Controversy over Chattooga County’s land use ordinance continues.  Chattooga County Commissioner Blake Elsberry reiterated to WZQZ News this week that the purpose of the ordinance is to have control over “large scale developments” in the county, but opponents of the ordinance contend that the language in the ordinance does not indicate that the rules will only be applied to large scale developments.

Commissioner Elsberry told WZQZ News that he has not seen all of the proposed changes to the ordinance that were sent by the Chattooga County Planning Commission to the county attorney, but that he will review those changes once they are approved by the planning commission.

This week, a post on the Chattooga County Concerned Citizens Facebook page published an email from a planning commission member to Commissioner Elsberry that was obtained via an open-records request.  In the e-mail from Grey Whinstead to the commissioner it says, “I believe this case is a good one for reinforcing our request to simplify the technical specs in our existing ordinance. Facade, elevation features and roof design should be left up to the better judgement of the commission and commissioner, after receiving public input, at least at this stage of our new ordinance processes. Like the Atrium variances, I am comfortable granting them knowing that the new ordinance should not be near as constricting on our judgement. How you word that is up to you and Blake, but given that we are straddling two ordinance versions at this point, maybe the less said the better…”

The concerned citizens group is not convinced that the county will not require building permits for residential home owners and property owners in the future.

Commissioner Elsberry told WZQZ News this week, that he hopes to have changes to the existing ordinance in place by the first of 2023.