Harris County discusses possible new unified development code

HARRIS COUNTY, Ga. (WTVM) - On August 2, Harris County residents filled the room to tell the board of commissioners exactly how they felt about the proposed unified development code (UDC).

In a 3 to 2 vote, the proposal requiring five acres to build and ten acres for agricultural land was not approved.

In a special meeting held today, Commissioner Bobby Irons says he voted ‘no’ after seeing the confusion within the community and wanted to bring it back to the table.

“There’s a lot of fear out there from uncertainty, so the only way that we could have actually gone forward to be able to have more public sessions work sessions to bring people in to be able to exercise their questions or their fears is was for me to vote no and that’s what I had to do to bring our neighbors in to give them that extra chance to be able to sit there and come in and air their grievances or their fear,” said Irons

More confusion was added says one Harris County resident. He says after seeing the board vote no and then continue with conversations about resubmitting the proposed UDC, he wonders if they are listening to them.

“It adds to what was already there, the confusion that was already there it just added it to it. It just brought up more questions, and it just fueled the fire, the confusion and the suspension,” said Dextruis Williams.

Trent Griffin, born and raised in Harris County, also a builder, says he is worried about what the new proposal may do for landowners in the area.

“So this UDC can affect people in a lot of different ways if they decide to keep the 10-acre minimums and then the restriction that’ll have on your property value in the rights and what you can do with it if they don’t remove the five-acre minimum requirement for family errors it can really restrict down in what they can do if you have multiple layers that have property next to each other,” said Griffin.

The county spent about a hundred thousand dollars on the proposal that was voted down. Now the board of commissioners will try to meet the deadline to submit another proposal.