Forsyth Listening Session Not What It Seemed

Last week a friend shared a link regarding a “listening session” afforded by the Forsyth County Government to the people of our county.  Had I not seen that post, I would never have known about it.  The purpose of the meeting, as the notice described, was to receive public input regarding certain “residential design standards” to be implemented for new developments and homes constructed in RES2, RES3 and RES4 zoning categories across our county.  Being a builder, the notice stirred my interest and I scheduled to attend.

When I arrived, there to greet me and fifteen or so others who somehow learned of the meeting, were two gracious, engaging strangers.   Although they were very nice gentlemen, frankly I thought it a little odd that people who don’t live around here would come out of their way, ostensibly to help us in our county to understand what our homes should look like, as if we are not equipped to make those calls ourselves.  But hey, I came to listen, and to give them the input the county’s notice indicated they desired. 

Of course, being a home builder in this county for 32 years, another thought that occurred to me was to wonder why I, personally, might need anyone from county government to tell me what a home should look like.  I mean, I’ve been down to the county many times, and I can tell you, Frank Lloyd Wright ain’t there, if you know what I mean.

County Comprehensive Plan Takes over Architectural Approval

Conversely, I understand that if I build a home in a private development with recorded covenants, which would be at my own choice, then the developer and HOA would have a perfect right and good reason to approve what I build.  That right derives not only from a contract we all execute together, but also a vested interest those parties possess to ensure that I don’t lose my mind one day and build something completely out of character from the rest of the development, which could lower everyone’s property values. 

Forsyth County Consultant Limits the Residential Design Options

But that is not what this was.  As I listened, I learned very quickly that these private consultants, hired by Forsyth County, were there to let everyone know that our county government is about to assume veto power over what buyers, builders, private developers and HOA’s all agree is acceptable and desirable in the zoning categories above.  And I also learned that if any of a myriad of architectural elements of a home recently completed might not conform to these new county standards, as judged by a government employee dispatched to inspect them, the county would deny the right of occupancy until “deficiencies” might be corrected. 

Remedies for Deficiencies Include Bricking in Windows

A little stunned, I needed to make sure that I understood correctly what I heard.  And so I publicly proposed a question to Forsyth County Planning Director Tom Brown.  I asked, if after pulling the tape on a finished home the county architectural inspector computed a shortage in the percentage of say, brick, would a builder be compelled to brick over windows just to conform?  Mr. Brown answered that bricking over windows would be one option for the builder to consider if doing so brought the home into compliance.  I could hear Frank Lloyd Wright rolling over at that point, all in the name of government-mandated architectural controls.

Truth be told, I knew exactly what I was walking into last Thursday evening.  It’s called a “Delphi session.” You can look it up. Delphi was developed by the Rand Corporation, its purpose to make people believe they have input achieving consensus in a decision-making process, whether they do or not.  Everything about that meeting was Delphi.  There were no elected officials at the meeting, one that was run by trained consultants dealing with the fifteen who showed up, essentially representing an overall population of over 200,000.  The limited “input” the consultants would accept could only be tendered in the form they prescribed, yellow stickies the attendees would place on architectural criteria they “liked the best,” regardless whether the attendees had any architectural knowledge at all.  “None of the above,” of course, was not an option.  It’s like the old card trick where the unsuspecting “trickee” is led to the right card and made to believe he picked it.  Manipulation is what these nice people from outside our county were there to do. 

Now I do not blame the Forsyth County Commission for any of this.  They are good people and probably have no idea what all this is about.  But these residential design standards are part of a program the Georgia Department of Community Affairs desires to implement throughout the state. Similar initiatives are implementing in all states, even nation states around the world. This is all part of United Nations Agenda 21, which can be known as Smart Growth, a framework designed by people who originate from outside of Forsyth County, to control the land use of Forsyth County by rules they draw up and by obtaining our approval through manipulation, right down to the cornice details. These are not rules that spring from the voices of the citizens of our county. This is globalism on a local level. Our president has established an agenda for our country, and that standard is nationalism, not globalism.  That means we decide our fate, not people from the outside, even at the county level.

The people Forsyth County are being corralled here, shoved into a shoe box not of their own choosing, but of a design by highly paid consultants importing an agenda from outside of our county, and maybe even our country, who have been trained to implement these requirements without the people really knowing it.