A group that is raising questions about Chattooga County’s Land Use Ordinance submitted several open records requests to Chattooga County Commissioner Blake Elsberry’s office regarding correspondence the commissioner had regarding the ordinance he signed earlier this year. That correspondence reveals that the commissioner was cautioned about adopting the ordinance without in-depth study and input from experts.
The group has posted several emails between Commissioner Elsberry and others regarding the development of the ordinance that came from the open records request.
There are two emails between the commissioner and County Attorney Chris Corbin in which the county attorney urges the commissioner to get more input on the ordinance before he adopted it. Corbin told Elsberry, ” Please review and let me know of any proposed changes you wish to make. I strongly recommend that you ask a surveyor to look at. You might also have others that you wish to review and I’m not opposed to that; as many eyes as we can have review, the better ordinance…”. In another email, Corbin said, ” I recommend that you read through it to make sure it does what you want. I also strongly recommend that you have one or more other persons review the ordinance to give you advice about some of the technical requirements of subdivision development in ordinance.”
The commissioner also reached out to the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia (ACCG) about the ordinance in March of this year. Michael O’Quinn, the County Consulting Services Associate told Commissioner Elsberry that most counties will spend time and money hiring experts before adopting land use ordinances due to the legal requirements in such an ordinance. O’Quinn said that there were some “highly technical subjects” in Elsberry’s ordinance and stated, “This is the kind of thing most counties would spend a lot of money to develop, calling upon experts who work in this field daily.”
The commissioner signed the ordinance six days after the letter from the ACCG recommending a study and input from experts.
You can read the correspondence below:
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