Monroe County Commissioners unanimously approved on Tuesday, Dec. 7 to adopt a resolution of support for changes requested by the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia (ACCG) to the state’s annexation law.
Earlier this year, the Georgia House of Representatives passed a resolution establishing the House Study Committee on Annexation. ACCG then submitted recommendations for improving the annexation arbitration process, and many of them were incorporated into the House Study Committee’s final report, which was released on Nov. 18, 2021. ACCG is now urging the Georgia General Assembly to enact into law the House Study Committee’s recommendations during next year’s General Assembly, set to begin in January 2022.
Therefore, ACCG has urged Georgia counties, including Monroe County, to adopt a resolution of support for ACCG’s proposed changes. County Attorney Ben Vaughn, who represented Monroe County in a 2020 annexation arbitration hearing in which the City of Forsyth was allowed to annex a more than 1,000-acre tract along Smith Road that previously belonged to the county, recommended adoption of the resolution.
The major change proposed by ACCG is to lengthen the amount of time a county has to object to an annexation application by not starting the county’s 30-day window of action until a city has taken an official vote to review and accept the application.
Other important proposed changes include: allowing cities and counties to mutually agree to deliver annexation petition notifications via e-mail and in person in addition to the already required methods of certified mail or statutory overnight delivery, authorizing the chairperson of an arbitration panel the right to extend the panel’s 60-day time limit for up to 10 additional days, authorizing a city and county by mutual agreement to postpone or temporarily stay the arbitration process for negotiation/discussion purposes, splitting the cost of the arbitration process evenly between the city and county while requiring property owners petitioning for annexation to pay their own arbitration costs, authorizing an arbitration panel to attach zoning, land use or density conditions to a property for up to three years (instead of one) and preventing a city from changing the zoning or land use to a more intense density than stated in the annexation notice for two years (instead of one).
After about five minutes of discussion, District 3 Commissioner John Ambrose motioned to approve, which was seconded by District 2 Commissioner Eddie Rowland and approved 5-0.
