsyth Commissioners’ Covert Zeal for Property Tax Revenue Increases Growth & Traffic, Despite Feigned Efforts to Diminish, Ignoring Stewardship as Developers Scar the Land - Tree Ordinance is a Joke
Forsyth County Tree Ordinance has Political Purposes Designed to Give Commissioners Cover While Building the Tax Base
“Saving trees in any meaningful way, and preserving the character of Forsyth County, is no goal of your present Forsyth County Commission. New homes mean new property tax revenues computed at current-established homestead values. Ever-accelerating property tax revenue is what the commissioners running your county are after.”
“Back in the Day,” Tree Ordinances Were Not Necessary
I am a home builder of over 40 years. And for most of those years, there were no tree ordinances to speak of, whether in the City of Roswell, or North Fulton County, Gwinnett County, Hall, Dawson, or certainly not Forsyth County. During the 1990’s, I built homes in Polo Golf and Country Club and Aberdeen. And never once was there a conversation concerning adhering to a county tree ordinance. That said, did developers and builders indiscriminately take down trees? Of course not. Builders coveted wooded lots. Wooded lots had dollar signs all over them. Wooded lots were easy sells. Developers held lotteries and charged a premium for those lots. In those days, builders and developers went out of their ways to save every tree they could. Under those circumstances, why would anyone need a tree ordinance? They wouldn’t. We need to get back to that in Forsyth County. And the path back to that world is reflected in my campaign for county commission.
The Atlanta Home Building Environment Has Changed
The world I describe existed during the days before vertically-integrated, national development and home building corporations took over the Atlanta market. Those corporations buy the dirt, develop the subdivisions, and bring in their own building teams. They offer three or four basic styles of homes, have their own marketing companies, and their own unlicensed sales forces to sell their homes. That way, they keep all those revenues in-house. Vertical integration allows large builders to do all that I describe as efficiently and inexpensively as possible, their goal of course being to generate the largest profit imaginable.
During the 1990’s, one by one, as the corporations I describe entered the Atlanta market, they pushed the mom & pop builders out. Developer-run builder programs where a land developer would invite the best local builders to compete for business in their subdivisions, such as occurred in Polo Golf & Country Club, Aberdeen and Laurel Springs, went the way of the dinosaur. Businesses like ours were forced out of the speculation market. Fortunately, in our case that meant we would concentrate on what we did best anyway, custom home building. Some of the large corporations, such as Centex, attempted to become offsite custom builders, but are not set up to operate that way, and found it difficult to effectively compete in that market.
Recipe for Success for National Development/Home Building Corporations
If you run a national developing and home building company, your recipe for success is pretty much as follows:
Design your subdivision with lots as small as possible
During the development phase, take down all trees that might affect mass-grading of the development
Prep the lots during the development phase such that each is ready to accept a concrete slab foundation
Build a model home or two with all the bells and whistles
Bring in your in-house sales team
Set up a sales office and start selling.
Now, I do not begrudge corporations making profit. I begrudge the Forsyth County Commission allowing them to clear-cut new developments. It is precisely because our commissioners allowed that practice without restraint, that in April of 2017 the Forsyth County Commission was forced by public outrage to throw a few meaningless words at the problem. As you will see below, the resulting “FORSYTH COUNTY TREE PROTECTION AND REPLACEMENT ORDINANCE,” updated in 2022, is hardly more than words. Saving trees in any meaningful way, and preserving the character of Forsyth County, is no goal of your present Forsyth County Commission. More new homes mean more new property tax revenues computed at current-established homestead values. Ever-accelerating property tax revenue is what the commissioners running your county are after. A meaningless county tree ordinance has the purpose of making county commissioners appear to care about maintaining the historic character of Forsyth County. But if they really cared, they would not allow what I am about to show you. In a word, the Forsyth County Tree Ordinance is a joke. It was enacted to continue building the property tax base, using the associated tax revenues to super-size county government while allowing commissioners to wash their hands of the responsibility of Forsyth County ending up looking like one gable roof line after another on a scarred landscape.
Older Developments in Forsyth County Built Under No Tree Ordinance
I am told that my subdivision is the oldest in all of Forsyth County. Here is a representative photo taken just last week in Mountainside:
This is my front yard:
Now, let’s look at few photos from another established subdivision. I selected Sherwood Forest, developed in the late 1980’s, off Dr. Bramblett Road:
The streetscapes you observe in these photos are not that way because trees simply grew back after development clear-cutting. Those trees were never taken down to begin with. The developer took only those trees necessary for the roads and underground utilities. The builders took only those trees necessary to construct the homes.
Do you think the developers and the builders in these projects were saving trees because of some Forsyth County Tree Ordinance? Of course not. There was no tree ordinance! Developers and builders saved the trees because the trees were beneficial to everyone. No one was required by the government to save any trees. Heck, it would have cost the developer money just to take trees down!
I do not begrudge corporations making profit. I begrudge the Forsyth County Commission allowing them to clear-cut new developments…Saving trees in any meaningful way, and preserving the character of Forsyth County, is no goal of your present Forsyth County Commission.—Hank Sullivan
New Developments in Forsyth County Built Under the Tree Ordinance
On the other hand, last weekend Winde and I took a sightseeing flight around the area. As we flew westward parallel to Spot Road on the north side of Sawnee Mountain, I looked down to my left and noticed a huge scar on the upslope above the base of the mountain’s northwest face. Practically every tree had been taken down for a residential development. Here is what that area looked like in 2020:
Here is what it looks like now:
Because this land is on the upslope of Sawnee Mountain, above the surrounding area, I consider this residential development to be ON Sawnee Mountain. And except for a blind of trees separating the back yards between a block of homes, every tree within the perimeter buffers, has been removed. If this subdivision were on the side facing downtown Cumming, it would have forever destroyed the vista motorists enjoy as they proceed westward from town on Hwy 20. Is this what we want Forsyth County to look like? Well, what you see is what your Forsyth County Commission has been allowing to occur for many years.
So, I decided to drive through that development, make a couple of short videos and take some photos from the ground. Here is what I found:
Now, according to the tree ordinance, before a land disturbance permit would have been issued for this development, the county arborist would have come out and surveyed all the “Significant Trees” so they could be “preserved.” According to the ordinance:
Apparently, there were no Significant Trees in this entire dense forest for the County Arborist to identify.
Furthermore, according to the ordinance, every word you read below must be satisfied PRIOR TO a permit to disturb the land could have been issued:
According to section 2.5 of the ordinance, if existing trees somehow cannot be protected according to an arbitrary required density, “Replacement Trees are required.”
And according to Section 2.11, there is a subjective formula to calculate the density of Replacement Trees that must be planted to abide by the ordinance. Here is the example calculation the ordinance provides:
Apparently, all those complicated tree replacement requirements, as calculated by the County Arborist and agreed by the developer prior to receiving a permit to proceed, in the end boiled down to a handful of 2” caliper trees sprinkled throughout the development.
And according to the ordinance, if the developer takes down one of those non-existent Historic or Landmark Trees, they are to be penalized.
Are we correct in assuming there were no Historic or Landmark trees in the original dense forest that was destroyed to develop this subdivision? Suffice to say, the evidence to prove otherwise has long been toppled and set ablaze.
Forsyth County Does Not Need a Meaningless Tree Ordinance
I just showed you why Forsyth County does not need a meaningless tree ordinance. The present ordinance is just words on a page costing taxpayers money and allowing your county commissioners to appear like they care. The controlling members of the commission do not care. They only want newly-established property values to be incorporated into the county tax digest, so they can generate more and more tax revenues, to help build more and more county government, to better cement their political power and control every aspect of life in Forsyth County.
There is an Alternative to Clear-Cutting Residential Developments
The alternative to clear-cutting new residential developments is to require developers to provide larger lots, as in the “old days.” With few exceptions, a truly effective, workable and simple tree ordinance, which would cost county taxpayers virtually nothing to administer and enforce, would be to prohibit tree removal except as necessary to grade for roads and underground utilities. After that, trees within twenty feet of a home’s proposed footprint, decks, patios, driveways, etc. may be removed during the home building phase. Add a few buffer requirements and not only will you have an effective, workable tree ordinance, but you will also have saved the character of the remaining portions of Forsyth County yet to be developed. Once a certificate of occupancy is issued, everything beyond that would become a private property/HOA issue. Why does Forsyth County need a County Arborist whose job it is to look the other way while developers raze the land? We don’t. The Forsyth County Arborist needs to find forests to plunder in some other county.
How do I know this plan would work? Well, it just does. A meaningful tree ordinance is nothing but common sense. What I describe is how developments competed with each other for eons. It is time to require national building corporations to comply with local sensibilities. District 1 incorporates some of the last remaining, least developed land in Forsyth County. When I am elected to represent District 1, I will work to preserve the character of District 1, and convert land already zoned otherwise to require larger lots. Developers in District 1 will have to go through me to approve their projects.
County Commission’s Recent Involuntary Turn Toward Larger Lot Zoning Categories Forced on Them by Public Outrage
Larger lot zoning requirements are the common sense answer to:
Maintaining the historical character of Forsyth County
Supporting property values
Slowing population growth NATURALLY, without sudden, rash moratoriums
Allowing transportation corridors to keep up with the needs of the community
I suppose it is somewhat gratifying that our county commissioners have recently initiated a move toward larger lot development requirements. That is a good thing. But it is too little, and too late for much of Forsyth County. Make no mistake, any movement in the direction that I have long advocated, has been forced on this commission by public outrage, outrage against a county population growing faster than infrastructure can handle, outrage against the natural traffic congestion that accompanies accelerated population growth, and outrage that our commission has had every chance to repair all this for years, but has had to resort to declaring a zoning moratorium to deal with the problems they did not address at the proper time. Moratoriums hurt everyone. Moratoriums are not the way to deal with these problems. They simply postpone dealing with the problems.
And I am not a Johnny-come-lately on this issue. In 2018, almost eight years ago, while writing a weekly column in the Forsyth County News, I saw the travesty occurring in South Forsyth and called for a standard, large lot residential policy throughout the county. I wrote that article almost immediately after the initial, ineffective tree ordinance went into effect. And as I just illustrated, the Forsyth County Tree Ordinance is no more effective today. That ordinance is window dressing, lipstick on a pig, has no real county commission backing and is obviously administered by a County Arborist bent on doing whatever the commissioners want done, regardless of the apparent intent of the ordinance.
Forsyth County Tree Ordinance is a joke. It was enacted to continue building the property tax base, using the associated revenues to super-size county government while allowing commissioners to wash their hands of the responsibility of Forsyth County ending up looking like one gable roof line after another on a scarred landscape.
Why Did the Forsyth County Commission Wait So Long to Begin Acting on Growth and Traffic?
The available evidence demonstrates that the overwhelming factor preventing our Forsyth County Commission from acting on the problems associated with an accelerating population growth rate, has been their apparent zeal for growing government size, power and control over citizen life in this county. Just look at the has been happening. The size of Forsyth County Government is doubling every five years. The necessity of supporting government growth with an accelerating tax base, which requires homestead exemptions recently-established on current property assessments, is a vital ingredient toward accomplishing that goal. In other words, the math of the circumstances requires new residents to be purchasing new homes at a hastening pace just to pay the cost of county government. Allowing national corporations to do what they do best is an essential ingredient necessary to balance county spending with revenues. Unless that equation continues to balance, county government growth will run short of resources. And when that happens, I say let it run short.
Forsyth County Government Has Outgrown the People’s Purposes
As it is, Forsyth County Government has already grown much larger than it needs to be. While Forsyth County Government is presently quadrupling in size each decade, the population is only growing at 1/12th of that rate. Forsyth County Government has been keeping itself busy by increasing bureaucratic activity. If you do not believe me, try applying for a building permit. You will soon see what I mean.
It is time to not only halt Forsyth County Government growth, but also to begin proportionate downsizing. It is time to pare back senseless bureaucratic regulations, cut back on busy work and freeze hiring. If the law does not require a government chore to be done, in many cases it does not need to be done.
Those who presently run your county commission have demonstrated nothing if not for a proclivity to spend other people’s money. The boondoggle that is the Freedom Parkway Admin Complex, coming to completion early next year, boasts costly luxuries not found in comparable government facilities elsewhere in Georgia. Those luxuries include rooftop gathering facilities and individual covered porticos where commissioners and department heads may lounge and enjoy incomparable vistas of Sawnee Mountain. Worst of all, the building design demonstrates the county commission’s commitment to grow county government to levels unimaginable, the facility designed to house twice the number of county government employees that will inhabit that building upon completion. That fact alone should send shudders down the spines of Forsyth County taxpayers. The phrase, “Build it and they will come,” takes on a whole new meaning now, doesn’t it?
All that new government must be paid for with future property tax revenues. The real costs of this $140 million boondoggle, built solely by the vote of three commissioners, have not even begun yet. The costs of operating this facility over the life of the project are too large to imagine.
Are Developers Controlling Our County Commissioners?
I hesitate to say whether our commissioners are beholden to developers in their zoning decisions, but I will say this. According to a quick computation of my opponent’s 2022 campaign contributions, a minimum of 53% came to Kerry Hill from individuals or corporate entities who are either developers, or who have known interests in land development in Forsyth County. The Hill campaign, including “the Club’s” social media minions, want you to believe that I, as a builder, am the one promoting over-development, accelerated population growth and traffic congestion. If you have made it this far in your reading, you know that none of that is true. MY OVERARCHING PURPOSE IN RUNNING FOR COUNTY COMMISSION IS TO PRESERVE LIFE AS WE KNOW IT IN FORSYTH COUNTY. I cannot control who contributes to my campaign, but I expect very little or none of it will be donated from the development community. So, there you go, a clear choice. Do you want life in Forsyth County to continue deteriorating as it has for the last several years? Do you want ever-bigger and more intrusive county government? Do you want accelerated growth and traffic congestion? Do you want to maintain a dysfunctional relationship between county and city governments? If you do, you really need to vote for Kerry Hill. If all that sounds objectionable, then you agree with me and I would appreciate your help to defeat the incumbent and “break up the Club” that has caused all the problems I describe. Accomplishing that purpose and setting Forsyth County on a new course for the future, which will prevent it from becoming another Gwinnett or North Fulton County, is what my campaign is all about.
And if you happen to live in one of the District 1 clear-cut subdivisions I describe, realize that supporting me in this campaign, and electing me to represent you, is the best way to slow growth naturally, allow county infrastructure to catch up with population growth, thus minimize traffic congestion and promote your property values. You are here. You made it. Now, I urge you to protect your investment and lifestyle and support me in preserving life as we know it in Forsyth County.
The only thing I would find fault with is your use of the word covert. It actually seems like the commissioners are demonstrating OVERT zeal for property tax revenue. Combine the unbridled treeless building with property tax increases, and they're raking it in.